The last two mornings (Friday and Saturday) Dave and I have eaten breakfast at the International Hotel where he’s staying. Lucky for me, he gets two breakfast tickets and someone (me) told him that I’d been missing Omelets in the morning. Yay!
They have an espresso bar there which got me very excited. For those of you who already know I’m a snob, you may roll your eyes: I ordered an Americano at the espresso bar and they promptly poured a cup of cold 2-hour-old coffee and microwaved it. Americano is not warmed up old drip coffee. Its espresso with hot water, which is completely different! Don’t worry, I drank it anyway.
I worked on my marketing tasks in the morning and afternoon, adding detail, numbers, action items, dollars, and dates. We’re going to have 10,000 pairs of boots to sell through American retail channels, while the remaining 20,000 go to world markets and relief organizations. Our marketing strategy is highly diverse. We’re working with Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, as well as church groups, retail boutiques, tradeshows etc. It’s going to be a difficult process, but it’s exciting to be a part of—and God is doing a great work through this.
Last night (Friday) we had dinner at a local worker’s house. We had a special m guest there who gave us a short message on love then pr*yed one-on-one with us about stuff in our lives. It was kind of weird, here we were, we should be the ones serving him, but he was serving us! Good allegory to our Father’s/Brother’s service to us.
One thing his wife talked about, which I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, is surrender. The more I consider and think about our walk, the more I consider and think about what it means to surrender. Our Brother calls the rich young ruler to surrender his ‘things’, and the face value of this interchange is often talked about it Chrstn circles (that our walk should be about ‘giving up’, and ‘sacrificing’ things), which is so negative. What J was talking about, I think, is to surrender control and give in to dependence!
Tim Keller quotes someone (I can’t remember who right now) in his book the Reason For Gd, who says that the essence of sin is trying to guide your own life. I wonder if dependency is actually a good thing and independence is dangerously close to sin. Anyway, there’s another “random thoughts with Levi!” More on that later, I’m sure.
After dinner some of us met a NK businesswoman to negotiate the price of jade pieces for a necklace side project. She was very benevolent and ordered all 8 of us a rice-water drink. It’s like sake, except non-alcoholic and tastes sweeter. We negotiated the price down, while she suggested her girls (who walked by us several times in perfect attire, single-file, and almost in step) help with the assembly of the necklaces.
One of the guys I live with figured out how to turn on the A/C last night! Finally, we can sleep in cool temperature without getting tons of mosquito bites!
Today, I called a few people on skype, then Sarah and I and the interns met up at a university across town and played ultimate Frisbee and basketball. It was a needed break from the busy-ness of the week. The university is up on a hill overlooking Yanji and has a great view of the mountain range separating China from NK. It was finally a beautiful day! Nearly clear skies, the smog had mostly lifted, it wasn’t too humid or hot. I wish I had my cigars.
On the way back to the apartment we had lunch at Gina’s, the western restaurant. Pizza buffet every Saturday lunch! Tastes a lot like Beau Jo’s.
This afternoon I was invited to join the wind power meeting. This is another operation related to Barnabas Capital. NK has declared wind power its top energy priority and this venture will more than double the amount of electricity available in the northern economic zone. More electricity will bring more factories and businesses and more business opportunities.
Today we’re going to the border of Russia, at a spot where you can see into NK. Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. Haven’t had much time to prep a post. I’ll write more later.
No comments:
Post a Comment