Dear Friends,

A few weeks ago we had a rare treat - a man from one of our recipient groups
came to visit Crossroads. This is always a great experience, although it happens
seldom, because we get to hear first hand about the other side of shipments, ie
the people who actually receive and benefit from the goods we send. Roshan, from
a group in Sri Lanka, spent a few days in Hong Kong before continuing on with
further travels and it was great to hear stories about the work he is involved
with. We packed and shipped the container for Roshan's group in Sri Lanka about
a month ago (Craig Allars, this was the one you saw being loaded when you
visited) and it consisted of a large number of wheelchairs, some educational
equipment and some other things. Just last week we heard the great news that
after some red tape hassles the container was released and able to be
distributed. When he was here, Roshan told us about how he had recently visited
one of the former guerilla areas of northern Sri Lanka, where his group has set
up a school for the children of this people group, who during the fighting had
no access to education at all!

One observation Roshan made was particularly poignant. When he went into the
area, the children surrounded him, stroking his skin and looking at his face
saying 'but you look just like us!' Having spent their childhood surrounded by
civil war, these children of guerillas had never seen a person of the opposing
race who wasn't a soldier. They could not grasp that 'the enemy' could look the
same as their own parents and didn't carry a gun! Hearing their amazement
convinced Roshan that the educational opportunities they were setting up could
be essential to these kids' future.

The school supplies from the Crossroads container will be going to this school
and others like it.

IT'S A TWISTER!
On Wednesday, tropical cyclone Hagupit raged past the coast of Hong Kong. For
the first time in our experience of Hong Kong (almost three years for Matt) we
were somewhat affected by one of Hong Kong's trademark weather events. In the
past, Matt always managed to be in Australia or China or somewhere else when a
cyclone came close enough to Hong Kong to have any impact. At about 12:00pm we
were warned that "signal 8" would be hoisted in two hours. When signal eight is
raised it means that no more ferries will run and many other public services may
stop for safety reasons. School is let out and workers are urged to hurry home.
Given that we live on Lantau Island, the cessation of ferry services would mean
sleeping at the warehouse so we bustled out the door in time to catch the
second-last ferry home. The 1:50 ferry was packed sardine-style with hyperactive
schoolchildren squealing at the big waves and commuters looking either gleeful
or stressed out, depending on how much they cared about missing half a day of
work. It was a good thing that we did make the ferry though, because the signal
remained up until around mid-night.

'Hagupit' didn't even come within 150km of Hong Kong. However, at that distance
it did kick up some waves in Silvermine Bay and a stiff gale around Hong Kong.
The evening news was full of inside-out umbrellas and mile-long bus queues but
all in all you could not claim it to be a harrowing experience. As our Filipino
friend Alex says scoffingly, a level 8 typhoon in Hong Kong would barely
register as a light breeze where he comes from in the Philippines. If it were
Australia, a few trees would have fallen on roofs and the odd yacht would have
broken its moorings but kids probably wouldn't have escaped school like we did.
Still, it was a bit of excitement all round!

Much love and thanks for the emails,

Matt & Ad