It's the Great Pumpkin, Xiao Wang!

Steve and I lead a house church in our home on Sunday nights. It's been really great and recently we have opened it up to University of Dayton students.

A really cool thing about our church, Apex Community, is that they really want to empower the local house church to reach the community. Our hc was given $500 to use any way we wanted as long as it was to bless some people.

We decided to bless 13 Chinese exchange students at the University of Dayton (three of them have already made appearances on this blog.) I asked them to invite their chinese classmates to a dinner on Sunday night.

(oops- sorry, thought I turned this picture but I guess I didn't.)


So we used our $500 to do a blow out dinner along with carving pumpkins and carmel apples. (Well at least that was the plan but we ran out of time for making the carmel apples.)

That's what happens when you leave a bunch of engineers to carve pumpkins. It took FOREVER.



But they made some sweet pumpkins. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen more intricate designs. It was the first time any of them had ever carved a pumpkin. It was really fun to hear them talk amongst themselves, squeal as they stuck their hands inside to get out the "guts" and delight in the baked pumpkin seeds afterward (something familiar!)

What a fun time. I think I've been extra motivated to build relationships knowing that Baby Gum will be home soon. I want it to always be a normal thing to have Chinese people in and out of our home. Plans are in the works for a Thanksgiving celebration.