This past week I had a few unplanned encounters with life in Macau. The first was a visit to a local tutoring center for primary school students. Tutoring centers are clustered around every school in Macau. Parents pay for their kids to do homework and study in the centers after school and on weekends. Many times they are staffed by college students who supervise and instruct. The kids can spend as long as 4 hours or more a day in these places. I call them homework factories. The atmosphere is just like a factory - but the product is supposed to be good grades. Some friends of ours have taken over one of these centers. Their heart is to create a less stressful and more humane environment. We were visiting with them to discuss ways that we might be able to help. I'm not sure what we are going to do. What I am sure of is that the pressure-cooker atmosphere of that place overwhelmed me. Pressure. Stress. All on the shoulders of 7 and 8 year olds.

Later that same day I spent about 3 hours at a meeting for gambling addicts. Three hours with folks who's lives are stressed out by their addiction. People who's families are being torn apart by fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters gambling away their lives. People under the pressure of incessant opportunities to gamble. In fact as the meeting for these folks was taking place we could hear the clink-clack of tiles from a nearby place as people played mahjong - gambling. One fellow even commented about how hard it was to concentrate because of the sound - the sound of temptation calling him to surrender to the addiction again. Pressure. Stress. All on the shoulders of families.

Macau is a city under stress. The culture is changing before our very eyes. Sometimes it just becomes more clear than others.

As I noted on the Prayer Page, this past week we hosted a fellow named Jay Paul. He is a professional photographer sent to Asia to spend time in various cities and locations to develop a body of photos for C.B.F. This was a great experience for me. In just a few months we will have lived in Macau for 10 years. 10 YEARS! I can hardly believe it.

Over the years that which is unique and special about Macau has become somewhat routine and common to us. There's nothing wrong with this, it is just the way it goes I guess. So when someone comes along and helps us to see the place and the people as if for the first time it is a true gift. Each day we took Jay around to different areas of town. He also joined us as we worked and taught and interacted with people. He took hundreds of photos and gave us copies of them all. As I have been looking through all these photos my heart has really been touched by the people of Macau. There are wonderful, beautiful characters all over Macau. I hope that we can find a way to share some of the best of these photos with you.

As we looked through the photos we were also surprised to see a fair number of faces we know. Jay didn't take the photos of these folks because we know them. It was only later that we recognized the folks. It was a great reminder that our lives are always on display. It also reminds of the rich blessing of having friends and acquaintances all over town.