Today's musings

Today I visited an international church.  Why?  Because I have a friend who goes there.  She and I have been friends for a while, and she found this church as she was searching for a place to learn more about Christianity.  Today, she was baptized!  After the service, we went to the beach and she was baptized there!  It was a new experience for me to witness a baptism in the ocean, but it was fun!

Though the international church doesn't believe all of the same things as I do as a Lutheran, I listened intently to the message.  There was a guest pastor from Vancouver, so it was nice to hear some very familiar English.  He was talking about how the Word of God was spread from Israel to Europe to the Americas, and now it's being spread to China.  The reason he stated for the urgency is not a Lutheran belief, so I will leave it at that.  But taking away the denominational differences, he said some things that I DO agree with.  He emphasized the urgency to share the Gospel.

He said the he believes that Christ will come in the next 20 years.  Whether or not that will happen, I don't know.  No one actually knows, as only the Father knows.  But nonetheless, it got me thinking.  Remember the parable of the virgins?  If not, here it is: they were waiting for the bridegroom to come to bring them to the wedding.  Some of them came prepared with enough oil for their lamp, as they were not sure when he would come to pick them up.  Some did not come prepared, and eventually ran out of oil.  As the latter group was off getting new oil, the bridegroom came, and basically they missed the ride, while those who were prepared were taken to the wedding.

So why do I bring that up?  I am often quite guilty of thinking that there is no way that Jesus will come back in my lifetime.  So...I get lazy.  I forget how urgent it is to share the message with non-believers.  Reading through the New Testament, the disciples fervently believed that Jesus was coming back...quite soon!  They devoted their lives to spreading the word so that many people would believe!  The fact is, it is quite possible that he will come tomorrow.  If I told you that he was coming tomorrow, wouldn't you spend all of your time urging your friends to recognize and stop refusing the FREE GIFT that God has given us?

I am not saying that you should quit your job and only share Jesus with non-believers.  Think about your coworkers: you come into contact with them every day, but are they Christian?  Have you invited them to church?  If you did, and they didn't come, did you continue to invite them?

God wants His message to be spread.  You don't have to come to China to do that.  You can do it right where you are!  In case you would like to come to China to help with that, see this video that my Hong Kong colleague made to encourage people like YOU to come to Macau as a short term teacher!

Continue to be zealous in the Lord, asking Him to light your fire each and every day, and to send His Holy Spirit to you to give you the words to say and the actions to do to share His love to the future Christians of the world!

Me? Homesick?

It's a strange feeling being homesick.  I don't have it often, to be completely honest.  I love my family and friends at home, but I have gained another family and friends here.  I can't replace my other one, of course, but globalization, man...it makes it so easy to talk to people who are so far away...as long as you can deal with the time difference!  I have been so independent for so long, and I unfortunately pride myself in being self-sufficient.

But every once in a while I realize that Skype just doesn't do it.  Lately more than ever I have noticed a need for dependence that I didn't realize that I have.  I have a vacation coming up, and I hadn't figured out what I was going to do.  A couple weeks ago I was looking for inexpensive airfare or train tickets to various locations, but couldn't find something that fit in the price range of...well...cheap, or that I would like to do alone.  I think that last word is what did it for me...alone.  I don't have a family to vacation with.  I don't have the huge support system with built-in friends that I once had at Concordia.  I don't even keep in contact with most of those friends anymore.  I don't have anyone visiting me this year. Most of my friends here are Chinese.  That is so wonderful!  But when I am homesick, it doesn't really help, because I need someone outside of this culture...someone from my own culture that I can talk to.

It finally got to me, and I tearfully looked up flights to America for my 4 day long vacation.  Of course, when reality hit, I started looking elsewhere in China again, but that longing for America still resides a bit in my heart.

I haven't been sleeping well lately.  Maybe I'm still technically getting enough sleep, but I lay in bed for hours before I can get to sleep. Tonight is no different.  I was tired at 11, but here I am at 2am writing a blog post because I am not tired yet.  I am just guessing that that has something to do with this funk that I am in.

Writing this makes me feel really vulnerable, and that's not an emotion that I am comfortable with.  But I think it's important for me to share with you that there are moments while living abroad when you feel like you have hit a brick wall of culture, and I am somewhere around there right now.

I have acclimated myself to Chinese culture as best as one could in 2 years.  But I am still unable to speak the language, and I am not often seeing the fruits of my labor.  English teaching is something that is very slow to see results.  Even more slow (often, anyway), is seeing results from teaching the Gospel.  That's hard to take.  I had one student tell me a couple weeks ago that he hates Jesus, and though I know it was said through ignorance, it pierced my heart and I wanted to cry.  The only thing I could bring myself to do was say that even though he didn't love Jesus, Jesus still loves him, and wants to live in his heart.

I knew before coming that there would be some tough things to deal with.  I learned in my mission classes pros and cons about mission work as a married couple/family versus a single person.  I knew about the loneliness, but learning about it is not the same as experiencing it first hand.  I am seeing many of my friends in America having babies.  Statuses are popping up all over, and those who I once knew as single people are now having a family of their own.  It's a struggle, to be honest.

I knew that seeing fruits of your labor doesn't often happen, but it doesn't make it less discouraging when you tend and tend and tend to the garden but only one flower comes up.  On one hand, I am celebrating that flower as it is very beautiful and spreading seeds of its own, but on the other hand, I am wondering what happened to the other seeds?

I think that getting away for a week-ish will help me be refreshed and rejuvenated   I have another week of work to get through, and then I can rest in a hotel somewhere, and hopefully be back up to 100% to finish the remaining 3 months of my term before I go home for home service.

People often tell me that I am so good, so brave, so strong to move to Macau.  I want to stop that rumor, as I am not that good, not that brave, and not as strong as I'd like to be.  But thankfully God is all of that and more for me.  He's my strength when I am weak.  He's brave when I am cowardly.  He's always good, and though I am not, he makes me good through Jesus Christ.

I don't know where I would be if it weren't for God's presence in my life.  Definitely not here.  But even though I do have these struggles, I thank God for his support.  I thank God for all of the people at home who will surely read this and then pray for me.  I thank God for the even greater gift of forgiveness when I make mistakes (which is a lot to be honest), and for the comfort that He gives.  In addition to praying for me to mentally get back in the game, I ask you to pray for my students and friends.  I have a few in particular that are on my mind who are at various stages of faith.  I pray that they would continue in the journey, and that they would have the Holy Spirit enter their lives to give them faith in God.

I am still down from being homesick.  Though I try to put happiness on my face, the loneliness and sadness sometimes seeps through.  Knowing that God will make it better eventually is comforting, but it doesn't fix it immediately.  Please pray that I kick back soon.

Extension

I have officially extended my contract for another year. Thanks for all of the prayers and support!

GuangZhou

I was able to take an amazing trip to GuangZhou with some great friends!  Here are some photos of the amazing experience!  We only took a one day trip, as it was a public holiday, so we didn't do some of the more scenic things that we could have done on a weekend or 4 day trip.  We took the bullet train, visited a shopping district, went to a mall, took the subway, went to the GZ tower, and took a ferry to a university!  It was overall a great day! :)  I don't have captions, but comment if you want more information!