We’re FINALLY doing some stuff on campus. The freshmen arrived on Monday morning bright and early for registration all day. We tried to meet as many new students as possible and had them fill out surveys with their contact information. We had intended on holding some sort of bigger event today that we could invite our new friends to but between the rain and their busy registration schedules, it didn’t amount to much. We’ll try again Thursday afternoon.
Things have been relatively normal lately. (Not having much news from me is good news in some ways.) No broken bikes, no broken toes, and no broken guitar amps (in fact, mine is probably fixable and BJ just bought a new one…we’re all set!).
Not knowing the language hasn’t been as uncomfortable and frustrating as you might think so far. When we’re in this area and on campus we’re relatively isolated from having to test our Chinese skills (or lack there-of). In fact, on the campus I’ll be on, 4 out of 5 students speak very good English, and about 3 out of 5 speak well enough to have significant conversations at a heart-level. Their English will be better than our Chinese, hands-down, so there’s really not much of a point in trying to use it to communicate with students on campus.
Every once in awhile an AC repair-man or water delivery guy will venture into our apartment to do business…that’s when things really get interesting and our lack of language skills really shows. Otherwise, even in going to the store and trying to buy things, the little bit of Chinese that I know is enough to get-by. Even so, I’m actually looking forward to taking classes and trying to pick up the language. It will for sure be frustrating and boring at times but I expect it to be more applicable than 1st-year Spanish in the States…mostly useless unless you happen to find yourself in a zoo or describing colors.
But don’t get me wrong, things aren’t completely comfortable here. The weather has cooled down considerably lately and it doesn’t feel that humid anymore but there’s still a weird “stickiness” to the climate that leaves you sweating just walking around and drenched in sweat after a game of ping pong. It’s hard to describe and I don’t quite understand it, but most days I’m covered in a film of disgustingness by nightfall.
Last night before bed I opened up my toothbrush container to find a large insect crawling onto my hand…I’ve since zipped up my toiletries. (Which is fine unless the insects have begun to nest in my traveling kit.)
But most of this I’ve just grown to expect and have gotten used to…even the little kids with their “split pants” (like a large “fly” in the front and back) who will pee or poop in the middle of a sidewalk or subway station…it’s almost endearing. Or the water delivery guy who when I told him I didn’t know Chinese and gave him a piece of paper to try to write out some numbers or instructions proceeded to fill the paper with Chinese characters…since I can clearly READ Chinese characters if I can’t understand or speak the Chinese language.
What I’ve loved about the country so far (and this is where things turn a little more serious)…and it might sound strange that I love this…is that many of my weaknesses and shortcomings (sin) are magnified and brought out.
You HAVE TO wake up each day and spend time with the Lord or you’ll never survive.
Just being here for these couple weeks has acted as a “spiritual greenhouse” in many ways for me. Things are being revealed about my character and my personality that I haven’t even begun to fix, but I’ve learned a lot about myself already.
Let me focus on one thing for a minute and I’ll be done:
While here, we’ve talked as a team a fair amount about
Religion v. The Gospel
And how one of our main goals as a team is to raise up believers who will not only be fruitful and multiply their lives but will learn what it means to live according to THE GOSPEL for a lifetime.
The tricky thing is that I myself many times don’t even live according to the Gospel.
I always thought I had put religion (rituals, things that must be done to earn forgiveness, acceptance, love) aside in favor of the Gospel, but as the regional director here in East Asia told us how each day he wakes up and naturally gravitates toward religion, I began to take a closer look at myself.
That night when I got home I read through a large portion of Exodus and the entire book of Galatians in The Message version (something I’ve started to do a little lately).
What I saw was a freedom and life of abundance, filled with love that I can’t fully comprehend or get at, but Paul clearly understood it and felt it absolutely essential for us to grasp.
I could go on and on about the things that jumped off the page at me in Galatians that never had before, but more than anything I realized that many times, I can be just as much into keeping rules and trying to earn my standing with God as the Jews were.
How many times have I read the Scriptures because it’s “the right thing to do?”
How many times have I shared my faith on campus out of compulsion?
How many times have I felt guilty about not praying as much “as I ought to?”
But Paul writes in Galatians 2:21:
“Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”
If my personal walk with the Lord and my service to Him are not motivated by the Gospel and what He's done for me, I'm going to burn out by the time I'm 25.
Instead, I want to be so overwhelmed by the Gospel and the love of Christ that my gratitude spills over in a multitude of different ways.
The way I love my roommates. The way I love my team. The way I love the students here. The way I love my family. The way I love my girlfriend. The way I love myself.
Families are united, marriages are held together, and lives are changed - only by THIS kind of love.
My prayer for myself since getting here is that I would grow to love Jesus more and more everyday and would begin to comprehend more and more just what happened on the Cross and God’s overflowing love for me.
I appreciate what God has done for me but I don’t fully understand the depth of my sin and the depravity of my situation.
I don’t ADORE Him.
But the other night after reading through a large portion of Exodus again, that began to change a little.
I don’t have a smooth transition or a clever metaphor to share here, and this blog will end abruptly (if you made it to the end) but let me close with an excerpt from what I wrote in my journal last night:
“I’ve been reading through Exodus and feel like God’s used it to teach me a little about grace.
There were so many rules people had to follow it’s ridiculous. Sometimes I get frustrated with the Israelites like you do in a horror movie when the main character keeps making all these terrible decisions, but yet again, I’m way more like them than I care to admit.
Just like how they continuously did stupid things, I seem to do the same. Theologically I’ve known that I’m deserving of a spiritual death but it struck me how in the OT, I’m also deserving of a physical death because of the wickedness of my sin. In the same way, I am completely undeserving of life -period - let alone this life He has given to me that is filled with blessing upon blessing.
I wish I had a view of God that was as big and awe-full as people in the OT, a God who strikes you dead for certain sins because He can’t stand unholiness and the filth of our sin, a God who travels in a cloud of smoke and fire and instills and requires worship and fear. I wish I had a view of God that's like that yet completely convinced of His mercy and grace. I want a view of God like that.
I’m a long way from that, but I feel like I moved one step closer tonight.”
CK
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