Absent. Present.

Maybe he's just late, I thought. Typically punctual, he was nowhere to be found. Confused and curious, I went on with my day and just waited to find out what the explanation could be for his absence. Fast forward to the following day. Out of breath and apologetic, Masato hurriedly came into class explaining why he wasn't there the day before.

Teacher, lost...my wallet...lost. I take bus--first bus...lost wallet. 

"Well, Masato, how did you get to school?"

Call my host family...pick me up. No wallet...no pass for bus...no money. Nothing. 


"Oh no, Masato! I'm so sorry! That's terrible!"

Gathering my thoughts and shuffling papers together to continue on with my lesson for the day, I listened intently to the conversation that was taking place between Masato and another student of mine, Hussein.

Once Hussein had heard what had happened to Masato, he looked Masato square in the eyes and said, "Money. Do you need money?" Shocked and slightly embarrassed, Masato quickly gasped "No! No! So-k!" Hussein--still insistent--replied with this:

"Please. If you need help. Ask. Anytime. We are family--like brothers."

These students have been together in class for about four weeks. Hussein is from Saudi Arabia (where most of my students are from) and Masato is from Japan. Though their English is limited, these two had an incredibly weighty exchange. What lacked in eloquence and impressive vocabulary was made up for in honesty, generosity and loyalty to one's brother. Hussein meant what he said, and I was moved, challenged and inspired.

I realize that this brief anecdote sheds light onto a number of cultural implications, but at the root of it all, I was reminded how we are put on this earth to love God and love others--bringing glory to His name. Do we put each other's needs before our own? Are we being intentional about staying aware of our surroundings so that we can meet the needs of those around us? Are we selfish or selfless in our day-to-day?

That simple yet profound response to a brother's difficult situation has stayed in my head for days: We are family--like brothers. Even if we only understood a morsel of the power behind this statement, our lives would be much richer as we get to experience a bit more of the heart of Christ.

The Giving and Receiving of Words as a reflection of the WORD

Some food for thought:

"In light of the more all encompassing perspective of how God and faith are deeply interwoven in the acquisition and instruction of language, it is important to bear in mind the fact that the Body of Christ is vastly diverse, beautifully unique and all functioning in a way that is different but necessary according to their specific cultural make up. Not only does faith speak into the diversity of our students and the way in which we approach them, it is also the catalyst for understanding that, as teachers, we are ultimately servants to our students as we do the will of God."

Ain't no Easy Bake.

In a culture of microwaves, drives thru's and achieve-thus-and-such in x number of days, we've lost sight of a great necessity. We've loosened our grip on the process of being restored because it apparently doesn't happen quickly enough. It's too hard. It's too painful. We don't see results quickly enough. We want to be free, but we don't want to be freed from the very things that get in our way of attaining it. Habit, comfort, you name it.

Restoration is, in fact, a meticulous process. If it weren't, how would we explain the beautiful tapestries that He so carefully weaves (our lives). Again, I go back to the fact that our God desires wholeness--all of who we are to be restored and made well. We may disregard the teeny tiny little snags in the tapestry, but He desires the restoration of all parts. The process requires discipline and endurance. Though we may feel frail at times, it's imperative that we see how tightly woven the threads are. I hope we are astonished as to how the Weaver's hand has made us strong and sturdy.

In the middle conversation I had recently, I briefly but openly admitted that i'm in the midst of this process. You know when you want more than what you've typically had--or to experience more than you have before? Well, I know that deeper, fuller restoration has to happen in order for me to fully receive all that He has for me and for me to be freed up fully for His work. Sure it's easier to bolt, but I didn't ask for easy. I'm asking for life, for vibrancy, and for freedom. Does my flesh get in the way and tell me that it's too hard or too scary? Yeah, but my flesh is flawed and thankfully His Spirit in me is not:

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be made complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." 


We have great hope that what we are going through puts us in a posture of looking forward to something amazing. And even better? It readies us to behold the amazing: Him.  Exciting :D.

May we allow Him to do this work in us--more deeply, more fully, from the tops of our heads to the bottom of our feet.

So this time around I pray for increased discipline, joy in the process, and that we would see with His eyes.

Finally found chords to a song that really strikes me, so I'm sharing the song and the learning it process with anyone who's reading: 

A different art...

Much of our culture succeeds too often in molding its inhabitants into masterful Artisans of Trying.

Trying/striving in this worldly sense only succeeds in allowing us to:
-hide what we perceive to be flaws
-mask our insecurities only to give ourselves a false sense of worth
-outdo others' perceptions of who we are
-outdo our perceptions of ourselves
-one up the people around us
-smack on band-aids over wounds that need the exposure to heal

The danger in this type of living isn't so much the desire to be something or someone else; rather, it's the lack of understanding and conviction in who we already are--who we are made in and through Christ's love and redemption: new creations, justified, adopted sons and daughters of the King, heirs. 

Trying and striving are incredibly tiresome and draining. I liken this to what I wrote many blogs back--it's that tension that you feel in your gut when you can't be yourself around people. It's debilitating. There's no freedom there, and everything seems to be done in vain.

The shocking thing in the midst of all of this is how this manifests itself in the subtleties of my life. It's not at all blatant, others don't always notice it, and it's deeply personal. In fact, I often don't see this junk until it starts oozing in other places of my life.

I hate how I feel when I'm in the trying/striving mode; it's the result of many things, I'm sure. I perhaps am feeling off, not good enough or undervalued. It's in the very moments when I take my eyes off of Love and onto myself. My eyes then look through a faulty filter rather than the filter of the Perfect Lamb given on my behalf. How quickly my eyes shift! Someone mentioned this the other day in a conversation--it's like taking your eyes off one of those Magic Eye pictures. If you look away for even a split second, you lose the ability to decipher or see the image you're supposed to see. It doesn't take long to lose focus. Staring and being still enough to look intently upon that image--upon Him--requires discipline. 

Sometimes I feel as though my life is lived out in a fog of ADD, and I just want to be sedated. Therein lies the danger--masking an issue rather than countering it with something far more potent. I want to continue to learn a very different art--the art of being still.

Being still lends itself to:
-an awareness of our surroundings (esp. the needs of those around us)
-an environment where we can fight the lies that come about in chaos and hurried lives
-an understanding of our present state (maybe even the ability to cry out, "I need You!")
-the ability to reverently come before Him in a posture of worship
-appropriate perception of the greatness of God as we're not walking before him, but waiting on Him
-feeling what we need to feel, so that healing can come into those places of pain
-feeling what we need to feel, so that thanksgiving can be offered unto Him who is worthy
-knowing that HE is GOD

It's when we know that He is God that we live in a greater, fuller understanding of who we are. There--we find freedom to be who we are. There--we can worship. There--we can see Him.

There are moments when being still seems second nature and other times I suck at it big time. God knows I can't do it by myself--I've tried and that's when I see that I suck at it :). In my need and in my acknowledgment of it, there His strength facilitates room in my heart to simply be.

May we be inclined to lives of steadfastness and stillness--in times of suffering, joy and everything else that's in between so that we can see Him because He's worthy of our attention.

Day 5. Shooting...up? Culture. Shock.

This morning starts off, for me, on a rather memorable note. We were sitting in Starbucks having our quiet time before our day started (as we have been doing for the last few mornings), and Dennis comes by. I don't think i've told you about Dennis. Dennis is the friend we made that sweeps Commercial Drive everyday (seriously, he goes up and down this crazy, busy street and sweeps the street corners). He comes into Starbucks, sweeps it, and gets the newspaper for those that frequent Starbucks. Our relationship became one of us sitting, reading/writing and Dennis coming over to give us the paper. He looks over at Marion and Deb and asks if they were Americans. They told him 'yes,' and that we were all from California, and he proceeded to ask, "Is she (in reference to me) an American, too?" What's funny is that, on this day, our focus was submersion into culture, understanding how broad the idea of culture is preparing to take part in it. To Dennis, I looked different, and it led him to believe that I may be from someplace else.

So after our time spent there, we headed over to the Warkentin's where we all came together and headed towards a park near Downtown. On our way there, we stopped at one of the biggest community gardens in Vancouver. Before we headed in, Tim prompted us to conjure up a metaphor for culture as we went throughout the garden (garden-related or not), and we would share our thoughts as we reconvened at the park. This garden is a massive lot of plants and plots of land that people rent/buy. They are responsible for their particular plot of land. Some people are very vigilant and dedicated whereas others are rather careless. You see dying, dried out plants up against these flourishing bushes of flowers and trees.







As we saw in the garden, for community to thrive and grow, there are needs and responsibilities to meet those needs. When we gathered at the park, Tim began to describe culture as an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg that we do see above water represents the behaviors of a any given culture. But beneath the water, we see three sub levels: 1)values 2) beliefs 3)worldviews. When you understand someone's values, you understand their beliefs and from there, you are able to understand or know from which worldview they are coming from. We also come to understand that values determine how one behaves. The "beneath" needs to be addressed in order for us to understand the surface part that so easily becomes a target for judgment. What tends to happen is we (I) see behaviors, and that is what I tend to react to, not a person's values or worldview. The truth of the matter is, this mentality affects our ministry. We need to be careful that our goal and purpose is not to replicate a desired behavior or set of behviors, but rather, to know and understand one's worldview. (This, again, emphasizes the idea and significance of community. In order to get to know someone's worldview, time is involved. We live in a culture of power where time seems limited.)

We were given examples of how behaviors are judged within the city. In some areas, they have homes called "Vancouver Specials." These are pre-built houses, and all of them look alike. They maximize the amount of space within a home so that the most number of people can live there (cultures where families live multigenerationally). At first glance, there is the common propensity towards thinking that the houses looks a certain way, but where that thought process falls short is forgetting how that house actually functions for the family(ies) that are living in that house.

Years back, there was an epidemic of cultural genocide that occurred in Vancouver. Residential schools came into play, and the goal of these establishments was to "train" the native out of the native children. Children were taken away from their family and forced to unlearn their native culture and to learn behaviors that were seen as acceptable to the new society around them.

The danger in doing things sometimes is that we have the mentality of "bringing God" into someone's reality. The truth is, we need to be sensitive enough to see how God already is in their worldview.




After this, we all started walking to China Town for lunch and our afternoon activities.




After lunch, we were going to split up into groups and do a listening activity. We were going to go through Gastown (where the Old Money is) for 45 minutes, then pass through Downtown Eastside and arrive at China Town again (where the New Money is, for another 45 minutes). The goal of this was to listen to see how God was speaking to us in our surroundings. None of us were supposed to talk to each other, but we had our journals in hand, and we set out.

Our prompts were:
1) What do you hear? What do you see?
2) Is God speaking to you? If so, how is He speaking and what is He saying?

The common thread throughout all of my journaling were these words:
-loneliness/aloneness
-time
-lack of time
-hurriedness
-relationships
-details, the small things matter (There was a janitor in the train station that was sweeping every corner of the place very meticulously, he took his time, and he wasn't hurried.)
-lack of relationships
-routines
-obligations
-sense of waiting on someone or for someone
-money; having it, not having it
-people wanting to be heard (A homeless man walked by and tried talking to a hostess at a restaurant. Even though she wasn't listening, he kept on talking. That was the closest he could get).






As we went into a store called Revival Art, I saw a painting that showed a little girl wandering off ahead of her mother. As I looked at it, what came to mind was this: sometimes we want to walk ahead and see things but we're supposed to linger and stay behind. This way, we see how God changes the environment we are in. This puts into perspective how much we just need to be willing vessels of change.

At this point, we realized we were way behind schedule and had to get to Chinatown within 15 minutes, which meant-walking...really fast!

On our way, we found ourselves on Corrale (I think that's what it was called). Not much longer than 2 minutes in, our environment changed completely in a very drastic manner. Vandalism, mass crowds of homelessness. I saw a man yelling at the top of his lungs with knife in hand, furious at something. As we continued on in silence, we were coming up on a street corner that was just PACKED with hundreds of homeless people crammed tightly into this area of the city. I have never in my life seen such open drug use, blood, a lingering sense of death. There were rigs (needles) everywhere, pipes, bongs, tubes with other questionable substances...everywhere. People were shooting up freely. We had entered into a place that was their home. I can't explain to you how I felt at this point. Apart from the fear that I felt because we came into Downtown Eastside unknowingly, there was just a deep heaviness on my heart. I felt like I was just walking into a place of complete and utter brokenness, hoplessness. I was frustrated, and very emotional, but I wasn't sure to what I was feeling all these things.

Culture. Their home. Their lives. Their idea of normal. I remembered the truth of looking for God where He already is rather than bringing Him in. I was struggling with this big time. My eyes had seen something that my heart couldn't really understand, and I knew I was going to have to unpack this.

We met up with groups (we met w/ Kat) to discuss what we heard and saw. That heavy, helpless/hopeless feeling mixed in with fear and sorrow were shared sentiments throughout the group. We were overwhelmed.




Psalm 62:1
"My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him"