Seed Planting

Tonight I gave a cultural lecture entitled "The Influence of Worldviews on Culture." The room was completely packed out for reasons unbeknowest to me. For an hour I talked about the five major worldviews (naturalism, pantheism, theism, polytheism, postmodernism), the influence of the theistic worldview specifically on the American culture, and demonstrated how questions of worldview change people and invite dialogue. Over and over again I asked the students to think about what they believed and WHY. I would ask questions like, "what do you believe about life, death, the nature of man, values, and reality?" "Where do those beliefs come from?" "Have you ever talked to someone with a different worldview from your own?"

My favorite part of the lecture was when I took the map of the world and turned it upside down on the powerpoint slide (called the "Van der Griten Projection"). The shock and gasps from students indicated that I got exactly the reaction that I was aiming for. :) :) I said, "is this an accurate picture of the world?" "No!!! That's just wrong!!" IS IT? According to the map China is no longer the "Middle Kingdom", America is on the bottom, Europe is tiny, and the especially large African continent holds the power. I smiled :) By the end of the lecture I think they understood the point (even though to them the map was still very strange, indeed).

What do we believe in? What shapes our worldview? At one point in the lecture I was able to give my own personal story (a kind of broad testimony with no specifics, if you will, as much as will be allowed here) about discovering my own worldview in Africa during an especially hard time in my life when I was the same age as those students in that room tonight. I emphasized that I was not rejecting my parents or my culture or my country, but rather I was asking myself important life questions about what I believed in order to make it real for me. In the end I found that most of my beliefs really are the same as my parents and some of my culture, but I had to ask the difficult questions in order to discover that. Asking those questions was really hard, I explained, like getting down in the dirt. In the end I was able to discover meaning and purpose in my life. While I did not explain this specifically, my theistic worldview is the only view that I feel gives purpose to my life. Since being in China I have opened my mind to different points of view and am learning things from people here just as I did in Africa. My view of the world is changing, but I believe in it all the more because its mine.

Did they understand all this? Probably not, but I think they understood the main idea. During the question-answer time one guy asked a difficult question about postmodernism (how do you narrow down postmodernism into three sentences at a language level of a first grader?). The question was significant because the topic was briefly mentioned at one point in the whole hour, which means that they were listening, or trying to. In the end, it doesn't really matter. I have to believe that it was all done for the honor of my DAD. Will they go out and talk to people of different worldviews and ask important life questions for themselves as I challenged them to do? I don't know. I just know I had to be faithful with the opportunity I had been given.

One of the girls (a Family friend) came up to me later and said that in China the mindset is so deep and is so hard to move from. She said that nobody in China has ever asked themselves these kinds of questions before. "We don't know why we exist or what happens when we die because we've never asked those questions before." I was amazed and thought to myself, "there's no time like the present."

Through all this I realized that I am a seed planter. Always have been. It's what I do best. I grumble that I'm not part of the "greater" work (as I seemed to be in my other city), but it's not really about me is it? :) This is a lesson I have to learn over and over and over again. It's not about me, it's all about Him. I got to share part of my story tonight and what could be greater than that? Will worldviews shatter tonight? Probably not. But, does Dad have a way of being honored through this? Does Dad have a way of bringing people to Himself? You better believe it!

What is love?

This week in my sophomore oral classes we are discussing the movie "Remember the Titans" and focusing on overcoming prejudice and working together as a team, without putting issues of race, ethnicity, and other differences between us. Next Monday I will be doing a lecture for the English department on the influence of worldview on culture, examining how open dialogue with people of different worldviews fosters real communication and better love for each other. It dares us to ask important life questions and see if our own worldview can answer these. In some of my research for class and the lecture, I came across this quote by Frederich Buechner:

"The love of equals is a human thing- of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing- the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.
The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing- to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.
And then there is love for the enemy- love for one who does not love you, but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world."

Think about such things.

City-Wide Blackout

On Saturday there was a city-wide blackout. The great thing, though, was that they had announced it several days previously so that we would be prepared for it, which was nice of them. I'm not sure exactly why they turned the power off, but they did. It was scheduled to be off from 6 AM to 7 PM. You never think about how much you use electricity until you don't have it anymore :). No refrigerator, no internet, no listening to music, no working on the computer at all for lesson planning or paper writing or anything like that (my battery had also died), no watching TV, no hot water, no microwave or oven. It forces you to just STOP and simply BE.

I learned something from this experience. Things like blackouts bring people closer together. The sun was setting and it was getting dark outside. I opened my door to the hallway to get the last few glimmers of light I could for the time being and some of my neighbors were out in the hallway. We are always coming and going so often that I haven't had a chance to meet them (plus, on my floor it is run like a hotel, so it's never really consistent with the same people). They came into my apartment and were perplexed by my voluminous display of candles throughout my house (I guess they're content with the dark, but all of them were drawn by my candles). I gave them banana bread I had stored away, but was embarrassed that I didn't have anything to drink to offer. They didn't care (the banana bread was a winner, though!). Nobody spoke English and that day was not one of my better Chinese language days because I hadn't opened a book in a week, but we fumbled our way through conversation. It was just a delightful time getting to know my Chinese neighbors.

7:00 came, no power. 8:00 came, still no power. Now it's just dark :). Our team meets weekly for about an hour or two on Saturday nights for a special thought and studying time. Usually we sing and then play a message, but with no electricity all we could do was sing until the power came back on. So, by candlelight Seth led us with his guitar and we sang and gave honor to the Light of the World. We sang a lot of songs about His power and about being a light shining in a dark place. It seemed appropriate, somehow. 9:00 came, still no power. Seth is still strumming away (his poor fingers). 10:00, still no power. Okay, do we keep on singing and playing? We talk, we sing some more. We simply enjoy each other. We usually watch a lot of movies together, but it was nice to simply BE with each other. 11:00, still no power. :) Finally, the lights came on at about 11:15 and we had a good celebration after that.

So, if this is what a blackout does for people, maybe we should ask for them more often :) A single candle in a dark place draws people together- reminds us of our greater task, doesn't it?

The Newest Team Addition!

While we were celebrating Seth's birthday last night, we in Siping also welcomed our newest team member!

Teammates Jonny and Rachel are the proud parents of :

Samantha Grace Wu
born in Beijing, May 11, 2007

8:12 PM, 6 pounds and 8 ounces, 19 inches long!

Welcome to the world, little one! We've been waiting for you for a long time!

Birthday Time!

Everyone give a "shout-out" to my teammate, Seth! Today is his 26th birthday! "So tonight we gonna, we gonna...Tonight we gonna party like it's 1999" in Siping! Happy Birthday, friend!

Fire Drills

I live in a pretty nice building with all the other foreign teachers on campus. Honestly, I miss living in the same neighborhood as my fellow teachers and Chinese colleagues as I did in my old school. This building I live in now is less than two years old and is equipped with an elevator (!), hot water, large rooms, television, a heater and air conditioner, big comfy chairs, and a fantastic view. Who needs to cook when there's a little restaurant downstairs? Trust me- I've got it made here. I'm not going to lie to you about that. I feel rather guilty, actually. Aren't I supposed to be eking out a living in attempts to reach the Chinese people by sacrificing all that is important to me (or at least be willing to)? Poor, poor Michelle making the ultimate sacrifice by living with bare necessitiese and venturing out for lost souls? No, I would hardly classify my condition as such. But since this is what I've been given I want to best use my space for His purposes. So, I take the five talents He's given me and be faithful with that.

But, that's all a different topic of discussion. A subject for another day.

Here I want to talk about something really exciting! The other day the building manager gave me a key to the fire escape!! This building also has a fire escape! I live on the sixth floor, so that would come in handy if there were ever, indeed, a fire. The other day I heard what I thought were sirens and I immediately thought, "Oooh! It's a fire drill! We're going to practice!" I went to get my key to the fire escape at the end of my hall, peeked out my room, but nobody was racing to the escape door. Then I realized it was just the menacing sound of my water pipes. And I suddenly got the giggles-- did I really think China would have fire drills!?! I'm always on the "always be prepared" side and safety precautions so prevalent in our American society, that I just figured it would fit everywhere. Yet, in China, things just happen. I don't wear seatbelts here, nor do we "practice" for fire drills. If there were a fire in my building would we even know what to do? I bet you a bunch of money that my Korean neighbors next door haven't even thought about it for a second. Besides, I'm always losing my keys anyway, so then where would we be? When I told this to my teammate he said, "don't worry, Michelle, if you lose your fire escape key, you just come on downstairs to the third floor and we'll let you out!" Whew! Good to know, thanks Jonny!

I am reminded of one of my first years in China when my apartment building caught on fire. We were out of town, but the neighbors didn't know this. Outside the door of my apartment was a large electrical box in the stairwell leading to the outside. Apparently there was something akin to tornado weather that day and the electrical box sparked and then...well, it blew up. The stairwell erupted into flames and the poor neighbors kept banging on my door making sure I'd get out. I wasn't home. But if I had been... No, I will not think of that. I got home that weekend and saw that while the stairwell was absolutely charred my actual apartment was okay- there was soot everywhere. I mean, everywhere! I had no electricity for several days, so I camped out in my teammates' apartment down the street for the next week. :)

It was fine, it was dealt with, the soot eventually (many weeks and many scrubbings later) went away. We were okay. Hee hee- fire drills! Who needs fire drills? :)

this is a picture of the electrical box two feet from my door. Blew up. To prove I didn't make this story up!