Day 1

Well, I had a very eventful first day. It started with a funeral, woot woot.haha.
It was very very interesting. I don't think I can describe it all now, there's too much to tell. But basically, this woman had almost no family, and the family she had was estranged because of her having AIDS. Because there was no one with her in her apartment when she died, her body had to be investigated to insure there was no foulplay. Apparently that took a while, so she'd already been deceased for a couple of months before the funeral. We met Nichole (Harmony Home's founder and director) and several other harmony home workers at a mortuary this morning. Nichole had to identify the body before she was allowed to claim it. Harmony Home (I'm just gonna call it HH) provided the funeral because of the women's family situation, but it doesn't have the funds for anything fancy, so they literally just put the body, covered by no more than a body bag, in the back of an HH van to take it to the funeral. Funerals are a huge, interestingly public event here. Buddhists worship their ancestors, and burn fake money and food for them every year, besides cremating them with clothing, food, money, and gifts. There are entire mountains here covered with what I mistook for small houses, but which are actually tombs. However, people's bodies are rarely buried anymore, because they're literally running out of space. So almost everyone is cremated now. So the place we took the woman's body to is a full time funeral home/crematorium complex with many many different sized facilities for funerals, ranging from small rooms to small temples. HH rented a small room with a simple coffin to hold a funeral for the woman, and people dressed in black robes came and sang funeral chants for around 15-20 minutes, bowing to the floor in front of a picture of the deceased and lighting little incense stick thingies at intervals throughout. Then the body was lined up in next to a row of others waiting to be burned, and the picture of the woman and the flowers from the funeral were placed among many other on a table that ran along the wall of a big hall outside the furnace room. Some people held what I guess was a second ceremony in the hall, lined up front of the picture of the deceased, singing the funeral songs with a buddhist monk leading the chant usually. But there was a beautiful moment as we stood waiting for the cremation, when we heard words we didn't understand, but knew what they meant all the same, because all of the sudden, many voices began to sing the tune of "What a friend we have in Jesus." It was a Christian funeral being held a little ways across the room. It was nice. :) There were a few Christians there, marked by crosses covered in lilies set in front of their pictures. But most of the people there were buddhist I think. In spite of the cultural richness of the experience... as a Christian, it was a very sad morning.
After the body was cremated, the ashes were put in a box, and the box was taken to the wharf. about 25 of the HH children and a few nannies met us there, and everyone sat in a circle around the box while friends said a few kind words about the woman, then everyone watched as the box was thrown into the ocean along with the flowers, and a couple of stuffed animals, "So she won't be lonely" Nichole said.
We spent the rest of the day at the wharf with the kids, playing, videoing, and talking to the nannies. And now, I'm pretty much shot to pieces.haha. A lot more happened than I just told you about. Especially conversations with people I met. But nothing too important, and this message is already pretty long.

The Plan

For the next couple of months, I'm just going to post random stuff every once in a while. It may not all make sense, because I'll probably just copy/paste some of what I write home to my family, but hopefully it will be entertaining and informational enough to make it worth a little bit of your time. We shall see. My time in China will probably be shorter than originally planned... closer to one month instead of two, and the second month will probably actually be spent back here in Taiwan, possibly working with a church in the south. I leave for China on Thursday. Please keep me in your prayers if you think about it. This whole escapade is unknown territory, and there's quite a lot at stake. At the moment, I don't have any idea of what God has in mind in terms of the purpose and style of the trip to China. I'm trusting that if I just show up, He'll open doors like always. Pride or preconceived ideas of what this will be like are no longer issues of simple stupidity, but literally dangerous. I'm totally in the dark, and totally dependent on Him. I guess that's how it's supposed to be.

Alrighty, so that's the deal. Let the adventures begin. :)

China?

Oh yes indeed. China.

I'm finally making the news public, and it's pretty short notice actually, since I'm leaving March 3rd. (Sorry about that). In a way, this particular adventure actually started months ago while I was still working in Kona. I was praying and praying and praying about what to do next, and kept seeing China in my head; seeing the country, seeing the word, seeing the people.

I never had an particular interest in China before a few months ago, really. The first time I remember the idea of China going deeper than my head and touching my heart, was at an international cultures presentation at Kona. I was at the China booth... mostly because I followed the smell of the traditional food that was being cooked on a table there. While I waited for my turn to sample some delicious fried... stuff (I don't know what it was or what it was called, but it was amazing), I picked up a book that had been left open with pictures of China and it's people. For the first time I felt God putting a little pressure on my heart, whispering in my ear, Look at them, aren't the beautiful? Aren't they precious? Can you feel how deeply I love them? I COULD feel it, just a tiny bit; it was staggering. It changed my point of view in a moment.

I could feel something stirring in God's future plans for me. In my short experience as a human being, I have found that God gives you a heart for the people He wants you to love, so that when you get to where they are, your love reflects His own, and you make them want to know Him.

"Missionary"

That word has become a silly concept, really. As if one person is better equipped to live the Jesus life than the next person. Since when was Jesus ever about knowing the right words and verses and songs and stories, or dressing the right way, or knowing the right lingo? (1 Cor. 2:1-5) Those things sometimes happen. But they are a burden and a lie unless they're born out of the FIRST desire to love people better, a desire that can ONLY be given by the One who loves them best. It's all about Him; in Him, with Him, through Him, for Him. JESUS.

But I digress...

CHINA.

When I got home from Kona in December, I was a bit conflicted. Part of me wanted to know how China was going to fit in with my other goal of starting to work with my own church's missions program. The other part of me wanted to just forget missions for a while, slow down, maybe get a job, live at home, watch movies, eat food, be 'normal.'

A couple of weeks after I got back, my pastor asked me to start praying about the possibility of going to China in March. (WHAAAAAAT?)

After a week of terror and asking God how He could have tricked me like this, giving me an answer before I knew the importance of the question, I said yes. I knew this was what He had been preparing me for and talking to me about, and I couldn't say no. So it began.

My church is forming a sort of partnership with a non-profit organization in Taiwan and China, called Harmony Home. http://harmonyhometaiwan.org/

Harmony Home provides care facilities for Taiwanese adults dying of AIDS, and also for orphans in both Taiwan and China, most of whom were orphaned by AIDS, or are infected themselves.

I will be going over, first to Taiwan for a few days, and then to China for the remaining couple of months, to shoot video footage at 20-25 orphanages. My church will then take the footage I bring back to make into a fundraising documentary for Harmony Home. In addition to all of this, we've been given full permission by Harmony Home leadership to tell the kids and staff in each location about Jesus.

A man from my church first made the connections with Taiwan & China through business, and continues to be a huge part of my church's connections there. (He's also my boss at the moment. He offered me an amazing job at his company with flexible hours and good pay. Gosh... It's almost too much. God knows our desires. He's SOOO GOOD.)

So anyways, he'll go with me for the first couple of weeks, and then leave me in the hands of a Harmony Home staff member, who will continue to act as guide and translator as we travel from town to town, visiting each orphanage for a couple of days, then moving on to the next. My possible return date is May 9th.

To be completely honest, I'm alot more nervous about this new adventure than I would have expected myself to be. Not that it's not crazy. I'm just frustrated with myself for being a sissy about it. What an opportunity! However, the Spiritual battle is actually getting pretty for real. I have moments, days, even weeks of fear at an intensity I've never experienced before. The pressure to doubt God's goodness, even in the midst of His provision and peace is almost tangible, and nightmares throughout the week are becoming pretty normal.

But through it all, He is SO good! Along with the nightmares come dreams of beauty and peace, sometimes even with verses in them that I look up when I'm awake, full of comfort and love (Psalm 127, which this blog is named after, was a dream verse.)

The right people, saying the right thing; the right Bible passage at the right time; the right piece of incredible natural beauty on the way to work in the morning..... He is SO CLOSE. I can almost feel His arms around me, holding me.

For the most part, I'm an idiot. I try to drown myself in anything and everything that will distract me from what I'm afraid of instead of facing it. I recklessly fling myself back and forth between doing my best to avoid God, flailing like a wounded animal as I blame Him for my fears, and clinging to Him, begging Him not to let me go, praising Him for the crazy adventure He's set in front of me. I know, I'm a spazz. God knows it to, and yet He never lets me go. He never will. And in the moments I turn my scared little heart toward Him, His love and peace pour through me like an ocean, filling me up and keeping me going. It's all about Him; in Him, with Him, through Him, for Him. JESUS.

So that's my story at the moment. Thanks for asking, and thanks for caring!!

Ask questions if you have them. Prayers are appreciated. To GOD be the glory. :)

Psalm 27

No Envy, No Fear

What could a life lived in the full embrace of this thought look like? Yeah...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvzINsg1PKo

Some are reaching, few are there
Want to reign from a hero's chair
Some are scared to fly so high
Well this is how we have to try

Have no envy and no fear

Have no envy

no fear

Brother, brother, we all see
You're hiding out so painfully
See yourself come out to play
A lover's rain will wash away

Your envy and your fear
So have no envy
no fear

When your sister turns to leave
Only when she's most in need

Take away the cause of pain

By showing her we're all the same.

Have no envy
no fear
Have no envy
and no fear

Every day we try to find
We search our hearts and our minds
The place we used to call our home
Can't be found when we're alone

So have no envy
no fear
Have no envy
No fear

Click the link and have a listen if you've got a couple minutes to spare.

Bones

To be completely honest with you, I have a sad, and probably somewhat unhealthy fascination with the Fox TV show, "Bones". The extent to which I memorize, examine and critique each character's development definitely borders on mild obsession.
So, naturally I was thinking about the latest story developments on my way to work this morning. The plot has taken a distressing turn this season. It is wildly clear to me (and I'm sure I'm not alone in this) that the main hero and heroine, Booth and Brennan, NEED to end up together. Oh, they've been fighting the obvious feelings they have for each other for 5 1/2 seasons now. They give & take, push & pull, accept and reject, but the irresistable magnetism called love brings them ever closer.

(Can you tell I'm pretty into this?)

The current problem that's got me worried, is that Booth has gone and found himself a serious girlfriend, who is NOT Brennan. And if the latest previews for tonight's new episode are any indication, Booth is actually about to propose to this usurper, this pretender, this so-called "girlfriend". Woe and sorrow!

I won't lie, this had me pretty anxious for a couple of days. My thoughts went in a continuous circle; something like this: "What if this is for real?? What if Booth MARRIES this girl?? I mean, she's fine, but she's no Brennan. If Booth leaves Brennan for good, we all know she'll spend the rest of her life alone -- outwardly rational, brilliant, and content with life, but inwardly vulnerable, wounded and afraid of being forsaken once again by those she loves. She'll probably never again dare to open her heart to anyone the way she once did to Booth, in all of his gentleness and patience." Tragedy upon Tragedy.

As I braved the icy back roads it vaguely dawned on me that, in a way, I see something of myself in Brennan's situation. In some strange sense, maybe that's even part of the reason for my debatably inflated anxiety over the whole issue.

My heart, like Brennan's, is cold and wounded, and like hers, it is slowly drawn out into light and warmth by gentle love; in my case, the love of my Savior. But in every new season of life, I begin to fear the outcome of my story and wonder if it will really turn out the way I've always known it should. My heart starts to close again, trying to protect itself, terrified at the threat of numbing disappointment; of the icy realization that I have misplaced my trust, misdirected my love, misjudged His worth. This would be the TRUE unbearable tragedy. If this love, that has slowly been waking my heart to feel and live again, were to slip away... I would never recover. And this terror is triggered every time my circumstances are a little too challenging, and the future is a little too unknown to rest within my microscopic comfort zone.

All of this, I still had one more Bones-related epiphany to experience, and I hadn't even hit the highway yet.

My mind resumed it's wandering over the current relationship crisis, until eventually it rested on the memory of an intriguing clue I happened upon a couple of days ago.

This clue came about when I put my fantastically misapplied research skills & keen intuition to work, and found a ray of hope in the plot description of next week's episode. (the one that will follow tonight's.) It will be themed on Valentine's day, and the description specifically states that both Booth and Brennan will try to downplay the significance of the holiday. Now, why would Booth try to ignore Valentine's day if he is happily engaged? I submit to you that he would not! Maybe... just maybe, the proposal will go badly, and he'll be single again by next week. (or maybe the plot description has an idiot writer who's about to dash my hopes.) But anyway, therein lies my hope. And with it comes relief, a renewed confidence, and in the joy of the moment, the grand statement,

"Well of course, Booth and Brennan will obviously end up together. There was never any real doubt; the only question was how long this other woman would stick around;

never whether or not she's actually permanent."

Right?

The writers are smart, and when the time is right, they'll give their eager audience the happy ending we're waiting for. It was silly of me to worry. Even if this crisis continues in spite of my current hopes, I know it will right itself in the end.

So, if I trust the writers and producers of a weekly dramafest TV show to provide the well-balanced story of love and committment I hope for... why, oh WHY, don't I trust God for the same thing in MY life? He's smarter and more interested in meeting my hopes for a fulfilling life story than anyone else - BY FAR.

So once again I say, "It was silly of me to worry." When I doubt the outcome of my story, I insult His character and wound myself with the painful inefficiencies of my own. Ridiculous.

I have faith that my favorite television charactors will find true love and happiness in the hands of the show's writers.

May God give me the soul and the brains to have exponentially more faith that I will find the same in the ARMS of the Writer of my own story.

Missionary

I am a missionary. Weak and broken, wounded and sinful, stressed and depressed, selfish and lonely. I am a missionary. Not heroic, not courageous, not selfless, not righteous, not faithful, not wise, not loving. I am a missionary. Clinging in desperation to the only truth that has ever been proven real, the only love that has never lied, the only King who became a servant, the only Father who trusted the untrustworthy... over and over and over... the only God who died for the love of us all. I am a missionary. Trusting that my darkness becomes light in His glory, my weakness clears the way for His strength, my sinfulness displays His grace and forgiveness, my fear is shown to be foolishness in His faithfulness, my brokenness opens channels for love to flow more freely from His heart, through me, to others... I am a missionary. With no remarkable talent, beauty, education, intuition, wisdom, or personality. Not worthy of praise, admiration, or imitation.

But then again... I'm not the point, am I?