Thursday's Thoughts 2

Well, minutes after beginning my new weekly post this week, I had the realization that this coming Thursday, I will be in mainland China, where I will not have my computer, and even if I did I’m not sure they would allow me to access my blog from there. Because of that realization, I have decided to post this week’s “Thursday’s Thought” on Sunday so that I will not have to completely skip it in its second week of existence.

The inspiration for this week’s thought comes from A) The fact that, for the first time in my life, I am going into mainland China (which is very different than Hong Kong) this week, so I have been thinking a lot about the state of the church within its borders and B) The fact that I have been reading a book called The Heavenly Man this week. It is the story of one believer, Brother Yun, and his almost unbelievable story of living life as a Christian in China starting in the 1970s.

At one point in the book, Brother Yun says, “For many centuries the gospel struggled to gain a foothold in the stubborn land of China. Our soil was too rocky to accept the root of the gospel, but in time God accomplished His purposes and established His church. Suffering, persecution, and imprisonment made His gospel rapidly spread throughout China. If our lives had been more comfortable we’d probably have stayed in our home villages. But because we were always fleeing to new places the gospel spread to many areas that had never heard it.”

This Thursday’s Thought: So many Americans wonder why the gospel is stagnant in so many areas in the States. Maybe it’s because we’re driving to church in our BMWs (Not that I’m judging you if that’s what you drive to church. It’s just a random example.), sitting in comfortably cushioned seats, drinking our Mint Mochas from Starbucks (which really do taste so good…), and enjoying a top quality AV production in our churches while Christians in other parts of the world must walk many miles so they can gather quietly, in secret, often at night so the police won’t raid their meetings and beat, imprison, or kill them. Maybe it’s because we have replaced the God of the Bible with comfort and commercialism. Maybe it’s because we’ve redefined persecution to mean a couple of friends not sitting with us at lunch because they think we’re weird for being Christians. Maybe, if we took that gospel at its word, it would start a revolution. Maybe if the church as a whole in America were to make significant (dare I say lifestyle-altering?) sacrifices for the sake of the gospel, the church in America would be freed from its stagnation. But that’s just what I think…

The Start of Something New

I’ve decided that in order to keep myself accountable to updating my blog, I should start a weekly segment that I will have to update every week. I figured I would use this post to share thoughts and ideas that I have found impactful/moving/interesting/thought provoking/you get the picture over the past week. Some will be original lines (although they will usually get their inspiration from some outside source), and others will be direct quotations that I thought were important enough to post directly as-is. In order to do this and stick with an alliterative theme, I am calling the new weekly update “Thursday’s Thoughts.”

My first Thought comes from a book I read last week called The Power of Words and the Wonder of God. It is an excellent book that really challenged the way I think about words. This list is inspired by Justin Taylor’s writing on the first few chapters of Genesis in the book’s introduction, but it is not the exact same list. I have compiled this one after reading Genesis 1-3 on my own. So here is this Thursday’s Thought:

In the first 3 chapters of Genesis, words are used to:
-Create
-Give order
-Bless
-Give life
-Lead
-Command
-Express love
-Rejoice
-Thank
-Deceive
-Tempt
-Curse
-Protect
-Ask questions
-Give Answers
-Show God's glory
-Cast doubt on God's goodness
-Cause division
-Bring restoration
-Make Excuses
-Give hope
WORDS ARE IMPORTANT! USE THEM WISELY!

My Job Description

The other day, I read a satirical article on how easy it must be to work in a church. For me, as someone who works in a church, the article was hilarious, because the presentation it gave of what it must be like to work in a church was so far from reality. The article did remind me, however, that most people (especially those who have never worked in a church) have no idea what it takes to work in a church. So, I have decided to compile a list of just a few of the key elements that fit under the broad umbrella title “Youth Intern.” A youth intern is a very unique person. He must:
• Be skilled with setting up and running sound equipment. This is especially handy when nobody else in the room knows how to do it or when you use your sound equipment somewhere besides your normal location then have to put it back where it belongs.
• Be a public speaker.
• Be an interior designer. More goes into arranging a youth room than meets the untrained eye.
• Be a friend.
• Be a Bible Scholar. Ok, probably not all youth interns are Bible scholars, but including this in my job description makes me feel even better about reading theology books/the Bible.
• Be a Facebook friend. Because there are friends. And then there are Facebook friends.
• Be a counselor. Wisdom must flow from the youth intern’s lips as water in a raging river. Or maybe it’s just my dream that the last sentence describes me someday.
• Be a camp counselor. This one definitely fits me. As everyone knows, every good youth ministry involves camps. And at the camps, the intern gets to live in the cabin with the kids. Reminds me of my 2 summers at T Bar M, except that when I’m in charge, there are no curfews, so I get much more exhausted than T Bar M would ever let me get.
• Be a janitor. Who cleans up the youth room when the kids leave? The Intern
• Be a financial planner. Planning next year’s youth budget… one part of the job I’m not looking forward to.
• Be an event coordinator. Because awesome youth events don’t just happen on their own (at least not every time).
• Be a mediator. Do kids go to parents for conflicts with friends? Why would they do that when there’s a youth intern in town!
• Be a mentor. One of the most awesome parts of the job. Getting to impart my wisdom (or whatever you call the thing I have that I hope someday qualifies as wisdom) to the youth, especially in a small group setting.
• Being a mentee. I think that’s what you call it when you learn from others.
• Being a discussion leader. If you’ve never led a small group discussion with a group of high school guys, there is no way on earth you can comprehend how challenging of a task this seemingly simple thing can be.
• Being a small group discussion material writer. As if it wasn’t hard enough just to lead the discussions, I also have to come up with material that will keep all 4 of the small groups in our Sunday School class talking for about 40 minutes.
• Being a high school music/sports fan. What better way to show the kids you really care about them than being there… for guys field hockey? (Austin, if you read this, I really enjoyed watching your game)
• Being a marketing genius. Because events can’t happen if kids don’t know abut them.
Like I said, there is much more that goes into being a youth intern than this short list, but if you ever want to consider applying for the job, make sure you have at least these bases covered first.

It's Been a While

Yes, I know. It’s been almost a month since my last post. Let’s just say it was a very busy, exciting month where I was more focused on living my life than writing about it.

That being said, I guess a new post is more than overdue. So much has happened in the past month, I hardly know where to start. I got to go home for Christmas (for the 2 people out there reading this who didn’t know that already) —actually I got home the day after Christmas, but that’s a minor detail. It was exciting to see my family and friends. It was also amazing to see the generosity of some anonymous donor in my HK church who bought me the ticket home and the way that God works in ways that we would never expect to take care of us.

The Wilsons left for Guatemala since my last post (for anyone who doesn’t know, my uncle, aunt, and 6 cousins are now full-time missionaries to Guatemala). Their departure was sad and exciting at the same time. It wasn’t as hard for me because I’ve been gone for 3 and a half years (and the realization that if I hadn’t gotten to go home for Christmas, I would have been informed through an email or facebook that they had left helped keep my emotions at bay too), but there were [almost] no dry eyes at the Knudsen’s house as the Wilson family departed for the airport.

I also got to see how Christmas is celebrated by a different family in another part of the world. The Beselts, a family from my church in Hong Kong, took me in as one of their own children (bringing the total to 5) for Christmas this year. The Beselts were actually celebrating their family’s Christmas Eve on Christmas Day, since Dean, the father, is a pilot, and his flight didn’t get in until the afternoon of Christmas Day. We celebrated by going to see their youngest daughter, Jane (who is 14), perform in a professional production of the Nutcracker. Believe it or not, this was my first time ever seeing the Nutcracker. After the ballet, we went to the mall (which was open on Christmas) to get some supplies for Christmas Eve dinner, which consisted of a variety of breads and crackers, a variety of cheeses to put on the bread and crackers, and some raw salmon (which was so good). We then watched the Flinstones Christmas show and White Christmas, a Beselt family Christmas Eve family tradition. Each of the kids got to open one gift (their own copy of the Flinstones Christmas show on DVD, so when they have families of their own they can continue the tradition). It was a fun night, and I am so thankful to this family for taking care of me while I am so far from home.

Speaking of traditions, I got to decorate gingerbread houses at the Roix’s house and play in the annual New Years Day football game while I was home. The Scott brother rivalry was heated at football, and a good time was had by all. At the Roix’s, a large portion of Ashley Bouraphael and Kelsey Rudolph’s house was eaten by yours truly in retaliation for Ashley feeding my gingerbread children to her brother last year. Despite all Ashley’s threats of retaliation and assurances that she could be mean if she wanted to, Kelsey ended up being the one who tried to take out revenge on my house, a move which left her with a bloody knuckle (and that’s why you don’t mess with my gingerbread house!).

Sorry for the obnoxiously long post and the fact that I haven’t posted in so long. I hope everyone is doing well. Bye.

Thoughts On The Rain

So tonight it rained in Hong Kong. It wasn’t a heavy rain; actually it was pretty light. The only thing that made this rain stick out was the fact that it came in December, which is generally a very dry month for the city of Hong Kong.

During the rain, which began this afternoon and is still going, I ate dinner at a restaurant which is located about 15 minutes from my house if I travel on foot at a casual pace. After dinner, I was debating whether to walk home or catch a tram. I’m still not 100% why, but I chose to walk. As I was walking, a Bible verse I read this week came into my head: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1) I was struck by the fact that this soft rain that kept falling on me was God’s way of showing a portion of who He is to the world. The spots of water all over my glasses that made me see 100 copies of everything I saw were placed there by God to teach me a lesson about how great He is.

But my realization didn’t stop there. As I considered these things, another passage that has been blowing me away lately came to mind:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. –Ephesians 1:3-6

The fact that God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him, that in a “time” before time existed the eternal God of heaven and earth looked out over the span of time—seeing every human action which would ever occur, knowing intimately every person who would ever walk the planet, knowing the exact skill set of everyone ever, knowing exactly when and how I would fail, knowing exactly when and how I would fail Him—and out of all the people who existed in all the ages in the entire history of the earth, He chose me as one of those who would be holy and blameless before Him blew me away. That before I existed, before the earth existed, before time existed, God loved me; God predestined me for the adoption as His son based on no merit of my own. That it was His will, not something forced upon Him. That He desired it. And that He was reminding me of this through an unseasonal soft rainstorm in a cool December night. It made me remember the wonder of the God I serve. The heavens declared the glory of God tonight.

The Week to Come

So, it’s been a busy few weeks (that seems like it’s getting to be a repeating theme in my posts). This week, however, seems like it will beat them all. In fact, most of the busy-ness of the past few weeks has been in preparation for this week.

Friday was the Trailwalker. If you remember from a few posts ago, the Trailwalker is a 100 km (60-65 mile) hike through Hong Kong’s New Territories area. My team and I have been training for this for about 2 months. Our goal was to finish in under 24 hours. We started off well, but slowed down as the hike went along. At checkpoint 8 (about 18 km to go), we realized we needed to really pick up the pace in order to reach our goal. Luckily, all of the hard parts were done, and we were able to run much of section nine and get back on the 24 hour pace. Unfortunately, one of our team members got injured during section 9. He had to hobble (with help) to the checkpoint, where he ended up dropping out of the hike. Between waiting for him to get to the checkpoint and waiting at the checkpoint for him to actually decide to drop out (I offered to carry him on my back for the last 12 km, but he decided not to do that), we lost an hour and a half. When added to the loss of motivation from the realization that we would have to finish behind our goal, the fact that we were losing 25% of our team, and the fact that our bodies had used the break to get themselves out of hiking mode and into resting mode, section 10 went very slowly. Our finishing time was 25 hours and 55 minutes. The 3 of us who ended up finishing crossed the finish line together, and I almost cried when it was done—out of a combination of excitement that we had finished and pain in my legs from restarting after such a long rest.

Tomorrow (today if you're in Hong Kong), of course, is my birthday, which shouldn’t add to much busy-ness to my week, and certainly hasn’t taken any time from the past few weeks in preparation, but which does add another exciting element to my week.

Thursday is American Thanksgiving. With Hong Kong not being American, it is not really celebrated that much here. Fortunately, I am not the only American in Hong Kong, and another American family has invited me to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. Again, not something that has taken much preparation time over the past few weeks, but it adds to the excitement of the upcoming week.

Friday is the day of the week that I have most been dreading for a few months. Friday is the day that Nathan, Collette, Jaya, and Jonah Loudin move back from Hong Kong to the USA. It is hard to express in words how much this family has meant to me during my time here in Hong Kong. Nathan has been my boss, friend, mentor, and more. He is the one who picked me up from the airport when I got here, taught me how to do my job, was the one I went to when I had questions, and introduced me to many of the things I love most about Hong Kong (like Nomads—the Mongolian Barbecue buffet).The entire family is awesome. Their departure has consumed much of my time over the past few weeks, both in terms of spending as much time with them as I can before they leave and in terms of hours with Nathan doing Q & A time (me asking the questions) to prepare me for doing the job by myself once he’s gone. Needless to say, Friday is not a day I’m looking forward to.

I know this is just a brief survey of what’s happening here, but these things (especially Trailwalker and the Loudin’s departure) have been largely responsible for my lack of posts over the past few weeks. I’m sure after this week I will find a new excuse to be busy rather than to write on my blog, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it…

A Typical Day

So it just hit me that most of you don't know what a typical day looks like for me while I'm here in Hong Kong. Here's my best attempt to describe it:

A typical day for me ideally involves me waking up at 6:30 so I can pray and read my Bible. Of course, as the week goes on, I get more and more exhausted, and this time generally moves back a few minutes each day until the start of the next week, when it goes back to 6:30. Around 7:30, I start to get ready for work, and I leave for work around 8. On my way to the tram stop, I stop at the bakery for breakfast. I then take the tram (basically a double-decker cable car) to the bus stop and take a bus from there to work. I arrive at the office at about 8:30. Work starts at 9, so the half hour is usually very quiet in the office. (I don't leave early to be an overachiever. After my roommate had been here a few weeks, I realized I hardly saw him, largely because he was leaving for work at 8 and I was waking up after he left for work. To try to have more time to hang out with him, I decided to leave for work earlier so we can ride together until I get off the tram.) If it looks like a busy day, I will sometimes use the time I'm in the office before work starts to get a head start on my work. Otherwise, this is time for checking email, sports scores, facebook, news updates, or catching up on Bible reading I should have done earlier in the morning but slept through.

Once work starts, I have a number of things I'm responsible for each week. I generally have to prepare a lesson for either the youth group (Shillage) or for Sunday School (Soul Cafe). Nathan prepares the lesson for whichever one I'm not teaching, which means starting November 26, I will have to prepare an extra lesson each week (because Nathan's leaving). I also have to prepare for discipleship group meetings (I have 3 a week). Some weeks, I go do stuff at a Christian School in the area so I can get more interaction with the kids outside of a church environment. I am also responsible for planning events and taking care of whatever else arises throughout the week. Often, I will meet with people for lunch, whether that is students who are free, Nathan to discuss work and life, other youth workers from around Hong Kong, or friends. Work ends at 6 each day.

Each day has its own individual nuances that set it apart from every other day of the week. For example, Monday is my day off. On Mondays, I make an intentional effort to do nothing at all related to work or school. It is a day of rest which involves sleeping in, spending some good time with God, no schedule, and often hanging out with friends. Tuesday nights I have a discipleship group I run that meets at 7, and the games for my Ultimate Frisbee league are at 9. Wednesday mornings I have a discipleship group I run that meets at 8, and Wednesday evenings, the youth band practices for Friday night at 6. I'm supposed to be supervising this, but lately I've actually been leading music for them because the student who typically leads has had to work on Friday nights. Thursday nights, I do English tutoring every other week. And of course, Friday night is youth group.

Every day is busy and exciting, each bringing its own challenges and joys.