China or Genetics

Every day, we are bombarded with questions. We are bombarded with information. People like me tend to replay these questions over and over again internally, searching for an answer that is ambiguous. Of course, I know that I will never reach the answer, but that doesn't stop me from trying. We live in a society of "try everything", "do everything" and "be successful". But replaying these questions is more than just about finding answers to have an answer. It's about finding an answer that will help me discover who I am created to be, and by Whom I was created by.

This past summer I had a life changing experience in the poverty stricken city of LongDe, China. I taught English to a classroom of 20 high school aged Chinese students, none of whom had ever met a white person before in their life. As a team, we taught them songs, games, and childhood, as childhood is stripped away in Chinese society by the ever-pressing rigorous academics of the College Entrance Exam. Upon arriving we were talked to about the importance of these exams, and how students would be receiving their scores within the next few days. The suicide rate would be dramatically increasing while we were there. I envisioned in my head hundreds, thousands of Chinese students, years younger than I, taking their own life because of a score. Because a score deemed them not good enough for success. Because of the shame a score can bring to them, and their families.

At first it was easy to compartmentalize. What happened on that side of the world can stay on that side of the world, but that experience changed me, and that could not be contained for long. My issue was getting it out, having an outlet, having people around me who were willing to simply listen. Processing never happened, and people never came. But who I am still lives inside and is still forever changed, forever consumed with a love, passion, and concern for the hurting, the innocent, and the helpless.

I find coming back to this webpage which I have ignored for months completely spiritually hilarious in some regards. I say this because it's kind of like a prophesy as to what this summer has taught me and to who I am growing to be. Yes, I do indeed love people very much, and through months and months of difficulty, spiritual wrestling, questioning, and personal doubts and fights, lots has truely come together. The path that I walk is truely straight and narrow. I believe that as followers of Chirst, we are all called to this path. A very few take it, and that saddens me. We've lost the picture, the vision of what it means to be like Christ, and instead we fill our lives with traditions and acts, and half-hearted prayers that disillusion us into being followers of Christ. To truely love the poor, we must know the poor. We must attempt for some type of understanding and community that is beyond putting money in a basket. China is heavy on my heart.

So I ask, is family made up of who you are genetically related to, or those who share your heart? In China, I felt closer to many than I have ever felt before, even though I have spent years of life with those whom I call 'family'. Oh China, what am I to do with you?



Where do I belong? Where do I belong? Where do I belong? Where do I belong?