Let's Not Walk Alone

Death. Poverty. War. Disease

There is too much to say about how orphans come to be. One parent has HIV, the other gets it [1]. A mother has HIV, gives it to her child [2]. There is no cure, anti-retroviral treatment is inaccessible or limited [3]. Healthcare professionals are limited [4]. Hospitals close due to war, some robbed of their medical equipment, robbed of doctors and nurses [4]. They die. Armies recruit and kidnap children to become their soldiers, some forced to kill their own parents, others watch their parents murdered by their captors [5,6]. Children are drugged to help cope with their situation, to make them effective fighters by separating their actions from reality [6]. Orphans who survive long enough to have their own children have drug problems and are unable to care for them. Children see no other means for survival, for escape from starvation and so give themselves to sexual slavery, to armies, to people who take advantage of them [5,6]. People die, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves. The cycle continues.

Then there are the children who are born with mental or physical disabilities. The parents don’t know how to care for them and so give them up [7]. Sometimes the tragic reality is that the parents see the child as more of a burden rather than a joy, perhaps the family is too poor to afford having one parent stay at home to care for the child, or pay for a caregiver [7]. The child is abandoned.

Finding a solution for the orphan crisis is just as complex as the causes of the orphan. Orphanages opened by well-intentioned people provide love, care for physical needs when properly funded and staffed. However, that is usually not the case. While some orphans have lost both their parents, single-parent and financially burdened families see orphanages as opportunities for their children [7]. As much as they do no not want to be separated from their child, they sacrifice their relationship in hopes that their child can alter the future to one that does not consist of hunger. Although orphanages at first seem like a great solution, it actually causes more children to be orphaned (given up) and are less effective if not properly equipped (or overcrowded) [7]. What happens when a child gets too old to stay at the orphanage? Children who are separated from their nurturing mother or protective father while growing up miss out on learning how to have their own families and care for their own children [8]. If people who grew up with both parents face challenges when it comes to parenting, how much more difficult would it be for an orphan who has no example to follow?

And if the lack of physical provision for a child isn’t bad enough, what about the mental implications that comes with being orphaned? Where exactly, is a child supposed to find belonging when they are being tossed from one caregiver or institution to the next [8]? What should they be thinking when they have to make decisions that only adults should make, when they have to take care of their younger siblings, when they are forced to kill their own parents, when they have to sacrifice education for work that uses and abuses them, when they watch helplessly as their parents are taken by an illness that they may also have? Not only are they alone, they are vulnerable and have no healthy way to cope with the trauma they have experienced.

So what do we do now? If it is not enough to build an orphanage, to throw money, to donate clothing, if it is not good enough that everyone knows about this issue, what then, can we do? We can keep the orphan in his/her family by supporting the family. If their parents are both deceased then a relative can be encouraged to take them in. Relatives are still family, and offer physical care without neglecting other needs. The ratio of caregivers to children in a family is much more balanced than in an institution. On average per child, an orphanage costs about $2000/year to run vs. the $360/year for a family [World Orphans journey team handbook] . This (community-based care) is the wholistic approach that organizations like World Orphans see as a way to prevent orphans [9, 10]. Keep the child with his/her family. Don’t let their sense of belonging, familial love, and humanity be taken away from them. Although keeping a family united does not solve all the problems, it is a start. When the physical needs can be met without separating them from their families, the cycle of orphans can come to a stop.  

The purpose of the people who go on these "journey trips" is to see first hand what is happening, to better understand the need and to meet the people in their suffering. Through these trips, not only are we informed and aware of the situation that these children face, but an opportunity to bridge the gap between us and them arises. The hope is that we will be able to form church to church partnerships between our churches and the churches we visit, so that we can help provide long term support for the children and their families. Through the church to church partnerships, local churches will be empowered to encourage family unity by providing for their physical, societal, and spiritual needs. As locals understand best the needs of their communities, the best thing foreigners who want to help can do is to support the local church.

As I promised in my last post, I have a breakdown of the costs for the trip for those interested in supporting me/my team (excess will go to other team members):

• airfare $945
• lodging and meals $453
• translators $67
• in-country transport $160
• pre-field expenses to include: mobilization pkg, shipping, background check, trip insurance $145
• ministry expense $120
• admin fee 10% $110

If you want to support the trip, you can also give me any reading or sunglasses to bring with me to Haiti. My team will be collecting 200 of each as this is what the local church we are visiting has requested.

The trip I am going on is called Journey 117 and is inspired by the verse Isaiah 1:17 which says, 
"Learn to do right; seek justice.

Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

plead the case of the widow."

Thanks for reading!

Video: Why Orphans? - World Orphans

Sources:

[1] https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/prevention/reduce-your-risk/mixed-status-couples/index.html

[2] https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/prevention/reduce-your-risk/pregnancy-and-childbirth/

[3] http://www.avert.org/history-hiv-aids-africa.htm

[4] http://www.our-africa.org/health

[5] https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-soldiers

[6] http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/social-issues/child-soldiers/6684.aspx

[7] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-tragic-tale-of-chinas-orphanages-98-of-abandoned-children-have-disabilities/article17625887/

[8] http://www.nacac.org/policy/orphanages.html

[9] http://worldorphans.org/what-we-do/child/why-wholistic-care/

[10] http://www.friends-international.org/blog/index.php/think-support-families-orphanages/

Note: This post was originally an assignment written as part of the preparation for me to go on this trip. It has been modified for public viewing.

A Rude Awakening

Mine. I think about the things that I consider mine and how I came about them. I have food, I have clothing, I have shelter, I have a family, and I have love. I came about these things through my parents who worked hard to feed me, to clothe me, to put a roof over my head. My family is with me and is able to afford luxuries such as snacks, Internet, cars, laptops, phones; things I do not need to live with, but things that will help me to gain social status, and “connect” me to the rest of the world. My family went through the tough struggles of immigration and poverty before I existed such that now I am living a more than comfortable life. So what do I know of poverty?I only know what it must feel like to struggle to live from stories of the past, told to me by those who have. I can only imagine, I can only try to empathize with those who have experienced it.

It is only when you ask questions that you can get answers. When I walked down the street, I saw people like me - people who had. Then I saw people living on the streets. I saw people sleeping on the streets. I saw people begging for money, for food, for something. When I finally started asking myself how they got there, and what they are doing, I realized that not everybody is like me. Not everybody has a place to live, food to eat, or clean clothes to wear. Not everybody has family with them. But even at this stage, I did not understand. I began to think that they just did not work hard enough, that all they needed to do was try. How hard could it be?

I volunteered several times before. I went on sandwich runs, handing out food to the homeless in downtown Toronto. I cooked at a soup kitchen, and served meals to people. It felt good. It felt like I was helping out. Doing these things made me feel like I was a good “Christian”, they made me feel good about myself, and made me look good to others. I did it for me. I “helped” these people without wanting to understand why they were where they were; I helped them while thinking to myself that they didn’t really need my help but were getting things the easy way - they didn’t have to work for free food. They just had to come and eat.

For a while, I volunteered at a place for youth at risk. This was a place where I actually got to interact with the people I was supposed to help. I was supposed to spend time with them to see how they were doing, and what the organization could help them with. I met a lot of people who were very different from me. Some of them had just got out of jail, some had drug and alcohol addictions, some were accidentally pregnant, some were abused by their families. As I got to know these people, I realized that most of them didn’t get to where they were on purpose. I realized that it wasn’t because they were bad people or that they didn’t try that they needed help. I realized that this could have easily been me and my situation. This realization left an ugly feeling in my heart. I was suddenly so aware of the differences between the things I had that they didn’t - the comfort, the support, the family, the material things. As I tried not to be overwhelmed by the amount of suffering that exists in our world, I started to think about my place in the world. Why am I here and not there? How can I be genuine about helping these people?

The more I learn about what it means to really follow Jesus as a Christian, the more I see how he loved everyone he encountered; how he ate with the people society viewed as sinners [1], how he taught that people who give out of their poverty really give more than the rich who toss in the excess they can live without [2]. He understood the people who suffered because he was with them, and because he understood them, he could help them. He was intentional in everything he did such that he not only physically healed those who were outcast because of their illness, but also said it aloud so that everyone could hear that this person was now clean - restoring their social status [3]. As it is for me that God loves me in spite of my sin that he would offer me a way out - a gift and not something I can ever earn [4], with this same unconditional love I must give all that I can to help those in need. So it is not in my place to judge how or why they are where they are, but it is my duty to go and care for the people. I must go to the people who have not yet heard the good news: that although we live in a broken, sin-filled world, there is still hope in knowing that God is sovereign and will bring justice to the oppressed and peace to the suffering, to tell them that they won’t have to live like this forever [5].

I was introduced to World Orphans by my mentor who had recently come back from a trip to Ethiopia with this organization. She shared with me the brokenness she saw there and her experience with the orphans she met there. To find out that there are actually 240 children who are orphaned every hour [6] breaks my heart. As I absorbed this information, all I could think about was that something needed to be done. An opportunity came when my mentor told me that the same organization was looking for people to go on a learning/mission trip to Haiti. This is a trip where I will be able to learn about orphans and poverty, while also hold medical clinics with a hired local physician to look after the people who come. As I believe that the only way to really begin to understand a problem is to go there and be with the people who are suffering - so I am going.

I am currently raising funds for this trip that will cover the airfare as well as costs of medical supplies that we will be bringing. I don’t believe in blindly throwing money at causes, so since I am asking for your support, I will do my best to make transparent what I am actually doing there, and where the money is going. I hope to be able to continue providing updates as I prepare for the trip and also share about my experiences when I come back. If you would like to know more about how you can support me on this journey, feel free to contact me (through any means preferable to you) or visit my donor page here: http://worldorphans.donorpages.com/ST7212Haiti/RochelleChong/. Please note that this is an organization based in the US, so the amount donated will be in USD. If you wish to donate in CAD, please let me know!

Here is a beautiful Haitian song I stumbled upon while trying to learn the language, it is called "Ayiti Se", which translates to "Haiti Is".:

The lyrics and translation can be found if you scroll down a bit at this link: http://kreyolicious.com/mika-benjamin-ayiti-se-music-video-lyrics/7407/

Thanks for reading!!

[1] Mark 2:15-17

[2] Luke 21:1-4

[3] Mark 5: 24-34

[4] Romans 5:8

[5] Isaiah 61:1-2, Luke 4:18

[6] http://worldorphans.org/get-involved/resources/statistics/

Note: This post was originally an assignment written as part of the preparation for me to go on this trip. It has been modified for public viewing.

I Don't Care Anymore

It's 6am and I am awake. I am on a snowboarding trip just before school to make sure that my term starts off right. I've been wrestling with a question for a long time. A question whose answer came to me at this time, although it has not been fully formed. It's annoying that the answer came now because even though I was probably woken up by the alcohol, I can't go back to sleep because I am too excited to share what I have learned. When I asked God to reveal himself to me and when I asked him questions like how I can share my faith to my friends as he tells us to do, I did not expect or want him to come to me with a reply this morning. I wanted to go back to sleep and get the rest needed to spend all day on the slopes, but he will not let me go. So here it is.

In my time in Ottawa, I have been learning that God wants to make himself known to the peoples on this earth. How he wants to do that is apparently through people like me who do not want to go around bothering other people with a message of "you are a sinner but God has done something about it for you" because there is a guy who stands at a corner in downtown Toronto who pops out of nowhere shouting, "Repent!!" and he scares me. I do not want to be that guy. So... why can't God just use someone else and why does he have to bother me?? I do not know. Anyway, I've been going through a study with my small group on the book of Daniel in the Bible. This book is the story of how 4 Israelites were captured by the Babylonians in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar and how they showed the king who God is. It's remarkably similar to how I feel as a Christian living in today's North American society. I am surrounded by people who do not know God but I am inspired by Daniels relationship with God and the courage he has gives me courage.

While in Ottawa, I was also really upset at some people I encountered. People I had to work with, people I lived with, people everywhere. I hate people, sometimes. But even though sometimes I want to curse people who are difficult and punch them, I cannot because my God will not allow me to give up loving them. I started to be more compassionate toward the people who upset me, I tried to understand what was making them the way they were, and somewhere in that process I realized that I'm messed up too. But that's not all. I realized that no matter how badly these people upset me, no matter how much I wanted to hate them, I couldn't. And this is not something that comes from me. I do not want to love anybody who is mean to me or treats me badly. I do not want to care about anyone who doesn't care about me. But these things are not what God wants of me and he makes that very clear when I find myself unable to hate them. Sometimes when I talk to people who do not know God and they don't see him, I want to let them be, and just claim salvation for myself. But I cannot.

When I talk to other people who do not know God, I realize that they do not believe in God simply because they have not met him. This is understandable. I asked myself why I couldn't let go of my faith in Jesus and believe in something else instead - something more convenient and comfortable that does not require me to talk to other people about some god who loves them and seem like a crazy, intolerant, close minded person. But again, I cannot. I cannot turn away from the god that I know because he has my heart. He captivates me and I want to know more. I want to know him better and the closer I get to him the more I find myself changing.

So I do not care anymore. I do not care if you are my friend or my foe. I do not care what sins you have committed, what sexual orientation you have, what colour skin you have, or if you're really annoying. I do not care because the only thing that matters is that you know Jesus.

I do not want to care about spreading the good news about how believing and knowing Jesus will save us from our sins, but I do care. I asked my dad why he believed in God and why this God was more convincing to him than any of the traditional Chinese gods or the ones in Buddisim. The first thing he said was that true Buddisim doesn't have gods and is not a religion. It is a philosophy. Anyway - to not get sidetracked, he told me that when he started to know more about who God is from reading the Bible and talking to people at church, he started seeing how God had been working in his life and how God had been there all along. He has lived through and survived a lot just to come to Canada, marry my mom (who didn't go to church at the time) and find God. My dad says that he didnt know it at the time, but after he met God, he realized how much God had done for him and then trusting God with his heart became something he could do, especially in times of trouble. That's not to say that becoming a Christian will remove all your problems, but it is to say that when problems do come, one can find comfort in knowing that our God and creator loves and cares for us. God is sovereign and he will not leave us empty handed in despair.

So what now? How do I help people to see God? I am not good with words, I am not good at debating, I am afraid of people thinking that I'm delusional or crazy; but I know my God and he gives me the strength to live. He tells me that he is always with me (even when I do not want him around) and that is enough. As I feel God changing my heart, my thoughts and the way I see and treat people in my life, I am content to know that this is my God. The God. This is the God who wants me to live and love others, this is the God who wants me to point him out to those around me, those who have not met him yet - through my life. As my sister once told me, sometimes the only Bible people will ever read is you. So I will live this way. I will listen to the still small voice that tells me not to give up on the people around me, not to hate them, and to keep caring about helping them find Him. My God wants to be made known, and I can not say no to that.

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"And at times I can't stand you, but stand I must. Love is patient and long-suffering, it's all in your head. [...]  At times my own city makes me very upset, but still I haven't gave up on it yet." - Propaganda 

Hypocrite in the House

I went to see a show called, “The Music of Michael Jackson” on Saturday at the National Arts Centre. It was a show celebrating Michael Jackson, where the conductor rearranged his music in a different way to unite the orchestra and rock band with some guy who represented MJ as the singer and dancer. It was a great show. My friend and I both got student rush tickets – meaning we paid $12 each for seats that were normally sold for above $100. To top it off, we got seats in the box lodge – the best seats in the house. So we got there on time and in the box lodge, there are only two rows, two seats each. We were in the second row.

The people who were supposed to have the seats in front of us hadn’t arrived by the time the stage manager welcomed us and introduced the show. So seeing this as a great opportunity, I urged my friend to move up into the front row with me. Now we could see even better. I didn’t want to waste the nice seats in front of us, especially if the people weren’t going to come. So we took them. It was great. We were about two feet closer to the musicians and we could even hold onto the balcony and that’s next level. Sometime during the first half of the show, two people came into the box lodge and sat behind us. I looked back, and realized that they were probably the people who were supposed to be in the seats we were in but they came late.

During the intermission, my friend looked at me as if to say, “Um… shouldn’t we tell them we took their seats?” I shook my head and shrugged, “No, it’s rude of them to come late. Too bad”. To me, I didn’t do anything wrong. They came after the show started so those seats were fair game. They gave up the rights to those seats when they didn’t show up at 8pm. I am not moving. Plus, we’re shorter. If we switched seats, then we wouldn’t be able to see everything anymore. Their tall bodies and heads would be in the way and ruin the show for us (there were parts during the concert where we were standing, so we would have definitely been blocked). Even more, the people never said anything – they didn’t tap me on the shoulder to ask me if I took their seat by mistake (FYI - no, it was not a mistake). They didn’t do or say anything to show they were upset, so I refused to feel bad. If you don’t stand up for yourself then I’m not going to offer to move. If they asked, I would have moved. But they didn’t, so I had nothing to feel bad about – or so I thought.

After the show, my friend and I were walking to get some gelato and we talked about what happened. I kept giving her reasons as to why I didn’t feel bad and she kept telling me that she still felt wrong and bad about it. It’s funny because I knew she wouldn’t say anything to the people behind us because she’s shy. I think she expected me to do something about it – to return the seats to their rightful owners for that show.

I thought about it that night. Yes, part of me did feel bad and I knew that she was right. However, it felt good to have those front row seats in the box lodge. I was greedy. I already had a great deal in getting cheap tickets in one of the best seats, but when tempted with even better seats, I couldn’t resist. Then it hit me. Say I was shop lifting in a store and the owner saw me but didn’t say anything because I looked scary and they didn’t want to mess with me. If they let me leave their store with something that didn’t belong to me then I’m still a thief. It’s still wrong. So fine; I was wrong. I should have offered to give the seats back and if they were willing to let us short people enjoy the show then it would be okay.

It’s funny because my friend knows that I am a Christian and one time she asked me if it prevents me from doing what I want to do. I told her no – I don’t want to kill anybody, I don’t want to cheat, so everything’s cool. But she caught me stealing, so clearly something’s up. Being a Christian isn’t about being perfect. People look at us and criticize us for being hypocrites because we tell people they are wrong and point the finger when we also fall into sin. And that’s exactly why we need Jesus. If we were perfect, Christians wouldn’t need Jesus to die for our sins. We accept that Jesus died for our sins because we know that we are sinners. We do bad things all the time – just like how I stole those seats. I even got my friend to steal them with me, and took advantage of her timid-ness to keep those seats. I’m a bad influence. I manipulate my friends. So that’s why I need Jesus even more. I still sin. Even after knowing that Jesus died for me and his love is all I need for me to be happy, I still forget. I am still easily tempted by things that Satan knows is my kryptonite.

A friend I met at small group told me yesterday that people watch us. That’s part of why I was so afraid to let people know that I am a Christian. I was afraid that they would judge me and point out my flaws. I was afraid of finding out that I’m still a bad person, and even worse – I proclaim to be someone who wants to love others but I still do things that hurt. Once people know that I am a Christian, they will watch and point out the times I fall on my face. Then I will cry and they will say, “See. You are a hypocrite. See. You’re just as bad as I am”.

It is still true that my faith in Christ doesn’t mean I can't do what I want to do. I try my best to do what I think is right, but sometimes I fall too and listen to the evil voice that disguises itself in excuses. The consequence of this is that when I realize what I’ve done – then I am reminded that I am a sinner. Knowing that God still loves me is what brings me back to try and stop sinning - to be good again. I am sorry that I’m not perfect, that I let my God down and that I am not a “perfect Christian”. There is no such thing as a perfect Christian. We are all flawed.

Someone once told me this; when you point the finger at someone, there are always three pointing back at you.


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This is for you: Thinking Shoes, by Braille - Lyrics here

This is for me: Exile Dial Tone, by Beautiful Eulogy - Lyrics here

When God Didn't Love Me

Tablo, in Epik High’s latest album starts off his song “Amor Fati” (Love of Fate) with, “God doesn’t love me”. He is angry – angry at God. From the translation, annotation, and commentary on Youtube, it seems like he could be referring to the fact that he feels rejected by God because he is different from what society believes he should be like. I like this song because it reminds me that I have felt that way too.

In elementary school, I found that I got along better with the guys and preferred to play games with a tennis ball at our “ball wall” rather than run around playing “Red Rover” or whatever else the girls did. I was more interested in making my own Beyblade than talking about pink pants, and fixing things that broke than painting my nails or playing with Barbies. This was my weekday life, and I told myself I didn’t care what other people thought about me. Then the weekend would come, and things changed. I dreaded Sunday mornings. My mom would force me into a handmade dress and make me wear itchy stockings so I would be presentable at church. I hated that. I hated being a girl. I hated dressing up and pretending that I was someone I was not. I was not that kind of girl.

I grew up in the church, learning all the Bible stories and having people tell me that Jesus loves me. I believed that God existed and I would sing along with the other kids, sometimes singing lyrics that I didn’t truly believe. Jesus loves me? A perfect, loving God made me? Is this some kind of sick joke? Why would God make me a girl if he knew me? If he knew everything about me as the Sunday School teachers professed, why would he do this to me if he knew that I would prefer doing things the boys did? Sure, God was real, but he sure isn't good and doesn't love me. If he loves me – then maybe he isn’t all powerful because he made a mistake. If there was a line up for manufacturing defects in God’s people-making factory, I would be in that line.

Eventually, I realized that no amount of praying and hating God would change me into a boy. I decided to live my life and prove to God that I could be a boy. I could do what the boys did and there, God; I beat you. I tried really hard to make other people like me. I thought, maybe if I could get people to love me then God would love me too. I was a door mat, and I let people walk all over me. I wasn’t happy, I couldn’t meet my own needs, and in a search to find love and acceptance I became somebody else.

In high school, I took all the tech courses. I took this auto shop course, where we fix cars and learn about transportation technology. I was the only girl in my class. I think my classmates were surprised to see me, but that just fed me – I was proud to be there, proud to represent. Then I went to university to study engineering. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t go into these courses and this field of study just to make a point and prove the world and God wrong. I really do enjoy figuring out how things work and connecting the dots between math, physics, and turning that into real life problem solving. I live off of that. The fact that it was against tradition, against societal male-female roles only supplemented my passion for engineering. That’s right, God. I’m going to be an engineer. What are you going to do about it? You can’t change me. Nobody can stop me.

Mind you, these were my background thoughts that floated up to surface every once in a while. I still believed that Jesus saved me from my sins, and that God existed and made me. I experienced other things that proved to me that God loved me, but there was still doubt, this one question he never answered. But after so many years of receiving no answers from God, the burning question in my heart faded to a glow.

So I moved out for school; I went out of town. One weekend I decided to go home and visit my family. I went to church on Sunday and there was a guest lady speaker who was talking about the roles of women in the church. I can’t remember exactly what she said (this was about 2 years ago) and I admit that I zoned out a couple times, but the essence of what I got from her sermon was that God loves us all equally, male and female. He made us the way we are for a purpose and there are no mistakes. So should I believe her? Something inside me did. I was thinking hard about what she said, the proof she gave, the cultural perspective of the people back then, and commentaries and studies people did. She is a scholar (has a Ph.D.) and the way she presented her message was very factual.

More than that, I felt conviction (in both senses; guilt and strong belief). Something inside me knew; this is the truth. This is the answer you’ve been looking for. At that moment, I realized how wrong I was. I realized my whole life, all 18 or 19 years - I had believed a lie. It’s not that God doesn’t love me. It’s that I don’t love me. I realized that God made me the way he wanted, and he put people in my life who supported me – that auto shop teacher for example, he was super nice and supportive, he was proud of me for being in that class. My family supported my decision to go into engineering, and my engineering class doesn’t discriminate against the females. God did all these things for me, and my response? I turned my back on him and gave him the middle finger. I realized that all along he was trying to show me love. It was just that I misunderstood and I refused to let him change me. I refused to believe that he was good, that he loved me because I believed the lie that Satan whispered into my heart. God didn’t make a mistake. That day, I realized that he made me the way I am and he loves me regardless of how I see myself.

I don't know what hardships and suffering you've gone through, or how you may feel about yourself, but listen to me when I say this - don't give up on love. Love doesn't give up. It didn't give up on me, it never did. Promise me that until you see for yourself and find the truth, you'll keep searching for that unconditional love God promises us.

The ending of Tablo’s song (the outro) goes like this, “Oh God, he doesn’t love me, I know, he doesn’t love me. Well, neither do I”.
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This is the song, Amor Fati by Epik High in their new Shoebox album.

You can find the translation here (about 2/5ths down the page), Korean annotation and lyrics here, and Youtube comments here.

Side note: In verse 3 of the rap, Tablo asks if it's okay for a sin-less person to stone somebody. He is referring to Jesus, when he stopped people from stoning a woman who committed adultery. Stoning was the punishment for someone found guilty of adultery based on Old Testament laws. I think when Jesus said, "Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone", he didn't mean for it to be that it's okay to stone somebody. His point was to let them know that they were all sinners. Nobody had the right to make a judgement call on whether or not the woman deserved to live. My understanding of the situation he refers to is that the only person who has the right to judge whether a person deserves to live or die is God - because he is sin-less. Read the story I'm referring to here.

This is a song called Surrender, by Beautiful Eulogy. I love their album, but I think this song best fits this post.  Lyrics here.

Separated

Have you ever felt like you were separated from someone? Like... you should have them in your life but they're not there. And you feel something about it but then sometimes you don't think about them and don't care.

For example, I never really met my grandparents before they passed away. I actually only met one of them when he was aged and there was this language barrier and I only saw him for maybe two weeks one summer. I have heard my friends talk about their grandparents and the things they do together on the weekends, or after school. So I know that I am missing them in my life. My parents have talked about my grandparents, so I know about them. I know some of the things they did and have some idea of what their personality was like. But I don't actually know them. I don't have a relationship with them, no shared experiences, nothing. I don't even know what they look like. I've seen photos but I don't know all their expressions and I don't have a picture in my head when I think about them. And most days I don't miss them. There's nothing to miss, really... I never had anything to begin with right? So I don't know what I would be missing... other than perhaps a similar experience to that of what my friends talk about? I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to do with an old person anyway. Would we laugh together? Would they tell me exciting stories of their past? Would they give me advice about how to go about life and pass on some wisdom?

So I think about this. My grandparents and I, we've been separated by death. I'm not really sad. On a day to day basis, I feel fine. I can live life without them and I feel like any other human being. I don't even think about them until someone starts talking about their grandparents, or when family members talk about their past. But when I do think about my grandparents, I have this feeling inside me somewhere that is a little bit like an abyss. Just some dark empty space that provokes some sort of emotion in me. I'm not sure how to feel. Acceptance? That's all I can do now anyway. Life is life. People live, people die.

And I grow up learning that there is this God. That the first human beings (Adam and Eve) used to live with God, and they lived in a paradise of some sort, the Garden of Eden. They knew who God was - they had a relationship with him. They could talk to him, they could be with him. But then this thing happened where they were tempted by Satan and sinned, acting in disobedience to God. And since God is perfect - without sin (because he can't disobey himself) then he couldn't be with Adam and Eve any more. They had to be separated because of sin. So Adam and Eve were thrown out of the paradise and their children grew up in a world corrupted by sin.

They grow up away from God. Occasionally, someone would be able to talk to God. God would appear in a burning bush, or express his thoughts through dreams and the people who genuinely tried to find him did. They were able to converse with him through prayer, dreams, visions, and in other ways that weren't in as physical a sense as if it were you and I. And God would do things to show that he loves and cares about his people by doing miracles like parting the Red Sea, or bringing plagues to captors, and giving people the strength and courage to accomplish things like freeing their people, or winning a battle. All the while, there were people who would forget about God and about his power because they couldn't see him. Or maybe because they didn't have a personal relationship with him. So they didn't really know who he was, but only knew about him. They didn't get to live in paradise, so they don't know what life was meant to be like. These were the people born into a corrupted world, so they would do things that were corrupted too. They would build idols of gold and worship them. They would envy and steal from each other, they would hurt each other for personal gains. Then someone would tell them, "Hey, God doesn't want us to hurt each other. Don't you trust him? Don't you know that he will take care of us?". Time and time again, as generations passed from ones who were alive to witness the things God did for them, to the ones who only heard about it from their parents, fewer and fewer people knew God personally.

So what can we do? How are we supposed to fix this? How can we be unseparated so that we can be with God in paradise again? How do we remove this sin barrier, how can we fill this gaping hole? How can we know God......? We don't even know what he looks like, and I'm not sure what to picture in my head either when I think about God. A bright white light surrounding some sort of human-shaped mass???

God sent his son, Jesus to earth. Jesus lived a life sin-free. He obeyed all of God's rules and commandments and loved everyone. Then he died when we killed him and hung him on a cross. But that's the physical body that died. When he died, he volunteered himself to be the sacrifice that could connect us back to God again. His death as a sin-free person was enough to justify our freedom from the punishment of sin. Then he came back to life, defeating death in his spiritual body, and went to be with God (in church, the act of baptism is a symbol of a human dying with Jesus to our life in sin and being revived to a new life, one where we can be with God).

I met a nice lady on the greyhound on my way back to Ottawa one time. She offered me part of her granola bar and that's when we started our conversation. She was from Saudi Arabia and wore a full burqua. After I asked her about what life was like in Saudi Arabia, she asked me if I believed in any religion, and eventually we started talking about the differences between Islam and Christianity. When we got to the problem of sin, she told me that she felt that it wasn't fair that Jesus was allowed to take the punishment of sin for us. She felt that each person should bear the consequences of their own actions and that's that. There was no, "PLEASE, take me instead!!" She said that there was a difference between major and minor sins. For major sins, they were less forgivable and I don't remember what she said about how you could recover from that kind of sin [This website gives the rankings of the major sins, there are 70, but I can't find anything on how to be forgiven for this- let me know if you have the answer]. For minor sins, you could waive the punishment by doing enough good deeds and by repenting (feeling remorse and regret for your actions, and making a conscious effort to stop doing it).

So in both cases, you would sin. Then you would repent. In Christianity, when you repent, you are asking Jesus to take your punishments for you - and there is no difference in level of sin (to God, sin is sin, whether big or small). You still feel remorse and regret for your actions but you also know that Jesus is there to pay the price for what you did. As for the lady, she believed that after you do good deeds and repent then the sin just disappears and the punishment is waived. So there would be no need for Jesus.

I believe that once your sins have been paid for, you have a clean slate. The barrier between you and God is removed, thanks to Jesus.  "So if everyone just relied on Jesus to pay the price, then what stops people from sinning more and then repenting?", she asked. I told her that people who knew God wouldn't want to sin anymore. After I realized that God loves me and accepted the offer of Jesus' death in my place for my sins, I didn't want to be separated anymore. I wanted to be closer to him, to know more of who my creator is. I want him to be here in my life, to show me things and teach me how to love people. I wanted to find what my purpose in life is, and to give me the courage to follow that path regardless of what the people who don't know him say. So if sinning means that I would be separated from God, then I wouldn't want to sin, and the fact that Jesus is willing to pay the price for my sin doesn't mean that I want to abuse it. I know that I am not perfect, and even after accepting Jesus as my saviour (saving me from an eternity of separation from God), I will still do things that are harmful to others, and be tempted by the corruption in the world we live in (or, Satan). But instead of living in fear that I missed a prayer or didn't do enough good deeds to outweigh the bad, I am driven by love to live a life worthy of someone that God loves. When I do sin, Jesus is there for me and by strengthening my relationship with God, I can learn to be someone who sins less and loves more.

So for the people who don't know God, he is there. He is real, and there is this broken relationship between you and him. But he loves you, so he wants it to be fixed. He wants you to know him personally - not just to know about him. He wants to be reconciled with you so that you can live with him forever after life in this physical earthly body. I believe that we have a soul (the conscience/essence of me? still working this out), a spiritual body and that our physical bodies are just a shell.

Sometimes when I think about all the new people I meet when I move every four months for school and coop, I wonder about how much time I should invest in getting to know them. If we won't keep in contact eventually after I leave and if we just drift apart then what's the point? Why bother? I will only feel sad and miss them when I leave. But you know, when I think of life in a bigger perspective, when I remember that they also know God and are saved by Jesus, then I have peace in knowing that one day I will see them again. So I try my best to get to know them and develop a relationship that is supportive, loving, and good. Then when we leave our shells and go to where ever God is, we will see God and each other again. We will all be reunited.

The following two videos explain the separation from God and how to fix it. The top is done in the form of typography, the one on the bottom is a rap/spoken word piece if you prefer. Hopefully gives a better picture of what I'm trying to say...

This one is a rap by the guy above with a similar theme to some of the stuff I mentioned in this post. Lyrics here

Thanks for reading again!

Pitch: Life Satisfaction

There are a lot of unsatisfied people in the world. It seems like there is some void that people just can't seem to fill. I went shopping with my parents a few days ago. I was just browsing the sale section in the store my mom was interested in when a lady beside me suddenly said, "This looks good on me right?" I looked around to see who she was talking to - and it was me. I told her, "Yeah, I like that it has pockets. It's always good to have pockets." Then she frowned, staring into the mirror. She then asked, " Do you like this shirt?" to which I responded, "Yeah, I am a fan of polka dots, so I would like it."

The conversation continued like this to the point where she invited me to her change room so she could try on the shirt with different cardigans. Each time, she asked me if I liked it.  I said, "Um.. well I won't be seeing you in it... so... if you like it you should get it." I really didn't know who she was and I didn't really care what she wore, or if it looked good on her. I wasn't sure why she was asking me. I have nothing to do with her, why does my opinion matter to her?

I was thinking about this and then I realized that a lot of people aren't satisfied with their lives, always wanting more money, more clothes, fame, etc. But even the wealthiest celebrities who have money and fame aren't happy. So I thought to myself, if I found a solution to this problem, then I would be rich. If there was a way to obtain life satisfaction - I could make millions. Let's take a look at the market: well it seems like everyone wants to be satisfied with their lives. Is there a need? Yes. There are definitely people who are not satisfied with their lives. Hmm... this looks like a good problem to solve, and I believe I have found the solution, at least - for myself.

In design, we are taught to look at the state of the art; what is the current best solution to the problem? If the solution I have isn't better, then it is not worth pursuing. The current best solution for people to get life satisfaction is money, love from friends & family, fame, and accomplishments (awards, records, etc.). The problem with these things is that they are temporary. Money doesn't last forever, and your friends and family aren't perfect - they may not always express enough love to satisfy you.

But what if I told you there was a solution that was self-sustaining? That seems to be the trend right now - aquaponics is a good example of a self-sustaining ecosystem. A self-sustaining solution would mean that you wouldn't need money, fame, nor love from another person.

What does it cost?
This is another key difference from the current solutions - it doesn't cost you anything, unless you want it to. The idea is that you invest your love into the people around you. Making another person happy brings satisfaction to your own life - I see this in my land lady, who was delighted to know that I was starving after my 5 hour bus ride home and had extra food she could feed me. Accepting her help and eating her food made my stomach happy, but it also made her feel happy - she did something good to help another person out and it gives the sense of self-worth.

How is it self-sustaining?
God loves us - he shows this to us through our lives and through the other people who show us love. I see how much God loves me on a personal level when I reflect on my life - the events that happened to me and how each person I met got me to a point where I realized that none of this could have happened coincidentally - since this happens way more than I am aware. For example, I initially wanted to get into mechatronics - a different engineering program. But instead, I got offered Systems Design Engineering, which I found to be much better and I love the program (some of my peers may not agree). I really believe that it is for me now that I think about it and meeting all the people I have met since starting the program (in my class and at the school)  have really changed me into the person I am now - someone who has a better understanding of what my life's purpose is and where I am going in my life. I realized that if I had gotten into mechatronics instead then I would probably hate myself and not know what to do with my life. This is just a small example of the many things God has done for me to prove that he loves me.

So first - I have all this love from God that I found by reflecting on my past and the people who have invested their love into my life. I went to visit my friends this weekend and every conversation I had was meaningful and whatever I needed to have resolved was resolved, and I left feeling very satisfied and full of love. It was a spontaneous trip I had been hoping to have for a while (just for fun) and when the opportunity for the travel arrangements arose, I took it - and it just happened to work out that everyone I wanted to see was there, and were free to meet (or made time for me). I hadn't really even put too much thought into why I wanted to go but I just knew that it was something I needed to do. I wish I could share more with you but this is a public post so you can just ask me :P

So I am satisfied now with the love that I have received from God. Then I invest it into someone else. When you give to someone who is in need, you are really giving to Jesus. As a Christian, I believe that God lives in me (we call this the Holy Spirit). When I prayed for forgiveness and for Jesus to save me from my sins, I also invited God to live in me - to change me into someone who is more like him - someone who is more loving.

And God has an unlimited supply of love because he is love, so his love comes back to me again. And it's a cycle!  It's funny because God's love is actually still there whether or not I love other people, but when you have the love that God has given you - you just want to share it with others. It's almost as if you want to be part of this whole love cycle, and God is inviting you in.

So that's it! We get satisfaction in life knowing that we are loved by our designer on such a deep level - one where he cares about every aspect of my life, and he shows it all the time. The only thing that stops us from seeing this love is us. We aren't always looking in the right place for love. We need to be more aware of the things that are going on in our lives - to wake up and really look for how God has been and still is present in your life.

What do you have to lose?
Nothing.  Since it doesn't cost you anything, you don't lose anything by trying to find God in your life. And God promises that if we look for him with all of our hearts, we will find him. So this is the best investment you could make - you don't need to have money to have life satisfaction. You just need love, and God's love is free for those who want it. Loving others is a byproduct of the love you receive from God, so you will want to give it away when you have it because it is so good. We can all be rich - not with money, but with love.

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If you have questions feel free to ask me, and I will do my best to find you answers, be open minded and listen to what you have to say. I know that people don't like it when other people try to "force" their ideas onto others - I don't believe that this works so I won't try to force anything. Thank you for reading.