Passover!

Last night, our team of 80+ people celebrated Passover. I found myself in charge of coordinating this mammoth event, which involved a presentation on the meaning of Passover as well as preparing and serving the food. The group I led had 18 people in it, and we came up with a really fun way to explain the Passover to our ‘audience’ – and everybody loved it! It was really fun.

But it took weeks of preparation to pull this all off! I love managing projects and events and coordinating people, but it’s always so much work. Today, I am dead on my feet after yesterday. Keeping track of people and tasks, making sure tables and chairs were looked after, and even getting adequate lighting since we were going to be outside… there are so many details. Then there was the actual presentation to prepare, and then the huge feast to cook! With the help of a few others, I roasted six legs of lamb, seven chicken breasts, and four very small, whole chickens. (Side note: the chickens come plucked and packaged in the store, but since the Chinese sometimes like to eat the whole thing, the head and legs are still attached!! I had to cut off chicken heads. It was horrifying, to say the least. And they don’t come off with one chop, either. I’ll spare you the photos I took of that gruesome process.)

It was a good ten hours of being on my feet, having my phone ringing endlessly and when it wasn’t ringing, making my own calls to other people to tie up all the ends. But the event was a huge, roaring success! People really enjoyed the presentation (we put Passover into modern day terms, making it like a cooking lesson – and it was really funny, but also very informative … it may sound weird, but it really was brilliant, if I do say so myself!). And the decorations and atmosphere really had a great feel and helped make for an incredible time of fellowship. We had lots of vegetables, potatoes, an egg dish, the meat, matzah, and charoseth to form our Passover feast.

It was a lovely time, and today my body hurts from the long day of running around preparing everything. I hardly sat down yesterday! I’m a bit stiff, but it was worth it. It was a very memorable Passover!

(I am in this photo, serving food - but it's a little dark. I'm towards the bottom right, in grey pants and black shirt)

Feeling the Separation Anxiety

There really are probably only a few of you reading this who know what it feels like to literally give up everything, and move across the world into an utterly unknown (to you) country and culture, full of new people and customs. To desperately check your email every day, because it feels so good to hear from someone who has more than a few days’ or months’ history with you. To feel a pang for the days when you weren’t the ‘foreigner’ everywhere, where you didn’t have to think twice about an exchange rate, when even the small things like paper sizes were a given (they are a different size here) or it never occurred to you that basic things like Advil and Tylenol don’t exist outside the States (similar things exist, but by different names which can be confusing).

I gave up everything to come here – my car, my apartment, (most of) my furniture, my friends and family, my dog, lots of clothes and other material things, my roommate. I left home with two suitcases and a laptop, my ipod and camera. That was it. It’s very stressful to let go of things.

I know you may be thinking, “I could give up material things” or “I’d love to live in another country, how fun!” but the reality is, while I am so glad I gave up everything and yes, living in another country is fun, it is a MAJOR life transition and has been a daily struggle to mould myself into a new person. I don’t consider myself a materialistic person, but it was hard to get rid of things that were gifts or had sentimental value to me. And if you really look around you, at all the things you have including your furniture and car and home, and try to imagine paring that down to two suitcases, you can see how hard it is.

Of course, the struggles have brought a lot of triumph, and I have grown tremendously in confidence and faith this year. But I know when I go back to the U.S., I will have separation anxiety from this place where I’ve experienced such growth. Hong Kong has been the setting of a very significant year of my life, perhaps even the most significant, and I will have a hard time letting it go.

So when I am home, and I want to talk about Central and the 962 and typhoons and the ladies at Wellcome and the way pharmacists give you huge bags of pills or how fun it is to eat a real Chinese family-style meal, please indulge me and listen. I am afraid of getting blank looks and people thinking, “I have no idea what she’s talking about” or “Oh great … Suzanne’s on again about China” and I really want to share anecdotes and other things with my friends without them getting bored.

So, I’m going to try to continue to process this year as I transition. Please give me some room to have some personal debrief time when I’m home. It’s a lot to process, and the reverse culture shock doesn’t help (it’s almost worse than the culture shock of a new country). I am anticipating some sadness and pangs of separation from this amazing place, so please, bear with me.

That being said, I really am looking forward to these next steps ahead, and can’t wait to see you when I am back in the great state of TEXAS.

My Experiences with Hired Vans

Today I was tasked with spending the whole day (ie leaving at 7:45 am and not getting back until 7:30 pm) at a fair for charities at the YWCA in the mid-levels on Hong Kong island, just at the base of the Peak, which offered an amazing view of the city.

It all began at 7:15 am when I crossed the road near where I live to get something to eat at the supermarket. But turns out they don't open until 7:30, so I had to settle for Pringles at the 7-11. Back on the site, I gathered the materials I needed and waited for 13-year-old Zoe to join me, who had very graciously agreed to keep me company today as she is on school holidays.

We had hired a van to take us to the fair (it's over an hour drive to get there in traffic, and taking boxes on a crowded bus or trying to drive there and pay for the obscenely expensive parking costs is out of the question). At 7:45 am I got a call from the van company, and it was a three-way call with me, the Chinese speaking-only driver, and a translator from the company. I was waiting where we had agreed, but the van was not in the right spot and didn't see me. The translator started saying, "You are late. Hurry up!" and then me saying "I'm here, where are you?" and in the midst of this were strings of Chinese and overall it was a chaotic phone call, which ended in a dial tone and me having no idea if the driver was coming or not. But he turned up, and we loaded our things and climbed into the very dodgy looking van for our trek to Central.

The driver then started very adamantly saying something to Zoe, who is Chinese but was brought up in Canada and only speaks English. I tried to shield her from him, and make him talk to me rather than freak Zoe out by letting him get so seemingly angry with her. He finally called someone (which I was about to do on my end) to translate, and turned out he wanted the address again since he didn't know where to go. I gave it to him, and we set off.

I know the way to drive there myself, and when the driver went the wrong way I didn't know how to explain it to him to turn around. He got back on his phone (presumably ranting about the idiots in his van) and with my very limited Chinese I could tell he was getting directions.

We got to the right highway, and ambled on with the millions (literally) of other people headed the same way. He zipped in and out of lanes, speeding as much as he could and braking just as rapidly. He nosed his way in between big buses and honked his way past motorcycles.

Then, I looked over at Zoe, and to my horror she was throwing up. The mother gene immediately kicked in and I helped her clean herself up, and calm the driver all at the same time. He softened up a lot towards us after that. Poor Zoe though. She apparently had been having some sickness after the dinner the night before, but thought she'd be ok.

We finally got to the Cross Harbour Tunnel (with the rest of Hong Kong) and pushed through some pretty hairy traffic, eventually succeeding and getting across to the island.

The rest of the day had it's own twists and turns, including me finally putting Zoe in a taxi to get to the bus to go home since she wasn't getting better.

At the end, another volunteer, Mandy, turned up and she and I gathered our things again and went down to the street to wait for another hired van to collect us. This driver's English was much better than the morning's driver, and I prided myself in being able to communicate with his broken English and my very, very broken Chinese (consisting only of how to say where I live, and a few other words), and show him on a map where to go and even which tunnel I preferred to use (Cross Harbour is waaay cheaper than West Harbour). We settled in for another bout of heavy traffic, but had some incredible views of the city at night from the highway near the Peak, and eventually found our way home.

I'm now exhausted, and need rest in a bad way. But it was a productive time of sharing with people about our work and hopefully even encouraging a few of them to join us.

The Refining Fire of the Servant King

This morning, we gathered together to sing and share together, and the last song we sang was Servant King. One part says, “He calls us now to follow Him\ to bring our lives as a daily offering …\ to the Servant King.” The song is about knowing how to serve, and to follow His example. But those particular lines got me.

I’ve been reflecting for about a week on what it really means to be “all in.” I remember being home over Christmas, and our pastor made the analogy to being “all in” in a poker game, taking a chance and throwing all your chips in. Like with the Potter’s Hand song, the Servant King one also really spoke to me. It’s also been making me think of the song Refiner’s Fire (I don’t know why I keep thinking in songs lately … they’re just so catchy, I guess!). In that song, we sing about being in His refining fire, being set apart for our Master and ready to do His Will.

The season He’s been leading me through has been one of understanding what it means to be “all in.” In these songs, I am singing to Him that I am bringing my life as an offering to Him, that I am choosing to give my life into his moulding, filling and guiding process, and that I want to be refined in His fire, and formed into whatever He wants me to be, and used for His Will only.

That’s a hard thing to get your head around. I jumped into that fire when I let Him bring me to Hong Kong. And this year has had its hard times. There’s probably only a select few of you reading this who really know what it’s like to be completely on your own, 10,000 miles away from anyone you’ve ever known. You’re unable to call or email easily with people who know you and love you, you’re trying to understand and live in a culture so wholly different to your own … and you just do not feel connected to people at home, almost forgotten sometimes. But it’s been because of this that I’ve been able to focus more on Him, and He’s been able to bless me so abundantly with finances and new relationships, and a greater understanding of the world and the place He has for me in it. It’s something I hope everyone can experience some time, because it will truly change your life.

What I’m wanting to get at is, it’s a lifelong process of being in the fire, of being shaped and molded, of being formed and led to new things. It’s certainly not always an easy process, but it’s always, always a satisfying one. I have no choice but to let Him provide financially for me. I have no choice but to let Him bring new friends and encouragements in unusual ways to me. I have no choice but to ask Him for help, because there really is no one else I can go to. All these things have the makings of causing lots of anxiety, stress, and loneliness, but when I let Him have control, and am “all in,” it’s been gratifying and grown my faith in Him.

So as I head on from here, and jump back into the fire, I am thinking of how He is continuing to mold me and use me in ways I can’t even imagine. Even if I will miss my life here, and expect to say “my dun” and “mgoi sai” a few times without realising it … I know that He is taking me back through the fire and purifying my heart even more for His purposes. I need to put all my chips in, and just trust Him to take over and take my life into His potter’s hands. And that’s definitely a good thing.

Let's remember the animals, too!

I just finished reading an article in the Hong Kong Post Magazine about animal cruelty in mainland China. Hong Kong tends to disassociate itself from the ‘barbaric’ mainland, and in turn actually has decent animal rights laws (and human rights laws). The article made me sick to my stomach, I was just so horrified to hear about these things happening just to the north of me.

The article was an expose particularly about ‘safari theme parks’ in the mainland. Purely for entertainment for tourists, they will do things like throw a live goat, head first, onto the concrete and have lions rip it apart while it’s still alive and screaming. You can even, as a tourist, pay more money to watch the same thing happen to a cow, or for less money to chickens and other smaller animals. And it’s not like people are well away from the action – often there is only a thin fence protecting them from the animals. Sometimes people are even given fishing rods with meat on the ends and encouraged to tease the animals.

And people do get attacked. One girl got her head bitten off by a tiger when she was sitting on it for a photo and another boy got eaten alive by alligators he was teasing.

To bears and even to their treasured pandas, they will file their teeth down to nubs and either starve them or heavily sedate them so people can sit on them to take photos. They even lure tigers in front of a bus load of people, then feed the tigers a live animal to be ripped apart in front of the people. The animal is usually mauled but not dead, so those working at the parks will run it over with a car to finish it off when the tigers don’t.

And this is all done to the applause and joy of people watching, and paying money to keep it happening. The keepers at the parks think it’s a great way to demonstrate man’s dominion over the animals, and they also seem to somehow think they are helping educate children about how wild animals act.

I can’t help but think, if you can do this to poor animals then how do you treat human beings?? I know animals aren’t the same as people, but being taught that it’s acceptable to torture them can’t be a good thing to learn. The article was just so disgusting and I was beyond horrified. The pictures made it even worse. I wanted to stop reading, but I just couldn’t. Those of you who know me well know how much I love animals, so this was particularly awful for me to read.

So, while we should certainly remember people in need around the world, let’s also remember the poor animals who are being tortured as well. They need our love, too!