Ministering to Rich Kids

In my last post, the weather came up a lot, but I just have one last thing to say about it for a while. The last week or so has been BEAUTIFUL! Super clear blue skies for the last 5 or 6 days! It's been great, but it's nice to have a semi-cloudy day today. It's actually really beautiful today. Hopefully it'll rain a little bit later :)

So I came to China for ministry, not just work experience, but I didn't want to talk too much about how that was going until I had a really realistic picture of what it would be like. I feel like I have that a little bit more now. There's a few things to note about ministry in my situation. One, I'm not working with poor and needy individuals. You think Americans have a lot? These kids have more, I can guarantee it. It is no problem at all for kids to get money for whatever they want. Want your kid to go to a mission trip at church? No problem! No fundraising necessary! That's one thing I never expected. I've talked to several people, and the consensus seems to be that the kids here are generally "good kids," but they do have a lot of freedom, which leads me to my second point. Second, they get what they want. Parents here in the expat community are generally pretty permissive parents. Some of them come from cultures where it's no problem to kinda let your kids take care of themselves and trust them to take care of themselves in the streets of a big city. Others simply feel guilty for making their children switch homes as much as they do because of their work, so to ease the guilt, they'll let their kids do a lot of things. So even though all of these kids are REALLY NICE kids, many of them have secret sides to them; thoughts that they wouldn't want anyone to know that they say under their breath or that they wear on their faces or things that they've done that you won't know about until they trust you, which leads me to my third point. Third, many of the kids here trust people very easily, probably because so many have moved so many times, so they're used to building strong friendships very quickly.

That being said, there have already been situations where I've gotten a chance to see the kids' differing views of God. Last week at church, I sat with a very posh little British boy, William. He's a very proper-sounding kid, gets very good grades, is a top athlete, and just sounds wealthy. He said in reaction to something during the lesson in a very cynical tone of voice, "oh, you mean God actually does answer prayers?" and then he scoffed and moved on with life. I talked to him afterwards and he seemed pretty put-out with God, but he wouldn't say why. I look forward to getting to know him more. He likes to answer questions during the lessons, and he sounds great, but it seems like there's something under the surface.

Other kids at youth group on Friday nights are other religions altogether. I really respect the two Mormon boys who come, because I taught this past Friday on how to study the Bible, and they both mentioned things during the lesson where I could tell that they disagreed with something I said. They talked to me afterward about some of the basics of Christianity, and I respected them because they both understood during the lesson, "hey, I really think that there's something different between my view and this teacher's view," so they talked to me about it very openly. They asked explicitly, what's the difference between Protestantism and Mormonism? and I was happy to answer them. They understood that there is a difference between our view of grace, in that they believe that God's grace intervenes "after all that we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23) and we believe that God's grace intervenes while we were still sinners and our good works come into play after God's grace has made the full payment for our eternity. They very respectfully asked me what my thoughts were on what is ok for them to share during Bible study because they knew that their opinions may stir up controversy. I asked them to share whatever they feel like is profitable for sharing, but if there is a fundamental difference in belief, to please still share it, just in private with me after the study rather than with the whole group. They were both just such good gentlemen about it that it made it impossible for that conversation to be confrontational in any way. They want to continue dialogue about it, and I'm very excited to do the same with them! I teach again every Friday except for a few from now on, so I can't wait!

There's also several kids who have graduated, but they're going to university in the UK, which doesn't start until October, so they keep coming to youth group. One of them is a fairly young believer, and he wants to meet to go over some apologetics.

The remainder of them are just very smart kids in very smart schools who are wondering about some very hard things. Homosexuality, God's justice, evolution, and many other hard things are the topics they want to know about, so I'm having to answer those questions. This is where I'd really like to thank The Master's College faculty for going over that stuff with me and all my fellow students. I can't emphasize enough how much being there grew me and gave me a really good understanding on how to answer the questions that they're asking. Thank you to the faculty and the students that I stayed up late with talking about these questions. I answer them almost daily in a Biblical (hopefully!) way.

Even at work in the office, these questions come up. I'll write a post sometime maybe about more of these questions and how we've been dealing with them, but I hope this gives you a better idea of ministry here in China.

What You Make It

Another glorious week in Beijing down! The first week was a little brutal trying to learn the school's system of doing things, but this week has been a little better. I'm starting to get used to my schedule more. Yesterday was the first school day that I didn't have volleyball tryouts to be at, and that was Cross Country's cue to begin! So, now that tryouts for all the teams are done, I now know my weekly schedule. Volleyball is Monday, Friday, and Saturday, and Cross Country is Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Then I've also got youth group on Friday nights, various meetings throughout the week with people from church, and going out to see the city with the other two interns. I'm a busy man.

It was a HUGE blessing the last few days to have beautiful weather! Every day, I check the pollution on an app that I have. The average last week was probably like 185 (which is pretty much Los Angeles' worst day), but Friday-Monday was between 40 and 80, which was great! It was clear blue skies, which is pretty rare!

Beijing can be really pretty when it wants to be! But you know what? As beautiful as this is, it's really pretty to have the usual "fog" too. Yes, I know it isn't fog, but my point is that so often, we complain about things that we really can't change at all. I can't change the pollution here in Beijing. I can hope for blue skies every now and then, but if I have a bad attitude about things that just won't change, it's just me ruining the day that the Lord has made, isn't it? The apostle Paul rejoiced at the fact that he was in chains in Philippians 1:12-14! You say, "well of course he was joyful because he was in chains for the sake of the gospel! You can't use that as backing for being joyful with pollution because that isn't suffering for the sake of Christ!" Is that true? I think that life is going to be a wilderness experience, and like pollution, we can't do anything about it. All of life is just working, working, working; thirsting, thirsting, thirsting. Even in the West, nothing comes free. Nothing will ever be so convenient that we can just live completely sedentarily. Once we achieve something big, we wake up the next morning and we can't just relax and do nothing. We have to work for the next thing! It's a sad reality, but too true. Solomon picked up on it in Ecclesiastes: "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," says the preacher all throughout the book. His point was that even when you reach the zenith of pure joy on this earth, it never makes you happy forever. The thirst comes back. That's why being an experience junkie doesn't work. Life is a wilderness. As Wesley says in The Princess Bride, "LIFE IS PAIN, HIGHNESS!" It's true. It's a series of pain, work, exhaustion. You can't change it. So what do you do with it? It'll be all the more painful and exhausting if you just dwell on how hard life is. If every Beijinger woke up and complained about the pollution, there would be zero joy in this city. But that doesn't happen. Like the blue skies of Beijing, life can be beautiful if you want it to be.

I like these lyrics from one of my favorite bands right now, All Sons and Daughters. In their song, "Brokenness Aside," they say something that really got me. "I am a sinner. If it's not one thing, it's another; caught up in words, tangled in lies. But you are a Savior and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful." I think there is beauty even in the wilderness of life. One of the greatest ultrarunners in the world, David Goggins, hates running. He does it because he knows that people are attracted to pain. He raised $1,000,000 for the college funds for children of fallen special operators. If he were to sell hot dogs or do car washes, it wouldn't work. But he knows that there is beauty in pain and people will give money to see it. As masochistic as this sounds, isn't it true? Most people don't think that way, but life is what you make it.

First Day of School

Man, getting to work early is the bomb diggity. It's pretty sweet because there's no one here clogging up the internet bandwidth! Today is a special day because it's the first day of school. All of the hectic-ness of this week is more or less done and starting on Monday I think we'll get into a groove as far as the schedule goes! This week has been good to get to know the staff in the WABX office. Yesterday we had our first coaches meeting! It was fun to finally put names to faces to sports and all of that.

When I got home, aunt Liz and the kids were a little frazzled to say the least. The first thing that happened when I walked in the door, still sweating profusely from my workout, was that Jeremy asked "did you hear about the flood?" Flood? It didn't rain today? Well, what happened was that a pipe burst underneath the sink, and apparently the ground floor of the house got COVERED in water! Oh Chinese workmanship... Aunt Liz had workers who got it fixed and cleaned up before I even got home though! But because of the mess it created, we went out to dinner, which was fantastic, and got home around 9 after grocery shopping. The kids got everything ready for their first day of school, and now the big day is here! It's the first day of school for the three of us, and we're ready to go! Jeremy's on the left side of the picture (he's in 8th grade), I'm in the center in my fancy WABX shirt, and Isabella is on the right (she's a Senior).

Jeremy and I walked to school and talked on the way and it was great. I'm at work now getting new pictures to put on the walls of our weightlifting gym and just doing more organizational stuff for our first day of Fall sports tryouts.

Anyway, you haven't seen the place I'm living at yet! Here's a tour:

It looks kinda like a walled compound. All the houses in Cathay View do.

Then you get into the courtyard through this gate.

This is what the house looks like from the courtyard! Beautiful traditional Chinese architecture huh? There's four floors all in all, and I'm on the top, which is kinda hard to see in this picture.

This is the courtyard too. We have a little outdoor eating area that can be used in fall and spring, but definitely NOT right now with the humidity and just general nastiness.

This is the living room, with Jeremy on his computer. 

Maybe after I get my room all cleaned up, I'll show you pictures of that too. And our neighborhood is great! It's got a bunch of really great spots for running, or sitting and relaxing. Gorgeous.

With school starting up and coaching two sports this season, it's pretty busy. I met with our cross country (XC) coaches yesterday, and they're both great. We have myself, Mike, and Corrie. Mike is from Iowa but he's been living abroad for a long time, and Corrie is from the States as well and she's been here a couple years. They both have a fair amount of running experience, but they're leaving most of the coaching to me, which is pretty exciting! With volleyball, yes I'm coaching but I'm not the one in charge of it, which means I can devote most of my time to XC! Can't wait.

Fitting In

So here's the deal with my blog. China and Google do not always get along. So pretty often, they have a little fight about something in Google news that makes China look bad, so China blocks Google across the country. The last week or so has been that way. At my aunt's house, I can't access blocked websites, but at school, we have a VPN that allows users to access blocked websites. Facebook is pretty much inaccessible for me just because it's SO SLOW, even at school. So that's the reason why I haven't been posting anything to cover my first week here. I have a lot to catch up on with telling y'all about my time here so far!

I got here on Saturday afternoon at 3:15, and the first thing that we did when my aunt Liz and my cousins Isabella and Jeremy picked me up was go to real Chinese food! It was pretty good. We dropped my stuff off and went to a small restaurant that is pretty central to the expat communities in Beijing. From what I understand (and don't quote me on this because I might be wrong), the expatriate community in Beijing is more or less it's own section of the city. Where I live is called the Cathay View Villas. There's a few hundred that live there. There's also the Beijing Riviera down the street, and a bunch more within maybe 30 square miles. It's a relatively small area called the Chaoyang District. Beijing as a city forms it's own state within China because it's so big! I didn't know that, did you? It's about 22 million people (but it's REALLY fluid so people come and go all the time), and it's divided into who knows how many districts. This restaurant that we went to on the first day is one of many restaurants that provide service to the expat community. Here's a picture of my family at the restaurant!

Good lookin' bunch, huh? We had a ton of stuff. We had sesame chicken (which, unlike the States, is literally chicken with sesame seeds), sweet and sour pork (which is pretty similar to the States but not as sugary), and a few other traditional dishes. All of it was fantastic. Jet lag wasn't really an issue. I set my watch as soon as I got on the plane in San Francisco so I would get the new time zone through my thick skull, and I think it worked! I think that jet lag is just mental to an extent, but then again I haven't traveled as much as some. I'm sure I'll get it on the way back in December.

Anyway, we went home, went to bed, and I got up the next morning and went on a run! I live in a BEAUTIFUL area. Cathay View is basically every nationality under the sun, but the architecture is all the same. Running through it and trying to find my way home was a little tricky but I made it alright and hopped in the shower to get ready for church, which started at 9. Beijing has some weird weather, man. It's always "foggy" (i.e. polluted), but during the rainy season is summer. When it rains, it pours, and washes some of the pollution out of the air. The first day that I went to church was one such occasion where I went running and it was hot and muggy and nasty, and then about 30 minutes later it starts pouring just out of the blue. It was amazing. Gigantic droplets. Out of nowhere.

The youth pastor that I'm serving under in the church arranged for one of the youth leaders to come pick me up near my house in a taxi, but when it rains, the taxi drivers freak out, and understandably so, because there's not much drainage. So, 10 minutes after the taxi was supposed to arrive, my aunt thought it would be best to just drive me to church herself. The youth leader that was supposed to pick me up, bless her heart, has only been here for 3 weeks herself, so when I finally met her I really felt for her because I have no idea what I'm doing either. Our youth pastor, Tim reimbursed her for all of her trouble because not only can she not speak Chinese, but even if she could, she doesn't know her way around well enough to direct the cab driver, and even if she did, he was too freaked out by the rain to really listen! Poor girl.

Church was a lot of fun. We do two services for them. One is at 9am and the other at 11am. There's several other youth leaders that I'm sure I'll introduce to you later. In short, they were all fantastic. The kids are pretty funny. Most are third culture kids, so watching them all relate is funny because many of them don't have a "home culture," or something that really defines who they are. They don't fit inside the box of "Korean" or "American" or "Spanish." They are their own people, and that's pretty fun to see. They're all pretty quirky because of it and it's a joy to watch. I'm looking forward to seeing them again on Friday night!

After church, all the youth leaders and I went out for lunch at a place near the church where they serve dumplings. It was a similar restaurant to the one from Saturday, but it's actually in the city, among the Chinese population, which was cool. None of the staff spoke enough English for me to communicate with them so that's always fun. I'm glad God gave us hands to communicate with!

Weird huh? Weird. But it was good. These little puppies are not the dumplings that I'm used to. The dumplings I'm used to are German dumplings that are basically balls of dough that are super dense. These are like potstickers with pork and veggies in them and they were so good. The youth staff goes to restaurants after church after Sunday so I'm looking forward to eating more stuff like this.

After lunch, some of the girls on staff who have been here a while wrote out directions for me to use the subway! None of them live close to me so I was on my own. Now, here's my life philosophy. You can take convenient ways out of things, or you can jump into discomfort. I think that the second option is how we grow the most. I had the option of just calling my aunt to come pick me up. Not only would that have been inconvenient for her, but it was also would have been me avoiding something that I have to learn sooner or later: the subway. It was a blast. It's also super easy, so in reality it was nothing to be worried about, but it's kind of intimidating when you're at the station and you see this:

This picture doesn't do it justice. The hall stretches a long way along the subway tracks, and there's a ton of people all along it. Notice anything in common with all these people? I did. They're all Chinese. Not a single white person there! Except for this country boy from Placerville, CA. Oorah.

It was awesome. See? I fit right in! You'd never know I was a foreigner!

That night I relaxed a little, and then Monday was the start of my job! It was fantastic, but it was an information dump! I'm writing this on Wednesday. School starts Thursday. Tryouts for all sports are on Friday, and games and races begin next week. This is a busy place. The Western Academy of Beijing ALWAYS has something going on. The office I work in is the WABX Office (Western Academy of Beijing Extracurricular office; it's not pronounced like "wad," but more like "bad"). Everyone in here is really nice, gracious, and welcoming. I'll tell you more about the office when school starts and I actually have a good picture of what the office is like and how it runs. For now, it's all been orientation so it's not an accurate picture of what work is like.

Until next time!

Strictly Business

What a busy few days! So let's see, I got to Beijing on Saturday, and now it's Tuesday. So far I've been into the city 3 times, met about a million people, and really had a great time so far. Let me start with my flight.

I flew standby. What that means is that because my aunt works for United Airlines, she can give out "buddy passes." I used a buddy pass. What those are is basically that you can get any flight for super cheap, BUT! you can only fly if the plane has room. Usually it works out pretty well. For me, it was close.

There I was, sitting at gate G97 at San Francisco International Airport, waiting to see how full the flight was. A group of about 600,000 junior highers (yes, I'm exaggerating) came into the gate and then I started getting worried. The ladies at the desk kept telling me to wait, so I waited. When I had lost all hope at 11:40 (the flight left at 11:55), one of the attendants frantically searched her computer, found someone that could be upgraded to First Class, which therefore meant that I could be put into Business First! HAHA! So what a deal right? I rushed onboard, gave this gentleman the good news, and clipped in my seatbelt. I sat next to a very angry-looking Chinese woman. I think she hated me. The only time she cracked a smile was when we flew into Beijing and I opened my window and said to her, "that's not fog is it?" I'm a country boy, what can I say? I'm used to clean air, and if it looks misty, I'll assume that it's fog.

The Lord was faithful in getting me this job, getting me a church (which I went to on Sunday), getting me a place to stay with my aunt, and now He's been faithful in the actual doing of getting me here. Since I've been here, He's been faithful in many other ways, because God doesn't fool around in doing His children good. He's strictly business. "All things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose," as Romans 8:28 says. That means that even that Chinese woman who hates happy American boys like me was placed in my life for my good. And she was! That cute grin that showed all three of her teeth brightened my day.

Well, I'm about to start my second day of work so you have to wait to hear more about what I've been up to since being here! More to come soon!

The Past and the Future

This past month or so has been a very good one. It's always cool with big expeditions like my journey to China to see things just come together. A few weeks ago, I got my Chinese visa in record time. It took about 4 hours. Amazing. See? 

I'd imagine that the above image doesn't excite you like it does me. Maybe the story of the last month or so will.

If you had asked me on the morning of July 13th, 2013 what my plans were or if I was excited about my life, I would have said yes just because I'm the eternal optimist, but I wouldn't have had much to tell you about career plans or anything. You see, this past year has been pretty rocky. It all started last June. I was at a military training program in Virginia, and had to come home early from that because of a false accusation on the part of the military. They ended up calling later to apologize for a hasty judgment, but I was still pretty heartbroken over the whole thing. It was a shot to the knees in my professional life for sure. After I more or less recovered from that, I got a job for the summer that kept me decently busy. I was in a relationship at the time, and that got to be more serious. I went back to school for my senior year. To keep a long story short, that relationship ended in heartbreak, so it was a shot to the knees in my personal life as well. Even with that major event in my life, that semester was still far and away the best semester of school ever. The cool thing about the college that I went to is the community there. After the relationship was done, I think I went surfing about 5 times, hiking and rock climbing several times, and never ate a meal alone. All of my friends were terrific through the whole thing. When I graduated in December 2012, I still didn't have any great career plans, but I came home to Placerville, CA, and got involved in my church as quick as I could. I got a job with a member of our church and a close family friend at a cabinet shop to pay the bills and to help him out. I learned a ton in my 6 months of working there, and I was incredibly thankful for him offering me that job. It really made the difference. I kept trying things out on the side. I took the LSAT for law school, made contacts to talk with people about potential career options, and sure enough, opportunities that looked good got shot down again and again. My aunt, who lives in Beijing, came to these great United States for Easter, and that's when life started getting at least some spark of excitement in it.

All through college, she offered to have me come, but I never could because of military stuff or other stuff. She asked if I'd want to come for the summer, and, not having anything on my plate at the time, I thought that'd be a great idea. After a little bit, she mentioned that she could maybe get me a job there, and so she talked to some of her friends in Beijing, and this job at the Western Academy of Beijing came up. Her kids (my cousins) go to the school, so they have a very close relationship to the school. I sent in an application and sent e-mails to the administration, and it looked like a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY!.....and then I found out that they had filled both of the two positions that I applied for. At least that's what I thought the English of the e-mail said. Hm. Well, I thought it would be pointless to keep bugging them, so I moved on, discouraged at another opportunity shot down. I was involved in a Bible study at my church, and I shared about Beijing back at Easter as soon as it came up. I distinctly remember our church secretary saying to me "I'm going to pray for THAT job. You sound like you really want that job." I actually forgot about her saying that to me until yesterday. 

Anyways, go to about 3 weeks ago. I went with my church to go camping up in the mountains around this beautiful alpine lake. It was fantastic, and it allowed my thoughts to wander a little from the stress of career planning. It was a great time! I was training for my first ever triathlon, so I made my little group of friends swim MILES AND MILES with me, and they were great about cheering me on. I got home on July 12th. July 13th was a great day.

That morning, I slept in because my triathlon was the following day. I felt prepared, and I wasn't nervous really at all. I just tried to relax and do some stuff with my family and clean up from camp. I checked my e-mail at 9:03 am (yes, I do remember) and there was nothing there. I couldn't tell you why, but it was almost like I expected an e-mail from my aunt or from the school or something. Maybe it was wishful thinking. At 12:06, which is 3am in Beijing (go figure that out), I checked it again. The screen had the little "waiting" icon hourglass garbage at the bottom, so I waited, and then it said "downloading 1 of 1"! I about smashed the screen trying to access the e-mail when I saw that it was from the school. It confirmed that I had gotten the job! I had to read it through about 3 times to make sure it was actually addressed to me and it said what I thought it said, and it did! I ran outside to my parents to tell them about this miracle, because I really don't know how it happened. Maybe they had never filled both positions? Maybe they let someone go? Who knows. Anyway, I went to a wedding that night, ran in the triathlon the next day, and it was a lot of fun. I even got a little 4th place plaque!

After the triathlon, I talked to my dad about finding a church in Beijing. For me, I knew I wanted and needed to have a group of people there that I could share life with. People who were like-minded and who could support me, and equally importantly, a group that I could serve with in the church. It's very important to me. So, we thought, and my dad remembered a guy who he met out our church's summer camp almost a decade ago. At the time, this guy was just moving to Beijing for a job, and he was going to a church there. My dad e-mailed him and, as if God scripted his response, he said "Bob, you wouldn't believe this, but two days ago, our church prayed for a young man ages 20-25 who can lead music and preach in our youth group. We'd love to have him serve here!" I've been serving in our youth group here, and I've gotten the opportunity to preach in our church this summer and lead music this past semester, so it couldn't have been more perfect! He even graduated from the Master's College, where I graduated from! Weird, huh?

Anyway, I don't want to bore you with details, but can you see how this whole thing was such a polar change from the past year of my life? God gives and He takes away, just like Job learned. There are seasons where you might not be doing anything wrong, so God isn't cursing you at all, but He gives circumstances that are hard and weird and it FEELS like He's cursing you for something you've done. Not true at all. I've learned a lot this past year. I think I'll learn a lot this next year. 

This blog, while it's a tribute and memorial to what God has done in my life, it's always a tribute to all the friends and family to have seen this whole thing. I'm incredibly grateful for all my friends at Master's. You all have been incredibly faithful to me. I won't forget the many conversations and favors that you provided me. I'm also incredibly grateful for my friends here at Gold Country Baptist Church, as well as the staff there who provided me opportunities and even initiated opportunities to serve alongside you. To my friends, all I can say is thank you, because you've all known me since we were kids. We've had many a good summer in the past, but this one surpassed them all. Thanks to the Balmet family, the Gish (junior and senior) family, the Freemans, Schaeffers, Johnsons, Wilkinsons, Ponds, Murphys, Lovejoys, and many many other individuals and families that are not above-mentioned. There's also been a pretty crazy amount of people in our church that have just come up to me and said that they were praying for me since I was like...3. Gotta mention that, because that's faithfulness! Of course, my family is pretty stellar. Rory, Summer, Anneliese, Nolan, Mom and Pop have been terrific to me. Though some of them are not related by blood but by marriage, I consider them all close as if they were related by blood. 

All of that is to say, I'm really going to miss home. It's bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter for sure. The past is good to think on and gain lessons from, but the future is the only thing you can really be excited about, and let me tell you, I am SO excited. This week will consist of a worship night with all these friends, and going over to different homes for meals with families to say goodbye, and spending as much time with my family as I can. On Thursday, I will leave Placerville with the Lovejoys, who are taking their son, one of my closest friends, Brian, to San Francisco. He leaves for Indonesia to teach abroad for his second year. We'll see him off and then I'll spend the night at Anneliese and Nolan's home Thursday night and head out on Friday the 9th for this incredible adventure. Can't wait!