Things of China1

Well I may be writing this for my own sake but I don't care. It has been just shy of 2 years since i have been back I have had sometime to reflect and look back at what in the world happened to me during that time. I have taken many an hour at different coffeehouses between 3 different countries and more than a few guitar strings broken in trying to put together the various emotions and thoughts that captured me during my time in JingZhou.

Before i get into any detail I must say a few disclaimers, the first of which would be I am not writing this out of any spite or malice towards anyone. Second, I do not write this to get back at anyone or try push any personal agenda. This is blog post is meant to get a few things off my chest. I have shared my story with many (including some of those who were with me in China at the time) and try to be as fair and loving as possible. I hope that all of the workers in China that i have known are doing well i want nothing but the best for them and their different works. I hope that Our Father makes their cup overflow.
This blog is meant to maybe help others that have been in a similar situation and as a personal therapy session. So where to being?

When I first got there.....

There are few things in life, (of this" long" life i have had), i will consider as such a joy as the first time I meet the Chinese brother and sisters of JingZhou. It felt like i was being welcomed into a family with open arms. They saw me not as an outsider, which i was by all respects, but as a brother, somehow coming home. This was apparent by the Chinese name given to me, mao mao, (roughly translated meaning "little cute hairy" thing, usually given to small dogs).
I tried my best to acclimate to the culture and they tried their best to show me how. It was a beautiful time. Any of the early church fathers would have been proud of the way they poured out their love towards me.
Meeting the foreigners was not exactly a homecoming. I was welcomed, but it felt more like I was the foreigner out of the group. There were things unsaid that came to become things assumed and later, things worth not saying. The more I hung out with many of the other foreigners the more I felt like I was the one who was from another country.

I came wanting to help but found out more and more that I, because of my beliefs, was "hurting" the group. I was the alien in an alien land. There were few foreigners that I could relate with, and now looking back, I saw what began a spiral into what I feel was a time of depression.

On being excommunicated.

It all started off with a prayer. Not even my prayer, but the prayer of a Chinese brother. He was not baptized in the traditional (as of Church of Christ) sense so he was not worthy of saying a prayer for the group. This started a chain of questionings that would lead me to more than a few "meetings" on who believed what and why. It was all basically fruitless, painful and well...wasteful. There was a pinnacle, a moment of truth where I was asked what exactly I believed. I did not give the answer others wanted to hear. At that point and time it was clear that I was no longer welcomed with the group i came over with. And worst off, some of the Chinese were even asked this question and did not give the "correct answer" and they too were seen as, "wrong". At the end of this meeting I was left alone. I was uninvited. I was wrong....not just my thoughts...but me, my soul, my inner most was wrong and therefore I was not to be trusted.

It is an interesting thing to be left out of church things as a Worker. I was never officially asked to leave, but of what everyone told me, I got the idea. Now, I was at a crossroads. Do I try to stick it out with the other foreigners or start something on my own? While this question was swimming through my mind I had something happen....forgiveness, kinda. I had several of the foreigners come and say they were sorry that they had treated me unkindly. I knew for some of them this was a big step and I gladly accepted it. On the other hand, I don't feel they addressed the real issue at hand. I was less concerned about how they treated me as how they treated the Chinese Brothers and Sisters. Also, about the example that was made from the situation.

In China it is not uncommon for Churches and meetings to happen totally unaware of each other. There are so many people, and while it is not illegal to be a Christian, it is sometimes not very popular. I wanted to teach and be an example of how Brothers and Sisters can still work and live together even though they may disagree on deep feelings. It made me think of the difference between "unified" and "conformity".

When we are "unified", it does not matter about what we disagree on, as long as our Father is at the center of it all. Where each person has their hand open to the Creator saying, "Here is what I believe and know, take it and form it to you" From here He is able to take and shape, break and mold into what He wants. Since He is in control of the shaping, people can disagree, yet still work together knowing that they are willing to be changed.
"Conformity" comes from the angel of, this is what I believe, which is what you need to believe too. From this approach, peoples hearts aren't willing to be changed. There is a shift in thought from, "Let's do this" to "You better do it like this". That is what I felt and that is what I knew my first year in China. I "didn't do things this way" and because of that I was to be watched and corrected.

Correcting and the East Side

I guess I needed alot of correction because it seemed like everything I did was "wrong". What I said/did and wanted to do during the Dinner, Singing together and well, sometimes it seemed even the way I read the Book was to be corrected. To all of this I tried to be a peace keeper, to submit and try not to cause a scene. I never intended to come and try to be different. I didn't want to be the guy that stood out from the crowd and cause others to go against the tide. I truly did want to work with the others, but it seemed like I was just not the "right" guy for it.
At this point I knew it was time to make a change. There was an open apartment on the other side of town and i decided to move on up to the East Side, campus that was. I cannot stress this enough, but my apartment was AMAZING! (for China that was)

I had a toilet that was on the INSIDE of the apartment, a tub with HEAT LAMPS! (Yay for dry laundry). I now had 2 sinks (as the last apt i was in had only one in the shower room), hard wood flooring and windows that i didn't have to cover in plastic to keep out the cold. It was awesome. It also provided something else....retreat. I had a place away from just about all the other foreigners and well....I am sorry to say that I really liked that. It was a place where many of the other Chinese Brothers and Sisters would come to know as a retreat as well. It was not uncommon to have 2-3 people spending the night 3-4 night out of the week. It was a time when people moved from being people I knew to become people I loved.

Depression?
With this new found retreat came new temptations. One of which was that to hide my feelings in and let them rot. I was not so much mad at anyone nor wanting apologies, I just felt alone. I must clarify, it was not alone that I didn't have friends there. There other Chinese Brothers and Sisters were a constant in my apartment and well, it was always great to have them around. I even had other foreigner friends in other cities that I visited on a very regular basis. No, it wasn't because of the lack of friends, it was the lack of connection. There were just so many ways that I felt that I differed from in my community that I let those things separate me more than they should have. I should have focused on things that we had in common, even if they were few than look at those things and see them as a separator. I let the fears and thoughts of me causing more trouble push me away from the group, rather than try to find ways I could connect. It was not a healthy choice.
I found myself seeking the dark. I watch DVD's till 2 or 3 am, not because I was interested, but because it when I knew I would be all by myself. I wanted to be be alone, because that is the way I felt on the inside. I wanted that to match on the outside because there were too many unknowns with trying to reach out to the others that I knew. I did not know it at the time, but this was a dark part of my life.

End of Part 1
I only experienced a few "highs" in China. It seemed like canyons, valleys and some sharp peeks. I feel this may be part of why I know I was meant to be there. I had heard that our Father calls us and tries us not because He wants us to be "happy", but becuase he wants us to "grow". Growth can hurt, it did for me. But it was growth, which is way more important than any "happyness" that I may know. The Father wanted me to grow, He knew, much more than I did at the time, what this would produce. Patience, endurance, perseverence and self-control are words that are much more real to me now than before.

I decided to go back, not because I was going to try and change the other foreigners or to start my own meeting, but becuase I knew i wanted to help, how ever that may be. I learned about some of my strengths and how I was blessed with an ability to help cultivate planted seeds, not so much the sowing/planting, there are plenty of those people in China. I knew of the need that I wanted to fulfill, I knew that even if i was alone, I wanted to be there for my Brothers and Sisters as long as I could.

I went home ready to recover and recharge, I went back wanting to rebuild and serve. I had no idea what Our Father had in mind, but it with just the help of 2 people, it changed my life towards work in the Fields.

More to come in Part 2

Allan