Better than I deserve

Reality

Coming back to Kyrgyzstan…seeing how the world truly works.

And then seeing what my friends in America post on facebook. Everything seems so ridiculous and trivial.

And then facebook has just become a popularity game. It’s a constant unending taunt back and forth of posting pictures of who you’re with and what you’re doing and where you’re eating at, just to tell the world: hi, I’m with Bob and we’re eating burgers and too bad you can’t join us.

And it’s just so…un…appetizing. All I hear on facebook is: when are we going to hang out, let’s go eat here, let’s go eat there. Let’s go eat in a box, with a fox. Sam let’s go eat anywhere.

How come we don’t talk more about having worship, or meeting up for prayer, or encouraging others and edify them? Rather there’s this self-centered ME monster that continues to ravage our facebook walls (or timelines). Let’s go pray in a box, or with a fox, on a train or in the rain…

How can America, bring to light, what matters most? I think that will happen when we truly let Christ be our center. For some of us, that may take deactivating our facebooks.

May Christ change me so that He be the center of my life. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to You, my God.

Facebook is a vehicle. It can take your trivial popularity to the next level *OOOOOHHHHH or it can be used to encourage the body of believers and reflect Christ.

You know you’re a missionary kid when

• You look both ways before crossing a one-way street (I made that one up :) so proud)
• You can’t answer the question, “where are you from?”
• You flew before you could walk
• You embarrass yourself by asking what swear words mean.
• You have a time zone map next to your telephone
• Your life story uses the phrase, “Then we went to…” over 10 times.
• You talk in grams, metres, litres, and Celsius
• You speak with authority on the quality of airline travel
• You send your family peanut butter and Kool-aid for Christmas
• You have friends from 30 countries
• You have a Bible in another language.
• You sort your friends by continent
• You realize that furlough is not a vacation
• You wince when people mispronounce where you’re from
• You’ve spoken in dozens of churches but aren’t a pastor
• Someone brings up the name of a team and you get the sport wrong
• Many of your friends don’t have English as the first language.
• You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism.
• You know how to pack.
• After a year in one spot, you’re ready to move again.
• You frequently say, “I don’t know, I was out of the country.”
• If someone asks you what school you went to, you say, “depends on the year.”
• Most of your clothes are hand-me-downs
• You prefer a land rover to a lexus
• You cut grass with a sickle but can’t start a lawn mower
• You’re grateful for the speed and efficiency of the US postal service
• You can amuse yourself for hours with a cardboard box
• Fitting 15 or more people in a car is normal to you
• You haggle with the check out clerk for a normal price
• You don’t think 2 hrs is a long sermon
• Sunday isn’t a day of rest
• You don’t do well in job interviews because you were taught to be modest
• Someone in your passport country has to explain to you that the double yellow line means *only* oncoming traffic can drive on that side of the road, even when there *isn’t* any oncoming traffic … and you don’t understand why.
• The same individual also has to explain that red lights mean stop *all* the time, without exception, and you must stay stopped *until* they turn green, whether or not there is cross-traffic … and you still don’t understand why.
• When you can’t get past “Oh, say can you see …” in the national anthem, and you have to watch to see what hand to use.
• You get confused because the dollar bills aren’t color coded.
• Your high school memories include those days that school was canceled due to tear gas.
• You go to Taco Bell and have to put five packets of hot sauce on your taco.
• You are accused by your friends of being a maniacal driver, and you’re driving just like dad taught you to.
• You marvel at the cleanliness of gas station bathrooms.
• You instinctively start ripping up the newspaper when you run out of toilet paper.
• Your study of minor keys in music theory makes you homesick.
• You miss the sub-titles when you go to see the latest movie.
• You eat a lot of chicken, because it tastes so similar to the dog meat that you miss
• You cruise the Internet looking for fonts that can support foreign alphabets.
• Riots make you homesick.
• You try to get onto a military base by showing your passport.
• It scares you more to send your kids to public school than it would to send them on an unescorted plane trip.
• You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry in your wallet
• Climates that get below about 72°F (20°C) are against your body’s religion.
• The thought of encountering snakes, scorpions, wild animals, witch doctors or armed rebel insurgents on an afternoon walk evokes responses like, “Yes…” or “So …?” whereas the idea of merely driving through, let alone living in, an American city terrifies you.
• Someone asks you where you most enjoy just hanging out and you immediately think of happy hours spent in international airport
• You go to a church you have never been in before and find your picture on their bulletin board.
• The best word you can find to describe the U.S. is “fake”.
• You used to hate hand-me-down clothes but now a friend leaves an old shirt at your place that happens to fit, and you wear it often because it reminds you of your friend and your childhood.
• You actually look forward to the rare times the power goes off because it makes you feel nostalgic, *and* you might get a chance to see those stars that are still etched so vividly in your memory.
• You get nostalgic about sleeping every night in the summer under mosquito netting, after the bed has been dusted with DDT and the air sprayed with Flit, and little green spirally things are burning in every room in the house.
• You don’t know whether to write the date as month/day/year, day/month/year, or some variation thereof.
• You meet another MK, and discover that you share the same best friend.
• There are times when only your family knows what you’re saying
• Your friends nervously remind you to drive on the right side of the road.
• You get mad at minorities complaining of discrimination when they have no clue as to what it’s like to be a real minority
• You wake up one day and realize you’re not a foreigner anymore
• You wake up one day and realize you really still are a foreigner.

Granted

The exceeding wonder of Christ’s love proves to be detrimental to ourselves when we take it for granted - under no circumstance were we designed to dwell with the misconception that Christ’s love is any less powerful than it already is, and is any less redeeming than it proves to be, and is any less unconditional than it exacts.

We take for granted, the power of love. We forget that love covers a multitude of sins, and it destroys boundaries marked by ethnic prejudice, hatred, and wars. We forget that though human love is powerful, Christ’s love is incomparably so much better. 

And under no occasion or contingency, are we to ever equate the love of God to our pitiful human love, and under no situation are we to ever consider or view Christ’s love as similar to the tainted love we have to offer.

The richness of Christ’s love is not found only in words or deed, but in Christ Himself - which subjugates all other love, to lesser.

But in no way must we not strive to enact and reciprocate this love, frail as humankind may be. For just as Peter says, we must strive to imitate Christ in his love and humility.

Brothers and sisters, let’s step it up.

Late night with Alyosha

I miss these late night conversations about faith, God, worship with my brothers and best friends. I can’t get that in America.

I feel like the friendships here are so deep and rich. There’s this bond that we share, where Christ is truly the center of our relationships.

These brothers are my role models. I have so much to learn from them. I’ve missed them a lot.

One of their most appealing points is the absence of pride in their lives. So humble. So God-fearing. Not worrying about main-stream Christianity or trying to decide if what they’re doing is religious or not. Seeing how they serve God in ministry only because they fear God.

Surely these are the hearts that are rendered and wholly available to God.

Not Coincidence

So on this trip to Kyrgyzstan there were two small instances …. very minute where God answered my prayers.

First time was on the airplane and I woke up and I was soo thirsty and I was like, “God I’m so thirsty”. And then right then this stewardess drops off this cup of water. I didn’t even ask for it…

Second time was when a few days ago, my brother and I took the Mashrutka (or city bus) and when I got home I realized that I forgot to pay the driver. I was pretty upset, but I knew that it would be impossible to find the same guy again. A couple of days later, we were going to the university and then we get on this mashrutka and to my surprise, it’s the same guy! haha. But he was driving a different bus…so I paid him extra.

Enjoying Kyrgyzstan. God’s doing amazing things here.

Wish I could just come back and live here. This is home.

Your love is so extravagant.. Your friendship…so intimate..(:

clissbliss:

Spread wide in the arms of Christ,
Is a love that covers sin.
No Great love have I ever known.
You considered me Your friend.
Capture my heart again.

Truly every sunrise and sunset is a reflection of the radiance of God’s glory. I cannot fathom otherwise.

There’s more to life

than living for ourselves.

Kyrgyzstan 2012.

Praying that

real persecution will come to the church of America. America is truly missing out.

Woman, make me a sandwich

How often have we heard that? Or, stay in the kitchen!

Speaking about asians specifically, we tend to flaunt and throw around words pretty carelessly without 1) realizing the detrimental effects and 2) realizing that we ourselves are becoming hypocrites by what we say?

I mean, we get so riled up when whites may make fun of our eyes or driving or food and we’ll say, “that professor is so racist” or, “those people are so racist.” And then we’ll make jokes (even though we don’t always mean them, but this also goes for whites) about women, gays, retards, niggers, hispanics, whites. 

And before any of you feminists like this post just because you agree that guys shouldn’t associate women with sandwiches or the kitchen, please realize you may be just as guilty. We all are. I am especially.

So before we demand change in attitude or speech from other ethnicities or genders, let’s start with ourselves.

Want a sandwich? Make your own. 

God is amazing.

Tim Cho <3

Love this guy. 

Need to study with him more. 

I’ll keep him locked up in my bedroom next year.