Losing Ivan

Father, I am so thankful that You're always with me, and nothing can take you away from me. Amen.

Dear friends,

Consider for a moment: Ivan, 16, cerebral palsy, liver failure, dead. That would be the summary of Ivan's life. When you read this, or even when you see him in person, you might think there's limited use to this person's life. Or simply said, meaningless; pointless. Why would God create someone like that?

But for me, his life, and now, his death, has taught me a priceless lesson. It was nobody's fault, he died in the hospital, they couldn't save him.

I went to see his body one last time today, before they wrapped him up and send him to the morgue. I expected to see one of those peaceful, calm faces that you see at a funeral home, or in the movies, but instead, it was completely out of my expectations.

What I saw was an empty shell. Eyes staring off at unmatched angles, mouth gaping open, lips black and life sucked out of every part of his body. A container for the boy who was, but looking at it now, it wasn't worthy to carry the Ivan that I got to know so well. It looked like Ivan, but it wasn't. It was only his earthly home, he's vacated it now. He's in heaven with God.

His looks didn't really shock me, not that I expected to see him like that, nor that I've seen dead people before. When I saw him, I understood a very important thing. I understood Who Ivan Was. All the time that he was alive, I never pondered this, yet the first glance of his empty shell tells me more about Ivan than I had ever known.

I'll tell you who he was not. Ivan was not the deformed shell I saw in front of me. Ivan was not the bulgy face, the twisted limps, the crooked teeth. Ivan was none of those things that almost everyone had recognised him by. Ivan was the sparkle in the eyes, Ivan was the energy behind the upturned corners of his mouth whenever he smiled, or the energy behind the horrible wail that always followed a dirty diaper. Ivan was the shaking arms and yelps of joy whenever that diaper was changed, Ivan was the life that had filled that empty shell once upon a time.

Ivan was never the disabled child we all saw upon first glance; Ivan was the very able spirit that we never looked twice at until it was gone.

It was so easy to ignore the noisy kid in the corner that always whines about his discomforts. It's easy to sit him next to his favourite music, and stick him in the background. But how precious do his screams now seem, when we can only hear them in our dreams.

Though he was severely handicapped while he was alive, looking at the empty shell told me that he had everything that life was about. It's not whether you can move, or whether you can eat, or whether you can see that makes you human. It's not how you live that makes your life meaningful. It's the fact that you are able to live that gives meaning to your life.

We're all born the same way, God breathes life into our bodies, and then when we go, we all go the same way, the same breath of life leaves and all that's left is an earthly container; a container that has nothing to do with the life that we had except for the fact that it was used to carry it. So then if we come and go the same way, then what makes us any different from one another? I think this is a very valuable lesson that I'm learning right now. Learning that we're all the same, and learning to see the life in the person rather than the shell around them.

Well, all I can say now is. Ivan's free from his earthly shell and is happy in heaven. He lived his life as best as he could, bearing simple witness to joy, trust, love, hope and faith. I look forward to seeing his heavenly body, perfect and free, and close to the Lord. I'll forever remember the lesson I learnt today. It was a valuable one.

Dear friends, please pray for my colleagues and myself. Including the death of my colleague on the 14th, this makes two deaths in a fortnight. It'll be hard to bear, so please remember our griefing in your prayers, and pray that God will be in this House and be in each of our hearts to help us through each day, as we continue to serve here.

Thanks,

James

No longer L.O.S.T.

Welcome to my Life Lyrics, by Simple Plan

Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don’t belong
And no one understands you

Do you ever wanna run away?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming

No you don’t know what it’s like
When nothing feels alright
You don’t know what it’s like to be like me

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked
When you’re down
To feel like you’ve been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one’s there to save you
No you don’t know what it’s like
Welcome to my life

Do you wanna be somebody else?
Are you sick of feeling so left out?
Are you desperate to find something more
Before your life is over?

Are you stuck inside a world you hate?
Are you sick of everyone around?
With the big fake smiles and stupid lies
While deep inside you’re bleeding

No you don’t know what it’s like
When nothing feels alright
You don’t know what it’s like to be like me

(Watch on youtube.com - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt0WP9ZBNiY&feature=related)

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Just some small thoughts.

This song I hold very close to my heart, because this song used to speak right to my heart, but now I can reflect just how much Jesus has done in my life, because I no longer feel lost and no longer need any of these things.

My Jesus has set me free. And hence, I will choose to live as I have been living for the past few months. Free and serving the God that I love.

"You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness." - Romans 6:18

I've got a Halleluyah Heart!

I've got a hallelujah heart, it won't stop singing
I've got a hallelujah heart, It won't stop singing your praise
I've got a hallelujah heart, It's beatin' to the rhythm
I've got a hallelujah heart, It's beatin' to the rhythm of praise

A hallelujah heart always wants to start every day with worship and praise
A hallelujah heart always wants to startin a glory and hallelujah way
Glory hallelujah!

I've got a hallelujah heart, It won't stop singing won't stop singing
I've got a hallelujah heart, it won't stop singing your praise
it won't stop singing won't stop, It's beatin' to the rhythm
it won't stop singing your praise

(Song sample: http://www.worshipmusic.com/lib/worshipmusic/19852-02.mp3)

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Dear friends,

Work at the orphanage has been pretty awesome. I've overcomed some nice barriers in my work, like handling poo directly, and not be grossed out by it, and also, I'm continuing to learn to love the children and to not only take care of their physical need, but their emotional needs too.

If you can remember Wing Kit, he's the one that's been nicknamed "The Grumpy Old Man" by the rest of the staff, and he's always lived with a frown and lots of complaints. But since two weeks ago, he's been spending most of his days smiling, and it's kinda very cute and contagious, and I'm so in love with seeing that smile on his face, and have been so encouraged because I know I'm one of the ones that put that on him. I guess a lot of the time, all he's reflecting is his difficulty in life (as he's quite self-concious about his disabilities) and he's reflecting what sort of tones and comments that everyone have been giving him, and often he doesn't get as much praise as everyone else, because one of his main means of communication is to pinch. A light pinch for affirmation, and a hard pinch for complaints. But he lives in a room where everyone else gets more praise than him, and I guess, he notices it and gets very upset. So I've been giving him his much needed praise, whenever I'm taking care of him, and spending so much more extra time just bonding and waiting on him to reach out and touch my hand, and giving him praise whenever he's within hearing range, and he's really made a U-turn, and I'm just glad to see his cute smiling baby face every morning!

I'm full of praise today, and much of these past few weeks, because I've settled in quite well into the work, and am making good progress in my working relationship with the other staff, and have been encouraging my friends in the New Territory area to meet up more often for dinner during the week, at least once a week, and it's becoming a very good source of support and fun, and it's really great to be having this time of fellowship to keep me going. And the group is growing, and it's really encouraging just to have a steady group of friends in the area that spend time together every week, and just enjoy some light games and a good meal. So I'm really happy about this.

I've been spending a lot of time praying and praising, and have been taking every moment of joy as a blessing from Christ, and have been giving Him praise for all the little things that happen during the day, and have been relying on Him more and more, trusting His plan for me, and also living out my witness for Him, and it's been such an amazing month that looking back, I cannot tell which day God has blessed me more and which day less, there's been so many opportunities to give thanks that I've lost track of it all. I just know that He's blessing me in all the areas of my life, and helping me to become the worshipper that He deserves to worship Him and helping me become a wonderful witness of His grace, His joy, and His love, and that is really awesome!

I've been shamelessly sharing the Gospel and sharing about God with people around me, whether Christian or not, it doesn't matter, because this amazing love feels so tangible and so contagious that I must share about it, and it's just been an encouragement to everyone, and that's just really awesome! And so, when it comes down to just sharing about my work, and my passion, and my dreams, and this amazing love that I've got, and when I'm sharing the same material with anyone and everyone, it's no longer offensive because I'm no longer preaching, and that's such a great revelation for me, because I love sharing about this love, and I've finally found a way of doing so where people can just feel this love and see how great it is, without needing to hide from "preaching"!

I can see now how Christ can walk up to anyone and get into real deep, meaningful conversations with them, because He's got this amazing love and I experience it all the time too, when you're so in love with God and so in love with His people, you can get right down to the important things and skip a lot of pleasantries. Because it's not who they are, it's who He is. It's such a good revelation!

So.. It's been an amazing month, and it's only the beginning of all these awesome blessings that God's been raining down on me lately, and so I'm really excited about what happens next! Thanks for your time again, my friends, please keep me in your prayers, and pray for health, and joy, and patience, and love to fulfill all things that bring Him glory! Amen!

A meditating start to October

Dear friends,

I've been blessed with a flu-cold medley for the past three days, and had been given sick leave to spend resting in my room here at the orphanage. I say blessed because this leave gave me plenty of time to rest, read and meditate. During the first day of my sickness, though painfully slowly, I managed to tidy and clean my room and put it back into a healthy living environment. I also cleaned air by opening windows and turning on the fan, instead of the air conditioning, and picking a few tricks off google, I found that candles burn away all the smells in the room too, so I quickly went and bought some. I kept my windows open through the night as well, the trade-off was a few mosquito bites, but having a well ventilated room was more important. I slept most of that day.

The second day of sick leave, my sore throat worsened, but having slept most of the day before, I spent most of this day reading and drinking water. I drank 10 litres of water by the end of the day, and the sore throat didn't improved a single bit, but the flu I felt in the morning had been flushed from my system, which was good. So as a final attempt to flush the sore throat out, at 2am, I decided to rinse my throat thoroughly with a glass of salt water every two hours until it's gone. Miraculously after 4 rinses, and some appropriate cough drops, the pain in my throat started to cease.

And today, I'm still drinking, and rinsing, and the situation is improving steadily. Which is good. Now along with cleaning my room, and cleansing my system, I decided to fast, which made meditation a really good idea. I've learnt from previous experience that fasting really clears your mind and allow you to think of much more than just food, and in this case, when my throat is so sore, food was the last thing to come to my mind.

These last few days, and for the past several weeks, I've been praying and thinking about my future. And through several opportunities to witness in the past month, God seems to be trying to tell me something. My thoughts keep drifting back to the words of a visitor earlier this year, So Kam Mui, Sue. She told me that God had specifically told her to scold me for serving here, and that I didn't belong in a place like this. Her emphasis on this made me plainly mad when I myself have received confirmation from God, telling me that He wants me here this year. And yet, despite this difference of opinion, I sometimes wonder, if I would remember her words at all, if she hadn't been so forceful about it. Some of what she said had started to resonate in my mind these past few days, despite my still knowing that this commitment is God-given, I think her communication was also God-given.

She had said that her, with disabilities, and learning handicap, had been sent from God to serve here during her time, and that was meant to be, but me, put into this world, at this time, with this intellect, had no place in a lonely orphanage on the side of the road, doing work that had no use for someone like me at my age. It's work suited for much older people, that required less intellect. That everyone else had a reason to be here, but me.

Reflecting upon this now, I think she's quite right. Even so, I've committed to serve here for a year, and this commitment is still quite sound for me. I'm learning a lot about commitment, service, humility, patience, and love just by serving here, and through my reading, I'm learning a lot about Christ and about witnessing. So I feel that this is where I'm meant to be for this year. But my plans for next year remain uncertain. So I'll keep praying about that. Perhaps the Lord will reveal all these things to me in due time. In the meantime, I'm just thankful for all that He's taught me so far, and thankful for being led to become a better witness for His kingdom and His glory.

So dear friends, do continue to pray for my health, my witness, my service, my discipleship and my future. Thank you.

In Christ,

James

Two good news and one concern

Dear friends,

I have two bits of news that I've been very excited about today and I have to share it with you! Firstly, one of my friends at the orphanage has come to accept Christ, and it excites me because I can be a part of this new part of her life! And I am thrilled! It took about one day for the news to sink in, but ever since the moment it sunk in, I've been excited about it! Praise Jesus! Praise God! It's also a really good bit of confirmation and acknowledgement from God, telling me that this is part of His purpose for me here at HOLF, and I'm just so thankful that He's chosen me to share in this experience with my friend. Thanks, Jesus!!

Now my second bit of good news came in a revelation this morning, when I forgot that it was Sunday because it's been so long since I've been to church, as I don't often have day offs on Sundays anymore. But then we do have a service here in Chinese and we do have Chinese praise songs, and a Chinese sermon every Sunday, and all sorts of different people turn up to take part of it every week. Now the sermon for today was really good, and I realised that I didn't need to be at "home" with a church to learn from the sermon, I just needed to listen with a willing heart. So the pastor got my attention, and I listened. The second part of the revelation came a little later when I thought about this, and how church here isn't bad at all. In fact, it's quite nice. I realised that it was such an advantage to be able to understand spoken Cantonese as well as spoken English, and here when the education level of the volunteers and workers are much lower than that of anywhere else I've worked/resided, it's much more apparent, and even though I can't read a lot of characters, I can still communicate with this language, and I've learnt not to take my "limited" Chinese for granted, because I'm much better off than most here. That and also my knowledge in Christ. There are Christians here that have been believers all their lives, but haven't had a chance to know Christ much deeper theologically than they had the first day they accepted Him, all their experience with Christ had been personal. But they've turned out to be very strong spiritually in their own way and very good people. Praise God for that. But also praise God that I am able to know more and understand more and communicate more, and this is furthermore leading me to think that God's given me these so that I can tell the masses about Him and His love for them. And I will, because that's what I've been given to work with, so I'll use the tools that He's given me to bring Him more glory!

So with this new insight, it's more like two and a half good news, rather than just two. And so wrapping up, there is one concern on my mind right. It's become apparent that I can't do anymore tutoring because my offs aren't always on the weekends, so I won't be able to give my students enough lessons, and won't be able to keep a consistent schedule. Good thing is that my mom is willing to take them, and lucky for them, because my mom is a really awesome teacher, but my concern is that my finances will take a heavy hit, because up until this month, my budget has been reached via both monthly giving from my friends, and from my tutoring, and the ratio's at half and half. So now, I'm down by quite a bit. So please pray about that. Thanks. I'm sure it's just a small issue, since God wants me here, He'll find a way to give me what I need to keep at this for a year.

Thanks for your time again. Hope to share more soon.

Yours in Christ,

James

The last few weeks

My dear friends,

The last few weeks had been a slow move from exciting summer time to not so exciting routine work time, as the volunteers fade away, and the more animated kids start schooling, work has become more routine and the pace of work has become much slower. There had been a lot of "moving" this month, moving from holiday mode to work mode, moving from our flat at home because of renovations, and moving to a new equilibrium on the social, personal and spiritual fronts.

Now that things are settling in at home and at "Home" and all the other young and single volunteers are gone, I've found more time to read books, and to do walks around the neighborhood as I've become more rested with good discipline on my personal health. I've decided to take a break from Philip Yancey and re-read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. It's a nice brain thriller, and it's good for relaxing. During my neighborhood walks last week, I found some nice flowers, a nice neighborhood, a nifty but well-furnished corner store, an village temple, and a banana farm. The banana farm had a very vicious guard dog that gave me a bit of a scare, but I figured if my intentions are true, and if my God is protecting me, I won't get hurt. And I didn't. But it'll be a while before I venture around that area again. There are lots of dogs in the inner villages up the road, and a lot of interesting faces. It'll be nice to walk around more, and get to know the people.

A realization I had on the spiritual front today was that I can't keep telling myself that I'm here to serve God, because that doesn't get me anywhere. In fact, it mostly blocks the most important thing out of my spiritual life, the fact that I've been seeking to serve Him so much, often I forget that everything starts with simply seeking Him. Service is by no means more important than relationship, and what God wants most from us is to develop this personal relationship that He has given us through redemption in Jesus Christ, that's the whole point of His death on the cross! Seeking to serve Him isn't the point at all, seeking to know Him is the way of life, the way that I'm supposed to think and live. A collection of things awoke me to this fact. One of them was a story I heard in discipleship yesterday.

Jesus walked with a man along a path, and the man constantly asks questions, but Jesus stayed silent and didn't answer any of them. At the end of the walk, all of the man's questions were answered, not because Jesus told him, but because Jesus was with him and that experience was sufficient.

Sometimes we get so focused on questioning our way through spirituality, when we try to find meaning in all the little things that do or do not happen, when all we really need to do is wait till the whole experience passes, and just experience it and learn from it. We're constantly so impatient on God's lessons, it's a blessing that His patience is enough for all our "impatiences".

Another awakening I received this week is the fact that I've been practising favouritism, mostly because I am totally in love with Tung Tung, and would actually want to adopt her if God says it's His will that I do. But right now, I don't think that's how it's going to work, and she does have a lovely home here already, and God does have a plan for her. But this love is making me rethink the relationship I share with the other children, do I love them the same? Should I love them the same? I thought about what Tung Tung would say to me when we find each other in heaven, will she tell me she loves me and thanks for loving her so much? Would she dance for joy? Would she sing me a song of all the words that were in her heart but couldn't come out? Then I realised, whatever Tung Tung had to say, it won't be the most touching experience in heaven from the children here, it won't even be close. The most touching ones would be the ones where the children here would come to me and forgive me for all my trespasses when I've been impatient with them. All the times that I've been careless, and all the times that I simply forgot to care, forgot to love. It would be them that would make me fall to my knees for the longest, when they say they still love me and thank me for what little that I've done for them. After thinking of this, I think God defrost my heart once more, and allowed me to see the children with love again, and gave me a deeper concern for their emotional well-being.

And with these two awakenings, my prayer life seem to be finally back on track with praying not just for energy and health to care for the children, but for the children themselves, not just for the happenings of the day or the week, but for every little thing. For good rest at night, for sweet dreams, for waking up to joy and love, for healing, for forgiveness, for chances to love them more, and for more joyful times together. And also to thank God for them.

It's good that God's given me these realizations to strengthen me, as I don't have a lot of Sundays off, and it's good that He's got my back when I need more spiritual input. Though the good news is that the local missionary has started hosting a service here every Sunday, and it's quite good, but I haven't been able to participate in the worship, partly because the songs are in Chinese, and partly because I focus a lot on the children. This past Sunday, I've been trying to let go and trust God with them, and got to listen to a very good sermon about Peter.

So that's about it for this update. Thanks again for your time. My prayer requests are: i) thanksgiving for a smooth move for my family into their temporary flat, and thanksgiving for being able to spend some good quality time with my mom last week, ii) more prayers for consistent rest and balanced diet, iii) prayers for a steady spiritual journey towards God and seeking to know Him through loving as well as seeking Him through books, iv) more patience and more chances to love the children, v) continual prayers about Africa and for God to tell me how to approach serving Him there, and vi) pray for my preparations for my baptism, as I intend to get baptised during Christmas.

Thanks a bunch!! God bless!

Yours in Christ,

James

A little song

I love you, my precious Tung Tung, more than anything,
I love you, my precious Tung Tung, more than anyone.
I love you, my precious Tung Tung, more and more I do,
but my Jesus, my Jesus, He loves you more than I do.

(inspired by Aunty Val's song for Ivan: Jesus loves Ivan, Jesus loves Ivan, Jesus loves Ivan, I love Ivan too.)