Monday, August 07, 2006
minsheng bank days
6.8.06I am afraid and averse to mountaintop experiences. That is one of the main reasons that I held out of short term missions for so long. Now, I think I have come to accept that what I am having is an obvious mountaintop experience—the challege is to learn from and transfer the experience into real life after I get off the mountain. Today, we had a worship service in the evening, on the flat roof of the training center. It was one of those surreal, bizarre yet beautifully random and romantic moments—reminicent of singing praise songs outside NIT gates while waving to lorry drivers. This time, our worship session was set against a backdrop of half-built tiled building, scaffolding, green construction wrap and cranes resting for the night. There we sat, surrounded by protruding air vents, under a smoggy sky shading salmon to lavender and a sun bleached flouroscent red by pollution, and a the massive half of a lit sign reading Minsheng Bank. It looked like a set on the matrix, or some mtv. We sang psalm 126 (which we had invented on the fly back at NIT). Ellie led worship, playing songs off ally’s computer while we prayed. Was it beautiful or weird? Both, I think. Only on a trip like this. A mountain—no, rooftop experience.
Later, we went swimming in the indoor pool. I told Rachel about rolling her shoulder. Rachel is wonderful. She is uninhibited and eccentric—a true character. She’s a true engineer too—gained herself a reputation for being plumber and electrician supreme—a very useful skill in this land of the broken toilets. When I look at her, I think of someone who loves her job and her study, uses it for others with total delight, and makes a challenge, adventure or comedy out of every situation. Her eccentricity is so unpretentious. Its wonderful. I can’t believe that I didn’t discover this gem in her while we were in catz. I’m glad that I’ll still get a chance to hang out with her in camb.
7.8.06
2nd day of camp. The kids were more responsive today. Can only be a good thing. I have great hope for this class. They are smart and responsive, not totally participative but enthusiastic enough, and are basically good kids. I wish that this were a stay over camp—I could get to know them so much better. Ally taught them about the difference b/w fact and opinion, and gave them a really challenging comprehension passage, and they did it all. So different from my NIT class, where the comprehension exercise just ended up as a big vocab and tranlation fiasco
it was an exciting day. Lorna and nelson managed to have a good conversation with nora, one of the girls, who asked them how to pray. Jason and dave got talking to this guy called Humorcne (no one has figured out how to pronounce it, not even the guy himself), and found out he had some understanding of the bible and god, and was interested thought his knowledge was sketchy. Rach and ally and I were the only ones that didn’t have conversations, but I’m confident we will soon. God has increased my faith in his ability to create situations out of nothing—after the mysterious and totally unexplained appearance of a Chinese bible in mine and Ryan’s class at NIT, nothing surprises me anymore! Its cool to see how excited everyone is just by the faintest hint of interest among the students—at night we sit in meetings and share conversations like they were battle conquests. Why only here? Do I sit down every regular, non-isec day and rejoice over conversations that I managed to direct in the direction of the most important thing in my life? Do I even have those conversations?
We went to a huge electronics shop in the evening. It was Mark’s idea- the geek that he is. When we got there, the blokes unanimously decided to give themselves 2.5hrs shopping time—which drew obvious protests from the girls to the tune of now they know what it feels like to be given half and hour and a black face at silk street. I wandered around with Rachel, lorna and Lillian. Managed to buy a neoprene bag for my apple, for 20 yuan. I’m proud of my bargaining prowess. I managed to get a set of speakers for rach for 40 yuan too. I’m so bad when it comes to shopping. I think I’m too addicted.
Interesting conversations today:
With lorna and ellie during lunch. We talked about whether we are different in Cambridge from how we are on ISEC. Both of them said that they are so different—in camb or at home, they are so much more dressy, girly, have different styles, and they feel “not-them” here. I didn’t know that other people felt this way too! I thought I was the only one who was so superficial, and hence somehow morally and spiritually deficient. Over here, I’ve been feeling so out of sorts—not necc in a bad way, but just that I feel llike I;m so different here from the usual me. It shocks me to realize how much this is because of my totally different wardrobe here. I spent longer than I ever should feeling un-confidernt and frustrated because I felt so sloppy and needlessly under-dresssed here. Lorna said she felt exactly the same thing. I know that there;s no reason to let my identity and confiendence be affected by my clothes and hairstyle, but I can’t help it—it makes such a big difference, esp to me, since I am so into dressing up and maintaing my style. I realize that this is not right, if it causes me to feel inadequate just because I can’t do it here.
Mark’s sharing about his life, which later turned into a story about his love life. He talked about how he struggled to deal with rejection by a girl who he was so sure God was leading to be his girlfriend. It was strange to hear someone say that they could be sure that god intended for a person to be theirs just because they felt it—can we ever jjustify our deep emotions and desires for something which seems secular and selfish, by relating it to God’s will? And, like nelson asked later, how can we be so sure? How do we know its God and not me? i hope that when it happens ot me, I will know when its god and when its not. I sometimes feel that I already know, and have always known deep in the back of my mind, who it is going to be—whenever the topic of relationships comes up, there is only 1 person that springs to mind as consistently and totally unremarkably. I always thought that this was “just me’, but mark’s talk made me wonder whether it is possible that god means some things to be. I must admit that it might not be what I dream of or intend—there are much more exciting possibilitiies around. But I just feel this sense of safety and being comfortable, whenever I consider it. Well, only time will tell. All I can say is that for now, its one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to going home.
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