Happy Thanksgiving from Hong Kong!
What a month! After our debrief at the beginning of the November, my team, Aletheia and team Libra spent 1 week working with an organization called Crossroads in Hong Kong. Crossroads is a global distribution center that connects global resources and redistributes them to those in need around the world. We worked alongside some very passionate global minded friends and helped prepare goods that were shipped to Kenya and Croatia to assist NGO’s in those countries. Crossroads also has simulation experiences that allows people to step inside the shoes of an HIV AIDS victim, a child soldier in Uganda, or a blind villager in Nairobi. Check out http://www.crossroads.org.hk/ if you would like to help support them or make donations.
From Hong Kong we (Aletheia, Libre, and Quake) took a train to an undisclosed location in mainland China to do a Cultural 
Exchange program at a university studying everything from speaking Chinese to how to appreciate tea and the artistic way they prepare and pour it. We studied history, how to write in Chinese calligraphy, how to make jowdza or dumplings – the typical Chinese breakfast. Participating in the Cultural Exchange allowed us to meet and develop relationships with students on campus. These students are some of the most loving people I’ve ever met. For the safety of our contacts in China, I won’t be able to provide detailed information or sadly any pictures of my new Chinese friends, but God showed up in some amazing ways.
China was freezing so I layered nearly every piece of clothing I brought with me and then wore that same outfit for 2 weeks straight. The students didn’t seem to mind. The poor kids are used to the cold – They’re used to sitting in cold classrooms and dorm rooms with absolutely no heat. After our morning class I would make friends with the students and invite them to lunch, spend time in the park, take them shopping, or hang out in their dorm rooms. I even gave some guitar lessons. It surprised me how fast we were able to build relationships with them in such a short amount of time.
What I experienced on that campus I would never experience on any campus in America. The Chinese students loved us immediately. They spent time with us, opened their hearts to us and embraced us as if we were their closest friends, yet they didn’t know us from Adam. In fact, we are opposite from them in so many ways, yet they didn’t let any of that influence their desire to be with us and love us. All it took was asking them to lunch or saying hi to one of them passing by and it opened the way to instant bonds. They gave their love in practical ways too. If we were cold, they would knit us a scarf within hours. These college kids who don’t have much to give would hand make us scarves, would pay for our meals when we couldn’t fight them to the register first.
You take that scene and drop it on an American campus and its highly doubtful if you’d get the same impact. How often do we embrace others who are not like us. How often do we intentionally befriend others who don’t look like us, or speak our language, or eat our food – yet genuinely want to be with them and know them? How often do we go out of our way to spend time with people who are outside of our comfortable circles of friends to make others feel welcome, loved, accepted and known?
The Chinese students taught me a lesson of love.
To love more intentionally and not cast immediate judgements. To accept others just the way they are. To let go of fav
oritism and showing partiality. To love those who may be different from me even when I’d rather retreat to what I know and what makes me feel comfortable. The Chinese loved like Jesus and most don’t even know him.
What I saw in them was a selfless love. They gave themselves away freely. They gave their love away recklessly and it drew me in.
May I follow just a little more after their example of loving so intentionally, so freely. Because when we feed someone who’s hungry, give a scarf to someone who’s cold, extend a hand to someone in need, or comfort someone with a hug – we’re doing it unto Jesus
