5/10/2015
Well, finally a China blog!
I did not have a lot of internet in China, but we also had to be very careful about what we said to protect our brothers and sisters serving there. Even now, I am not really allowed or even comfortable with sharing specifics so as not to get back to them. I will share in detail when I get home, in person or in church, but not online. What I will say is that there are many, MANY, brothers and sisters in Christ here working vigorously for the Kingdom and loving others in extremely hard and difficult situations. These are people who have gone to dangerous places, the places where few dare to go, and God has gone before them! I also will say that we were in Yanji, China, close to both North Korea and Russia, volunteering to tutor in English.
There was a lot of spiritual oppression, especially in the areas of “burn out” and feeling restricted or isolated in that faith couldn’t really be shared and even spoken had to be monitored. We used phrases like “PRing” and “Yarping” (pray backwards) to talk about prayer, “M’s” for missionaries, and so on. Just experiencing it for a month was draining and a little frustrating, especially because I wanted to share what was going on with my family and friends back at home. So imagine what it must be like to live there! It reminded me of a conversation that I had with one of my friends, DJ, when I was in High School. We are up late talking about God, dreaming of how to change the world, and we talked about places like China.
“Why are we so lazy in our worship here?” I said. “We should be shouting screaming out our praise because people in China can only whisper theirs.”
I am not saying that everyone should always shout their praise–true worship comes in so many forms, whether dancing with all of our might or being still. We should be in constant worship–but we should sometimes also take advantage of the freedom that we have in America. 🙂
But God was SO present there, and because of that, the enemy was trying his best to discourage the church. The harvest is plenty but the workers are so few there in China. I made some beautiful friends there, and it really grabbed my heart in unique ways. Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ over in China and their work there!
One of the things that has really been on my heart even before China, was having Heavenly Perspective. A lot of things are seen and experienced while on the World Race, and sometimes it can overwhelming…
“But when I think about the Lord, how He saved me, how He raised me, How He filled me with the Holy Ghost, how He healed me to the utter most…it makes me want to shout ‘Hallelujah, thank you Jesus. Lord you’re worthy of all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise.'”
I taught about the prodigal son in Cambodia and again in Vietnam. I talked about how neither son really knew their father. The youngest son just wanted to take advantage of his love, and when he blew it, was unsure if his father would take him as a SLAVE, much less a son. Instead of turning him away, or making him work to earn his inheritance again, the Father RAN to his son, embraced him, and celebrated him coming back home to his father, who loved him.
The older son saw His father as a task master who was stingy with his love and gifts, when all the while the Father said “Everything I have is yours and you are always with ME!” They had two completely different perspective on the situation. We sometimes get caught up by our circumstances, pains, comparisons, and storms of this life that it is really difficult to have the right perspective, to see what is going on right in front of you.
That is why we have to trust our Father’s perspective and not our own.
Trust that He does forgive us.
Trust that He will bring everything out for our good.
Trust that He has gone before us and has victory.
Trust that He loves us enough to run to us and embrace us, even when we have messed up big time.
Easier said than done sometimes. I want the right perspective of my Father, to recognize him for who He is when He is standing right in front of me.
In Cambodia, we had worship night, and instead of prying for the things that had been on my mind and heart, I started to just think of Heaven. Started imagining with great expectation what it would be like. I thought of the last lines in Narnia.
I also thought of when in “The Magician’s Nephew” whenever Digory thought of Alsan and how much he cared for him, that life would come back into the right focus.
“When I fix my eyes on all that you are,
and every doubt I feel deep in my heart,
grows strangely dim…
All my worries fade and fall to the ground,
when I seek your face and not look around
any place I’m in grows strangely dim.”
It doesn’t take away the problems or the situation that I am in, but Jesus is teaching me to dwell on who He is and take joy in that thought.
“The JOY of the Lord is our strength.”
Just having joy in Who He is and know that I am His. This is what I am focusing on.
Love you all! Thank you for praying!
~Tori
