remnants of Typhoon Haiyan

The devastation in the Philippines sounds surreal. How can a storm do so much damage? We're getting the last bits of Typhoon Haiyan today and tomorrow, but that means only Force 4-5 winds and some rain. I'm really thankful that HK does not have a history of landslides or whatnot because HK island at least is all hill!

Can't wait for the semester to end. I have a lot of wonderful students this semester, but I am pretty tired of teaching.

Beach day

I really should go to the beach more. I feel tired out from being out in the wind and sand.

on work

Is there such a thing as an easy job? You know, jobs that don't give you a headache? I'd like to sign up for one, please.

time to rest

The fall competition season is over! I'm taking a two week break from baddy to rest my elbow, but as it doesn't seem to hurt when I go to the gym, I think I can still keep in shape that way.

Now, to focus on work and rest. And a bit more church stuff. Lots to do at work this month.

sigh

I feel like I must have posted this video before, but here it is again: a really cool TED talk on vulnerability, given by a sociologist.

system shutting down

I am going to do the minimum for the next month or so. I'm going to exercise as little as I possibly can in order to do well during our last two matches for the season, and then after those two matches, I'm going to take 7-10 days off from exercise to give my arm a chance to recover. It's only a little sore now and I can still play but I want to let it rest for a bit after the season.

My social life has always taken a back seat, so no surprises or changes there. And sorry, students, I have to put less into lecture-writing too because I have so much grading, dammit!

The minimalist. Bye bye world, I need a break from life.

more on lessons

I'm learning these days that problems don't always have to be solved right this minute, you know, the right after I find out there's a problem and I'm still panicking no breaths just want to scream kind of right this minute. Problems need to be solved, yes, and sometimes, being quiet is the best first step to problem-solving.

common grace

Learning grace from a non-C. There's this ____ who has been mean to me for more than a year now. Well, she's stand-offish with most people but I feel like I've been at the brunt of it. Anyway, Sarah said, look, just keep saying goodbye to her at the end of practice even if she ignores you twenty times. One day, she will have to say goodbye back, and even if she doesn't, at least you will have been polite, and she's the one who is rude. Seventy times seven, anyone?

I'm really learning a lot, eh?

that Asian thing

I hate it when Asians go, "Oh, so and so is so much better in _________" or "So and so never ________" in an attempt to manipulate your behavior. Eff off, yo, just eff off. 

practice and smoothies

There's less and less drama during baddy practice, especially when Big Cal is around to run the drills. Then, I can just focus on drilling too and he handles the prickly girls who still see me as an object of resentment. (Really? You think I want to do this??) But I'm learning a lot about baddy, and I'm also learning more about how to relate to others. I'm not sure if the latter is always worth the time and energy.

I'm also making smoothies with my cheap and loud six-blade blender. Since I'm too lazy to follow recipes, my smoothies are hit or miss. I find that I don't love grapefruit or lemon in my smoothies because they tend to be bitter. Last week, I made a yummy smoothie with soymilk, avocado, and spinach. I've also managed to cut down on potato chips, but now I'm really craving a burger and fries!

Typhoon usagi

Waiting out the typhoon at a friend's place

boat trip

Seduced by wealth and decadence.....

Steak dinner

Thankful for good friends who are good cooks!

grace, and grace again

I have always been on the receiving end of grace, especially from the older folks in my life, or from guy players who are much better than I am. Now, I'm called on to show grace to others, especially those younger in age and/or in maturity, and it's much more difficult than I ever imagined it to be.

Over the past few months, I've been thinking about quitting, and I still think about it a few times a week. What's going on? What will God teach me through this time?

visitors

When I was in college, I worked at several jobs on campus, and one of them was at the college store. I was a cashier and became really close to the ladies who ran the store. They took me into their homes for the holidays, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Spring Break. Becky took me to her father's and stepmom's house in NH for a weekend when they had a family gathering, so I became friends with her father and stepmom too. This past summer, friends of Becky's parents came to HK for a few days, so I took them around for a few hours. This is a picture of me helping Susan buy some fruit. I'm wearing the blue shirt.

reception for first year students

Yes, I'm in there somewhere.

Desperation Band, Strong God

new school year

When school begins, I truly realize just how busy my schedule is! Must slow down!!!!! 

the world keeps shifting under my feet

Last week, the team manager of my club made me captain of the women's team for our upcoming tournament, but he did so without my agreement. We haven't had captains in our club, but we will begin taking turns to be captain. Unfortunately, this has not been made clear, but I announced it in a group email this morning. 

People who play on a team will probably understand how annoying team dynamics can be. This club is as political as others. I've only been captain for a week, and I'm already tired. 

The members of the Sports Fellowship Committee for church shares prayer requests, and I've asked them to keep me in prayer because I am inexperienced as far as competitions go, and I am also a fairly new addition to the club. Developing my own skills as a player is already enough work without adding on this extra burden of organizing practice and the lineup, and to motivate the team members to come for practice! There are a few girls who are incredibly immature, and they make it really hard for me to do my job, and they make it hard for our other team members too. 

Please pray that I will have wisdom, patience, and the ability to love others at the club. And please pray that God will refine my character through this challenge. I do need to learn to be more patient.

Pollution

Horrible!

Last days of summer

Getting ready for the junk trip!

Cloudy day at the office

numbers

This semester, I will also have about 75 papers to grade. I am not looking forward to this.

On a completely unrelated note, I think I will finally cave and get a smartphone. I just have to find time to go buy a phone and get started on a cheap and slow data plan. I hardly watch HD videos while I'm stationary, so I won't need a fast connection when I am on the MTR. I just hope slow internet will get me connected to Tunein Radio!

on my mind

I think it's time that I actually finish NT Wright's Evil and the Justice of God.

PS - Cambodia

Nathan, from World Relief, reminded us that we are to pray light into darkness, and to focus on the hope that God is bringing to those who are suffering. This was a really important reminder as a few of us were getting overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems to which we were introduced.

So much to learn.

back from Cambodia

In the past, I felt that going on a mission trip makes one "holier" or "more close to God"; I was wrong then, and I still don't think it's true now. I hope my note does not make anyone feel that way! This trip put a human face on the stories I've read about the sex trade, and that was the most moving part of my experience.

The team that went to Cambodia was larger than expected (34 ppl!) so the team was split into two after the first three days: one team stayed in Phnom Penh (PP) for the whole week, and the other team went to Siem Reap (SR) for three days before rejoining us. I was with the PP team. The SR team partnered with one local organization, White Doves, while the PP team were introduced to many different organizations. The two experiences were quite different because the SR team managed to engage more deeply with one community while the PP team saw different kinds of work that are being done to combat the sex trade.

The breadth of sexual exploitation is horrific in Cambodia. We heard stories from workers inInt'l Justice Mission and Agape Int'l Missions about how they investigate and trail paedophiles who fly to Cambodia specifically to find children who are often prostituted by their fathers, mothers, or grandmothers.

We learned that some of the kids who go to Agape church's kid's club are also trafficked, and seeing the faces of these kids in the church was emotionally difficult. The church cannot stop it unless they abduct the kids and forcibly keep them apart from their families, so they focus on investigating paedophiles (usually foreigners) who come to their community and setting up social enterprises to provide well-paying work and discipleship. 

IJM and World Relief do prevention work like trying to change the country's laws and educating villagers about how traffickers lure their victims. We spent a whole day going about with different World Relief workers in the slum villages where children and their families live in and about garbage. I was very moved by one of our meetings with a cell church there because the women we met with had so little, but they wanted so much to bless us.  

Daughters of Cambodia, Sak Saum, and Precious Women provide care and restoration to survivors of the sex trade, and this includes intensive counseling as well as providing well-paying work in the social enterprises they have set up themselves. DC and Sak Saum were a hit with our team, and are definitely worth checking out online. The girls in our team could not stop shopping at their stores!

I loved touring their workshops and seeing some of the men and women survivors who work there help me remember that these are not just theoretical ideas. There are many, very real, human beings who have been deeply hurt and broken.

Agape Int'l Mission also has a workshop in Svay Pak (the village where they are situated) to provide work for survivors, and they would love it if you could order your church t-shirts from them! I've seen some of their bracelets and t-shirts, and they do very good work. In all these organizations, the survivors are paid a very good wage for Cambodia, so you can have peace of mind that these are fair-trade products.

This note is already too long, and I haven't even talked about Jumpah and Jehovah Jireh which are centers that focus on orphans and slum kids. This is where we "helped" the most and I could go on and on about the kids.....

During our trip, we heard not only success stories--and our God is a GREAT GOD who does mighty work!!--but also about how these ministries often fail. It is difficult for adults to leave the sex trade if they have been trafficked as children because they feel they are dirty, useless, and unwanted. The people who work in these ministries know that they can do the work they do only because of God's strength and we felt the Holy Spirit move with them while we were there.

Would I go on another mission trip? I don't know what the future holds. But I would certainly like to be with a smaller team and I will not feel guilty about taking care of myself when the schedule is designed for extroverts!

My home remedies are helping with the cold I started coming down with on the last day of the trip, but I do still have a bit of a nagging cough.

reflections on (HK) life

Because I took on my first job here, I cannot always tell the difference between "adult life" and HK culture. Am I just seeing the world as it really is, or are these new befuddlements particular to this place and time? A good friend here sometimes says, "But z, it's like this everywhere," and sometimes, she says, "Yeah, that's so local." Sometimes, I'm not so sure she's always clear what is what, or which is which, either.

I think I'm learning another life lesson through badminton. In an earlier post, I noted that the politics of the club is making me unhappy, and that led me to ask, "Well, who is happy in this club, and why?" There are three kinds of people in my club:

1. Those who recognize that there is a hierarchy and are happy to submit to it. (They seem happy.)

2. Those who recognize that there is a hierarchy and don't want to submit to it. (They seem unhappy.)

3. Those who don't recognize that there is a hierarchy and therefore do not submit to it. (They seem unhappy.)

This certainly mirrors what I see happening in the workplace. Power and hierarchy are such a feature of human life, and no prizes for guessing why. Power and hierarchy are useful social constructions insofar as they help streamline processes within a group. Nothing would get done otherwise, and usually, those on top of the hierarchy are often given most of the work. When things go wrong, those at the top often--but not always--suffer the brunt of the fallout.

Like all things after the Fall, these aspects of life and relationship can bring great pain. It's no surprise then that so much of Euro-American intellectual history revolves around questions of governance and democracy. Great thinkers rightly deduce that individuals and communities cannot survive without addressing three prevailing truths about how God has created us: first, that we are all of value; second, that we are equally valued; and third, that we need live with one another, i.e. that we need to be in community.

What would Christ say to this? What would Christ say to me in the here and now of my own life? Is one able to build up genuine friendships under these circumstances? What is my role in this, and how should I conduct myself?

slowing down

I've been playing only once a week, and it doesn't look like I'll be able to schedule in more games than that. I'm getting antsy even though the crick in my neck tells me that rest will do me good. (I got it in my sleep, and not from over-use.)

The politics in the club is a little weird now, so that makes me less happy. Maybe I need to find a place where I can play and improve and be happy. I don't need to play in competitions and if taking that out of the mix will make me happier, then maybe that's what I need to do.

On another note, it is a hot summer day that is blessedly clear. The city sparkles on nights like this one. This picture does not do it justice.

Great idea

Had a mostly fun but somewhat stressful trip to France and Belgium. It became stressful when my credit card wouldn't work and I ran out of cash. Loved the murals on the walls in Brussels.

shared brokenness

I like this story that a friend posted on his blog. There's comfort in knowing that others understand how it feels to be broken, and Christ, above all, knows how it feels to be broken so he has that in common with us.

I asked God on Saturday night for healing and for intimacy. I still haven't heard voices of any kind, but I do feel more at peace now. He works with thunder and lightning in some people's lives, and sometimes I envy that. But I guess I can learn to be thankful for how quiet and gentle His presence is in my life.