a long update -- ��I

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Date Posted: 00:43:56 08/12/09 Wed
Author: EC
Subject: a long update

Hi all, haven't posted a msg here as I was having a very busy month. Here's a few notes to update:

1) The busyness started with a 2-week intensive of the Gospel of Mark. I needed to attend 4-hr class every day, together with everyday assignment and reading. The class was taught by a young prof. and indeed was very interesting. It introduced many ways of criticisms through which to read Mark. I particularly enjoyed using narrative criticism to comprehend the plot of Jesus' story. Since the class was only 2 weeks, it was hard for me to learn using some new lens to read Mark. Although I barely can understand what it means by, for instant, using feminist or colonialist criticism to read Mark, these tools are very helpful tools that enrich my understanding of Mark and connect the Bible to my reality. Overall, I enjoy the class of biblical studies.

2) After the 2-week exhaustion, I flew out to attend a wedding in Berkeley. As missing out all the weddings in HK was a significant loss for me, I definitely tried all my best to attend weddings in the States. Johnny and Jennifer are good friends of mine and Keith. We felt excited for their new family and honored that we could help in the wedding. Indeed, Keith was the one who gave toast in the wedding banquet. He decided to do ��o�� to say all the good things about the groom. kakaka I could tell that he was pretty nervous the night before as I needed to help him practice and type out the Chinese in powerpoint. It turned out to be a great "performance" as the highlighted event in the banquet. Although I have dated Keith for 3.5 years, recently I have continuously discovered sth "new" from him. It is not a shock or a surprise to me. I know him well. But how he presents himself is different. I feel like as if he find his stage where he feels comfortable and he can fully actualize his potential. That's how I feel.

O btw, I was the MC of the banquet. It ran very smooth except the part of cutting cake. Obviously, the groom and the bride had no idea about the rundown which I had to ask the waiter. Now I have experienced about that. One thing down on my CV kakakakaka

3) My last intensive class started on Monday right after the wedding weekend. You can image how exhausted I was.

Then I got my emotional breakdown.

I didn't even know what exactly caused the breakdown. I cried throughout the therapy. I was shocked by that. Confusion and uncertainty of the future frustrated me. I hated that I could not narrow down my career interest. I was afraid that I wasn't as good as other students. I realized that I gradually disconnected from my story in HK. All these created a chaos inside me. Within a week, I cried twice. One in the therapy, one in the praying meeting. I slowly processed what the crying meant for me.

Then I had a class retreat on Friday.

I prayed when I walk through the laybrinth. I connected with Moses' story. Before i decided to come to California, I had the picture with me that my going to CA is similar to the period when Moses spent his time in the desert before God called him to lead Israel out of Egypt. I knew that this was a period of preparation. I was affirmed in my prayer that I just need to walk with God day by day. I thought that Moses probably had a hard time in desert. Being a prince of Egypt for many years, it wasn't easy to be nobody in the desert. I am not sure if Moses would feel satisfied with his life in desert. He used to be a person who had fire in his hard. Otherwise, he wouldn't kill the Egyptian in order to protect his people. Yet, Moses didn't become the great leader of Israel by then. Not until after Moses spending those years in desert, God finally called him with vocation. I don't have to know my future as there is no way I can know. I am not going to worry sth that actually is not under my control (my prof. introduced a new popular phrase: "the illusion of control"). I just need to live out my faith day by day, here and now. Then I know I am on my way to the destination.

4) Currently, I am in the class called Self-Care/Member-Care in Mission. Basically, it's a class about different issues of sending people to mission field such as traumatic experiences, vicarious trauma (traumatized by listening traumatic stories), culture shock, experiencing loss and war, MK/TCK (missionary kids/third culture kids) and burnt out. I particularly identified with the topic of MK/TCK as their experiences are similar to pastor's/elder's kids. When the speaker explained how these children were living in a glass hut with everybody looking at them, my heart stopped. This was EXACTLY how I felt in the past. The more the speaker talked about the MK/TCK experiences, the more I identified with them. The MK/TCK experience provides me a framework to understand what I have gone through and why I have acted so. Still three more days to go before the class comes to the end. Def. looking forward to learn more about this field.

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