Do You Have Friends?

I am sure many of you have experienced this situation: new job, new boss, new job description. You come in eager to prove yourself and work hard, and you receive encouragement and direction such as "go and get 'em", "just be yourself," "give it your best shot." As you know, my job description here is to "begin a campus ministry." I was given the same type of encouragement and sent on my way.

Well, the reality of the situation is the major part of my work has been sitting in a food court at National Taiwan University with a card set up that says "Need a Listening Ear? Come Chat!" To my surprise (and delight), this card has been getting incredible response. I have gotten into a routine of sitting on campus 3-4 days per week from 11am-1pm (the lunchtime rush). Over the course of about 4 weeks, 12 students have been brave enough to sit down and chat.

Almost without fail, when students to sit down to chat, this is a lengthy commitment. The majority of the students talk to me for at least an hour. One student started talking to me and after 20 minutes abruptly interrupted our conversation to set a watch alarm to make it to his next class: in an hour and 15 minutes! So most of the time I only speak to one student per day. I think this is great. It gives us both time to really talk about something substantial. We are able to meander from the basic stuff (how long have I been in Taiwan? can I speak Chinese?) to the good stuff (how do Christians reconcile science and the Bible, how to best cope with moving to a new culture, the poor treatment of aboriginal Taiwanese by early Christian missionaries).

In previous conversations with people back home about my experiences on campus I usually start out by joking about how the first question I am usually asked is "are you Mormon?" This is a great conversation starter because I get to talk about why I am in Taiwan without any awkward transition into "religious talk."

However, the question that has really hit me hard in the last couple of encounters is "Do you have friends?" I am never quite sure how to answer this question. I sometimes say yes, I have friends in the U.S. But this always gets a follow-up question: "do you have friends in Taiwan?" Well, yes, we've made a great friend in Victor, a Taiwanese-American recent college grad at the cathedral. And Ingrid (featured in the picture with Elizabeth) has been a great friend, translator, and youth fellowship leader. But on the other hand, my experience thus far is being a missionary is a very lonely experience. In my deep desire to integrate into the culture and fully engage in the worship life of the Taiwanese Episcopal Church, we have made a conscious decision to not engage with much of the expat community in Taiwan (except those already in the church). The truth is, most of the expat community steers clear of the church, and certainly doesn't want to be seen talking to me in the food court.

Basically, I am sure that long-term missionaries are able to build and engage in very meaningful and deep friendships with their host communities. Over time, they are probably integrated in many ways into the life of the community, and treated as "members." However, I imagine there is always an element of being the outsider, mostly due to not sharing family, cultural, or linguistic histories. I am not sure Elizabeth and I are going to get to that point of "membership" here. And that is incredibly difficult.

The difficulty of not belonging and not having friends in the same way I consider my friends at Canterbury and St. Aidan's to be friends (sharing deep, consistent, meaningful, lasting relationship) has made me consider the reason behind the question "do you have friends?" It sometimes seems as if the question is related to another popular question, "do you like Taiwan?" This immediately throws me back into my first two years at college where having friends and liking college was pretty much the same question. In a way, I feel like I need to say, oh yes, I have plenty of Taiwanese friends, and I love Taiwan. But this is disingenuous. I feel like I can have a "good" (perhaps meaningful is a better word) experience here without linking the experience to my number of friends. In fact, I think I can be happy for a year without a group of friends. I see this experience as much more of a learning and growth year than social year.

Upon further reflection, I realized after hearing this question multiple times that it gets me in a tailspin of thinking about myself. Perhaps this question isn't really about my happiness, but is really meant as a cue to me to get out of myself and really listen to the students are saying.

Most of the students I talk to come alone. A few come with friends, but the majority who stay and talk for a long time don't really seem to have anywhere to be. In a culture where convenience is king and time is precious (must be studying!), an hour long conversation seems to be quite counter-cultural. While I try not to make assumptions about the students, almost all of the students I encounter are eager to discuss major issue in their lives. Many of them are dis-satisfied with their major (majors here are based on test scores, not on personal interest), and several see their major as a dead end in the rapidly declining economy. Several of the students have asked me about studying abroad and "getting out of Taiwan."

Should I be asking them the same question, "do you have friends?" I do not know how accurate my reading of the situation is, but many of the students I encounter are thirsty for friendship. Not the kind of friendship that jokes around but it silent when something serious comes up, but the kind of friendship that is born of love, a love for hearing the messy details, a love of wrestling with questions of purpose, joy, and pain.

In a sense, I hear God calling me into a different kind of friendship while we are in Taiwan. The friendship might not be going to movies, hanging out, shooting the breeze, but it might be a kind of friendship that many college students are missing. Perhaps I am called to help them discover the friendship of the church, or even more simply, a friendship that is based in service and love of the other.

So, for now, I can say I have many "friend encounters" in Taiwan. I love listening and talking to students. I hope they receive the same joy from this simple offering and can count this offering as a sign of friendship.

Love,

Seth

*The pictures in this blog post are from the youth fellowship outing to the NTU sports center. As you can see, badminton is extremely popular. The entire large gymnasium is covered with badminton courts. There is a smaller gym for basketball (for some perspective). As you can also see, I am a giant.