On the Bus

At times it seems like most of my time is spent traveling. I travel at least an hour and half every day, not counting walking to NTU and to Chinese classes (about 20 minutes away from the cathedral). For the most part, I don't really mind. Most people probably have jobs they secretly would like (perhaps just for a day). A favorite "dream" job of mine is long distance semi-driver. I really enjoy watching the scenery go by, and I get some of my best thinking done while in the car, or bus, or train, or subway. . .

This week I have been thinking about convenience. This thought is closely tied to transportation. I'll get there soon. . .

In the days after the presidential election I was asked by many people in the U.S. what the reaction was in Taiwan. Overall, I got two reactions: #1: Most Taiwanese don't care about U.S. politics and #2: Obama ran a really slick ad campaign. I wish I had more to report. Keep in mind, these results are not statistically significant or even remotely reliable as an indicator of the Taiwanese political mindset. Although uninterested in U.S. politics, over the few months we have been here I have discovered an issue the Taiwanese will discuss with passion: convenience.

Convenience is usually how the value of things are gauged. Consider these (not-so) hypothetical scenarios:

#1: I am talking to a student at NTU who is from Kaohsiung (southern Taiwan).

Me: Do you like living in Taipei?
Student: I guess so. It's very convenient.

#2: Discussion with cathedral members about English Bible Study

Me: We are holding the Bible study at 7:30pm on Tuesdays. Late enough for students coming from classes and early enough for students to return to study.

Cathedral member: Thursdays are not convenient times for students. Maybe a weekend will be more convenient?

#3: Taiwan has more than 4,000 7-11 convenience stores. Plus almost as many Family Mart and Hi-Life convenience stores. Taiwan is an extremely small country. It takes 4 hours by train to go from northern to southern tip.

Back to transportation: On the evening bus ride from NTU to Xindian (where we live), the bus is always packed with middle and high school students. These students leave school anywhere between 4 and 9pm at night. The students then travel by subway or bus often 30 minutes to an hour each way to their homes. (This is true because the school system here is run completely on tests. These tests decide what school you go to. Students are tracked into vocational or college-prep high schools by the time they are 13/14 years old)

Perhaps convenience is so highly valued by college students and adults because they spent half of their own childhood traveling back and forth to school. Or maybe they are simply exhausted by going to school for 12-15 hours per day (plus Saturday school in high school). I can understand the appeal of getting a good job and wanting everything (and 7-11's have just about everything) within arms reach.

But is this the reward for such hard work and intense traveling for 18 years? Convenience? Are we allowing convenience to decide our quality of life? Students like college because it is convenient!? Students only go to Bible study because it is convenient?

If there is one major thing I have learned this year is God is not convenient. Jesus spoke of a narrow path and the eye of the needle, not convenience. Certainly not the easy life.

What does this mean? For many emerging church writers, this means a revolutionary way of living. For some like Shane Claiborne, this means living the Simple Way. Simple, but not convenient. This means working on long-term relationships, reaching out, traveling, stretching ourselves into new ways of living, being, interacting. We (I) have to be willing to take a bus 15 minutes, transfer to the Subway for 20, walk for 30 minutes, talk with strangers for 2 hours about the love of God and then make the journey in reverse. And then wash, rinse, and repeat for the next 8 months.

That doesn't sound easy. And it certainly isn't convenient. It's not even fun. But it is what God is asking right now, in this place. So I'll get back on the bus tomorrow and keep praying for love, not convenience, to take over.

Love,

Seth

The night time pictures are from our excursion to the Opera! The CKS Memorial Hall is pretty at night. And, I got to wear my jacket! The video is a man playing the harmonica outside the hall. I think he was better than the opera! (I'm serious, very very serious. It was a bad opera. . . and the harmonica man is pretty good.) Also, we had pasta with marinara sauce and garlic bread for the first time in over 4 months! It was absolutely breathtaking. Good enough to post online!

Christian Calisthenics

In the good 'ol Episcopal Church I have often heard the up and down of the liturgy, the standing, kneeling, and sitting referred to as "pew aerobics" or "Christian calisthenics." Well, I have news for those of you who might consider yourselves high church and in love with such exercises. . . you wouldn't last a week in Taiwan.

This past Saturday, Elizabeth and I took part in the National Council of Churches in Taiwan Christian Sports Day (colloquially the NCCTCSD). We arrived a little bit late and walked in right in the middle of the opening ceremonies. Now, Taiwan is no world sports superpower, but they must have paid close attention to the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Each denomination (Lutheran, Episcopal, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, YMCA, YWCA) was lined up in military precision lines, all wearing denominational uniforms and chanting church slogans in unison (I am totally not making this up). After a few prayers where denominational leaders invoked the competitors to play fair and try to remember some principles such as love and grace, we all did group warm-ups.

When I say warm-ups, I mean they had a team of calisthenic leaders up front with headset microphones leading the entire crowd of 1500 out of shape "athletes" in deep knee bends, stretching, jumping jacks, and about 20 more minutes of intense aerobic exercise.

I for one was extremely thankful for the warm-up. After all, I was signed up to play billiards at 10:30am. And Elizabeth was signed up to play tug of war at 1pm. All I am saying is, I'm sure the stretching paid off.



The rest of the day I believe can best be described as chaos. After calisthenics the churches broke up into teams for basketball, table tennis, billiards, squash, and tug of war. I was the third leg of the Episcopal Church's 9-Ball pool team. Which meant I didn't play because the first two guys lost. Oh well. Victor, Elizabeth, and I played on our own later and I got to show off my concentration face.

The featured sport was table tennis, but the most exciting event of the day was tug of war. The tug of war divisions were split into men, women, and co-ed. Elizabeth and Victor (our friend from the cathedral) were put onto the Episcopal Church co-ed team. Let's just say short and skinny aren't necessarily the best reasons to put someone on a tug of war team. Fortunately, they had a great coach. Daniel, the campus minister at St. John's University is shown here demonstrating proper tug of war technique.

Alas, our intrepid band of Episcopalians were no match for the Catholics. As you can see from the picture, the Catholics (in yellow) were not only far more intense, there team was also entirely made up of farm workers from the southern part of the country. Our two rounds against the Catholics lasted a total of about 1 minute. They were a force to be reckoned with. And as you can see, the rope burns. The Catholics creamed every team they played against, taking the championship of all three divisions. Maybe next time the Episcopalians stick to table tennis. . .











at least this guy looks like he is good:

Well, that's all for now. Elizabeth, Victor, and I are going to the world premiere of an opera on Friday called the Black Bearded Bible Man. It is about George Mackay, the first Presbyterian missionary to Taiwan. It is also the first opera to be written in Taiwanese and English. It is being performed at the National Theater with the National Orchestra, so I hope it will be good. At the very least, it will be in Taiwanese so we don't have to feel bad that we don't understand.

Peace,
Seth

Mission Envy

This week I have been experiencing two feelings I tend to avoid: envy and anger. The first one is really very strange. I think I am in the midst of some serious mission envy. And the hard part is, this isn't the first time. From the very beginning of our YASC experience, if I am honest with myself, I imagined us ending up in Africa.

I know, I know, this is so typical white kid wants to save lives in Africa. Which is why this is so difficult. Really, I swear I got my interest in Africa by honest (not guilt ridden) means. As an International Baccalaureate student in high school, my high school was extremely blessed to offer High Level African History. At the time we were one of a handful of high schools in the entire United States to offer this program. Our teacher was ABD in African History and it was her passion. Her passion for Africa bled over to almost all of her students. I don't know a single one who doesn't have at least some feeling of connection to this little understood but vastly diverse and rich continent. I don't know this to be true, but I imagine one reason my brother Nathan is studying abroad in Ghana is because of his own African History experience.

Another part of my mission envy comes from my absolute love of working in hands on care experiences. Many of the most joy-filled moments of my life have been working "hands-on" with adults with developmental disabilities at Support, Inc. and L'Arche Harbor House. I don't need an African experience to "discover" the love of God or simplicity of just being. I already had that in the U.S. and I can't help but want more. I deeply deeply desire more hands on experiences of love.

Anyway, I love reading the other missionary blogs. I especially love reading the blogs from Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa. The missionaries speak of such vibrant joy and love and life. Now, I know life isn't perfect. Even if our blogs make it look like it is. I know there are very real challenges in every missionary placement. But just grant me this little moment of envy. . .

Now, in lieu of talking about anger (which I promise I am doing in a healthy way with family and close friends), I would like to share some of the sustaining things I have encountered in the past week:

In my interview with Bishop O'Neill at the BACOM weekend, he brought up Common Cathedral, a wonderful "homeless church" in Boston. They use the serenity prayer each week, because it's a good prayer, and because many people in attendance struggle with substance abuse.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

and Romans 4:16-21:

16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, ¹⁷as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ ¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

And of course:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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.