We're off to Thailand!

Well, we're a couple of hours aways fro mgetting on the train to head to Beijing, and then off to Chang Mai, Thailand. We'll be there for some meetings and rest. Please be thinking of us as we try to bee refreshed for the coming year.

We'll be out of pocket and unable to check email much.
Until then....

A good illustration

I read a good illustration the other day about something that so many of us get quite confused.

Many people talk as if their life will be judged at the end of their life based on how many good and bad things they did. They say that this balance will decide their eternal future...if they do enough good works.

But consider this: If your wife or husband decided to cheat on you only one time per week. But when you confronted him/her, (s)he said, "It's OK, because I have done a 100 0r more really good tings for you--I made dinner, took care of the kids, earned a living, fixed the house problems, massaged your back,....." Of course, that answer wouldn't do. You see, we know that even in our human relationships, such a standard would never apply; yet why do we think an infintie perfect Dad would accept such regular imperfection ("rebellion...if we're honest about it). Such a thought.

Another illusion to brake down is th idea that we can actually gain merit before Dad. But if anyone creates something else, the creature/creation can never earn merit for when it does good things, it is merely doing what it is obligated to do...by virtue of its creation and design. Therefore, no one can actually get "good points", because all the good works we can imagine never gain us "merit". In fact, we can only gain "demerit" because any wrong doing is an infinitely terrible offense since it offends the name and reputation of an infinitely worthy person. The crime is infinitely heinous and thus deserves infinite punishement. SO, we have a problem. We can't gain merit and we can (and do) only receive "demerit". This should make it clear to us why our only true course of action is to simply beg for mercy and depend on Dad's unimaginable mercy and grace. But he have to admit the situation and be humble first.

kids!? :)

Selah is so funny. We have more stories than we can remeber to BLOG.

A few weeks ago, we were coming back into our building and the front door attendent was talking to her about what we had doen that day. Selah told her that we had bought toilet paper, and then she proceeded to demostrate how a person wipes...front and back! Ya, a little embarrassing b/c our Chinese freind totally understood her.

Another story has Selah talking to our "bottle lady", who sits outside our school gate selling shoe pads and to whom we give our cans and bottles. Well, one week Selah's "body" had been sore, but this particular day, it had felt better. SO Selah was telling our bottle lady how her "body" had felt better and then said "See....feel" AHHHH! We're so thankful she only speaks Chinese and couldn't understand Selah. Yikes!

Cheater's Paradise

The East is incredibly communal. You see the value in community in every aspect of their lives. One of them is in their studies. All of the foreign teachers always have big problems with cheating. Why?! Because the students here have no problem with it, they simply see it as helping the weaker person. Certainly there will come a time when that person will need help too. So they all cheat on exams and taking tests for one another has become HUGE business. Their Chinese professors know that this is normal and so don't reprimand any of the cheating.

We try and get them to understand that it's a big offense to cheat in American universities and that you will be kicked out if you're caught. But they simply reply "that's a difference in the cultures." I had a conversation with my good friend, Iris, who is a postgraduate student here. She's getting ready to start her thesis and was telling me all about it. She said that her supervisor told her to come up with her own thoughts because that would give her a lot of clout. He spoke of this as if it was a novel idea-to come up with your own words instead of copying someone else's thesis. They just figure that if someone already said it well, then why repeat it.

This summarizes a lot of the differences in the cultures. We value individual creativity. The Chinese value saving their own face even at the cost of creativity.