Archive for April, 2010

I do not know if I hear God’s calling or not. I am assured that God’s calling draws me to come here to study missions. I wish that God would tell me what I should do for my life with a human voice. I believe that He presents Himself to some people, and tells them what they should do, or gives them a vision. I think anything good is God’s calling, like loving your family or being a caring teacher. His calling is very big, and He allows each of us to respond to His calling. God probably doesn’t care as much what we are doing, but how we do it. Every Christian has His calling to love him and love our neighbors. When we choose appropriate things that we want to do in our life, it creates the relationship between us and God. God’s calling are big, and He gives us the free will to choose. He has personal relationships with us through the choice we make.

Community calling is often connected to God’s calling, however, at times it conflicts with God’s calling. Some people hear the call of God while others ignore it. For example, the church is our community, but sometimes the church fails people. Or sometimes, we do not understand God and misunderstanding his calling. Therefore, we can have conflicts between our community and ourselves. When the community’s calling and God’s calling are in harmony, and it is suitable for us, we will take up that mission.

According to what I have learned through this semester, vocation is a way to live our life, it is a way to focus our life for the relationships with God, not just a job or career. We have different standards as Christians and non-Christians for our vocations. As Christians, we are called to love others and tell non-Christians about God. In America, we have such a diversity of people from all of the world, and we have the opportunity to tell others about God. When we know more about how to love others, how to share in God’s mission, we are learning God’s specially calling through our life.  We must represent our identity as God’s Children no matter our career, occupation, profession, or job.

A “Rule of my life” provides important principles by which to shape one’s Christian vocation. God created everyone differently, but he also created every human in his image. Everyone needs love, everyone needs to forgive and be forgiven, and everyone needs joy and hope. That is why I think God is real. He is the foundation of our life. He provides us the basic needs. As God’s tool to provide others their needs, He gives me special gifts. I care about people; my friends tell me that God gives me the ears for listening to others well. Through my life, I want to show my caring to others. I want to practice how to pay attention to the people who need, and try to deeply understand them. Especially, I want to be a missionary in foreign country, I need to learn to respect the difference, not to judge and focus on relationship more. Secondly, I need to show our Christian identity, our joy in the Lord more to other people. Through my life, I want to follow every command that Jesus said, not to lie, work for the social justice, to be a good Christian. Probably, my actions cannot influence the society or others that much, but it is about my heart for God. Thirdly, is my spiritual life with God. This is important, when we grow up spiritually; it is easier for us to practice other principles. Read others’ life and let their stories  encourage me to grow. Prayer is very powerful. Talk with God every day. I want to let him work through my heart and give him my time so I can hear his calling better.

Two or three months ago, I had a big argument with my very good friend about religion. To some degree, I wanted to convince him to become a Christian to retain our relationship. It did not work out, we are not close as before and never talked about religion anymore. Through the argument, I was not wrong and he was not wrong too. The reason we have conflicts is because the language about God is different. We have totally different concepts about God. After the big fighting, I decided to speak in the chapel to clarify some basic terms about Christianity according to my own experience. However, I really did not know what should I speak, there are so many things I can say, I just have 12 minutes. I did not know how to prepare the speech. Last night, after back from the Church, my brain stopped working. I called Keith to help me a little bit. He gave me some ideas. But specifily I still do not know what I should say. I think God just want me to go to bed or do something else, insteading of figuring what I should say for international chapel. So I prayed that I hope holy spirit will speak through me. I was so tired to think about any thing. This morning I had a class, which means I did not have time to think too much either. I thought I will get very nervous, because I do not like speaking in publicly, especially I need to address religion questions in English.
In my deep heart, I know God will be with me, I am going to speak for God, if I will be nervous, then be nervous, it is OK. So I started prayer and talked the story about myself becoming a Christian. Then the main message is Jesus. I talk about why Jesus is necessary to be on the earth and die. The weird thing is that I did not get nervous at all, and I totally involved in my own conversation. And Carol told me that she never seen me take such authority when speaking. And she thinks that God has blessed you with the ability to speak in front of people. I had some good feedback from my friends. Mostly they are from Christians friends. I did ask my friend, whom I argumed with before how he thinks. He said he did not understand because of English. I thought my English is pretty simple and everyone should understand. First time in my life, I did not to control, and it turned pretty good. I do not know how much my message can influence.

It was a good experience for me. Usually, I am not good at talking in the public. But this time, I think I did a good job. Many people went up and told me it was very good. I think it is necessary for me to speak out, and let other people to hear my voice. I also it will be good for my classmate to hear what I am thinking. So I am going to practice speaking out, and not get nervous.

—–Write in April 2rd

Speaking for the international Chapel

spring break mission trip

Day 3

Today is the third day of our mission trip in DC. We went to Frederick Rescue Mission. I loved this place and enjoyed the people there. It is a very interesting place. It was a Jail back to 19s. We could see the buildings with high wall constructions. Now it is a place for people to worship God and Jesus. It has a library, living room, and computer room. It is a very neat place. They give away food, and have two programs to help homeless people to find God and to live with God. It is very impressive. We got there about

8 am, and went to the chapel. We led the songs, and talked about why we were there. More and more people showed up just to enjoying the songs. Even people who did not sing were there watching. It was incredibly awesome. After that, two residents shared their testimonies with us. It was very touching. Kevin went to Jail when he was young and his mother died of cancer. He did not get along with his dad, and he left home when he was about 16. Now he is about 30 years old. He met his girlfriend who became a Christian seven years ago. His girlfriend led him to the Frederick Rescue Mission. Now he has changed so much because of God. He wants to be a good hus

band and good dad. It was amazing and dramatic to listen to different people’s stories.

When I was listening to their sad stories, I was thinking that it was not God who made this happen, it is our own responsibility to take care of ourselves and the society. Our life is not just about ourselves, it is more about others and God. I am really sorry that someone is suffering because of other’s results.

Sixteen of us did lots of jobs. We removed the big branches, organized the pantry, transported the food, and served lunch. We also had some fun with the residents in there. We played basketball with them, gave them the attention, and showed them God’s love. When I served lunch for the homeless people who are not the residence of this building, I told them about my story and what I want to do. Some people just came up to us and said “God bless you.” After lunch, a guy talked to me. He was saying said it was goo

d to serve other countries, but our American needs us too. I felt so honored. I think it is true that American needs more missionaries too, even it is developed country. He was so sweet. I did not talk with him a lot, because I needed to serve others. By the way, The food was very good, and so I tried everything. Also there were two high school students who were doing the community service. I wish I had talked with them more.

When I walked around the building, I found a guy who was reading the Bible. I w

alked over there and talked with him. He was in a car accident, and one year la

ter when he recovered, his company did not want to hire him anymore. He stayed with his brother for a long time. Because his brother is going to get married, he can not keep him any more. He heard about this place, and filled out the forms. He told me he never read the Bible 20 days ago. He learned the Bible just about 16 days, and read different books, and prayed lots. He was very honest with me. He said he is still smoking, but he is not supposed smoking there. He is trying to quit. He said to be here he learned life is just not about him; he wants to give more to others. Every time when he sees homeless people come for the food, he feels that he needs to change his life

with the help of God.