Sharing our Hearts for Longlac: July 18, 2008

Today was an overcast, rainy day. But brilliant in a way because the health clinic threw an appreciation breakfast for us. It was so very thoughtful, totally unnecessary, but very much appreciated. We made our way there for 10am and they had a huge breakfast prepared for us with eggs, bacon, sausages, fruit and toast. What a treat! And as if that wasn’t enough, they also prepared gift tote bags for each of us with various items like water bottles, hats, t-shirts and even stainless steel travel mugs. I was overwhelmed by all of this and very grateful for the favour and friendship we’ve cultivated through the past several years.

We had some time after the breakfast to make our way back to the church and chill out before we returned for the afternoon program. Our plan was to have a cultural exchange. We were going to make dream catchers with the kids and then we were going to show them the meaning behind the calligraphy in some Chinese words. Shirley stayed up on Thursday night researching (from a book we had) various words and writing up briefs so that we could properly and hopefully somewhat intelligently talk about the words ourselves… since for most of us it was all new! Some of the characters that Shirley chose:

Boat/Ship – vessel, eight, mouth (which is also symbolic of people)

· For Boat/Ship, the reference of Noah and the Ark. How there were eight ppl who went onto the vessel (cF Genesis 7:13) and were saved from the flood.

Blessing/Happiness – has the characters for God, One, Mouth (symbolic of people) and Garden

· For Blessing/Happiness, the idea that in the garden of Eden, there was God, and the first man enjoyed the best fellowship with God.

Righteousness – has the characters for Lamb on the top and I/Me on the bottom.

· The idea that there is a Lamb that atones for our acts and through this we become righteous

(I tried to copy and paste an image of these Chinese words but couldn’t. I did find an interesting website at http://www.eslmission.org/docs/esl/04B--CHINESE%20CHARACTERS%20AND%20THE%20BIBLE.doc that talks about the same things)

It’s interesting that the calligraphy has Christian meaning behind them. BUT, we didn’t get a chance to do this. Unfortunately, there was a heavy rain and the kids were in town and couldn’t come back to the clinic because of the rain. So instead we ended up with just us adults sitting in the meeting room making dream catchers ourselves. Despite not having kids and perhaps because there were no kids, we were able to just have a quiet craft time and just talk among ourselves and with Priscilla. In a way, we got to have a cultural exchange of our own, just talking about the native culture and understanding their ways.

That night we ended up having some of the boys over for dinner. At first I was a little apprehensive because I didn’t know how it was going to be having them over. But as soon as they came in, we laid down some ground rules… very simply ones: That they respect each other, us and the church. They were fantastic at this and we enjoyed the time with them so much. After dinner, because many of them had curfews (a respectable 8:30pm) we had a time for them to do a simple thing with us. On our wall, we have ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication). Every once in a while, when we feel moved we write something on a sticky note and place it in the appropriate spot. It’s a way for us to see visually what we are praying for and how we are communicating with God. It’s a wonderful thing to see how supplication items move to thanksgiving items… encouraging because it visually shows us how God is moving.

At the end of dinner we asked them if there were any prayer items (supplication) that we could pray on their behalf. We asked them to write them down on post it notes. It was definitely something new to them, BUT to their immense credit, they wrote down some very meaningful things… things I won’t repeat to protect their privacy, but very personal and touching things. I’m glad that we had the opportunity to do this with them.

One postscript that I’d add to show how our friendship has grown. When we picked the boys up for dinner they called us at 6:15pm to let us know that they were leaving their homes to meet us at the rendezvous point for 6:30pm. How many adults do that?! It was, for me, a touching moment because it shows me that they want to spend time with us and it means as much to them as it does for us.

~ Posted by Daniel… sorry for the lateness of this.

Appreciation Breakfast at the Clinic - Great Hospitality and Thank you again!