Bible smuggling

Sigi and I by Gwen Shaw was given to me by my freshman year roommate, Peter Young, as a gift for my baptism. Hoho. Set in the Cold War, it's the true story of an American (Shaw) and German (Sigi) woman bringing the Word over the Berlin wall into Commmunist East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia.

As one could imagine, the faith required to step up to this calling had to have been XXL. All the actions, thoughts, and plain luck the protagonists' attribute to the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gave them the power to face checkpoint stops, blinded the eyes of officers to their Bible luggage, timed their arrivals and departures perfectly, directed them in dark streets with signs they couldn't read and evangelized people who couldn't understand but did. The book must be renamed 1001 Close Calls by T.H.S.

What I found remarkable was the familiarity of the practices that these cooky Europeans also did. They had prayer meetings, worshiped to familiar hymns, and, I swear, gave out the same-titled tracts!! But behind the Iron Curtain, these activities seemed out of necessity: these Christians literally declared themselves Christians, and as a result, were denied access from sports, politics, educational programs and institutes. Here, to be Christian was to forfeit the world...so could I have done that? hmmm.

I love You, Lord, though bitterly I'm weeping
In valley deep, where nothing I can see.
I know You know and love the one who is Yours, Lord,
And to Your Heart my weary soul doth flee.

Apologetics is overrated

After reading a bunch of atheist literature recently, I was relieved to pick up The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Not relieved in the sense of having my faith buttressed ... but stylistic-burgeoning relief. Atheistic stuff can seem so ill-willed and hostile, and fortunately Strobel wrote something tame (but not bland!)

The book is great in two ways. One, it reads like a coherent investigative narrative with no sources given easy passes. Two, it's the testimony of Strobel's journey from keen, Yale Law graduated skeptic to believer. I guess it was meant to be read cooperatively since there are group discussions questions at the end of each section. Topics covered:
[] reason to believe authentic authorship of the gospels (did you know Paul's Jewish contemporaries wrote that Jesus was a sorcerer? Jesus vs. Dumbledore = epic)
[] "the canon is a list of authoritative books rather than an authoritative list of books"
[] disregarding the gospels, Jesus is still the most well-documented creator of a religion in secular history (competition: Buddha and Muhammad)
[] hearkening to 48 Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, the chance for someone random to fulfill them is on the scale of the number of atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion same-sized universes as this one

I read this book with caution. I usually get really excited when studying apologetics, but Jesus says "You believe because you see; blessed are those who have not seen yet believe." However, I now feel so equipped in defending the Scriptures, yet I know atheists will more likely argue on moral/emotional lines. It's coo'.

Unsolved Crimes and Gospel in Asia

Great Unsolved Crimes by Louis Solomon is a collection of six crimes, none of which involve drugs (read: white people-on-white people crimes). These took place before 1976, so there are black and white sketches and drawings as exhibits. And for the most part, they are boring save the first one. Summary:
= hijacking then badass freefall out of a plane
= reputable banker bound and murdered in own home
= 10 stolen paintings from New York museum
= America's first kidnapping (I guess for ransom)
= disappearance of neanderthal bones in China
= warmhearted daughter suspected murderer of parents

Revolution in World Missions by Dr. K.P. Yohannan was given to me for free as a subscriber to John Piper's blog. Secular take-away message: it's more practical and ridiculously cheaper to use natives as missionaries than Westerners. The book recalls to mind Jaeson Ma's speculation of how God will use East Asians to reach out to the Middle East (my honest opinion is that brown people will speak better to brown people). Funny how things connect. TIME recently wrote on the lack of religious freedom in the Islamic states of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt among others. Reasons for hostility against Christian practitioners vary, but Western churches make it hard to sympathize for the Great Commission.

I found myself agreeing with many of Yohannan's points on the worldliness and spiritual darkness present among American churches. A lot of business, not a lot of potential-filling. Constructing churches here can easily cost in the millions, and millions more for sustaining programs, where for the same price decent churches all over the Indian subcontinent could be built so that all may hear the Gospel.

One thing I came to understand after reading: humility is the place where all Christian service begins. It's a word that describes the persecuted missionary that serves time in a dirt cell as big as my cat's litter box (oh, but is miraculously sustained by the Word of which he has long since memorized). It's a word neglected by foolish Western outreach projects that use Western means to reach to the lost while perpetuating longtime associations of Christianity with British colonialism (let the Holy Spirit do what it wills). It's a word that commands loving those in your village and city, to consider serving and discipling them as your burden (Jesus says "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you").

Among the book's testimonies was one from a woman who lived in Towson. I pretty much grew up there for elementary school.

John Steinbeck and The Chinese Grammarian

I had once bought The Portable Steinbeck anthology for my "Of Mice and Men" paper in Ms. Rizzo's class and never once looked at the other stories. Within, I have annotated stickies that read "Lennie...you're retarded." haha so true.

Last night, I read "The Red Pony." First thing is that Steinbeck is a really good author. In enlightened prose (ref. editor's intro) "his poetic rhythms recall to me the Homeric spirit in American literature." I gauge his goodness by way of how he makes me feel. For example, a lot of authors make me feel illiterate and retarded. I'll be reading and everyone seems chill until the farmer's wife kills herself. Oh, she was depressed? Steinbeck makes it very clear what the characters are feeling by their realistic dialogue without being blatant, giving me the sense of feeling intelligent and sensitive to subtle things.

However, on the subject of animals, these past couple days have been very sad. Last night I saw gruesome photos of a dog hacked at the face on the local news (nevermind the constant kindergarten slashings in China). In the first chapter, 10 year-old Jody cares very much for his pony gift, only to have the ranch hand carelessly leave it out in the rain, subject it to strangles, slowly waste away, then getting its eyes eaten by buzzards (btw, the pony dies). Really not a happy story: boy eviscerates many small animals, ranch head kills mother horse to birth promised colt, and father and mother argue about inlaws. At the same time, there's appeal in the childish themes of curiosity of the outside world ("beyond the mountain ridges") and cross-generational relations ("He looked over his shoulder to see whether Billy had noticed the mature profanity"). Finally, the anthology concludes with Steinbeck's Nobel acceptance speech: "Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tin-horn mendicants of low-calorie despair." Worrrddd...?

Next! I found a small pocketbook 高中英语词汇手册 wedged between some dictionaries. My dad used it in high school to learn English and now I'm ironically trying to pick up some Chinese from it. The range of difficulty is really dynamic, where on the same page you have
tend [tend] (3) vt. 他照料了病人。
test-tube ['testt ju:b] (12) n. 小心别把试管打碎了。
and
tearful [tîr'fəl] (14) adj. 她眼泪汪汪地看着我，好象乞求我的怜悯。
the Bastille [ba-steel] (3) 巴士底狱是巴黎的国家监狱, (1789年)在法国大革命中被摧毁。

I can't believe I was still at Penn <48 hours ago.

Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow

Familiarity, familiarity. Before I hit the sack last night at 11:50PM, I saw my sister making quicker headway.

"Wow! You are sleeping so early!"

"Wow! I'm taking a quick nap. Chill."

She is going to fit in college just fine. As I'm currently typing this, she is BS-ing Huckleberry thematic devices on the AP Lang. lolgg.

The body of sophomore year slightly remains in its vestiges a la uncut, umbrella hair which I plan to get cut by Viets later today. Recent development: I shower before sleeping versus after waking, for I now care about the smell of my immediate habitat (sorry, Steven). Looking into the long-term (next three weeks until I start work), I draw a big blank. It's hard to pick up an instrument, learn a language, or beat FFXIII in that time. My employer said it was "the perfect time to take a vacation."

Well sanks, I thought I was gonna work today but HR didn't file the doodads timely. And so, I've decided to take a sojourn into reading. In my study, the shelves are dominated by SAT&AP prep books that I only perused. The other 10% are actually books, narratives, and other noncareer-enhancing collectives. I'll try to get through these quickly, one every couple days, then update the blog with my take-away messages. Every summer I tell myself I'm going to pick up reading and literally fail. Now I can say I've done it once.

Also, I might go to Atlanta with pops Aug.24-27th for his conference, so Christine Li should tell me what she's up to at that time.