I am on a Week Without Walls trip this year with 16 high school students at Home Of Loving Faithfulness. It is a home for the severely mentally and physically handicapped, its a place where familys who can no longer look after them can make sure they get the care and attention they need. It is indeed an amazing place.

I remember the first time I came to Home Of Loving Faithfulness about a year and a half ago and how awkward I felt. Not really sure on what I would be able to do, they seemed to severely disabled and I was not sure how to interact with them. Like I felt like I wanted to care, but I just didn’t know how.

It’s also in places like this sometimes I can find it hard to understand why things like this happen to people. Sometimes these places open more questions for me in terms of faith than answers. But over the years I think I have come to a place where I am more at peace with the mystery of God, that somehow all of this all fits into a bigger story that is beyond my comprehension. And what God is doing in this world and in our lives, the good and the bad is ultimately working for a greater good that I can not understand or see.

That the residents, are here for a purpose and that God loves them so incredibly much, that God sees their value and uniqueness. That they deserve and need to be loved as much as you and I.

See, we are created for love. Your soul craves love and will find satisfaction in nothing less. God was the one who created us for love, to experience his love. In the same way the residents were created for love too.

I know a  friend who worked at Mothers Choice in the mid levels. It’s an orphanage that adopts out babies and helps unwed mothers. She told me that in an orphanage babies who don’t get held much and affection tend to be more sickly. She said the physical touch and care makes a huge difference in that babies overall well being. That this is what makes them feel loved.

And I thought how true it is for the residents here. They are like those small babies too, unable to speak or move, given up by their families and in need of care. They may not be able to say it or express it but to be loved is something that they need and what makes us all intrinsically human.

In Matthew 25:34-40 it says:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.  I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

When we treat each other with value, when we care for each other, when we love, we experience the presence of God and we bring the presence of God into that place.

In a place like this we may not know exactly what we can do to help, we want to be able to do what we can.  When we are with them we want to show them that they are loved, valuable and that they are not forgotten. When we are with the residents to sing to them, engage with them, touch them and talk to them.

I want to engage with them in way that I look them in the eye as if they were the only person in the room and that they really matter. They deserve to be loved and cared for, and that to love is always the right thing to do no matter what the circumstances.

1 Corinthians 13:13 – And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

So I was at school walking down the hall this morning. I walked past classrooms, peeking into the windows, seeing students interacting with their teachers and with each other – I have to admit, as dorky as it sounds, it warmed my heart.

I think secretly I wanted to be a career student, that is, someone who is a student for pretty much most of their lives. These are people who never end up getting a job but just go from course to course studying and living the student lifestyle. I liked high school, maybe not the academics of it, but I definitely liked the friends and the socialising. Nowadays its  slightly different.

Learning is something I really enjoy and something that does energise me. I love sitting with my intellectual friends and hearing them talk about meaning and various aspects about how our world operates. I love learning and hearing about things I never even think about, things that don’t even pass my daily thoughts (which are usually on the most part, pretty self absorbed), for example CERN’s  Large Hadron Collider.

I believe that learning is about opening your mind up to endless possibilities. Broadening our world and perspective. Its about being able to make the most informed choices we can.

I think I am a fairly naturally inquisitive person. I want to know everything. And I also like to know about people, who you they, what makes them happy, what makes them tick. I guess that sort of make sense, me working in a school and all. Being in a place where there is learning and there is people. Some of the times I feel most alive is when I am with my students and we are interacting and discussing. Its almost like I can feel my brain juices being churned around my head. Sometimes I walk out of my classes and I feel so alive and so good about life. It is a really strange high.

I don’t know if all people feel this way about their jobs sometimes. But I have to admit though I feel that teaching can be a very draining and tiresome job (I really hate marking, and I really hate administration!) there are definitely aspects of it that deeply satisfy something inside my very core.

And like most jobs, some days I feel like I am doing absolutely nothing to make a difference in my world. I feel like my words are bouncing off their heads and it all seems a bit hopeless.  And then I get a random email from a student that shows me that something in the way I related to them has opened the eyes of at least one person and it made a difference  (even if it is small) in their world.

This is a most intensely satisfying feeling.

I wonder what it would be like to run with the horses.

I imagine it would be like the sound of thunder with the beat of hoofs pounding on the ground, wind whistling through their manes. I imagine to run with the horses would feel like unleashing yourself to the unknown, terrifying, courageous yet intensely liberating. I imagine to run with the horse to look like a life poured out to the danger and risk of a challenge, terrific, brazen and amazingly beautiful.

The very thought of this sends shivers down my spine. To be able to run free in liberation, bold and beautiful. Living a life that engages the very essence in you that God has created you for. And when you live that very life that exercises your very essence of your being, then that is the most beautiful thing in the world.

When we live our lives the way we are called, to be the very person that you are – with everything inside you that makes you, you – then that is an amazing act of worship.

I believe that this is the life that God had called each one of us to. A life that sounds, feels and looks like; running with the horses. It is a life poured out to His calling for your life, whatever that may look like for you. If you are called to be a mother, a teacher, a student, a chef, a business person, a sister, a brother, a husband or a wife, where ever you find yourself, and whatever your role or your job is, it is to be the best <insert noun> you can be.

This is the higher calling and the journey that God has each of us on.

This is a vision that energises me. It gives life and it flows out.  It motivates into movement, into action. It pushes aside complacency and encourages perspective. It sets a dream in my heart that allows me to hope, to aspire and to one day become someone who is living a life poured out. And that as I keep envisioning this, each day I will be moving closer to a life that sounds, feels and looks like she is running with the horses.

Things I love:

Past

• Paramount night club
• University life
• Luke
• Luke’s cat Jadey
• Charlie and Mickey
• Computer graphics animation
• Driving in my car
• Sunset Coast Christian Life Centre
• Teaching media studies
• Quinns Baptist College
• The Moon Cafe
• Lazy afternoons drinking coffee with friends
• The Moon Cafe
• Hanging out at friends houses
• Crazy new year parties
• The Furnace 24/7 prayer, United Prayer
• Summer relaxing and sitting on the outdoor swinging chair
• Beach and sand in my hair
• Perth City at night
• Volume Powercell
• Royal Academy of Dance Ballet
• Singing lessons

Present

• Sha Tin Anglican Church
• James
• Being known
• Teaching Media Studies and Bible
• Taxi cabs
• Eating out and good food
• My apartment
• Oasis
• Sunday Lunch Bunch
• Woman’s group
• Counseling
• Having Savings
• Family
• Doing new things, seeing new places
• Hugs from Hannah
• Zambra
• The gym on my lunch breaks
• Solid Rock
• Knowing my students
• Chats with Heena
• Lazy sunny Saturdays
• Laughing at dumb jokes

I feel like I need to start at the very beginning. But the beginning seems like such a far memory now, I feel overwhelmed at where to even begin.

Its been a while since I have  blogged. My last post was actually something I had written more than a year ago which I had found in my drafts folder. Mostly finished, I added a concluding sentence and then posted it.

But anyway, back to what I was saying.

So here I am in my eighth month of my journey in Hong Kong. So much has happened and life is so different now. I have to admit that relocating to Hong Kong has been alot harder than I had expected. Before I arrived here I had everything planned out, the church, the friends, the job, my life. I found a dance school where I would continue my ballet classes and I even wrote down a list of goals of things I wanted to achieve with things I planned to be involved in. I felt like I had preplanned my life here and all I had to do was step into it. I wanted to hit the floor running and I thought this would be as easy as stepping into a new outfit.

I guess with all things in life we can only be so prepared. Because as much as we can and want to preempt things, life does happens. It moves and unravels in unexpected ways. It twists and turns, till we sometimes find ourselves in places where we never thought we would be, scratching our heads wondering what the heck just happened.

To say my first eight months in Hong Kong was not what I expected is an understatement. It has been a roller coaster. I’ve had this weird sense that I have actually walked myself into the mouth of the lion. That I had gotten myself into alot more than I had bargined for. I’m not saying that that is entirely a bad thing, I am just saying thats just how it feels.

Its a strange experience to uproot yourself from a life you have come to know so well and into an entirely different way of life and culture. Even the spiritual atmosphere is different here. Its an even stranger experience still, to look back on that life, like an outsider looking into a fishbowl. It feels somewhat objective. Like watching a character in a movie and being able to psychoanalyze all the reasons why they did what they did and were the way they were.

This third person perspective has helped me realise alot of things about myself. Its made me think about the way I live my life and why I am the way I am.  Its made me have to face the music about how I am ‘broken‘.  How we are all ‘broken‘ (in whatever that looks like for you) and why we respond to each other in these ‘broken’ ways. That this life in part, is actually realising we have to reckon with the ‘brokeness’ in this world. Its made me realise why I need Jesus so much more. Why we all do.

If this post sounds a bit cryptic, its because it is. There just too much to unravel and unpack right here. One things for sure though, I know I am meant to be here. The invitation was given, the door had been opened, and God has been holding my hand and walking me back to the very beginning of my story. Back to the beginning to where the journey started.

Back into the mouth of the lion.

Its interesting what the mind can do. The power our brains have over us, over our emotions, our actions, even our attitude to life. Sometimes it amazes me the extravagant stories I can think up in my head that leads me to think something that is totally untrue. I’ve put my stomach in aching knots over these little stories I make up in my head.

In hindsight I end up feeling a bit silly when I recall these situations, after all, most of the things we worry about hardly ever happen. Maybe its just human nature, we often think the worst. Or maybe its our defense mechanism that if we think the worst and it doesn’t happen we enjoy that feeling of release (or relief!) from the self inflicted stress we had put ourselves through earlier.

I’ve had my stomach knots the past week, thinking and praying through the purposes God has for me. Concerned about what might happen and  what people might think.

‘What will they think of me if I do this?”

Fear of man is a tricky thing. It like an invisible string that binds you from every corner. Theres no easy way to navigate through it because, well, everyone has an opinion right?

I think it takes a strong person to stand for what they believe in, no matter what other people think. And an even stronger person to stand firm in what they believe God is saying to them.

I don’t believe that God ever hides Himself from us. I believe that if we seek answers for something, God answers. Surely and lovingly. Maybe if we can’t hear it, its because He’s answered in a way we were not expecting or we weren’t in tune to what He is saying. Like we’ve been listening on the wrong frequency. But He is always speaking. He wants to show us what is important to Him, He wants us to see things through His eyes.

And that is all that ultimately matters; whats important to God and seeing life through His eyes – not to be moved by one man’s mere opinion.