Hello, blogger. Long time no see! Where have I been for two months? These days, it has been one thing over the other to keep me from blogging. Hm..... where should I start? Guess I have to go backward inorder to remember what I have done and thought.
Two days ago, we went out to dine with the Pollens who came from Ontario to do their yearly music tour in B.C. They invited us to join them in a school in Ladner the next day. What a fantastic performance.They entertained and educated the kids and us about xacerphone for an hour. All the time they kept our interest up so high with funny jokes and various skills like playing 1200 notes with the xac in one minute or playing two minutes of music in one breath. They played classic and contempory music. Sometimes Wendy would incoperate some Taichi movements to the music to keep the kids attention while Doug played a longer piece and there are lots of guessing games for the kids. I almost wish I can play it too. Then we had another nice lunch at Fisherman's Warf. It is so nice that they can do what they are interested in for a living. The stressful part is to get from school to school, often with good distance between them. Looking back, they have plenty of hair raising and hilarious incidents like hopping on a plane dressed in tux and performance gown with their mucic instruments but didn't meet up with their luggages on the other side of the airport, which were not so funny at the time. I am sure it take special people to be able to cope with that.
The week before that, we dined out with the kids at Banana Leaf. The food was so good, I kept thinking about it even two days after. I guess the verieties that came with it was intrigating. Was nice to enjoy it with the kids too. So glad Jo has a new job, wonder if all the walking and weight to carry will get to her with her troubled foot. Hope she will quit the evening job of teaching to cope with it. Afterall, she gave enough notice and recommandations.
The same morning, I went to do some volunteer work at the Dalit's Freedom Network Office. I am so glad something is being done to the Dalit (the untouchables) after thousands years of supression and persecution by their fellow countrymen. They make up 46 % of the population in India. They have been treated as scums and outcast by the rest of the casts and can never break free from their status once they are born to it. Yet they are touchable enough to be raped and exploited. Who needs a religion like that! I looked at the pictures of the beautiful children in their neat uniform which must be their only set of decent clothing they have and which their parents must have taken so much pride and care to keep in good shape. No one come to school with dirty face or matted hair. They look so clean and and their hair well combed, for a minute, one may think these children come from middle classes. Who can imagine their homes are one room mud floor with barely anything. Their classrooms are crude structures with straw mats nailed to wooden poles, yet they are taking their learning seriously with barely any teaching materials. They are learning English, which may give them a better chance for the future. Imagine our Indian friends in Canada pride themselves speaking English all their lives in India and here are these people, who are bar from any formal learning because they are labled from birth, destined to be cheap labors all their lives. Why didn't human right activities say something about these people all these years. Still they risk being knifed or burn because they are sending their kids to schools run by a different belief.
Often, I wonder if I am legitimate to such nice home, good clothes and fine dinning. Why should God bless me so much materially when so many people are in hunger? When I come away from my thoughts, I know there is a catch 20/20. Material things can turn me into a souless person, spiritually poor and deprivated. Blind to the injustice happening around me. Thinking all the time what else I can get out of the world, not knowing that I am tied up more and more by different strends of invisible wires made up by the things I indulge in. No doubt God bless me tremendously with materials, but it is up to me to use them to find the real blessings and freedom for my soul.
A few days ago, it was on the news that a rickety rack van, (seats replaced by wooden benches with no seat belts) carrying 13 migrant workers (no doubt some Dalit people were among them) turned over and hit a dividing cement block on the highway in Abbotsford. Two were thrown out of the van and died instantly. The van was lodged upside down on the cement block, the rest of the people was injured badly. One may think such thing would only happen in the third world. We do not realize how much each one of us exploit the poor each day by the food we eat and the things we get from the stores. Someone has to do the backbreaking job making a few dollors to satisfy our cravings and the merchants' pocket inorder to keep herself alive. Who is going to give back to these people what they deserved? Yea, the world will turn a blind eye to it. But God won't, he wants to borrow some Christian bodies to reach out to those people because his world is an upside down world.
A few weeks ago, we went to a prayer seminar at our church. The speaker is a young pastor from an unique church in Abbotsford, the congregation are mostly mentally challenged, physically challenged people on wheelchairs and drug addicts etc. Therefore he is used to teach with everyday language and great humors. He said most of the Christians treat God like making a service call. We tell him everything we want to see happen and then we hang up the line without waiting for what he has to say. He encouraged us when we pray to visualize ourselves sitting on God's lap talking to him like a little child, listening to his heartbeats, telling him the exciting things of the day, asking him the same question, listening to his concerns, how he feels when he looks at me. When did he last laugh over me or weep over me. What kind of game would we play together. It is a totally open and vunerable relationship. Boy, I didn't even do it to my own children while they were young, I lament how much they missed having me as a parent, yet my heavenly father desires to do that with me! I cried inside. He said it is totally possible to meet God in our dreams and he teaches children and adults how to see Jesus and interprete dreams. I am so glad I got his CD. I look forward to listen to him again in April concerning helping children to see and listen to Jesus and more seminars in May for healing of the whole person.
Two days ago, we went out to dine with the Pollens who came from Ontario to do their yearly music tour in B.C. They invited us to join them in a school in Ladner the next day. What a fantastic performance.They entertained and educated the kids and us about xacerphone for an hour. All the time they kept our interest up so high with funny jokes and various skills like playing 1200 notes with the xac in one minute or playing two minutes of music in one breath. They played classic and contempory music. Sometimes Wendy would incoperate some Taichi movements to the music to keep the kids attention while Doug played a longer piece and there are lots of guessing games for the kids. I almost wish I can play it too. Then we had another nice lunch at Fisherman's Warf. It is so nice that they can do what they are interested in for a living. The stressful part is to get from school to school, often with good distance between them. Looking back, they have plenty of hair raising and hilarious incidents like hopping on a plane dressed in tux and performance gown with their mucic instruments but didn't meet up with their luggages on the other side of the airport, which were not so funny at the time. I am sure it take special people to be able to cope with that.
The week before that, we dined out with the kids at Banana Leaf. The food was so good, I kept thinking about it even two days after. I guess the verieties that came with it was intrigating. Was nice to enjoy it with the kids too. So glad Jo has a new job, wonder if all the walking and weight to carry will get to her with her troubled foot. Hope she will quit the evening job of teaching to cope with it. Afterall, she gave enough notice and recommandations.
The same morning, I went to do some volunteer work at the Dalit's Freedom Network Office. I am so glad something is being done to the Dalit (the untouchables) after thousands years of supression and persecution by their fellow countrymen. They make up 46 % of the population in India. They have been treated as scums and outcast by the rest of the casts and can never break free from their status once they are born to it. Yet they are touchable enough to be raped and exploited. Who needs a religion like that! I looked at the pictures of the beautiful children in their neat uniform which must be their only set of decent clothing they have and which their parents must have taken so much pride and care to keep in good shape. No one come to school with dirty face or matted hair. They look so clean and and their hair well combed, for a minute, one may think these children come from middle classes. Who can imagine their homes are one room mud floor with barely anything. Their classrooms are crude structures with straw mats nailed to wooden poles, yet they are taking their learning seriously with barely any teaching materials. They are learning English, which may give them a better chance for the future. Imagine our Indian friends in Canada pride themselves speaking English all their lives in India and here are these people, who are bar from any formal learning because they are labled from birth, destined to be cheap labors all their lives. Why didn't human right activities say something about these people all these years. Still they risk being knifed or burn because they are sending their kids to schools run by a different belief.
Often, I wonder if I am legitimate to such nice home, good clothes and fine dinning. Why should God bless me so much materially when so many people are in hunger? When I come away from my thoughts, I know there is a catch 20/20. Material things can turn me into a souless person, spiritually poor and deprivated. Blind to the injustice happening around me. Thinking all the time what else I can get out of the world, not knowing that I am tied up more and more by different strends of invisible wires made up by the things I indulge in. No doubt God bless me tremendously with materials, but it is up to me to use them to find the real blessings and freedom for my soul.
A few days ago, it was on the news that a rickety rack van, (seats replaced by wooden benches with no seat belts) carrying 13 migrant workers (no doubt some Dalit people were among them) turned over and hit a dividing cement block on the highway in Abbotsford. Two were thrown out of the van and died instantly. The van was lodged upside down on the cement block, the rest of the people was injured badly. One may think such thing would only happen in the third world. We do not realize how much each one of us exploit the poor each day by the food we eat and the things we get from the stores. Someone has to do the backbreaking job making a few dollors to satisfy our cravings and the merchants' pocket inorder to keep herself alive. Who is going to give back to these people what they deserved? Yea, the world will turn a blind eye to it. But God won't, he wants to borrow some Christian bodies to reach out to those people because his world is an upside down world.
A few weeks ago, we went to a prayer seminar at our church. The speaker is a young pastor from an unique church in Abbotsford, the congregation are mostly mentally challenged, physically challenged people on wheelchairs and drug addicts etc. Therefore he is used to teach with everyday language and great humors. He said most of the Christians treat God like making a service call. We tell him everything we want to see happen and then we hang up the line without waiting for what he has to say. He encouraged us when we pray to visualize ourselves sitting on God's lap talking to him like a little child, listening to his heartbeats, telling him the exciting things of the day, asking him the same question, listening to his concerns, how he feels when he looks at me. When did he last laugh over me or weep over me. What kind of game would we play together. It is a totally open and vunerable relationship. Boy, I didn't even do it to my own children while they were young, I lament how much they missed having me as a parent, yet my heavenly father desires to do that with me! I cried inside. He said it is totally possible to meet God in our dreams and he teaches children and adults how to see Jesus and interprete dreams. I am so glad I got his CD. I look forward to listen to him again in April concerning helping children to see and listen to Jesus and more seminars in May for healing of the whole person.
posted by Echo at 4:54 AM
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