All Seasons Eventually Come to an End

•July 18, 2024 • Leave a Comment

Greetings everyone, I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time but these last couple weeks have been busy with selling things, packing, saying goodbyes and other preparations for our move. Today is finally the day when one season is coming to a closing and another season is beginning. The day the moving company came to collect our stuff for Hong Kong, I saw this rainbow outside our apartment’s window. This view was the reason we decided to choose this apartment and I think it’s a wonderful confirmation from God to give us a rainbow that can be seen from our window the day we had our things shipped out. We are taking it as the future holding good things for us because the Lord will provide just as He does for the flowers and the birds.

I thought of writing up a blog post on our leaving Macau on the last day of school. After selling my car and taking the shuttle bus to school that day, I was walking along the same route I had taken many times before getting the car. I felt it somewhat symbolic that the first day of school I took that route and walked with two colleagues, while the last day of school, I walked alone. Those two colleagues are staying next year while we are moving to Hong Kong today. That being said, that moment walking alone to school reminded me that our paths are different and that many places in life we go alone with only the Lord helping to carry us along the way. I only pray that I made a difference in the lives of some in Macau and that perhaps Macau is still in the future. Macau is close by to HK and we will try to visit often in the meantime.

Our pastor at MAC Fellowship talked on our last Sunday in Macau on identity. For the past few years this has been a question I’ve wrestled with myself and even for my family. The US is becoming less Christian and even my home state of North Carolina seems to no longer be part of the Bible Belt. This shook my identity as an American and North Carolinian to the core a number of years ago. Today, I’ve realized that these other identities are less important, as long as we have our identity in Christ first, all other identities are secondary. Anyways, two years ago we thought Macau could be a place to settle down and plant some roots, but God finally is answering a prayer I asked more than half my life ago today. He is finally fulfilling my desire to live in Hong Kong, even though I had even given up this dream, thinking it was not His plan. We should remember that good things come to those who wait, even if it’s half our life. God is working behind the doors, preparing a path for you. Though there are times you may think you’re all alone, He is there alongside you. He by divine Providence is assisting you along the way, we only need to trust and obey.

Finding One’s True Self

•September 22, 2023 • Leave a Comment
Finding One’s True Self

The audio clip above really moved my spirit today and inspired the following paragraphs. May the Lord move on your hearts from both messages and ultimately from the Word of the Lord. I pray my students will see and hear this message particularly.

The beginning of my 11th year in teaching has definitely been one that I am seeing a change in season in both my life and my professional career. One major theme recently that has seemingly burdened my spirit is salvation for the youth, especially those who are lost. There are countless “gospels” that are promulgated by society, sowing into the very fibers of our humanity that may very well be robbing us of that humanity. Western ideals that were foundational to modern western civilisation since Enlightenment have been redefined in an attempt to change mankind’s direction.

As an educator, I often witness different students being wrapped up in these societal pressures of acceptance and self gratification or even simply being misled due to their innocence. This current group of students this year, burdens my heart more so than some groups of students in the past. My heart goes out to them and I have been praying for them to come to a saving faith in the One Jesus Christ.

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Galatians 5:1 ESV

I see their desire to forge their own paths in life, to discover themselves in a differentiated way from the leader figures in their lives. This discovery of oneself is a major development process in the human experience, but please a word of caution. We can only find our humanity when we learn what God intended humanity to look like. We lose our humanity without Christ. Our humanity does not come from nature, but from God. Lives are changed, spheres are changed, realities are changed when we learn what it means to be human from the Bibles’ revelations.

“… If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?…”.

Luke 9:23-25 ESV