Frames

Frames...I've been thinking about them today. Today me and PM had our review meeting. I actually look forward to these things...strange, I know...most people don't look forward to when their "boss reviews them". I put this in quotes because this isn't how I see it, this isn't how PM sees it, but it might be what an outside observer would say. So anyways, we usually have these meetings about once a week, and this one was the big 3 month review. (Crazy, I know!) Most of the time, we discuss the positive and the negative, discuss books, and usually end up thinking about something new to ponder over for the next few days, or even weeks. I've been thinking about one thing we talked about for over a month now.
Back to the frames, I didn't forget I made that comment. We talked about how each person has their frame of mind, and how each person "frames" an experience or though when they share it with someone else. A positive or negative spin or something entirely different can be placed on an experience. The dumb thing about all of this is that 1. You can't change some one else's frame and 2. Sometimes you don't realize the frame that you are "giving off" or "sharing" with other people.
I might be saying one thing, be meaning something different or slightly different, and the person receiving it might be perceiving it as something different altogether. What a mess, eh? If only we all used the frame that Christ used. The Jesus Creed is "Love God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others". Perceptions are hard things to change, and also hard things to recognize in yourself, but if we all made Jesus' priority our priority, we wouldn't have this huge issue of frames. I am not excluding myself from this situation, in fact, this whole thought was spurred on by something that I did. This might just be in the intro to this topic, as I continue to think through this issue. So I suggest you read PM's blog (he was planning on writing about the same thing), but his will most likely have a conclusion and be better thought out.
Another thing I've been thinking about is social justice. I really have been thinking about this since last spring semester while I was taking Urban Intercultural Studies (Thanks Dr. Bell). Me and my neighbor Kelly would walk back to the dorms frustrated after almost every class, and discuss for hours. Recently, it has come back to my attention. Hong Kong isn't poor, by some standards, but there are poor people. A few weeks ago I started noticing more things, and started to wonder about what I could do that wouldn't just appease my guilty conscience, but that would help these people in a way that THEY NEED...not the way that would make me feel better, or that I think they need. How can my brief few seconds in their life bring them closer to the kingdom or give them a small glimpse of it? The kingdom is all about relationships, and if I only have a minute or less with a person, what do I do? I also had an interesting experience in Thailand pertaining to this issue. It's really making me wonder what God is up to and where He is taking me... And do you know what? I DON'T KNOW! Me and Mike were laughing about it today, because I can't stand not knowing, so what better way to keep something in my mind than to not give me the answer to it...God is so tricky like that! Well, for my earlier question of how do I react to poor people in need that I see, I actually have come to a conclusion (for a while at least, until I am challenged with a new dimension of this predicament), but I would love to hear what you think...so leave me a comment!

Thanksgiving in Thailand

Thanksgiving. My typical Thanksgiving usually has a Turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, the dreaded green been casserole that my mom makes every year, a football game, more pie, family, and my dad's infamous long pre-meal prayer. This year, I had none of those, but I can still say it was one of the best Thanksgivings I have ever had. Without all of the traditional comforts of Thanksgiving at home, it actually made me think more about...being thankful. I have a lot to be thankful for:
*Hong Kong
*My family at home
*My family abroad...the Roses and the Enns Family
*Thanksgiving in Thailand with old friends
*the youth group at AIC
*all of the people praying for me at home
*the assurance that God will NEVER leave me, no matter how alone I feel
*The warm weather
*hello panda cookies
*the friends that send me random notes on facebook
*the internet
*God's provision
*Jeremiah 29:11-13
*flowers
*new experiences
*being stretched
*being broken
*red bean dumplings
*not being hit by a bus (or cab, or tram)
*and so, so, so much more!!!

So back to Thailand...

I got here on Monday evening. My flight was good, pretty uneventful. Things started getting interesting when I got to the airport. I don't know how I missed this, but I totally forgot to get an address of where I would be staying or even a telephone number. So when it came time to fill out my arrival card, I was lost! I had everything else filled out, and the customs guy asked me what hotel I was staying in, and I said, "I'm just staying with friends for a few days" Then he asked for their phone number, and I was like Crap! Hannah...why didn't you get a number!??? So I was so scared...so I prayed quick and then tried to use my cell phone to see if I could call someone to check my e-mail and search for a number. But then my cell phone wouldn't work, and then I started to panic...and the officer wouldn't let me out of line! ARGGGHHH! Right at the moment that I was about to really spazz out, I heard a stamp and he handed me my passport back and let me through...praise the Lord!! So I made it in and was met by two smiling blond girls from NWC...could've spotted them for a mile... =) Yes. After about a 45 min taxi ride and a quick stop at a grocery store, we arrived at Santisuk English Center. Santisuk is an English center that is run by Christians who share Christ through an Christian English curriculum. It was so fun to see old friends and hang out with NWC people...especially people my own age...Hong Kong is a bit lacking in the Christian college-age people department, so it has been so good to just be around them. It was funny because some people had no clue who I was or how I knew some of the team. I was sitting at this table, introducing myself to the people that I didn't know, and I told one guy that he looked really familiar and that I knew I had met him before, and he insisted adamantly that we had never met. And then later I was like, "Yeah, I think I had a class with you first semester!" and he was like, "What?! You're from Northwestern? What are you doing here?!" It was so funny, so clueless!
This week, every Northwestern student has to teach two 2-hr classes a day. So I've just been hanging out with random people whenever they are free. I sat in on one class one day, and was thinking of teaching, but decided not to. It has just been a great, restful, relaxing 5 days. I've seen two films at the cinema (James Bond and The Prestige), went to see the "Ancient City" (a park in the shape of Thailand with replicas of historical monuments and ruins), a little bit of shopping, Dairy Queen, Dunkin Donuts, an amazing Thai Buffet (the restaurant provided the raw meat and noodles and we cooked them over a fire pot thing on the table...it was so cool), a great Thanksgiving dinner-international style, and spending time with friends. I am so thankful for this time that I've had, and so thankful that I get to go back to Hong Kong.

The Bloggiest of the Blogs

Isabella fell asleep in the office while I was babysitting

Halloween: I'm a Pirate, Caleb is a super gadget ninja, and Lori is a...uh...Jamaican

View from the ferry

Hong Kong version of a snowman...creepy if you ask me

The first sunset I've seen here...Indescribable in person

Ok, so this blog could be potentially massive, and I mean massive. I realized that I haven't blogged in almost a month. For the past couple of weeks I have sat down several times to blog, and then stopped because the prospect of blogging was too daunting. So, yes, I am writing them as separate posts, and I apologize because I know that they won't be nearly as interesting or as detailed as they deserve. They are as follows: Love Actually, Sanctuary, Middle School camp, Random thoughts...So let me start with the past few days:
-I am leaving for Thailand on Monday
-I need to learn how to use a planner (yes, I made a mistake, and forgot an event...whoops)
-I need to get organized (my desk is a mess)
-I really like the Enns family
-my time here is going way too quickly
-I don't want to go home
-hmmmm...home, interesting concept
-I miss my family
-I have been craving Taco Bell lately
-they served alcohol during an intermission at a school play I went to here...thought it was gingerale, that was a surprise! =)
-I'm not in Kansas anymore
-I can't wait until Christmas
-Lori says I need a life, hahahaa
-Sunday the youth worship team is playing for Service...I'm slightly nervous -There are already Christmas decorations up, Christmas in Hong Kong will be quite fun.
-My brain is a little fried, so I must stop this post, and get to the important ones
-I am tired, I wish my laundry was done
-I hate camp food
-Tomorrow is the youth group's Thanksgiving! Yay for Pumpkin pie, Yay for Turkey, Yay for Lori!
-PS: Mike got to pray with a CAIS student to follow Christ the other night...WAHOO
-Lori told me tonight I need a life. It made me laugh...and think...???
-It would be fun if it snowed once here
-I wish my laundry was done
-I wish I had gotten to talk to my parents longer this weekend
-Isabella now loves me!
-Trick or Treating with Caleb and Lori and Brett was really fun
-Chinese have a different concept of candy
-I am glad I am done with this blog...FINALLY

Fish Balls and Mash Mallows

Two of my cabin girls: Francesca and Angie

View from the pier

View from the upper level of the camp

Pause

So yes. Middle school camp. I am almost done with this bloggiest of blogs! Wahoo! Ok, so every school here has a week where they travel and for the Christian schools, do missions trips or experience weeks. CAIS has Discover days. So I was supposed to go with a group called "Art in Hong Kong" I was so excited for it. But through a series of miscommunication, I ended up going with Mike to CAIS' Middle School Camp. He was the main speaker and had a cabin of kids and I just had a cabin of girls and supervised. So yeah. It was...Interesting. Middle school kids are so differerent! But more on that later. It was in Sai Kung, which is just gorgeous, and I have some amazing pictures which I will proceed to post with this post. It was from Monday to Wednesday. I have come to realize that Hong Kong kids do NOT like nature. It is really sad to see kids run and scream at a BUTTERFLY! I also realized that roasting hot dogs and "mash mallows" (as RBT teahouse calls them) is quite different from home. At home, I can go into the woods, cut myself a green stick, whittle the tip, plop myself on a log and watch as my dad or brothers makes a fire. Then I proceed to poke my hot dog or mash mallow through the stick and roast it over logs from our own woods. Now THAT is the kind of bonfire and roasting that I like to do. The kind where you smell all smoky when it's over with. And not a bad smoky, a nice outdoorsey smell. Gotta love it, especially in the crisp, slightly chilled, autumn air. Oh, how I missed autumn this year. Anywhoo, back to reality. Their idea of a BBQ (not barbecue) but B-B-Q, was a bunch of short BBQs with coal on a cement basketball court with stools and metal pokers with hot dogs and mash mallows and fish balls and meat balls and chicken wings. I'm making it sound better than it was. But to the kids, it was wonderful! And that's what counts. It was so fun to show some of them how to make S'mores, and where the best spot to roast is. It was one of those times when I said to myself, "I am not at home anymore". I realized even more how different the kids are here. Girls in my cabin would shower three at a time, and ask me to come in to fix the water while they were still sudsing up. That was way different from Western girls. They were constantly talking about boys (which really isn't diff) but then they would TELL the boys, right there and then. That was funny. The last night there, I let my girls stay up a little bit later because they kept asking questions at devotion time. It was so great: We went from talking about boys, not gossiping, being careful about whispering and secrets, to the Big Bang Theory, why Jesus yelled at the Pharisees even though they followed the rules more than anyone, what it would be like if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, etc. It was so good. So camp had its ups and downs, like anything. And now I'm home and I'm going to go with "Art in Hong Kong" group to a museum. Yay!

Oh yes, and....

Sanctuary was the weekend after Love Actually. Sanctuary is a one day conference aimed to get kids from a lot of different schools in HK together. This was the back breaker for me. I had volunteered to teach a session like a month before, and was going crazy. Besides that, Mike had just left for his youth conference in the states, and the idea of a week of being "in charge" was weighing on me. My session was on world religions, and was so cleverly named, "Around the World in 80 Faiths". Thankfully, I did not talk about anywhere near 80 religions. I only talked about 5. But let me back up a bit.
We were supposed to meet a bus in TST that would take us to HKIS, one of the most expensive schools in Hong Kong that is on the backside of the Island. It is extremely gorgeous there, and the outside lunchroom looks over a steep hill at a harbour and sandy beach below. I only had a few kids going that were actually my own, but I had several that had registered with us and kind of attached themselves to our group. Me and Aries raced through TST to get to the bus on time, got there, and there were only like 5 other kids besides ours on the bus. So we got to know them a bit. There were two brothers from Macau and a friend of theirs from Kowloon. Then there were two girls who were probably like 12 or 13. So they all attached themselves to our group, as they were without one. So that was fun. So we got to HKIS pretty early. So I went to "set up my room" and lo and behold, my powerpoint doesn't work. At this point, I almost had a heart attack. It was not good. But one of the boys from Macau was able to help me and we got it so that we could see all of the text, but my cool background that I had worked so hard at, didn't show up. But that was OK. I didn't save that presentation, because I figured if I left it on the computer, it would be OK for an hour or so. Big mistake. I came back with a bunch of kids ready to hear about sharing their faith and the computer was frozen. So after a bit more spazzing, we figured out that we could use the powerpoint, with the cool background, but it just wouldn't project as a slide show, it just looked like the computer screen. So that was that. My first session I had about 12 kids. Which was pretty good. I felt very dumb trying to tell them about Hinduism and Buddhism, when half of Hong Kong practices Buddhism. Actually, more than half probably. There were a few kids that were looking at me like, She doesn't know what she's talking about... but the rest were OK. In the end it turned out I had way too much information than I could cover in 45 minutes. So I didn't get to it all. So for the second session, I had most of my kids that came with me, and a good amount of kids that I had met at Love Actually the previous weekend. It was very encouraging. I think I had 20-25 ish kids there, which was really good for that conference. So I started out by asking what religions out of the five they wanted to hear about (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism, and Scientology). We ended up talking about Mormonism for most of the time (which was good because I had read a ton on that because I was curious myself, and was able to talk a lot about it and answer some questions), and then we briefly covered Scientology. So that one was really good, and I had my friend May (a youth leader from another church) there. I love that woman! She is always so encouraging, and she always has her focus on Christ. I felt so relieved after I was done talking. So I enjoyed the rest of the conference. We weren't really part of the planning, but we did some of the prep work for the conference, so after I was done teaching, I could just relax a bit and hang out with the kids. We were supposed to get a bus back to TST and Hung Hom (where the church is) but there was this huge complication and mix up, which was easily solved in the end, just took a long time. It was so surreal, all these kids were asking me where we were going and what we were going to do and if they should get on this bus or that. It's all part of that line I've crossed....Oh well, no going back now!

Love Actually

Melissa, Angela, Me, Izzy

Playing "Shuffle Your Buns" Aries (in the white hat) is sitting on David

Izzy loves her dad!

Dumb Idea Boys! (They are holding 4 chairs off the ground w/ a boy on top)

Our Breakfasts...quite different from Western Camp food

Love Actually Conference was the last weekend in October (I told you I was really behind)!! It was quite an experience, let me tell you. First, it was the first conference that I had seen all the behind the scenes planning of. I will never be able to go to a conference and not be able to think about all the work that went into it. Wow. The first evening we went out to Breakthrough camp in Shatin. This isn't too far from the office, but it is up in the mountains. They had beautiful facilities, and it worked great for what we had in mind. We got everything set up and I was put in charge of rooming assignments and registration and such. I never knew rooming assignments could be so complicated. And then the kids wanted to switch when they got there....yikes. But it went good. We had a main session the first night and one breakout session. The Breakout sessions were divided into boys and girls. An adult leader from each gender would be in charge of a session. I even got to teach last minute because one of the leaders' baby got sick and so his wife wasn't able to teach. So Saturday was filled with a few main sessions and several breakout sessions. And Sunday was the same. The most memorable session was the GENDER SWAP, when Tim and Mike came up to the girls' classroom and had to answer about 150 questions shot at them from a white board filled with questions, post it notes with questions, and teenage girls eager to ask the questions they've always wanted to know about guys! Those girls were super direct, as were the answers that Mike and Tim gave (some of them, I'm sure the girls didn't like hearing). It was a good time. I am drawing a blank on all of the events of that conference due to the amount of time that has lapsed.
Saturday was kind of a crazy day for me. A girl threw up in the bathroom after a game we played as a group. She forgot to mention it to anyone, so I walked into the bathroom to find sprite, banana, and bok choy in a gooey mess. I was not very happy. And then a girl in one of the cabins was having issues with her eyes and I was worried it was an allergic reaction. At the same time, another girl was having emotional issues, and I ended up yelling at her to get to the session when she didn't the first time I told her. It turned out to be a bit of miscommunication on my part, and then I found out later that that was the first youth event she had been to in like 2 years. MAN! So I felt horrible and had to find her later to apologize. I also taught a session on Saturday. My session was on Finding Your Significance in Christ. This was supposedly supposed to go very well, because I have been dealing with that very issue of Christ being sufficient for me, while I'm over here alone, and in life in general. So I ended up talking a lot of the time, which I didn't really want to do, but it kind of happened. It was really good to have the other female leaders there because when they saw that the conversation was lacking, that they could put in a thought or two. So that saved me a few times. At the end I felt it went OK, but not that great. But amazingly, God still used it: At the end two girls came up to me and said it was exactly what they needed to hear. I love when that happens and I know it's totally apart from anything I did.
I learned a lot that weekend. It was a new experience to be a leader in a few things. In the past I have been a student leader, and this transition into a leader, period, has been a hard, interesting, but good, process. I think the main thing I learned as a leader was something that Mike mentioned a few days prior, "Being a leader means thinking, If I don't do this or take care of that, who will? Before there was always some one else, but now, I have become that some one else.
I think the kids learned a lot and had fun too. There were a lot of good questions asked and a lot of good discussion. Hopefully they all learned a little bit more of what it means to be pure and live pure in a world that doesn't exactly cultivate that mindset.

More Random Thoughts from the Office

Blog. Blogging. Blogged. Blogs. Strange words aren't they? Tonight I was walking home and I was thinking about it. Is blog a noun or a verb? I mean, I hear people say, "I have a blog" and I hear people say, "I need to blog" (mostly from mike) =)...and if you add -ing (blogging), it's again a verb. Strange, eh?

Right now I'm at work and I'm listening to "She's that Kinda girl" by DC Talk...I'm having major de ja vous! I'm laughing right now b/c it is taking me back to the days when first Matt, then Luke would turn up DC talk extremely loud all over the house and all of us siblings would have dance parties...good times...ok, gotta go, I'm gettin my groove on!

Again at work...and I check the election results...MN gov looks like it's gonna be close...too bad the dems might get the senate...it's really surreal watching elections from over here...Dang, the first time that I'm old enough to vote and I can't...and it's too late to get an absentee ballot...I'm such a horrible American...speaking of being american...I have realized an interesting phenomenon here. When people ask, "Where are you from?" in MN, it usually means, what nationality are you, so my typical response is, "East Indian" not to be confused with Native Americans, Eskimo Indians, and whatever type of Indian there may be. But here, when someone asks that question, they mean, "Where is your home?" Because no one is really from Hong Kong, at least they think so. So the other day, I was asked that question, and I said my usual, "Indian" answer. But later I was thinking, Hey, duh, of course I'm Indian, EVERYONE can see that by looking at me. But I am not from India, in fact, for most purposes, I'm not even Indian. Man, why didn't I say I'm American, I have the passport and the American way of thinking to prove it !!!! So yes, now on, when I am asked that question, I will proudly say, "American". Hahaha, but then there is the question of what being proud of that actually means...I will save that for another day...