#it’s like a city girl stuck in the country on her uncles farm taught me(the wild mustang) how to trust again (how to reblog)

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holy shit you’re posting again

Yeehaw

[herberthsieh-blog]

 I really love how Heather took us through some bible stories and taught us a whole new way of studying it. I’ve read through the Bible once, and rereading it I found out that I wasn’t reading the Bible the way God may had wanted me to. I wasn’t paying attention to a lot of the details and it surprised me how much more we understand what God is trying to communicate to us when we dig deep into it.  Before this week, I’ve never realized how much similarities my culture has with those Israelites and the Canaanites living around and among them 2000 years ago. Taiwan is a small island full of East-Asian immigrants, we were colonized by the Europeans, Japanese and Chinese. Different religions and all kinds of cultures came in and out and ruled over this little island. A group of Chinese that were defeated by the present government of China escape and fled to Taiwan 100 years ago. Alongside of them, they brought Buddhism and thousands of gods(ancestors, historical heroes) to Taiwan and that culture is what I grew up in. My city is really westernized but still full of Eastern religious traditions. I’m very blessed to grow up in a Christian family where I didn’t have to get involved in any kind of false god worshiping, but every now and then, I get to experience the crazy rituals and festivals that Taiwanese people do and celebrate.  Once a year, the Hakka people (the people group who does second burials in the video Heather showed us) go to their family graveyard and clean the grave, offer food offerings and incense to their ancestors. My Dad happens to be one of them. Every year my dad would drive us to his hometown and this big traditional farmhouse (not the western kind) that he lived in when he was younger. The whole three generation family would be there, which means all of the relatives on my dads side. I would see pictures of my great great grandparents on the wall, who owned this house and this farm originally. We would spend a whole morning honoring our ancestors and the gods who brought them to this country safely, burning incense to them. Basically worshiping them and asking for more protection and blessings from them. My mom would always tell us to not get involved in anything but stand there and pray to God. One of my uncles is also a Christian and he would always sing a worship song and lead everyone in prayers before the whole thing ends. Since I was not in Taiwan these past two years during the festival, I didn’t get to go with my dad, but Heather’s class sure did remind me a lot of it. Although I’ve never experience anything like a second burial or something crazier like human sacrifices, the environment I was in really did taught me a lot about these people, who we think as false god worshipers.  I met a Taiwanese girl in Australia, she lived in the same rental house as I did. It is a share-house with 7 people living in it, own by one of the church elders in the church we were all attending. The girl became a christian and got baptized not much longer after she started going to this church. We would do bible studies three times a week at night after everyone got home from work, and every time after worship or bible studies she would always tell us stories about her past and ask us a lot of questions.  “When I was little, my mom told me that if I don’t behave, the monsters and demons in hell would come after me.”  “I’ve dreamt of monsters and buddha several times when I was little, and the idols in my house always seemed to be watching me and controlling the house.”  “My mom used to tell me stories of Buddha saving me, were they real?”  “If my mom find out that I’m a Christian she would kill me. She would never allow me to not pray or burn incense to my ancestors.”  “My grandma past away a few years ago and I’ve always seen her like my mom because she was the one who raised me. Now that I’m a Christian and know that anyone who doesn’t know God and believe in him will go to hell, am I ever going to see her again? Is she going to hell? Can I ask God to bring her to heaven?”  All of these were things that she said and asked. Real struggles that she were going through. I’ve never thought that converting to a Christian can be so hard and scary. Not that she was scared of Jesus but she was scared of real issues back home and ghosts of her ancestors hunting her down. In my little Christian world, I went to church every Sunday and listened to teachings about angels and satan. I’ve never know anything about people’s believes that were different than mine. When I walk past a temple I pray that they would know Jesus, but that’s pretty much it. I didn’t really know how to reach out to them, and how to walk them through their fear once they become Christians. When I was little, I view them as evil people that worship weird and scary gods. Their gods do look really scary compare to my white blond handsome Jesus, but not until much older that I realized they are just thirsty human beings that don’t know Jesus and found the wrong source. We are all the same. We are thirsty for the same living water but sadly they don’t know where to find it, so they created their own gods claiming that they would give them peace, wealth and protection. People try really hard to create this “fake peace” among them and it never works.

I’m just super glad that I get to learn something this cool this week, can’t wait to try and live this out. Although the lecture was really good, it was still a hard week with a lot of emotional challenges. I’m working hard on trying to gain my passion back from reaching out to Jesus and not getting stuck in the daily routines.