Low on the Go!

the update a long time in coming
warning: its a long one...

birthday
first off, i have to thank friends for an AMAZING birthday. the day was filled with french food at a snobby restaurant, chilling on my rooftop and a 'ouache' lychee martini at night. thanks to everyone who came out (ethan, stephanie, janette, andrew, warren, priyanka, travis, jenna, joshua) .
special props to sara whitfield, jess farq, shelly, beth fisher, suz lumsden, and joel sherman for driving in from out of town (windsor, guelph x4, ottawa) to come.
thanks to everyone else who couldn't make it but sent birthday wishes...i haven't gotten back to all of y'all, but i appreciate your kind words muchly.
limits
in other news, this week, i discovered that 80 hours straight of human contact is my limit. by the 80th hour, i was SO tired i couldn't even talk. i had a GREAT birthday and a super couple of days spent with jesskah farquharson, sara whitfield (and others sporadically), and C4C people, but by the time i took sara to the greyhound station Friday afternoon, i could hardly muster the energy to say goodbye. So yes, 80 hours and 4 days without QTs is definitely the limit. anything past that, and i become a super carnal, mean short chinese gal without a filter. the reminder that Christ is my only source of true sustenance was a good one.
ryan lawrence's birthday
happy belated birthday ryan lawrence. your friendship as my older brother is muchly appreciated. thank you for the vespa. it is the coolest thing on my shelf (next to my Bibles). your party was fun; sorry i was so tired and had to leave your party early, dragging two people with me. lets go for coffee sometime soon.
praise team
so frank and i got ourselves into a bind this weekend, without a praise team scheduled. i realized this on friday afternoon and was super stressed out. all i wanted to do on friday was SLEEP (80 hours of people with no alone time does that to ya), but instead i had to figure out praise team stuff. after talking to my co-leader all i wanted to do was sleep and cry. thankfully i have amazing friends like Louis and Joshua Robinson who have such great hearts of servanthood.

the meat of the blog
after service today, joshua robinson (who was gracious and helped me lead worship today at my church) invited me to his house for lunch. of course, it would have been donculous to say no and not meet any of the people he always speaks so lovingly about, so i accepted. i gleaned a couple of things from this experience. i'll write about one of these gleanings for now...

Growing up and attending a chinese church, i only ever had christian friends who were chinese. In chinese culture, 'good children' are children who sit quietly during meals and don't cause 'trouble'. Of course, the perfectionist that i was, i was always the good child. my parents would eat dinner and chatter away with their friends, and i would eat my dinner quietly and then slip into the covers of a book and read. As i grew up, i would periodically be invited to a friend's house for lunch after church. Those times, however, were the most awkward times i've ever experienced. No longer was i the "good girl"; i was the "bad influence" because i didn't speak chinese. i was the child who had "sold herself to 'white' culture and abandoned her own culture." Inviting me to lunch was a nicety--something parents had to do because they were "friends" with my parents and because i was "friends" with their child.

i don't remember ever having one spiritual conversation at a dinner table except in my own home, let alone talk of theology. spirituality and 'feelings' are just not discussed between generations at a dinner table in traditional chinese culture. usually, as a younger person, eating meant silence.

in moving to Toronto, i've been so blessed to become friends with some wonderful and amazing people my age. at the dinner table there will be banter about all sorts of things, but the most lovely and edifying conversations are those where the glory of Christ is discussed. However, apart from C4C friends and some church friends, i don't know very many older adults and families. dinner with a Christian family rarely happens here in Toronto, and when it does, it's most often with a chinese family from my church. chinese families don't really discuss theology or "feelings" all that much. banter doesn't exist all that much and utmost respect for elders (which, in chinese culture, is often synonymous with silence while they speak amongst themselves) is of great importance.

So, today was a great treat for me. i'm sure i must have been a bit awkward, since lunch at the Robinson house was an experience SO completely different from that which i'm used to. firstly, just eating with a caucasian family is vastly different! passing food around the table and holding bowls for each other just doesn't happen in chinese culture! its usually the turning of a lazy susan and chopsticks flying everywhere. the conversation was ALSO very different. i definitely felt very shy, but i was immensely grateful for the opportunity to eat and witness banter that i don't usually get to hear apart from my experiences with other university students. for the first time in a long time (aside from dinner at J's parents' place) i had the opportunity to witness a family where 3 generations (four if you include little Clara) who love the LORD came together on a Sunday afternoon. i was tremendously awed by the ease at which they spoke of spiritual things with each other and how it flowed into different conversations.
i know i'm not doing this lunch experience justice. i suppose all i wanted to say was that today i caught a glimpse of what i would like my family to be like when i grow up and get married (Lord willing). i want to be a hospitable and warm woman like mrs. robinson and i want to grow old and STILL rejoice in the LORD like the older mrs. robinson.

i don't want to be like the Martha who was so caught up in the niceties, preparations, works and being the "good" hostess that she couldn't sit at His feet and enjoy the company. i want to sit at His feet and enjoy His provision of friendship and so much more, while also inviting others to join in the banter.

(as an addendum, i wanted to say that there are also many great things about eating dinners with chinese families. i realize, in re-reading this post that i may have made chinese dinners sound boring and very rigid...but they aren't. i am grateful that as a canadian-born chinese, i am part of two great cultures.)