I feel like I need to start at the very beginning. But the beginning seems like such a far memory now, I feel overwhelmed at where to even begin.

Its been a while since I have  blogged. My last post was actually something I had written more than a year ago which I had found in my drafts folder. Mostly finished, I added a concluding sentence and then posted it.

But anyway, back to what I was saying.

So here I am in my eighth month of my journey in Hong Kong. So much has happened and life is so different now. I have to admit that relocating to Hong Kong has been alot harder than I had expected. Before I arrived here I had everything planned out, the church, the friends, the job, my life. I found a dance school where I would continue my ballet classes and I even wrote down a list of goals of things I wanted to achieve with things I planned to be involved in. I felt like I had preplanned my life here and all I had to do was step into it. I wanted to hit the floor running and I thought this would be as easy as stepping into a new outfit.

I guess with all things in life we can only be so prepared. Because as much as we can and want to preempt things, life does happens. It moves and unravels in unexpected ways. It twists and turns, till we sometimes find ourselves in places where we never thought we would be, scratching our heads wondering what the heck just happened.

To say my first eight months in Hong Kong was not what I expected is an understatement. It has been a roller coaster. I’ve had this weird sense that I have actually walked myself into the mouth of the lion. That I had gotten myself into alot more than I had bargined for. I’m not saying that that is entirely a bad thing, I am just saying thats just how it feels.

Its a strange experience to uproot yourself from a life you have come to know so well and into an entirely different way of life and culture. Even the spiritual atmosphere is different here. Its an even stranger experience still, to look back on that life, like an outsider looking into a fishbowl. It feels somewhat objective. Like watching a character in a movie and being able to psychoanalyze all the reasons why they did what they did and were the way they were.

This third person perspective has helped me realise alot of things about myself. Its made me think about the way I live my life and why I am the way I am.  Its made me have to face the music about how I am ‘broken‘.  How we are all ‘broken‘ (in whatever that looks like for you) and why we respond to each other in these ‘broken’ ways. That this life in part, is actually realising we have to reckon with the ‘brokeness’ in this world. Its made me realise why I need Jesus so much more. Why we all do.

If this post sounds a bit cryptic, its because it is. There just too much to unravel and unpack right here. One things for sure though, I know I am meant to be here. The invitation was given, the door had been opened, and God has been holding my hand and walking me back to the very beginning of my story. Back to the beginning to where the journey started.

Back into the mouth of the lion.

Its interesting what the mind can do. The power our brains have over us, over our emotions, our actions, even our attitude to life. Sometimes it amazes me the extravagant stories I can think up in my head that leads me to think something that is totally untrue. I’ve put my stomach in aching knots over these little stories I make up in my head.

In hindsight I end up feeling a bit silly when I recall these situations, after all, most of the things we worry about hardly ever happen. Maybe its just human nature, we often think the worst. Or maybe its our defense mechanism that if we think the worst and it doesn’t happen we enjoy that feeling of release (or relief!) from the self inflicted stress we had put ourselves through earlier.

I’ve had my stomach knots the past week, thinking and praying through the purposes God has for me. Concerned about what might happen and  what people might think.

‘What will they think of me if I do this?”

Fear of man is a tricky thing. It like an invisible string that binds you from every corner. Theres no easy way to navigate through it because, well, everyone has an opinion right?

I think it takes a strong person to stand for what they believe in, no matter what other people think. And an even stronger person to stand firm in what they believe God is saying to them.

I don’t believe that God ever hides Himself from us. I believe that if we seek answers for something, God answers. Surely and lovingly. Maybe if we can’t hear it, its because He’s answered in a way we were not expecting or we weren’t in tune to what He is saying. Like we’ve been listening on the wrong frequency. But He is always speaking. He wants to show us what is important to Him, He wants us to see things through His eyes.

And that is all that ultimately matters; whats important to God and seeing life through His eyes – not to be moved by one man’s mere opinion.

I believe we are all called.

We are all called with our giftings, our talents, our circumstances and most of all we are called by what God has placed in our hearts. He has entrusted to us the desires of His heart that we may be called into action. That we may use all that He has given us to serve Him. To be His hands and feet to love on others. To care and to see need. To be the person who will step out and extend our hands to pull up another who has fallen.

I truly believe that.

I feel that God has been opening my eyes to things that I have never noticed before. To see people in a way I have never seen before. Something feels different. Maybe the only way I can only describe it is like an itch. Like there is something inside deep in my soul that will burst if I don’t let it out. If I remain still. Unmoving. Immobile. Something would be lost.

I believe we are called beyond our own strength, intellect and understandings of our suburban world.  We are called to something so much bigger than ourselves, beyond what we can see. Something so big that without God, it would virtually impossible. I want to reach forward and experience it. I want to see it with my own eyes. To immerse myself in it. I want that. I want to be in a place that I am so expectant and reliant on God that if He doesn’t pull through, all could be squandered.

And then, there is love.

If there is anything above all else I wish to grow more in, it is in love. But not only to just love but how to love more. I want to know how to love when its not easy to love, in those times when everything inside me is squirming to give up and walk away. I want to know how to make ‘love win’ when love is rejected. I want to feel my heart expand past the outer walls of comfort into the destitute places of humanity. To even those destitute places within me.

It is only through the outworking of love that a human heart can be changed. I am praying that God will give me His heart and love for people. And in the same way that God has shown His immense love and grace to me, that He may use me. That my love, like His, would also inviting.

I believe we are all called. Into love and action. I pray that we would never callous our hearts that we can no longer sense the gentle breath that He whispers deep into our souls.

Have you ever spent time with someone and felt so inspired and encouraged, like your heart was about to burst?

Visionaries, humanitarians, people who are seeking out God’s heart for themselves and others with so much conviction and dreams. This is how I would describe a few of the people I have met here in Hong Kong. These are the people who leave me wanting more… needing more of God and all the hopes, dreams and passions He has placed in my heart.

I feel utterly compelled and convinced that God’s heart is for people: the lost, the underprivileged, the hurting and destitute, and that, in the slogan of Rob Bell ‘Love Wins’ rings true. Absolutely and entirely.

In a place like Hong Kong where it harbors both ends of the spectrum, in a conundrum of the rich and the poor, I have often found it hard to reconcile both worlds. Hong Kong, a financial hub of asia in all its glossy sophisticated efficiency yet if you look hard between the lines there is poverty, hurting and pain.

My friend told me recently that a whole family (A mother and her adult son and daughter) took their lives in suicide in his apartment block because they had so much debt they could not see any option but to take their lives, together. I felt my heart sink. I could not imagine what it would be like for them to feel so utterly hopeless in that situation that the only thing they felt they could do is end their lives. Not only just themselves but together as a family. My mind pains to comprehend that. It makes me wonder about the people I cross paths with in my day to day. The guy in the lift or the woman in front of me on the escalator… they all have a story.

I was telling my aunt over dinner the other day about how lovely and respectful my students are and how the school culture in HK was so different to what I was used to in Australia. She said to me despite that initial impression, a lot of the youth resort to cutting themselves to deal with their lives. My heart broke to hear that, but I did not doubt that this was not true. Even in some of my own students I can sense their pain.

I sense their pain to achieve (often staying up till past 12am doing homework), to be socially accepted and approved… Their pain in having parents who aren’t even there. My heart goes out to these kids. I feel compelled to love on them. Yes, a lot of these are the ones who are privileged, but who said money ever brought happiness? No amount of money could ever heal the wounds of our souls.

I remember the first I was faced with poverty 11 years old in HK. A legless man was laying on the ground face down, covered in old dirty clothes as he tried to bow to everyone as they walked by in hopes that someone might have some pity in their hearts to drop a few coins into the cup he held next to him. I remember not knowing how to react or where to look. I don’t think I even wanted to acknowledge what I was seeing was real. That he was a real person, someone’s son, maybe brother or husband. Who has feelings, a personality, ideas and things that make him smile.

Its easy to walk away from ugliness here, all you have to do is walk into a brightly lit shopping mall and immediately you are converted back into consumerism mode. This is not the person I want to be. The prayer of my heart is that I might have eyes to see the pain of the broken hearted and to let my heart too, be broken and compelled into action.

I am so convinced that love should be the basis of everything we do and operate out of. It is our lifeline as human beings, without it everything seems so meaningless.

I know I need more love.