I had a pretty humbling moment today. All of my classes were cancelled, which I did not find out until AFTER I had already gotten to school. So rather than go home immediately, I spent most of the day editing papers that my honors students had written for my class. Now, when I say most of the day, I am not exaggerating - it literally took me the majority of the day to edit 10 papers. It was difficult, frustrating, and at times overwhelming.
But then I got to Hanna's story, about halfway through the stack. The title of her paper was "The Best Experience of my life," and it was about the time that she spent in the Philippines studying English a few years ago. She talked about how difficult it was to integrate herself into the culture, how hard it was to speak English all of the time, how lonely she felt at times - all things that I could certainly relate to from living here in Korea. As I was reading it, though, I started wondering to myself, "why is this her best experience? It sounds like she was miserable." And that's when the tone of her paper changed.
She said that, as hard as it was to speak English, as unsettling as it was to not understand what was going on around her, she finally realized that she just needed to speak, just needed to get out there and do it. So she bought herself a Korean-English dictionary, and brought it with her everywhere, and just made mistakes and started speaking.
And it hit me, while I sat there at my desk, surrounded by English essays written by Korean students from all walks of life and levels of English, and dreading going home to my host family, that perhaps I need to do exactly what she did. When I first got to my homestay, I made an effort to try to talk to my host family. But now that I feel so unwelcome, I've kind of stopped doing that. But perhaps that's what I'm missing? God wants us to put ourselves out there. We cannot expect other people to give if we are not willing to give, ourselves. The Bible says that we should follow children's example. It's true, that verse is referencing faith, not willingness to approach people who are different from ourselves. But I think there is a lot that we can learn from children, if we're willing to listen.
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
But then I got to Hanna's story, about halfway through the stack. The title of her paper was "The Best Experience of my life," and it was about the time that she spent in the Philippines studying English a few years ago. She talked about how difficult it was to integrate herself into the culture, how hard it was to speak English all of the time, how lonely she felt at times - all things that I could certainly relate to from living here in Korea. As I was reading it, though, I started wondering to myself, "why is this her best experience? It sounds like she was miserable." And that's when the tone of her paper changed.
She said that, as hard as it was to speak English, as unsettling as it was to not understand what was going on around her, she finally realized that she just needed to speak, just needed to get out there and do it. So she bought herself a Korean-English dictionary, and brought it with her everywhere, and just made mistakes and started speaking.
And it hit me, while I sat there at my desk, surrounded by English essays written by Korean students from all walks of life and levels of English, and dreading going home to my host family, that perhaps I need to do exactly what she did. When I first got to my homestay, I made an effort to try to talk to my host family. But now that I feel so unwelcome, I've kind of stopped doing that. But perhaps that's what I'm missing? God wants us to put ourselves out there. We cannot expect other people to give if we are not willing to give, ourselves. The Bible says that we should follow children's example. It's true, that verse is referencing faith, not willingness to approach people who are different from ourselves. But I think there is a lot that we can learn from children, if we're willing to listen.
Matthew 18:1-3
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
