Most of you know that Zac learnt Kung Fu when he was in New Zealand. Well, he has continued to learn here in Hong Kong, but he is learning a different style now. Earlier this year he got a chance to participate in a competition held by one of the local TV stations to imitate a famous person. Zac was chosen to imitate Bruce Lee. Here’s what he did:
He also had a second talent performance where he did one of the routines he learnt at his Kung Fu class here in Hong Kong
I got an email noting that I used the word gwailo in my previous post. The literal meanon is “Ghost man”, and gwaipoa, gwaijai, and gwaimui are “Ghost woman”, “Ghost boy” and “Ghost girl” respectively.
It is sometimes used derogatively but for most it is a pretty harmless tag, similar to Pakeha or Palangi. For some people it is even a badge of honour.
Even more interesting is that sometimes kids of mixed heritage are sometimes called bun-gwai-bun-yan – literally “half-human-half-ghost”.
I guess that means we have two-and-a-half ghosts at home. I wonder if Charlie Sheen could make a sitcom about that?
Well, I’ve been back from Korea for about a week now, and after a bunch of meetings and a dose of food poisoning I have a chance to give you all a review of the conference.
Firstly, you can all view the video archives of the entire conference at www.cm2007.net. Click on the video archive link. One highlight is the New Zealand team doing a haka. You can also see messages from Joon Gon Kim (the founder of CCC in Korea), Steve Douglass (CCC’s president) and George Verwer (founder of Operation Mobilisation). (Videos will open in a new link and use Windows Media Player)
For me the highlight was the parade of nations, where every country present (apart from those with security issues) paraded their flag and national costume, sort of like an Olympic Games opening ceremony. It was great to be able to cheer along both New Zealand and Hong Kong.
It was also great being able to catch up with a lot of people. There were several students from the summer project team who went to Wellington last year, including Dan and Krista Trepod who led the team. Some of the New Zealand students knew me from when we were in New Zealand – I even worked with one of them in Waikato back in 2004! Also there were staff from all over the world who I had met at various times whom I was able to catch up with. There were two people I was quite surprised to see there – one was Lydia Fan (from ACMC) – she had gone with her college in the States, another was Sherman Huang (also from ACMC) – he was on the volunteer team. It was also great being able to make new friends.
Since I was living with the Hong Kong team, I got plenty of practice with my Cantonese. It was also good to be able to get to know some of the students better. I feel after this conference that they see me as part of the group, not just that gwailo that turns up to the meetings.
But the real purpose of CM2007 is to mobilise these students to take up the challenge of reaching the world’s students for Christ. Campus Crusade for Christ has identified 8000 of the world’s most significant universities around the globe, and we only have a presence on 2000 of them. The challenge is to reach the remaining 6000 campuses. Many of these campuses are in closed countries. My prayer is that there will be a long-term result from this conference over the next five years and beyond of a marked increase in the number of students going out into the missions field to reach these places with the gospel of Christ. This, after all, will be the measure of whether this conference has been successful.
This morning we had a plenary session by Ken Cochrum on the difference between ministries and movements. He pointed out four key criteria of a movement. They are
He led us through a study of the church at Antioch to see how this biblical model had these four qualities and this was a critical reason why the Holy Spirit was able to work through that church to cause an explosion of the gospel in the latter half of the first century.
In the afternoon we had several seminars to choose from. The first one I went to was on using short films in evangelism. They had a selection of short films which related to the gospel that we could use to generate gospel conversations. The idea is to show people the movies and then ask questions about Your Story, My Story, and God’s Story. So you can use the short film in combination with discussion, a testimony and a gospel presentation. I can see a lot of potential for this sort of strategy. In particular, there was one short film called “La Basqueda” (The Search) which was based on the story of the Prodigal Son. It has no dialogue so can be used in any country. In Hong Kong this would be a great film to show someone on a phone or blog and then get people’s feedback, hopefully leading to the gospel.
The second seminar I went to was profiling an outreach strategy called “Story of the Soul“. The idea behind this strategy is that all art (ie movies, classic literature, songs, poetry, paintings, etc) deal with one of two things; they either talk about longings that are unfulfilled or wounds that are unhealed. And the completion to each of these stories (ie the healing of our wounds, or the fulfilment of our desires) is found in Christ. The outreach puts together a series of discussion on film clips, songs, or other art that are connected with a certain theme, such as hope, or world change followed by a gospel presentation. I think this strategy has real potential to be used in Hong Kong, because it is adaptable to any culture.
well, here I am in Busan, Korea. Last night was the opening ceremony for CM2007. Travelling to the conference site from our hotel was a bit like going to a rugby game – there was a huge tide of people all going in one direction.
I have had a chance to meet up with quite a few people so far. I met the Kiwis at dinner time and was able to catch up with the. I also have met several staff from the States who have some connection with NZ, and there are even some people from ACMC church in NZ who are here (a bit of a surprise to me!)
The opening speaker was In-Soo Jeong who is the Director of Affairs for East Asia. He spoke on the need for people who have a Clear Vision, Committed Heart, Courageous Action to take the gospel to the world. we also were treated to a Korean welcome and introduction. If you want to find out more about CM2007, or watch from the sidelines (so to speak) there is live video streaming (and video archives) at www.cm2007.net.
Check it out