Clocking In. Eric, Here.

Dear Friends,

Following in the footsteps of our fearless leader, Mickey, I, too, shall write about myself. First, a caveat: far too often, I write too much about myself. So I hope that this post will be the exception (and not the norm) for this blog. If I should talk too much about myself (and--at the risk of sounding pretentious--not enough of Christ) in the future, feel free to call me out.

Childhood.

My mother often retells a story about me that has had a lasting impression on her. The story goes as follows: One fair day in the Dust Bowl--Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to be precise--my mother found then six- or seven-year-old me standing on a bathroom stool so I could see my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I was standing very still, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My mom called me, "Eric, what are you doing?"

And I responded, "Mommy. Why is my skin this color?"

After all, what can a young Asian boy expect growing up in the Great Plains of the Midwest? Being born in Iowa, I was definitely one of the few Asians in that state, seeing as little Asian children are a rare sighting amongst the cornfields there during the 80s'. My parents, hailing from the (renegade) island of Taiwan, were in the US finishing up their education: my dad, his Ph.D in chemistry; my mom, her mommy degree. It was in Iowa that my parents became Christian and began taking me to church.

At the age of three, my family moved to College Station, Texas, where we joined an Asian-American church. The pastor's family lived down the street, and he had twin daughters, with whom I grew up. It was in Texas that I was blessed with a younger brother who has, literally, stuck by me his entire life.

When I turned six, my parents upped and moved the family to Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I suppose I became sentient somewhere during this time, as I began to notice that the other children treated me differently. I remember, distinctly, a couple of fourth grade boys who used to bully me on the bus. It must have been after one of those terrifying bus rides that I came home staring at myself in the mirror. Little did I know that the question would soon move from second-guessing the skin color to second-guessing the identity.

To Taiwan.

God's hand in my life has always been very clear. I know, because I rarely want to do what He wants.

"Eric and James, we are going to move back to the 'windy city' in Taiwan--Hsinchu," my parents sat my brother and me down one day to break this news to us.

My brother sucked on his pacifier, and I objected--as hard as a ten-year-old could object. In my mind, Taiwan consisted of backwards Asian people still wearing queues. I didn't want to grow a giant ponytail! But, most of all, I didn't want to leave all the good friends I had made in the States.

My parents never convinced me to move back--they just picked up and moved. Now, when people ask me why we moved, I always tell them that my parents wanted to move back, but there is also another reason. During our time in Oklahoma, my parents were involved with a church called Vine Life church. As with most churches that have "vine" and "life" in the name, it was a charismatic church. I'm not sure of the exact happenings, but a few events I remember quite clearly in my mind. They are, in order of strength of memory, my mom's experience with "speaking in tongues", my dad's sickness and his subsequent experience with "speaking in tongues," and my "healing".

These events are important, as they explain how we came to move to Taiwan and the cautionary attitude I have adopted for anything charismatic.

First, my mom's experience. She had come home from a Vine Life retreat one weekend and told the family about her experience on the bus and later in the retreat building. I remember it very clearly because, however young I was, I had the sense that such experiences were "impossible" as far as human experience goes, so I very much doubted my own mother's credibility. And yet, she was my mother, so what in the world was going on? I'd gone to church with my parents and watched the pastor pray over people; they would fall down to the ground, some would shudder, and almost everyone would pray in some weird language. It was not the normal experience I had at Hoover Elementary school as a second- or third-grader. But when my very own mother told of her experience on that retreat--describing it as one of liberation from evil spirits and a spirit baptism--I could not believe my ears.

The story really begins with my grandfather's family. My mom's family was extremely religious--quite the devout Buddhist/Daoist family in Taiwan. (I maintain a distinction between the Buddhism of academia and the religion I encountered in Taiwan by calling it "Buddhist/Daoist.") They had an encounter with what we call "ji tong" in Taiwan. These folks were nothing short of diviners, witches (maybe), mediators, and summoners of the dead. Suspend your version of Western reality, just for this bit--and maybe for a bit longer. They're sort of the equivalent of Buddhist/Daoist high priests. I've seen them parade down the streets, sometimes whipping themselves--my youth pastor tells me to stay away from them, lest I invite evil spirits. I've heard (from my mother) that they cut and mutilate themselves and whatnot to induce a trance and invite the spirits of the dead to "come into" them so that the deceased can communicate with their loved ones.

The story my mom tells me is that one of my aunts passed away while I was not yet born. In my uncle's grief, he and his family (including my mom) paid a visit to these Buddhist summoners. This "summoner" allowed my aunt's spirit to possess him and initiated dialogue with my uncle. I don't know the rest of the story; but I do know, from Scripture, that anything involving spirits apart from God is most likely evil. I have in mind the stories about Jesus chasing out demons and evil spirits, sending them into the pigs and whatnot.

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. (Luke 11:24-26).

I forget which verse it is that my mom cites, but I think it's this one. Whatever the case, my mom said that she felt "oppressed" from that day forth, as if something began to haunt her.

Now, on this retreat, while they were on the bus, heading toward the retreat center. She recalls feeling this great weight upon her, such that she was unable to stand. I remember her describing it as the spirits from her encounter with the "ji tong" in the previous paragraphs. She managed to get out of the bus, I think, but was pinned to the floor at the retreat center. Those who were with her began to pray for her; and, suddenly, she said she felt a warmth inside her come flowing out and the oppression leave. And she began to speak in tongues (as the charismatics define it). Now, she says, she was on the floor, weighed down by the glory of God.

That was my mother's encounter with the charismatic. To give you a sense of how naive I was then--after that event, I never failed to ask my mom to pray for my tests and projects, because she had "special" prayer, I believed. It never dawned on me that it was part of a Movement in my life.

Secondly, my dad's experience. My mom tells me this story, but I remember it clearly because it was the day I saw my dad cry like a baby--something I've only seen a couple times in my life. He had come down with some sort of sickness. A high fever or something. My mom says it was his hepatitis B kicking in again? I'm not sure--I'm not a doctor (I'm an enginerd!). In any case, he became very sick and was laying in bed. My mother began to pray for him; soon, lacking any words to pray, she lapsed into praying in tongues. I wasn't sure what the matter was, so I walked into the room to figure out what the great commotion was and that was when I saw that my dad was crying very hard. I left quietly. It was only afterwards (and by "afterwards", I mean a couple of years) that my mom told me that my dad had spoken in tongues that one time (he never did it again afterwards). My dad describes the event as the moment Christ struck his heart.

Thirdly, my "healing." A lot of pentecostal churches will claim that their pastors have the power of healing. So when my mom heard from an otologist that I might lose hearing in one of my ears and recommended a hearing aid--I remember that quite clearly, because I thought hearing aids were ugly--she asked me if I'd be willing to let the pastor pray over me. I didn't want to wear an ugly hearing aid, so I said yes. She took me up to the pastor, explained the situation, and let him pray over me. I didn't fall down like the adults I saw, and I didn't feel anything tingle in my ear. So I figured, maybe he just prayed a prayer--maybe he can't actually heal me. Whatever the case, I haven't had to wear a hearing aid; though, one ear does hear better than the other ear. I routinely use my right ear to listen to my music whenever I play. But I forget if the pastor prayed for the left ear or right ear.... Whatever the case, it opened a giant can of theological worms for me. I was always fairly uncertain about the things I saw at that church--it was unscientific, really.

Now that you know my parents' experience with the charismatic church and my young skepticism of it, it should not surprise you that the main reason my parents told me we were moving back to Taiwan was because God told them so in a dream. And it should not surprise you, that had I the vocabulary for it, I would have said, "Bull." Nonetheless, I wasn't sure what to make of the whole situation. My mom told me that while she and my father were deliberating the move (a move that would more than halve my dad's salary and more than quarter the acreage of our living space), she had a dream in which God was calling her to the "city of wind." In case you didn't know, Hsinchu is famous for its wind, which is why its rice noodles are all the rave in Taiwan.

And while I didn't know what to make of it, it seemed less wise to challenge God than to challenge my parents at the time. So no matter how much I didn't want to leave the United States, I couldn't fight it. And my parents picked up, packed up, and moved back to Taiwan.

Taiwan.

The question my parents consistently struggled with while they were in Taiwan was the question of Why. "Why did God bring us to Taiwan?" they used to ask. I would ask them the same question, except I'd put it thus, "Why did you bring me back to Taiwan?" I think my parents got a kick out of responding with, "Did you want us to leave you in the States?"

When I was older, say, 18 or 19, my parents admitted to me that moving back to Taiwan put a solid dent in the spiritual life. While they tried to get plugged into a more pentecostal church in Taiwan, it wasn't the same community as in the US. Furthermore, I routinely came up with ways to avoid going to church. Sometimes I would say, "Can we just have church at home? As a family?" Other times, I would sleep in as late as I could on Sundays. (Now, it's not so hard to sleep in; I don't understand how it used to be so hard!) It made going to church difficult for them and made them question whether moving to Taiwan was something they had desired or truly a calling from God.

I absolutely abhorred church as a kid. We read from a Chinese Bible that read from right-to-left. Genesis was at the "back" of the book, and Revelation at the "beginning." It was far too confusing--not to mention that, as a fourth-grader, my Chinese level was something like a first-grader's. I couldn't even read the holy book for crying out loud! I thought very little about Christianity, though I contemplated much about life. One of the many conclusions I came to during my early middle school years was that Christianity was just one of many religions and that all religions basically taught people how to be "good" people. I think not going to church and not learning how to read the Chinese Bible didn't help either.

It wasn't until around the seventh grade that I took an interest in going to church.

There was this girl....

I love how every story about every boy in the age range of 13-19 begins with a girl. I think I am not the exception to that rule, but rather, the epitome of it. In any case, there was this girl in my class that I took an interest in. I found out from my friends that she went to an English-speaking church somewhere in Hsinchu! How come I had never heard of this place before! My parents found the place and started taking me there. It was essentially a small, English-speaking youth group, led by one of the parents. Sunday school mostly consisted of card games used to teach the gospel and little fill-in-the-blank pamphlets that had Christian stories on them. And, of course, the girl was there. I never enjoyed church more! I understood the lessons (all in English!), I had fun (card games!), and there was a girl (a girl!).

She stopped going to the church a little while later, since she spent most of her weekends up in Taipei. So I lost the girl incentive to go to church. But I made new friends and had begun to learn more interesting material in Sunday school. A Stanford alum, Chuck, was working in one of the nearby universities as a linguistics professor and spent his free time teaching at our church. I often think that his work as a professor was volunteer and that he was really on the church staff, since he spent so many hours with us at church, teaching, laughing, and playing with us all. To be quite honest, he is one of the reasons (if not the main reason) I ended up coming out to Stanford. If a university can produce a man like him--one willing to devote his free time to mentoring (troubled?) youth--then that is the university I would want to go to.

I wouldn't really call us "troubled" youth at the time. But one must understand that whenever I got on the public bus with my friends and started babbling in English, the entire bus would fall silent. We were obviously different and envied for it. And we made trouble for it.

My school was made up of five departments: a kindergarten, an elementary, a junior high, a high school, and a bilingual school. The bilingual school consisted of ABC's (American-Born-Chinese) from the first through twelfth grade. I began during my fourth grade. The explicit purpose statement of the school was to help children who had grown up overseas adjust to a Chinese-speaking school system, but among my friends, very few "transfered" over--and when they did, we thought of them as having gone over to the dark side.

Tensions between the Chinese-speaking departments (the elementary, junior high, and high school) and the bilingual department were always quite high. The language barrier provided a convenient "us" versus "them" mentality for children too young to understand barriers at all. For the bilingual kids, our superior English-speaking ability made us the coolest kids on the block. For the Chinese-speaking kids, their fluent Chinese and our awkward accents made us the lamest kids in the school. I think some fist fights broke out a couple times. And my first introduction to the middle finger came after a soccer game against the Chinese kids.

My mom would ask me if I considered myself Chinese or American. "American!" I'd always reply. Regardless of the fact that when I grew up in America, I always felt out of place. Oh, and regardless of the fact that I didn't look any different from the usual, mop-haired kid walking down the hallway at school. There was great "English-speaking" pride.

So, I call us troubled. Chuck, however, related to us (himself having grown up in the States) and made every effort to speak the gospel into our lives, but it wasn't until I was coerced into cooperating with the Chinese-speaking kids that I learned to set aside my pride.

Always Running, Always Hiding.

My dad is one of those dads that exerts his influence through subtle ways. He would always make me do things I never wanted to do; and then I would fall in love with them. It was that way with soccer (he forced me to play in the pee-wee leagues); it was that way with piano; and so it was that way with church and Christianity.

"Hey, Eric. I hear Luo-jieh is trying to start a joint retreat and needs some help. Would you like to help?"

"No."

"Okay. I'm calling her now to tell her you said, 'Yes.'"

"What?!"

And that's really how it all got started. The name "Luo-jieh" is another phonetic spelling (not Pinyin) for the lady at my church who was responsible for the Chinese-speaking youth group. Literally, the name means "Sister Luo"--or "elder sister Luo" if one cares to be that precise. I have no idea what motivated her to hold a "joint" retreat--where "joint" meant a retreat that involved both the Chinese-speaking and English-speaking youth at our church. I mean, if my school could not handle the stress of that language barrier, how in the world could the church do it? But my dad caught wind of the news and knew that she needed a couple of kids from both youth groups to work together in order to plan it and volunteered me without my consent.

So I had no choice but to show up at the first meeting and see what would happen. It turned out that the Chinese-speaking kids didn't eat us, didn't bite us, and didn't laugh at us; they fed us, prayed with us, and laughed with us. I don't remember how the retreat went or if my friends who went had fun, but it was then that I came to make friends with some people I'd formerly considered "enemies."

Joint retreats soon became part of our church's calendar, and the two youth groups even had youth services together once a month to hear a sermon preached in English or Chinese. One of the kids would go on stage to translate it (into Chinese or English, depending on the speaker) so everyone could take part in the message. Chinese songs were rewritten with Pinyin so that English-speakers could sing along.

And as this change took place at church, change began to happen at school as well. I came to realize that some of my "church" friends actually went to my school in the "normal" departments ("normal," meaning "Chinese-speaking"). So we would spend time together after school and pray for various matters; and hang out occasionally to savor a couple of inside jokes. I can't say the tension at school was resolved, but the atmosphere improved, and the value of a bilingual education struck me at last. I found solace in that while I still didn't know my particular identity--Asian? American? Asian-American?--I had a Father in Heaven who called me His own.

But while such outward changes took place, there was another girl.... (I told you--I'm the epitome of that story.)

Soon after the first joint retreat, my father, again, volunteered me to participate in a Q&A / Bible study with Luo-jieh. Once again, he did it without my knowledge--and without my consent. And so I began visiting Luo-jieh's house once a week, every Wednesday, throwing at her my most challenging questions, trying to figure out why she believed what she believed. The question--and the answer--that finally did it all for me was, "Isn't Christianity basically just about being 'good'?"

In response, I got this verse:

For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. (Luke 6:43-44).

And it clicked at last, in my mind--Christianity was not a religion, was not some way to "get into heaven," nor some mystic path like the Chinese "dao". No, Christianity was a way of life--of resurrected life! It was about planting one's life next to the life-giver and to bear fruit for the glory of Christ. One cannot force an apple tree to bear grapes; and, likewise, one cannot force fallen man to stand. It takes supernatural power, amazing grace, and divine intervention to raise my life from the dead and plant me by streams of living water. Christianity was never about outward behavior, but about inward orientation. And so it made sense to me, at last.

While such great epiphanies were happening, and while God began to mold my heart and mind, I stumbled into a relationship with a non-Christian girl. And, still, God spoke to me.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. (2 Corinthians 6:14).

I thought I could get around it. You know, maybe it was one of those outdated things. Luo-jieh found out about the relationship and admonished me a couple of times. But I was stubborn! Why couldn't I make my mistakes, have my fun, and then become a "good" Christian? I was bent on going out with this girl; I was bent on converting her. And try as I might, my actions spoke louder than my words. I'm sure my witness to her was nothing short of abysmal, considering the things we did.

So while Luo-jieh taught me, and while God, in his good grace, continued to grow me, I spent my free time running and hiding from Him--trying to stay away from the reality of His commandments. After all, I liked what I heard sometimes; and the parts I didn't like? Well, they had no bearing on me.

Still, he called out to me, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me." (John 15:4).

The Blind Man and the Breakdown.

There is a blind and deaf boy living in rural Taiwan who does not know the impact he has had on my life. There is a blind and deaf boy living in rural Taiwan who does not know that I learned true worship, true fear of God, and true joy from him. There is a blind man who taught me to see. His name is "Daniel."

We were out in rural Taiwan on a short-term missions trip with the Chinese youth and Daniel had come to support us and sing with us in our worship sessions. It was during one of these worship sessions that Daniel got up on stage with the worship team with a tambourine in his hands which he beat off-beat, and he sang, off-key. Being me, I couldn't quite stand it, but Daniel was not shaken. He sang with all his might, with his gaze toward the skies. At the end of it, he said to us, "I know you guys think I'm horrible, but my eyes can't see you. They can only see God. And I do this for Him."

His words struck me hard. I had spent my life learning to impress the teachers, learning to impress the peers, and being good at it, too! And here was a boy so free from it all! Here was a boy who loved God in such a pure and innocent way, while I was off cavorting with my secret girlfriend.

There are many things that pushed me to break up with her that year--my junior year. Among them was Daniel's testimony, a great sense of hypocrisy while I served at church, a distinct desire to follow Jesus, and a Movement in my heart that, while it didn't feel good, it was the right thing to do. So I did it; and it was hard. There were days where I couldn't understand what had happened; why I had become so attached to her that it hurt me to do the "right" thing. I didn't understand where the pain came from. At one point, I thought that maybe she had betrayed me and was dating her best friend all along, while taking me along for the ride.

If you had found me at the right time in Taiwan, you would have caught me standing in the courtyard of the school shouting obscenities and frothing at the mouth like an animal. Okay, maybe not frothing--but it was definitely carnal. I threw stuff around; interrupted classes; and cried a lot.

A couple of my friends from church--Joann Chan and Jennifer Cheng--did their best to comfort me and listen to my gripes. Joann wrote me about it later, saying, "those last 2 months of school were hell for you. i remember wishing SO badly that i could take away all your hurt and anger so you would be the eric i knew when i first met you but knowing painfully that i would hafta trust God for that" (sic).

And God delivered me from my depression and anger. He grew within me a holy calling.

The Ministry.

Come senior year, I found myself the oldest Christian guy at my youth group. Between my middle school years and my senior year, the English-speaking ministry had turned from a Sunday school class to a little youth group. As the oldest guy (and being from a culture that defers to the elder), I took charge, reluctantly, of the youth group. I didn't feel up to the task, and so, out of fear, I solicited some help from a couple of foreign teachers who were more than eager to teach us and help plan youth group activities.

I am not exactly certain what happened during that year, but the foreign teachers (whom we called adult leaders) made drastic changes to our English youth group. First, they got rid of joint services, since a lot of the kids could not understand the services (even with a student translator). Then, they got rid of joint retreats, and we started holding our own retreats. And, lastly, they turned the youth group into an English church--Victory English Fellowship.

In all this, the youth group grew in numbers, but fewer and fewer of them had a real grasp on Christianity. Our youth group meetings on Friday nights were only a "thing to do" (since there was nothing better to do on Fridays). Sunday services began to fill with English-speaking adults of various nationalities--South African, Canadian, America, etc. I, in my silent way, protested--even tried to reason with the adult leaders--the drastic growth. The youth group was slowly being neglected for the growth of the English church, and it pained me to see a group of ABCs living in Taiwan, trying to pretend they were living in America as I had done so early on.

The adult leaders thought I was trying to "return" things to the way they used to be and urged me to press on instead of trying to re-do the former things--the things that "worked." And while I agreed with them that we could try new things, I didn't know how to voice into words the loss I felt--the loss of fellowship with the Chinese youth and the gradual moving away from Christian growth to numerical growth.

I wanted my friends to graduate with a great sense of Identity and Purpose. I wanted my classmates to go to college knowing that the identity struggle intensified, but In Christ, we have a security that none can take from us! I saw in them the great longing to be accepted, the great feeling of alienation while living in Taiwan, and the great desire to be noticed! And, here I was, with the truth of it all. I wanted to proclaim it to them! I wanted to get involved with full-time ministry, figure out if I could be a pastor and all that jazz! After finding out I had been accepted to Stanford, I toy-ed with the idea of deferring my admission another year in order to serve at my church--to achieve the lofty goals of my heart.

But these were things I wanted--and God had other plans for me then. Luo-jieh advised against my staying, urging me to go to college (probably sparing me from the politics that would soon have her leave our church). And so I left Taiwan.

Stanford.

I have to admit, that being the "epitome" of the guy with a lot of girl problems is fairly easy, at least, for me. I don't lay any claim to fame for it--nor do I pretend it's something to be proud of. But I definitely chuckle silently to myself about it.

So I begin the chapter on Stanford with the great statement, "There was this girl...."

There was this girl... in my freshman dorm.

I first met her, because she thought I was cute--for an Asian boy at least. And soon, I was spending far too much time in her room, talking with her. I think we struck it off because we were both religious. I was Christian; and, she, Mormon. Somewhere, in her mind, she thought that maybe I would become Mormon.

One would have imagined that I would have learned my lesson from the trauma of junior year; but I didn't. And, once again, I began my little game of hide-and-seek with God, but in reality, I knew the truth.

Coming to Stanford was a big shock to me. Here I was with the great opportunity to reinvent myself and become something new--to become someone new. Here I was without accountability, without friends, without parents! I had a newfound freedom that enslaved me so dearly that I have wrestled to come free of it. In my freedom to be anyone or anything, I found fear of insignificance. And my relationship with my Mormon dorm mate temporarily made me feel comfortable, made me feel noticed, and made me feel like someone besides "just another boy in that IHUM class." And, yet, I continued to know it was only temporary.

It did not surprise me when she left me to be with a Mormon boy.

By that time, my faith--with no accountability--had taken such a serious turn for the worse, that I felt so far from God. I considered agnosticism. I thought that maybe my little church "stint" in Taiwan was really just a "stint." And I completely abandoned the idea of any sort of full-time ministry to Asian-American youth. I was not worthy. The utter darkness of my heart when left to its own devices completely engulfed my life. For all the orientation I had in high school, I had so fully disoriented myself in college.

[I]f we are faithless, he remains faithful--for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:14).

But God, in His faithfulness, did not forget me--did not fail to provide the friends, the beacons, the guidance, and the reminders to draw near to Him and to remain in His Word.

To a guy with so many "girl" troubles, my Father provided (against my will and without my consent) a solid group of guys to study the Bible with--David Jones, Adam Harris, David Scudder, Mickey Sheu, Rob Majors, Ben Savage, Pablo Pozo, Carl Erickson, Ye Yuan, and Nathan Floyd. These men have become the Aaron and Hur (see Exodus 17) to my hands. They have become the ones closest and dearest to my heart--the ones my Father provided in my desperate time of need, when I least deserved their friendship.

Their friendship taught me that my identity in Christ wholly surpasses racial bounds and linguistic bounds and makes them look minuscule. Their friendship showed me how deep the grace of God is and the extent to which He has pursued me.

And Further Up, Further In.

When I think "grace," I think of the ways God has wrought his doing in my life. When I consider the Movement that began in the Midwest, where God moved our family to Taiwan; to while in Taiwan, where God drew me to Himself with the words of John and opened my eyes to His work in Asia; to being sent to Stanford, where God showed me the darkness of my self and shattered what pride I had! In each place, at every step, I had never once said Yes!

I did not want to move to Taiwan. I would rather date a non-Christian than listen to His Word. And I would rather reinvent myself than be His child!

What love is this? That God would pursue a rebel like me--that God would send His son to die for a rebel like me!

That God would take the very punishment--the loneliness, the bitterness, the anger and rage, and the poisonous concoction of my self-pride... that very darkness--that I deserved in rebelling and pour it all out upon Christ!

I cannot look upon the cross and stay still. I am not content to see my life, ransomed with such a dear cost, go to waste. It is time to take those steps forward, to remember that my failings and my "No"'s cannot trump the way of my God.

I cannot resist Him. I cannot resist His call.

Where He goes, I must follow.