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A letter from Rebecca Montgomery
in China |
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August 2002
Building relationships and rebuilding a chair
Dear Friends,
I’ve been in China for 20 days now and everything is so
different from what I imagined it would be. Nantong, the city
we’ve been training in, is actually very developed and has
all the modern conveniences I could hope for: a Western-style
toilet and running hot water. Currently we’re living in
a foreign bubble that only a few well-educated and relatively
fluent English speakers have been allowed into as of yet. But
just outside our doors are the people I came to help.
Just off campus is “Poor Street,” aptly named. I
was told that most of the families who live there only bring in
about 500 RMB a month, roughly equivalent to $60. This is where
I have spent most of my free time here in Nantong. There are restaurants,
trinket shops, and of course my pool hall. Perhaps pool hall is
too grand a name for it, as it’s really just a garage with
a pool table in it, but it has character. The owner is a guy in
his early thirties and he has the sweetest, fat, little baby boy
who coos anytime he sees us. And a game of pool is only 5 mao,
or roughly 7 cents. |
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Gillian and I working on the chair.
The "pool man" sitting on the finished chair.
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Frequenting this shop almost every
day for almost three weeks now, I’ve become friends with
some of the locals. If I happen to walk by after dinner, they
will convince me to come play a game or two. And even when I bring
friends to play, the guys who are just hanging around will somehow
manage to get at least one game against me.
Without even trying, I am already fulfilling my call to mission.
For you see, Amity is not the outspoken, preaching on the street
corner mission program that many people would associate with the
title “missionary.” Instead, it’s a ministry
of presence. Having thoroughly read all the Amity literature before
I came and now having listened to the orientation lectures, it’s
only when I am out on the streets that I am finally beginning
to experience what this means for real.
As St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the Gospel at all
times and when necessary use words.” Truly, by building
relationships with the people around me, I am expressing a concern
for their wellbeing, something that stands out as I am both a
Westerner and a Christian. As a child, my parents taught me this
by encouraging me to do at least one good deed a day. Perhaps
this meant holding a door for an elderly person, or cleaning up
in the kitchen without being asked. The deed itself wasn’t
so important; it’s that I was doing it that was. Today’s
good deed wasn’t really so big, but I think it will be remembered
for a long time. |
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In the morning, Gillian, my Chinese
tutor, PJ, another Amity teacher, and I had stopped in to play a
quick game of pool before lunch, and we noticed how dirty the garage
was. We couldn’t do much about it then, but we all agreed
to come back later in the day and clean up a bit. In the afternoon,
we came back to find the garage open, but nobody in sight. In true
Chinese fashion, we just let ourselves in and got to work. We took
everything out of the stall except the pool table and swept it out
thoroughly. One of the piles of rubbish we threw away (just garbage
on the ground) had a frog in it. There was so much garbage that
we didn’t even notice we were throwing away a frog! |
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There was also a pile of scrap wood that comprised
three broken chairs. I had brought my Leatherman, a multi-purpose
tool, so Gillian and I got to work on them. I figured out how to
make use of the scraps to get at least one of the chairs back together.
That’s about when the pool man showed up. He was so surprised
and grateful for what we were doing. When I showed him what I was
doing, he got to work as well, and in actuality did the brunt of
the labor himself. We got one very solid chair put back together,
and another satisfactorily rebuilt one. Two fixed chairs are much
more valuable than three broken ones. |
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Gillian, the "Pool man," and I working on the chair. |
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Through Gillian, the pool man
told me that he had tried many times to fix those chairs but had
never figured out how. We had helped him do it in less than an
hour. Having studied economic development my last semester in
college, this seemed a major triumph to me. As the saying goes,
don’t just give someone fish to eat, but rather teach them
how to fish for themselves. On this hot August day, I believe
that the three of us were able to teach him how to fish just a
little bit better. And in true Chinese fashion, after we were
done working, he invited the three of us to dinner, to show his
appreciation and in celebration of our friendship. I think that’s
the best meal I’ve eaten in China so far.
Please pray with me that the Lord will bless me with many more
“relationships” during my time in China.
Mizpah,
Becky
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