A Model Answer

I don't know details about Dr. Kent Brantly's faith, but per 1 Corinthians 13, "love believes all things," so I'm accepting it at face value as genuine, absent any knowledge of falsity. What I have seen has been encouraging, and I'm joyful over the public testimony he's given -- not of his medical expertise or experience surviving Ebola, but of how a professed Christian faith works in and through every aspect of life, providing the conviction to step out boldly in whatever happens to be one's earthly passion ("whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might." "whatever you do, work as for the Lord and not for men.")

This is the video of his interview on the PBS Newshour that aired yesterday:


Dr. Brantly was there on account of his recent book, Called for Life, and here is the part of the interview that stood out to me:

HARI SREENIVASAN: What role do you think your faith played in all this?
DR. KENT BRANTLY: That’s a hard question for me to answer, because I try not to compartmentalize my life into, this is my faith life, this is my work life, this is my family life.
My faith is an integral part of who I am. It’s part of the lens through which I view everything in life. So, I can’t separate this experience from my faith.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Some people are going to say, look, the difference might not be his faith. It’s that he’s an American and he got literally the best care on the planet for this, vs. all the people who don’t get that, not just in Liberia, but anywhere else.
DR. KENT BRANTLY: I wouldn’t — I wouldn’t disagree with that statement.
I don’t think there is anything special about my faith that saved my life. If anything, my faith is what put me in a position where I got Ebola. And I’m really thankful to the United States government, to the government of Liberia, to Emory University Hospital, to Phoenix Air, to the State Department, all of the people that played a role in providing me with the treatment I received.
I don’t say that, oh, it was my faith that saved me, not those people. I believe God used those people to save my life, not because of my great faith. It just is. And so I give God the credit for it. But I thank all of those people, and I — I love them.

In isolation, those two answers were excellent. It was encouraging to see that thinking faith get national attention.

~ Rak Chazak

Transcript copied from: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/missionary-recounts-ebola-fight-doctor-patient/ 

Personal Life Update: Books, Letters, DVDs and Hands

Books
One of my friends has a habit of sending me stuff. Sometimes I'm not sure if all her asking me for my opinion on things over text is more for her benefit or for mine, but mailing me books she's read can only be a one-way gift. Very kind of her, since whereas she has more resources at her disposal, I don't think either of us is necessarily in a position to spend lots of money buying all the books we want to read. She's nevertheless decided to start somewhere. Last fall, she sent me a book which did a great deal to help me understand the nature of political persecution far better than I had up until that point. Before then, I'd had trouble visualizing it, and could only think of it in terms of being a totally free society or a totally persecuted society, down to the micro level. The differences described between the various Eastern European communist countries of the 1950s and 60s (when the book takes place) were an eye opener. It was called God's Smuggler, and was the story of the founder of Open Doors USA.

More recently, she sent me a copy of a collection of Spurgeon sermons entitled Spurgeon's Calvinism, to show that he certainly affirmed those doctrines totally.

Speaking of Mbewe, it wasn't until I read a Wretched newsletter that had his name written that I realized it wasn't "Conrad and Beway." I had been continually confused whenever Todd Friel mentioned speakers at upcoming conferences and he seemed to be cryptically referring to what could be a Siamese Twin who happened to both be thelogians. Glad to have that cleared up.

Letters
I'm spending a lot of my spare time in the evenings before bed, when it's too hot to lay down on the sheets, writing letters. And recently I had the idea to, lest I swamp my friends with too much stationery, write the occasional letter to my wife, to practice thinking about her as a real person and not a fantasy.

DVDs
I finally did it. I had recently bought 300 The Biggest Question's from Wretched and went to my town's fairgrounds for July 4th to hand some out. I took 200 with me in my pockets and a bag on my back, but I didn't pass out nearly that many. I did, however, get 44 into the hands of a wide assortment of people--it was far easier once I began targeting people sitting in groups on lawnchairs. I initially had the pre-start jitters, so I didn't hand any out in the first hour, despite walking around. When I finally stumbled upon the suggestion "you don't like free stuff, do you?", I was able to get comfortable approaching people in a conversational manner. I'm glad for the opportunity to, to be honest, practice giving out tracts. Like with exercise, it's hard to get up and go, but when you've done it, you feel satisfied--generally. And like with exercise, you get better and better at it with continual training. And no matter how awkward it feels or how lackluster you think your performance was, if you steeped yourself in prayer before and after, then you can be confident God will have worked through you to serve His ends no matter what--you can't save anybody. That takes the pressure off of you, and you can enjoy the experience of being obedient and exercising your faith. I'll be looking for other opportunities to do this, again. Maybe it will be easier if I bring another person with me the next time. Who knows? Now is my season to strike out, experiment and get used to witnessing so that I can hone whatever gifts God has given me relevant to this endeavor, to be more effective (insofar as any of it depends on me) in the future.

Hands
I had an appointment at a dermatology associate somethingorother, and the attractive, intelligent and kind physician's assistant confirmed my primary care doctor's suspicion that I've got a form of eczema on and between my fingers, one more than others. So now I'll be getting some prescription-strength topical steroids to deal with it, in addition to the 'intensive care repair Vaseline' I've been applying at night. I'll talk about this in another entry, surely. After all, this blog does exist to be a chronicle of my life's journey, sort of; the things that happen to me are as important as my detached thoughts about things, because both have a role in affecting how I develop as a person and in terms of my character, who I become.

And the summer continues!

~ Rak Chazak

I've Finally Arrived

Because of my personal history of not being frequently immersed in social situations with people my age outside of school, sports, or places where adults congregated, I've had far less experience in terms of the types of encounters I've heard from others that they were having or have had. 

Some personal information, non-explicit nor personally identifiable. Discusses being 'hit on' and romantic crushes.

It wasn't until after graduating high school that I had the experience of unrequited emotions toward me by other people. Well, that's not entirely accurate, because I was aware of a few crushes in middle school (I was cuter then), but they were overtly declared and fizzled, they've just taken me more and more by surprise as time has gone on. 

-  A girl who avoided me ever after touching me inappropriately (and not getting the reaction she was expecting, I guess) wrote a suggestive note in my yearbook indicating she had tender feelings for me.

-  A girl in my freshman year of college brought a movie over to watch in my dorm room. When we said goodbye, she kissed me on the neck. I was totally oblivious to the presence of any physical attraction up to that point, and I think my 'failure to reciprocate' explains why she and her three friends always seemed to interact with me awkwardly, though they would acknowledge me and wave if we passed each other on campus. 

-  Another girl that year sent me an email to say she was avoiding me because she liked me. Nothing came of that, for obvious reasons.

-  Someone I hadn't spoken to in two years, because she had asked me "do you hate me?" which I took as an offensive insult and said 'yes' in desperation to end her insecure texting, emailed me to try to reconnect, and shared that she'd really liked me/had a strong crush for some time. She again persisted with the "do you dislike me?" questioning, my best guess is because she wanted me to say I liked her, but I refused to take her lead, and she became offended and ragequit.

-  I went on a casual 'date' with a girl I'd flirted with in Fall 2011, and after talking for a long time she revealed that she had a boyfriend and was most interested in seeing 'what I was like,' because of persistent negative rumors about me on campus [as a result of presenting Biblical Christianity on the university forum] that she had become aware of. 

Nothing like being ambush-kissed or having to constantly defend your friend/family/partner in court because of false allegations by a 'crazy ex,' or being propositioned for a threesome, or going to a social gathering where a fight occurs or police arrive for whatever reason. Just a bunch of people failing to consider that their assumptions about how people respond to certain behaviors might be..let's say limited. 

*   *   *   *   *

Piggybacking off that last idea, I now come to the topic of discussion. A friend of mine had once informed me that they've been 'hit on' by people of "all 3" claimed orientations, i.e. hetero, bi and homosexual, both males and females. To me, I'd just assumed it was something that wouldn't happen because I just don't go out to places like clubs or parties or wherever else one might expect to be hit on (oh, almost forgot bars). The lack-of-alcohol factor also would play a role, since slightly inebriated people might be less inhibited and feel more confident or flamboyant. For that reason, I wasn't expecting to get handed a note by a coworker (from a guest) one day that said 'call me' (or 'text me?') with a number attached. A few days later, sitting at home, I let my curiosity lead me to send off a text.

It went sort of like this:

-Initial Contact
-Who's this? response
-Explanation; so we don't know each other?
-Respondent feigns uncertainty
-I suggest it was someone playing a prank giving me his number
-Suddenly remembers who I am
-Tells me I'm "seriously attractive."
-I reassure him and thank him for the compliment, then ask if he got the impression I had 'an animus, condemnation, disgust, meanness, lack of respect etc or made you suspicious that I harbor those emotions toward you'
-He replies no, tells me I'm nice, 'obviously very intelligent' and deserves 'props for being as respectful as you are.'
-I tell him "You happen to have stumbled upon one of the most conservative Christian 24-year-olds this side of D.C." and explain that my kindness is not in spite of my Christianity, but as a result, a derivative of my beliefs which "leave no part of life uninfluenced."

I decided to tell him that, I explained, "because tomorrow is not promised. There is no better moment than the present," to talk about such a serious subject.

This is the conversation, summarized. I'm including his final text as a whole, as an anecdotal evidence for any Christians out there who aren't sure/confident about whether they should be up-front with the fact that they are Christian and "preach" to people when they've just gotten to know them a little bit. I wasn't sure how he would react, because chances are he could be like the homosexual activists at my university who have gone out of their way to try to destroy for me, academically, professionally and otherwise. But I stepped out in faith. Here's his response:

I really think you're honestly an awesome person [Hakam]. I'm really glad you've been openly honest with me about this all. It brings a lot to mind, because a lot of people have reacted very negatively. & you being a Christian, & reacting as respectful as you possibly could, is sure a powerful thing to see. I'm more then open to answering any questions & talking to you about anything at anytime you'd like. In my personal opinion someone as intelligent & awesome as you should not be working at [Restaurant]. Keep up the good work & push for what you want, [Hakam]. I believe in you. You're for sure an awesome dude.  & again, I'll just say if there's any possibility of us becoming friends, I'd be more then happy too. You seem like a really cool guy with a great outlook on life. & I see you going big & making it just from the little I know about you! 

- Results not typical. Faithful witness is required by God of Christians regardless of the end result. -

I appear to have an open door for further witnessing, with a person who's now in a position to listen and care about what I tell them.

"Imitate me as I imitate Christ."
~ Paul
1 Corinthians 11:1

~ Rak Chazak

Journal Entry: Sputter and Fizzle

Friday, December 27, 2013

A man traveling with two other people waited alone in the restaurant while they went to the bathroom. He stood with his hand in his pockets behind the farthest band of the extendable tape and said, ask me any question you’ve always wanted to know the answer to. He seemed to be addressing both me and [Joe], who were both engaged in cleaning—me, trays; he, odd items and surfaces. I asked him to tell me how many minutes it would be before they would order. He kept trying to ask the question. He then said something like, what is your view/have you heard of the God question? I heard that as, “The God Question,” and endeavored to inject jocularity as I sometimes do in situations where people are being awkwardly confrontational, in order to distract them off their track, so I said that I thought he was talking about a book. He made some unclear statements to the tune of it being an important subject, this could be your only opportunity, are you sure that/what’s your choice?, both before and after I said that I wasn’t authorized to talk about subjects that could potentially offend people while in my capacity as an employee. He said that he was impossible to offend. He sorta just waited around while I was mostly silent thereafter, Joe looked at me confusedly, and the man made a few weak attempts at speaking, as I just mentioned. When [the manager] came to swap out my drawer and put Joe on, he left with the people who were with him. I think I know what he was doing. He seemed to be trying to start a witnessing encounter. He had what he thought was a decent “hook,” and he felt comfortable since the dining room was empty and he in all likelihood was simply passing through, so he felt bolder—not yet quite in his element, however, since his body language, distance from his addressees and fumbling obscurity were an obstacle to getting to the point. His engagement hinged on getting people to be both curious and ask and answer questions with him, but he seemed to not have counted on what he would do if that didn’t happen, or people didn’t engage. He didn’t have a plan B, and he left without leaving a clear Gospel presentation. Suppose he is saved—he just needs to refine his methods and aspire to be less mysterious and more direct with his introduction—and be prepared to make a point even when his hearers are unwilling to talk back. People at work or in a line are a great captive audience; he should expect to talk without them talking at all. Suppose he isn’t saved—it’s fantastic that he left discouraged and I hope he comes to the Truth. Personally, I’m suspicious that the former is true.

~ Rak Chazak 

"No Man Is As Polite As You"

Ehm. Not to toot my own horn. I wasn't expecting such a compliment, but that's what made it stand out when I heard it. I'm going to attempt to draw something valuable out of it.

I just began working at a fast-food chain restaurant, and each of the days I was there, there were also two or three Ukranian girls at the fry-station, sandwich area and drive-thru station. I worked the cash register. In the middle of the day, there would tend to be a 'rush,' where there's more than two or three people in line at a time, for an extended period of maybe an hour or more (at our establishment, at least)--this prevented us from being able to talk much initially, not that you should be doing too much of that when you're on the clock, anyway. But over the 5 days we were there at the same time, we had the opportunity to trade some words back and forth. I "impressed" them with showing that I knew the words 'spaziba' and 'dobre utre' (I'm spelling them as they sound to me, not according to any actual standard), which mean 'thank you' and 'good morning.' I learned 'dobre veche' (good evening), 'bon scheuye spaziba' (thank you very much) and was reminded of the word I'd forgotten, 'izviñi,' which means both 'excuse me' and 'I'm sorry.' It' a very utilitarian word, thus. 'Parschallista' means both 'please' and 'you're welcome,' making it very easy to get the words right if you're just learning the language! Specifically, this language is Russian. There is a Ukranian language, but Russian is widely spoken in the country and it's the only thing I heard them speak while they were there.

They were there doing a student work-exchange over the summer. I've run into Russian college students doing that before, when I worked at a summer camp. There was a girl named Vicka who was really motivated to try to experience everything (rock wall, swimming pool, biking) while she was there, and I had the most opportunity to talk to her. Some of the other guy staffers suspected us of being interested in each other, romantically. That wasn't the case. In February, there had been some Thai girls doing a similar exchange at the same restaurant. So it seems that this is a widespread thing, where other countries send students here to work and live for a short amount of time, to have the opportunity to practice their English, interact with actual Americans, and of course see the sights. Always surprised that my small town ever gets the interest of people from far away, I nevertheless enjoy being a part of the impression that these people get of the place when they leave.

Free Use, Wiki Commons

The above graph on the left shows the religious diversity in the Ukraine. White is atheist, and the rest of the colors are mainly sects of the Orthodox Catholic Church. This is typical of European countries of the present time--there tends to be more nontheists than any other individual group in these countries, though there are long histories of the influence of traditional religions, mostly Christian or nominally christian, in those places. I bring this up because while I'm not assuming what the girls I worked with believe, it's nevertheless a reasonable inference to make, that what I was asked was influenced in part by the national spiritual landscape of their home country, irrespective of their personal beliefs.

The "more American" of the girls (spoke better English, not that the others were unable to communicate or anything) spoke up when they were all standing together and we were talking. She said, midst giggles from the other two, that 'no man can be (or is, I forget which she said) as polite as you.' This was after first asking why I was so polite. To me, I was just behaving normally, not putting on an act in order to speak with customers, although maybe putting in more effort to appear cheerful and friendly than usual, but other than that, 'what you see is what you get.' I tried to think of a reason, and gave her that it's just natural to me to be respectful like that, that it's genuine. "No men are as polite as you," she said. And now I come to the twofold impression I gained from the experience:

1. It struck me that this has happened before. It isn't something that contains itself based on geography. I've met many an American girl that treated me with suspicion for no readily explainable reason. Through the grapevine, it's come forth that people sometimes have the impression that I'm putting on a front, not being genuine, that maybe I'm hiding something. They think I'm too nice. Of all the things to have for a problem, right? People think I'm faking my personality because they can't see why I should seem so happy or pleasant to others, particularly strangers. It hurts a little, but I'm more happy that it's because of being too friendly and nice than because I come across as the opposite. I wouldn't be surprised if a great number of potential friendships or romantic relationships were prevented in the past because my demeanor motivated people to be suspicious of me. It's a loss, to be sure, but on the other hand it's inadvertently screened for people who are more confident in themselves and less judgmental of others to be the sort of people that I eventually get closer to. And lest I be remiss, this all is directly tied to my faith--or rather, my regeneration. You can really tell the difference between a saved and unsaved person by whether they have joy or whether they do not. In general, of course. I simply want to affirm that I have the outward personality that I have because I have the inside satisfaction and joy that comes from knowing the answers to the tough questions of life, and having relief in the knowledge that I know where I'm going, I know what my purpose is, and I have a healthy relationship with my heavenly Father. It isn't any more complicated than that. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Shortly after that, the young girl (they were all about 19--at 23, I feel fairly old) asked me if I was religious. For simplicity's sake, I didn't argue about the meaning of the word, and decided to answer 'yes.' I wanted to make myself understood and not confuse her. She responded, "ah, that explains it." A little while after, she asked me if I went to church and I explained that I hadn't had the opportunity to visit during college and currently didn't have a car (see earlier blog post). She said, 'aha, well you're not *really* religious, then,' and this may have been her teasing me and possibly attempting to bring some jocularity into the conversation to draw it away from the serious topic, which people can find uncomfortable, because the other girls laughed at her and implied she was messing with me. I did respond that 'well, if being religious just means you go, sit, and leave, once a week, then yeah, I'm not really religious.' So there you see that I did make a slight attempt to define the term and not imply that I was just your run-of-the-mill lame churchian, or whatever she might have had in the back of her mind because of her prior experience, when she asked.

It was a short but fascinating exchange, to me. My surprise at the declaration by the girl (and the two others emphatically agreed on that point) that I was inhumanly polite can be explained by the fact that there's very few Christians (capital C) around, and consequently most people live the bulk of their lives without really getting to see the fruit of sanctification in another person. So what's the reason why I was so polite and why they were so confounded by my behavior so as to comment on it -- and to declare that no other man on earth was as polite as me, no less? It comes down to Christ and His grace. His gospel. It always comes back to that. He is at the root of it all. 

So that was a little way in which I might have 'witnessed,' recently. Not something extremely remarkable, since I didn't exactly have (take?) the opportunity to share the full Gospel with them, but I'm hoping God will take that memory and use it to bring fruit in their lives when the moment is right in the future.

~ Rak Chazak

Journal Treatise: Oort Cloud

Treatise: Oort Cloud

                        In my three years so far as a passionate apologist, I’ve had a number of varied interactions which I imagine fairly well represent the gamut, though obviously not constituting the whole spread of relationships that Christians can have with unbelievers. I’ve dealt with false converts of Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Orthodox Jewish and Lutheran persuasion, among others unstated. Homosexual ministers, Sadducees (which I take to be Jews who don’t believe in God or an afterlife—the Pharisees were the conservatives from which the modern Orthodox Jewish religion stems), muslims, mormons and jehovah’s witnesses (I refuse to capitalize these as if to indicate that they are credible or honorable, as with the Bible and Christianity). Of atheists, there are also many different kinds of individuals. One of them, whom I shall refer to as Oort Cloud, for a number of metaphorical reasons, was someone I met very early in my study of Biblical Creation and who, despite his mannerisms and facial expressions, came across to me as quite jovial and easy to get along with. Don’t judge someone as being angry just because they look like it. Some of the least pleasant people to talk to – or, some people you might not even be able to talk to – are people who put up a feigned air of politeness. People who are deceitful about their emotions and attitudes anger me much more easily than those who are straightforward.

                        Oort Cloud’s first encounter with me, that I remember, consisted of him showing the “Ray Comfort: The Banana, the Atheists’ Nightmare” video on youtube and asking what I thought of it. I answered that of course the banana wasn’t made in its current form at the very beginning. What I would have said if it had been today, however, would be that despite this, Ray’s statements are no less true about how the banana is an example of God’s care for human beings in how He designed the world. This is because even though the banana as we know it today likely did not exist 4,000 years ago, the genetic information which codes for the variety we see in grocery stores was nevertheless present in the original ancestral variety. The banana is an excellent example of directed selection, where certain qualities in an organism are “hand-picked” and used to develop the next generation, and of man’s stewardship for the earth, wherein he exercises his creativity to utilize the natural world for the benefit of mankind and nature alike. But as it were, my response surprised Oort Cloud, who apparently expected something more ignorant, and it, and a few other subsequent interactions of a similar sort, impelled him to search for “stumper” questions to try to debate me with, and see if he could shake my resolve and get me to relent of my confidence in the Bible.

                        Oort Cloud would see me on occasion and would over time begin to act as if, and tell me that he was angry with me for always having answers. This is not to say that they necessarily convinced him at any point, or that they even seemed to be an impressive argument, but I think his perception was that my answers did not fall to the level of being transparently illogical, and my views were internally coherent. He would often wear a contemplative frown when listening to my responses to his questions. His animated reactions to things that shocked him were amusing and will probably remain in my memory for some time. But as far as I can recall, he never made any effort to slander or attack me as a person, or to spread damaging lies about me to others, as a different group of people attempted to do roughly a year after I first met him.

                        I probably would have forgotten about the Oort Cloud if it wasn’t for a moment in late spring 2012. I hadn’t seen him for a while, but I encountered him suddenly in my campus dining hall. He was either graduating or transferring, and so he had come up to me to say goodbye. It was a curious occasion. Dejectedly is not quite the right word, but it was with a flustered insistency that I understand his reluctance to acknowledge what he was telling me,  that he told me, in effect, that he’d miss me, essentially. Not that he said those words. No, he said something akin to that he was bothered by my strong faith AND mastery of scientific facts and logic, that he thought in his heart that such a thing should not be—that a person of faith could believe without misunderstanding or rejecting science. He said in essence that he was impressed that I was a ‘worthy opponent,’ and expressed a wish to not be reminded of his confusion by meeting me or a person like me again. He would go on to grumble about these things for some time. I am glad to have served as a challenge to his presuppositions, and I hope that down the road, Oort Cloud will encounter something or someone that sparks the seed implanted within him to germinate, and that he does not stifle his discovery of the truth. The fact that he alone of the atheists I’ve spoken to came to me and gave me a verbal handshake is a good and hopeful sign, in my eyes. But you can never be sure. So if you read this and feel motivated to pray, I encourage you to pray for Oort Cloud and others like him to not seek relief from the challenge that they’ve encountered, be it in an intellectually savvy Christian or something profound in Scripture that just won’t let them be, but that they would struggle through it until they come to the foot of the Cross in humility and defeat. They may come unwillingly, as Oort came to me, but God’s Holy Spirit has the power to change a human heart. In time, we won’t want anything but to come to Him, whether we once struggled with it or not.