{"id":18669,"date":"2018-09-06T14:56:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T21:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=18669"},"modified":"2018-09-07T11:10:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T18:10:38","slug":"do-for-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/do-for-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Do For One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. I kept thinking this while reading Chasing the Dragon[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have heard this statement from a number of leaders over the years. And I think this\u00a0encouragement is helpful in an era when the negative noise and news has never been louder. This fights against the inevitable despair and overwhelm that is a normal response to the amount of horror we hear about every day. Do for one. Jackie is an incredible example of the compound effect of \u2018doing for one\u2019 over a lifetime.<\/p>\n

I am sure many are familiar with the slightly cheesy starfish story[2]<\/a> that roughly goes as follows: a young kid is flinging stranded starfish on the beach back into the sea after a bad storm. An adult approaches and asks \u2018Why waste your time on this? There are too many. You won\u2019t be able to make a difference.’ The young child holds up the starfish in his hand and as he flings it into the sea says \u2018it makes a difference for this one\u2019.<\/p>\n

This story reminds me of the Scripture in Matthew 25:40[3]<\/strong><\/a> And\u00a0the King will answer them,\u00a0\u2018Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these\u00a0my brothers\u00a0you did it to me.\u2019<\/p>\n

Do for one.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a home and community with little exposure to the way the majority world lives. It was a small, middle-class town with very little diversity. You can imagine the shock to my system when I found myself in the middle of the Philippines at 15 years old on a missions trip. Standing in the Payatas garbage dump that was home to more than 30,000 people at the time was life-changing. The sights, smells and sounds from those few hours that day are still with me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t know how hard life could be. I didn\u2019t know how great the disparity was between the \u2018haves\u2019 and the \u2018have nots\u2019. I didn\u2019t know some people rummage through trash for their sustenance. I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Obviously my first short-term trip was extremely formative for me. I cannot separate my spiritual journey from those two trips to the Philippines while in high school. I went back to the Philippines upon graduation after a summer of working. I lived in the Philippines for about 8 months that year after high school. I am fairly sure that I did not add a great deal of value. But the exposure I gained and the paradigm shift my time there enabled is invaluable. I gained tremendously. Did those living there gain?<\/p>\n

It is interesting that Jackie mentions very little about short-term workers and their impact on the stories she shares. And Ah Ping and others eventually gave her insights into their perspective of Westerner and Christian workers:<\/p>\n

\u2018What you are doing really has nothing to do with us. You\u2019ll go home anyhow, sooner or later.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2026it was an indictment against the evangelists that flew into Hong Kong, sang sweet songs about the love of Jesus on stage and on Hong Kong television, and then jumped back into their planes and flew away again.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026we wouldn\u2019t mind believing in Jesus too if we could get in a plane and fly away round the world like them. They can sing about love very nicely, but what do they know about us? They don\u2019t touch us – they know nothing.\u2019[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

She stayed. She got her hands dirty. She touched them and got to know them. Surely this was a huge key to the miraculous happening in the Walled City.<\/p>\n

This book raises again for me questions I have carried for a couple of decades now. How does the Church mobilize people to \u2018do for one\u2019 in a global context without undermining the local church? What does sound missions work look like in this century? What role do short-term trips play in a robust missions strategy for local churches? Are they helpful? I would love her perspective on this after all her decades of labor in one city. She has seen much and would have insight.<\/p>\n

Chasing the Dragon is like smelling salts for the soul. While I’ve never been on the receiving end of them myself, I know they help keep you awake. I have one precious life to live and how will I go about it? Her tenacity and perseverance against systemic, complex, overwhelming circumstances stokes my fire to make a difference in the world.\u00a0 Jackie\u2019s life story fueled my passion for the marginalized and for those who are born into homes and communities where sin, addiction, abuse and corruption are the norm. Her life challenges me to do for one hurting person what I wish I could do for every hurting person. She makes me want to be the young person in the starfish story and do whatever I can to make a difference – not the older apathetic, overwhelmed person I am tempted to be at times.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Jackie Pullinger and Andrew Quicke, Chasing the Dragon: One Woman\u2019s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kongs Drug Dens, 2nd ed. (Chosen Books: Kindle Edition, 2007).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Author unknown; there are many iterations of the story but here is one telling as an example: https:\/\/www.cityyear.org\/about-us\/culture-values\/founding-stories\/starfish-story<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> English Standard Version<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Pullinger and Quicke,\u00a0Chasing the Dragon: One Woman\u2019s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kongs Drug Dens<\/em>. 59<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. I kept thinking this while reading Chasing the Dragon[1]. I have heard this statement from a number of leaders over the years. And I think this\u00a0encouragement is helpful in an era when the negative noise and news has never been louder. This fights against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1263,1245],"class_list":["post-18669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chasing-the-dragon","tag-pullinger","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18669"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18749,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18669\/revisions\/18749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}