An anti-racism Creator : Why heaven is a place of diversity

 

When I think of Diversity I can't but to look closely at where I came from: my own parents.  

My paternal Opa married my half-Dutch Oma (sadly, she died at a very young age in a car accident), after he migrated to Java (Indonesia's most populated island) when he was much younger, from the Moluccas.  That made practically all of their children knew very little of the Moluccas; like my own dad who was born in Semarang (Central Java). My mom is traditionally Javanese, but her father had Chinese roots -- my mom and her siblings are fair-skinned, but I think my mom looks most oriental. My parents had totally different racial backgrounds, but also social economic; my dad came from a rich business family, while my mom's parents were humble small town's attorney and teacher.

Growing up as mixed kids, my brother and I had never been strong in a particular tradition of any of our parents, although at home we ate more of Javanese/Chinese food, and my mom speaks in Javanese with her family. Living in Jakarta my brother and I didn't grow up alongside our cousins from both sides of our parents, making us even naturally loosely attached to our parents' families and racial influences.

Black haired, brown skinned, western name

By now I have lived in four different countries (with 20 million inhabitants Jakarta is by far the largest city I've ever lived in).  Believe me when I say, I know Racism does exist. 

Being a minority in the world's fourth most populous country (that also easily makes it the world's largest Moslem population), even while I spent most of my life in a bubble (attending Christian private schools my whole life) I did experience discrimination on the basis of my religion/faith in my home-country.

In November 2020 I had been newly arrived in Munich for a couple of weeks when I was verbally attacked by a random woman in a supermarket. When she said "Southeast Asia" or "Southeast Asian" in her rants, we would know how such comments are made based on physical attributes -- in this case, my black hair and brown skin, still distinctively noticeable behind my mouth mask and puffer jacket.

I had to go back and analyzed the incident, how it went down, why it made me feel how I felt (shocked, blaming myself, the 'I'm not wanted here' narrative), what would I do differently if anything was changed in the situation.  But even with diversity running in my vein and life experiences in four different countries, with the many diverse environments I had been in, I still couldn't find answers to most of those questions I asked myself. 

So, probably Racism is a topic I never really had to wrestle with my whole life. 

Counter-intuitive and an intentional decision

I had to move into a student dorm by December 1st. Just days later I made a conscious decision to go back to the same supermarket, for the first time since the attack. Only then it dawned on me, the attack may have affected me more than I realized, and probably more than I wanted to admit (because it tells me that I was actually avoiding that supermarket the past weeks, and that I was still looking around with worry that the perpetrator might be there lurking to attack me again). With that, I thought, I need to share this experience with someone else, so I'm not isolated as I began to realize that I need to be counter-intuitive.

Being able to share this bad experience to someone was perhaps the first intentional decision I made to deal with the racial attack. 

The second intentional decision was to report the incident to relevant organization(s) that could take the story farther than my own reach of influence, to other victims and other people in the society. 

In this word "intentional" I find the basis of my course of actions in fighting Racism:

in·ten·tion·al | \ in-ˈtench-nəl : done by intention or design.

(Merriam Webster Dictionary)

In my scripture reading around the second week of January 2021 I was astounded by the  evidences how our Creator is a God of unity and of diversity.  Not only that, He actually dreams of a place of people from all skin colors, all hair colors, all eye colors and languages and races and nations. It's called heaven.

• For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:11)
• ... My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations... (Mark 11:17)
  

But as much as we need to be intentional in speaking God's truth into ourselves, I think we also need to be intentional when it comes to speaking up, fighting against what we believe are against God's values.

So, if we know from scriptures, heaven will be a diverse place, or that God's grace is made available to all people of all tribes/languages -- it's obvious how Diversity is God's plan and dream. Then we also need to and can be intentional in fighting for these values.

How diverse is our pool of friends? Do we pursue friendships with people from different generation, of different age groups, come from other countries, who speak different language? Do we invite diverse people into our home?

And I think... the fact that we can't ever eradicate Racism completely, only emphasizes more on the need for us, God's people, to speak up against it.

" ... and with your blood you purchased for God, persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. ... " (Revelation 5)

By reporting the incident to organization(s) that have the avenues and access, I hoped to make the incident recorded for far-reaching purposes of raising awareness, educating the public, and challenging minds and status quo.

====================================================

Entries published on the racial attack I experienced in November 2020:

Some entries written were initiated by Before München about my racial attack incident: 

• An article written in the Süddeutsche Zeitung :
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-rassismus-hasskriminalitaet-corona-1.5236867

• A Facebook post by Before München on their account.
https://www.facebook.com/235962860432227/posts/720041165357725/

• A tabloid post of Münchner Merkur.
https://www.tz.de/sport/olympia/muenchen-coronavirus-rassismus-opferberatungsstelle-zr-90247755.html

• A post on the website of München Chronik.
https://muenchen-chronik.de/dezember-2021-rassistischer-uebergriff-im-supermarkt/

• Before München 2020 annual paper and press release: https://www.before-muenchen.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/PM-BEFORE-Beratungsbilanz-2020.pdf

 

Be Found in the Kiss : right in the season where He knows I wouldn't survive without.

A kiss is a very personal act; a powerful one. 

A kiss can be an act of respect; I knew that because I grew up giving my parents goodbye kiss every time I went out to leave the house. And when I came back from outside in to the house, I had to say "I'm home." and gave my parents a kiss too.  But did you know that two thousand years ago there was a woman wet Jesus's feet with her tears and then wiped them with her hair and kissed them and poured perfume on them? What kind of a kiss was that?

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little. (Luke 7:47, NIV)

That act of intimate kiss was a sign of a great love, Jesus recognizes; she had shown Him much love. So, I think Christine Caine got it right when she argues, this expression of much love matters to Him. 

 

Be found in the kiss:  for this season of life He knows I wouldn't survive without His kiss of anointing and revelation

I spent Friday and Saturday the 12th and 13th March 2021 with a sister, for our first Colour Conference, "Be Found in the Kiss".  But my own heavenly kiss(es) was given graciously to me a month ahead of the conference -- as He hasn't stopped speaking to me since I arrived in this city.  

Arriving in a time of pandemic -- being on my own most of the time, adjusting in a new city and country, hit by a cruel incident just within two weeks, which happened just days before He gave me a rare task (so rare that it scared me, so rare that even Google has no clues) -- He knew it from the very beginning that I need Him to speak to me.

And so He has been, including these two heavenly kisses of revelation just a month before the conference:

1. A kiss: "... with My loving eye on you."

 

Monday the 8th February 2021 was particularly more meaningful to me than it was in past years, because it marks the fifteenth year of my dad’s passing. But I started that week, crying for a different reason. That start of the week I found myself bitter, angry, as I was accusing God... of wanting to hurt me. I began being suspicious of God’s intentions since the day before, Sunday the 7th.
 

He trusts me with a special task that started in the third week of November 2020 -- I expected it to have ended by, latest, first week of February. But it didn’t. (if you notice the irony: it’s His task, yet I was the one with a deadline in mind. Sighs).

And so I began to accuse Him of having the intention to hurt me. I had been holding grudges against Him for three days then, when His kiss came on Tuesday the 9th February.  That morning, I started to tear up as I read Psalm 32:8.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
    I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

I wept in repentance and in awe of His answer. Of course. Silly me. Of course He would never harm me. Of course He would never hurt me.

But as if it wasn’t enough, what He told me through Psalm 32:8 wasn’t the only kiss in that start of the week. 

 

2. A kiss: "... a valentine to a faithless world"

By Wednesday the 10th February it had been about a couple of days too then, I had been haunted by these phrases from a song: This world is Yours... My God, this world is Yours.

Only on that snowy Wednesday at around 2 AM, as soon as I was woken up the phrases were in my head again.  Before I began to pray I thought I should look it up. It’s a Hillsong’s own; “Valentine” is about Him pursuing “every wayward heart”, He is a “valentine to a faithless world”. 

• Literally this world and everything in it, there is nothing that he couldn't say "Mine" to. Because all is His. I am His, just as the person He asks me to pray for, is His too. 
• If I could grow care about someone just because I have been asked so intensely to pray for that person, what I have for the person is still a minuscule compared to His much greater love for this person.
  

How could a God who owns this universe love so much.

Be found in the kiss: for the hard work in harvest time.

Right after this incident at Simon's house "Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God." (Luke 8:1) Do you know who were with Him? Not just The Twelve, but apparently also some women "who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means."

Jesus calls women for His cause too, or as Christine Caine puts it, Jesus "activated" women, they followed Him on a mission -- "we've been found in the kiss, but there's so many more to be reached and restored."

I think that resonates with me; I spent some number of years ministering to marginalized women.  I knew by statistics of that particular profile of people in that location alone where I was, there's way so many more to be reached and restored.

Since the screen puts up Caine's profile as she began speaking, I was actually amazed how "fitting" (for the lack of word) she is as a founder of A21; she doesn't look 55 in the first place, and to know that she founded A21 when she was 40 that just astonished me. The fact that I enjoyed her expository style (something I rarely find in this Sunday family I've been part of only since November 2020) and her passionate speech style, is quite refreshing to me personally.

The current rare task He trusts me with may still be daunting to me, emotionally draining, physically taxing; a rare task that I never know when it would end, and I may never know the why behind it. But I realize, other missions are out there and coming too, and still, the workers are few. By His grace He chose me to work in this harvest time, and I've seen how His mercy sustains me, but I'm made aware that I would always need His heavenly kiss of divine encounters and revelation and anointing, in this season of hard work for the harvest.