more introductions

Hi! I'm Christina, the other "oh-so Chinese" American on our team. While I've been told there are a fair number of Chinese in Cuba (did you know there is a Chinatown in Havana?) I am fully expecting everyone to think Esther and I are sisters...and having the same last name doesn't help.

I live in Mountain View and lead a pretty blessed little life. I go to work, hang out with friends, pay the bills, watch TV, attempt to exercise...and sometimes my own little corner of the world starts to feel like all there is to this world. While I love to travel, I usually check off whatever Rick Steves or Lonely Planet tells me I have to do and call it a trip. It's all boxed up nice and neat and somehow I manage to box up God right along with everything else.

I remember once on a trip to Mexico, I needed a ride to the bus station and managed to catch one with a French couple going in the same direction. So there I was, a Chinese-American, sitting in a car with two random French people, speaking to each other in broken Spanish. (Well, mine was pretty terrible, theirs was quite good.) It was this crazy cross-cross-cross-cultural experience that was hilarious and awkward and beautiful all at the same time.

I wonder at times if heaven will be something like that. This clash of cultures, only it won't be a clash. It'll somehow come together the way an orchestra warms up and suddenly a cacophony of sounds becomes a beautiful harmony. Because when all our little corners and boxes come together, open up and intertwine, we become the full magnitude and beauty of God's creation.

That's why I want to go to Cuba. Because in learning about another culture, another way of life, another people, I learn more about God. I learn more about the enormity of His heart; I experience new aspects of His creation; I witness another level of His beauty. I want to see what God is doing in Cuba; how He is working in the hearts of the people there. In a country where you're taught that there is no god, how is He moving in people's lives? And how do they live out their faith in that environment?

- Christina