We're back. We're safe and well. We're tired. I am proud of the team - they worked hard and did a terrific job!
So, what difference does it make that a team of Americans travels to China to lead an English Camp? How do you measure the impact of such an experience? We could read the reflection essays written by each teacher - which were really positive - but that doesn't mean they'll change the way they approach teaching when they face huge challenges back in their classrooms this fall. We could average the satisfaction numbers on the exit surveys - again very positive - but does that tell us anything about the depth of relationships which were established? We could look at pictures of our new friends in China and hold the many gifts and mementos we were given, but that doesn't really tell us if our new friends are looking at life any differently as a result of our presence. And now we're back home, and we wonder whether we made a difference.
In one of my free talk sessions last week, I was asked, "If God would grant you three wishes, what would you ask for?" Wow! What a question! I tried to think carefully, and came up with the following three honest requests:
1) Health for my family.
2) That my soul would live forever.
3) That I could exist in China and the USA at the same time.
Each of these answers allowed the opportunity to talk at some length about my foundational ideas of reality, meaning, and purpose in life. As we went around the group asking the same question, one of the teachers simply said, "There is no god, so I don't think about such things. I just work hard each day."
Later in the conversation, they told me about a recent situation in China. Some time ago, a university student rescued a farmer from an attack. In the process, the university student was killed. It seems that this prompted a national conversation about whether the university student was a hero or a fool. Some thought that the student's life was more valuable than the life of the farmer for whom he died. They asked me what I thought. Again, I tried to think carefully. I said that this story was parallel in some ways to the definitive feature of Christianity - God sending His Son to die for humanity. I was able to talk about a famous saying, "There is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for a friend."
At the end of the free talk session, they asked me if I really believed in God. I said that I did. To this, the one teacher said, "I believe in myself." Having heard this before, I have a standard reply, which is, "You must be a very strong person and be able to control many things to only believe in yourself. There is so much outside of my control that I've found I need to trust someone else." He laughed out loud and looked at the others in the group and said, "He believes in someone other than himself." It was a poignant moment.
So, how does one measure the impact of a team of English teachers in China? I think we won't really know for quite some time.
