Day 8 - 5 passions

April challenge
Day 8 - What are 5 passions you have?

Ack, this one is going to be difficult, I think. But here I go. (These aren't necessarily in any particular order, just as I think of them.)

1. Well, first of all, one passion I have is working with children, especially less fortunate children (as you saw in my Day 6 post). On all the short-term mission trips and long-term volunteer positions I've been involved in, I've made it a point to spend time with the children. I love the way children accept others. They don't care how old someone is, what colour their skin or hair is, what language they speak or how their accent sounds. Children just want to be loved by anyone who will spend the time and energy to care for them. As one of my friends reminded me in a comment, "Spending time with [children] always reminds me that 'of such are the kingdom of heaven.'" She's so right and it's one reason that wherever I am, I am constantly watching the children of the culture. They're all so unique, so different and individual, but still so alike in all the best ways!
2. Another passion I have is literacy. Being a bookworm, I want everyone else to love books as much as I do. This was a subconscious passion until my last semester at Southern. That semester I took a class called Literary Journalism. It was an amazing class* where my five classmates and I had to read three types of journalistic books** (immersion, reporter, and experiential) and do a 20-page paper in one of the three styles. I decided to do immersion and chose the topic of illiteracy. So for that semester I immersed myself into illiteracy in Chattanooga. The most startling part of the project came when I visited an adult literacy class to observe the class and interview the students. Some of the things they told me were shocking and just downright unacceptable. I wrote my paper and finished the class, but my heart still longs to help the many people all over the world who struggle with illiteracy. One of the most interesting things I've learned about South Korea so far (and this may extend into North Korea as well, but I'm not completely sure about that) is that nearly 100% of the population is literate. This is because of King Sejong, the fourth king of the Chosun Dynasty. He gathered a group of scholars and together they worked out the current Korean written language, Hangul. It is a symbol-language and very scientific based. And because of the hard work of this king for his people, it is probably one of the easiest languages in the world to learn to read. Last week Jonathan randomly came across a series of graphics someone made up that can teach you how to read Hangul in 15 minutes. Truly. 15 minutes! Now is that remarkably amazing or what! I have half a mind to bring Hangul back to North America and revitalize our archaic language into one that actually makes phonetical sense... But in all honestly, one of my life dreams is to teach someone to read. Yes, I think it will be pretty cool to teach my children how to read, but I also want to teach an adult, someone who may have suffered hardships and humiliations throughout their life because of their illiteracy, to read sometime in my life.
3. My third passion is mission work. I'm currently in my third long-term (which I define as anything longer than a two-ish-week mission trip) mission position. I think missions, whether short-term or long-term is so beneficial, not only for the people being served, but also for the person serving. Each time I've gone on mission trips or SM positions I've grown and learned so much. And not only about the country I'm in or the people I'm serving, but also about myself and God. Each position has had different challenges and hardships, but each has brought so many rewards to my life. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything!
4. I also am passionate about family. Apart from God, I think family is the most important thing in this world. I love my family, both immediate and extended, so much and have learned so much from my older and wise family members and also from my younger ones. I don't know what I'd do without my family. They are truly my heroes!
5. The last passion I'm going to mention (but for sure not my last passion) is writing. I've been doing creative writing since I started grade one, but I didn't do too much of it outside of school until I was 9 years old and in grade three. That year we had moved to Lacombe, Alberta and I spent a lot of time writing letters to my grandma, back home in BC. Along with the letters, I liked to include short stories written on tiny notebook pages. My grandma is a lovely and kind woman and always encouraged me to keep writing. She kept all of the stories I sent her and later gave them back to me to keep and read over. Boy oh boy, when I did read through them again, I giggled like crazy! They were the most hilarious stories I had ever read. One story had a mother giving birth to her baby after a "long, hard two-month pregnancy." Hahaha, like I said, hilarious stuff. I bring them out now and then whenever I need a good laugh. But I'm so glad my grandma kept the stories and always encouraged me to keep writing. I'm also so glad my mum kept my elementary creative writing journals and also encouraged me to keep writing and doing what I loved. I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am today without their encouragement and support.

Huh, turns out it wasn't really all that difficult. And now I've even thought of more than five passions I have. But we'll just leave it at these five for now.

*Just went digging through this blog and found some interesting posts about the class here, here, and here, for anyone who cares to learn more about it. You probably won't be able to understand everything in the posts since I was writing them to fulfill a requirement for my Creative Writing class (write at least three sentences every single day of the semester) and not to be particularly explanatory. But I find them amusing and you might as well.

**For anyone interested, the books were "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe, "Oranges" by John McPhee, and "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs (reporter, immersion, and experiential respectively).  I loved the first two, but, as a Christian, found the last one a little bit offensive and derogatory for my tastes. I haven't read any of Jacobs' other books, but I have a feeling I'd like them better since they are not trying to show the ridiculousness of other's religions.