Tuesday, December 28, 2010
How did Christianity change this culture?
Monday, December 27, 2010
What reflections and connections can you make with this novel?
Sunday, December 26, 2010
What concepts in the Sawi culture intrigued / reviled / saddened / angered / surprised you?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
What should society do for “uncivilized cultures” like the Sawi?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Choose a representative passage from this novel that holds particular significence to you.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
How does Faith relate to the world in which we live?
Renowned Christian author, C.S. Lewis once said that "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" I dearly believe that in this short phrase Lewis swiftly painted the answer of the complex landscape that is this question. Faith, to the world, is believing that something will happen is spite of contradictory thoughts or the lack of certainty on the issue. The truth is that in our modern society people tend to use faith in order to attempt to prove wrong somebody else. As I write this post I've been listening to Kanye West, and one particular song called Latitude in which he unveils the hatred that he feels to those who once told him he couldn't become what he is now. He explains how by having faith
in himself he would be able to succeed and eventually become the acclaimed celebrity that he is. However, this is a complete false faith in my opinion.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
How do I relate to faith? How did Don Richardson relate to Faith? How do the Sawi relate to faith?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
I often feel as if I don’t have a place that I can call home; I don’t feel blue about it. I know that I’m Ecuadorian in identity, but I feel like since I’ve lived my most important experiences here in Korea I don’t really have a preferred country to adopt as my home. In spite of it, there are no negative feelings about it because I feel that through this I have become a much more global individual that I would have been had I remained in Ecuador. Coming to Korea was, in my opinion, the best decision my parents have ever made for me because I am now able to understand a variety of cultures in multiple aspects such as food, customs and traditions, etc. I think this has molded me in ways that I have only recently been able to perceive.
As I returned to my ‘home’ land during the Summer Break, I realized the extent to which my metamorphosis had gone till. I noticed that I kept cocking my head downwards whenever I purchased anything from a store keeper or a salesman. I put considerably more Tabasco sauce on all my dishes and I had the feeling that the relaxed and phlegmatic lifestyle and social system in Ecuador was not fit for me as I was used to a quicker and more hectic way of undergoing daily activities.
Another thing that I noticed was that I seemed to have come to understand more about my faith and who I am spiritually. I don’t know if this could entirely be attributed to the change in culture or the fact that I feel like I come to understand things more as I age. When coming to Korea for my first time I felt that spiritually I was being a good follower of my faith. Nevertheless, as I encountered home-sickness peppered with culture shock, I realized how weak my faith truly was as I begun to succumb to the challenges of a new environment. I later discovered that, as time went by, I began to rely less and less on faith to aid me in my ordeals and more on my self-dependence. It has only been recently that I have realized that it is fine to have a wavering faith, as long as by seeking strength in God one can actually recover and push forward. I am currently on a road of recovery where I am trying to ‘patch things up’ with my Creator and discovering more about developing a relationship with Him. However I feel that I needed this cultural change and the challenges that came with it in order to realize who I truly was.