Two Worlds Collide at the River

Just watched a movie about a true story End of the Spear. Five missionaries tried to contact a violent native tribe in Ecuador called Waodani, a.k.a. the people of spear. All the missionaries were killed by the Waodani, yet their family forgave them, and still tried to contact them, to reach out the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. They explained “Waegongi (God) has a son who came to earth. He was speared, but did not spear back, so that one day, those who speared him could live well.”

The Waodani tried to be strong by attacking the foreigners and even their own tribe, whom they perceive as enemies. They attacked with their spears. By spearing they took revenge for their own groups.The ultimate reason for them to be strong by spearing, is that when they died, they are strong enough to jump across the Great Boa, which lies between them and afterlife, where Waegongi is there. If they cannot jump across the Great Boa, their spirits will become termites on earth.

Their own belief didn't assure salvation and eternal life for them. They need to jump across the Great Boa by their own strength. But the Good News is that Jesus Christ had died for our sins on the cross at Calvary, so that whoever believe in Him might enter the kingdom of heaven, because Jesus Christ has "jumped cross the Great Boa" for us.

The Waodani are revengeful people. They seek vengeance for the death of their family. Yet the family of the missionaries, and Steve Saint, forgave the Waodani. Forgiveness, which is the core of Christianity, has ended the cycle of vengeance and violence, because Jesus Christ has bring peace and love to us, by His atonement on the cross.
  

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He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep 

to gain that which he cannot lose.

- Jim Elliot, 28th October 1949 -

  

Awakenings 1990

Holiday is at the corner, and I just watched a movie entitled Awakenings (1990) recommended by my Neurology teacher, Olga Victorovna Kurushina. She said the actor in this movie portrayed the side effects of L-DOPA, the first line drug for treatment of Parkinson's disease.

This is based on a true story. The doctor discovered that the drug L-DOPA can be used to let his first patient Leonard, then other catatonic-like patients to once again move and speak again, or in a simpler word, "awakening" from their catatonic state. But soon everyone realised that this brief moment of "awakening" doesn't last long. Eventually, no matter how much they increased the dosage of L-DOPA, rather than continue the "awakening" period, they experienced the side effects of L-DOPA, such as dyskinesia and paranoia symptoms. The patients eventually returned to their catatonic stage. Leonard and many of the patients experienced brief periods of awakening, but never as dramatically as they did in the summer of 1969.

This movie really strikes me a lot. There is so much a doctor can do, and there is so little a doctor can do. A dosage of 1000mg L-DOPA can awake Leonard from his catatonic state, yet when the "chemical window closed", no matter how much Doctor Sayer prescribes the L-DOPA, Leonard eventually fall back to his previous state. Dr. Sayer said to the nurse, "You told him I was a kind man. How kind is it to give life... only to take it away again?" Seriously, doctors are just humans, neither can they do mircales, nor resurrect a person, only God can performs miracles, and raises those people from dead to alive.

Another things that strikes me so much is when Leonard start to becomes more aggressive and having dyskinesia due to the side effects of L-DOPA, he start to seek freedom, and when it is not granted by the hospital administrators, he becomes furious and agitated. He tries to seek his own way out. Even when Dr. Sayer tries to explain his situation, he hardens his heart, and listen not to him, even to the point to push Dr. Sayer away. But when Leonard comes to his sense, when he realises how helpless he is, he cries out to Dr. Sayer, "Help me". He also asks whether Dr. Sayer can stop this process, though Dr. Sayer has no idea what to do, yet he says, "Do not give up on me."

Isn't our own situation similar to Leonard's? There is NOTHING that we can do for our own sinless state. For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Everyone of us, ever since from the Fall, have sinned. All of us fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Some people, deny their situation. Some people, recognise their situation, but they try to save themselves through their own works and good deeds.

I just finished my Psychiatry cycle, and while I am reading about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), I read about Hay's paradox: the organ giving consent is the organ affected. So in the same way, we who are trying to save ourselves, are the people in trouble. So actually, all of us, without exclusion, like Leonard. There is nothing that we can do to help our ownselves. This is the bad news.

But there is good news also. What God wants from us is not that we trust our ownselves and trust our own works to save ourselves by our own strength and power, but like Leonard, calls up to Him and say "Help me", for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13). What God wants is to look away from ourselves, and trust Him and Him alone, trust in His work that has been once and for all done on the Cross. Trust Him that He and He alone can deliver us from our sinful state. The old hymn sings, Trust and obey, for there is no other way. Really, there is not other way, but to trust and obey, the One and only One. But remember also, different from Dr. Sayer who can just do what a man can do, God can do what man cannot do. Not only He can awake us, He can make us to born again, so that we can see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). And we can also assure that He will never give up on us, because He says, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

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"The time has come," He said. 

"The kingdom of God is near. 

Repent and believe the good news!"  

Mark 1:15

Amazing Grace

~ Amazing Grace ~ How sweet the sound ~ That save a wretch like me ~

Many people should be very familiar with this hymn "Amazing Grace" written by John Newton. Today I just watch a film produced in 2006, entitled "Amazing Grace" directed by Michael Apted. It is about a true story of William Wilberforce and his 20-years courageous fight to abolish the British slave trade. Along the way Wilberforce meets intense opposition from the members of Parliament but his old preacher, John Newton, a reformed slave ship captain, urges him to see the cause through. Although he failed once and having severe chronic colitis, but with the strength from God he succeed in the abolition of slave trade in British.

The synopsis of the film:

The film begins with Wilberforce severely ill and taking a holiday in Bath, Somerset, with his cousin, Henry Thornton. It is here that he is introduced to his future wife, Barbara Spooner. Although he at first resists, she convinces him to tell her about his life. The story flashes back 15 years to 1782, and William recounts the events that led him to where he is now. Beginning as an ambitious and popular Member of Parliament (MP), William was persuaded by his friends William Pitt, Thomas Clarkson, Hannah More and others to take on the dangerous issue of the British slave trade which led him to become highly unpopular in the House of Commons amongst the Members of Parliament representing vested interests of the trade in the cities of London, Bristol, and Liverpool.

Exhausted, and frustrated that he was unable to change anything in the government, William becomes physically ill (in the film he is depicted as suffering from chronic colitis), which brings the story back to the present day. Having virtually given up hope, William considers leaving politics forever. Barbara convinces him to keep fighting because if he does not, no one else is capable of doing so. A few days afterward, William and Barbara marry; and William, with a renewed hope for success, picks up the fight where he had previously left off, aided by Thornton, Clarkson and James Stephen. In time, after many attempts to bring legislation forward over twenty years, he is eventually responsible for a bill being passed through Parliament in 1807, which abolishes the slave trade in the British empire forever.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace_(2006_film)

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13)