During the lunch break with pastor this last Friday, he told me that his original intent of writing daily devotional in English was to leave something to his three sons hoping some day they will read and benefit from it. He said he envies those families that parents when they die leave some sort of legacy to their children, so he hopes that the daily devotional he writes may become a legacy to his children in the future. Actually, his children are reading his devotionals every day, and sometimes even give comments to him, which makes him very happy.
He encourages me to write my blog in English so that when Tristan grows up, he can read and understand what I have been writing, and my Bible study notes may help him in some way. My original response was “it is too hard. I can’t do it.” I always believe that only mother tongue can truly and deeply express your feelings, emotions, and belief. (Pastor is an exception. His major was American Literature and was a poet before he became a pastor. English is almost his another mother tongue.) I am afraid that if I write in English, and some day Tristan reads my blog, he may say “Dad, you write like a first-grader.”
After thinking about pastor’s encouragement for a couple of days, however, I said to myself, “hey, maybe I can try it.” If I don’t try, I will always be a first-grader; but if I try, maybe I can improve. Writing is different from speaking, and I can always come back to change and improve what I have already written, right?
So I decided to write my blog posts in both Chinese and English. As far as those published posts in Chinese, I will leave them as they are. If I have time in the future, I will add English version to them.