The Mutual Help and Protection in Life
Timothy Tin
In addition to facing the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, Chinese people living in the United States are also facing an epidemic of anti-Asian violence. According to a news report from LA Times, Si is a Chinese-American family (1) with an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son who resides in Ladera Ranch in Orange County, California. This family moved there a few months ago. Recently a group of local teenagers regularly rang their doorbell, insulted them saying, “Go back to your country!” and threw stones at their house in the middle of the night. The family has called the police 7 times and added a new fence and camera. The Si’s couple took turns guarding their door every night, but they were still unable to solve this problem. However, there is only 13% of Asians in this 30,000-household community. Who would help this poor family?
It turns out that these teenagers are the children of the neighbors around Si’s house. There are about 20 of them, the youngest is only ten years old, but they have learned how to harass their Chinese neighbor day and night so that the Si couple can only sleep a few hours every night. The Si’s children often wake up in the middle of the night from the harassment; the whole family lives in fear. There was no way to ask for help until a good neighbor, Layla Parks, bravely stood up and initiated a volunteer group to protect Si’s home. She posted a video of these young people’s hate crimes provided by Mr. Si on Facebook, and recruited more than 50 neighbors to watch the Si’s house every night from 6 to midnight. According to the Washington Post (2), they wore thick coats every night, even in the 40 degrees cold weather, and volunteered to sit on folding chairs and wait for the angry children to come. As a result, the harassment has finally subsided. Three of the children even came to apologize! However, the parents of one family sent letters warning Layla Parker that if she does not delete the video on Facebook, they would sue her, accuse her of broadcasting their children’s videos of destroying neighbors’ property publicly on the Internet!
In this incident, we can see two kinds of neighbors: good neighbors and evil neighbors, loving neighbors and hateful neighbors. Good neighbors watch out for others, and bad neighbors harm others. These are not racial and skin color differences, they are differences between good and evil human hearts and human nature. A person who has love in his heart is good, regardless of race, but if a person is full of prejudice and jealousy in his heart, he can do evil even to people of the same race. There can be love between different races, and there can be evil within people of the same race. Good and evil, love and hate are irrespective of race and age. Everyone can make the right choice based on their conscience. The children of evil are nurtured by evil parents because their family has chosen evil and hatred. Good parents nurtured good children because their family has chosen goodness and love! How should the good children face the evil doings of the children of the evil?
This is the importance of caring for each other. Good people must rely on the power of love to unite, protect and help each other, build a castle of love, and then they can resist the forces of evil! The Bible says, ‘You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.’ (Galatians 5:13-15) Unfortunately, many people who yearn for freedom today do not realize this truth. They abused the right of freedom, chose selfishness, hatred, and evil. These people grew envy and hatred from their own desires and generate evil and violent crimes. Even if they can escape the sanctions of the law in this life, they cannot escape the justice of God!
Therefore, my dear friends, good people not only choose goodness but also choose to help and protect each other with love. They noticed the destruction and corrosion of sin in people’s hearts, and thus worked hard to unite and spread virtues of love and goodness throughout the world continuously. God’s purpose of sending His only son to this world is to sacrifice Himself with the power of love to save mankind from the bondage of sinful nature. His death on the cross was to bear the sins of all mankind, show the love and goodness of God, so that all people who have been touched by Him will choose Jesus’ salvation, become a messenger of love and goodness, and live a life of mutual support and help! Not only that, when Jesus rose from the dead, He always help and protect those who believed in Him, just as a caring doctor watch over his patient by the hospital bed until his patient was discharged from the hospital. Are you willing to accept Jesus as the great doctor of your soul, to help and protect you throughout your whole life?
(Author: Christian Alliance Bible Church in Los Angeles, CA)
（1）https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-02/an-asian-american-family-in-o-c-was-being-harassed-now-their-neighbors-stand-guard
（2） https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/02/26/asian-american-harassment-neighbor-guard/
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