Legacy

C.S. Lewis. J.R.R. Tolkien. T.S. Elliot. - authors
Tyndale and Wycliffe- Bible translators
D.L. Moody.- evangelist and founder of my college
Hudson Taylor. Amy Carmichael. George Mueller.  David Livingstone. Eric Liddell. - missions workers
McLellan. - ancestors and Scottish Covenantors

For most Christians, many of the names above represent heroes of our faith.

It has been a tremendous experience and honor for me to come face to face over the past few weeks with everyday places that these people lived or encountered while visiting my sister in England. I am leaving the UK on Friday and I am taking with me a renewed sense of legacy and a desire to make my life worthy of what I've been given by both physical and spiritual ancestors.  I want to make my life more about the glory of Jesus, just as the people above have. I also want to strive NOT to forget their sacrifices and more importantly, the sacrifice of our Savior.

All of the hunting that I did to find traces of these people here on earth has also reminded me of just how fleeting even the memories of tremendous people are and how our true rewards are in heaven.

Last week I went on a quest to find as much of Eric Lidell in and around Edinburgh as I could - obviously, being China's first Olympian!, a fellow runner (haha) and a worker in China. :) I felt depressed after the experience.  The thing I was most looking forward to see was something called the Eric Liddell center which is housed in the the church he served in while in Edinburgh- just a  bit out of the city center. To my dismay (and perhaps to his as well, I would imagine), the center is nothing more than a community center- mainly focusing on excercise classes- for the elderly. Although the center had a room of photos of Lidell and mentioned that he was a missionary in China, there was no explanation of his life's work or his faith in either their displays or in the literature available. It was really, really disappointing. While my sister and I were there, we saw meditation classes going on in one of the rooms.

To me, this man who lived and worked in Jesus' name in Tianjin, China, and who eventually died in a concentration camp there was really about one thing: honoring and serving Jesus Christ. What he is most famous for- not running the 100 m race in the 1924 Olympics in Paris- illustrates his singular passion (whether or not you agree with its manifestations) well. How sad that what his life was all about has not been communicated in the center that bears his name.

His life for Christ may not live on in fullest form in that center, but I hope that as someone who also loves China that it can live on in me.

Driving out of Scotland back to England, our GPS started taking us out of the most direct route to one that it considered "faster". When we realized where we were, my sister and I also realized that we were not far from the clan home of the McLellans- the clan heads from whom my Great-Grandpa Gilliland descended. We decided to stop there for lunch (and discovered that it was also near the home of Robert Burns and the birthplace of John Paul Jones) and see what we could find out about our clan. In fact, we had had trouble in Edinburgh finding out anything- everyone we talked to said that McLellans were rare.

In Dumfries, we stopped at the visitor center and I bought a book about the history of the region. For the rest of the afternoon, we read with amazement (and somehow fitting amusement) about the lives and times of our ancestors. In their actions and words we could see certain family traits (like stubbornness, belief and faith) that have stood the test of time. Apparently, these McLellans became active in Galloway (the "county"- known to be "trouble-makers") during the Scottish Reformation. One of the clan was Lord Kirkcudbright and they seem to have been a prominent family in the area- even owning a castle which still stands in ruined state today. Unhappy with the Catholic church, they held Bible studies in their homes privately (along with members of the Livingstone clan) and told the bishops that they were "making a mountain out of  a mole hill" when they were told to stop. Because of their stance they were fined thousands of pounds by the authorities and their lives may have eventually been in danger. Around that time they disappear from the history of the area and it is thought that they fled to Ireland or the Netherlands and somehow they must have made it to America- because, well, here WE are.

The clan castle is in ruins but I would like to think that with a faithful life I can leave them a better tribute.
I hope that in my life my physical or spiritual descendents can see the same faithfulness, love for God and determination that I have been witness to these weeks.

May I leave behind a beautiful legacy-not written on tablets of stone which pass away, but written on the heart.