Pixels

My favorite piece of homeschool equipment is the stereo microscope— Top-down lighting of the specimen and relatively low magnification make it perfect for a whole new view of everyday life.  Leaves, coins, cuticles, bread mold, feathers, flower petals—who knew how complexly textured the world turns out to be?

It’s great for looking at bugs. Especially butterflies.

At that magnification, the butterfly’s body is the stuff of nightmares. But its wings will take your breath away. Finest, powdery velvet, its scales of brilliant color are arranged like the pixels of a digital mosaic.

Hold that thought.

A couple weeks ago I tagged along with my husband to a conference he was attending. Speaker overload. Hospitable friends. Good food. But it’s always the one unusual moment that stands out on my highlight reel.

The final evening of the weekend served to honor and highlight the work of a Christian man who fights for religious freedom in China.

The fellow student leader who had stood beside him on Tiananmen Square in 1989 (which massacre occurred 32 years ago today, incidentally) offered the first tribute. Not long after those pivotal days seeking freedom, both of these students came to faith in Christ. Both suffered as prisoners and fugitives for their faith. One would press on to pastor thousands and establish a seminary for house church leaders. The other would become a leading voice in the world for the persecuted faithful of his homeland.

This man’s personal guests were all seated at the table nearest mine that night. These were men and women who have surely walked in realms of faith that I don’t even have categories for. Oh, to know their stories. I felt I was in the proximity of giants.

During his speech, Bob introduced a guest at another table. She had caught my eye earlier in the room of 1000 people. Dressed in a beautifully patterned red and gold traditional robe that somehow vaguely looked familiar, she had entered the room with her husband and young daughter, who looked adorable in her ruffles and similar patterns.

Like the Uyghurs of Xinjiang province, this woman also belonged to an ethnic minority group within the borders of China. She was Kazakh. After moving across the border to Kazakhstan and marrying, she once returned home to visit her family. She was arrested and imprisoned in three minority concentration camps for almost a year and a half. The award-recipient’s organization had recently helped this family relocate to the US on humanitarian parole.

My husband had something he wanted to share with Mr. Fu after the meeting. And somehow we ended up speaking with him at the same time Gulzira approached as well. Bob pulled her into our conversation. I said that I had visited Kazakhstan once, which excited him greatly—but that I couldn’t speak it. Apparently Gulzira spoke neither Mandarin nor English. He began to share more of her story of torture and her courage to stand against these abuses.

Without forethought, I just put my arm around her shoulder.

She leaned into me and brushed her eyes with the back of her hand.

It felt like one of those moments that you hold your breath and try to absorb something you don’t want to miss but don’t understand.

I couldn’t give anything more than my silent flavor of compassion and some kind of spirit-to-spirit connection that defies words.

I still wonder why God convened us in that little group. Was it related to past prayers for unreached people groups within China? Was it for solidarity over persecution that I, too, will somehow face before my earthly journey is done? Was it simply for the available arm that fits around a shoulder?

But there we stood. A Chinese champion, a brave Kazakh dissident, and a tag-along wife. Three pixels the Mysterious Master Mosaic Designer briefly assembled according to His pattern in a moving kaleidoscope. I added my one little stitch to the tapestry, my one scale of color to the butterfly’s wing in the unknown array that heaven viewed one evening over Texas.