Red is an auspicious color, and she wears it better than all the children I’ve seen in my years of working at this agency. Red, the color of blessing, the color of blood. The color of festivity, the color of rage. The tint of her unsmiling eyes in photos taken with cheap cameras by her orphanage.

She sits still on the other side of the room, content with her toys. I’m holding a book, but my eyes aren’t in the text; they’re over the edge of the cover, watching her. She fidgets, puzzled by the keyboard that’s just about run out of battery. The notes that come out are stale under her fingers and even at her young age she knows there’s something wrong with that melody. One, she’s realized that pressing one key shouldn’t lead to a whole five seconds of song. Two, it’s a song she likes but not at the moment, because it’s out of tune.

She’s very much loved, as is expected for someone who wears red so well. I’ve always told George and Nina that children don’t need pity-tainted love; they need unconditional love (doesn’t everyone?). But it’s hard for them, just as it’s hard for me, watching her from this side of the room, knowing she prefers to be alone. Nina’s heart hurts much more mine, because she has to watch this every day. Her lovely daughter, her gift ten months and ten thousand dollars and ten thousand miles in the waiting, doesn’t smile and doesn’t like to be held. Knowing this is a fairly common condition is one thing; dealing with it like it’s a commonly accepted fact is another. Love is difficult. It’s not like her red sweater.

Somehow it makes her all the more beautiful. I hope it’s not the pity reflex speaking; pity shouldn’t shape beauty any more than it should shape love. I imagine her little hands on a real keyboard, one note per tone, infinite songs laid out before her, not the stagnant five-second melodies predestined for children. She clings to the toy, frowning now, her eyes still the same, picking at the black keys, perhaps thinking there is a secret to uncover that will unlock what she wants to hear. I think of how Nina picks at the corners of her notes whenever we speak, perhaps trying to uncover the secret passage to her daughter’s heart.

I set down my obsolete book as she finally moves on from the toy that should not exist. She looks around, knowing to avoid my gaze, but before she can cry I start to hum. My voice isn’t what it used to be, and it must sound too low to her at least with this melody. But it’s the closest thing to what she wants to hear, and my heart trembles when she closes her eyes, leaning her head against the side of the couch. Her unsmiling gaze disappears. I know her well enough to see that the red in her sweater is blessing and happiness. There’s a smile hidden in her hands, and I promise silently that I will teach her how to paint it across a spectrum of keys.
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Ann Chou ‘09, a Social Studies and East Asian Studies graduate from Currier House, is the former Books and Arts editor of The Ichthus.

He awakens and begins searching in his native country of the Philippines, among a small fishing community in the town of Lingayen. He comes across many people, asking them where the Ichthus is, trying to discover its significance, believing it will reveal to him a miracle.

This is a spiritual journey mirroring that of many Christians, including the first-century believers who used the symbol of the Ichthus to secretly represent Jesus Christ in times of intense persecution. The fish that Jonas seeks is no mere fish; it is a miraculous one, expected to give him answers to life’s most perplexing questions. It is a symbol for something divine, something universal. Like Jonas’s search for the fish, the quest for the divine will necessarily lead us throughout our world, allowing us to discover that God is truly universal, that His presence can really be felt by every man.

Jonas finds the fish at the bustling market near the village. It is the Kera-Kera’y Dios, which means “God-given portion.” It has many different names across the world – sole, plaice, halibut, flounder. Here, he has found evidence of God’s universality as He reaches all people in the curious form of a half-fish.

But it leads Jonas to question: if God is here, why are the people so poor? If the fish is their “God-given portion,” why do they still live such a meager existence? He addresses God directly in a lamentation. “Your children remain poor…” The scene cuts to rain falling in darkness. “There is no ICHTHUS.”

The conclusion drawn by many throughout the world who know abject misery firsthand is that there must not be a God. If there were, why would He allow poverty, hunger, suffering? Why doesn’t He always provide?

How could the Ichthus, the God-given portion, be so little?

The film tells a version of a story from the Gospel of John, especially relevant to this community which depends on fish for sustenance:

Fisher folk gathered around Jesus one day. Soon enough, they were famished. “Who has food to share?” Jesus asked.
A small boy had a small fish. Immediately, he offered it to Jesus. Jesus took the fish and thanked Heaven. He then divided the fish into two equal parts. One of the halves, he multiplied…7 baskets full. Everyone had more than enough.
The other half he blessed, “I offer this back to the sea in memory of a boy, and his miracle of sharing. May it multiply so that the next generation will have a meal to share.”
Multiply, the fish did…and all its offspring took the form of a half-fish. In due course, the poor had Kera-Kera’y Dios to catch. It is their God-given portion.

There is a reason the Kera-Kera’y Dios, the Ichthus, appears to be a half-fish. Another person Jonas encounters tells him the “Ichthus is half a miracle. We are the other half. And a little child will lead us.”

In being tempted to say there is no God, for God would not allow such a pain-filled world to exist, we forget that He allows life to exist – that He created life in the first place. The provision of plenty, of sustenance and salvation from suffering, is only half of the miracle He has wrought in shaping this world. The other half is life itself. By the end of the film, Jonas realizes that the existence of human life is a miracle and a provision from God.

And what does it mean that a little child will lead us?

Jesus honored the young boy’s selfless act of sharing his fish by splitting the miracle between His provision and our existence. We who have enough to share can do so and thus experience the divine. This is the fulfillment of God’s miracle-to take on the spirit of giving. We can take part in God’s promise of provision by giving to others.

First-century Christians suffered greatly under oppressive Roman rule. Yet they believed, as one poor widow in the film states, that “the holder of the other half of the fish will be true to His word, for He is God.” We can trust that while we hold our half – to feed ourselves, to give to our families, or to share with strangers – God is there, and has never reneged on His promise of provision.

-”What Now,” Steven Curtis Chapman

I spent this past summer as a volunteer teacher at Bethel Foster Home for blind and disabled children in China. It was an amazing and humbling experience. I arrived there in July expecting to learn much more than I would teach, and by the beginning of September, that expectation had proven true.

There are 31 children at Bethel Foster Home, and almost all of them are blind; some have additional disabilities such as infantile autism or attention deficit problems. Others have mental and emotional issues from many years spent in poor, often abusive conditions in other orphanages. Bethel is truly a haven for them. Founded only a few years ago by a young French couple, the foster home is a loving and nurturing environment as close to a family as many of these abandoned children can have. In just two or three years of living at Bethel, many children’s lives have been completely transformed. Many have transitioned from violent habits and distrust to love and openness.

It is amazing what love can do. It can take a life and turn it completely around. Isn’t this the core of the Gospel: that love is the greatest transforming power, able to heal, to forgive, and to save? If such a powerful force is the mission, message, and very person of Jesus Christ, why does Christianity today seem to be lacking in true transformative power and spirit? According to the news we read every day, Christianity is certainly not disengaged from political involvement in this country or a wide range of scandals. People wonder what being Christian is actually about. Is it more than just going to church on Sundays, wearing a cross, and telling people to repent and believe in Jesus?

I believe in the basic salvation message: that Jesus Christ came to this Earth to die for our sins and offer us eternal life. But I also believe that that wasn’t the only reason He came. He came to show us how to live. His years of public ministry as recorded in the Gospels are vivid pictures of compassion, giving, healing, standing up for what is right, and selfless love. To the very end, He was indiscriminate and radical in His love for others and death approached, Jesus gave a clear message to his followers about how one who truly follows God should live. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me,” (Matthew 25:35-36). “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” (Matthew 25:40).

Each person is created in the image of God, with the ability to love, to feel, to be hurt, to rejoice, to want love from others. And in each of the 31 children at Bethel, I saw His face, the question of “what now?” gently painted in innocence and expectation. The question “what now?” is more prominent, more insistent, as I think of the millions of children in China who are not so fortunate, still living in the sad conditions many of Bethel’s children had experienced for most of their lives. And when one considers the enormity of suffering across the entire world, places where human beings are still bought and sold as slaves, where children are forced into prostitution, where hundreds of thousands of people are brutally killed in Darfur… the question “what now?” is blatantly obvious and unavoidable.

I do believe love is more powerful than suffering. But it is also a great challenge to love, and perhaps this is why it seems so impossible to fix all the world’s problems. There were many times I became frustrated with teaching children who rebelled and didn’t listen, or got tired of spending so many hours a day with preteens desperate for attention. Still, time and time again I found myself face to face with the truth of who these children were: living testaments to the transforming power of love. Once, I asked the students to finish a sentence beginning with, “I am grateful because…” One girl said, “I am grateful because many people love me.” This and many other moments struck me powerfully, reminding me that despite all that is wrong with the world, God is here and He is not letting go. His wish is not only for us to know and love Him, but also to love and serve others. It is easy to say, “I love God,” but what validates or falsifies that statement is whether one follows the command to love others and serve the “least of these.”

Today, Jesus still presents this question as both an invitation and a challenge.

…I know I may not look like what you expected,
but if you remember,
this is right where I said I would be.
You’ve found me.
What now?