Cost of Freedom

A few nights ago, I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Halfway across the world, my peers were standing up against a political establishment, itself, established from popular uprising three decades ago. As I lay in bed that night, I thought about the parallel lives that these young and courageous Iranians were living. Risking imprisonment and even death, they took to the streets in the biggest sign of uprising in the thirty-year history of the current Iranian theocracy. Moussavi, himself, has indicated that he would accept martyrdom in the pursuit of greater freedom.

I often take the freedom that I enjoy for granted. For all its flaws, the American political experiment has survived the test of time, insurrections, wars, and other external/internal factors. It enumerates freedoms that I, as a citizen, am entitled to, and the justice system is, in theory, out to ensure due process of law. I am able to freely express myself, among other things, and anticipate my voice to be heard. I have economic opportunities with the possibility of upward social mobility. I don't fear the state's security apparatus barging into my apartment and dragging me off to prison on trumped up charges. I have the ability to gather in public rallies and demonstrations. I can move around the country and the world without government approval. The benefits of living in an open society can go on and on.

Like many outside of Iran, I've been glued to the television and the internet, watching and reading the most current news coming from Iran. I was particularly moved when it was reported that protesters addressed the issue of government crackdown on public rallies. They said that a million lives lost for greater democracy would be worth it for the forty-some million other Iranians and subsequent generations. This is the cost of freedom. Generations before have all paid their dues, many with their own dear lives. In America and in the rest of the world, brave men and women, often students, have shouldered the call to have their voices heard.

Hopefully, future Iranians and global citizens will look to July 2009 as another watershed moment in the pursuit of greater freedoms.

Students

"When dictators think of 22,000 students, they think of what you might do. When power is threatened, it is students who are feared. When power is threatened, dictators don't shut down the commercial districts; they close the schools. Students change the world. Students threaten what is because they have an anticipation of what might be and what should be. And from time to time, they have been relentless about pursuing it and the world changes." - Sarah Cohn, lawyer from the International Justice Mission (Urbana 2006)

With the new academic school year underway, I thought it'd be appropriate to start off a new blog talking about the student population, particularly college undergraduates. People continue to ask me why I remain in Ann Arbor and persist in doing college ministry. The only answer I can give is that God has placed a burden for me to stay and to invest in the future generations for the time-being.

The university has always been the perfect breeding ground for revolutionary thought. In an environment where the world's smartest people gather, new ideas are bound to be birthed. And it is during these formative years where students are shaped into the next generation of leaders who can change the world. This is the place where the future is limitless, where anything is possible. And what better place to invest in than at the campus of a major university.

God met me powerfully here at the University of Michigan and changed the trajectory of my life. And it is my desire that others experience the same life-change on this campus. That is why I've stayed for one more year. This is why I persist in doing college ministry. Students change the world.