Utopia, IRC, and Global Friendships

Some of you may know the old school in-browser, text-based game called Utopia. I picked up Utopia again around a year ago after getting an email from them, landing in a super-ghetto kingdom that worked its way up to be a decent kingdom. The king was insistent on using IRC for kingdom communication, which has let to real relationships and conversations with the different players in our kingdom (which is Moar Pink Kittehs Nao aka MPKN).

And it's been awesome. It's awesome to get to "meet" people from all over the world. I got to know people from the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Israel, China, etc. Urbana, along with Paul Borthwick's globally-minded missions book, grew in me a desire to get to know people from different parts of the world, as I became convinced that I could make a global impact without even going overseas, as the displacement of peoples and immigration along with the worldwide connectedness via the Internet is bringing the world to our fingertips.

Using IRC to connect with people through the game has been priceless. As I'm typing this up right now, a veteran in our kingdom from the Netherlands is chatting with a newbie from Australia, as they just found out that they are both marine biologist divers, and actually worked on the same small island at the same time (though they didn't actually meet there)!! I must admit that this is what has finally driven me to stop procrastinating and write this post that I've had sitting in my head for some time now. It's just been really fun listening in on a British guy and an Australian guy argue about how racist Australians are, and it was fun for me to argue with both of them to argue about our American measurement system.

It's just been a joy getting to know people in other countries. It's been fun hearing about different jobs that people have, from the "boring" ones to the interesting stuff - sports rehab with the disabled, coral reef restoration, construction work, etc. It's awesome hearing about other cultures and ways of living - to hear about an Israeli's opinion on Americans, a Vietnamese's experience of living Australia, and a Westerner's approach to learning Chinese while in China. It was surprising how good everyone's English was, even if English wasn't their first language, and it is also very interesting to observe linguistic differences in the way we all speak/type English.

My kingdom is in a rebuilding phase right now, as we've had a couple of tough losses these last few months. A bunch of our previous players have left the game or are taking a break from it. It's been hard losing contact with real people that I've talked to and built friendships with, knowing that I may never speak to them again. As stupid as it might sound, the relationships we build are real - people share real-life struggles like disease and grief. Maybe I'm just more prone to relational attachment so losing players and rebuilding the kingdom has been tough on me emotionally, but I'm so thankful for this opportunity to get to build real relationships with people from all around the world. It's been awesome.

[In the slight chance that any of you, whether veterans or newbies, are looking for a Utopia kingdom, ask for fobbymaster on #pinkkittehs on UtoNet, or just holler at me.]

So this just happened. I mention church every so often (to the collective internet groans of my kingdom mates), but I don't think I've ever had anyone say "Jesus may bless ur fuckin ass before" to me before!

fobbymaster: i gtg sleep. just past midnight, and i gotta get up for church tomorrow 
Israeli: holy man!!
Israeli: jesus may bless ur fuckin ass (: 
fobbymaster: lol  gotta get my Jesus time.
Israeli: iam jew 
Israeli: but! 
Israeli: go get ur jesus time (:
fobbymaster: haha. so was jesus.
fobbymaster: lolol
Israeli: send a pray for me too (: 
Israeli: any god will do 
fobbymaster: hehe okay
Israeli: gn mate
fobbymaster: talk to you tomorrow