A Week in Review

Snapshots of the last few days:

Left: Students/Staff learning how to use Soularium – a conversation tool to explore faith and life.  Right: Monday Night Meeting – once a week the four tracks of the project (arts, campus, epic, and inner city) gather for a night of celebration, fellowship, food, and fun


Left: We attended Bethel Gospel Assembly for church last Sunday.  Right:  Nicholas is sharing the story of his life in India as a Chinese minority.  It’s interesting to see how culture influences our view of God.

In the NEW Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood

What a day! My tush hurts from sitting in hard metal chairs for 6 hours. But the time flew by as we listened to Sy Rogers (www.syrogers.com). He has a compelling story: His mother died when he was really young and he was sent off to live with relatives that were practical strangers. Throughout his life he was bullied about being a “fag” and he started acting that lifestyle out. He was even going to get a sex change, before the Lord met him in a very unique way. You’ll have to buy his CD to find out! Anyway, he shares about the lessons he’s learned through his life.
Even though this was my second time listening to his talk, I still was super encouraged and challenged. I especially appreciated how Sy shared about the very “taboo” topic of sexual sin in such a matter-of-fact way.
I’m glad that our students got to hear from upfront about some risqué topics Asian American tend to avoid. I know for myself, I never heard about the birds and bees from my parents, except warnings not to get pregnant before marriage. I pray that our students may be able to submit all of themselves (including their God-given sexual side) to Him for His honor and glory.
Some of my favorite quotes of today:
*God would rather have you messy than not have you at all.
* God didn’t take away our sinful appetites. He gave us the strength to kill them!
* Worrying is calculating without God in the equation.
My favorite quote was when Sy shared about a time when his daughter was three, where he broke her favorite porcelain angels. He glued all the pieces back together, but in a way that he thought was rather unsuccessful. When he offered to toss it and buy her a new one, Sy’s daughter said, “Don’t throw it away Daddy. It doesn’t have to be perfect for me to love it.” I was moved almost to tears when I thought how our Heavenly Father loves us in the same way. Even though we’re broken and messy he loves us all the same. That message fills me with hope.

In the (Staten Island) ‘hood!

New Hope Community Church

Is it already week 3 of our summer project? Time is flying by so quickly! Yesterday we had an amazing time on campus. My team went to Hunter College and I was surprised by how easily it was for me to get into spiritual conversations with students. One girl said, “I’d like to know God personally, but I’m not ready to let Him be Lord right now.” I was encouraged that she actually took the time to chat with me and I hope she continues wrestling with what it means to be a believer (which she said she was, and yet admitted to living her life to please her parents). Talking to her reminded me of 2 things: 1) Its not only Asian Americans that struggle with parental-idolatry (the gal was black) and 2) I LOVE to share my faith! More specifically, I love helping people come to a greater understanding of God’s love and role in their lives. Just talking to this young lady got me so energized and encouraged. So blessed to be able to do what I love everyday!

Today our team went over to Staten Island to help out New Hope church promote their summer program. It’s pretty cool: six weeks of outings, games, Bible stories, crafts, dancing and more! And the best part is that its all FREE!
I wasn’t sure what today would hold: would we just be handing out flyers all day? I was glad to find out that it was so much more than that…just by sharing about the program, we got into a lot of great conversations with people in the neighborhood about the importance of God in our lives. And parents actually signed up on the spot for the summer program! But of course we also got people who totally avoided us, and flat out rejected us. In my mind I thought, “If they only knew that this was a safe, fun and FREE program that their kids could go to…they would realize they were totally missing out on a phenomenal deal!!” It made me think about how often I’m rejected when I approach people to get into spiritual conversations. If they only knew that the message I wanted to share with them was an amazing, life changing deal!! But one of the students shared, “people need to trust the messenger. Everyone is wary about a deal that may be too-good-to-be-true.That’s why its better if friends refer other friends.” How true! Not only for the summer program, but also for the life-transforming message of Jesus.

What I’ll remember most about today was the rich times of prayer I had with the team. Through those prayer times, I felt like we were moving mountains of doubt and decay in the community. I’m looking forward to hearing how our prayers and time in the ‘hood made a difference. If not not on this side of heaven…

Tribeca Epic Track Summer Project in full swing!

Track Fun Time @ the Brooklyn Bridge

Wow. I meant to update for awhile now. As you can imagine, since the students arrived last Tuesday (June 9th), we’ve been busy morning to night getting them acquainted to the city, helping them settle in, and giving the them vision and biblical basis for ministry in the city. We have 6 students and 6 staff, and 3 part-time staff. Love our group!

Praises so far:
* The students and staff of our Epic track team has bonded well over diverse foods and silly Asian games. I’ve also been encouraged by how deeply we’ve shared with each other, and it’s only the first couple of weeks together.
* The conversations we’ve had so far with people we’ve met on our campuses. It’s only the first week we’ve been on campus, but I’ve been so encouraged by the depth of conversations we’ve had already!

Prayer Requests:
* Please pray for us as we go out on campus. Pray that the Lord would lead us to those He has been preparing for us to connect with. Pray that we may love everyone that we talk to, and are able to communicate clearly and effectively God’s truth. Pray for open hearts!
* Pray also for our physical health. A number of us are sick and ALL of us are TIRED! We’ve coined the phrase “perma-tired” to describe how we feel permanently tired. Pray that we can all get rest.
* Finally, a constant prayer I’ve been praying is for CHANGED LIVES. Pray for life change for students who are part of the project, and for those we meet on campus. I know God is in the business of changed lives

Thank you for praying and serving alongside us on campus. I am truly excited to see how God will work this summer!

Team training

Another packed day of summer project…can’t believe the students aren’t even here yet! This morning we had several training times…Some highlights:
* Shelley (our Tribeca Assistant Project Director) gave a devo on the “theology of ability” versus the “theology of inability” based on Romans 7 and 8. The one thing I took away from this is that the cost of living out of an “ability based theology” (that is, that I am able to live out the Christian life by what I do) is that failure doesn’t become an option, and we create a culture where we don’t take risks. We may even  end up limiting the Great Commission by pre-selecting those we think are good enough. I admit I tend to do this. I shared how I had a student say to me that she often did stuff to please me (her staff) rather than because God asked that of her. How sad!
* Heard Joe (our Tribeca Operations Director) give his famous Holy Spirit talk with the pop-quiz on some controversial Holy Spirit assertions. I’ve taken this quiz a dozen times, and still have not gotten 100%. The 2 I got wrong:
“To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with Christ” (Supposed to be agree…I still debate this, but ok.)
“The first step from the carnal life-style to the Spiritual one involves confession and repentance” (Supposed to be agree…I think I thought this was a trick question.)
* Regina (my co-director for the Epic track) lead an exercise contrasting Asian and Western Cultural Values. This was very interesting. I always had the assumption that non-Asians will tend towards Western values and Asians tend towards Asian values. But for our exercise, I was surprised to learn that this was not always the case (although I found myself always on the more Asian side). We discovered that many of our teammates from the South also tended towards “collectivism”, “duty & obligation” and being “hierarchical.” Apparently this is important in the very family-centered South. I was also suprised to see that most of the group (our staff team of 40) tended towards “Shame-based condemnation” rather than “Guilt-based condemnation.” I wonder if this is more of a Christian-cultural tendency?

Afterwards, we had a track-specific afternoon of discovering our staff team’s strengths and talents. I have to say, I am serving with a strong and talented staff team But of course, as Asians, we will say, “aw,…its nothing!” Another interesting thing about our Epic track staff team is that most of our strengths  fall in the “friend/sage” themes, with none of us having an “ruler” (i.e., directing) strenghth. What will this mean for our summer?? At least we know we’ll be good friends offering good advice to each other

Plus, I finally learned how to play Settlers of Catan today! (and if you know Crusade culture, its like….you’re totally missing out if you don’t know how to play.) I now understand why its so popular. When will we play again, team?