DAY 1 - Planes, Trains and Automobiles

We've
arrived!! It's been a little over 20 hrs of traveling by plane, trains
and automobiles (a short drive), but we're finally in Birmingham and
have a little bit of time to recover before the essentials conference
begins. Our first stop was to visit CEC and witness the baptism of a
canadian sister who recently became a believer through folks at this
church (A funny side note is that the baptisimal tank is actually built
into the ground and someone fell into the opening this morning -- fully
clothed). We've arrived at the home of Bert Han and can finally rest a
bit.

While walking up the steps, the first thing I noticed was a Dyson Vacuum cleaner
sitting in the middle of their living room. Wow!! Bert is like the
first real person I know who owns a Dyson. This is by far the best
vacuum cleaner in the commercial market. We were expecting rain, but
have been experiencing slightly warmer weather here. It's also been
really good to see at least a few familiar faces (Bert, Phan, Debra,
Crissy, alan). We don't have any exciting stories about travel since
things were relatively smooth, but here are just a few random bits of
information for y'all:

1. Gas here costs about 80 pence/L
(that's about $5.84/gal for y'all back home). It's no wonder why people
drive such small cars. A Honda Civic actually looks big here.

2.
trash cans are very difficult to find at the train station. I think
this is to minimize locations where bombs can be hidden ... hmm ... not
sure?

3. Alby said this while sitting on the most expensive
piece of furniture at the Han's residence (a red dot that is also used
as a seat at Mac stores), "I'm so tired my head keeps falling down."

4.
Bert jokingly said this while walking away from church, "We've
converted more people to Macs than to Christ." Bert tells me that
they've made disciples who are now sharing this "Mac gospel" to others.
I suspect that they are making disciples of Christ here too. =p

We'll
have limited access to the internet these next few days before the
conference and no access after that. I think that we're all very sleepy
(and running off adreneline), but we're trying to stay awake a few more
hours so that we can eat an early dinner and then go to bed after that.

Signing off,
EMT 2004

How deep is your Love?

Shall I stay or shall I go
(I was asked to post my response to a friend's question)

A friend asked me, "do you think that some are called to go and
some are called to stay? honestly, these last few yrs, i've been
running around with the thought that everyone is called to go. (asking
about missions)"

My response ... (and more)
Do you ever wonder if our
paradigms have got us a bit trapped in our thinking? I was thinking
about this categorization of senders and goers .. maybe we should just
do both. I was reading about hudson taylor and realized that he spent
almost as much time in mobilization as he did overseas ... and that was
a bit over a 100 years ago. The advent of rapid transportation and
global communication have changed the nature and definition of
missionaries as we used to think of it. Missionaries can and do go back
and forth. With the internet and wireless communications, missionaries
can communicate regularly with their friends/supporters ... who by the
way can not only pray and support financially, but can fly out and
visit and serve alongside those who've chosen to take residence in a
foreign land. I think that missionaries like Marilyn Laszlo (going
off to the boonies of papa new guinea) will become increasingly rare.
For better or for worse, TV, radio and other forms of multi-media have
helped at creating this effect known as global aculturalization. We
live in an increasingly global village no longer so bound by
distance or even culture (in many locations).

Senders are no longer just senders and goers are no longer just
goers. Lee Yih said it well, "All of us are in full time christian
work, the only difference is in who funds it." This weekend I was at a
conference aimed at young Christian professionals who wanted to serve
God with their lives. As I met others there and heard their stories, I
realized more and more that Christian professionals (esp those
travelling internationally) who are "sold-out" for God may be the
greatest missionaries of this generation. Lee pointed out that people
don't really care if your faith works in a bible study, a prayer
meeting or a church service ... people eagerly want to know if your
faith works at work. IS IT REAL!!  May the tensions and
stresses of our work life be the "environment in which we work out the
issues of our faith". As we deal with issues with the bosses or
coworkers, as we are cheated or unfairly criticized, as we deal with
the tediousness and the mundaneness of work life; may these be
opportunities for our faith to be lived out rather than an opportunity
to leave all this to go into this illusive lala land of vocational
ministry (unless this is God's calling for you).

I guess for me it's not a question of staying or going, it's more a
question of following and obeying. I want to follow Jesus with my life!!

One Passion ...

In a youth group meeting, the icebreaker that night was to identify
the passion of the others in your group. I was surprised at how quickly
people were able to just quickly name off the biggest passion in each
person's life. It was obvious. It was easy. they spoke about it all the
time. they poured their energies into it. It was always on their
mind.  Serving in an adult ministry now, I'm surprised at how hard
it is to identify people's passions. People have either learned to
suppress it, forget it, or sometimes seem to have lost it altogether.
Somehow this hunger has been lulled to sleep by the passing years of
life.

Passions are by their very nature consuming. They draw and demand
our energies and our attention. When people look at your words, your
decisions, your attitudes, your life and your xanga, is it obvious to
others what your life passion is? Jesus said, "No one can serve two
masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and
Money." (matt 6:24)

"There is time in life for only one true passion ...what's yours?"

some recent highlights:

5/29/2004 I heard Vienna Teng
in concert. She's a 25 yr old singer/songwriter/pianist who quit her
full-time SW engineering position at Cisco in the summer of 2002 to
pursue her musical passions. At the start of the evening, she said
"Applause sounds better in church. It makes you feel like you're doing
something very important." If she only knew ...

5/23/2004 Julie's graduation from UC Berkeley school of architecture.
I graduated on the same stage many eons ago and noticed many
similarities, but one difference was that all the graduates (including
my sis) were on their cell phones during good portions of the ceremony.
my mom was especially happy today. She had this look of relief that I
didn't understand till I was reflecting on this later. All the kids
have now graduated from college!!!

grace and ungrace

Yancey starts off his book by sharing this true story which has remained indelibly etched on my mind:

   A
prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to
buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she
told me she had been renting out her daughter - two years old! - to men
interested in kinky sex. she made more renting out her daughter for an
hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she
said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her
sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable - I'm required
to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
  
At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help.
I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her
face. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? I was already
feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse."

What do you say to someone who has given up on church? to someone
who is sick of all those "messed-up" people there? to those who've
hardened their hearts toward God because their one taste of church was
judgment, condemnation, cold indifference, or calculated assaults? I
believe that the church is God's divinely appointed instrument for
reaching the world and yet somehow  ....  the church has also
become for many their greatest obstacle to knowing Christ. Christians
have consumed so much of their energies debating and proclaiming truth
and defining and clarifying practices that we've lost that one thing
that distinguishes us from the world -- grace. These were the
parting words in a letter by a loving pastor, "But grow in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both
now and forever! Amen." (2 Peter 3:18)

Yancey wrote, " ... I see now what pulled me along was my search for
grace. I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace
there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else."

I was flipping through my planner today and was reminded of some of
the more unusual things that I've done this year. I know that this is
all quite tame compared to Sam's wild flings in Dallas .. but hey ... the year is still young.  

Crazier things I've done this year

1. attended a casting call for extras in an opera production
2. started rock climbing weekly
3. watched a friend go through lasik surgery
4. attended a martial arts exhibition
5. filed taxes at the last moment
6. watched passion of the christ three times (not voluntarily)
7. purchased a Lego Mindstorm Set
8. saw william hung in concert .. Live!
9. took a 5.5 hr detour to drive from corvallis to seattle during a business trip
10. flew home just to hear my sister in a concert
11. attended a sunrise easter service at sea world
12. shared my testimony 5 times (3 to non-christians)
13. discovered dim sum in Rancho Bernardo =p
14. watched all 20 episodes of Hotelier with my roommate in Cantonese
15. jogged a net total of 9.5 miles during the 2 times I've gone running.

One of my friends at church asked me, "what would it look like to
live with no regrets?" ... All this was traveling into the ears of a
guy who bought his first CD w/o listening to all the songs on it first
only 2 yrs ago.

Fingerprint of God

I took a passion assessment this weekend and was reminded of my
fascination with design and creation. There is something about a truly
excellent design that just appeals deeply to me -- the efficiency, the
purpose of every little detail, the elegance. ooohhhhhhhoooo .... The
demographics of my fellowship in Minnesota (T4C)
were quite typical of chinese grps, half the grp were doctors, interns,
residents, or somehow related to medicine and the other half were
engineers. As I got to know people better, I realized that many of my
doctor-friends struggled greatly with this whole question of evolution
and creation while this was clearly a non-issue for my engneering
friends. Engineers design stuff for a living and simply recognize
design. Even the simplest of things like an IKEA chair may have
involved many months of design, development, manufacturing, usability
studies, etc ... engineers recognize that even something this simple
requires hours of thought and pouring over through minute details.
Questions an engineer might ask include: what is the maximum vertical
load that this chair can support? where are the greatest stress
concentrations located? What is the stability of this chair? How can I
design this for ease of assembly (and ensure that parts align to the
proper tolerances)? which design will be cheapest to manufacture? ...
this IKEA chair was obviously designed. Everything about it screams out
"DESIGN"!

All of creation points to the glory of our God and bear the
fingerprint of God. Our universe points to a designer, not haphazard
chance. My pastor pointed out that what many evolution advocates
don't realize is that only because we were created can our lives
possibly have purpose. I hope you enjoy these photos from the hubble telescope set to some funky space music.

It’s late in the evening, and I find myself sitting in our living room picking out the theme song to this Korean drama on my guitar. I remember teasing Rene for going on and on about how great this series was. During one of our ministry meetings, I discovered that she was learning how to play this on the piano. She even had a friend manually enter in this drama’s theme song as her cell phone’s ring tone. When her phone rang, there was a smile on her face and a tinge of excitement ... even if it wasn't eddy calling.

Along with the 3-4 chapters of Bible reading per day, I’ve also committed to watching 2 episodes per week. My roommate and I are half way through this series … only 10 more VCD’s to go.

synopsis (taken from yesasia.com): The rivalry between two experienced hoteliers sparks in the Hotel of Seoul when former Head Manager Han Tai-Jun (Kim Seung-Woo) who has returned from the States to restore his position in the Hotel confronts Shin Dong-Hyuk (Bae Yong-Joon), an expert in merger and acquisition. While regaining the lost splendor of the Hotel, the two career-minded hoteliers not only fall into the power struggle, but also the love tangles with Seo Jin-Young (Song Yoon-A) and Kim Yun-Hee (Song Hye-Kyo).

My Way?

On my drive up to seattle (in a crown victoria), I was listening to
an excellent (and intense) discussion about women in ministry ... so
while driving around in Seattle, I decided to listen to some good ol'
Frankie to lighten things up. This crooner sang more than a song or two
about "my way" and something about having "the world on a string,
wrapped around my fingers". My way. There are those occassions in life
when we get to see what would've happened if I had my way. Thank God for those teachable moments.

During the first week of january, I made my first tough decision of
the new year. In november, I submitted photos and other info hoping to
receive a casting call as an extra for the San Diego Opera production
of Turandot.
It's something I've wanted to do. Something about the expression of the
human soul in classical voice has always captivated me, and I looked
forward to meeting some of the opera stars. I was quite excited about
this and had mentioned it to many of my friends. A group in my
fellowship told me that they would totally go if I was in it ... and
would even bring flowers (I love you guys). ha ... imagine an extra
getting more flowers than one of the stars. During Christmas vacation,
I got a casting call.

I walked in about 15 minutes late and started filling out papers
while I watched this older man order around this group of women
standing on the platform. Any of the women without dance experience
were immediately eliminated. The guys came up next and fortunately were
picked out by physical profiles. I got chosen as one of the peasants in
the story, but had conflicts with two critical rehersals. One was our
churches prayer retreat and the other was a tour to
help churches see the physical and spiritual needs in San
Diego. It was one of those moments that seemed like an eternity. I
refused to give up my prior commitments and was promptly asked to "come
again for some other production". I was sad and didn't really want to
tell people about this. I didn't know if I would have other
opportunities, but I prayed that God would honor this decision.

Just last week, I spoke with a friend who went to see Turandot in
San Diego. The peasants were supposed to wear some grubby clothes, but
they had a costume change. I heard that they wore a loin cloth .. and
only a loin cloth. all I could say was "PRAISE GOD!! PRAISE GOD!!" I
actually shouted this out when I first heard about this. Yes, God did
honor this decision, and I'm so glad that I didn't get it my way.

Sharing this story with my buddies yee and mike up in Seattle
reminded me of what happened to Abraham and Sarah when they wanted
God's will my way. With a tinge of grief and despair, Abram
said, "you have given me no children; so a servant in my household will
be my heir (Gen 15:3)." But God promised Abram that " 'a son coming
from your own body will be your heir.' He took him outside and said,
'Look up at the heavens and count the stars -- if indeed you can count
them.' Then he said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.' " (Gen
15:4-5) But even with such a clear promise from God, Sarai has her
husband sleep with her Egyptian maidservant Hagar. They too get the
opportunity to see the results of doing things my way.

What is it that we have difficulty trusting God with and are tempted to try doing my way? having children? a relationship? money? finding a roommate? career? grades?