(Real) Realguylin

It's been a while

Travel

Back in March I traveled to Australia with my mom and 2 family friends!

First we visited my mom's brother and his family in Brisbane. Brisbane is the 3rd largest city in Australia and like all the large cities, it's close to the coast so the weather was picturesque. As a big Bluey enjoyer, I just had to visit locations that are featured in Bluey episodes. It was also nice to meet my cousin for the first time.

Next we went to Cairns which is a tourist town. Our first activity was a day trip to Kuranda which is a rainforest village. We took a train on the way up and then a cable car over the rainforest on the way down.

Our second and main activity was a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef! There are actually multiple reefs and each touring company brings you to a different one. Part of our package started with a 10 minute helicopter fly around to see the reefs. They are truly a sight to behold, I don't think a camera does them justice. The rest of the day, our company parks at a pontoon and we are allowed to snorkel and see the reef (no touching). There's other paid experiences like a glass-bottom boat and diving. I'm so glad we were able to see the reef in person! I've read that the reef is still under pressure, though not necessarily as in danger as it used to be.

Our next city was Melbourne. We mostly stayed in the central business district, especially the Chinatown. My mom and her friends loved the Chinatown... Actually it's better than Sydney's Chinatown. Our big activity was taking a tour of the Great Ocean Road which like it's name implies, is a road that goes along the Pacific Ocean with various landmarks like the rock formation called the 12 Apostles.

Our last stop was Sydney. Of course we had to go to the Sydney Opera House (designed by a Danish architect, not Australian). In addition, being the tourist I am, I also went up the Sydney Tower and went on a tour of the Blue Ridge Mountains (which is a wider valley than the Grand Canyon).

Australia is a diverse country, with many different ethnic groups immigrating there. I wouldn't say there's one more than the other, and that also leads to a good variety of food. In terms of environments, it's diverse also with cities, rainforests, reefs, mountains, valleys, and deserts. We didn't even get a chance to see half of the country because it's a country as wide as the US!

Some other recent travel

December 2024 - New York

July 2024 - Seattle and Vancouver

March 2024 - Seoul and Japan

If you plan on going there, let me know and I'll give you recommendations!

Work

Recently I passed a certification for Project Management Professional. I don't really use all the principles in it, but it's good to know the principles and since my workplace was paying for the course, why not go for it. I didn't think I'd ever have to take an exam again and that was certainly grueling, but I passed and I'm sure my manager will have more professional development goals for me.

Church

Recently I've finally stepped down from church leadership. This past year I lead a group of grad students again. I think it's been rewarding to lead a group of people who are more mature than undergrads but still have youthful energy. Many of them are well read and knowledgeable about Biblical topics that even I don't know much about, so our discussions can be deep and challenging.

But I think it's time to seek something different. I still have a conviction for outreach and evangelism. I think there's a lot of different avenues and mediums to look into this. One that I'm interested in is local non-profit and refugee groups. Even if they're not Christian groups, there are groups wanting to reach out to immigrants and as I've been reflecting on my own life story - being an immigrant, helping my Mom and our family translate and get settled into a new country, I realize I very much relate to the immigrant experience and maybe my experience can lead to ministry. Jesus was an immigrant, from heaven to Earth, and moved from town to town, He understands what it means to re-settle and that we ultimately will settle in heaven.

Stepping down will also give me time to rest and recover for the summer, because my attention will be occupied.

Health

Back in March, I was playing basketball and tore my ACL on a non-contact play. I knew it was an ACL exactly because I didn't hit anyone and felt my knee pop. Even though I've watched countless other athletes have ACL injuries, go through the process, and recover, I didn't think this would ever happen to me. I am scheduled to have surgery tomorrow, May 22.

As for recovery, the surgeon gave me some timelines. After four weeks, I can return to work and probably be off pain meds. After six weeks, I can drive. After four months i can run in straight lines. After nine to twelve months I can finally play basketball. It is a long journey in terms of time, and will require a lot of physical therapy.

I wonder why this had to happen to me. Is it because I don't stretch regularly? Did I go too hard for my age? Is this from God? And while I can't say this injury is from God, as a brother told me, my recovery process might be. Learning patience, learning vulnerability, learning discipline.

Mentally, I've been eager to get the surgery over with, and it's taken 2 months to get that scheduled, but also I'm anxious about going under anesthesia because I've never had surgery before. I think it's just that feeling, no matter how brief, of not having control over my mental faculties. It's a fear I have of old age too.

What will I be doing while I'm off work? Probably be on the same spot of the couch for 12-16 hours a day, catching up on TV shows, playing games, or reading a book. I'm thankful to have roommates and friends who can keep me company.

Recent Books

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

The Sparrow (currently reading)

Recent Shows

Frieren

Re-Zero

Invincible

Severance

Breaking Bad

Recent Games

Resident Evil 4 Remake

Resident Evil 3 Remake

Red Dead Redemption

Metaphor

Stellar Blade

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Prayer Requests

Pray for my knee recovery both physically and spiritually

Pray to find people to reach out to, maybe it'll to immigrants and refugees

Dating and Relationships

This will probably be everyone’s most read part of this, so I’ll just type this up first.

I was in a relationship from January to May this year.

I met this person, we’ll call her S, on a dating app in the fall. I only gleaned a little bit from the profile, so on first impressions, I wasn’t interested, but I saw she talked about faith and also she’s a teacher (I value the quality of being patient and gentle with kids), so I wanted to give it a chance, and boom we matched.

We went on a few dates to get to know each other. She was a grad student who was trying to figure out her life, including relationship goals. Eventually we decided to commit to a relationship and see if this was something God called us to. We both agreed that a relationship is for clarity and that if we wanted to end it, let’s do it sooner than later so we can honor each other’s time.

After about 3 months, as I was reflecting, I couldn’t say to myself “I love this person” even though we tried to meet frequently and intentionally. But I decided I’d give it 1 more month to see if my feelings would change.

At the beginning of May, my heart was still in the same place, so I decided we should separate. I’m thankful for the time we had, and that our last conversation was amicable. She didn’t do anything wrong, in fact, she probably did everything right.

This was my first dating experience ever. I think I understand a little, just a tiny bit more, about the time and energy it takes to commit to another person. My preferences are a little more sharpened, too.

Initially after the fact, I questioned myself - “did I hear God correctly? Am I a villain?” I’ve come to peace with my decision, knowing I did my best to honor her during the entire process, follow the word of God, and keep the relationship consecrated. Sometimes it doesn’t work. I wish I could be one and done, but I’m learning to be more judicious in the process and making sure I understand my own feelings before entering into a relationship in the first place.

I’m thankful for the people who did know/inquired during the process. I see that many people are rooting for me!

Counseling

Recently I started seeing a counselor to talk about some anxiety that I’ve had in the past year. I never really got around to it initially because “I’m so busy,” or “If I ignore this, it generally doesn’t hinder my life.” But after having a panic attack one night, I decided it’s for the best to actually address this issue. I think also getting older and having been in a relationship urges me to work through these things sooner, too.

What did I have anxiety about in the first place? First off, this may stumble someone who reads this, so be forewarned. It all started when I was young.. just kidding, but it’s probably close. As I’m getting older, especially hitting past the big 3-0, and also my mom getting older, I’ve been thinking about, well dying. My mom’s not a believer, and I’ve had conversations about this with her, especially what she believes happens after death. She says there’s nothing, that this is the one life she’s been given. For myself, as someone who enjoys math and science, and having been exposed to Atheist arguments.. I think there’s points to made about how we cannot scientifically prove God’s existence or what happens after we die. And for me, the thought that one day our consciousness will cease to operate.. well that’s scary. Scary to the point it makes me anxious.. it’s like we’re on a countdown to oblivion. And one night while I was thinking about this, I was anxious to the point of a panic attack.

Don’t be too worried, this doesn’t consume my daytime thoughts, but it creeps in sometimes when I try to sleep. I understand all the arguments from the Christian side, I’ve even heard an entire lecture series about proving the resurrection. I don’t think I need more arguments, what I need is faith.

The counseler has been helpful. She gave me three encouragements.

All this being said, I don't think these issues will disappear forever, it may be my thorn that I must bear, so keep me in prayer and if there's any resources and arguments you want to discuss, I'd be all ears.

Investigate the arguments and have a firm foundation for defending your faith as we are told in 1 Peter 3:15

Know when and with who to have these conversations. There are people in the Church who go through these thoughts too, and just knowing I’m not alone and can have those conversations is helpful. Apart from that, entertaining these thoughts at certain times just isn’t productive. I still have a life to live, so I have to learn to compartmentalize these things.

Find peace in God. When other arguments fail or people might not be available, I can always just bring these anxieties to God in prayer and ask for breakthrough. There have been many forerunners in the faith who struggled with this, but somehow they came to peace with this, and that fact alone can be an encouragement.

Speaking of peace, our church has been going through the Psalms over this summer, and that’s been helpful to me to bring these thoughts and anxieties and word them through prayer.

Work

It’s been 2 years since I started working as a Data Project Manager for UM. I just had my yearly review and praise God it went well. In this coming year, once I accumulate 3 years of experience, I should be able to test for a Project Manager Certification. I’m thankful that my workplace is supporting my pursuit of this both in terms of workload and financially sponsoring courses and tests. 

Apart from that, it’s pretty chill day to day. I only work the typical 9-5 M-F, work from home except for Wednesdays when I go into the office and the office day is always a blast, it’s always lively and good to have a touch point in person.

Once I’ve hit 3 years, I will reconsider where God may be calling me. I should have more experience and accolades by then to be flexible to move.

Misc

I’m still a Life Group Leader! This summer we combined the working adults and grad students. It’s been a good time of mixing together.

Our roommate Josh is moving out and Davey will move in. I considered buying a home earlier this year, but AA prices are unsustainable on a single income right now.. In the meantime, renting is “buying patience.”

I’ve been using some apps to learn more Chinese (Hello Chinese and SuperChinese). I recommend it to anyone who wants something low commitment! I commit to about 15 mins a day doing a lesson and/or review and over about a year I’ve grown from HSK 2 to HSK 3.5 (new HSK system). I like them so much I even paid for more content. Also, don’t use Duolingo, it’s not specialized enough.

Travel

Atlanta in Nov 2022

Orlando in Feb 2023

Toronto in June 2023

Chattanooga in July 2023

Calgary/Banff in August 2023

DC in September 2023

China in November 2023

NY in December-January 2023-24

That’s a lot of travel.. hope you can understand why I might not have visited you recently!

Entertainment Corner

Anime: Demon Slayer season 3, Code Geass, Bocchi the Rock, Odd Taxi, Suzume

TV: Secret Invasion, The Witcher season 3, Gravity Falls

Video Games: God of War Ragnarok, Nier Replicant, Ghost of Tsushima, Hogwarts Legacy, Fire Emblem Engage, Final Fantasy 16

Movies: Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental

Board Games: Gloomhaven, Spirit Island, Dune Imperium, Everdell, Ticket to Ride Europe, Scythe

This post is getting long, but next time I’ll give reviews if people want!

Prayer Requests

Pray for peace both about anxiety and dating.

Pray for continued favor in my vocation.

Pray for rest amidst busyness of weddings, traveling, and social gatherings in the summer.

Congrats Josh and Tiff!

Ruby Falls in Tennessee

Impact Grad Night

Work

In March 2020 I took a job as a Data Manager for a professor of Psychology at UM (see previous post about how I found it).

I knew I wouldn’t be at the job forever for multiple reasons. It was a temporary position because the funding was from research grants and needed to be renewed every year. It wasn’t a “full time” position that came with retirement benefits, etc. Also, as the year went on, I just realized the work that I was doing wasn’t something I wanted to do for the long term. All that being said, I wasn’t actively looking for any other job, especially knowing that in March 2021 I got extended until September, at least.

All this changed in April when my former boss in the Facilities department (we’ll call her A) contacted me saying there was a job opening as a Project Manager. Looking over the job description, it was everything that I wanted my old Facilities job to be - full-time, project management, not just on a year-to-year term, and it was doing the work I already knew, which I was really good at. Knowing all this, I decided to apply for the job even though I was extended at my Psych position. 

After a series of critical interviews in front of multiple people, I got the job in May! I think my former Facilities boss, who is now also my current boss, had a hand in it because she knew me as a person and also the quality of my work so even if I didn’t express myself perfectly in the interviews, I had an advocate. 

I put in my resignation to my Psych job. I have nothing but gratitude for my time there. I learned (or re-learned) a lot of statistics that was used for the job. It wasn’t an easy job, there were days where I definitely worked overtime to make certain deadlines and working for a friend’s parent.. isn’t always a good thing, actually. When work is going well, everything is great, but you feel like an extra disappointment when you fall short of expectations because they know you personally. But I took the job because God opened the door at the time and it provided for me during a pandemic.

Now I’m in a great situation - it feels like a position that I’ve been prepared for and meant to do over the past 5 years. In the macro sense, when I look at the twists and turns it took to get me to this job, I can see that it can only be God’s hand. Who else could write this story?

First job out of grad school was only on a one year term.

Unemployed for 5 months.

Worked as a temp employee at Facilities for 2 years, having no benefits and living year-to-year because of the contract terms. (I actually had a transfer for 6 weeks in order to exploit a loophole). All the while, as I was growing in this position, I kept staying because as I prayed about it, God kept pulling me back.

Left to work at Psychology for 1 year after getting recruited. Also it turns out Facilities was furloughing temp employees anyways during the pandemic so I made it out just in time.

Returned to Facilities in a full-time position, with the same co-workers, doing the same work, with more responsibilities.

As for the job itself, many people ask me what I do, so I’ll outline it as best as possible in laymen terms.

As the project manager, I am in charge of one specific assignment - data management of all training records for the Facilities department (UM’s custodians, mechanics, bus drivers, etc).

I enter training records into a system, I manage the system itself for the 1500+ employees we have, I pull the data and make data reports for the directors of the employees, I tell people when they are not in compliance with training standards, and sometimes I’m the person “in charge” of our office if my boss is out.

I’ve been working in this environment for 2 years so I am very familiar with all the managers, supervisors, directors in Facilities. My boss always tells me about dramatic events that happen across directors and supervisors, but I’ve personally never really experienced any of this. From what I can tell, I am very well liked and trusted in the department. With great power, comes great responsibility.

I work from home most of the time, but our team of 6 does come in to the office once a week all together. It’s a good mix - I can’t just work from home all the time, I do enjoy the times we have in the office, with the banter and small talk. We also get lunch together from AA restaurants, so it’s something we all look forward to. 

The work life-balance is great - I barely if ever work outside of the typical 9-5 and my boss does her best to protect my off-time.

My boss is great. She’s worked at UM since before I was born... so she is very well connected and understands the values of the university. She protects and advocates for our team but also challenges us in our professional goals. She’s a very big Korean culture and sci-fi fan so we talk a lot about that stuff. She’s even open to hearing about Jesus, as she knows about my involvement with church. She jokes (?) that she wants me to take her job in 10 years after she retires. I don’t think I want to put up with the BS she deals with, but if the Lord wills it..

All in all, I think I’ve found a stable position to be in, until the Lord calls me elsewhere. I wish this section didn’t take up so much of the bandwidth of the post, but I guess it was an eventful year professionally!

My coworkers

Church

Ever since May, we started meeting together in a hybrid model. After a year of online-only Life Groups and Sundays, I was ready to have even that much. In the beginning, and even now there’s still much tentativeness and adjusting to being in person. I’m reminded, though of a sermon that I listened to here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuam58Wl6aU about the importance of gathering together physically. The Bible doesn’t talk about remote church (understandably so), but I think there are principles that we have to fight for. One quote that I’ll leave from that sermon is this “if you are part of the family, you come to the dinner table.”

Over the summer, I helped lead a single adult group about the topic of Work and Faith. We studied various studies about the topic from Rightnowmedia. It was a formative study for a lot of people, and there was a lot of practical takeaways on the subject.

The past four months starting in September, my Life Group studied the FOCUS acronym (did you know it was an acronym? Of course it was). I’m thankful someone remembered the initials otherwise the values of our ministry would’ve been lost to time..

Focus on God

Outreach

Continuous Growth

Unity in Spirit

Seeking discipleship

We would study one letter based on a Bible passage during one week, and then the next week we would practically apply it in some way. It was really refreshing to do it this way. Did you know you can grow in Unity by watching a Bear Grylls choose-your-own-adventure?

Joint Focus and Global Access Life Group

Other Life Updates

Before I started my new job, I took a vacation with some friends to Seattle. Turns out there’s a lot people there and the number keeps growing! I understand why too - It’s a big city, a lot of young people, plenty of things to do including hiking real mountains, and the food is high quality too. Hope I can visit again!

In July I took a vacation with my mom and aunt and uncle to Las Vegas. We didn’t really do anything in Vegas itself, though. Vegas is more like.. a home base that you can drive towards a lot of other attractions. We drove to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, and Red Rock National park. There’s something about the scenery out west.. especially when you’re just driving on the highway. It just makes you appreciate God’s creation in a way you can’t while living in the Midwest.

In between those trips, during July 4th break, a group of us drove 6 hours into the middle of nowhere of Illinois to rent and AirBnb and play basketball. It was basically a mini retreat center, and they had a barn that was transformed into an indoor basketball court. I think we played basketball 5 times in 3 days; it was good to see some of the boys after a long time.

Got a new roommate in May. Us 3 housemates have started playing Gloomhaven together. I appreciate that I can commit to a campaign board game with a group of people - and I don’t even have to leave the house!

My coworkers invited me to start playing Pickleball. At first I didn’t even know it was a sport because of such an odd name. It’s a combination of Tennis, Badminton, and Ping Pong. It’s less.. athletically demanding than tennis but you still get a good sweat in, plus it’s a good excuse to hang out with coworkers. There are courts in AA, it’s a hot sport right now!

Fully vaccinated and boosted. I know everyone can make their own decisions about it, but I highly encourage people to get their shots if they haven’t yet.

I got Lasik a few months ago. It’s a strange sensation going from being near-sighted to now feeling more far-sighted. I was told my body needs to learn how to focus now, but it’ll get better over time. I know my eyes will get weaker with old age, but until that actually happens, it’ll be nice to not have to squint while driving or watching movies.

Thankfully enough, I don’t know anyone personally who’s caught covid. Unless someone did and they didn’t tell me.

My mom is doing well. She is still uber-cautious. She will literally go out to buy groceries, come back, change out of the “dirty clothes” and shower right away. She always has various appointments about this body part and that one, but nothing is threatening - old age just takes getting used to.

In my humble opinion - I’ve gotten a lot better at cooking and especially Chinese dishes. This is the channel I mainly watch https://www.youtube.com/c/MadeWithLau/videos It really speaks to my roots.

“The Last Time I’ll See You in Michigan” - Sugy

Happy Birthday Mom!

Last hurrah with good friends

Cross Generational Flag Football

Basketball in the middle of nowhere (Princeville, Illinois)

Travel!

Prayer Requests

Pray for our world, hopefully it’s not “2020, too.”

Pray that I’m faithful in the moment. There was too much time in 2021 where I dwelled on the past or longed for the future and I just lost sight of what things I had to do in front of me, or I would just dread my responsibilities.  “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” - Matt 6:34. If I just focus on that, I believe God will have me on the right path.

Missions

I did a one week mission trip to Jordan in the start of 2020. I’ve sent out a prayer update letter about that before, please let me know if you want to read it!

Work

Work has been a wild ride over the course of 2020.

After I returned from my Jordan missions trip in the first week of February, there was a flurry of things that happened, so I will try to recount them.

One of my coworkers/supervisors/friends had some tense moments with our director while I was on a trip. This director was actually a substitute director because our actual director was on another project. So she didn’t really have a working relationship with my friend.

Once I got back, the tense moments continued and there was a lot of misunderstandings or just blowing things out of proportion in peoples’ own minds.

This led to my friend resigning from the job. He was able to find work with his mom’s startup/research.

My friend had previously told his mom about working with me, what we do, and I guess this left a strong impression on her about my skills because she called me one time to ask if I wanted a position with her. This was very out of the blue because I wasn’t necessarily looking for another job, I felt comfortable where I was but after my friend left and I was left to work with our sub director, I also personally did not like the direction of the management.

I prayed about it and talked with some people and decided that taking this new position was an open door that God was giving to me.

Currently I work for a startup called Mood Lifters. https://moodlifters.com/ You can read more about it, but we like to call it “Weight Watchers for mental health.” My boss, who is my friend’s mom, is also a professor at UM and developed this program as part of her research. My salary is funded by grants from the UM, actually, as this startup is in partnership with UM for research purposes (so I get health benefits, which I didn’t at my old job).

What I do for the startup is that I manage the data. Considering this is partially research there’s a lot of data. Demographic data, data from surveys our participants take, feedback comments, etc. I put them in a database which I had to develop from scratch, and I help manage the app we contracted a company design. I pull the data when needed and analyze it for my boss when requested. Usually this data is for presenting at presentations she gives or grant requests she is writing. I am the only person doing this, so it’s an important role.

My experience at this job has had its ups and downs. The very first week I started was the first week of quarantine in Michigan... so that was an interesting leg to start on. So I had to get used to working remotely on top of meeting my coworkers and learning the systems we were working with. I also had no idea what I was doing because there was no previous data manager to tell me the state of things so as I said, I was developing everything from scratch, which is what I signed up for.

So there were definitely learning moments - times I made mistakes with the data, times where I wasn’t working at the pace my boss expected (apparently her expectations are so high even her PHD mentees get scared of her), and slow times where I didn’t have much to do. But I learned from these moments and I’m especially thankful for our Science Officer, who is basically my working supervisor. She’s a recent PHD, very chill, and very understanding. We can’t work in the same office, but she’s more on the grounds and I feel like I can have those “quick office meetings” with her. At this point, I’ve reached a good, working rhythm for my role.

So as it is now February, my funding for 1 year was about to expire. It’s actually crazy to me that’s it already been almost a year and that I lasted this long, because there were points in the summer where I definitely felt like I’d get fired because of the difficulties, but praise God we’re here. So this past week I emailed my boss to start the conversation about what will happen going forward - is there more funding or if not, when will I end? To my surprise, my boss called me 5 minutes later saying she already begun the process of getting more funding and I have been approved for at least 6 months, it not more! She also commented that I’ve been doing a good job and that my supervisor really enjoys working with me. All I can say is that I’m thankful that I’ve gotten to this point, because it wasn’t easy and I can’t say that I’m doing a perfect job but I’m thankful because God got me here. I would have never imagined I’d be at a different job a year ago, but this is the story of my life - God always provides at just the right time. I actually found out that at my old job, they started furloughing people due to covid and my position would have been on that list, so I would’ve been unemployed. God always knows best!

Church

Our church has been virtual ever since quarantine started in Michigan. There was a short spurt where we tried to be in person, but for the safety and love of our congregation, we’ve been sticking to virtual. It’s definitely not the same to be virtual, but I do think it challenges us to rework our standards. Church is not just a building after all, and it reminds me of how the early church in Acts was scattered from persecution, so they were physically apart, but the church multiplied, actually, because everyone had different spheres of influence. More on this thought in a second.

At this point last year I wasn’t leading a Life Group. I was just a member, trying to get adjusted to our single adult ministry but still on the Executive Team of our church. I was considering what to do in terms of renewing commitments etc but didn’t feel like I had any convictions yet. That changed one night. Another leader in our church randomly messaged me about how in their LG, a senior was sharing about their plans after graduation. They planned to move back to their home country and pursue their passions of outreach ministry. What does this have to do with me? Well it turns out, I was the person who suggested to them to explore this passion through our Outreach Team in our church because I was the person who was assigning his ministry team in our church. I’ve actually never had a LG with this senior and have had no significant conversations with him since that initial assignment, but even just from that one encounter, it’s changing the course of his life. The leader encouraged me that non of my ministry efforts were in vain. This “random” message really sparked something in me. It reminded me of the joys of discipleship, of walking together with people, and seeing them grow in their talents and passions - having front row seats. And, having a year off from leadership - I really missed having the platform to do that. Not to say you can’t do that without a title, but the platform gives you moments like this. And so I decided I want to commit to that, through our church again. So I’m a LG leader again, in the Focus ministry.

Starting in May 2020, I’ve been leading LGs. For this calendar year, we are doing split gender groups, remotely. It’s definitely... different than what I’ve experienced in the past. I’ve found myself having to really stretch my creative juices to think of ways to foster community in remote ways. So now we do things like virtual birthdays, or group watch parties for Sunday Celebration to simulate “going” together, or having dinner together remotely.

I’ve had a LG in the Summer and one in the Fall. Based on what I shared previously, I really wanted to be involved in people’s lives and their growth. I think Covid has definitely been a hindrance to this, but in addition to that, it looks different with working adults as opposed to college students. It’s true what they say: college is a formative time in someone’s life. They’re still learning about themselves, and figuring who they want to be in this life. So as a leader, you get to see that grow and develop. Post-grad (for most of my members) though, people have gone through that already. Especially in our Focus ministry, where I deem it as a “transition” time for a lot of people. A lot of them are waiting... waiting to get into grad school, waiting for a better job, waiting to move, waiting to get married. But what does it look like to be faithful, now? We actually had a whole Bible study series over the summer about this. All this to say, I’m still trying to figure it out for myself, and then also how to lead others in this stage of life.

I will say, one joy and privilege I do get, is I’ve been paired with various co-leaders who are leading for the first time. Being able to pour in years of experience into them has been very rewarding. Also you get to see potentially a different side to some of them, or you see the talents that God has given them that they might not see for themselves. I even got to lead with someone I discipled while he was an undergrad, and now we’re both in this working adult life stage - God is faithful!

Home Life

Not really sure what to call this miscellaneous section, but I’ll just call it my “home life.”

I believe in my last update I talked about moving off-campus. My roommates and I found a place (basically) across the street and moved again in May. We each have our own room now, and the place is quite spacious. I personally don’t have any problems with having a roommate, but the others wanted their own space. This is my first (?) time not having a roommate, actually. I understand why people like it so much. You can go to sleep and wake up whenever you want without disturbing someone and you can keep the room as clean or as dirty as you want. Also we each get our own bathroom so that’s comfy, too.

Like many others, I have been working from some since quarantine started. I’ve set up a desk near the living room. I just enjoy being out there as opposed to being cooped up in my room. It’s brighter, more lively, and I get to see the roommates past by once in a while. The only downside is if I have a meeting at night - I have to move to my room with no desk to answer the Zoom call.

My roommates have been working from home too. It’s a stark contrast against when all three of us would be commuting to work. It feels like instead of having lived with them for 2 years, It’s been 10 years. When you see a person not just everyday, but many hours per day, you’ve accelerated the timeline. I’m thankful for that, though, because who knows when they’ll move so getting time to get to know them now is a silver lining while being forced to work from home.

At first, when you work from home, it feels like a gift.. but then soon you realize if you don’t set limits for yourself, “home” will always feel like a potential arena for “work” and then you never really leave mentally.. It’s a good test of work-life balance. I think I’ve gotten into a decent routine and have a rough schedule everyday so I can be consistent and when I “get off” work, I’m mentally relaxed.

Outside of working and online church, I don’t do much. There are literally spans of 4-5 days, up to a week, where I don’t set foot outside. And then I’ll go out to drive my car for something and it hits me “wow, this is my first time outside in a week.” I’ve been watching a lot of anime shows with my roommate. This is a rough list of everything I’ve ever watched, some within the last year as well as my current watches https://myanimelist.net/animelist/linguy?status=2.

I’ve also been playing a lot of video games, I made a list here as well... https://howlongtobeat.com/user?n=GeneralTso&s=games&completed=1

Every few weeks I visit my mom since my weekends aren’t occupied with going to church. She’s doing well, she works part time at a restaurant, and it’s all takeout. Im working on getting her scheduled for a vaccine.

On the Horizon

This would be the section where I put things I look forward to... but it’s hard to make any long term plans for now.

I guess... I’m looking forward to the day when I can start looking forward to things- when we can start planning trips, we can freely watch movies in theaters, or have birthday parties, or eat restaurants.

Until then, I’m just being faithful with what I have.

Prayer Requests

Pray for our return to normalcy.

Pray for vision for the future. I know of some friends who are going to various countries to do missions for a short-term and thinking about doing that lights a fire under me to not just settle but keep fanning the flame.

Pray for peace. Recently I feel like God is giving me peace about just where I’m at in life, but it’s still very easy to compare life circumstances with others around my age. I want to believe that I’m right where God wants me to be.

Thanks for reading so far! Here are some pictures I dug up

Christmas Hot Pot!

Some of us in Focus did shopping for to partner with a charity

“Socially distant” LG Close Outs

Work

For those who don’t know, I currently am working at the University of Michigan for the Facilities and Operations department. I’ve been here since May 2018. Truthfully, it’s been quite a journey. When I first applied for this job, I thought it would just be a temporary job. Part of the reason is that the job I applied for (and am still doing) is not a full-time (so no benefits, vacation time, etc). and is based on a contract for a limited amount of time. I just needed something to tie me over because I was already unemployed for 4 months. They offered me the position and at first, I for sure did not want to stay, because all I was doing was data entry, day after day - a very mundane job. But while I was trying to apply for other positions, my position actually started to grow and evolve. The demands of our department and the work started getting more complex, and I was trusted with more and more responsibility. At the moment, I am “the data guy.” I work with a database and I’d like to say I know it inside and out and can prepare data reports at the snap of a finger. These reports aren’t meaningless either - they’re part of a department-wide initiative that one of the VPs of UM is overseeing, so in a sense, you could say I’m doing something very important for a VP! So not only am I doing what I feel to be meaningful, fruitful work, but I do it well, and I don’t think you can ask for much more in a career. In our generation, we live for self-actualization, wanting to be “fulfilled” in our career. But the cultural mandate in Genesis 1 is to fill the earth and cultivate it. 

For me, I feel like I’m doing that right now. Not to mention I have some fantastic coworkers. There is someone I started at the same time with, J, and we’ve grown into really great friends which I don’t say lightly, because before this, I can’t say I’ve had a good friend I’ve made from work. But we invite each other to hangouts all the time outside of work and he’s even come to various church events. Another person I want to highlight is my boss, A. She is like my work mom, always watching out for me. It was on her initiative that J and I got a 6 month contract extension and then a raise. It was also on her initiative that I’m able to have a job after Nov 2019 (when my original contract ended) by finding a work around. Having a manager who advocates for you and fights for you is rare and I’m blessed to have one.

I see the God’s provision represented in where I’m at right now. I say that because I have not been unemployed for a single day since May 2018. Originally, I was supposed to only last until May 2019. Then I got extended to November. When November was approaching, I started praying and wondering how God would provide. Then my boss was able to offer me a new extension, but because of university policy, I would have to be unemployed for December until the new year. However, through some connections, my office connected me with another office that was looking for someone to do some temp work during the exact time I would have been unemployed! So right now I work in the Facilities/Operations Information Systems office until January when I will return to my old position. 

All this to say, God is faithful and He is sovereign. In Life Group, we’ve been reading about the life of David. I think one takeaway I have from that is how David.. he never had his own career ambitions. When he was a shepherd, he was faithful where he was, and then God was the one who “change his career” into a soldier for Saul. So then David took that next step and was faithful. And then he became king and did the same. Never did he feel like he was in financial need. Never did he feel like he was unfulfilled. I see many parallels with that story. 10 years ago, i didn’t think I’d even be Christian, and it’s journey since then, but God’s been faithful. He who did not spare His only son for us but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things (Rom 8:32)? So I’ll be faithful where I’m at and see where God leads next. Hopefully it’ll be a full-time position! 

Church/Ministry

In my previous update, I shared about how I transitioned into our working adult ministry. It took some adjusting and making new friends, but at this point I feel really settled in. I’m thankful that I’ve been welcomed and have been invited to various hang outs/birthday parties/etc that Focus does. Before this year, I had a limited scope of what goes on in Focus. Now that I’m here, I can see that generally, there is ministry being done in Focus. There are people who focus on reaching out to their coworkers and sometimes we see them in Life Group. There are also people who like bringing us together for theological discussions. It’s far from a “dead” ministry. That being said, now that I’m amongst peers, I think I understand why the ministry can be called/feels like a “transition ministry.” Truthfully, this isn’t the final place for many people. Some people are looking for their first job out of college. Some people are just taking a year or two to work as part of a gap year while they transition into another career path. Some people, truthfully, just don’t want to live in small town Ann Arbor. Because of these reasons, it becomes easy to give excuses to not invest since you won’t be here that long or “I’m called to med school so I think it’s wiser for me to use this night to study than do this thing with Life Group.” I fall prey to this temptation, too. There are some nights where I’m just not feeling it, I want to be by myself. So I see that as a huge obstacle to navigate for our ministry if we want to grow and burgeon. 

I chose to not lead Life Group this year because I wanted space to reach out to people. Once a week, I’ve been tutoring a Syrian refugee. I will call him A. I found A through Washtenaw Refugee Company.  I wanted some way to reach out to unreached people groups who live in our area. A was forced to leave Syria to Jordan and then moved from Jordan to Michigan. He and mother and brothers are making a new life for themselves here. Currently A works in a Middle Eastern restaurant but he aspires to one day be an engineer. In order to do that, he needs to take classes at Washtenaw Community College. And in order to get there, he needs to improve his English. So I took it upon myself to go through a study book with him. I actually have no experience tutoring someone in this, so at first I had to get a feel for what he needed. It’s been going really well, though. A is diligent and works hard to study and memorize the lessons we go through each week, I’m impressed. Starting in January, he’ll be taking an ESL class at WCC! We’ve also become good friends. His mom and brothers have welcome me into their home and we share food and culture together. I even told him about the Jordan missions trip, just as a way to share about my faith. They even offered to help cook. Overall, it’s been a huge blessing and I hope to thoroughly share the Gospel with him.

Missions

At the end of January, I’m going with our church on a missions trip to Jordan. The church has been there once before. For me, this is my first international missions trip. I’m actually hoping to take a lot away from this trip. I hope to be exposed to what God’s doing globally and also for myself, you can call it a “vision trip.” As I’ve outlined above, I don’t know where the Lord is taking me in the next few years, but I’m hoping by faith, that He’ll reveal something during this trip. 

Misc.

In August, I moved from my apartment on campus. I lived in that apartment for 4 years. I chose to continue to live there during that time because you just can’t replace the organic experiences that come from living on campus, close to the people you minister. And it really was unforgettable; so many memories in that apartment, and especially with the roommates I’ve lived with - they’ve become life long friends. But as I moved on from campus ministry, I decided it was time for a change. Currently I live on South Campus. It’s about a 5 minute drive from my workplace - can’t beat that! I live with 2 other roommates that I’ve never lived with before. Truthfully, the apartment is a clear upgrade from where I was previously. It costs more too, but you get what you pay for. It does change my lifestyle, though. No more walking 5 minutes to get No Thai for food or going to play basketball. Now I have to drive everywhere. It makes time more.. precious. I’m thankful for my roommates. They have a standard for cleanliness and we all get along and bond over watching tv shows or video games or eating. I’ll never get the time back from being on campus, but I don’t have it too bad right now, either.

Family is doing well. My mom and I both are sick over the holidays, actually, but I don’t think that’ll keep us down. I also got to visit my sister in NY over the summer and see my niece and nephew. They’re both growing up so fast.. 

Hoping to take some trips throughout 2020. Hopefully to China, New York, and we’ll see what else comes up! 

Prayer Requests

Praying for clarity of direction - I’ve learned it’s not about what I’m meant to do, but who I’m meant to be. So whatever decision that makes me more trusting, more living, more merciful, etc!

Praying for provision - Still need a full-time job in some aspect. Some doors are opening up in my department and I plan on applying and seeing where that leads. 

Adventure involves risk though and in the past few months, I decided to take some, because if I want to move forward in life, there is uncertainty involved. So what does that look like?

Ministry

I am no serving in campus ministry. I’ve been a leader for the past 5 years - it’s the only life I knew since becoming a post-grad. I’m thankful for everything I learned during that time and the relationships I built. Many people who get my update emails are because I was a LG leader. And I think there is always a need for people who want to serve. If I continued, there would be an element of familiarity and stability, because I’ve been around the block and have a general feel for leading at this point. But, as I prayed about recommitting, I realized it’s time for new ventures. There are many unreached people, even here in the AA-Ypsi area, and I wanted to reach them and be amongst them. Do I have strategy for how that will look? Not all. I actually am pretty weak at “apostolic” giftings. But I’m available and I’m going to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, like Philip in Acts 8, and we’ll see where we go from there. 

I was given advice to just try and explore ways to reach unreached people. So to get some inspiration, I took a trip to Dearborn with some folks and Pastor Mark Vanderput, who does a lot of outreach to Muslims in the area. 

A few things that stood out from the trip was meeting a missionary couple who do full time ministry in Dearborn. We only had an hour with them, but you could tell that we were only scratching the surface of the immersive world of missions. Their knowledge and experience was so full. And just seeing those two working together.. I couldn’t help but think “this is what I want my life to look like one day.” 

I was also thankful for Pastor Mark because he has such a wealth of experience reaching to Muslims from all over the world, including stories of traveling to the Middle East. It makes it easy for him to connect with anyone we met, whether a server or a clerk and everything in between. Although there wasn’t anything tangible we were gonna do to follow up with, it was good as a “vision trip.”

As recently as yesterday I went exploring the Ypsilanti area for opportunities to serve families whether they’re low income or immigrant or both. We were able to talk to a social worker who works at the community center and he gave us a wealth of knowledge about the landscape and opportunities to serve people. We also went to a Middle Eastern store to talk to people who live in the area, in hopes to find out how to meet and love Muslims in the area. 

I wish I could say at this time I already have a strategy and ideas lined up, but in actuality, I’m still figuring it out. It’ll take a lot of prayer and God opening doors. But I’m confident that He loves the people more than I do.

I’m part of the single adult Life Groups now. It’s a little different than what I’m used to, but personally, I’ve been having a good time. We’re going through a series on discovering our calling in this life. I see Life Group as a home base as I live life on a mission. 

Work

In January I got an extension on my contract that will last me till November! This isn’t the job I’ll have forever, obviously, and it’s risky for me to just work till the end with no security in place at the end. That being said, I’m choosing to do this because I just see God’s work in my life through being here. I’ve made a solid friendship with my office-mate Jacob. We can talk about our mutual interests but I’ve also been able to share my faith with him and he’s even come to a Life Group event! Aside from that, I think I’m doing meaningful work for the University and I love my office. I think I’ll be able to learn more about myself and my vocational calling through this job.

Odds and Ends

I’ll be moving out of my current apartment to another one in August! Gonna miss current roommates, it’s been a 2 year run with them and they’ve become my community in various ways. In general, I’m going to miss living on campus. There were so many spontaneous moments of ministering to people and having them sleep over because I lived in such a convenient location. It just wouldn’t have been the same if I was living off-campus. But now I’m in a new season, so it’s time for a change. 

(not our actual new interior, but this is the living room)

57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus[g] said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

-Luke 9

It’s been a few months since my last post. Just a quick update on some areas of my life:

Health: In the summer I felt some soreness in my knee. This is the same knee that I had/still have a partial tear in my meniscus. That was a a few years ago and I did PT to rehab. I’ve been playing sports ever since but then it started getting sore again, so I got it checked out and it turns out I have symptoms of quad tendinitis which probably explains how I’m feeling. This has led me to going to weekly PT sessions early in the morning once a week to rehab and strengthen my leg. Those days feel especially long because I wake up at 6:45 and don’t end my day until work ends probably around 530 or 6. Praise God, though, because I don’t need surgery and it should just better with discipline and faithful exercise. It’s sad, though, because I couldn’t play basketball while I was rehabbing. However, I just had my last PT yesterday so I hope to be healthy enough in time for flag football in 2 months!

Family: I’m really thankful to have gotten to see both of my sisters in person in August. Because they have their own families, it’s hard to see them even once a year. They also brought their families, so I’m able to see them grow up before my eyes. I know they always have my back but at the same time, it’s hard to communicate to them what I’m up to around here in AA (more on all of this later). I probably won’t get to see either of them until next year, but I’m resolved to update them more frequently about my life, mainly through Wechat (we even started a wechat group).

Work: I started working in a temporary position for the University of Michigan, this time with the Facilities department. I work with data and it’s a temporary position because once we are finished with our project of transferring data over to a new system, then the job is over. Also, the job is a “temporary” position so I don’t get benefits or vacation time. With all this being said, I thought I’d be pretty miserable at this job, but it’s actually going fairly well. My coworkers are great and there’s work to do everyday. Also, there are opportunities for me to apply some IOE things to our job, so it’s good to keep practicing. I do have to look for a “long term” position.. somewhere, but I know I have until May to figure it out. My officemate’s name is Jacob and he’s great, he’s around my age, we share similar hobbies so we can always talk about that. More than those things, though, he has some inspirational qualities to him whether it’s his empathy, openess, or his drive. He wants to be a video game designer one day, and every decision he makes is in relation to that - he studied Screen Arts in order to learn how to write stories and make content (which can be used for gaming), he’s networked with professionals, and he’s making his own video game on the side as experience. It’s really driven me as well to want to make intentional decisions for my career, but I need to pray about those next steps. I’m also praying that I can invite Jacob to church events, he is actually pretty open! 

Ministry: Once again I will be leading an undergrad Life Group. We just had our first meeting yesterday. The life group passage is Luke 9:57-62 (seen above). Our name is “CostGo” representing how there is a cost to discipleship (”going”) for Christ. More on this later, but I really see my leadership this year reflecting my relationship with God. I don’t know how many more years I’ll be doing this, but as long as I can, I view it as a huge privilege to be in the lives of people in their most formative years. 

Overall: This summer was the most packed and long summer in a while. Between ministry and personal and friendship obligations, I was very occupied. As I was praying about my life and my future, and also as I look at the events around me, I see that there are many things that I’ve had to give up. I’m giving up opportunities for “better” careers in other cities. Alongside that, the comforts that money can afford and being able to support my mom so she can stop working and relax. My mom might be able to move to a city with more relatives because she wouldn’t be in Michigan if I weren’t in Michigan. Maybe I could be dating or married as well because I wouldn’t have specific requirements for a partner. Overall, there is a cost to obeying Christ whether it’s on me, or it’s on someone else like my mom. It’s crazy because I’m only just understanding this now, when I’m X years out of undergrad. But I believe that God is calling me to put two hands to the plow and not look back at “what could have been,” but rather pressing on to what’s ahead, knowing He holds my life in His very capable hands. That’s the kind of disciple He calls me to be - one with full trust and no regrets, even if it’s hard, even if it means costly decisions. In the same vein, I’m really praying my LG would be people who make costly decisions for Christ, because we can do it now as undergrads, they’ll change the world afterwards. 

So with that being said, some prayer requests:

Pray for direction in my career, that it’s in alignment with his plan

Pray I can lead this LG out of my relationship with God

Pray I can continue to be a disciple who is firm in his identity and makes costly decisions

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,

In Romans 5:3, we see the word “sufferings” or “tribulations” in the KJV. Translated in the Greek, it means “a pressing” or “burden.”

I’ve always thought that, compared to brothers and sisters in places like the Middle East where they are literally dying and tortured, I’m not suffering; I don’t have trials. I just have to suck it up, because I have no right to complain.

But I think it’s not as black and white as that. I’m learning that Christians all go through tribulations, in their own way that will test them.

I was unemployed for about 4 months, which I hear isn’t the longest, but it still was a good chunk of time. It might have been one of the most soul-crushing periods of my life – waking up not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing, no replies to submitted resumes, rejections after getting your hopes up from an interview. Alongside that, I’ve faced disappointments in ministry, interruptions in my timeline, friends leaving, and I’m also single with (from my perspective) no prospects on the horizon. Some people say I look really… tired. That’s probably because I’ve also had this issue where every night I wake up in the middle of the night for no reason, so I don’t get adequate sleep. I still don’t know the reason why that’s happening, but I can’t help think it’s related to all the things I’ve been facing.

I say all this not because I’m wanting sympathy, but just to say that it’s true what Paul says, Christians do go through tribulations. But what’s been encouraging is what comes next in the Romans verse.

knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Suffering leads to perseverance. If by some grace of God, in the face of tribulations in your life you remain endure in the faith, then your faith comes out of it more steadfast and strong, like metal that is refine in fire. Then perseverance produces character. It’s important to note that “character” in the Greek means something that’s “proven.” What does this mean? It means that the faith you came out of the tribulations with is really faith, and not just something you made up in your head or your parents’ faith, or anything disingenuous like that. And lastly, character leads to hope. And I believe that hope is not just something you wish for, but something you expect, especially in regards to salvation. The real faith that I came out of trials with points to me to the real hope found in the real Christ.

Why do I have to go through all the things I’m going through? I can’t answer that in a nicely-gift wrapped answer that Joseph in Genesis could answer, or David, etc. But if the only answer I can hold onto is that coming out of it I am a little more confident that my faith is real and genuine, I think that’s a blessing. I don’t deserve more than that, but praise God that I get it anyways.

Here’s a few things I’m taking away from some recent events

I’ve been asking why does obedience and honoring people lead to disappointment and heartbreak. The comfort I can takeaway is looking at Jesus’ example. He obeyed God which led to his death. But it was the only way that we could have access to the Father. Maybe for me as well, it was the only way that I could know Jesus more through his empathy. Like it says in Hebrews 4:15-16 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Reading through the early life of David (before he was king), I realized how much it actually sucked. He lived everyday not knowing if he’d die by the hands of Saul. He had to move all the time, along with his family and friends. He lived amongst his enemies not knowing if they’d turn him over.  So when he was presented an opportunity to kill Saul in both 1 Sam 24 and 26, he has every motivation to want to seize the moment and take control of his own life. But how does he respond? He spares Saul twice, because he trusts in God’s plan and will not disobey or dishonor, knowing that God will redeem and vindicate him. If this man, someone more righteous and justified than I am, will continue to obey God, how much more am I called to obey and not take things into my own hand? And we see that later on, God, through His power, established David as king and redeems his suffering. We receive redemption, He receives the glory.

Later on in his life, King David also faced disappointment. He wanted to build a house for God, but God said no. How could God say no to such a good-sounding plan? It’s because God has a better plan, even if we don’t understand it in the current moment. And in 2 Sam 7, we see that David responds to a “no” by reflecting on God’s faithfulness, worshipping Him, and surrendering future plans. I’m praying I can do the same.

Circumstances are hard, but God’s love doesn’t change.

Speaking of circumstances, though, here’s some things that have been going on recently

I actually have found some temporary work with the UM. Basically, I am helping with some data transferring. It isn’t something that I want to do for the rest of my life, in fact they only have funding for me up to a year anyways. And it doesn’t have any benefits. But after praying about it, I took the job because I was receiving similar vibes as when I graduated undergrad, took a job in the credit union which I didn’t see myself doing forever, and during that time figured out I wanted to go to grad school. I took this job in faith that God knows what He’s doing with my life.

Weirdly enough, this week I’ve been getting phone calls for interviews with jobs in the area that I actually want to do. Although I feel bad if I were to leave my current job so quickly, there is an understanding that we could possibly leave at any time. And there’s no guarantee I’ll pass the interview anyways.

I have a coworker that I share an office with and so I get to see him every day. I’m praying that with the time I have to make friends and hopefully invite him to join biblical community.

We are currently in the Spring/Summer season of our church so I’m co-leading an all-male LG. I personally don’t know any of the members so one of my first priorities will be to meet them. I see more and more how our calling as disciples who make disciples can play out in a LG context. It’s me and 3 second year leaders and I’m hoping to coach them and challenge their way of thinking. It’s been really fun because of that.

Currently my mom is in China for 6 weeks. I understand now how out of state people feel when they leave home.

There’s a good handful of friends leaving throughout the summer and I think I’ll be sad every time, but I’m thankful because God has been and always provides new relationships to build and run the race with.

I still live in the apartment I live at (with 3 undergrads) and don’t intend to move as long as I’m leading an Undergrad LG. There’s something to be said about presence and I can’t count how many moments of ministry I’ve been able to have simply because I can walk over to someone else’s place. Those are just organic and cannot be manufactured in other ways. From every indication, I don’t think Jesus ever had a luxurious place to live, in fact he was homeless. “But a nicer place means you can host people more often.” Something I’ve learned is that Jesus never told someone “come listen to me at synagogue.” Rather, he said “I’m coming to your house.” We are called to be incarnational.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to travel in the near future, mostly for financial reasons, but also because my sisters are visiting Michigan anyways in the summer. Sorry I can’t visit anyone.

New Year, Same Me!

Here’s some things that’s been happening or I’ve been learning:

Family

This sounds trivial, but I started and caught up with a show called This is Us. It’s a drama about one family, their lives, their relationships with each other, and how their past affects their present. It actually has been very impactful in making me realize that I don’t stay in touch with my immediate family as much as I should be. Someone recently was surprised that I had two older sisters. Well, to be honest, I don’t share about them that much because I don’t know what’s going on. And it’s easy to say “phones are 2 ways” but I haven’t even been holding up my end of the bargain, who am I to hold them to theirs? If I’m not careful, I’m going to miss out on their big moments out of my own fear of not understanding them and the age gap between us. Practically speaking, I’ve been putting reminders in my calendar to call them and also just check WeChat (like a Chinese Facebook) where they post their updates. 

My mom is doing alright. She had a small procedure on her eye to clear out some fluid and she recovered in 2 days and it was already back to work. She sometimes has to drive up to 30 minutes to work, and considering she drives a minivan which just eats gas, I really wonder if what she makes is worth it. I ask her when she’ll retire but apparently she’s just not financially in a place where retirement will be stable enough. I think that’s sad on the part of the government, and for us, we just have to keep grinding, hopefully I can support her through my job as well so she can retire sooner than later.

Career

I sent this in a short update email, but just to recap, my current job is ending on 1/26. In our department, “fellows” are hired on a one year basis (kind of like a long internship) and afterward, people could get renewed if there’s funding, or they get hired into a full-time position (again, if there’s funding). Due to a series of complicated reasons, my position is not getting renewed or replaced, so I’m just out of luck. But, if the timing is right, a full-time engineering position could open and today, 1/19, I have an interview for one at UM! It’s similar work to what I’m doing, but I suppose you could call it a “promotion” if I were to get the interview. Because my job is ending, it’s been a good time to pray about my future and evaluate my career. I’ve concluded that I’m still woefully ill-prepared to work overseas, if God were to send me right now. I still need experience and connections or I wouldn’t be serving anyone. Also, I’ll need to do more research into what IOE opportunities there are for nations with unreached people groups. 

From a while now, I thought to myself that I couldn’t see myself working in anything but healthcare at this point. Doing commercial IOE just seems... like helping people make more money. There’s no purpose to that. But recently, as I was reading through Matt 6:25-34, I had a thought: why does Jesus talk about clothing when originally, man didn’t need clothing? Clothing was only instituted because we were naked and ashamed. That being said, God still richly provides no matter the original purpose, because He knows what we need. In fact, He uses the idea of clothing in so many of His promises, something that was meant to cover our shame, redeemed for His glory. So in the same way, I’m opening up to other job opportunities, even if they don’t seem “purposeful” or “what I think to be a noble cause,” because God can redeem everything for His glory. 

Ministry

Recently I’ve had to take some more responsibility in serving. Although this is not ideal, I see it as an opportunity to disciple the people around me like my co-leaders. 

There have been many good things that have been happening with our Life Group. Although 2 sisters left to study abroad this past semester, we’re still growing. We’re reading the book of Psalms now and I’m praying that will have an impact on our spiritual lives. Along with that, a newcomer sister accepted Christ at retreat! I’m just always amazed at the simple faith that some of these new believers have, but she felt peace when praying to God, believes she’s a sinner, and wants to follow after Jesus. Please keep her in prayer, the harvest is so plentiful in her heart and we need to disciple her as well as all the other young believers in our Life Group.

Personally/Spiritually

So with everything going such as more responsibility in church, my job status, as well as struggles in the life of some younger people in my life, I just realized that life is not under my control. And I need help in learning that this is exactly the place God wants me to be. I can’t say I know why I’m in this place, but I am, so I’m praying to be faithful, but also joyous. I’m trying to learn what it means to have joy when things aren’t in your control but you’re just called to walk faithfully. Sometimes, circumstances aren’t just under God’s control, but they will appear to go in the negative direction, and yet God commands us to rejoice in Him always. How? Well when I figure that out I’ll let you know. 

We just had our church Congregational Retreat and are now in the midst of One Desire Fast. I don’t have specific things I’m praying for during this fast - I think it’d be the same no matter what time period we’re in. Rather, I just want to be closer to God. And I think I have been. Retreat was a good time of praying honestly to God about any and everything. I learned that I have a lot of thoughts about... everything and I need someone to speak these thoughts to. I also learned that God is very willing to listen, because He knows and understands. God is a God that listens. This week, I’ve been growing in prayer by being more raw and spontaneous with what I pray about and I think I have been hearing from Him, about various areas of my life (see above). We have one more week of fasting, where I’ll only be doing one meal a week, and although that will be challenging for sure, if I’m a little closer to God by the end, then it’s worth it.

So people have been asking me recently “How’s your life? What’s new?” Well, to be honest, my situation is pretty stable and hasn’t changed much, but you’ll be the first to hear if something does! That being said, here’s how some areas of my life are going:

Spiritually

Around end of August, I was praying for the Lord’s direction in the upcoming few months or even the whole year of Life Group. God laid on my heart Jer 29:7 “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” At the time, I wasn’t really sure what this meant for my life, but I think I’m starting to see a little bit of what He could be drawing up in my life. 

Recently, there’s been some doors that I pray about that God has closed on me (at least for the time being), one of which was the Jordan missions project our church is going on. This is the first time (I think?) our church has ever gone to Jordan and as I’ve shared with people, I feel burdened for the 10/40 window and unreached people groups. So I couldn’t shake this feeling that when it was first announced that I should look into applying. But just through reading His word and praying, I just realized that, in this season, with all the other responsibilities and people in my life, I just don’t think missions should be another priority I add so I didn’t even apply. This “answer” from God, along with some others that I didn’t want to hear, led me to being unknowingly unhappy for a few weeks. At first, it really felt like spiritual attack because I didn’t know this feeling. After some reflection, though, I realized that I was just feeling disappointed. In my Christian walk, I’ve almost never known God to say no, actually, because every step of faith I’ve taken has been God-initiated and not Guy-initiated such as going to grad school, being a life group leader, staying in AA, etc. But for once in my life, this was something I wanted, and God said no. 

Drawing this back to the Jeremiah passage, I think I’m just seeing that in “seeking the welfare” of my current situation, I really am finding my welfare. I’ve only been a Christian for 6 years, no wonder there’s going to be growing pains, disappointments, and even learning to be mature! I now see that I was acting like a spoiled child. There’s so many good things that God is already doing, why should I be upset that He said no (and maybe not even forever) to one or two things? After realizing this, it was during a prayer gathering where I really felt a sense of peace and thankfulness for my life. It was ironically after a long week of work, but I felt so fulfilled because I really was living out the life that I would want for myself eventually - tentmaking in a city, while ministering to people who need the Gospel, and building up the local church. Maybe the location of Ann Arbor isn’t “glamorous,” but this is right where God wants me to be. 

Prayer Request: Growing up in my faith. Instead of feeling like God gives authoritative “no’s,” to instead see it as a Father saying “hold on, let’s figure out what’s best for you.”

Ministry

With a new school year comes a new Life Group of undergrads to lead. My group of is called the The Regiment. A regimen is a disciplined path of healing and restoration. A regiment is a group of people who do that. The “t” at the end represents Christ, so in total, we are a group of people being healed and restored to Christ. We have a good mix of ages in this group and I think the struggle is for all of us to choose Christ. Whether it’s success, security, notoriety, etc, we’re all struggling to choose Christ in the big picture, and even in our daily disciplines of reading the Word or prayer. So, we still have a lot of growth to do, but I am thankful for the group of people themselves, we’re really fun, and enjoy spending time with one another. 

Two praises is that 1. Someone accepted Christ in our Life Group! This is a guy who was invited out by another member, and through reading the Bible one-on-one and the community, decided to accept Jesus as savior! Now begins the hard work of making disciples. 2. We’ve been seeing a lot of newcomers come through our group, some of them have even stuck around! I’m especially thankful that for our Thanksgiving outreach, we had more newcomers than we even planned for! We even ran out of care packages, so God is awesome.

There’s 3 leaders in our group, including myself, so I actually don’t end up “doing” much, but I’m now in a role of coaching up younger leaders to take charge. It really feels like a coach on the sideline watching the players execute. I don’t play the game per se, but I come up with the gameplan and debrief afterwards. It’s been a learning experience.

Apart from Life Group, I’m still part of the Executive Team of our church and that has been a learning experience. I’m in this stage where most of the brothers I invest into are now leaders in our church. It makes having context easier, but I’m still very young in my faith, and I need to take the next step of growing as a disciple who makes disciples that makes disciples. 

Besides those two, ministry has been fine for the most part!

Work

If you don’t know what I do for work, please read previous updates!

My one year at work is actually coming up pretty soon, in January. In preparation for this, I’m going to have an end-of-year evaluation to see how my progress has been, what the next steps are in my growth, and what are my options. I’m on a 1 year fellowship, so technically not a long-term job even though I get benefits. I’ve been wrestling a lot with what my next step is in my career.

Prayer Request: God’s guidance on next steps.

Family

Healthwise, my mom needs cataract surgery, which isn’t uncommon for older people. I don’t think either of us are too worried about this, she should be getting it next month. 

I wasn’t going to write much, but then Thanksgiving break happened and there was an interesting conversation I had with my mom which started with her asking about if I’m dating yet. Long story short, I think what I learned from this conversation is that her values are very worldly and I value the truth, which I believe is the Word. She admitted that right now, her “heart isn’t open” to Christianity, but that maybe one day she will be “after her situation settles down” whether financially, health, or a combination. I’m just reminded of so many parables Jesus shared like the rich young ruler,or the foolish farmer who built up his barns - if you don’t have the heart now, are you really going to have the heart after your situation becomes more comfortable? After this conversation, I’m just all the more burdened for a heart change, but I definitely see that I can’t reason my way to transformation, but it’s the work of the Spirit.

Prayer Request: That God will change hearts. 

My sister is visiting next year in August! I’m excited for that, her family hasn’t visited in a while.

Misc. 

In line with everything I’ve been praying about, I decided to renew my lease for next year. I know people will tell me it’s not a great apartment, it’s dirty, it’s not as cheap as it could be, etc. But 1. I hate moving and 2. It’s an ideal location for ministry and work (I can walk to my workplace). I’m a low maintenance person so it’s good enough for me. Maybe, one day, if God requires me to have a bigger/nicer place to host people, I’ll move out.

I hope to be done with repaying school loans by next year, so ptl!

I’ve been looking into outreaching to Muslims in the area, after our church did a bridge-building seminar. I hope there’ll be some progress!

First, an interactive photo series that captures most of my summer moments!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10213780671932950.1073741835.1291149053&type=1&l=d0075ef167

Anddd and frequently asked questions because people enjoy these kinds of things and I was inspired recently by someone else who did this.

FAQ

What exactly do I do at my job?

Well it’s a mix of things because my job description is vey fluid. I am an Industrial Engineer with Michigan Medicine (formerly called the University of Michigan Health System). I help design floor plans for a new hospital (pending final approval) by measuring walk distances, meeting with staff to hear feedback, drawing pictures, design computer programs, plan hotel events, and anything else that’s required! Like I said, it’s whatever is needed to get the job done. 

It’s flexible hours as long as I get my work done as well as being a 10 minute walking commute, so that’s a huge blessing because I can do ministry.

Where do you live right now and with whom?

I still live on central campus, near the CCRB. I live with David (Yetch) Lee, Lucas Song, and Calvin Shin. You may or may not know them, but they’re all students! It will be an interesting year...

What’s your future plans?

I don’t have a timeline, and based on lessons from this summer, I am very ok with saying that. I just know what I have to stay faithful to, and that already occupies my time and energy. Besides that, I’ll take it one step at a time because God is also pretty faithful in revealing next steps while in the midst of busyness

So... when you getting married?

This is a very loaded question that assumes I want to get married in the first place! Let’s just leave this as... “I’m praying about the future” for now. I was encouraged (?) recently by someone who said that if you have the urge to marry, that probably means God is giving you the gift of marriage. It’s very easy for me to see feelings as human weakness, but if I am able to see it as a gift, then that’s a game-changer.

Prayer requests?

That I would find my welfare in the situation God has called me to (Jeremiah 29:7). I was convicted by this passage recently as I thought about my calling for this upcoming year

Pre-Christians in my life like my mom or people I’ve known for a while like Anderson, who’s been coming out to LG for a year now. Also, opportunities to share the Gospel at work as well, I need more opportunities like that especially since I primarily work with middle-aged, married, white women who don’t live in Ann Arbor D:

As I’ve been reflecting about how it’s been recently, I found myself saying the words “at a loss” a lot. I think that would be pretty appropriate to describe how it’s been, as a I begin a new season of LG leading.

I had a talk with a missionary in March, seeking advice about next steps in my life if I want to one day go overseas. He encouraged me to build up career experience because if you want to get into those third-world countries, they want to know that you’re a respectable worker. They should want you. So I guess there’s a lot of waiting involved in this before I can fully realize this vision. Ideally, it’d be nice to live in a small town where there are no Christians, where everyone knows each other and you start a church there that can practically be God’s hands and feet to people. That’s the dream. I talked to Pastor Pete about this and he told me to pray through some possible opportunities for the future, so that’s exciting as well!

Semi-related, I joined the Outreach team of church and it’s encouraging and inspiring to partner with other people who have a heart for the lost and reaching out to the “less than these” of the local area. I’m challenged because some of these guys are outreaching every week faithfully. They’ve been connections to the people and know each other by name. We even went to a City Council meeting to show support for a proposal that would benefit the homeless population. These are the kind of things I envisioned when joining and God has been faithful. One day, in that small town, I would hope that this is the kind of life I’d be living as well, that’s my ministry. It’s going to be a busy year, though, as it’s looking like I’ll be on 3 ministry teams.

Another year of Life Group ended a few weeks ago. You can see our picture below! It was not an easy group, but I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to be the main leader. More than doing what I wanted, I had to be submitted to God’s timing and direction for the group. My hope is that as we walk away, we learned what it means to Be the Light to people all around us! I’m at a loss towards how I feel. I’ll miss the people, but not all the headaches, haha. I’m thankful that some guys I’ve reached out to since they were freshmen ended up joining our group. Two of them were freshmen year hallmates, small world (even though there are no coincidences with God).

I recently had my wisdom tooth (singular because I only have one!) and the recovery has gone much better than the horror stories people tell me.

I had an opportunity to share about my grad school testimony at church. Here’s a link to the video if you missed out! https://vimeo.com/215942607 (password is Hisgloryourstory). At first I didn’t think I should because I’m “old” compared to the undergrads, but if the purpose of grad night is to give God glory, then I think I had a worthwhile testimony to share. Unfortunately none of my grad school friends came, but I’m glad I got the opportunity to meet some of them.

Going off of that, P. Pete shared something along the lines of “your college faith won’t get you through working adult life.” I used to scoff at this line, but because I was working already, I related a lot to that line. I’m at a loss for how to survive. Maybe it’s waking up early in the morning and not having time to read the Word, or it being hard to evangelize to coworkers, or just not feeling connected to God throughout the day, but overall, it’s just hard. I couldn’t really pinpoint why it’s been like this or what’s going on, but someone pointed me to the picture below (called the discipleship square). There was a point where the disciples of Jesus went from being super enthusiastic to their new life but not knowing anything (unconsciously incompetent) to recognizing that they can’t cast out demons, they weren’t ready to leave everything behind, etc.  It seems like i’m in the D2 phase right now, where I’m consciously incompetent about how to commune with God in this stage of life. It’s like you know a Person, but all of a sudden you’re in a new environment with this Person and it’s like you don’t know Them anymore. I need to learn how to be aware of God and invite Him into my life from the 8-5. So I think I need to turn the corner to D3 - consciously competent. There’s a few suggestions that could help: plan out the day in the morning, imagine what it looks like to be in God’s presence for that day, learn to be “Gospel fluent” with coworkers, be spiritually disciplined at work, and pray for coworkers if things come up. It’s interesting that the age dynamic I have with them may actually ease any tension about mentioning church or prayer to them - they’d probably just think “oh that’s nice of Guy.” But if I could get to that place that Prebi is at with his coworkers, that’d be awesome. And dreaming bigger - what would it be like to bring the church to them? Mom’s are busy, they may not come to church on sundays. Instead, plant the church right at work, because that’s what a lot of missionaries have to do. That’s kind of what Paul did when he would travel to various cities.

In terms of the job itself, I’m at a loss at how great the job itself has been for me. It’s flexible in terms of where I work so it allows me to do ministry or meet people on campus if I need to be. I definitely don’t think have 40 hours worth of work a week yet for some reason I still get paid as such. My boss is also lax about needing to take days off, commenting “just put down you worked that day and make it up the rest of the week.” It’s not a job I deserve, but by God’s grace and connections, somehow I found a great fit for me.

I’ll be leading a ministry team this year, which is new. Without getting into too many details, I think I’m at a loss for what to do and how to lead a team in the first place. I think there will have to be a lot of re-organizing, but this is what it means to be on the Executive Team - to pretend to know what you’re doing with lots of dependence on God, who always proves Himself faithful. 

Going to Vancouver Aug 7-9 and SF Aug 9-11! It’ll be a crazy week

Going into the summer, there’s a still a lot of things I’m confused about in life as I outlined above. What makes things worse as well, is that summer is the time when people leave Ann Arbor. It’s going to feel weird, again, but the ministry continues. Besides that, I’m also excited for new things. New LG, new TC leaders, new ministry team - a lot of room for discipleship of the next generation. One day, maybe I’ll be the one leaving in the summer, too, but my job’s not done until I can faithfully say I gave everything I had and I multiplied myself.

Peace

January - early February

I started serving on the executive team of our church. Like many things in our church, there seems to be a lack of transparency as to the roles and responsibilities from an outsider’s perspective, but it made more sense the more dialogue and meetings I was exposed to. I’m thankful for the opportunity because the topics we talk about at the scale we look at it, affects the whole church. As someone who wants to plant a church in the future, this is invaluable experience. Plus I’m not dying from serving on this team so far, so that’s a plus.

For my devotions, I bought a Bible https://www.amazon.com/NIV-Cultural-Backgrounds-Study-Bible/dp/0310431581 which gives cultural background to passages. Sometimes Bible passages can be confusing because we aren’t the intended audience, so I sought to alleviate that. Along with that, I’m reading a reading plan called the Chronological Bible Reading Plan which seeks to read the Bible in one year in the chronological order of happenings (so Job comes after Genesis 8, weird!)

That being said, reading Job even with that study Bible was hard. Although I learned things, it didn’t feel connected to my life.

Our church had our congregational retreat and I had a really good time personally. I was able to have some one on one conversation with the speaker, Pastor James Cha. He’s basically lived the life that I want to live - Master’s in engineering, church planted in a “dark” country, and used his degree for the Gospel. The retreat inspired me to dream bigger for my career and invest into it because for many countries, missionaries are denied, but reputable engineers wouldn’t be. So even though I only just started my job and have a long way to go (Pastor James worked 10 years before he went overseas!) I know my goal and pray that God will develop me to the point that I’ll be able to go one day.

After that we started our One Desire Fast as a church. I prayed about applying to the Detroit church plant. I concluded that I should not be applying in this season, but when I told someone, they gave me some push back and to be honest, their points were very valid (leading me to question my life..). Most of my reasons for not applying could be addressed, and if God says “go,” then you just have to go. So, after more fasting and coincidentally preparing Life Group Bible studies that were relevant, I still resolved to not apply. I felt like God wanted me to build up the ministry here, especially how we as a church need to grow in our presence on campus and in the city. As I am going to start serving on the Outreach team, I think this is a perfect storm. Detroit is a great opportunity to pass up. It’s a city in need of the Gospel, it’s nearby and especially close to my Mom should I ever need to do anything, and I’m sure I could find a job. But it’s not the season I find myself in. 

mid Feburary - now

Life Group has not been easy. It seems like almost every week I find out about another person’s reasons for coming out. It feels like I’m watching people fall away before my very eyes and I can do nothing to stop it. I think it’s easy to question why all this is happening and be discouraged, especially because I felt so strong about my convictions for the direction of this LG. But, as I’ve seen how my Core team faithfully serves and partners together with me, and the discouragement they go through, I have to be steadfast. The Good Shepherd knows His sheep better than I ever could. I’ll be faithful in being there for people, hearing them out, but if they don’t have to faith to choose God, then that’s God’s sovereignty. I’ll be faithful with the people who are here. And I’m thankful for those who are actually coming out, because after our spring break trip to a really nice cottage, I see how much growth and fruit God is actually producing in investing into these few. There’s still a lot of potential for us to grow in, and every little victory is a praise to Him.

Work has been actually very chill. I work as an Engineering Fellow for Michigan Medicine (the new name for UM Health System, there’s a lot of controversy about this name...). My specific project is to support my boss in Lean-led design for a new hospital tower that’s going to be built in connection to the current hospital and the plan is to be built in 5 years. Everyday looks different for me. Sometimes I go in at 9, sometimes it’s 6:30 am to meet surgeons. Many days I’m free to go home by 3 and that’s pretty awesome. I could’ve gone into many fields with my degree, but I think not only is healthcare a meaningful field, but there’s just a lot of complexity and room to for problem solving when it comes to processes. There’s a reason why hospital processes are so messy, and we aim to make sure the new tower doesn’t suffer these same problems. Plus, during retreat, I had a dream of building a hospital in a country overseas, wouldn’t that be a great way to get my foot in the door?? So we’ll see where God takes me with this job. There’s a lot of learning, especially medical terms, but at least my boss likes my work, so I just have to be faithful with this.

I finally got my first paycheck! Being paid monthly instead of bi-weekly is kind of long, though. But at least I can pay all the bills without having to rely on Mom. I hope to be able to pay off all my student loans by the end of the summer.

Health wise, I got food poisoning last week which wasn’t fun. It forced me to take a sick day and sleep all day. I asked the Lord for a restful week, but that is not what I intended... I may need an X-ray on my knee, it’s been bothering me since December, but I’m only getting checked now that I have health insurance. I’m also getting on my one (lucky me!) wisdom tooth taken out next month.

Daily devotionals, though, has been hard both because I have to wake up early in order to read first thing in the morning, and because we’re reading through Leviticus + Numbers, and that’s always a struggle for me.  

I didn’t get to think about this until now. I left RT yesterday. I didn’t prepare a speech because I didn’t expect to give one. RT has been my only ministry team the entire time I’ve been in church. It feels bittersweet to leave because even though my direction in life is changing, it’s always hard to say good-bye to something you gave all that time and energy to. And the people as well, I’ve gotten to know most everyone on the team, plus there were new members, too. My flesh wants people to miss me being on the team. But I don’t think that’s right, because no team should be about one person. It’s definitely going to be weird to be on the other side of the refreshments table. RT isn’t the most time demanding or prayer demanding team, so it’s easy to take it for granted, but you do learn to be a real adult because of the commitment and there’s value in that. I won’t cry, because I just don’t do that, but someone else in my position probably would. Farewell RT, thanks for the memories.

Recently, a friend visited town and after hearing how it’s been for them, it made me pause for some perspective. We cannot take for granted the community and circumstances God has given us in this time. Because once people move away physically or life stage-wise, it’s never the same. You will most likely not recover what you lost. Why else does Apostle Paul long to see his disciples while he’s in prison? He wants to spend time with them, grow alongside them. So I’m resolving to intentionally make time for friends before they move on.

Circumstantially, life is pretty chill, actually. Working life is great because you can go to sleep peacefully at night knowing you don’t have exams/homework to work on. I’m in the middle of various transitions at church so I actually don’t have to serve much, yet. I’m trying to make the most of this time by continuing to get discipled, take on more work responsibility even if it takes more time, evangelize, read books, and staying healthy through sleep, working out, and eating right. 

What am I learning?

We can make resolute decisions because of God’s faithful character. He doesn’t force us to make a decision where the outcome proves Him faithless.

In order to be a man of outreach and His hands and feet, I have to be jealous for His people but also jealous for his justice just like Caleb was jealous for God’s justice by killing rebellious Israelites that were causing everyone else to get plagued.

January

The month of doubt - where I discovered the depths of my fear of death

I got the IOE peer advisor job… which turned into nothing because no one ever came in

Started discipling Matt

Wow.. I fasted from social media and it was so fruitful. What happened to that? I think I’m going to try to stave off of social media again. If nothing else, it’s such a time sink, I could be doing so many other things

Now I remember - I basically knew every girl the guys in Radicle liked. That’s a level of trust that I can’t overlook when I have this position of LG leader

The start of the comparison game with peers. Looking back and even now, I can’t say I’m “cured” of this struggle, but I think it goes more than just straight comparison. The reason being that I compared for a goal: am I “good” enough? Am I doing a “good” job? There are no metrics to this following Jesus thing, and that is hard for someone like me. Also, besides that, there’s a misconception in my mind that I have to reach a certain level of spirituality or resume to earn a girl’s affections, especially if that girl seems “out of my league.” But then, what is the “league” in reference to anyways? Isn’t it insecurities that Satan places into our hearts?

Mere Christianity was a really good book… it strengthened my faith, exposed my pride and envy

Not sure if it was the start, but my affections for her started to rise and get more and more confused

God’s “fairness” - it’s up to Him, it’s not something I can control or should complain about

I did read over Mere Christianity and talked to Chris and looking back, I can’t say that the fear “disappeared” but it’s more like… what do you do in response to the fears? Just give up? Keep doubting? Stay awake all night? No you keep moving forward in the faith that God is trustworthy.

I mean, I think this comes from my upbringing of comparing during high school and I still need the Gospel truth to free me of this

February

Read Meaning of Marriage - really changed my perspective about marriage

The start of CSMP!

I remember now, the sermon about Doubting Thomas. It was a really good sermon that helped my doubts as well.

The start of having to prepare for people to leave - Peter and Terry

I was also frustrated at the lack of fruit from Radicle, so far. But now I see where some of these guys are at, and I think they’re different. Maybe not super different, but some of the dreams we had for people, is only now starting to come through. If that is the case for Radicle, how can that not be the case for Highlight?

I had a big argument this month. I do regret the form of communication, but I don’t regret the intention of it. I think we both made up, though, and they appreciate me for the confrontation.

March

Circumstantially, I wouldn’t say much happened during this month, but rather learning a few things here and there. Vocationally, I was trying to take steps to move forward. Dr Liker found an opportunity with Dunning Subaru and I definitely think that helped me get experience in preparation for a job in the future.

On a younger brother note, I do think Matt has grown up a little. It’s been a long time coming since Trademark; fruit comes in time.

I thought that living with Ben would allow me to learn more from him, but I barely see him, it’s hard to get that life-on-life mentoring from him. But this was also the start of getting discipled by Sam and I think that was pretty great.

I totally forgot we did men’s ministry in Radicle. I hope there is fruit from that specific time. I can’t say we have to right now from our current men’s groupme.

This month was the start of another round of struggling with titles in the church, this time with ET. I think the spark/catalyst was suspecting someone else was invited and I wasn’t. And then… it went back to the comparison game. Yea I definitely want to grow out of this.

I think a good part of this, though, was God was showing me that, ultimately, I want to be on the frontlines, in people’s lives.

April

Continued struggles with ET and dating and how they how twisted into a muddled jumble

I was able to reflect about how I’m just as weak as other people. Second semester was filled with more struggles than I thought, but even as 2016 ends, I think I grew a little bit out of these struggles. I don’t feel lonely as much anymore because I know people have my back, the doubts and fear are still there from time to time, but I’m responding better, I’m taking steps to not put myself in a position to compare to others, and I definitely feel like I know a little bit more about the direction of my life compared to April

The start of my relationship with Samee. Did not expect him to confess his sins to me so early, but I’m blessed

Now that I have a job, things with Mom have calmed down. But it definitely was rough throughout the year when it comes to talking about the future.

It’s not about “who is good” but “who is it good for”

Just reminded that God does not forget me, just as He does not forget sparrows. So what if I didn’t go through “interesting” things during April, the grass is always going to be greener no matter what happens

But I learned that she’s not necessarily like my grandma in that she’s going to be stubborn to her opinions. She’s going to present an opinion, because she’s my mom, and whether I listen or not is up to me - I’m an adult now, after all.

May

Started ramping up CSMP planning and it was great. It helped me cultivate my calling for church planting

Career wise, definitely did not want to help companies increase in their profit

Said good-bye to Peter. It was more emotional than I thought. Well I guess it’s not good-bye, but see you later

Probably one of the first times I had financial troubles, actually. I was too prideful to ask Mom, but eventually swallowed my pride and asked her

My conviction from Ignite was to actually stay right here in AA indefinitely, to take ownership of what I have right now, church plant my Lg right now, to learn these lessons now so that if I plant a church, I’ll be trained up. It might be Detroit

For CSMP, I saw how important and rewarding it was to be the hands and feet and try to service the needs of the community - that’s what the church is meant to do

CSMP, not even field work yet, was already a vision of what partnership for the Gospel could really look like and it was awesome

I think CSMP was the start of me trying to cultivate evangelistic and apostolic gifting

But my conviction, also, is that once we start the church plant, you have to stick around, but the church is an institution that God ordained for a reason

The ultimate reason for a church plant is to bring light to the darkness, there’s not enough churches in places that really need the Gospel

But I still need to grow in this

June

In response to my financial troubles, people gathered a love offering for, started by Robby. Wow, best prayer partner

This was the month Brandon came to know Christ

The beginning of the “what next, Lord?” This was a very fruitful time of my life

Got a GSI appointment

Invited to stewardship

Terry left

Another tough moment with Mom because she got eye surgery and it challenged my priorities especially as I was doing missions

Still need to grow in closeness to her, but I wonder if part of this isn’t the culture we’ve grown up in?

I saw the value of prayer walking

July

CSMP was a time of flourishing - when compared to other people who struggle bussed hard. I didn’t want it to end, but all seasons come to an end. And it’s ok, because I was able to take the things I learned into the next season of ministry

Again, still learning about cross-gender friendships

Actually, there was one fearful moment, when I got locked out and felt this overwhelming fear that I got locked out

Learning how to be in people’s corners

Ultimately, wanted to live out the life of Philip the evangelist

I learned that I was fearful of getting left behind, or that people’s care for me was only structural of “because they have to.” This was a lie and the Gospel is proof that Jesus didn’t have to do anything, but he chose to go out of his way to love me

August

The start of a new wardrobe, I can receive from younger brothers in this way

Forming convictions for the school year: presence, meeting the needs of the campus

Drove with Terry to Denver

It is hard to plant a church in a big city like New York compared to a college town like AA

I was convicted to count the cost of ministry - it’s really through my mom who has worked hard to financially support me throughout all this time all while paying off her mortgage. She’s the real MVP, part of me wishes I worked somewhere else where more family was, but I feel called here and I just have to be ok with that cost. The only way this is worth it is one day she accepts Christ, so I have to relentlessly pray for her.

September

The start of LG, thankful for the OCR partnership and small fruits like Catherine signing up

It’s funny and maybe a little weird, but I started relating more to army officers in the field. I enjoy leading the charge with people instead of playing the general, and I think upper levels of leadership become more like generals, and I don’t know if I like that or desire it

Frustrated at the way our upper levels of leadership does things, but glad things are now changing in weeks and months to come

Started serving for the stewardship team. Definitely still need a lot of grace for that

Had some anxiety with if I could graduate after finding out something came up with my credits, but by the grace of God I graduated

Some seeds planted for growing my gifting of teaching

October

Retreat was ok, I’m wondering if I heard God correctly during that time

Started doing this thing where I reflect everyday before my devotions and, usually, it’s really refreshing and needed to know where I’m at with God

Having to continually fight this lie about not being good enough for people’s approval

Jer 12 was a convicting passage

From then on, just had to persevere

It’s a promise, I believe, that God has bigger plans in store for me and to just persevere through this season(s) of waiting on many things

November

Thankful for opportunities in class to teach

Missions Week was personally great for me. It inspired me to live a life for the Gospel, even if it has to be in a big city. Really encouraged by Doc Fuder’s life and just learning from him

Started the job application process thanks to Jonah, but it’s just more waiting

Had to navigate election results for both myself and other people in our church. We have to be a voice to the voiceless because in the next 4 years, there’s going to be a lotttt of hardship for a lot of people out there who don’t get a chance to be a voice

Had some relational conflict throughout this month which was discouraging but it got resolved and I learned from it, so praise God.

Was convicted by 1 Peter 1 to step up in my servanthood and responsibilities in the church - although I don’t want more titles and responsibilities per se, I think God is calling me to do bigger things than just my own tiny ministry, just as the prophets of old were called to more than their own sphere of influence. I’m going from captain to general whether I prefer to or not.

Need to read the book he wrote about Neighborhood Mapping

December

Got the job the Jonah referred me to! It was definitely a slow interview process, but I’m thankful for the connection and God’s provision - He always comes through

There’s going to be a lot of changes starting in January and rolling on throughout the rest of 2017 - personally, in our church, and even in our country.

One of those changes is graduating. Thankful for the past 1.5 years of grad school, I learned a lot about engineering and culture and people and want to continue in developing my vocation. No more studying!

There was a string of days of emotional struggle - realizing how not surrendered I am to the future and also just my identity in Christ

Even as I take on my church responsibility, I was encouraged by the gospel - 5 years ago, I would not have imagined myself in the position that I am in now, but by God’s grace I am who I am and God’s plan is always the best plan

2017 Thoughts

The most important decision I need to make this year… I suppose it’s the one about church planting. When will God call me to a church plant?

The habit I’d like to most establish this year is fitness. As I’m transition into working life, I think having more energy throughout the day is important. Plus every year I’m getting older, health is always important.

My most important financial goal is to be debt free. I think just through working I should be free of student loans this year. After that, I’d like to pay Mom’s bills, too.

One way I can be a blessing to my pastor is just ask how he’s doing. Many people don’t do that for their pastors anymore, and it’s sad.

There are multiple books in the docket right now I want to read: Neighborhood Mapping, Reason for God, and at least one book on social justice

The one thing I regret from last year… living in fear of different things. What will I do about it? Follow God, and do the right thing even in the midst of it.

This year, I’m definitely going to try to do more evangelism and outreach to the broken and needy in AA. I think this is what the church is meant to do, and I want to get my feet wet.

A recap of things that have happened since CSMP (so basically last update since July)

7/31 - 8/6

Said good-byes to people moving away from AA. I never think of these as good-byes but rather “see you laters.” Maybe that’s why I’m unemotional about this. Or I’m just an unemotional person in general.

Included in the good-byes was Zack. Of course I wish I could’ve seen him really commit his life to Christ while here, but at this point, all I can do is pray for him in his next stage of life.

Emotionally speaking, was a hard week because I didn’t know how to process some things I was going through, if these emotions are even “good” things, and all that. I committed to reading through Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Sam, Sumi, and I had our last CSMP debriefing and with that, basically bringing missions to a close. Life isn’t the same as during missions, missions is fun, you get your schedule planned out for you, and you just need to focus on loving people. Sometimes I wish I were just a full time missionary 

8/7 - 8/13

Spontaneously decided to drive with Terry to help him drive his car to SF. I’m not the best at expressing it, but I’m really thankful for him and am going to miss him. I actually think this drive was really good for me, I got to express my emotions about what I was going through and I think I learned a little bit more about myself. In particular, I tend to be an overthinker and therefore need someone more grounded to help me process. 

Also, most people know that I don’t like to drink. The reason for this is because I just don’t like the taste. But as I grow older, my social circle is (probably) going to continue to engage in this. So I think this is one of those activities that I’ll have to learn to be comfortable around. It’s like people who don’t like playing board games being in a group of friends who often play board games. We just have to learn how to enjoy people’s companies in spite of that.

Another lesson I learned from this car ride: how do I interact with people if I’m not their leader or an older brother/father figure to them? I think that’s why being around peers or older is hard. I think humor is a huge thing for me, and not being able to express my humor is hard.

We had a last roommate hangout. These guys were a different dynamic than my previous roommates, but I’m thankful nonetheless for the weekly board game nights. A tradition like no other.

I met up with someone that I never got to meet up with before and I was really thankful for this because I haven’t been engaged intellectually in a meet up for a while, I think. It also made me a little more empathetic for sisters in my life and what they go through, so that was good too.

Said good-bye to a few more people

8/14 - 8/20

This week I went to the east coast, it was pre-planned, but the actual planning of the everyday was more time consuming and even stressful than I thought. Props to those who travel often.

Was able to catch up with people in NY/Boston, including my middle sister, so I’m thankful for that. I wish I had more time, to be honest.

Also enjoyed the city as a tourist (incidentally, native New Yorkers don’t tend to do touristy things I realized)

I learned a few things from this trip

Even the act of meeting up with someone in a big city is an involved process. Not only do you have to be intentional with the meeting time, but also the location. I think I take for granted how easy it is to meet up on a school campus, because locations are actually free for the most part. Not so for the big city.

Therefore, church planting (which is what I am aiming towards) is actually pretty hard in a big city. The fact that HK’s church is growing, is a praise to God, because the factors should be stacked against it. 

I don’t know where I’m called to next, but in my flesh, I don’t want a big city.

8/21 - 8/27

A week of spiritual and logistical preparation for the school year.

Meeting up with P. Pete inspired me with ideas for ministry this year, I want my LG to be aware of the campus, to be present, and address the needs. It sounded like an intense/challenging vision, but I really believe, coming off of missions, that this is what the church was always meant to do. That, and I personally want to learn how to church plant, so I’m treating my LG like one.

One of the big takeaways from our leadership summit is the cost of me being in AA. Personally, I don’t feel like it’s actually that high of a cost. But after some reflection, I realize that the reason that’s the case is because of my mom. Because I’m in AA, she chooses to stay in Michigan and work almost full time. What she could be doing, instead, is to be in a big city like SF or NY with my relatives, or even be retired. But she works hard, and she doesn’t have much community. That’s really sad, and I think the response for me shouldn’t be guilt, but the only outcome that will make this worth it is if she accepts Christ. So I will ruthlessly pray and do whatever it takes to see that happen.

8/28 - 9/3

This week was OCR. I was pretty excited, coming off of missions, to apply the things we learned. It helped that most of my group was people who also did missions with me so that was really fun.

One of our outreaches was a board game night in a dorm. I can’t really explain it, but there was some real spiritual discouragement going into that night, and we actually almost got kicked out because we weren’t residents. But I think God has been redeeming that night because one of the people we reached out to is actually in my Life Group now, and for the other 3, we’ve been seeing them around in classes. God is truly sovereign.

I met a transgender person and this really challenged my paradigm, including how to love someone like this. Though I haven’t had further context with “them,” I’m thankful for the chance to meet.

Month of September (quick highlights.. heh)

Started our school year LG, we are called Highlight

Going off of what I learned from P. Pete, I want our LG to be the light of the world on this campus, to be different, and to make our presence known. I think in hindsight, this is pretty ambitious, but it’s still truth.

We actually have a lot of newcomers, I’d say a 1-1 newcomer/returning member ratio so it’s going to take some time to build community and establish culture.

I am thankful for the people who are in our group, though. There’s a few people who come to mind that are really aware of what goes on on campus and what’s going on with politics so I’ve been learning from them, too.

For about a week, I went through a crisis where I wasn’t sure if I would graduate because I was missing a class required to graduate and I found this out a week into the school year so it was pretty late to add any classes. At some point, I just had to give it up to God and hope that I’ll get into the 2nd half of the semester classes in the business school. If God means for me to graduate this semester, He’ll make a way.

Some of my interests and lifestyle is changing. I joined a board games club both for interest and so I can have context with undergrads. It’s been.. slow getting to know people, but I hope to be consistent by going every week and by the end of the semester I’ll have some solid relationships. 

Along with that, I’m just reading campus news and paying more attention to politics so I can be more of the light of the world.

Currently, my main priority has been finding a job after graduation in December. This feels a lot like senior year, because the jobs I look for I feel underqualified for (again). But, if God really wants me to be here, I trust He’ll provide as I am faithful with applications. I’m doing whatever it takes to find leads like talk to professors or network with speakers.

Spiritually, it’s been a little bit dry this month, actually. I don’t think I have the same discipline as I had during the summer, even though I’m not that busy with life, to be honest.

October (or pre-retreat)

I’ve been reading Prodigal God and it’s been pretty good and revealing to where I’m at spiritually. I relate a lot to the elder son, and though CSMP taught me how dangerous that is, I think the book has been good to show me more systematically what it’s like. 

For retreat, therefore, I think I just want to hear from God about areas I can continue to grow, and for Him to Show Me His glory

I recently asked someone to give me some questions to reflect about, in regards to how my school year went. I realized that honestly, there’s so much that happened this year. For example...

What areas have you grown in this year?

Being steadfast in my faith and responsibilities

Teaching the Bible

Being convicted in decision making

Security in Christ

Being rooted in Christ

Discipling younger guys

Dating advice (ok this one’s definitely not complete and was also unexpected)

Evangelism

Being ok with being weak and needy when circumstances are hard

Just realizing what a privilege it is to have a platform to walk with guys or lead LG, or be friends with people. What qualities about me deserve these things? I honestly don’t know, but people are willing to for some reason and I can only thank God

Trying to be responsible and hard working

Recognizing my pride, especially when it comes to comparing to people

Not to say I’m perfect in any of this, but I looked back at my journal and realized how much I learned from God this year. This past month-ish, I was going through feelings of being forgotten, that God is/was doing “interesting” and new things in my friends’ lives as they are moving or taking on new responsibilities. And then I thought “God what about me? Don’t you love me?” I guess it didn’t help that my missions team and some other people forgot my birthday haha (if you’re one of those people who forgot, it’s ok, really! I’m learning to have thicker skin). But that’s definitely a distorted question and I can see why. And when I list out things I’m thankful for this year

For the growth talked about above

Community for being there for me, even if they’re not perfect and forget your birthday, it’s grace just to have people

An opportunity to disciple people and lead LG

The growth that LG showed

Circumstantially, things like getting onto CSMP, doing independent study with Dr Liker, I don’t need surgery for my knee, doing well in grad school, a new job that doesn’t conflict with TC and pays more, Mom’s health 

God is SO good!

Our vision for Life Group this year was to be rooted in Christ. A kind of rooting that is not shaken by the elements and is not easy to uproot and it doesn’t get choked up by weeds. I think that’s a perfect summary of what I had to grow in this year, so I’m really thankful and I know that God, who values me more than many sparrows, will not forget about me in the future.

So how do I respond? By being faithful to where I’m at out of a love for Christ, who while I was still yet a sinner, died for me. There are people to reach out to, ministries to build up, greater things to invest in and I get to be a part of it.

Prayer Requests / Future areas of growth?

Direction for helping to lead CSMP

Not being a micro-manager

Faith not by sight

To be a good listener

Faithfulness and steadfastness in my calling

The month of January saw a lot of lows, not going to lie. As a church we entered our One Desire Fast for two weeks and I wasn’t sure how it’d be for me.

I think one of the biggest struggles that happened this past month was this question of “what is going to happen to me after I die?” The origin of this question isn’t that important, but I was reading about some people who don’t believe in God and their thoughts about the afterlife, especially scientific atheists. I’m not going to lie, they have a lot of good points. It doesn’t help that my grandma died a few months ago, too. It really made me pause and think about where I am with my faith. Because.. if the Bible isn’t the truth, then I’ve been living a lie and when I die.. that’s it. And that’s a scary, crippling thought that plagues me at night sometimes. 

So during the fast, I found myself praying a lot about that, about the nature of God, why we should believe in Jesus, and also heaven. I think having this doubt also made me feel really insecure because it seems like a struggle that a Christian, let alone a LG leader shouldn’t be dealing with. I read through Mere Christianity a really good book!) and got to talk to various people about their thoughts as well and that was helpful, too. But ultimately, I was reminded to run towards God in this time, to trust in Him despite what the circumstances and empirical evidence might say around me. Faith is a gift after all. And if we take the approach that Christianity isn’t true, then that’s going to be our mindset: skepticism. That’s what happened in Acts with a lot of people. But if we have the perspective that only God can explain this world, then we can see.

Are my doubts completely cleared? No I don’t think so and I don’t think they will be anytime soon, but God will give me enough faith to carry on as I continue to be rooted and abide in Him. 

Some other quick hitters:

The fast itself was really revealing to me about my pride. There was one week where it just felt like I was being spoken to by God in worship, the Bible and Mere Christianity. I think being off social media was healthy for me because I didn’t have to compare to other people’s lives. The reason I compare to other people’s lives is because of my pride in thinking I don’t have it good enough. But God is never less than fair but in fact, if anything he is more than fair (Matt 20). I should be happy for people that they’re receiving God’s grace because we’re all part of the same family

We recently had our relationship sermon for the undergrads. I think this year I’ve learned more about marriage than I expected via various people in my life. Well, I’m glad that I’m learning now through their mistakes :D I’m actually reading through Meaning of Marriage with a few brothers and discussing it with them.

I got a new job as an IOE grad advisor! Basically I help any master’s students if they have questions about courses and the program. Also if they need counseling because some people might want to drop the program. I saw it as an application of the skills I learn in church in my context. It’s great for evangelism, and if no one comes, then I can just do homework (which is great too)

I turned to the dark side.. by getting a Mac. 

I am doing missions this summer! Specifically helping to lead the Community Summer Missions Project. We just had our first meeting this past weekend and I’m really excited to do it and to do it with people I know/want to invest in. I see this as a culmination of God’s will for me the past few months.

Prayer Requests

1. Abiding in Christ, as CS Lewis says that those who can walk in His ways even if they’re not sure if they fully believe will receive the Spirit in order to fully believe.

2. My pride, because that is what is fueling my tendency to compare and feel insecure.

3. Prayer to be faithful in all things I have to juggle now: School, work, LG, CSMP, other relationships in my life

4. Discipleship, both for me and to younger brothers. Realizing more and more the urgency to raise up the next generation, but also because there’s still so much I don’t know.

5. Clarity about the future, not only for my calling, but there’s some decisions coming up that I need to make.