It’s only been a few years that I really started to care about the ways that my ethnicity intersects with my spirituality. For the longest time I believed that to be Christian meant you had to leave all aspects of your old identity behind. And that’s true to a point. There are certain aspects of one’s life that one should give up. Culture and ethnicity are not one of those however. 

The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. If I had to give up my old culture, what was the new culture I was stepping into? The Christian culture? As I analyzed what it meant to step into “Christian culture”, I realized that it came from a very WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) perspective. Men had to cut their hair short and women had to wear skirts. You had to sing hymns at church. The U.S.A and capitalism were your new best friends. 

In high school as I discovered the ideology of socialism, I started to come into conflict with my beliefs. Didn’t Jesus help those who helped themselves? Wasn’t America a blessed country because it believed in God? As I started to delve deeper into the Scriptures, I started to see that there was something the church I had grown up in had been missing all along. Jesus truly and deeply cared about the poor. The early Church acted on a model where everybody helped those who were in need. They shared their lives and made sure all had enough to live. This impacted me deeply. I had a new way to view Scripture. I just had nobody to share it with and nobody to help guide me in my new understanding. 

When I showed up to that first LaFe Bible study, I had no idea of the bigger picture I was stepping into. I had no idea that there was a staff team that had been praying for an ethnic specific ministry to start up. I had no idea that there had been a former Bible study for students of color which had failed. I had no idea I would end up being called to work for InterVarsity because God would instill a heart for LaFe in me. I was just a junior in college who was looking for some Christian community, something I had never truly had. 

As I kept coming out to the LaFe Bible study and eventually joined leadership within it, there was a healing process that God took me through. I learned that God had created culture. I learned that each culture brought a small fragment of God with them. Together, all of us would create a bigger picture of who God is.For the first time in my life, I was hearing that my culture had something of value to offer. Christianity became a whole lot bigger. I was in a room with people who understood where I was coming from. Who encouraged me to embrace how God created me. God was doing something amazing in my heart. And over the next few years, God started working in the hearts of a lot of Latin@s on campus. 

This past week, UCSD had their Spring Retreat. I got a chance to teach the first half of the Gospel of Mark.  It was amazing. What was also amazing was that there were a good number of LaFe students in both the Mark 1 class. By good number, I mean 3-4. This lead to an interesting dynamic. 

Many of the LaFe Bible studies tend to focus on the ways that Jesus is at work both in our own spiritual lives, but also in the oppressive systems around us. Jesus was truly an advocate for bringing justice into the world around him. He sought out those on the margins of society and brought them into His Kingdom. He denounced the hypocritical religious figures of the time. He broke a lot of rules. As Latin@s we live in a system that works against us. To be able to see how Jesus wants to heal a broken system is something new to many of us. As I said earlier, many of us grew up in churches where Jesus, capitalism and patriotism are one and the same. 

This last week taught the staff team at UCSD that you can’t just pray for a more diverse fellowship without expecting anything to change in the culture as well, as Jason Belcher said. As we delved deeper into figuring out who Jesus was and how he came to change the world, it was obvious to many of the LaFe students that there was one vital piece missing. We, the staff team, weren’t always addressing that beyond Jesus coming to transform individual lives, he was also coming to challenge systems. The LaFe students felt like everybody except them was missing this. They weren’t wrong. Even as I compared teaching notes with another teacher, I realized that I had focused on the oppression felt by the bleeding woman more closely than their notes. It was an interesting position to be in. This created several different conversations over the week with both the students and the staff about how to best tackle this issue.

I praise God though, that the staff team at UCSD truly and deeply cares about multiethnicity. Everybody was open to opening up the conversation to the ways that Jesus wants to also bring change to the systems we live in. They also decided to rethink about ways that we could teach Mark next year. It was a really cool moment to be in. 

I got back today from my first Spiritual Formation with the peeps of San Diego InterVarsity. It was a really cool experience. Not what I expected, but really cool nonetheless. 

Going into Spiritual Formation, I was looking to spend some alone time with God and hopefully hear His voice. I've been wrestling with doubts over the call to staff these past few weeks and I was looking forward to the silent time we were going to have. I figured that that time would be the best time to really hear God. No distractions and all. 

At 9:15 on Monday night, we entered a period of 18 hour silence. I was pretty excited for it. I woke up the next morning, ready to encounter God. I decided to read and write for a while before I started. Once I got that out of the way, I tried to do some prayer. However, I found that I felt really distracted by other things. I tried my best to focus. I really wanted to hear from God. As the hours went by though, I felt like God was just being silent. There was nothing. It was terrifying. During this time, I felt so many doubts coming up about my calling. It just made me wonder what I was doing up there. 

I ended up distracting myself in other ways. I was a bit relieved when silent time ended. I was also really disappointed. During the evening, we got into triads and shared about how our silent time went. I shared openly and was really glad that I did. While we were praying, I felt a haze lift over me and felt God's voice really speaking into all the doubts of the past few weeks. I went to bed more at peace than I had been in a while. 

The staff team was pretty cool as well. It was interesting to see how they divided themselves up according to age for the most part. I met a few cool people that I would love to keep talking to. 

So yeah, Spiritual Formation was really cool. Different than what I expected, but I'm excited for the next one. 

I don't think I'm a very mature person. Well not all the time at least. 

I'm actually still trying to figure out what it means to be mature. When I was a kid, I thought all the high schoolers were mature. They actually had use for their backpacks, as opposed to young me who just needed a place for his sweater, they had lots of classes, they were older. Of course, once I hit high school, I realized that wasn't the case. Same with college. 

My image of a mature person now tends to lean towards picturing a person who is very quiet and self aware. They choose their words carefully and every word that comes out of their mouth is full of wisdom. Like Yoda or something. 

I've been reflecting on what it means to be mature. Especially since I hope to be developing student leaders as they become missional witnesses on campus. I figure I probably need some maturity for that. 

As I mentioned, I feel like I can be very immature at times. Sometimes I'll just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. Or I'll sing a Lonely Island song. I think about most of these things in the moment they come up. I'll have a brief moment where I'll be like "Hmmm...should I have said that?"

Fridays tend to be my Sabbath days since those are the days that I don't work. I usually spend the morning resting with the Father. Praying, reading the Bible, worshiping, etc etc. 

This Friday, I started listening to the song "Still" and it really spoke to me. It's the one that goes "When the oceans rise and thunders roar/I will soar with you above the storm/Father you are King over the flood/I will be still, know you are God." It's one of my favorite songs. I just love it because it reminds me that no matter the circumstances going on in my life, I can rest assured that God is at work somehow. 

This past week as I was praying, the story of Moses came to mind.  Two things about Moses. 1) LaFe as a national movement uses his story as a backdrop for many of our conversations about how God wants to use our different cultures to bring the Kingdom of God to Latino/a people. 2) The story of Moses was what God used when He called me to staff. 

At Urbana, I was in the prayer room, praying for some things that I was going through at the time. All of a sudden this verse popped into my head.   " The Lord said 'I have seen  have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.' " (Exodus 3 :7-10) That was the moment when I felt God putting a desire to join InterVarsity staff in my heart. (It took another few months to finally go all out, but that's another story) It was also a key moment in God bringing spiritual healing to my ethnic identity. At the time, I decided to make it my mission to go back to campus as a student leader and start intentionally engaging with my community group. I wanted to know how I could best help LaFe. (Another story about leadership for another time as well)

So as I was praying, this chapter came to mind. I decided to go back and reread it. This time a different verse stood out to me. It's right after God commands Moses to go back to Egypt. God continues, in verse 12, to say "But I will be with you and this shall be the sigh for you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve the Lord on this mountain" 

Immediately my mind went to Catalina Island. Catalina has been a place where God has brought so much spiritual healing to my life. God's presence has been so tangible for me on that island. 

I realized that the next time I would be on Catalina, is because I would be close to being completely funded. Or completely funded. Which would be something amazing. It would mean that God provided thousands of dollars in financial support. That I persevered and kept meeting with people and sharing my vision. That God brought the people and inspired their hearts. That He was there for me. 

When God was telling Moses that the Israelites would serve God on that mountain, He wasn't saying "If I bring them out...". He was saying "When I bring them out...". God already knew how He was going to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. That assured me. If God is the one who called me onto staff, He is the one who is going to provide for me. Who is going to bring me through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. 

I'm still holding on to this verse as my anchor. "... you shall serve God on this mountain" I have no idea what it is at the moment, but I know that the next time I go to Catalina, there is something I must do. Some form of worship to praise God for His provision. Y'all know what I"m talking about?

It's crazy to think of all the ways that fundraising really changes one's life. For one, you're learning to depend fully on God for provision which is pretty scary when you think about it. But it's also really cool when you think about it even more. 

A huge part of this fundraising season has involved prayer. And by a huge part, I mean like 90% of it. I don't think I've ever spent so much time in prayer as I have this past summer. It's been really cool though seeing the ways that my perspective on prayer have changed. "How so?" you hypothetically ask. Let me tell you!

1) As part of a challenge to get to know my San Diego InterVarsity staff co-workers better, I have been texting one per day to ask them for any prayer requests that they may have. It's been about two weeks since I started doing it so I'm about halfway through the lists. Just finished a week of J's. It's been really cool introducing myself that way to people I've never talked to and getting a chance to hear their prayer requests. It's also been a great way to feel closer to the staff workers I already know. 

This challenge has helped me become less selfish in my prayer life. For the most part, I tend to pray for what I need and what I want, etc, etc. Being able to spend at least 15-20 minutes in prayer for somebody else has been a really cool experience. It allows me to place myself in their shoes and go before the Father to ask for something that I wouldn't be asking for otherwise. It's a really interesting experience to earnestly intercede for someone else. 

2) I've also been learning to pray for things that seem impossible. Right now, I'm at 20% of my support that I need to come on campus full time. At times I get really discouraged because I have no idea how I'm ever going to get to the full 100%. But as I've been learning to come before the Father in prayer, I've been daring to pray for things that seem impossible to me. I'm currently praying to get to 70% by December 31st. This means another 25K in support. I have no idea how that's going to happen, but I'm allowing myself to dare to pray for that. 

3) Being extremely vulnerable in prayer. Fundraising brings up a lot of fears. A lot. This was one of the first things that I had to learn how to do at the beginning. It's easy for me to be vulnerable with God in my head. But to actually speak out my fears in prayer is something that I've only done a couple of times before. Both of the previous times, God had brought a lot of healing in those areas. This was no different. There came a day early on when I just felt paralyzed by fear. I really wanted to make calls and set up appointments though so I spent an hour in prayer beforehand. I did what seemed terrifying to me. I spoke my fears out loud. I told God that I was scared of rejection. That I felt like I couldn't do it. It felt liberating. A few hours later I had 7 meetings set up for the next few weeks. 

As I'm writing this, I'm just really overcome with emotion by the way that God is continuing to shape me in ways I didn't know I needed shaping. My prayer life looks so different than it did two months ago. It's crazy how much things change when you're depending on God for everything. 

Cool. I got the obvious out of the way. Raising a 52K budget is pretty hard work. Since I feel like I'm terrible at meeting with people and sharing about InterVarsity, I'm going to attribute my 20% base support to God's work. Which I guess is the only way a kid who didn't care much about his ethnic identity is coming on staff to help guide Latino/a students into faith. 

So yeah, fundraising. Back when I first started thinking about thinking about staff, I met with several staff workers to ask about their experiences with fundraising. Everybody had some variations on their experiences, but one thing was the same. Every single person said it was the hardest thing they had ever done, but at the same time, they wouldn't trade that experience for anything else. 

I understand now what they meant. I've been fundraising for slightly under two months now and it has been a crazy summer. I've gone through "Hooray! Fundraising!" to "Boo. Fundraising." I've gone through a lot of highs and lows. I wouldn't trade any of them for anything. 

The highs this summer gave me reassurance of God's provision. He gave me the calling and He is going to provide through His means. There is work that needs to be done on the UCSD campus and He has given me the blessing of working for Him to help students come to faith in every corner of the campus. The highs help remind me that everything He took away was for a greater good. Jesus is still in the boat and He will calm the storm. 

The lows helped push me closer to God. It can be easy at times to think "I'm putting so much work into this. I'm calling people, setting up meetings, going to those meetings etc. Of course my percentage is going up." But in those lows, when people don't come on the support team or give less than I expected, I'm reminded that God is my provider. That He's the one bringing in partners and resources. Those lows have helped push my prayer life into a new level of depth with God. 

I've been able to be vulnerable with God when it comes to my fears of fundraising. I've been able to rejoice with Him in victories. I've started to pray for things that seem impossible to see happen. (50% by end of September?) It's a new level of intimacy with the Father.  My prayer life has changed dramatically from a year ago. 

I had more thoughts on prayer, but I realized that's a whole other post for another day so I'll save that one for later. 

Congrats to those of you who made it back from Catalina Island from Spring Retreat 2014!!!! A moment of silence for that lost boat of students who disappeared while returning from Spring Retreat 1987.

So while Spring Retreat was amazing and all, we're here to help you avoid retreat high! What's retreat high you ask? Well, Webster's Dictionary defines it as "the emotions that stir up in someone when they've spent a week having their minds blown by the Bible and learning in community with others"

Okay, you're right. It doesn't. But most of you know what I'm talking about. It's really easy to say that you're going to spend a week fasting right after you've heard a rousing sermon on it, and all of your friends have decided that they're going to do it as well. The hard part is following through. You made commitments on the island. You chose to follow Jesus either for the first time or made a decision to amp up your faith. But now you're back with the rest of society and it can be easy to get caught up with the worries of the world. (Shout out to Mark 1!)  How do you keep that momentum going?

1) Stay accountable!

Talk to a trusted friend/Bible study leader about the choices that you made at Spring Retreat. Ask them to pray with you and to help you stay accountable to that decision. When you have someone that's asking you daily/weekly how you're doing, it'll be a lot easier to make sure that commitment extends longer. 

2) Join a community group!

If you don't already have one. Or if you have one and don't go consistently, try to! The Christian journey was never meant to be walked alone. Remember that Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. When you grow with others in community, you develop friendships that will continually challenge you to grow in your faith. 

3) Pray!!!

As those in Mark 2 found out, the disciples fell asleep on Jesus during one of his most emotional moments. Similarly, if we don't pray daily, we miss out on growing our relationship with Jesus. By spending that time with God daily, He gives us the strength to honor our commitments in times when we think we can't. 

I'm still so excited over the turnout tonight! 24 people including the leaders!!! 24!!!! We've never had that many!!! 

Two years ago, I wrote a post on the first meeting of LaFe. It was their first Bible study and I went out just because it had been recommended. I connected instantly with some of the people there and just felt really at home. I felt...welcomed there by the Bible study leaders. Little did I know that two years later I would still be there, just in a different role. 

It's been crazy seeing the growth of LaFe. I remember a Bible study that first year where it was just the leaders and me. It was in the Comunidad Room Small. I also felt slightly awkward. Thinking back to that moment is why I'm so excited at the turnout tonight! It was in the exact same room but this time we were packed!!! 

I have no idea what the leaders that year (Iris, Paloma, Isai and Esteban) imagined for LaFe. I have no idea if they ever pictured the impact their faithfulness to God's calling would make. If y'all are reading this, be proud of yourselves! Look at what you helped start! (You too Julie)

Coming to that first Bible study, I certainly didn't picture that I would open up to my ethnic identity or that I would end up wanting to work with Latino/a students. Even at the beginning of last year, when I stepped onto leadership, I wasn't quite certain why I was doing it. Like many other choices I've made, I did it just on a whim. Well I thought hard about it, but in the end, I was like "Okay, I like it. It'll be my first choice." But God worked through that. It's crazy to think I almost asked to be transferred to another team. 

But man!!! It's been crazy to see how God has been increasing the amount of people coming! And yes, I know it's not about the numbers, but at the same time, it means we're reaching more and more people and all these people are coming for some reason. 

I was a bit nervous tonight. I was wondering if people were going to show up. If people were going to return from last year. And a lot did. The group tonight was about an even mix of new people and regulars from last year. As people were introducing themselves and why they were there, I was like "Augh! I want to meet with you and you and you and you!" haha. 

24 people!!! Still excited. Plus I counted at least another 6 people or so who couldn't make it, but otherwise might have. 

Just having been a part of LaFe in a different way each year has been amazing. From seeing it as a student coming into a Bible study that only had less than 10 people at times, to being a student leader and seeing the growth right after Encuentro, to being a volunteer and discovering that we have 220 people to contact, the journey has been amazing. I'm like really excited for what the rest of the year is going to hold.