michele & david's updates

Hey everyone,

Apologies that this update on my trip to Colombia is so belated.   A lot of unexpected things have been happening since I got back.  Among other things, my grandmother passed away on March 25 in Korea at the age of 102, so as soon as I found out, I got on a plane and flew into Seoul to be with family for her funeral.   We were all thankful for her life and the peaceful way in which she died, at home in bed surrounded by family, not sick or hooked up to machines.   And now she's with her Papa, and also reunited with my grandfather after 40 years of separation.  It was also neat to learn about and experience firsthand a Korean funeral.  (It occurs to me that funeral customs so rarely come up in ESL classes when we discuss various cultural celebrations and rituals.  Perhaps because many young students don't have much experience with death yet?)

Anyway, rewind to Colombia.  Jie, Hsi-Ping and I went to the YWAM base in the Caribbean city of Cartagena from March 1-14, where I taught English pronunciation to latino missionaries in an English language learning school.   Thank you for all your prayers, as they were all answered!  I was able to finish my lesson preparations before we left and when I got there, I was able to use almost everything I had prepared with the 12 or so students in the school.  Teaching again was really a joy - it was so great to see the students participating so enthusiastically and responding so well to the lessons and activities.  It was a nice reminder that I (still) love teaching and feel like in a way it is easier to be who God created me to be when I am in the classroom.  After I returned to the States, the director of the English school emailed me and wrote that two of her students in particular (she teaches the lowest level class) have improved noticeably in their pronunciation and that they are much easier to understand now.   That was encouraging, since I had been a  little worried about overwhelming the low level students with all the material.
 

Jie did wonderfully.  She got only one mosquito bite as far as I could tell (and I'm not even sure the one I saw was really a bite) and had just one not-so-bad spell of diarrhea the day before we returned home.   After she got adjusted to everything, she ate and slept reasonably well and got along well with her "nanny" Hsi-Ping.  She learned some basic Spanish greetings, developed a taste for arepas and empanadas and even made 2 little Colombian friends, Salma (age 3) and Felipe (age 2), whom she regularly talks about and remembers fondly.  It was really great to have her experience the daily community of the YWAM base.  I hope she can experience more of that kind of real community in the future.

Hsi-Ping, who prior to this trip knew absolutely nothing about YWAM, also had a good time.  She bonded quickly with many of the students despite not speaking Spanish and was impressed by their faith, passion and determination to serve God wherever He might call them.  She also visited several local Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood and witnessed to the owners.  She said some of them had never heard of Jesus or the Gospel.  What a blessing that she had the boldness to plant some seeds in the few short visits she had with them.

Even though I guess this was technically a mission trip, the only part that really felt like a mission trip was when I was asked on Saturday night to give the message at the base's Sunday night family worship service.  Doh!  Everything in me protested, but deep down I knew God was asking me to lay down my pride, fear of failure, perfectionism and desire for control in order to take a step of faith with Him.  God reminded me that as much as He can use me in my areas of strength (e.g., teaching), He can also use me in my weakness (i.e., in this case, being sensitive enough to prepare a message from Him and deliver it!).  But besides that 24-hour period of angst, :) I didn't feel very spiritual.  I mainly just felt physically exhausted, between teaching and taking care of Yohana without all the comforts and conveniences of home.  Not that I didn't enjoy my time there - but it was definitely a different sort of mission trip in that way.  But perhaps a taste of what life might be like living in a foreign country with a small child?

Thank you again for all your prayers.  Probably the biggest thing I brought back from this trip was this: God's kingdom is marching forward.  What He is doing in people's hearts around the world is much, much bigger than me and what I can do for Him.   I'm thankful for this and glad that I was able to catch a glimpse of it again.  May we all have eyes to see Jesus, so much bigger and brighter and more worthy than ourselves.  May we decrease while He increases. 

Church Life

God has blessed our life and ministry in many ways during the past half-year or so.A couple months ago, after having postings out for about eight months, God blessed our youth ministry with two leaders in David and Amy Martin.  They’re a young couple from the Midwest who have a desire to eventually serve as missionaries in China, and they have a visibly genuine love for the Lord.  What’s exciting for me is the opportunity this affords to focus more on developing our adult ministry which has been getting less than half of my attention.  

Since our last update, our adult congregation has started taking baby steps in connecting with our neighborhood.  I was invited to give the invocation at a local Kiwanis club meeting, our members started to regularly spend time at a nearby nursing home, and we had an outreach at a senior citizens’ center for Chinese New Year.  In a few weeks, we’ll be doing some beautification work at Shery High School, a continuation school in the area, as part of a greater church wide effort in the South Bay called Sharefest to be a blessing to our neighbors.  The sister who’s coordinating this event manages a large number of people at work for SBC, but in the fifteen years she’s been in the church has done little more than usher on Sundays.  It’s been great seeing people like this stepping out to use their gifts and abilities for God and getting so much joy from it.  (Left & below rite - some pictures from last year's event at Fleming Middle School.)

Also, almost all our visitors this past half-year have been directly from our neighborhood, as per our prayers, and most of the ones who have stayed are not Asian.  I don't think it's necessary for us to have representation from every race and ethnicity in Southern California, but this has been a significant step for us towards living up to our designation as a “community church” in a community with few Asians. 

A Tiring Challenge

I just recently reconciled with one of the key leaders at our church after a month of distraction, frustration, and awkwardness.  It really felt like Satan was working overtime to keep us down, but I’m glad to be over it.  As hard as the experience was, I've been truly thankful for the opportunity to grow through it.  I thought I’d have more to say about this, but we decided to have a clean start and forget about the past which I’m trying my best to do. 

Family Life

Michele and I just got back from a Family Life marriage conference.  At first, I decided to go just to encourage other couples from our church to do the same, but it ended up being a really good review for me.  With all the ministry tasks and relationships at church, it’s been easy to settle for less than great dialogue and interaction when I came home in the evenings.  I’m grateful for the reminders and insights we received.  I’d recommend the conference to anyone interested in refocusing and refreshing their marriage.

Finally, I love being a dad.  Jie is so wonderful, and Michele, being a great mom, has made it easy for me to appreciate Jie all the more.  After a session at the marriage conference about “leaving a legacy” I’ve adjusted my schedule to get home a little earlier in the evenings to be able to spend more quality time with her on a regular basis.  Everyday has become much more precious with my daughter in my life.

Recent books for discussion, if you're interested:

Prayer Requests:

• I recently started a leadership team for our adult English Ministry.  A separate leadership team for the EM is new for the 30-year history of our church, so please pray for the new leaders to really take ownership of this and for a good working relationship with the church board.
  
• A friend of ours asked us to pray about possibly going overseas for missions together in the pretty near future. We’re open to what God wants, although I really want to finish up what we’ve started at CCCSB first. 
• Please pray for faithfulness in sharing God's faith, hope, and love with our neighbors, and also for a greater joy in doing it. 
  

I wrote my update (see next entry) about 2 and half months ago now so I feel that it's a bit outdated.  :P  Yohana will be 11 months old tomorrow and is beginning to stand on her own.  Two of her first recognizable words are "Amen" and "nana" (banana).  She is passionate about food and books over all else.

I've just recently begun training a young guy in the worship ministry to start leading worship as one of our main worship leaders is stepping down soon.  I'm excited for this timely opportunity as the Lord has made me aware of my need to actively develop future leaders and be prepared to 'pass the baton' whenever God calls us elsewhere.  Please pray that the Lord would give me wisdom to mentor Tony.

A couple weeks ago I also began walking every morning at 6:00 with a sister from church who has recently recommitted her life to God.  After several years of going her own way and getting mired in a sinful lifestyle, she finally woke up to how unhappy she was making herself and decided to make a fresh start with the Lord.  Hallelujah!  It brings me so much joy to see God working in her heart and life in miraculous ways.  Plus, although I originally committed to walk with her as a practical way to support her, the daily exercise has definitely been great for boosting my energy level and overall daily productivity!

Jie
My primary ministry these days continues to be taking care of Yohana.  Now approaching her ninth month of life, she has learned, among other things, to crawl, sit, pull herself up, cruise (walk while holding onto furniture), and eat a variety of solid foods.  She has also begun to learn boundaries and obedience to Mama and Papa as we teach her what behaviors, objects, and places are acceptable and which ones are off-limits.  It is a joy to communicate with her and see her comprehension growing day by day.

The first six months of her life, I didn’t have enough mental or emotional energy to even consider returning to work.  Now, although I love staying home with Jie, I also find myself looking forward to the day when I will step back into the classroom for a few hours a week.  I will probably start thinking more seriously and specifically about teaching again after Jie’s first birthday.

Worship Ministry
Overall, being part of the worship ministry has definitely given me a greater sense of ownership of the church and helped me feel that this is truly my church family for the time being.  I’ve been leading one of our congregation’s worship teams since December and so far am really enjoying it.  Although it’s obviously more work to plan, practice, and lead corporate times of worship than not to, I find that it’s more rewarding and meaningful, too, and helps keep me dependent on the Lord.  It’s also good to ‘rub shoulders’ with my 5 teammates, bonding and getting to know them better as we work together.  

Since January I’ve also taken over as worship coordinator for the English congregation.  One area in which I would like to see our ministry grow this year is musical excellence, as most of our worship team members have limited experience in playing their instruments or singing in a worship context.  In order to help us develop our musical skills, I have been coordinating training workshops for each instrument, bringing in “experts” from outside our church to teach and work with our members.  Hopefully these workshops will inspire and motivate all of us to practice and reach our full potential in terms of the musical talents and abilities God has given us. 

Being relatively new to this business of worship coordinating, I’m learning as I go, but it’s kind of amazing to see how God has been preparing me for this responsibility for a long time.  In January I gave a training workshop to the youth worship team.  While I was speaking to them, I realized how the Lord has given me so many opportunities (and challenges) over the last 15 years to grow and develop specifically in the area of worship and worship leading.  In high school – or in college, for that matter - I never would have imagined myself overseeing the worship ministry of an entire congregation, but it seems that God has been growing and maturing me little by little over the years to bring me to the place where I’m at now.  Not that this is an ending point, by any means.  But I guess sometimes you just get a glimpse of how all the seeming random episodes and experiences in your life are actually not random, but interwoven and contributing to something greater.      

Teaching and Learning Language and More
Today was unexpectedly my last day of tutoring Shannon, the girl from Beijing that I’ve been meeting with weekly for the past 5 months.  We decided to take a break indefinitely.  I feel okay about this since I think her English speaking has improved a lot.  Actually the timing works out well.  Yesterday I began learning Mandarin from a retired teacher at our church.  I’m excited to be a language student once again! 

Recently I thought, “I’ve been out of college for almost 7 years and I am still not on the mission field,” and felt a little discouraged.  God has been challenging me, though, to really see myself as a missionary right here where He’s placed me.  My life is full of people – like my Indian neighbors Neerja and Rishu or my Korean Jehovah’s Witness friends Young Hee and Sun-Nyuh or my sisters Kai and Norma at church – that haven’t heard the good news, or need to be encouraged, instructed, or strengthened in their faith.  I need great (or should I say ‘Great’?) amounts of love, patience and faithfulness to be a blessing to these people, not just when I feel like it or on pre-set days, but any time, all the time.  If that isn’t a challenge that long-term missionaries face, what is?  For now we feel that this is where God wants us, and I just have to be patient and trust that if we are called to serve Him elsewhere, He will open the doors and make the timing clear.

There’s been a lot on my (David's) mind during the last few months.  Here are a few of the highlights.  

Yohana

We named our first daughter after our dear brother John Priestley, Yohana being a feminized form of the Greek for John.  I never imagined what joy being a father would bring.  It’s been amazing at every turn, and each new day with her is like reading a few more pages from a great book.  She recently repeated the word “papa” after me!  The lack of unbiased witnesses and an inability to reproduce the event, tho, has most people, including me, wondering if it actually happened.  Please pray for Yohana as her mother and I try to raise her to love God and people and shun evil – not easily or often done nowadays.  

Ministry & Life

The last half-year or so has been a wonderful time of learning.  In almost every way, God has provided opportunities for growth, and I’ve been trying to take advantage.  In terms of my beliefs, I’ve been reconsidering the legitimacy of birth control and I’ve given more focused thot to the doctrine of inerrancy and the canon.  I don't think I think enough about the implications of heaven and hell, and this concerns me.  I just finished a biography of Jonathan Edwards, and it made me realize how shallow my faith often is.  These are a few recent readings if you're interested in dialoguing about them.

Church has been challenging but good.  My parents have often warned me of the difficulties in dealing with people, and this season in ministry has been no exception.  We’ve had arguments and division over too many trivial things – whether we should allow ballroom dancing as an activity, incorporate drums into the worship music, change the times of the services.  Someone even left the church after an interpersonal spat became a mass-email war.  If only we,

including me, were this passionate about the more important matters.  Refocusing has been taking time, but we’re getting there.  Through all this I'm learning how far I have to go in becoming a true spiritual leader, and I've been thankful for the lessons.   

Community has been difficult to find in this part of California.  We’re so busy with distractions – the newest movie/TV show, fantasy football, losing too many hours to work for more money.  There’s no time for even a meal with our neighbors.  I wonder what our lives would be like if we didn’t have TVs and left our evenings unscheduled – less stressed with better relationships?  I heard the Amish reject modern technology to the extent that they break down community and relationships; I'm starting to appreciate their insites more.

Opportunity

My mom and sister recently returned from a trip to North Korea.  They visited my aunts who are still alive and healthier than the last time my mom visited a decade ago.  Since their stay was limited to Pyongyang this time, they brot back video footage that the government guide took and sold to them.  It was highly propagandized, but I actually got to see images of my cousins and aunts.  It got me thinking about what little opportunity they have to really live compared to me and my family here.

I sometimes tell my congregation that with great blessing comes great responsibility.  When I think about my cousins in NK, it makes me want to do great things with my life.  It's not so much because I have the opportunity to but more because they don't.  I feel like I owe them at least that, that God has given us opportunity that doesn't belong to just us.  It's hard to keep focused on that here in the South Bay (it's funny how much easier it was when we were in Garden Grove in the small apartment without much money) where it's easy to get caught up with a comfortable, well-to-do lifestyle, even for a pastor.  But each day we're trying to "set our hearts on the things above and not on earthly things" and leave the outcome to God. 

Jie’s Arrival

Well, the biggest news since the last time I wrote an update is obviously the birth of Yohana (June 18, one day after my birthday and Father’s Day to boot), whom her papa unabashedly calls “the most beautiful girl in the world.”  Other favorite nicknames include Jie (her Korean name), Yoyo (Jenny Eemoh’s term of endearment), Yohani (a clever twist that cousin Joelle came up with), Baby 'Hana (Justin) and “Shwee-shwee” (David for “sweetheart”). 

Without going into too much detail, labor was definitely a challenge that I feel made me stronger.  Not necessarily physically stronger, but internally stronger.  Sometime after college and my DTS I think I began to feel internally flabby and weak (again, I’m not talking about my physical body here).  Married, working life in Southern California lacked a certain amount of grit...if that makes any sense.  For about 3 hours of my labor, however, I really felt the need to reach deep inside myself – where God is very present and real – to get through every contraction.  The other rather beautiful thing about it was that I also really felt my need for active support from David and my sister Jenny, who were both there through the whole labor and delivery.  I don’t think I could have gotten through the whole experience as well as I did without the Lord’s strength and the constant cheerleading of family.  And isn’t that a snapshot of what our journey through this life on earth as Christians should resemble?

A strong sense of desperation for God’s help continued when I brought Jie home.  The first few weeks in particular were, ironically, spiritually refreshing as the physical challenges of nursing and recovery in general drove me to prayer several times a day.  There were numerous occasions on which I wanted to quit breastfeeding altogether.  David constantly reminded me to focus on the present and not on the unpleasant prospect of months of nursing: “Just get through the next feeding.”  Thankfully, I did always manage to get through the next feeding, and after a few weeks things were going much more smoothly.  I am still so grateful for all the support I received the first 2 months of Jie’s life through my mom and two older sisters who took turns staying with us to help take care of David, me and the baby!  I probably would have quit if they hadn’t been there to take over all the housework and force me to rest.

The one word that probably sums up how we feel about our daughter is joy.  I don’t think we were prepared for how much joy she would bring into our lives each day.  She is a gust of playful fresh air that lightens and refreshes our often stuffy and serious personalities (see video at right!).  To date, Jie is 4 and a half months old, weighs around 16 pounds, and eats and sleeps very well.  She has a very sweet and mild disposition.  She smiles, laughs, and babbles in her own baby language to people and stuffed animals and is notably strong.  Her latest exploits include rolling over and mouthing everything she can get her hands on.  It’s also been especially fun to see how much joy Jie brings to David’s parents, being their first grandchild, and to her adoring cousins who live in Northern Cal.   Go to the photo and video sections to see more pics and live action of Yohana.

Adjustments

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about being a full-time stay-at-home mom, but so far it’s been wonderful.  I was sad to quit teaching at UCI in March but now can’t imagine going back into the classroom any time soon.  For now, life is full as it is.  In addition to taking care of Yohana, I have been slowly trying to get more involved in the life of our new church family (since I just started attending CCCSB at the end of March).  During my last trimester and right after Yohana was born, I was able to begin building relationships with people at church largely because of the efforts of several sisters to reach out and try to make me feel comfortable and welcomed.  They regularly called and offered to take me out or bring a meal to me.  Looking back, what a blessing this was, especially for an introvert like me who has trouble taking the initiative to get to know people! 

More recently, I have begun tutoring a young woman from church and have also joined the worship ministry.  I really enjoy meeting weekly with Shannon, a newlywed who recently came to the U.S. from Beijing, to help her with her conversational English.  Please pray for her and our friendship, as I do not think she is a believer.  I’ve also committed to joining the worship ministry for the year.  I’ll be stepping into the position of worship coordinator and also leading one of the musical teams.  Originally, I was hesitant to take on this responsibility because of the time commitment and anxiety about how I would be able to juggle practices, Sunday morning services, and Yohana’s feeding schedule.  So far, however, things seem to be working out as I step out in faith.  Although I think it will be challenging in many ways, I’m excited to apply the lessons I’ve learned and use the experience I’ve gained from leading the worship team at JCF to the worship ministry at CCCSB.        
   

Finally, David and I still have a strong desire to be a blessing to our immediate physical community, our neighbors here at our new apartment in Torrance.  While the apartment structure is not very conducive to socializing, we have slowly been able to meet several of our neighbors.  For me the neat thing about the apartment complex is that there are many young couples and families from diverse ethnic backgrounds.  Both of those factors, I think, make it a little easier for me to approach people and try to build friendships.  We’ve had the most contact with our two closest neighbors.  George and Marisol, the Iranian/Hispanic couple in Unit 6, are expecting their first child in a few months, and Nilja and Rischu from India are newly pregnant with their second child!  Having just had Yohana, I feel excited for these women and able to relate to them in a new way.  Please pray for growing friendships and opportunities to share the Gospel with our neighbors.

I'm a little embarrassed to realize that we have about a million photos of Yohana...and zero of anyone else!  :P  Sorry about that... we'll try to make more of an effort to resume taking pictures of all the other people in our life so you can see them too!