"Are we near Harvard Ave. ?"

That was the question I asked my best friend as she led me by the hand to a surprise birthday dinner.  As humorous as that question may sound, it becomes more understandable once one adds in the minor detail that I was also blindfolded before we left my apartment.  Don't forget to add in the other detail that she walked me around a bit and that I lost my sense of direction within 2 minutes...yeah, I hadn't the fondest clue where I was! 

It's not every day that you see a blindfolded man walking down the street.  Apart from street traffic noise, I hardly heard any discernable human voice, besides my best friend's.  Apparently, people became dead silent as she and I walked by them.  Once we walked passed them, they would continue their conversations.  The only voice I heard, besides Sofia's was a lady who said "Aww..." as we strolled by.

I was pleasantly surprised and amazed to see who was at the dinner and where we ended up at!    I had figured we were going to a restaurant to eat, but I didn't know where, and I wasn't expecting to see that many people!  I really was moved by the fact that they made it out to Allston just for a simple birthday dinner.

After dinner and a little dessert, got back home and just thought about some of the kind & encouraging words that were spoken that night.  It was pretty amazing to realize that over a year ago, I hardly knew a lot of these friends, but here we are!  How does one even connect the strange, seemingly random dots that decorate one's past year, or lifetime for that matter?

In a funny way, life with Jesus, is very much like being led blindfolded.  A lot of times, we can't see past certain decision points simply because we don't understand what they truly entail.  We never planned them, strategized them, or create plan Bs for them.  We're simply asked to trust Him; to say yes to Him and let Him guide us to where He wants us to be.

Sometimes we can feel His hand;
other times we can only hear His voice;
and in the scariest times, we only hear Him say once "Keep walking straight..."

...as He goes and prepares the way in front of us.

When you love someone, there is no fear.  All that one has left is trust...faith in that person.

Faith isn't about being able to see one's path...faith ultimately is the ability to see the One who is creating the path.

Last year on this day, Sofia & I were in Atlanta, GA for the Passion'07 conference that was being held in the first few days of January. We attended Pastor Charles Stanley's church that rain drenching morning and the sermon's main point was "The best has yet to come..." After we left, we had an incident with our rental car that completely changed our perspectives on a lot of subjects. 2007 has been a defining year for me. It has ranged from the theological aspects of who God is & how He works, to the very practical aspects of life such as learning how to live in the phase of being engaged, learning and working within a foreign culture, and the expected marriage-planning stresses that come. All of this started with the ironic-at-the-time statement from Charles Stanley...

I was one of the many volunteers at the Passion'07 conference and whenever I had free time, the volunteers were allowed to check out the numerous resources that were made available for the college students who attended. One of these resources included a whole wing for Mission & world aid organizations. If one has ever been to an Urbana conference, then one wouldn't be surprised to find information about organizations that were sending missionaries to S.America, India, China, etc and other organizations dedicated to social justice issues such as human trafficking(modern day slavery). However, there was one section that did surprise me as I stood there.

For the N.America section, the Passion organizers placed an emphasis on 3 target missionary cities. In other words, out of all the cities that are found in the N.America continent, 3 stood out as cities that need missionaries to come in and do work within...Boston, Toronto, and New York City.

It was a really strange sensation to see my own hometown listed as a missionary-focused city. When I read the description and information about Boston, if I wasn't a Bostonian, I would totally believe that Boston was a dark spiritual place. I didn't disagree with the description of Boston, but it was hard for me to accept as I've lived here all my life and the city didn't seem to be that spiritual oppressed to me. It's a hard city, I thought, but the Gospel is here and working...

Fast forward to Sept'07 and I'm listening to a podcasts from Louie Giglio talking about Boston and the upcoming conference being held at the Agganis Arena in October. 2 things struck me as I listened...

1. The Passion organizers truly love Boston & the potential that the Gospel can do within the city, especially through the many college students who live here.
2. Boston is a dark, spiritually, oppressed area where the Gospel's penetration has been slow.

Later that evening, I had a talk with my pastor about some future events being planned for our church and the topic about Passion and Boston came up. To my surprise, my pastor completely and wholeheartedly agreed with Louie's assessment of the city. This came from a man who has been in Boston for 8-10 years, who came from one of the other "target" N.America missionary cities, but who honestly can testify that sharing the Gospel in Boston is an extremely difficult task.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I was a volunteer at the Passion[Boston] Regional conference during Oct. 12th & 13th. It was my second time volunteering at a Passion conference & was definitely a pleasure to be serving the students who came from all over Boston & New England. Volunteering is a rewarding experience, but there is something very different about helping out at Passion events. Most of these volunteers don't just like serving at Christian events, they specifically love serving college students. They see a lot of potential and hope in the collegiate generation, and it showed in how they interacted with the students.

The volunteers also are not just from the local area. Many sacrificed their time and money just to be servants to people that they probably won't ever see again in life. That was all the more clear to me as many of the volunteers I worked with during that weekend were from places such as LA, NYC, Atlanta, and Minnesota, but came to Boston because they wanted to participate in what God was doing in the city.

In the end, there were a total of 1200+ college students who forsook two nights at Fenway just to be at Agganis Arena. It has been commented many times, but I have to say, it truly did sound like Agganis was filled with 12,000 students instead of 1200. Those students were eager and excited to worship together, whether it be in song, in soaking in the Word, or in acts of love. (That'll be for another entry.)

It was incredibly fun! I'm also grateful for a # of conversations with various volunteers & Passion staff. There was one moment, however, that really stood out for me personally.

During the conference, some of my former Sunday school students from BCEC's youth ministry came to the conference. It was their first time at a real Passion conference and it was a joy for me to see them as they were soaking in that whole weekend. It was also a strange sight to see how a bunch of them always found seats in the front row! I knew some of them can run fast, but that was ridiculous.

After the conference ended, I introduced a few of them to a fellow volunteer, Radford. I mentioned to him that I was their SS teacher/youth counselor for about 5 years and the next thing I know, Radford's eyes widen and he starts shouting at me about how exciting that was! He hardly could believe that I had known these students since they were 12-13 years old and now here they were, in college, part of the generation that he has loved to serve. He was more happy & excited about them than I was! Admittedly, I was very confused as to why Radford was so excited about them than I was, especially since I had just introduced them to him. I think he sensed my confusion, and wanted me to realize something. In no less words, he asked me if I didn’t realize that those college students, those students that I had watch grow up, were my legacy…

What do you say to that??? I didn’t say anything after that as I knew I needed to let those words sink into me. One thing I realized is though those students may be the evidence of what God had done through me, my legacy is really nothing more than an extension of the legacies that my former youth counselors have. Plus, their legacies are also nothing more than the buildup of many more legacies of followers of Christ throughout the past. Those college students one day will hopefully have their legacies too that continue this trend, as they share the love of Jesus to their fellow classmates and beyond.

Ultimately, there is only One whose legacy will never fade or diminish. It is up to me whether I want my legacy, my story to be invested & merged into His. That is something to proud of and worthy to be told to future generations to come.

So this past Friday & Saturday I was a volunteer at the Passion conference held in the Agganis Arena at BU.  This was my second time working as a volunteer at Passion, but it was very significant for me as the Passion conference was finally here in my hometown, BOSTON!  Ever since Louie & crew came up here 4 years ago at the Orpheum theater, I've been hoping they would come back again & God answered that prayer powerfully in the span of two days.

Yes, there is much to say about the memorable moments of the conference, but for now, I have a reflection about marriage after some conversations I had during the conference.  It was a blessing as well to see Sofia getting a well deserved break from her residency and just soaking in everything that was going on with the conference.  She needed it I believe and I hope that she felt really refreshed and refocused.

A few years ago, a brother of mine gave me some counsel that I'm still very grateful for to this day.  It was around the time when I was pondering whether I should pursue a possible courtship with Sofia.   In short, I was actually grasping for any good reason to NOT date, but I couldn't think of any that was actually reasonable and not tainted by my own worries.

After listening to me a bit, this brother shared his thoughts about the situation, and asked me one crucial question:

"Do you believe that you and Sofia produce more fruit a part or together?"

I was speechless.  It was such a deep question that it did take me a while to answer it.  The answer would involve the decision of whether to pursue or not, but it involved a more important aspect...ministry and effectiveness for Christ.  That was a bigger issue to deal with.

Fast-forward to last Saturday night.  I found myself speaking with Shelly Giglio, a lady who's been a part of the Passion movement since it began, and the wife of Louie Giglio, the guy who was given this crazy idea called Passion.  We were talking about the need for the Church to pursue social justice and the work that God was doing in Boston.  Eventually, Sofia shows up once the doors to the arena were opened.  I introduced her to Shelly and we told her that we're engaged and when the wedding is going to be.  Naturally, Shelly congratulated us, but then said something that stuck.

She mentioned how she & Louie had been married for over 22 years now and that it has been a testimony of God's faithfulness to them.  Eventually, Shelly had to get back to other things that were going on in the conference and I was thankful for that short time conversing together.  It made me think, 22 years of marriage they've been married and have served together in such a capacity.  That was a picture to me of what it means to produce fruit together as a couple.  Serving together for the purpose of extending the Kingdom, hand in hand, until death do they part.

This isn't to say that Sofia & I will be serving God together in the exact same way, or same ministry even, but I really hope in 22 years, we can say too that God has been faithful and proven Himself in our marriage.  As great as weddings and married-hood are, the Glory of God is even better, and to leverage our marriage to something that'll outlast everything sounds truly fruitful to me.

It was a wonderful day in Boston and not because the Sox won tonight.  It was wonderful because college students around the area got a glimpse, a taste of who is truly the most awesome, beautiful, amazing person in the world!  I am grateful for this time...so thankful!!!

So after 9 weeks, the Nepal Project team finally did our presentation about Nepal to the Mosaic Boston community this past Sunday. The community had been looking forward to this for over 2 months and it was encouraging to see the many people who came to the presentation, including some of our friends and supporters from other local communities. It was an extremely meaningful Sunday for me personally, no doubt at all about that.

I was one of the team members who was asked to share one of my stories from Nepal with the congregation. As I was informed about this literally at the 11th hour on the night before the presentation, I naturally was a little nervous about doing it, but at the same time I already knew what I wanted to share. The tricky part was how to be as concise and concrete as possible in the span of 4-5 minutes. So I woke up early on Sunday and just worked on the testimony up until the time I had to get over to church on time.

I tried to stay focused and calm, but the combination of watching the video that Dan made and the funny explanation that Mike Chen gave about the ending was deadly to my attempt in staying calm and serene.  I honestly hope that the main point of what I wanted to share got through because it did become hard to stay focused and not let the emotions that were percolating to the top overwhelm me.  (Just another reminder to me that I am not a person who can write things down verbatim and recite it. All I really needed were talking points...)

For those who are curious or couldn't make it yesterday, I'd like to share what I originally had written down and thought I'd share verbatim. Added bonus to this version is that some pictures can be used to make more sense of the story.

Good morning Mosaic! I would love to share with you one of the many lessons that God had taught me during our time in Nepal this summer. It was on the last day that
we were in the village of Pokhara. Dan & I were hiking up the mountain range because Devi, one of the founders of the HOPE organization, wanted to show us the future site of a computer center that HOPE was planning on building. Devi also wanted to get our opinions and thoughts on how to effectively build this center and train the local villagers
in the use of computers.

Afterwards, we began traveling from one home to another so that Devi could talk with the families and tell them about this computer center.

While Devi was in one of these homes, Dan & I were standing outside waiting for him. As I stood there, no more than 20 feet away from me, was this little schoolgirl washing a small metal pan on the ground.

I didn't fully understand why, but as I watched her, a flood of emotion began to fill up in my heart.

It was then that I realized that if things do not change in Nepal; if the direction of this nation does not change, then this little girl will be bound to repeat the same cycle of poverty
and hopelessness that previous generations have experienced. Simply because of where she was born and who she born to, her future has already been written, if the circumstances around
her do not change.

All I could think of besides breaking into tears was to take this photo of her to honor what God had shown me that day. I still think about this girl, though I don't even her name. Every time I look at this photo, I pray for her. I pray that she will one day experience freedom from this cycle of poverty, and that she would reach the full potential that God has given her. I know that He knows her name, her life, and that he has a future for her that is beyond anything that I could dream for
her. Thank you.

---

As it happens sometimes, one can say something that also teaches oneself.

"Her future may have been written in stone, but God can break that stone and free her."

I don't know where those words came from because they weren't in my original thoughts as I prepared, but they couldn't be any truer.  Nothing has been written in stone that God can not destroy, demolish, and brush away.  He alone is the one who can change this little girl's destiny because He is the only one who can break this cycle and empower her to reach the full potential that He's given her to become.