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gnat-nager · 5 years

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I’m going on missions.

Whatever it takes

My passion for people to know Christ contiunes to grow as I grow deeper and deepr in my relationship with God. He laid a dream in my heart since the beginning of my college career: “Regan, lead other people into worshipping me.” That dream never changed, but it continues to blossem.

Honestly, it has been a jounrey and I’m still learning a lot about ministry. I am growing to serve God and I am seeing that I need to do whatever it takes for me to lead others into worshipping God.

Details

For the past two years, I have been serving in the Undergraduate Ministry at Harvest Mission Community Church (HMCC). God has been faithful to His ministry and the church. He is doing miraculous and redemptive work in the lives of college students. As I have been ministering to college students, God used various avenues like small groups, discipleship with younger brothers, and children’s ministry to continually grow my heart to invest in the next generation. The calling that God gave me back in college--to lead others into worshipping God--shaped and transformed the way I live my life.

Therefore, I will be participating in this year’s Community Summer Missions Project (CSMP) via HMCC to lead the next generation into worshipping the one true God. This summer, I will be serving with 14 other members of HMCC of Ann Arbor. From June 24th through August 1st, we will be partnering with a team from HMCC of Austin to serve our communities in the greater Detroit area. Our ministry will include running a program called Excel Academy, which reaches out to international children in Michigan through education. We will also be reaching out to the underserved in partnership with Lighthouse of Ypsilanti, doing neighborhood outreaches and working with the youth. Finally, we’ll be spending time as well with our sister site in Detroit, reaching out to college students at Wayne State University. The heart behind missions for me is to build up the next generation to live a missional lifestyle for God.

As much as I want you to join me on this missions trip to experience God’s work, I cannot bring you along physically. Instead, I want to invite you guys on this journey with me through prayer or financial support. I need to raise $650 by June 21st to cover various expenses. I believe God is at work with or without me, and as I live my life I want to be part of this redemptive work that God is doing in this world. I hope that you would prayerfully consider partnering with me through a commitment to prayer, financial support, or both. I am excited to see the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Prayer Requests: 1. Lead by conviction 2. Sharpening of my identity in Christ 3. Heart for the lost

You can support me via this link:

http://annarbor.hmcc.net/resources/annarbor/forms/Missions2019/csmp.html?fbclid=IwAR29y0QREvhd0zNqONLBHViCQQ6s_ScRlh7yyp6jAx0T_tNHoiDc7qm6ios

Philippians 1:21–23 [21] For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. [22] If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. [23] I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

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gnat-nager · 6 years

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A little update!

What have I been up to these days... I haven’t updated y’all for a while and I hope you enjoy reading this update from me!

Life Group:

This summer I have the chance of leading a life group with three other leaders: Adrian, Guy, and John. It has been an interesting life group and we are called 111.5 Breadcast. The story behind this is based on Ecclesiastes 11:1-5, where we cast our bread onto the boat, hoping that our investment will bring glory to God. This life group, I was able to develop deeper relationships with certain younger brothers and I would have to say, it has been fruitful. The only contact I have with these younger brothers are within this life group and from the get-go, I was able to share deeply with them. Praise God for openness. I also really appreciate the other leaders that I am leading with, because we have different styles and also just different perspectives on how to approach certain things. Learning from them made me realized how incomplete I am and I need help from others. We are actually closing out summer life group soon, so pray that we can live out the vision of our name and boldly cast our bread even after life group ends.

Discipleship:

Speaking about discipling, during this summer, my focus is to teach the importance of being sustained by the word of God to the younger brothers. Many times when I meet up with brothers, I would just read a book in the Bible with them. There are various ways to disciple a person, but ultimately it must be from God. The word of God really provide a clear structure on how to live a lifestyle of worship and I must say, God has been working in many younger brothers in growing their heart for the word. I am thankful for this. Please pray for the younger generation that they will have a greater appetite for the word of God!

Aside from me discipling others, I am also being discipled by older brothers. I am super thankful for them... I don’t deserve their investment, but these older brothers are pouring out their heart to me. I’m a difficult person to put up with cause 1.) I get misunderstood easily 2.) I am stubborn at times and I revet back to my sins. However, these older brothers keep on pursing and chasing after me like Christ. Discipleship to the MAX!

Also, I am super thankful for a family that I’ve been getting closer here in Ann Arbor. Shout out to the Kim Family. I am thankful for Paul and Jennifer cause they are so welcoming... I still remember one day I helped out with building some furnitures for their kids. So backstory, Jennifer is expecting another baby soon and they bought two new beds for their children. I went out to help build the beds for them. During my time with them, they would listen to my struggles and the things that I’m currently going through. I really appreciate their honesty and something their brutal comment and giving me the reality check. I really felt like I was part of their family when I spent that day with them building the furnitures. Aside from the, one day, I really hope that I can do what they did for me, inviting younger people into my future family to build up man and woman of God.

Friendship:

This portion of my life has been an interesting area. I say this because many of my friends that stayed after graduation is leaving or have already left. I am thankful for the friends that I was able to make throughout my college career and it saddens me to see friends leave, but I am actually really excited for my friends moving onto the next stage of their lives and advancing the kingdom of God in their on calling as they move/ have already moved out of Ann Arbor. The lesson behind friendship is that, I don’t need to be with my friends physically, because they are always near to my heart. As cheesy as it sounds, distance cannot separate the friendships.

Church:

These past couple of weeks I realized how our church will never be perfect but it is being completed by Jesus. As I stay longer and longer in HMCC, I recognized there are things that need to be improved and it takes time for change to happen. Sometime, I find myself circling around over and over again on how our church need to change certain things (You can ask me about it if you want to know). While I find myself circling, I also find myself building up bitterness and ending up criticizing my church without actually making a change. As a result, I become the problem instead of building up my church. Recently, I was talking to an older brother and he mentioned to me about how, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” Ephesian 5:25b. I was challenged by him to actually love the church by acknowledging that Jesus is working within the church through the pastors and he loves the church more than anyone and more than me. Even though there are things to be improved, Jesus knows that and He is working through the messiness of His church. The lesson here for myself is to love the church as Christ loved the church by sacrificing himself on the cross. And I guess a prayer request here is that I can support the leaders that are running the church and the pastors with the best of my capability.

Excel:

For the month of July, I volunteered for a program run by HMCC, Excel, to teach international kids English. Most of the kids are from Japan, Korea or China, because their parents moved to the States to either do research or work here for a couple of years. This year I was able to help out with a tad bit of the administrative side of the program and taught a bunch of first graders. What stood out the most throughout the program was the concept of the Simple Gospel. It is crazy that even kids understand that they have sinned and done bad things in their lives and the only way to receive forgiveness is to acknowledge Jesus is the only one that can wipe us clean and give us a redeemed life. I think as we grow older and life gets harder and messier, we can complicate the idea of grace and love from God. However, it’s actually really simple that even kids understand this concept. The lesson here is that, the gospel is simple and I must be like a kid and accept his grace with a childlike faith.

Building Blocks:

This past month, I recently joined another ministry team within my church and that is Building Blocks. Pretty much, I’m a Sunday School teacher for kids! WOOO! I really love this team cause, I LOVE KIDS! Ugh. I’m super thankful that I get to invest into the younger generation by teaching them who God is. Please pray that I can be faithful with this team and I can develop deeper relationships with the kids!

School/Work:

So in the previous post, I have mentioned about being accepted into a Counseling program at Moody. Sadly, I won’t be starting or beginning this program due to financial reason, therefore I am currently job searching and trying to be responsible with my finance first! One thing I notice is that God has called me to Ann Arbor and to continue to invest in the church, but I also need to be responsible with other things like my finance in order for me to honor and glorify God’s calling for me here. So a prayer request here is that I will be diligent with my job search and also pray for providence from God!

Retreat:

This upcoming Sunday, I will be helping out a youth camp retreat at another church. I am actually quite excited for this cause I never really helped out at a youth camp before and working with teenagers. I have been trying to see how I can serve God outside of Harvest and when the opportunity came up, I hopped on it to see how God can use me in a different environment. I really want to work with kids and youth teenagers in the future. So, I really hope this chance can give me exposure with the calling that God has given me. I am also going to be helping out with worship by playing drums during my time at this retreat. But... Man, I haven’t touched the drums for like... 5 years and since practicing with the team, I am thankful for their patient with me. I think serving at another church made me realized how God is working not just in Ann Arbor, but he is working everywhere. Please pray that I can counsel the teenagers and the small group that I will be in charged of and also I can ministry to the staff. Also pray that I can lead others into worshipping the ALMIGHTY GOD.

Personal:

This summer has been a trying summer and a summer where I will always remember. He called me to surrender my own desires and chase after him and believe in His timing. Honestly speaking, it has been tough surrendering, but I believe God is the God is that for me and never against me. I think God is a funny God, as I looked back in my previous journal entries, I prayed many prayers about this one thing. I prayed, “God allow me to surrender and let you be in control of this area of my life.” Years later, I’m still surrendering and I’m still relinquishing my own plans to him. I realized surrendering is not a one time thing, but it’s a everyday thing. There are some days where I can say, “God, yes! I surrender because you are so much better than anything I desire.” and there are some days where I am dreading to surrender.

Although it is hard, please pray that I am wait patiently for God’s ultimate plan and pray that I can seek after God first and believe He is the God that is better.

Here are some pictures!

(Fourth of July Hot Pot Party with my Life Group and another sister Life Group! Funny story, I burnt myself while lighting up firework for people... I was hot.)

(Tiffany is on the left and Hannah is on the right. Hannah left and started working at Austin. Tiffany, well she’s stuck with me in Ann Arbor...)

(My Accountability Partner, Richard, He is a man of God.)

(This man is my first discipler at Harvest, and guess what. HE’S ENGAGED WITH THE LOVE OF THIS LIFE!)

(APPLE CLASS!)

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gnat-nager · 7 years

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new season.

I’m a Grad Student?!

Thank you for those who had prayed for me during my grad school process. In the past December I have applied to a seminary school for Masters in Counseling Psychology. In my time working at the hospital, I felt the calling to walk and guide those who are in need mentally and spiritually. Therefore I took the step to apply for counseling. I am excited to tell y’all that I gotten accepted! I will be taking a course in the summer to get my butt started on this program, super hyped! WOOO, praise God for providing and leading me in this direction. Continue to pray for me as I take on this path. I, myself need to be counseled by the wonderful counselor, God.

I Got Surgery And There’s a Lesson...?

On January 17th, I got my surgery for my instability in my right shoulder. It’s finally fixed! Now comes the hard part, healing process. I really don’t like the healing process because it takes time. If you know, I like things quick and fast. I really want my shoulder to be healed right away. I would be lying if I were to tell you the healing process is easy and going smoothly. This sucks. I can’t use my whole right arm right now and the pain for the first few days was terrible. Looking back, it has only been 2 weeks since getting my surgery but within the span of these days, I learned a lot about myself and community. So, I had to stay in the hospital after my surgery, because they needed to monitor my pain and my incision. While in the hospital, I was bombarded with friends and my brother stayed with my literally the whole day. I realized that I was loved by my friends and family. In my there has been a lie in my heart that always tells me how I am unwanted, but I really saw the love of Christ emitting from every one that came and visited me. My friends and family confirmed that I am cherished by the loving God and He sent friends and family in my way to show me His love through a Christ-centered community.

God is my sovereign God. I am learning that my physical status is the representation of my spiritual health. Like what I have said before, I need to go through the healing process with my right shoulder right now, and surprisingly, I am also doing that same with my spiritual health. My spiritual wellbeing needs to be tended and I must let God do His work in this season of my life.

(Here’s a picture of my friend Susie who really wanted a picture while I was in pain. Since I’m really nice, I said, “Sure... Why not.”)

Stepping Down Because God Loves Me.

On January 25th, I stepped down from Band Ministry, because God loves me. I praise God for growing my heart in worship and using music as an outlet for me to worship Him. I’ve been on band since my Junior year of college and it was a good two years of growth. I learned how to be more responsible to living a life of integrity, and having a lifestyle of worship. I made friends that sharpens my faith and I can remember countless stupid and joyful moments my time in band.

Although, this season of my life, God is demanding me to seek after Him without any distraction. He was telling me that Band was becoming more a distraction than an attraction to Him. God loves me so much that He’s willing to strip away anything and everything so that my one audience is Him.

Since stepping down from Band, I’ve gotten more time on my hand where I can spend time with God. It’s wonderful, I encourage y’all to spend some time reading the Bible daily. Anyways, please pray for me as I continue learning how to seek after God in times of rest and free time in my hands.

Broken vs. Perfect Family

“I rather have a broken family that proclaims Christ than a ‘perfect’ family.” A huge portion of what I’ve been burdened by this season of my life is my family. When my parents came to visit me in Michigan because of my shoulder, I thought it will just be a plain old visit, but that is not what God intended. There were many conversations that my mother had brought up past hurts in front of my father. My brother and I had to be the mediator in some of these conversations. It was tough. I, of course, wanted this to be resolved, so I kept pressing my mother with questions during a dinner. As a result, the conversation led to deeper and deeper brokenness where I realized, I cannot do anything.

That night, I reflected...

For the first time, I “felt” what my mother was going through. The broken trust that sinks deeper than any part of the ocean cannot be fixed by man. I cannot fathom the hurt she had to go through. I can never understand or experience anything close to her pain. As I sat across from her, I looked deep into her soul, it was clouded with hatred, brokenness, unforgiving heart, but I can recall a familiar ring from God. Over and over again, the ring gets louder and louder in my head. The Almighty God said this, “She is my beloved child.” I saw my mother’s identity. I stared deep into my mother soul again, but this time is different. She isn’t just a person filled hopelessness and scars, but slowly her scars weren’t so pronounced any more, because it was her identity as a child of God that was projecting out from beneath her hate and doubts. Lord my prayer for my mother is for her to know her true identity in Christ. As long as she has been “Christian,” I pray that she will learn the basics. Let her identity as a beloved child bring her to hope and forgiveness so that she can change from the grace of God. As for me, I’m weak and I can’t fix the broken relationship between my mother and father. I tried and I tried, but it can only go so far. Like what I said before, the brokenness that my mother has in her heart is so deep. I can only cry from my heart begging the Savior of my life to go deep into Sheol to guide my mother back into the presence of the loving Father. Or maybe, guide her to experience for the first time of freedom and true love.

I realized, that my family needs God. My mother needs God to create in her a new heart and my father needs the strength to know He’s forgiven. I realized, my brother and I cannot be the mediator forever, but we must be the reflector of God’s grace and hope so that my parents can be transformed. Before my parents left, we were able to reconcile and since then, things have settled and praise God for softening my parents hearts to learn how to rely on God. As for me, I really hope that my family can be a broken family that proclaims God’s grace and mercy. I really want my family to be a living testimony that God can change our hearts and God can deliver us from past hurts. If my family can do that then I think God will be pleased and all glory will be to Him. So please pray for my family and ask God to lead us into the new creation that God has promised for us.

Loneliness is real.

For the longest time, I’ve been struggling with loneliness. This past week, I was faced with loneliness and normally it wouldn’t be too bad. Although, there was one day that it gotten so bad, where I spent my entire day in my room for eight hours straight and lying on my bed thinking about how lonely I was. Near the last four hours of the eight, I started depreciating myself with lies. I started thinking how worthless I was, how I was a burden to others, and how no one cares. It was a cycle of lies going through my head for hours.

I’ve never experienced loneliness to a point where it was so paralyzing. Ultimately, at the end of the night I broke down while driving by myself. There was a rush of lies repeating in my head over and over again while I was driving. The only thing I could do was to cry out for help and cry out for someone to hear. I was so frustrated at God, I kept asking Him, “Why are you doing this to me? Why do I always feel like this? What is wrong with me?” I was questioning God and I was upset at myself for being weak. During the car ride, I realized, I was trapped with lies and I cannot escape the reality of loneliness.

However, I really want to praise God for using this moment to show me that I have brothers that care for me. When I broke down, I reached out to my friends for help and comfort. I was able to get in touch with my brother, Edwin, where he prayed for me on the spot. I had a community that cared, but it was Satan that uses lies to bring me down and make me into a faithless child of God.

Please pray for me to fight against Satan, because he is at work, trying to bring me down. Also pray that I will know that God has provided a community for me so that I can know the truth of God. Pray also for a deeply rooted faith in God and at times of loneliness that I may have the truth to fight against the cycle of lies.

And that’s pretty much my update! Thanks for reading! Sorry, there weren’t many pictures in this post! But here are some!

Here’s a picture of some of the cohort leaders that get to lead with! We had a snowball fight. Praise God for Sumi and Tommy.

Oh, and I went to Toronto with the some good buddies of mine. We concluded that Toronto is just another China.

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gnat-nager · 7 years

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“come and see”

Hello people! It has been awhile since I have updated you guys on what I’ve been up to! Sorry for the long wait.

Work & Surgery

I have been working full time on the adult psychiatric unit for the past three months now as a Nurse Tech. Working has been difficult along with ministry. I only work night shifts and I’m on every weekend. It may sound okay, but let me tell you my schedule for my weekend. I would start my shift on Friday at 11PM and end my shift on Saturday at 7:30AM. Right after work, I would go straight into TC meeting - TC stands for Team Community, it’s what we call the leadership group at HMCC - and that will last until 12PM. Then I would go to sleep and wake up for dinner and rest a little before I go into work again at 11PM on Saturday. This will repeat again and I would work from 11PM to 7:30AM Sunday. Then I would go straight to church from 7:30AM until 1PM then go to sleep and wake up for work. The first few weeks of this was tough and it’s still tough now.

I’ve been telling everyone that this is the toughest and hardest thing I’ve ever encountered in my life. But of course, God is sovereign and this happened because God wanted to tell me something.

So what am I learning from all this hardship?

I’m glad you asked! A LOT. I’m learning so much about my character, limitation, relationship with God, and etc. (If you want to know more in details, send me a text, meet up with me, or ask me via email me, I’ll tell ya! The list is exhausting)

Literally, God used this job to show me how finite and limited I am. I learned that I can’t depend on myself and I need to depend on God and ask for help from others. I learned that I cannot sustain myself through my own will and dedication, it’s impossible, like really… it is impossible

I’ve been living in a mess for a while and everything was uprooted when I started this job. But this job helped me gained a better perspective on how to better prioritize life. Pretty much God must be first.

I’m super thankful for this job, where I get to learn much more about more

about my passion in mental health

(My buddies at work!)

Surgery?

The reason is because I will be moving back into my temp position where my hours are going to be irregular again so I can have time off to recover. I will be out for work at least 3 months and I need to start job searching again for a full time job during the end of my third month. It’ll be great appreciated if y’all can pray for me to first prioritize God and allow Him to lead me into the next job opportunity.

Ministry || Life Group

It has already been four months into Fall/Winter LIFE Group. Time passes by so quickly and within a blink of an eye, four months have past. This year, my LG is called ‘the’. The word ‘the’ is used to indicate that someone or something is the best known or most important of that name. We want to emphasize the God of our lives, so for example, He is ‘the’ Almighty, ‘the’ Healer, ‘the’ Redeemer, and etc. Overall, this year’s LG is young and there are handful of freshmen and sophomores. Something that you guys can pray for this LG catching the fire of knowing Christ and living a life for God. It’s a young LG so the older members and the leaders have to teach a lot and set the culture for them and that’s something I am thankful for, since there are a lot of opportunities for discipleship. Please also pray for our spiritual health, since it is a young LG, and pray that we can stay focus and be on God’s path for us.

My Team

I’ve been super blessed leading with my other co-leaders, Tommy and Stef. They are amazing and I don’t know what I’ll do without them. They’ve shown me support and love throughout the four months. And I’ve been through a lot this couple months and they saw every part of it. I honesty love them a lot! On the other hand, golly gee, leading with them revealed a lot about myself. I’m seeing how bad I am at loving and caring for people at times. I’m learning so much on how to support, love, and encourage them in midst of their struggles and my struggles. I’m not the best at supporting my co-leaders but by God’s grace I’m trying my best. So a prayer request would be asking God to give me strength to support and love them as my family.

(Here are two beautiful picture of them)

Baptism || Discipleship

Praise God for baptism… Like LEGIT! In my LG this year, there are four members that got recently baptized. WHAT! I know! FOUR!? That’s crazy! Words can’t express my joy and excitement for them as they take the step of faith to publicly express their commitment in Christ. During baptism service, I was reminded that ministry is totally worth it. Stories after stories, the one thing that kept coming up in people’s testimonies were God is the truth, way, and light.

Discipleship: Something that brought SO MUCH joy to my heart is seeing a fellow younger brother that I’ve been discipling since his freshman year getting baptized. His name is Steve and honestly, seeing him getting baptized solidified my calling to love on those who are in need of Christ. Praise God for having Steve in my life where I get to live out my calling. It’s worth it!

(Here’s Steve with his favorite shirt.)

(Here’s the four members that got baptized! Praise God!!)

Personal || Healing Process

After graduation, I would think life would be easier cause I don’t have to study for exams, meet deadlines for papers, or go to class, but nope! Life doesn’t get any easier. Like what I’ve said before, this season of my life is the toughest season of my life I’ve ever experienced. Working and ministry have been super tough to juggle and for the in September and October, I’ve been trying to fight through my trials and hardship on my own. So what happens when hardship meets Regan… I’m GLAD YOU ASKED! Gee, you guys are good at asking questions. Let me tell y’all what happens… God steps into the picture…

God has a plan for me, so rather letting me push through, God said, “Stop. You need to heal.” Honestly, it’s difficult for me to stop and allow God to heal me. For so long, I’ve been trying to fight through my personal issues and struggles by myself and it has been hurting me. Not only it has been hurting me, but I was creating wounds in my heart. Medically speaking, when there is a wound, you would want to heal it cause bacteria can enter into the wound and cause more trouble. So not only you have to heal the wound, you need to deal with the infection. If you don’t heal the infection and wound, the injury can worsen. Dramatically speaking, YOU CAN DIE from the wound. That’s why, God stepped in and said, “I’m not letting you die.” Something you guys can pray for is for me to take this time to seek out God for healing in my ‘wounds’. Also, pray that I’ll be patient with God about this healing process. I tend to like quick fix, but seems like the wounds that are in my heart isn’t a quick fix. So pray for me!

Grad School?!

Why yes. I applied for grad school like literally four days ago. Working on the psych unit really brought my attention to the youth suffering from depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders. That is why I want to further my education and become a counseling psychologist. Nothing really much other than, pray that I’ll get into the school that I applied for! THANKS

PRAY FOR ME & THANKS FOR READING!

(Here’s a picture of my cat, Ling Ling.)

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