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Tomorrow is the day

Tomorrow is the first day of PA school! 

What a long, crazy, painful yet humbling journey it’s been. The road is still long and the journey will bring many more humbling opportunities but man... PTL. I remember blogging on tumblr years ago when I was struggling about my identity and what I wanted to become. I talked to Jesus in the car on my long commutes to school every morning and I wondered where I’d be years from now... I remembered that I prayed earnestly for Jesus to guide my passions and fill my heart with the things that would bring Him glory. And... it’s been 7-8 years in the making now until I finally start my PA program. 

I remember long nights in Ochem lab/studying during finals week where I felt like there was no end in sight... but I knew God was there somewhere in between it all. There was purpose, reason, maturity and insight that needed to be cultivated in those years. As I continue into my profession, I hope to always remain humble and continue to place myself under the waterfalls of His grace. May I always remember that this profession is a a gift/opportunity to serve His beloved children. This all was done only by the grace of God in His perfect timing. 

I cant believe it!

Year 1 of being PA-S. Let’s go GOD! Soli deo Gloria! 

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To become like Christ, this ordeal must be faced. You can be filled with joy even in the midst of suffering when your pursuit is character and not comfort.

Uprising - Erwin McManus  (via littlethingsaboutgod)

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Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things (via yesdarlingido)

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I think it’s a bit dishonest to use “Have faith like a child” as a way to shut a person down. Like, somehow, it means we’re not supposed to wonder, we’re just supposed to accept. Now that I have a house full of small humanity, I think I’m beginning to understand why Jesus would encourage us to have faith like a child. They don’t know. And so they ask. We don’t know. And so we ask. The asking isn’t wrong. The wondering isn’t wrong. The doubt isn’t wrong.

Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts (via contrariansoul)

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I just came back form my Japan missions trip on Wednesday! I still can’t believe this all happened, it feels so surreal! Jet lag hasn’t been too bad, but the whole trip felt like one big blur. We visited three college campuses, had endless nights of connecting via conversations/line texts with our new Japanese friends, and it felt like we were always running from one train station to the next (or missing our trains)... 24 hours didn’t feel like enough time for one day in Japan.

Our ministry mainly consisted of meeting up with students that were part of an international conversation club. We visited Sophia University to meet up with several of the homestay students that our church hosted last year. Next was Tokyo University--noted as The Harvard of Japan... and lastly, we visited Shibaura Institute of Technology--a place where we met most of our new friends. We work in conjunction with Grace Harbor Church in Toyosu Tokyo to help connect these students to the church and it’s missionaries. We hope that this action will eventually lead to long term connections so that the gospel may eventually be introduced into student’s lives. 

Prior to the trip (and even some parts of the trip), my heart was in a state of apathy. I felt stuck and I didn’t think that I would ever get myself out of it. I didn’t feel like Jesus loved me and I didn’t trust Him nor His promises. Soon enough, Jesus began to feel like a distant father that didn’t seem to really care about me. I knew He was there, but this dry season felt indefinite for the time being. Sin allowed me to believe that His promises were so far out of reach.

As we connected with these students, God’s love began to unravel and I watched it work with my very own eyes. We shared the gospel, saw the brightest and liveliest people we’ve ever met and as tired as we were through long nights of ministry--our team felt so blessed. We heard stories from one another of how God was working. For example, a student from last year’s homestay program named Hokuto was given a study bible from one of our team members. When we saw that same bible in his possession, it looked incredibly worn in which Hokuto replied, “I’ve been reading it everyday.” He claims he isn’t a Christian yet and wants to fully understand everything before he commits, however Hokuto actually shared the gospel with our team and encouraged us! He notes that he sees the Bible/Christianity and science work in conjunction with one another.

When I often think of mission trips, I often think of people accepting the gospel left and right in some foreign village in Southeast Asia or Africa. I think of radical changes, transformative tears and emotional highs. However, ministry and evangelism in Japan is far from ideal. A lot of people are rather polite to hear of your beliefs, but accepting it is almost a completely foreign idea to them--kind of like, ‘thank you--but no thanks’. Students are often discouraged (or receive backlash from parents) from believing in something that is not of the cultural/familial norm as it disrupts a sense of flow or unity. Sharing the gospel immediately is often discouraged as it turns people away. And missionaries themselves find it difficult to build/maintain relationships with the Japanese as they are incredibly busy, not always open to vulnerable conversations and are even often skeptical of our friendly intentions (**a lot of these are generalizations and things I’ve learned from the trip, however please understand that not all Japanese people are like this). 

This made me question how the concept of God’s free gift was ever going to make sense to them. One of the students I spoke to believed that we are all inherently good people, hence there really isn’t a need for a saving God. He says there is an innate sense of good and you just feel “off” when you don’t do the right things--hence you live your life as kind and politely as you can. Soon, the grim reality of Japan being a country of 1% Christians began to settle and sink in. I mean... how do I know that this percentage does not merely consist of all missionaries... That would be pretty disappointing.

As we met up with Michiyo later on in the week, the leader for the prayer train ministry in Tokyo, she explained that every Tuesday, a group of people pray for the city of Tokyo and all of Japan starting from the Yamanote rail pass. The train loops around all 29 stations, stopping approximately 650 times per day for 5 million people. We started off the morning with a prayer, like any other morning. We took our respective places on the train and watched the people rush in and out to board for their commute.

“Ah--sumimasen (すみません),” A businessman had accidentally bumped into an elderly woman and used this expression to note his apology. He tugged on the corner of his briefcase and used the opposite hand to hold it from swinging. She bowed her head--her expression changing ever so slightly and continued to walk past him to disappear into the crowd.

As I began to pray silently, I began to ponder about the love of Jesus Christ.

What if God’s love will never be received in Japan?

I questioned this over and over. 

Often, one of the hardest things for a person to do is accept unconditional love. Perhaps, it’s because the world is so void of that kind of love--one that’s not contingent on the recipient’s behavior or form of repayment of the love. Then I thought of Hokuto, one of the rare encounters amongst the many students that we’ve met. I prayed that he would know Jesus. I prayed that in his longing and searching, he really understands and grasps the ravishing love of Christ. I wanted him to know ultimate joy deep down in his heart. As I began to pray for Hokuto, I began to understand how much God could truly love a person. Out of all people, why use a random church in San Diego to reach into Hokuto’s life?

I thought--what if no one on this trip receives the gospel other than Hokuto? That means, God used 8 plane tickets overseas, 7 days of ministry, and a lot of time invested in prayer, evangelism and fellowship--all for this one person. Gosh, can’t believe I even think about ministry in the light of monetary exchange--that’s awful. But the gospel’s backwards paradigm of love still doesn’t make sense to me at times. It challenges me, humbles me and boggles my mind (upside down, inside out. backwards, sideways, under over ... ) .

My hectic thoughts trail off and I soon come to this epiphany about how much God truly loves Japan. I think of people like Hokuto. I think about all the different nations and cultures of the world. I think about the thousands of personalities, characteristics and temperaments He has made in all of us. Our hobbies, dislikes, pet peeves--we are made unique in His image. I think about how Jesus is present amongst the conservative Japanese churches, tribal nations within Peru or Africa, and even in all the charismatic churches in America. God’s love understands and reaches even the most self-sustaining nation in the world. It’s for the simple minded and the deeply philosophical and theological. His love abounds and it is bigger than anything I can ever comprehend. As self sustenance leads to a sense of emptiness and greater depravity, I realized that God’s love isn’t just for us here in America, God’s love is also for Japan. God’s love is for the overworked businessman in Akasaka and Tokyo, it’s for the service girls in Akihabara maid cafes and it’s for these college students commuting 1.5 hours from Yokohama just so they can attend a prestigious university.

That means, God’s love is also for you and for me.

"Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek...And since then [...], I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved." - CS Lewis

Beloved is derived from 2 Hebrew words: to breathe for and long for.

He breathes for you and He longs for you. You are esteemed, dear, favorite, worthy of love--it’s an action on the part of the one who is doing the loving. The God of the universe, the same God who paints the sunset and shapes the mountains has offered the Gospel to you and me--and to Hokuto. 

At the end of our trip during a team debrief meeting, I watched as one of our team members wept. This person said that they were so afraid that these students that we’ve met and built relationships with may never know or accept the love of Christ. I was dumbfounded. I was speechless. In that instant, I began to understand what it meant to really love someone. I understood what it meant to sing “break my heart for what breaks Yours”. I understood evangelism. I understood the purpose of our ministry. It all came together.

“If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it.” — Oswald Chambers

These students that we’ve met feel like family to me. I just want them to know that the Gospel is and always will be something that is free.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” - Matthew 13:44

Please continue to pray for Japan. Pray for the people, the students we’ve met like Hokuto and many others. Pray for the churches there and the missionaries who work tirelessly day in and day out to build connections to these people. God’s love is never too small that you and I couldn’t be changed, so why not the people of Japan?

Thank you to those that have prayed for my team and supported us through words of encouragement, finances etc. Thank you for your generosity and for helping us reach the people of Japan!

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Anton Van Hertbruggen (Belgian , b. 1990, Ekeren, Antwerpen, Belgium) - Memoires Of A Suburban Utopia 2, 2011  Mixed Media

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I remember how it felt like finding God for the first time. It was like finding water in the middle of the desert, like a rope in an abyss, like hearing a child’s first laugh, like seeing fireworks for the first time, like dancing to your first favorite song. He was a type of a dynamic movement, He began life, He became my life.

the first few steps of knowing God  (via yesdarlingido)

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I still tend to make my life about my plan, my feelings, my desires, and my expectations. I am still tempted to assess the “good” of a day by whether it pleased me versus whether I pleased God and was loving towards others. I still am tempted to live as if I own my life and still fail to remember that I was bought with a price.

Paul David Tripp, “New Morning Mercies” (via whengracecollides)

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My roommate made me bust out my D90... Ohh it's been a while.

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My grandma is eighty-two, and I love to look at old photographs of her and my grandpa. She told me one morning while we were flipping the pages of an album that getting old is like carrying all these selves with you. She said she remembers just how that thirteen-year-old in the picture felt, and how that nineteen-year-old bride felt, and how that thirty-year old on the back of a motorcycle felt. She said you carry them inside you, collecting them along the way, more and more and more selves inside you with each passing year, like those Russian dolls, stacking one inside the other, nesting within themselves, waiting to be discovered, one and then another.

Shauan Niequist, Bread and Wine (via meganmaverick)

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When we choose growth over perfection, we immediately increase our shame resilience. Improvement is a far more realistic goal than perfection. Merely letting go of unattainable goals makes us less susceptible to shame. When we believe “we must be this” we ignore who or what we actually are, our capacity and our limitations. We start from the image of perfection, and of course, from perfection there is nowhere to go but down.

Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough” (via indianananna)

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Yesterday was my third time going to Ensenada medical missions with my home church. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t at least feeling somewhat jaded and “numb”--whatever that means... I felt as if I had no business going again to serve the people there if my heart wasn’t fully invested. Truthfully, I think that one of the worst things to have is a lackluster/lukewarm heart (Revelations 3:16).

On Friday morning, the day before the trip, I was reading a Spurgeon devotional about those who have feeble faith :

“Oh that I had the courage of a great heart, that I could wield his sword and be as valiant as He! But, alas, I stumble at every straw, and a shadow makes me afraid... Peter and Paul, the highly favoured apostles were of the family of the most high; and so are you also; the weak Christian is as much a child of God as the strong one.”

Days before the trip, our team found out that a lot of our medical and dental equipments were confiscated on the way down to the border (ie medications, dental tools, lido injections etc.). What a disappointment... Usually we’ve had no problems with our items crossing the border, however this time, things were seemingly more difficult than ever.

On the way down to the border, one of our team physicians lead a morning devotional. He was quoting an idea from a book called, “When Helping Hurts” which stated something alone the lines of: helping and serving can often times feed into our sense of a God complex because people will thank you or "sing your praises". I was wondering whether my ego had started to feed into that role which led me to feel 'holier than thou’ in a sense that these people needed me more than I needed them. Was I depending on the praises of these people to come and serve? Was I wanting to do everything by AND for myself? Were my intentions for going on to missions askew? A sense of sheer guilt began to wash over me for thinking that I could’ve possibly missed the whole intention/purpose of missions. The last thing I wanted to do was go into the missions field with a self-serving/righteous attitude.

However as I returned from Mexico that night, my feeble heart felt strengthened and encouraged as I began to realize God’s subtle blessings during our trip. For example, the dental equipments that was lost ended up being provided by a friend of one of our missionaries in Mexico... a family member of one of the church planters is a nurse who rallied the help of her friends to aid with women’s health by providing screenings and free pap smears. And in the end, our team saw 77 patients and 7 prayed to accept Christ. Those numbers served as a reminder for why Christ intended us to do missions--not for my personal gain, but for His glory (One of our team members pointed out that 7 is a pretty holy number after all...)

So today, when my pastor addressed Genesis 1:1-9--the story of Babel, I was incredibly humbled and somewhat taken aback. These people were building towers for the sake of personal gain and achievements, however were rebuked in the end when God changes the language causing their tower building activity to fall apart. Whoa... that sounded a little too familiar. 

Pastor Paul stated that that building our own tower makes us delusional--we believe that we are bigger and more important than we really are by providing our time, talents, achievements and accomplishments. When I compare my works to the vastness of His universe, I often forget that I am merely encircling myself in a web of pride and selfishness. Our towers do not last, no matter how big the glory and praises of the day seems. It was pride that led to the fall of Adam and Eve and it was pride that led to the judgement of Babel.

So while our doing is for the purpose of eternal kingdom work, it is only by His grace that the new faith of those 7 patients may be sustained AND that my feeble heart as practitioner/missionary can rest assured in His identity and be free to bless our other brothers and sisters in need. And lastly... what a beautiful reminder through missions that my prideful heart can be changed and renewed by His grace.

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Trust God’s Word and His power more than you trust your own feelings and experiences. Remember, your Rock is Christ, and it is the sea that ebbs and flows with the tides, not Him.

Samuel Rutherford (via craigtowens)

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Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

Sarah Dessen (via purplebuddhaproject)