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Wednesday, 17 June 2009

  • Meet the Cast

    We've made it to the midway point of LTC - Praise God!!! Today was a big day as we had our on-site work project. I had the opportunity to resurrect my long-since defunct civil engineering education to help manage what was basically a soil backfill project. We put our 87 students to help the Oaks build a staircase of some 50 something steps leading up a slope to their new dining hall. The students had to import, fill, and compact soil to fill in the wood-formed staircase. It took everyone about 2 hours, equalling about 180 man-hours of work! It was an excellent experience for the students and a great gift for the Oaks. Check facebook as I'm sure pictures will likely be posted in the near future... 

    For today, I wanted to give a brief intro to the Cal AACF leadership team for 2009-10. Cal's leadership has gone through significant changes, as has the fellowship - especially over the past 5 years. If you graduated from Cal anytime in the 90's and were a part of AACF, you likely saw a pretty well-established 2-tiered leadership team consisting of core and coordinators. In the 00's, our leadership team was dubbed Servant Team (or S-Team), but the make-up of leadership remained pretty consistent. However, if you (like me) graduated in the 80's, then you might remember leadership that was only the "core group." As of last year, we're back to a single-tiered leadership that is only core. It's an interesting experience - on the one hand, working with so many fewer leaders means we're lighter and faster so-to-speak. We can make decisions quicker, schedule meetings with greater ease, and change courses faster, generally speaking. However, it also means there are fewer hands to do the work. Our ministry calendar looks NOTHING like it did back in the 90's when we could have an event a week over and above weekly LG, SG, etc. While I could yak about the history and background of AACF all night, let me get on with the intros. 

    Briana Shimada is serving as outreach coordinator. She's got a huge heart for the lost and is energetic and spunky. And that's before she's caffeinated... 

    Jeff Tom is serving as large group coordinator. He's very musically talented and has helped out a lot with worship. Next year he's going to extend himself by planning our large group meetings. He says he's "deceptively administrative" - which makes me laugh! 

    Jenna Lee is our worship coordinator. Jenna is fantastically talented musically and brings a great sense of team and community to worship ministry. 

    Justin Louie is our inreach and interfellowship coordinator. Justin's a great gatherer of people and encourager. He's also a top-drawer b-ball player! According to some alum and students, he's among the best they've ever seen. 

    Michelle Wong is our one returner from last year. Michelle is taking care of admin, shepherding, and whatever else I tell her to do - muahahaha!!! Michelle is hardworking and trustworthy - we're glad to have her back on core. 

    Nathan Low is our small group coordinator. Nathan's been one of my office hours regulars which has transformed into an ongoing mentoring relationship. I've been blessed by Nathan's thoughtful approach to faith and life and am really excited he's serving. 

    Along with Angel, we'd really appreciate your prayers for us as do the work of the Kingdom this coming year. And keep praying for Angel and I as we minister at LTC for the next 2 days. 

Saturday, 13 June 2009

  • On the eve of LTC

    Greetings from the Oaks Conference Center in Southern California. I'm here with the family for a week of ministry with next year's student leaders in AACF throughout CA and WA. This week is called Leadership Training Conference (LTC) and AACF has been doing this since 1985! And NO, I haven't been to all of them!

    It's hard to believe LTC has snuck up on me again. This year, my responsibilities include teaching a session of the core track on how to cast vision, and giving the vision for our site work project. [fyi: For you older alumni, the work project is a fairly recent fixture in LTC. We've always wanted to give students hands-on ministry experience, so 3 years ago we decided to do something for the Oaks while concurrently training the students. We helped weed hundreds of sqare feet of landscaping the first year (using a student army of about 100 laborers!) and last year we helped in various projects around the site from painting, to landscaping, to brush clearing. It's actually a pretty cool activity.] I'll also likely be helping out with various other on-the-fly tasks such as worship and discussion leading.

    It'll be a long, tiring week, but it's always rewarding. As always, I'd appreciate your prayers for strength and stamina for myself and our AACF staff team. Please pray for our students and families that God will protect everyone's health this week (there's a LOT of activity). And pray that God will have His way with all of us - there's a lot of teaching and input for students and staff. Pray that we'll stay alert and teachable. If all goes well, I'll try to share some updates during the week.

Friday, 07 March 2008

  • Best Unsolicited Gift EVER!!!

        Okay, so I'm at my home church, CIBC, last Sunday when this older Cantonese lady comes up to Susana and I. (Susana met her the previous week and chatted her up. Susana introduced me, and being the ABC that I am, I simply smiled and nodded.) So this lady says hi again to Susana and rather furtively slips me this bottle with a look somewhere between embarrassment and knowingness.



    So Susana and I are both confused (and perhaps a little scared). It's a plastic baggie, a vial of who knows what, and cotton balls. Of course my first thought is to flip the bottle around and read what the heck this stranger is giving. me.



    If ya can't read the label, it says:

    Herb's Hair Growth Scalp Tonic
    For optimal results use cotton balls and liberally dab the tonic on thinning areas of the scalp twice a day. It is a course of treatment in three months.

    As you can imagine, we proceeded to laugh heartily, although my wife found it curiously more amusing than I did. Well, ya can't fault an well-meaning Cantonese lady for being compassionate. But for me, I'm happy being "bright!"

     

Friday, 22 June 2007

  • Back from LTC - safe and sound

    Thanks all who've been reading and praying. We got back from LTC today and it sounds like everyone's no worse for wear. The week overall went really well. In the absence of vision-casting, I certainly felt personally more at ease with being less available for the Cal students during evenings. However, I don't know if I'd want to repeat the experience of taking both kids with me to LTC without Susana.

    One of the big highlights of the week was a work project we did for the Oaks Conference center (where LTC is hosted). As part of our social justice emphasis, staff decided to have the students not just learn stuff about social justice, but to go to the next level and actually give everyone the opportunity to participate in a real project. So on Thursday morning for 2 hours, we put nearly 100 students and staff to work clearing weeds and landscaping the Oaks. It was the first time we ever attempted anything like that and I'm pleased to say the response was very positive!!! We cleared a huge area and planted trees and bushes along borders. It was amazing how much we got done! There was a feeling of satisfaction for the work we did, as well as for the opportunity to actually work out what we've been challenged with. The students also appreciated the chance for some "mindless" activity in an otherwise intense week.

    As with any camp-type experience, the real challenge is living out the stuff we learned at LTC in the real world. That's a definite prayer request. It sounds like most students are returning to jobs, summer school, and other busy activities which undoubtedly have the tendency to pull their focus away from reflecting on what they learned.

    I'm glad to be home and sleep in my own bed. May His peace rest upon you!

Wednesday, 20 June 2007

  • More LTC 2007 news

    It's the end of another full day here at LTC. I'm relieved personally since my formal teaching is done for the week. Angel still has a seminar to give on Thursday, so please pray for her. Our speaker this year is actually the same as last year, Mako Nagasawa of InterVarsity. Mako is a Stanfurd alum who was involved with AACF when we had a chapter down on the farm. He's doing a GRRREAT job of challenging us with an intellectual, respectful approach to evangelism, namely by engaging the "meta story" that non Christians live in (for example, an atheistic worldview with all its implications) and then compare it to the Christian story as presented in the Bible. Hopefully it'll be good for our students to learn to be both respectful and intelligent as we talk to people at Cal about issues of faith.

    This year at LTC is a lot different in the past because I've got both my kids with me. The backstory is that my wonderful wife, Susana , took a new job and is now working for Adult Protective Services (APS) in the city and county of SF. She's a social worker by trade, having worked in the field for On Lok Senior Health Services nearly 20 years. She just took the job with APS a few months back and doesn't have time off until her probationary period is over. Which means she couldn't join me at LTC, nor could she stay home with the kids if she wanted to, which is why I've got both kids here. AACF staff is great because there are many other families on staff. At LTC we run a children's program kinda like a vacation Bible school for the staff kids. So my kids are well-cared for. But I've still gotta take care of them at meals, free time, and bedtime, which means my attention is divided between students and family. Praise God the students have been really understanding, but I feel a bit torn nevertheless.

    This evening was a lot more relaxed now that we're not doing the whole vision-casting thing here. At Gary and Mike's request, I did need to take some time (after putting the kids to bed ) to communicate what happens with leadership over the summer and why. Heh heh, it was oversight on the part of the staffguy , to be sure, so that was a good call on core's part. Hopefully giving clear explanations of why we have our various leadership activities (including BigPIG, core retreat, leadership retreat, STeam meetings, and LTC) will put students' minds at ease with regards to how much they should be doing on their own versus what we'll be doing together. If you want to be in the know, we'll actually be doing everything together, so STeam doesn't have to sweat taking the initiative over the summer. If they want to pray about their specific ministry and begin planning, I'd totally support that, but it's not necessary.  

    A lot of information and material is getting flung at leadership here, which is the point of LEADERSHIP Training Conference (LTC). But it's admittedly a lot of stuff to process. Please do pray for our people as they process what they're learning, which hopefully leads to internalizing what their learning. I could use prayer, too, as I'm juggling my time between family and students which I don't feel I'm doing well.

    I'm off to bed for now. Thanks for reading and praying!

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1 Corinthians 13:11-12 "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." It will be a great day when I finally stand before Jesus, my Savior and Lord, face-to-face!!! Maranatha!

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