We thank the Lord for five testimonies that represent the heart of the many in the Sewing Masks Sowing Seeds (SMSS) ministry under The CARE Team at Evergreen SGV. We pray it will bless and encourage you of the depth of God’s love for you and His hand in every situation.

Alvin Lai

I remember March 12, 2020, like it was yesterday. Thursday evening, I started receiving emails concerning the ongoing developments of COVID-19. A few days earlier, the World Health Organization made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Emails from my kids' schools notified parents the last day of school will be on Friday! Within hours, I received an email from Evergreen SGV, postponing Surge and Bridge. By the following Monday, my kids were enrolled in online learning at home, while my wife was recovering from brain surgery, and my business’s sales were down 60%!

A few weeks later, Pastor Kenny asked me if I would help with a new ministry called the Care Team at Evergreen SGV. Initially, it was created to assist the elderly with errands, grocery needs or any other kind of assistance, during the COVID-19 situation. Even though COVID-19 had dramatically changed my life in a negative way, I agreed to serve. Almost overnight, we had over 40 volunteers willing to support this ministry! A few days later, we were asked to assist with the Sewing Masks Sowing Seeds (SMSS) ministry. The SMSS ministry has made over 1,274 masks and the Care Team has delivered close to 500! I’ve received so many “thank yous” from many people for helping in this ministry, but the truth is that by volunteering, God gave me life, and strength when I was weak. It is I that has received so much more. The Care Team and SMSS helped me with my self-esteem, by counteracting my personal stresses and frustrations. It has allowed me to be strengthened by God, giving me opportunities to become closer to my church family, while defining and affirming my role as one of His children. I witnessed so many of the willing volunteers that opened their hearts to serve God and help many people in need. God is amazing. He has given me life, so nothing I do for Him is a sacrifice.

Diane Hara

It was March 22, as I answered the call from a sister to sew face masks to "fight this war already won by God". Little did I know what a blessing it would become. My intention was to sew, but the Lord had another task for me to help equip His church family. My task was to coordinate the efforts of the wonderful women who lovingly sewed the masks, sterilized, and packaged them for the grateful individuals. It brought me great joy and blessing to re-connect with long-time friends and get to know new "faces" while dealing with all the emotions from this pandemic. It brought a sense of community that I knew always existed, but I learned firsthand through this experience how much our church staff really cares for our church family, how our church family really cares for each other, and most importantly, how they all exemplified the love of Christ.

Our masks are special. They are sewn with love, prayed over, and are conduits to reach those the Lord puts upon our hearts. I am grateful to the Lord, blessed by the numerous messages, how everyone enjoyed receiving them, and touched, from people sending photos holding masks from individuals, hospitals, and medical and dental groups.

I am grateful to the Lord for this opportunity to serve Him by serving others.

Wendy Takao 

As I consider myself to be a fabric hoarder and a “fabricoholic”, I always wondered what I would do with the fabric that I have in my house. Diane Hara, asked if I had fabric to donate to her church that were sewing masks for those in her church with needs. Without hesitation, I told Diane that I definitely had fabric to donate for the Sewing Masks Sowing Seeds ministry. Little did we know that material to make homemade masks was something that suddenly became scarce because the government moved to make wearing masks mandatory. I quickly began searching patterns, seeking elastic, and began cutting out kits for the volunteers to sew. It was a blessing to see how God knew our needs and how He provided through the body of Christ! I thank God for giving me the opportunity to serve Him, and reconnect and grow ever closer with my friends in the Sewing Masks Sowing Seeds ministry. Galatians 6:10 “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” I look forward to meeting those that were involved in this ministry when your church is able to have service again.

May Zacher

As our world, church, and families have gone through so many changes the past few months, I am blessed and honored to be part of Sewing Masks Sowing Seeds Ministry! In early March, I remember having a conversation about how to give out our masks safely, not only for the recipient of our mask, but also for the drivers. I know there was discussion that autoclaving was unnecessary, even possibly inefficient, versus washing and using baggies. Yet, I felt God saying it would be the safest way to distribute not knowing how contagious or deadly this Covid-19 would become. Placing a Bible verse on the sterilized pouches was an idea that God had given me so many would know God loves them and is protecting them. 

Being a dental hygienist, I had two of my dentists I work for, Dr. Ezaki and Dr. Nazari, who let me sterilize the masks using their autoclave in their offices. After sterilizing masks, I distinctly remember how I saw an elderly man in a walker who could hardly walk, with only a tissue hanging from his mouth. I asked him if he would like a mask. He was so grateful he immediately put the mask on. I thanked God that I could offer him what he needed most. This situation, and hearing how the sterilizing and the Bible verses on the sterilized bags as well as every step making these masks, have given others peace, hope and most importantly, God's love! In a time of uncertainty and fear, as I was afraid of not working, God gave me His work to help others in His Kingdom!

Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18).

God has touched so many lives during this pandemic with these masks given to our church family, our neighbors and to people in New York, Hawaii and East Asia. I thank Jesus for the opportunity to love others during this Pandemic! To God be all glory forever and ever, amen!  

Prudence Lu, on video:

by Ron Miyake

How have you viewed this time of “Safer at Home” and social distancing? Maybe for some of us, it’s been difficult not being able to see people and doing things like we did before. Maybe we miss the interaction and just being able to be with people. Then maybe for others of us, it’s been a good time to be at home, work from home, and to not be so hurried with the way life was going. 

Whichever way we view this time, one of the things that I’ve wondered was, “Lord, what do You want this time to look like?” “How do You want me/us to spend this time?” 

One of the things we have been doing is our Monday Prayer Meetings. When Pastor Rocky brought this idea up, what flashed through my mind were all the other prayer meetings that we’ve tried to do over the years. Prayer meetings on Saturdays, Sundays, weekdays, mornings, evenings, over 12 or 24 hours, and even people praying during the worship services in “the cave”.  When the idea of having our Monday Prayer Meetings at 6:30 am  and 7:30 pm, I wondered, would people actually show up? And you know what, they have! But even more than numbers, I’m reminded that the Lord is with us as we’ve prayed.

It seems like with the Zoom format, it’s been very easy for people to join in from their homes. It’s been great to join together with the church family from different areas and even of different ages joining together to seek the Lord and lift up our prayers and concerns. It’s been great to be together, to see each other, and to lift up prayers for us, our church, our community, state, country, and the world.

In the midst of Covid-19, this new way of meeting together regularly and being able to pray together every week has been such an encouraging and enjoyable time. Even when we stop having to do the “Safer at Home”, I want to continue having these Zoom Monday Prayer Meetings.

I hope you will join us!

by Matthew Christian

About six months ago, I waved goodbye to the typical (embarrassingly) enthusiastic Evergreen SGV church crowd that had come to send me off at the airport. With great excitement mingled with an equal amount of fear, I stepped—by myself—onto the first of three airplanes that would eventually take me over 10,000 miles away from home and everything I called normal, to a small, poverty-stricken, third-world country in Africa called Malawi. 

As an eighteen year-old, going for a six week vision trip, living with a family I hadn’t talked with in five years, and in a country (let alone continent) I had never visited, was terrifying. Yet I was also very excited because this trip was literally a dream come true for me.

Even as a young boy I had dreamed of going to Africa and serving there as a missionary one day -- a desire that has not faded with age. I had no idea what life or ministry would actually be like in Malawi, but I thought I had a decent enough picture of the missionary life.

Being a missionary meant leaving my home and traveling overseas, going to as many cities as possible to share the gospel with every single stranger I encounter on the road. Maybe in some cases, even confronting a false witch doctor in an impoverished village and leading an entire village to Christ. 

While these were not my exact thoughts going into this trip, I know I did carry pieces of that picture with me. However, I soon discovered (thankfully!) I was wrong and God’s plan of redemption is significantly much grander than preaching at pagans. 

As I mentioned previously, this trip was a vision trip, meaning my primary purpose for this endeavor was simply to observe the Malawian missionary life, ask questions about everything, and pray as much as I could throughout my stay in Malawi. With that goal in mind, what then did I observe and discover about being a missionary?

Through living with the amazing Hiroto family, who have faithfully served in Malawi for about 15 years, I discovered that being a missionary is so much more than preaching the gospel. It is living the gospel. For them, it meant being like Christ with whatever work he calls them to do, wherever he calls them to be, with whomever he calls them to be with. It is that simple. 

There were countless times where the Hiroto’s had people come over to their home (like me) to share a meal and share life together. From college students at African Bible College (ABC) to the other missionaries on the campus teaching there, all were welcomed. 

Other times, living the gospel meant going to visit the widow living in the brick hut of a remote village, sit on the dirt floor and listen to her story and pray for her. Or it could be being dominated in a game of football/soccer to a group of orphan boys in overly large and worn t-shirts and laughing with them at my own clumsy feet. 

To be a missionary is to live the gospel. This is a calling God has placed on all of us: to live out the gospel in the work of our hands, right where we live, and with those we interact with. 

Do I think I will go back to serve in Malawi one day? Maybe. I would love to. Yet the call I feel to the mission field is so much more than “traveling overseas to preach the gospel.” Being a missionary is to live out the gospel in whatever God gives me to do, wherever God places me, with whoever God brings to me. Whether that be in Malawi or in some other country in Africa or at home stuck in quarantine, that calling remains the same. And that calling is one I will strive to live for, no matter what God has in store for my future.

By Elliot Snuggs

Recently I read an article entitled “Leading beyond the Blizzard” by Andy Crouch, Kurt Keilhacker, and Dave Blanchard. You can find it at journal.praxislabs.org. It presented a very interesting simile. It compared the time we are in now with Covid-19, as a “blizzard.” But the article said what is coming is like a “little ice age.” And the ensuing question became, are we thinking just about the blizzard, or are we thinking about the new reality beyond the blizzard?

This is a question that is relevant to all of us. We are all dealing with the blizzard: drastic changes in family-life, work-life, and church-life; just to name a few. We have to deal with the blizzard of course, because if we don’t survive that, then it doesn’t make much difference what is beyond. But, for the majority who will survive the blizzard, what then?

This leads us into unchartered territory. Just like the “ice age” redefined the environment, our environment will be changed by Covid-19. But what will it look like? For how long? As believers, we know that our solid foundation is an unchangeable God (theologians say He is “immutable”). Moreover, we know He holds the future in his hands. But I do think God wants us to dream, to imagine, what this new post Covid-19 future will look like. He wants us to partner with him in shaping this new environment for the advancement of his kingdom. He wants us to understand his plans and purposes! 

God conceals the revelation of his word in the hiding place of his glory.

But the honor of kings is revealed by how they thoroughly search out the deeper meaning of all that God says.

-Proverbs 25:2 (The Passion Translation)

Questions for you to consider:

1. Are you only focused on the “blizzard?” Can you create any space to dream about the “ice age”? Are you carving out time to pray, worship and discern God’s voice?

2. What do you know to be true about God and how He created us? How does this shape your dreams and imagination for a post Covid-19 environment?

3. How should we then live (tip of the cap to Francis Schaeffer)? Are we asking God for our family, our church and our work?

by Thomas Chan

My whole family tested positive for COVID-19. 

My bout with the virus lasted 5 days. My brother and sister each spent a few days of their own completely down for the count. My mom got admitted to the hospital once doctors discovered that she had pneumonia as a result of the virus. And just as she was coming home, my dad got admitted into the Intensive Care Unit requiring heavy oxygen support to combat the crippling shortness of breath that was ravaging his body. Necessarily, the rest of us remained at home in quarantine, unsure of what we could really do next. Our family found itself in a moment of weakness, nervous and perhaps even a bit fearful of what could happen next.

And yet in this very same moment of uncertainty, God revealed something profound to us:

We weren’t alone.

As we shared the news with extended family and the first of our friends, their words and care quickly became a pillar of strength for us. Many of them checked in with us daily, providing us counsel and comfort. We knew that their prayers would intercede mightily before the throne of God. My mom had lung surgery last year, and that experience revealed to us how inviting others into that journey really allowed them to come beside and support us. In that same light, I rallied our allies near and far by putting out a social media post to share what was going on.

The responses that followed were staggering. Like a dam with its floodgates burst open, support for our family came rushing in. Before we could fully realize what was happening, our phones began erupting with messages and phone calls, even from people we haven’t heard from in years. The prayers multiplied exponentially. A meals on wheels program was even set up to ensure that we had enough food to eat, and TRUST ME, we’ve had plenty! In our time of need, we were and still have been met with more overwhelming support than we could have imagined; it truly means more than words can adequately express.

We don’t know how long the coronavirus is going to be around for. Still, I’m convinced that God has a way of laying a trail of silver linings through even the most unlikely of situations; He has certainly revealed some of them to my family.  If there’s one takeaway I can leave you with, it’s this: The best thing you can do for your loved ones is to be the first to reach out and extend a helping hand to those you care about (as long you maintain social distance of course!). Even if it is just to check in and see if everything is all right, initiating a simple text message or making a quick phone call can mean a lot to someone that deep down just wants to know someone cares about them. At the end of the day, that is something we all crave. We’re stronger with each other, and perhaps God is using a time like this, one where we don’t have much else, to restore this fundamental part of our humanity to the world.

This blog post was been adapted from the original post at https://foreshadowingsofeternity.wordpress.com