by Allen Chin

“Lord, I offer my life to you…”

The hill tribe children of Maohjo, from Kindergarten to 6th grade sang and worshipped together in their rows of picnic benches. The open air meeting space, which overlooked the green hillsides and rice paddies below, served as a place for worship every other morning. The chords from the acoustic guitar encouraged the children onward. Some children belt out the tune while others hummed quietly in the background.

“...everything I’ve been through, use it for your glory.”

Of course, it’s actually in Thai. There’s only so much English I managed to teach in my 6 weeks at Maohjo – an Elementary school which connects several villages together. I raised my hands up and the children followed.

“Lord I offer my days to you, lifting up praise to you…”

In my short time at the Karen village, I discovered I needed to start from scratch – teaching greetings, asking, “How are you?”, and singing a Pete the Cat version of Old MacDonald, which the Karen children connected quite well to. Around the 3rd or 4th week, one of the songs which the children sang kept popping into my mind. “Gosh, that sounds really familiar!” I pondered and one day I found the worship song it matched. I set out to teach the children the words, but I mostly received blank stares. I started using my hands instead and the kids started to follow. I figured, as long as they knew what it meant in Thai (which was their second language and Karen being the first), they’d be fine. Adding the third language, English, might just get them confused. Besides, worship is about our hearts, right?

 “...as a pleasing sacrifice.”

Being my last day in the village before heading back to Chiang Mai, I wondered what happened to the time. I came with the purpose of teaching English, but the Lord revealed His deeper purpose of connecting with the children and sharing His love with them. How was this all possible? I started my year on sabbatical from full-time teaching to rest, to study, and to serve. I've come to realize through the year that it’s a part of being available – to be able to say, “Yes”, and serve in ways I never would have thought or imagined possible. 

As we all raised our hands in worship, I’m thankful I was available to connect with God’s plan in loving the children, teachers, and the village community at Maohjo. 

*I served with Becky and Mike Mann through the Integrated Tribal Development Foundation back in January and February 2020. 

by Phoebe Lu

School is drawing to a close, rather slowly. It’s that time of the semester when assignments get harder to crank out, exam scores average shamefully low and students complain amongst ourselves, “I have no motivation.”

Somehow though, I find myself very motivated at the end of this semester—more than I’ve ever been. But I am not naturally this driven, and my grades need no last-minute saving. No, I am motivated because of Sue. 

She was undoubtedly ‘friend’ first. We met during chapel in the fall, and spring saw us making pancakes together, frequently sleeping over at each others’ dorms, laughing, crying, and sharing life.

Spring also saw us taking Intro to Old Testament together. Sue raises her hand to answer every question; I am intimidated. Sue is a music scholar; I am not. Sue scores the highest on the midterm; I am jealous. Sue is double-majoring. Sue is an honors student. Sue is a genius. Sue is my competitor. I have no worth until I win.

When the email arrives, my heart is racing, fingers fumbling, self-esteem on the line as I scroll to the bottom of my Old Testament final paper score report and behold: a shining A+ and three sentences of hard-earned praise. My heart is aglow. Surely my “strongly crafted” and “powerfully written” (yet “not overdone”!) paper is among the best of the class.

Ping.

But it is not. Sue’s text message reveals an embarrassing typo Dr. Hunter left on her feedback—her two-paragraphs-long positive feedback, quadruple the length of my now meager-looking three sentences.

How do I ease the aching? Will I always be defined by people’s opinions of me? Tossed by each compliment and criticism into high or low self-esteem? 

Insecurity threatens to drown me when I hear it—quiet and piercing and true:

Child, My death secures your worth.

Despite eighteen years of church school lessons and retreats about identity, despite turning down the volume on all such messages long deemed cliché, the Holy Spirit has me hear simple truth anew. And I believe. I believe that Jesus’ death is enough, and it alone secures my worth.

Like vapor, my insecurity vanishes, replaced by joy, sweeping peace and freedom at last.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

School is drawing to a close, and so is my struggle to be better than Sue, it seems. For His death alone secures my worth.

by Dan Christian

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?14 But You do see, for You note mischief and vexation, that You may take it into Your hands; to You the helpless commits himself; You have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till You find none.
16 The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, You hear the desire of the afflicted; You will strengthen their heart; You will incline Your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Psalm 10:12-18 (ESV)

Almighty God, I cry out to You on behalf of the powerless.

Father, I am outraged at the injustice and oppression that wreaks havoc in our land. 

Many of those in positions of power are misusing their power to mistreat those without power. 

And the pent-up anger of a powerlessness that has been unjustly—cruelly—treated again and again explodes in violence that only feeds the brutality of the powerful.

God, please bring an end to this vicious cycle of death and destruction!

Lord, Your Word says You hear the desire of the afflicted, and there are afflicted people on all sides of this chaos—afflicted people who are powerless to save themselves from the injustice that is thrust on them.

Father, I cannot begin to understand the pain of these who face cruel injustice day after day, year after year, century after century.

I do not understand the depth of their pain, but I can understand in a small way the experience of powerlessness. I have felt that.

And in fact I feel something of that powerlessness now, seeing a centuries-long problem that infiltrates every corner of our society. I feel very small.

But that is precisely why I pray to You, O God. 

You are not powerless. “To You the helpless commits himself…”

You are the God of justice. Make Your power and justice known!

God, You see, You hear, You act. 

Please open my eyes to see the pain on all sides of this divide.

Please allow me to hear the stories of the powerless, that my heart would break as Yours does.

Please show me how to act. But whatever action You lead me to, may it only come after much weeping over all that I see and grieving over all that I hear.

Help me to see and hear like Jesus did, in ways that move my heart to compassion and my hands and voice to action.

I do not want to remain silent. I do not want to cower in fear over saying the wrong thing or being misunderstood. 

So I start with prayer. I begin with lament. “Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted!”

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

by Sabrina Yee

In February, I had begun making many plans to wrap things up and say goodbye to friends God provided over the last year and a half. Our church youth group was planning a farewell party for me where we could make some last memories together playing “Just Dance.” My small group was going to drive out to an island and enjoy burgers and the sunset along the coastal drive. Then COVID-19 confronted all of our plans and in early March I became sick and was hospitalized. 

Instead of dancing with my friends and enjoying burgers, I watched crowd less sumo matches on TV from my hospital bed hooked up to an IV. Instead of fun outings with friends, we were forced to settle for pixelated video chats. It was disappointing to say the least and difficult to be transitioning and leaving, not knowing when or if I would ever see my friends again. 

Fast forward to arriving in Ibaraki. I don’t have any friends in this new city. My new church is only meeting online and since I’ve just traveled from another prefecture I have to quarantine for two weeks. I feel very alone, and at some point realize I have not physically touched another human in three weeks. In these moments it’s disorienting, painful, and so confusing. Everyone is experiencing transition in this pandemic season. Some more extreme than my own, others have “simpler” adjustments to make. Whatever the case, we are all going through some type of loss. Finding space and being given permission to recognize and express my loss has saved me in this season. 

Throughout my term I’ve expressed how I think everyone needs an MSG (Missionary Support Group): people who know, understand, listen, and pray with me. Everyone needs help to process and recognize all that’s happening. Everyone needs to be shown grace. As we all experience loss, we cannot compare our losses with others and feel guilty for expressing them because it’s not as big a deal. Loss is loss and we are needy and weak. Praise be to God that his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Praise be to God that we can express our unfiltered feelings to him (Psalm 139:23-24). Praise be to God that we need one another (1 Cor. 12).  

by Paul Moy

The late Pastor Chuck Smith said, “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken.” This quote resonated in my heart in regards to ministry. Sometimes in life, things change and we need to be flexible to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

During the first few days of quarantine, our youth ministry team had to figure out how to go from leading in person to leading from a distance. While the methods of ministry have changed, our goal of connecting relationally with students and helping them pursue their relationship with Jesus remains the same.

On March 20, we had our first via Zoom youth meeting.  We did not know what to expect or how we would navigate this new way of having youth group. We were trying to figure out how we could incorporate worship, a message and small groups virtually.  To our surprise, we had 85 students at our first Zoom meeting. We were blown away!! Praise God! We did have some technical issues but by the grace of God, we were able to worship in unity. We had worship, I was able to teach God’s word and the students were able to meet in small groups to pray.

We have now been meeting for more than 10 weeks via Zoom.  The Lord has been richly blessing our time together with our students. We have been averaging an attendance of 90+ students weekly combined between Surge and The Bridge. We’ve been able to reach more teenagers online than we have in person.  We’ve also been able to connect with students who normally do not attend youth group due to school obligations, other activities, and the difficulty of getting to church on a Friday night. Also, we have had students inviting non-church friends and they have been attending our meetings as well.

I am so grateful for my team of advisors who have been doing a wonderful job reaching out and praying for the students during this time. They have poured so much time and effort into making youth groups seems “normal” in a time where everything is but “normal’. 

During this time of uncertainty, ministry practices have been different from what we are used too.  One thing that has remained the same is that the students need to hear the Gospel of hope, grow in discipleship and experience Christian community.  God has been so good to us to continue to give us a platform to continue to meet virtually. Praise the Lord.