How do I feel? I’m excited and nervous. I am excited for the new experience and to try to build more partnership between the ministries at UC Berkeley. I am also nervous since it is a bigger job and requires more dependence on God. I hope that God will enable me to trust in him for all the uncontrollable elements that come with more responsibility.

I am also looking forward to my nights being a little more free. Even though I will have more business trips for this job, I will not need to have regular weekly meetings with students. This will free me up to be around my family more. Elliot and I are expecting another baby come mid-November. Chloe is excited-I think. She is happy to say that she will be “chloe jie jie,” and to point out ”mama’s belly baby”.

I’m at 14 weeks.

While in New Orleans, the students worked on houses side-by-side with students from our sister fellowships, La Fe and Cal Christian Fellowship. After being immersed in New Orleans culture, they would have group discussions about the injustices of racism in the Katrina disaster. Many of our students felt that having honest discussions about race with people of different ethnicities was a healing experience for them.

Vincent (top middle) decided to  make an adult decision to follow Jesus. He said, “Growing up, my dad always told me, one day I would have to decide for myself if I wanted to follow Jesus. I decided that even though I still had a lot of questions about faith, I was ready to choose Jesus.”

Some answers made us cry. Others made us laugh or feel confused. Such is the conversation of race. We discovered that there is a deep hunger on our campus to be understood for who we are. Feel free to check out people’s answers at the ReImagination Project. Click on a photo to read that person’s story.

Highlights

1. Reconciliation was happening for our student leaders.  BCM leaders built relationships with leaders from La Fe, Cal Christian Fellowship, Kapwa, and Greek IV. Several BCM students said this was the first time they had honest conversations about race with Asian-Americans.

BCM Leader Erma stepped up to lead during the ReImagination Project

2. We had 500 student conversations and 16,000 hits on our website.

Sharing stories

3. I had two follow-up conversations about faith with a non-Christian woman as a result of the project. She was drawn to share her story of ethnicity with us and then wanted to know more about what Jesus had to say about ethnicity.

4. A Berkeley professor said our project was the best project she’s seen done on campus.

5. ASUC senators participated and several mentioned that we should do this every year.

6. Erina, another InterVarsity staff, was interviewed by an Asian-American blog about our project.

Vincent (on the left) sharing with other students

Students reading each others' stories.

Cache (left) and Dana (right). Cache invited dozens of friends and strangers to participate in the project.

Celebrating all we saw God do.

The photo above is a picture from our all-intervarsity testimony night. Students from each fellowship shared about their experiences on campus and how their fellowship had served them. Then we had a discussion about where we each have come from, demographics, income, family education level etc. It was a good time for heartfelt conversation about our different backgrounds and how we are all trying to seek God together.

Events like these remind me of why I am on staff.

This testimony night was a precursor to some evangelistic outreaches we are planning to do on campus called the Reimagination Project. We will have a table on campus asking people to fill in the blank: “Being my ethnicity at Cal, I feel____.” The reimagination project will start next week. Please pray for us as we lead the campus towards healing in ethnicity.

100 college students gathered in Berkeley to ask these hard questions of God. Rhonda Butler, the National Director of BCM spoke. She highlighted how Jesus is in the midst of these struggles. Jesus came as God and chose a life of suffering. He chose to be close to his disciples, knowing full well that they would all abandon him at the end. In knowing that Jesus has walked through struggle, we can take comfort in knowing that he still walks with us through all of our struggles. Praise God.

The students also had an opportunity to walk with other people who have struggled. They spent Saturday morning eating and talking with homeless people around Berkeley. Many of the students said it was a life-transforming experience. One student mentioned, “I have handed out food to the homeless before, but never have I sat down and put myself at the same level. It was a totally different experience, seeing people walk by us and give us funny looks.”

Student reflection:

God chose to send Jesus down knowing it would be a horrible death, not comfortable at all, so that we would be welcomed into God’s family. I need to do the same. I need to make myself uncomfortable to welcome more people into God’s family.

Getting ready to share food with people at the Civic Center

Finishing up director duties with Shola

Impromptu conference choir

getting to know people from other campuses

Rhonda's last talk at Eshleman Library on campus

Singing Black National Anthem at Yard Show

Sunday Night Live (More than I Can Bear)

Sunday Night Live (Lord You’re Mighty)

BCM leaders + CCF leaders having dinner together before school starts

Welcome Black Barbecue

sharing at Black World Tour

Black World Tour 2011

Several of the freshmen have also joined our choir and have been taking ownership over the ministry. May God continue to deepen their faith this year.

One of the female students told me that her family was not Christian, but that she herself had believed in God since she was young. She wanted college to be a time where she would start going to church. She has been faithfully attending our bible study since then. May her faith grow in leaps and bounds this year through Bible study and church.

They want BCM to be a place where people can come meet God. They do not want our ministries to be just about performances, but vessels for God’s love to go forward.

Praise God for these student leaders!

When I started with BCM in 2007, Pastor Mike, Felicia Nibungco and I  prayed that God would send more workers into the harvest in the black student community. And he has. He’s raised up those workers from the harvest itself.

Dana Brown (far left) was a sophomore when I first met her. She was on the fringes of the ministry, attending events because her roommate Aviana was a part of the ministry. She went to Fall Conference where God got her attention. The conference set into motion a series of life changing decisions including the most recent, to go on full-time staff with InterVarsity and minister to more students.

Shola Shodiya (far right) was a junior transfer when I met her. Feeling a little out of place as a junior transfer, BCM’s junior/senior Bible study quickly became a family for her. She found support through Jamari, one of the student leaders and saw herself grow in her faith through the Bible study. The following year, she decided to become the Junior/Senior Bible study leader as well as initiate the Women’s Ministry. She has always wanted to serve others with her career but had never considered college ministry as an option. This will be her first year serving with InterVarsity as an intern.

Mike Eubanks (center, top) is a new addition to our staff team from UCLA InterVarsity. He did not grow up in our ministry, but he is uniquely equipped to minister in BCM. He is not only musically talented, but insightful about ministry and faith. I believe he will do great in helping our choir to develop spiritually, evangelistically, and musically.

Praise the Lord of the Harvest!

Montoya Mayo (not pictured) – some of you may remember her from my last physical prayer letter. It turns out due to her scholarship requirements, she will have to work at another job for the fall. However, she will be involved with BCM and volunteer in the spring.

Hearing them sing Kirk Franklin’s “Melodies from Heaven” in a predominately first generation Chinese church made me smile. I felt like I was introducing two parts of the body of Christ to each other. The Chinese church members couldn’t stop raving about how much they loved the choir, “They sang so beautifully!” The BCM students said they appreciated the silent reflection time at the end of the service, “It was different from what I’m used to, but I liked it.”

It was one of those moments where I was reminded of how being a Chinese-Taiwanese-American woman working with a black ministry gives me opportunities to create bridges within the body of Christ.