Consume
my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one, like
You, Lord Jesus.
– Jim Elliot
I grew up in Queens, New York
with my mom, dad and younger brother. I first started attending church
when I was in the first grade (I think?); my great aunt’s family brought our
family to their church. I forget the exact age when I believed that Jesus
Christ is indeed the son of God who died and was resurrected, but I do remember
that the Sunday school teacher taught us that this is how we go to heaven after
we die. I was smart enough, even at such an early age, to know that I did
not want to go to that other place, and so, under the textbook definition, this
belief made me a Christian.
I sat through Sunday school at church rather passively. I found the
stories interesting, especially the ones of the miracles Jesus performed.
Worship service for elementary school age students was conducted in Korean in
my church, and I was not fluent in Korean; as a result, much of the teaching
went over my head. The songs we sang and the little hand motions/dances
that accompanied them become too campy and “lame” after awhile.
Despite being a generally good kid, I was still very much a sinner. Siblings
argue and fight often and my brother and I were no exception; but, I must
confess I was exceptionally gifted in putting him down verbally (which wasn’t
as terrible as his putting me down literally, but that’s a story for another
time). The cute, cheery façade hid my capacity to be a downright mean
girl. To be completely honest, I still occasionally
struggle against that awful combination of pride, self-pity/insecurity, envy
and anger, which I’m sure I’ll have to flesh out in these couple years. But anyway, those are just facets of the
person I was before Christ took hold of and began transforming me, which was
after I graduated from elementary school.
My friends and I moved onto youth group and it was then I started to truly own
my faith. In awe, I watched older, therefore cooler, high school (and
maybe eighth grade) guys and gals pray to and praise God. They sang and
cried out passionately as if God were real. Then I realized perhaps God is alive and real, for why would all
these normal people be raising their voices if they didn’t believe they’d be
heard? I began to prize the knowledge of the Bible I gained in a rather
dispassionate manner and craved to know more than how Jesus turned water into
wine. Having quiet times and reading the Bible were no longer an exercise
in fact-finding nor was it about getting a prize; it was about getting to know
someone. My belief transformed into faith, a living reality.
Fast forward through years of active participation and leadership in youth
group, going on a few short-term missions trips (Mexico, Peru and Honduras),
growing intellectually (I hope) and spiritually in college, leading/serving
fellow Christians, attending various retreats and conferences (notably, OneDay03,
Urbana) to this summer.
The notion of vocation had been
plaguing me since my freshman year of college. I learned that God has a
purpose for my life and that God is revealing it little by little. Throughout my college years, I was learning
about justice and God’s heart for it. Gaining awareness of the many ways,
and the degrees to which men and women perpetrate injustice, whether
deliberately or unwittingly, overwhelmed me. Yet learning of God’s desire
to seek and save the lost and His heart breaking because of the suffering
“the least of these” – and His plans to use His people to seek and do
justice – filled me with tremendous hope.
God’s promise to prosper, and not to harm, to give hope and a future, made
Jeremiah 29:11 one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Yet, there was a
nagging feeling that I was forgetting something very crucial. In Jeremiah 29:13, God tells the exiled Israelites,
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
(TNIV). As I meditated on that verse, I was led to reexamine why I was stressing
about doing God’s will. Then I realized
I was missing the point; ironically, it wasn’t a point that I missed, but a
person.
Somehow, my desire to obey devolved into a demand for answers. I had been losing sight and sense of simply
enjoying His presence and resting in His love.
I almost forgot what intimate fellowship and communion with God was like
– the relationship that both fuels and is fueled by just trusting and obeying
Him.
So I stopped asking God,
“What do You want me to do?” but instead wondered, “Who are
You?” Strangely enough, asking the latter, more daunting, question
brought a peace and closeness to God I hadn’t felt since I first became Christ’s
beloved.
Afterwards, I stopped trying to decide between a plethora of short-term
opportunities with some great missions organizations I had learned about and/or
support. I gave up trying to assess the talents and abilities God gave
me and come up with strategies on the best way to use them.
For about a year now, I had
been supporting Jeff Goins and avidly reading his blog and the magazine he
edits, Wrecked for the Ordinary.
I was fascinated by the stories of reckless faith and trust being lived out,
and these stories challenged me to write my own tales of radical
discipleship. Yet of the many
opportunities for short-term missions – International Justice Mission, Wycliffe
Bible Translators, CTI Music Ministries (for a second time!) for example – I wasn’t
so gung-ho about exploring the possibility of the World Race. That is, until this summer, when my friend
went on a two-week trip to South
Africa.
I embraced the role of being a
supporter and sender, and I was blessed.
Hearing reports of the fruitfulness and knowing I played a part of his
team’s ministry was great. But it wasn’t
enough.
I wanted to get off the
sidelines and into the field for myself. So, I spent a few minutes filling out the
quick application for the World Race. I thought,
why not cast out this net and see what kind of options I catch. . .
Then, the Sunday after I filled
out the quick application, God confirmed that I was taking a step in the right
direction. A video clip of a couple sharing their conviction to pursue
God’s dream instead of the American one, and a sermon on Matthew 6:33,
magnified the desire to be used by God.
I had quoted Isaiah 6:8 in a
support letter for my missions trip with CTI Music Ministries in the summer of
2005:
“Then I heard a voice of the Lord
saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am
I. Send me!'”
God was now responding to my latent cries, “Okay, I’ve heard you.”
After that service, I asked my pastor to pray for me, about this opportunity. When I got home later that day, there was an invitation
in my email inbox to complete the full application.
And the rest is historyin media res. .
.
Not-so-random information:
- I turn 25 in late January
2008. - I am a fan of the New York
Mets and the Georgetown Hoyas; I root for the San Antonio Spurs because I
respect David Robinson. - I inhale chocolate; I enjoy
sweets – perhaps a little too much. - Languages I’ve learned/speak,
aside from English (in alphabetical order): Catalan, French, Korean,
Spanish. I’d like to add Italian, Mandarin and Portuguese to this
list. - I like throwing around a
(frisbee) disc, and I am kinda good at Nintendo Wii boxing. That’s
the extent of my athleticism. - I can burp with the best of
’em. - I play piano, and sing.
- At different times when I was
younger, I wanted to be a: fashion designer, genetic engineer, pediatric
oncologist, and a historian (not listed chronologically).
