Quotes

You are oridinary if you love people who are like you.
You are extraordinary is you love people who are not like you.
You are revolutionary if you love people who dislike you.

Life has three phases:
You are either in a storm.
You just got out of a storm.
Or you are entering into a storm.

Search & Confess, Realize He's Close

Challenge Reunion 2011.

Loved Tom Richter's message yesterday.

Psalm 139 -- Search and confess. But that's not it, realize how close He is to you.

Time and time again, average Christians go through spiritual ruts, go on retreats, get spiritual highs, come back a week later, crash and relive the same routine life they promised not to live when recommitting themselves to Christ. The reason is because they actually read the bible and prayed at those retreats, and when they come back, they don't. No wonder hardships come back.

Psalm 139 tells us to search our heart and confess. And we can do that over and over again to try to feel God, but our faith is much more than a feeling. Satan wants us to waste most of our lives wondering how close and how far we are from God. James 4 says, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you."

A lot of times, people say, "I want to get closer to God." What do people mean by that? God's already close to you. When we actually realize the truth of how close God is already to us, then we can just live it out and take that step. It's not a matter of feeling or not feeling because God's already close to us. Now, how does that change how we live each day? We don't need to shout to get God's attention, he's right here. Just be honest with him and watch him transform our lives.

Too Busy

To post more later..

I just stumbled upon an old email I read. It was with my brother Jason back in 2008. Reading it made me feel really sad, there are so many things that changed, and I couldve done something about it if only....

There are so many things that still havent changed..

Sometimes, I could be used in a way that didnt hurt people.
I didnt realize my "busy-ness" have affected and taken tolls in other peoples lives.
So many of my values have been consistent over the past couple of years,
Praise God for that.

There are so many things I have to reflect and work on... Man oh man.
I felt like I just got slapped in the face and my heart sank reading it.
I'm not perfect and I know that, but its hard to face that I couldve done more.

Topic of the Week: Hurricane Irene

Here's something I won't forget about this weekend:

Walking into Pathmark, I've never seen lines so long before.

Entering the water section. The whole entire bottled water section was empty 

but the right side (soda section) remained full.

People were over worried, super markets were getting free marketing from the hurricane, 

tons of events were cancelled. Result: Hurricane ended up become just a tropical storm.

Well, praise God because we probably wouldn't have wanted to enjoy that hurricane anyway

 no matter how much we expected it. I was getting tired of hearing that word.

Bye Hurricane Irene!

Chinese Landscape Painting by Mom

Wonder why me and none of my siblings got this skill/talent from her? Haha.

Nyack

Most recent update in life: So far so good.
I'm halfway of completing my application process.
Major concern now is to study for a whole course in a span of less than two weeks and actually pass it.
The way that it's going right now, I'm not too worried because I can see that God's with me every step of the way. Whatever happens, happens. I'm pretty excited.
The environment is definitely a place I'd enjoy and learn from.
I love how it's integrated upon Christian principles.

I'm praying that all goes well.
God willing, grad school here I am come.
There are struggles and minor attacks that are trying to put me down mentally and emotionally,
but God I trust you.

Three times, I heard this verse yesterday.
Romans 8:28 -- one of my favorites -- "And we know that God always works for the good of those who love him, who are calling according to his purpose."

Weight Lifted.

Since coming back from DR, I feel much lighter, a little more free and a lot less stressed. I think after unloading my aggravations to some have helped me to not feel that have a bottle full of anger ready to explode. Struggles are there of course, and I'm very anxious about this big leap of faith of just applying for grad school two weeks before the semester starts. But somewhere in there, I'm at peace that it's gonna be alright.

Taking some time off and really just refocusing myself back to God is really helpful. Let's see where studying and these applications take me the next two weeks. I'm kind of excited, but if it doesn't fall through, I have next semester and can work things a different way, but I trust that it's possible. All things are possible with God.

Don't ever get God mad.

If we disobey God, he can really get nasty.

Leviticus 26:27-35 (MSG)

"and if this-even this! doesn't work, and you still won't listen, still defy me,
I'll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you,
punishing you for your sins seven times over:

famine will be so severe that you'll end up cooking and 
eating your sons in stews and yours daughters in barbeques;
I'll smash your sex-and-religion shrines and
all the paraphernalia that goes with them,
and then stack your corpses and
the idol-corpses in the same piles- I'll abhor you;
I'll turn your cities into rubble;
I'll clean out your sanctuaries;
I'll hold my nose at the "pleasing aroma" of your sacrifices.
I'll turn your land into a lifeless moonscape-
your enemies who come in to take over will be shocked at what they see.

I'll scatter you all over the world and
keep after you with the point of my sword in your backs.
There'll be nothing left in your land,
nothing going on in your cities.
With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies,
the land ,empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years.
All the time it's left there empty,
the land will get rest,
the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there."

BUT, if we do confess our sins...

Leviticus 26:44-45 (MSG)

"... I won't reject or abhor or destroy them completely.
I won't break my covenant with them:
I am God, their God.
For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I,
with all the nations watching,
brought them out of Egypt in order to be their God.
I am God."

God's no joke. He's a serious God.

Dominican Republic Missions 2011

This is my fourth years in Dominican Republic Missions. It was a blessing and I'm glad I got to have a lot of bonding time with my BASICs. Working with Missionary Kim's family was definitely different. Got to meet and interact with many kids from Sonoma Church, Grace Church and Ebenezer Church. Sad thing is that it's unlikely we will be able to keep in touch with them or possibly even meet them again. Breaks my heart. It's always such a blessing to go abroad and meet so many awesome new people, but it hurts so bad when I think about never really seeing them again in this lifetime.. or even in the near future.



DR TEAM leaves to DR! :)





Nicole from Grace Church. She made sure to always save a seat for me and push everyone else off.



Carlos & Yuyi from Sonoma Church. They helped us learn more Spanish Vocabulary. Loved them!



Dana & Escarlin, the sweetest things. Dana made sure she was everyone's center of attention. Escarlin was just sweet.



My ROOMMATE and the only other girl on the missions trip. WAH* Didn't take a picture with Mary!



Leisure time on the streets of Santo Domingo.



The alternative beach we went to with LACK of waves. So, we kayaked...with one oar.