To read more about this transfer please see the June prayer letter LINK (hosted on my other website)

To receive my prayer letters through email please contact me and I will add you to the subscription list.  KevinEng86@gmail.com

Last month I set up an Email version of my newsletter and sent out a first round to test the waters.  It worked out pretty well and I am going to continue to produce an email version of my newsletter.

If you would like to included on future mailings of my E-newsletter please let me know.  Either leave a comment or email me (I will need your name and email).

Thanks

If you remember, Laura Ling was one of two American journalists who was captured in North Korea last year.  She was captured, imprisoned, sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean work camp, and after 5 months pardoned thanks to the help of former President Bill Clinton.

The interview was touching and deeply personal.  A moving story of fear, loneliness, sadness, but also of hope, grace, and ultimately rescue.

Laura Ling also commented on the larger issue (and the original story she was working on) about refugees fleeing from North Korea.

Praise God that Laura Ling and Euna Lee were able to be brought home safely.

I urge you to check it out.

(I kinda want to read her book now).

I have moved back to New York State.  Changed my address, changed back to a NY drivers license, registered my car in NY, put new plates on the car (they’re now gold colored!), and today I took in the car for a state inspection.  Now I am proud to say that I am a New Yorker.  It’s funny.  Geographically speaking, I was closer to NYC when I was in Penn State than I am now.  But somehow I feel one step closer on ‘The Road to NYC.’

I still remember learning to operate the mower and struggling to keep it control, especially on the big hill in the back.  Mowing the lawn seems like one of those primordial rites of passage into manhood.  Before driving, before voting, before college- there is the lawn.

When I was young I mowed the grass because I had to.  My dad told me to, so I did it.  I mowed out of obligation.  There was also a twenty dollar bill involved that sweetened the deal.  That twenty bucks was a big deal for me in high school.  It could be the difference between going to the movies or not.

But since graduating and moving home I no longer get any money for mowing.  In a way I guess it means my parents respect me as an adult with his own job who doesn’t need pocket change fro mowing the lawn.  But it also means that I have grown up in my perspective on mowing the lawn.

When I was young I mowed because I was told to and because I had to.  I was also motivated by what I could get out of it- a nice crisp twenty.  But now I am motivated to mow because it is a way for me to give back to my parents it is a way for me to show them that I care.  Now I mow to give back.

The same can be seen in the growth in my relationship with God.  When I was young I went to church and tried to be good because it was what I was told to do, and though I would never admit it, I was also hoping to get something back.  I hoped that by being obedient I could be on God’s good side.  But now I have grown up and my relationship with God has matured.  I choose to follow God not out of obligation but out of gratitude and love.

There are many different directions I could take this post.  For instance, did anyone else notice the misquoted and theologically altering mistake in the verse caved into the archway of the school?  It’s not to often that God’s word makes it into a big Hollywood movie and it makes me sad to see it misquoted in such a major way.

I could also talk about the race relations implications of this film.  I have to admit, that I had to hold back some of my judgments and opinions while watching the movie and just enjoy the story.  Some have said that this movie’s portrayal of the white family helping a black boy reflects a larger attitude of subtle racism.  It is almost as if the film is saying the the only thing that can help those poor black kids is if the loving and holy white people bring them into the white world.  Sorta like a modern spin on ‘the white man’s burden.’  –Now I am not sure if I agree completely with this interpretation of the film.  Perhaps people are reading into it too much.  But as someone who works in a contextualized ministry and deals with issues such as living cross-culturally I can see where they are getting that interpretation and can respect their hesitations about the film.

But I would like to look at this film as a window into what it is like to cross into someone else’s world.  Sure there were some ‘walk a mile in his shoes’ moments in the film, and not all of them were cheesy.  But I think a real crossing over experience was seen in the acting.

It is not too often that you see Christian characters in films.  Sometimes characters happen to be Christian but there are very few characters who let faith drive their actions.  In comes Sandra Bullock’s character Leigh Anne Tuohy.  Much of the movie has the feel of James 1:27 (Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.)  Bullock takes in young Michael Oher into her home giving him a place to stay and eventually a family to love him.

But for Sandra Bullock playing this character was a reach.  It was difficult for her to portray a strong Christian woman as opposed to some of her usual roles in romantic comedies (and the movie Speed).  In an interview about the role Bullock said “[The Tuohys] are devout Christians and they’re Republicans and they sure love their football. Me? I know nothing about Christianity, nothing about football, and I’m not a Republican.”  Bullock further explains not only difficulty in playing a southern Christian woman but even discomfort “I go, ‘Hmmm . . . white, Southern, Christian, Republican . . . not the kind of people I feel comfortable around, because they’re usually not appreciative of me, or the lifestyle I supposedly lead.  So I automatically assume that they’ll reject me because of all that.“

But she played the role and played it well.  It was interesting to see a new facet to her acting.  Sandra Bullock crossed over to experience a life she normally wouldn’t.  She stepped out, even when uncomfortable to meet the real Tuohy family and hear their story.  In an odd way she is an example for those of us who follow Jesus.

If we want to reach out in love to those around us we need to be able to cross over into the lives and worlds of people outside of our normal circles.  While I am inspired by Bullock’s willingness to enter someone else’s life, I am also saddened by her perception that we as Christians judge her or are not appreciative of her lifestyle.  I pray that we can learn to cross into someone else’s world as we bring the love of the Gospel.

(Quotations taken from The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/21/sandra-bullock-the-blind-side )

And after a long design process (hindered by my lack of development software) I am pleased to present my ministry Home Page: www.EpicEngMinistries.com

The website serves as a toll to share information about my personal faith story, ministry information about Epic Movement and Epic NYC, as well as information about how to partner with the ministry.  I have found the site useful to send to people who I might not be able to meet with face to face.

I have also set up a parallel ministry blog on that site to complement this blog.  Do not fret if you subscribe to this wordpress.  I am not looking to abandon it.  In fact, all posts following this post will be published both here as well as on EpicEngMinistries.  I am currently looking into how to get it to automatically mirror each other but I don’t mind the good old ‘copy paste’.

Please take a minute to check out EpicEngMinistries.com and let me know what you think of the layout, format, content, or anything else like that.

Thanks for the help.

In my experience I would say that the hardest part about the job is a frequent lack of closure.  So much of the job involves investing in students that sometimes it is difficult when results aren’t seen directly.  Passing out flyers, speaking at large group events, meeting personally with students, leading Bible study- these are the regular events for my job.  But I have no control how any of this is received.  I can only point to Christ as the light in my life and trust God to help students see it for themselves.  Sometimes something clicks in students and they embrace the Gospel and make it shine in their lives as well.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell if anything I can do is getting through at all.  But perhaps that is something that only God can see in a person’s heart.

A verse that comforts me is where Jesus talks about storing up treasures in heaven (Matt 6:20).  I take comfort in this verse because while I may never know in this lifetime the impact of my labor, in heaven God is storing up the treasure.

Last year, while I was serving at Penn State there was a student named ‘Henry.’  I shared the gospel with him early in the semester and met up with him several times to answer some questions he had.  He stayed involved with our ministry for much of the year still seeking answers but after awhile I didn’t see him around anymore.  I tried to get in touch with him but I never knew what happened.

On my most recent trip to Penn State I ran into a coworker from a sister ministry on campus and he was on his way to meet up with Henry!  I later asked my coworker about Henry and he told me that Henry had accepted Christ and the two of them have been meeting up regularly for discipleship.  I was encouraged by God’s work in Henry’s life since my departure and glad that he was being discipled by a great man of God.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what impact for God’s kingdom you can have on a person’s life.  Ultimately I don’t think there will be a real sense of closure on our labor until we get to heaven and stand before Christ.  But sometimes God is gracious and lets us get a little taste of the treasure that is being stored up in heaven.

This is a question I often find myself answering.  Sometimes from Caucasian folks wondering if my dinner looks like a Chinese take out every night.  Sometimes from other Asian Americans trying to figure out if I eat TV dinners and lasagna every night.

What better way to understand someone’s experience than through what they eat.  When people think culture food is probably on the top of the list on things they attribute to what makes a culture.  This can be seen in some great shows like “Bizarre Foods” and to a lesser extent “Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.”  While food plays a big role in culture, it is not the only element and I hope to be able to dive into some of those other elements in future posts.  But for today I think food makes a great point about being Asian American.

Being a third generation Asian American means I find myself somewhere between the Asian cultural heritage and western full assimilation.  And to answer the “what do you eat” question I would reply that great snapshot of dinner growing up would be ‘Shake an Bake’ pork chops with rice.  Or meatloaf with rice.  Or chicken pot pie with rice.  Or lasagna with rice (only kidding on that last one).  That pretty much sums up my culinary up brining -sub the mashed potatoes or biscuits for a big ole pile of rice.  We would also have ‘Asian-inspired’ meals with whatever Asian veggies or meats were available.  But with a small market for Asian produce in the Rochester area we often made do with what was available in the grocery store.

I see these dinners as a way to describe to someone what my Asian American experience was like growing up.  There were the western influences (like shake and bake) that helped me assimilate into the majority culture.  (In fact in college I had some Asian American friends who had never had shake and bake).  But there was always the rice.  A reminder of my Asian heritage.  Beyond the rice, Asian cuisine was limited due to the fact that there was little connection to an Asian market for other foods.

What a great metaphor for my upbringing.  Much like my dinner plate, I found myself with a mix of inputs both from the Asian side and the western side.  However, there were few Asian influences in my life other than my parents- much like there were few Asian influences in my diet.  Being separated from a large Asian population isolated me both a cultural and a dietary way.

So perhaps there is truth to the saying “you are what you eat.”  As for me, How about another plate of pork chops- don’t forget the rice!