Sunday, January 7, 2018

Saying Goodbye (for now)...

Hello, friends!

Just in case you haven't heard about any big news from us about moving, Sabbatical, and such, take a few minutes and watch this video. It explains everything...

Now that we've got that out of the way, we can get on to business.

As I've been thinking about Sabbatical, I've been considering more and more how I want to "unplug" and be with Jesus as we transition to Omaha and prepare to take on new roles within the movement. One of the ways I'm going to be doing that is by putting the blog on hiatus for the next 7 months or so. This blog was started primarily as a way for me to share ministry happenings. I always wanted to base my ministry on transparency, especially since I was going to be 2 time zones away from my first group of community in California. So, it just makes sense that while I'm taking a Sabbatical, this blog does too.

That being said, there are still so many things to be said, especially about my move out of CoMO and to Omaha. So, as a way to say goodbye to this chapter in my life, I humbly present to you... the SAYING GOODBYE TO MISSOURI SUPERBLOG.

Each link below will take you to a blog entry on some topic related to my 10+ years here in Mid-MO and nearly 15 years living in Missouri. My hope is that you'll read these as a memoir of sorts, closing this chapter of my life and preparing to start a new chapter in a new place.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

You're sending me to South America?
Own it like it's your own
My name is Adam and I don't actually go here
It smelled like dog poop and it had to be mine
We are... CC!
Maul 'Em!
#NCFFTW
MO Fast MO Furious
Top 3, no doubt in my mind
Tip Day

Monday, January 1, 2018

Best... Soup... Ever...

Hello, friends!

I present to you, the Spicy Beef Noodle Soup of Seasoning 63, in Columbia, Missouri. This is also known as the best spicy beef noodle soup I have ever had, and possibly one of the 5 things I will miss the most when we move.

My roommate Dr. Moon first introduced this soup to me when Seasoning 63 was called Jingo's and it was located on Broadway downtown. I don't remember the context of what we were doing there. I just remember that I had one bite and I knew that this was something amazing. The recipe (along with the name and location of the restaurant) has changed a bit over these 10+ years, but the goodness is still the same. Let me break it down for you.

Bok Choy: Bok choy is perfect for soup because it absorbs the flavor of whatever you put it in. In this case, it is a delicious broth (more on that later). Every bite of vegetable is like a little appetizer for the soup, knowing that there's some goodness coming later.

Meat: There are two versions of this soup. The American version uses the same beef cut that Jingo's/Seasoning 63 uses for its other beef dishes (like beef and broccoli, Mongolian beef, etc.). However, if you get the Chinese (read: good) version, you are also treated to more tender cuts of beef (with the fat still on) and TRIPE. Man, I love me some tripe.

Noodles: You can't see the noodles in this photo but they're there. They're there and they are delicious. I don't know what they do to the noodles. I'm pretty sure they're pre-made. Man, those are some tasty, tasty noodles.

Fried Egg: I always eat the eggs last because it's a special little treat before getting to the broth. Like the bok choy, the egg soaks up the broth beautifully, meaning every extra second that egg is in there is an extra second of deliciousness. What I love about eating that egg though is how the yolk is always just a little bit runny. It's not so runny that it falls apart on you though. It's perfect so that if you stick the whole yolk in your mouth, there's a little bust of flavor that makes my day.

Broth: I once took my dad to try out the soup. Meg and Ezra came along with us. Meg had to go run an errand so it was just the 3 men. Ezra loves soup so he wanted a sip. I told him it was going to be spicy but he wanted to try it anyway so I gave him a spoonful. He scrunched up his face and said, "SPICY!" I told him that water would help so he grabbed his water cup and took a long swig. Then, he put his hands together in a tapping motion, the sign language for "more." I gave him another spoonful and the process repeated itself. Eventually, I filled a small bowl with some broth and he proceeded to repeat sip, "spicy!", chug, "more" until the entire bowl was empty. I'd never been so proud of my son.

A few weeks back, I told the owner that I was going to be moving. She said, "Oh, I guess you're the last one then, yeah?" Apparently, my friends and I have been coming here for a while. =0).

I actually won't be the last one to move. Charis has been a part of our Jingo's/Seasoning 63 crew and she'll still be around. But they'll be losing my business. So, friends, would you do me a favor and head over to Seasoning 63? Keep the place running so when I come back and visit I'll still have some delicious soup available to me. It's on Old 63, across from the Reserve and next to the Pickleman's. Get the Spicy Beef Noodle Soup and think of me.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

MO Fast, MO Furious

"How about... MO-IST?"

The story that I tell a lot is that when I first joined staff, I was the only IV staff for 120 miles. I'd moved to CoMO when there wasn't any IV work in the state of Missouri beyond St. Louis and Kansas City. I actually had 2 apartments, one in CoMO and one in St. Louis because I needed to travel back and forth every week for staff meetings and trainings. The 2 hour drive wasn't a ton of fun (this was before podcasts were really a thing). Paying 2 rents was a bit of a bother (although, housing was so cheap it was still OK). Not being able to get a part-time job in either CoMO or StL because I was never in one place more than 3 days in a row made things a little difficult (although it did eventually contribute to my love for ministry partnership development since I had to raise a higher than normal budget). Still, all of that was worth it because coming into St. Louis each week meant that I could be a part of the Missouri team.

As it stands right now, I am the elder statesmen of the Missouri Team. If you include the 4 years I spent as a student to the 10.5 years I've been on staff, that's nearly 15 years that I've been a part of InterVarsity here in the great state of Missouri. I've seen us reach new campuses and shut down chapters. I've seen literally dozens, if not hundreds, of students make decisions to follow Jesus. I've led roadtrips all across Missouri planting and scouting new campuses. I've seen a of things. I've made a lot of friends. It's been an amazing run.

Somewhere around 2013 or 2014 (the years all run together at this point), the Missouri International Student Ministry (ISM) area, which was made up of staff focusing in ISM in the state of Missouri, and the Missouri Area, which was made up of staff focusing on "domestic" student ministry in Missouri, decided to merge into a single area. In hopes of making sure it didn't feel like an acquisition but like a true merger, we floated the idea of changing our name to something new for the both of us. My favorite name was MO Fast, MO Furious, which eventually just got shortened to the MO Fast Team (My least favorite option was MO-IST, or "moist"). Being a part of this team has been one of the great honors of my life.

My dear friends, Will, Flyaway, Topes, Choco Cats, Dom, Baby Bear, Danny, Charis, Meg, Strongbad, David, Sheriff, Charlamagne, Ashley, Gelnoak, Legend, Miss Ashley, T-Mo, Jon Wang, La Reina, Tammy, D-Queen, Brian, La Capitana, Kes, Robert, Jojo, Jordan, Snack Pack, El Supervisor, and every volunteer who has helped us bring the Gospel to college students in Missouri, I say, "Thanks." Thanks for being a great team. Thanks for going to the hard places. Thanks for celebrating with me and mourning with me. Thanks for taking risks with me. Thanks for letting me be a part of your staff lives. You will forever be a part of mine.

Have an excellent day,

~Adam

M-I-Z...

"Own it like it's your own."

I'll never forget how it felt when I heard those words. I was a first year intern with InterVarsity getting ready for my first regional function as a staff. A veteran staff took a few of us young folk out to lunch prior to the meetings and he gave me that one piece of advice that has stuck with me for my entire staff career in Mid-MO. I have to own Mizzou like it's my own.

Growing up in Southern California, school pride is a thing but it's a different kind of thing. There's UCLA. There's USC. There are transplants from all over California who went to Cal or Stanford. There are transplants from all over the country too. Growing up, I had allegiances to none of those schools. My parents didn't go to any of those schools. I'm sure I had friends whose parents went to those schools but we didn't talk about it much. College pride just wasn't a part of my upbringing.

Fast forward to college. Washington University in St. Louis is known for a lot of things. It's got an amazing campus, a top notch med school, wonderful students, and engaged faculty, and back when I was living there, some pretty tasty dorm food. The one thing it didn't have was school spirit. WashU was a place people went so they would get a better shot at going somewhere else after they graduated. We didn't care much about the city beyond our walls. We didn't care much about the campus beyond our classes. We didn't care much about our classes beyond our grades. (To be honest, I didn't really care much about the grades either... #graduated). As far as athletics go, we cared more about our intramural teams than we did the varsity teams. There used to be a student org called Red Alert that tried to build up school spirit. If you went to a football game (which was free) you'd get a Red Alert T-shirt and 2 slices of pizza. It was not a well attended event.

So, when I heard that I need to "own it like it's your own," I was ripe for the picking. The staff was trying to say that if I'm going to really make it in a new place, I have to adopt the new place as my home. I can't have differing allegiances to other schools if I want InterVarsity to thrive at Mizzou. There could be no equivocation. I had to be #MizzouMade from day 1. I was ready.

Mizzou is the best. I've loved being a fan of the university these past 10+ years. I've been to games. I've read up on the scouting reports. I've been inside so many of the buildings. I've experienced some of the cultural events there. I've been a part of protests. I've met so many students and adopted so many traditions. I can't ever officially say that I'm an alumni of Mizzou, and if WashU and Mizzou were to ever play in any sport (SOOOOO unlikely), my heart would still be with WashU (Go Bears!) but I can honestly say that I've owned Mizzou like my own.

Thankfully, in my next role, I won't be doing much campus work so while I'm living in Omaha, I won't have to be owning any of those local schools as my own. Ezra and Thaliea will NOT grow up fans of Big Red (read: University of Nebraska). If they want to root for Creighton (Go Jays!) or UN-O (Go Mavericks!) then we can make that work. But you'd better believe this won't be a Husker House. Lincoln is an hour away from Omaha, which hopefully will be enough of a distance to keep that fandom at bay.

M-I-Z... Z-O-U!!!

~Adam

Nurses For the Win!

"Did you know that there's an NCF chapter at Mizzou?"

In a word, no. The email I got from Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF) National saying that there was an NCF chapter at Mizzou was definitely news to me. With a mother, sister, and sister-in-law who are all nurses, I was definitely interested in connecting with those students. 

When I got to our first meeting, NCF was less a chapter and more 2 students who carried over from the past year and their adviser. We didn't have much of a plan and I didn't have a ton of time so I said, "well, let's just pray and see what happens." That first year, we averaged about 4-6 students but we kept on praying. At the start of our second year, we had to switch rooms for our first meeting because there were over 50 nursing students in attendance.

Over the years, the number of students has fluctuated from that first meeting in 2015, to as few as 6 students doing a bible study together. Students have shown up and left. We've never had more than 1 guy as a part of the group besides me. Still, the group faithfully meets and continues to explore what it means to follow Jesus in the world of nursing.

Nursing students are a special breed. Their level of compassion is astounding. I've been taking prayer requests from students in small groups for over 10 years and only in NCF are there more prayer requests for other people than for the people in the room. Questions of compassion, justice and ethics are always on their minds as they navigate how nursing school, clinicals, and their sororities (because apparently all of them are in sororities).

Honestly, I didn't spend a ton of time with NCF. They only meet twice a month and my role was more of an adviser than one of a staff. I was there to help them make prints and buy snacks and such. Still, I was so blessed to be a part of the group. I'm looking forward to seeing these ladies (and a few dudes) change the world through nursing.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam 

CCIV...

"We are... CC!!!"

When I first came on staff with InterVarsity, one of the first things that my Regional Director did was take me out to breakfast. We went to Bob Evans. I'd never been to Bob Evans before. It was nice. =0).

I remember very distinctly that while at breakfast, the RD gave me a vision for all of Mid-MO. He said, "Mizzou is going to be the flagship campus for Mid-Missouri, stretching to all parts of the state." My job was to be start at Mizzou and eventually branch out to other campuses. Thankfully, there were 3 other campuses within walking distance of Mizzou so I figured it wouldn't be that hard.

2012 rolled around and we still didn't have anything to show for our planting efforts beyond Mizzou ACF. I'd tried planting a Black Campus Ministry (BCM) chapter at Mizzou but I couldn't gain enough traction to make it go. Still, ACF was thriving and I felt pretty good about where things were. We had our first official volunteers on staff and one of those staff was charged with leading our apprentice group. She decided that to grow the soon to be leaders, she wanted to have them plant a chapter at Columbia College. After that apprenticeship program finished, the volunteer staff asked if she could actually stay at Columbia College and continue to plant there instead of with ACF. I was more than happy to grant that request and Columbia College InterVarsity (CCIV) was born.

To say that that Columbia College is a different beast from Mizzou would be an understatement. Instead of the 30-35,000 students on campus at Mizzou, Columbia College most recently just doubled it's residential dorm space to 850. While there are over 40 different evangelical student organizations at Mizzou, Columbia College had none. Instead, there were small groups run by campus staff from Mizzou who would then bring the Columbia College students to Mizzou for Large Group. What our volunteer decided was that Columbia College needed a group that was created by CC students for the CC campus.

CCIV has had its ups and downs the past few years, as all chapters do. Some years leadership is great. Other years, the students aren't as invested as we'd like. Still, the chapter plugs along. As I head into Sabbatical, I'm really excited about the crop of leaders we have who will be leading the charge in my absence. We're still hoping for a staff to come in and fill in some of the gaps but even if that doesn't happen, I'm proud of the work that we've done to create a campus group at Columbia College that will serve the campus as a whole. I am, and forever will be, proud to be... CC!

~Adam

706...

"It smells like dog poop."

I moved to CoMO in 2007. The timing worked out really well because as I was moving to CoMO, my friend Andrew's roommate was moving out of CoMO. That meant I was able to immediately move into Kevin's old room and not have to search for a place of my own. The apartment was nice enough. It was close to campus and I had my own bedroom. After my one year internship and 1 year of full-time staff work, I knew that CoMO was going to be a place that I wanted to put down roots. So, I saw a "For Sale" sign in front of a house around campus, called up the number on the sign, and Sean Moore became my real estate agent. 

When Sean and I first met at his office, he told me what was going to happen. He said that we would probably look at close to 2 dozen houses. The first few would really just be me figuring out what I didn't like and what I actually wanted in a house. Then, around house 20 or so, I would walk in and know exactly that this was the house for me. This was my first house buying experience for me so I didn't know if he was telling me the truth or not but I decided to just go with it. 

Friends, I looked at a lot of houses in a short period of time. I remember one house had a sort of fishbowl thing going for it because the floor wasn't level. There was the house with the locked basement that we later learned was because there was a guy living down there and he would be coming along with the house. There was what I called the "ex-girlfriend house" because I absolutely knew that it wasn't right for me but kept going back to it for another look. We probably looked at around 15-20 houses and I was getting discouraged. 

Then we walked into 706 Mount Vernon Avenue. As soon as I stepped in the door, I knew it was the house for me. It was an absolute dump. There was a big dog in a cage watching TV. There was trash everywhere. The kitchen hadn't been cleaned in a while. Downstairs there was no carpet and some dog poop on the floor. Still, I knew it had to be mine. It had everything I wanted. There was ample living space to be able to host lots of people, both upstairs and downstairs. The basement was a self-contained unit, so I could live downstairs and have IV folk living upstairs. There was a sense of community but I could still escape to my own space if I needed. There was tons of storage for IV stuff like sound equipment and proxe stations. It was just 1.5 miles from campus, and the trip was an easy bike ride. It was like God had designed a house specifically for me. 

Since July 2009, there have been a lot of changes to this house. We had the kitchen renovated. The basement has carpet on the floor and paint on the walls. There are curtains on the windows and art in the living room. There's a garden in the back yard to go along with the fire pit. It's very much a home. It's my home. 

706 Mount Vernon has gone by a few different names. Some call it the Man Cave. Others call it IV house. I'm personally partial to La Casa Leong. Whatever its name, it has been my home for the past 8.5 years and it has served me well. I've hosted literally dozens of students in here. We've had leaders meetings, potlucks, bonfires, and movie nights in this house. This is the first house of Meg and my marriage. It's Ezra and Thaliea's first home. It will be hard leaving this house; my home.

Our new place in Omaha is really great. I'm excited for all the memories that are coming for that new house. I'm excited for our new garden and for the kids to have rooms of their own. I'm excited to have a master bathroom and an office. Still, a part of me will always be here, at 706 Mount Vernon Avenue.

~Adam

ACF...

"Our mission is to be a community that shares Christ's love with the Asian and Asian Americans on campus."

This past week I had the pleasure of going to a wedding for one of my best friends, who also happens to be the grandfather of ACF. The story goes like this:

My friend was part of a large InterVarsity chapter during his undergrad. He made his way to Mizzou for grad school and missed Asian American community, so he joined the Asian American Association. While a part of AAA he saw that the students there needed Jesus so he started a Bible study for non-Christians. That led him to then call my supervisor asking if it was possible for a staff to be sent out to Mizzou to plant an Asian American ministry at Mizzou. My supervisor sent me and the rest, as they say, is history. 

For 8 years I was ACF's staff. It was, and always has been, my baby. I remember our first meetings in a student's apartment. I would get there early to cook then we'd do dinner and a bible study. I remember when we first became recognized as a student group. I remember when we had our first Large Group because we were too big for the apartment. I remember the elation I felt when we held our first leaders meeting and the heartbreak of every one of the students who left the chapter or even the faith. I remember the faces of the students who made decisions to follow Jesus and those who decided to lead. I remember all of it because for 8 years, ACF was my life. 

As I took on more and more responsibility with InterVarsity, it still kept coming back to ACF. I needed to stay connected to Asian American students because as an Asian American, I knew that the connection that I felt to those students was just as much for my soul as it was for them. 

During the after party of the wedding, I looked around at the ACF alumni in the room and my heart swelled with gratitude and thankfulness. Of the people in the room, at least 1/3 of them I know came to a real faith in Jesus through ACF. To see them now thriving as adults means that ACF did its job. ACF hasn't been mine for the past 2 years but it will always be in my heart.

So, to Andrew, Laura, Grace, Roshani, Jay, Esther, Lyndy, Julie, Sarah, Dane, Chris, Barbara, Benji, Racehl, Asha, Melody, Lorenzo, Leo, David, David, Tim, Sarah Liz, Grace, Josephine, Arthur, Daisy, Joey, Emily, Colter, Bianca, Paul, Terry, Jin, Rachel, Kirstyn, Seth, Bryce, Shyna, Annie, Liu Liu, Justin, An, Kevin, Kevin, Duc, Paula, Philip, Charis, Jordan, Rachael, April, Kristen, Danny, Jerryl, Jared, Mia, Claire, Mary, Louise, Willin, Ivy, Samuel, Tim, Sarah, Kyoko, Jasmin, Emily, Vincent, Jessica, Kayla, Crystal, Renyu, Elaine, Hannah, Tina, Alison, Victoria, Young, Andrew, Tony, Margaret, Phuong, Yang, Nuria, Julia, Eunice, Jen, Yu-Rim, Soohong, Bo Hyun, Amy, Won Hee, Stephen, Lillian, Kang, Ktan, Satomi, Jennifer, Grace, Lauren, Vanessa, Nan, Andi, Chris, Lyly, Kha, Christyona, and everyone else who graced the doors of ACF throughout my time there, I say, "Thanks." Thanks for coming. Thanks for cooking and eating. Thanks for helping to set up chairs and lead worship. Thanks for leading bible study and small group even though you didn't feel prepared. Thanks for taking risks with me. Thanks for exploring with me. It's been a heck of a ride and I'm so blessed to have met each and every one of you.

~Adam

CoMO...

"You're sending me to South America?"

I'm glad those aren't the first words that came out of my mouth when my supervisor asked me to consider moving to for my InterVarsity internship. I didn't know that Mizzou was in Columbia, Missouri (as opposed to Colombia the country) so I was definitely thinking it but since I was in shock, I didn't say anything. When my supervisor then continued by saying that that was where the University of Missouri was, I breathed an internal sigh of relief and committed to taking a trip out to visit. On my way back from that visit, I said yes to moving to CoMO and things have only moved forward from there.

My experience with Missouri was St. Louis. My dad grew up on the North Side of St. Louis so when we visited as a kid, that was where we went. I have an aunt who lives in West County so I know that area a little bit too. When I went to school in Missouri, it was in St. Louis (Go Bears!). I had been to Kansas City once or twice to eat BBQ maybe but to me, St. Louis and Missouri were synonymous. When I moved out to CoMO, I saw that there were other parts of Missouri than just St. Louis and that those other parts are VERY different.

At first, it was a shock. Why am I surrounded by White people? Why is everything so close? You mean I can bike to ANYWHERE in the city? Why are there so many rocks and trees and parks and lakes and such? It only costs HOW MUCH to golf here? Over the past 10+ years of living here, I've learned to really love this town and it has very much been my home. Here are a few things I'll miss the most.

- Biking everywhere. For the past 10 years, I have literally biked everywhere. I've biked to campus more times than I can count. I've biked to church. I've biked to go play golf. I've biked to go fishing and to go swimming. I've biked to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I've biked with a grill attached to my back wheel so I could tailgate. CoMO is such an amazing town for biking. The drivers for the most part give a wide berth. There are bike lanes everywhere. The hills are present but not terrible. As someone who devoted an entire blog to the money he could save by biking places, CoMO really was a dream.

- Mizzou. Growing up in Southern California, college allegiances made some sense but not a lot. I knew USC folk, UCLA folk, UCI folk, Cal State Fullerton folk, and so on. Throw the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, Kings, and Ducks into the mix and there really wasn't any dominant team that captured the entire fan base. In fact, you found just as many haters as you did fans of any particular school or team. Not so here in CoMO. Everyone bleeds black and gold and it is so great. I love seeing that everything is named "Tiger" something as an homage to the team. I love being able to talk to random strangers about the game last night because we all watched it. I love being able to go anywhere downtown on gameday and be pretty sure I can get a discount of some sort because everyone does a discount on gameday. I'm not an alum but you'd better believe I'm M-I-Z all the way.

- Hard conversations. Let's be real. Being a person of color living in CoMO has been hard, especially these past few years. It's not easy feeling like you have to represent your entire people group because you're the only Chinese American a lot of people know. It's kind of exhausting getting into disagreements and fights with people about issues of justice and racial equality. It's been hard hearing the comments, the names, and the dismissals from people when I try to share about my experiences as a POC living in CoMO. But you know what? It's been really good. I've been stretched. I've been humbled. I've learned. I've been loved well and I would like to think that I have loved well in return. I can better talk about issues of race and justice now because I had to constantly do so while living here. I don't know what Omaha will bring but I know I'll be more ready than when I first moved here.

- My spots. People know that I'm a creature of habit. I have my spots. I have my golf course. I have my restaurants. I have my chairs at the library. I've spent the past 10+ years figuring out what my spots are but now that I'm leaving, it's going to be hard to say goodbye. So long, LA Nickell Golf Course. I never broke 90 but sure had fun golfing you. Goodbye, Plasma center. Thanks for all the extra fun money. Adios to my downtown restaurants l

LUIV...

"Be Black and be blessed..."

My first experience at Lincoln University was shaking a delivery guy's hand.

Allow me to explain. In 2014, our Missouri staff team took a group of students to Columbia for a campus scouting trip. We explored different campuses in the state to pray over them and hopefully see if there was some work to be planted. My team went to Lincoln University, just 30 minutes south of Columbia in Jefferson City, the state capital.

This wasn't the first time a staff had visited Lincoln. The previous year, Megan took a volunteer and a student leader down there to pray. Still, this felt like a maiden voyage of sorts. I'd done some praying and scouting at the different campuses in Columbia (Stephens, Columbia College, and Moberly Area Community College, to go along with Mizzou), and visited a few other campuses along I-70 but this was my first trip south and it felt new and exciting.

I didn't know anything about Lincoln University except that it was a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) and that there was no InterVarsity presence there. We parked the car, made our way to one of the dorms, and tried to talk to students. The lobby was empty except for the Residential Adviser at the check-in desk and a Chinese guy just standing there. At first I got really excited because if there were actually Asians and Asian Americans at Lincoln, that would be much more in my comfort zone. I introduced myself, shook his hand, and then watched as students came down out of the elevator, paid him for their food, grabbed their bags, went back up to their rooms, and he went out the door. So much for that... =0).

Despite a somewhat embarrassing start, we did get to meet some students and talk to them. They all said the same thing. I needed to meet Pastor Howard, who runs to bookstore. The next semester, when I officially started coming down to Lincoln once a week to plant, I sought out Pastor Howard. There were two pieces of advice he gave me. The first was to hang around for a while. Campus pastors have come and gone through Lincoln's campus and they usually only hang out for a semester before determining that the work is too hard and they move onto something else. If InterVarsity really wanted to make an impact, I needed to commit to the long haul. The second piece of advice was to seek out Pastor Nelson, who led a church just off campus and had just started Lincoln's first Christian student group. Both those pieces of advice turned out to be invaluable as I worked at Lincoln for these past 2.5 years.

Folk who have kept up with this blog know what planting at Lincoln has been like. We aren't an official student group because the old administration didn't like Christian groups. So, I came back week after week, setting up my proxe outside, trying to talk to students about Jesus. Pastor Nelson and I partnered together extremely well and both his students and my students were blessed by the partnership. We saw students come to Jesus, other students fall off the face of the earth, and some students come by week after week with more and more questions, opening themselves up to the idea that Jesus might be for them. Some weeks the weather wouldn't cooperate and I just spent my time in the cafeteria, talking to students and learning everything I didn't know I didn't know about Black culture. It was an educational and enriching experience, to say the least.

Lincoln University is actually more than 50% White. Still, most of those white students are commuters who do not actively participate in student life. The best way I can describe Lincoln is that it is an HBCU that is also a community college. For the past 2.5 years, it has been my heart.

"Be Black and be blessed" was the last thing that Pastor Nelson said to me after I had our final Lincoln University InterVarsity meeting of the semester, and my last meeting ever. I'd bought everyone lunch and had them sign up for Imani, our Black student conference happening in February. Then, I said my goodbyes, and headed off into the sunset. When Pastor Nelson said that to me, I quipped back, "You know I can only be one of those things, right?"

His response: "Nah, you can have both. You earned it." I'd just been given my "Black Card." =0).

Joking aside, the truth is that working at Lincoln changed me. I was able to speak first hand with Black students and hear about their experiences living in these United States. I remember coming down to Lincoln the day after the Mizzou protests and seeing nothing but unity between the Black and White students because they spent so much time together in class and actually knew one another. I remember praying with students after the 2016 election because they felt like the country didn't care about them. I remember talking with students about the Black Lives Matter movement and being all the more educated about its nuances. I've seen the Gospel through Black eyes and it is a good Gospel... a really good Gospel. Lincoln changed me and it changed me for the better.

Moving on from Lincoln is going to be one of the hardest parts of leaving Columbia. For the past 2.5 years, even though I was only there once a week, I grew connected to the campus and to the students. Knowing that I won't be seeing Roosevelt, Marcus, Mar'Che, Gloria, Roz, Asha, Pastor Nelson, Hannah, Alex, Maurice, Rayonna, Dom, and the rest of my InterVarsity students and "proxe station regulars" is hard. My prayer is that the work will continue and that LUIV will thrive for years to come.

We don't know if there's another staff who will be coming to take my place at Lincoln yet. We have a potential staff but nothing has been set in stone. I'm not worried about the Gospel going forward at Lincoln. Pastor Nelson is there and the students are motivated. Please pray with me the same prayer I've been praying every time I've washed my hands for the past 2.5 years. LORD, please bring a revival to Lincoln University.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Tip Day...

"February 21, 2022"

What's so significant about February 21, 2022? It's not that the Beijing Winter Olympics will have just ended (although that will be a big deal). It doesn't have anything to do with Spring Training for baseball (as far as I know anyway). February 21, 2022, was supposed to be my "Tip Day."

I moved to St. Louis as a freshman in college (Go Bears!) on August 4, 2003. It was the hottest day of the year and apparently the hottest day in St. Louis in quite some time. At that point, I was 18 years, 6 months, and 21 days old. I can't tell you exactly what made me think this but as soon as I moved into my dorm room, I knew that I was not going to be living full time in California ever again. When that realization happened, I looked forward to my "tip day." That would be the day that I was going to have lived in Missouri longer than I'd lived in California. It was going to be a pretty great day.

My dad grew up in St. Louis and we would visit a lot of summers. I grew up a Cardinals fan and a Blues fan. I love Imo's Pizza and White Castle. A friend once told me that while I may never be able to say that I'm from St. Louis, I can call myself a St. Louisan.

Back in 2002, when I was a Junior in high school, if you'd told me that I would leave California, I would have told you that you were crazy. Yet, something changed and I found myself in St. Louis. A few years later, if you'd told me that I'd ever leave St. Louis, I'd have told you you were crazy. Yet, something changed and I moved to CoMO. Even just 2 years ago, if you'd told me that I'd ever leave CoMO, I'd have told you that you were crazy. Yet, something changed and as you're reading this, I'm now a resident of Nebraska. I guess Jesus does some funny stuff.

Now, Tip Day is going to mean something different for me. I'll still celebrate it as the day I've spent more of my life living out of California than in it. Maybe I'll make it a tip day for being a Midwestern dweller. I'm not sure. What I do know is that when I got here in 2003, I was sure I'd never leave. Now, here we are, and things have changed.

Transitioning is not something that I do particularly well. I'm a rhythms and structures kind of guy. This move isn't going to be easy for me, which is one of the reasons why we're moving during the early part of our Sabbatical. I'm going to need as much time as possible to develop new rhythms in my new home. If you have a moment over these next few months, please pray for me, my family, and our transition.

For those keeping track at home, Nebraska-Missouri Tip Day is July 22, 2032. That will be the day I'll have lived in Nebraska longer than in Missouri. Here's hoping we get there.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam