Suffering with the Body...

Friends,

As I'm sure all of you have heard, yesterday, a grand jury decided to not indict Officer Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown on August 9th of this year. While this was not unexpected, it doesn't hurt any less. My brothers and sisters in the black community are being continually reminded that in the United States, the killing of an unarmed black teenager by law enforcement is nothing new and will continue to be unchecked by the legal system that claims to protect all citizens.

Let me be clear here. I was not in the grand jury deliberations. I have not yet reviewed all the evidence. I was not present so I do not know what "really happened." My cause for suffering comes not just because Officer Wilson will be able to resume his life while Michael Brown will not. My suffering comes because my friends in the Black community are suffering. This wasn't just about this case. This was about 400 years of systematic injustice. Despite what many on Facebook want to say, this wasn't just a matter of open and shut, let's find all the facts, determine who is guilty, and move on with our lives. It was one part of America feeling like it has been kicked in the teeth one time too many and trying to say, enough is enough.

When I think about all my various networks, I am so thankful for how God has blessed me with such a diverse group of friends and family to which I can learn. There is the Chinese Christian community where I spent the first 18 years of my life. There are the Black fellow WashU Students (Go Bears!) who I have the pleasure of calling some of my best friends. There are the mid-western Asian Americans I have had the pleasure of working with for the past 8 years. There are my White friends who I have met in school, in church, and just by virtue of living in the Midwest for the past 12 years. When the Grand Jury decision was released, my mind went to all of those groups and how to be the best friend I could to each group.

There are a lot of temptations out there right now. The following messages are generalizations so I apologize if this does not apply to you. I mean no disrespect.

For my White friends, now is not the time to be posting articles about the "facts" of the case. Speaking as a minority, every article you post about the "facts of the case" comes off as gloating. Whether intended or not, it smacks of, "see, I TOLD you he deserved to die." Now is also not the time to move on, assuming that justice has been done. For every person who has said or thought something to the effect of, "well, of course I care about racial reconciliation but..." now is your chance to shine. This is where you say, "An indictment didn't happen. This case is closed in the eyes of the law, but I said I care about justice so I'm going to keep fighting for it on behalf of my brothers and sisters in the Black community." This is your time. Suffer with the body. Empathize. Do not disengage. Seek out your brothers and sisters in the Black community and see what you can do to suffer with them and stand united with them.

Speaking to my Asian American friends, here's what I wrote to an Asian American student who asked about what it means to suffer as the whole body suffers.

The short answer is to care. If your foot hurts, the whole body walks with a limp. The other foot takes on more weight. The eyes are extra careful to see things on the ground. Every part of the body is affected.

To suffer with them means to engage in conversation with them about how they are feeling. It means to advocate on their behalf. It means to walk alongside them add they suffer. It means to feel their pain as best you can.

How that looks for you may be different than me. It could mean going to a protest. It could mean taking a friend out to coffee and letting them vent. It could mean a lot of different things. But it does mean acting like you care and not letting excuses keeping you from engaging on some level.

Have fun suffering. I will be right there with you, as a member of the same body.

Last but not least, to my Black friends. I want you here. You have enriched my life in so many ways through your friendships. You've shown me a new way to see and preach the Gospel. You've accepted me as a friend and a brother. Words cannot begin to express how important each of you is to me. Right now it may feel like the US is not a place for you. It may feel unsafe. It may feel oppressive. It may feel unjust. I won't argue with you on any of those points. Just know that I want you here.

~Adam

Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Hello, friends!

First of all, thanks to everyone who was praying for Jordan's event last night. He texted me and said that things went really well. =0).

I mentioned this briefly in my last post that Saturday night, International Christian Fellowship (The InterVarsity Group that Megan is planting at Mizzou) had an international Thanksgiving dinner. Friends, it was a huge hit and a total blast!

By my count, we had over 50 international students in attendance, including a few kiddos. For many of these students, it was their first time experiencing an "American Thanksgiving," especially considering that many of the students have only been in the US for a few months. They got to meet Americans from our church, learn about the history of Thanksgiving, and eat all sorts of traditional Thanksgiving foods. The cranberry sauce was particularly popular.

Speaking of delicious food, we couldn't have done it without the help of our friends from Chrisitan Fellowship Church. Members of the church not only brought all sorts of delicious food, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn casserole, and the like, but many of them stayed and ate with us. It's so amazing to be part of a great community that loves and supports what we do. The good people of CF have even organized other folk from the church to host students who have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving day!

Can I stop a moment and dote on my wife, by the way? Megan did an amazing job putting all this together. She recruited students to attend as well as folk from the church to cook and stay for dinner. She coordinated the program and the rides. She handled the set up and the cleanup. She also socialized with students and made everyone feel welcome. She pretty much nailed it.

Here's a photo from our group. Here's hoping that everyone in attendance had a good time and were blessed by the meal.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Big Day Today!

Hello, friends!

Today, or tomorrow (depending on when you are reading this) is a big day. Not just because Mizzou will be taking on Texas A&M with the SEC East in the balance (Mizzou is going to win, in case you were wondering). Not just because I am leading a seminar about crossing cultures for Asian American students from all over the Midwest (either it will go great or it went great depending on if you are seeing this before or after noon). Not even because tonight ICF is hosting a thanksgiving dinner for 50 international students (although that is HUGE and you should definitely be praying for that). No, friends, this is a big day for another reason.

I've had the pleasure of supervising an intern this past year and a half by the name of Jordan Tiu. Jordan is an ACF alum with a huge heart for Jesus and a desire to see college students reached with the Gospel. Today, Jordan will be presenting for over 100 people in the Kansas City area the work he is doing with InterVarsity and the work that God is doing on Mizzou's campus through ACF.

So, friends, please say a quick prayer (long prayers are OK too) for Jordan as he prepares for tonight. Pray that people will be receptive to the work that he is doing. Pray that the weather (there's a chance of snow) will not deter people from coming. Pray that the kingdom will be glorified through the event.

Oh, and if you're in the Kansas City area, stop by North Point Church tonight @ 6 to say hello!  =0).

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Survival Mode

Hello, friends!

We've entered the interesting part of the year where we're out of the New Student Outreach period but not quite into the craziness of finals. It's been forever since students have had anything that resembled a break and Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, meaning we've entered the dog days of the semester. Everyone, staff included, are in "survival mode," which isn't a great place to be but is the reality of the situation.

Survival mode for me looks like this:
- Keeping students accountable to their commitments, weighing whether or not I press in or let slide folk not showing up to stuff because of studying.
- Prepping bible studies and talks a few days in advance instead of weeks ahead like is always the plan.
- Trying to balance time spent between reaching new students and making sure the students who are around feel cared for
- Balancing time spent visioning for next semester with finishing out the things that still need to be done this semester, knowing that too much time visioning means I am not fully present but not enough time means we start next semester behind.
- Looking for more hours in the day to get done the funding push that Megan and I need to do so we don't finish the year in the red.

I'm not saying this as a way of complaining. I still love my job and this is a part of the job that I have come to expect. I'm still sleeping enough and eating plenty, so my health is fine (save for a few migraines). I'm saying this because I wonder if there is a better way.

Planning more and planning earlier doesn't seem to be the answer. The truth is that this job is too fluid and too unpredictable to be able to plan completely for what is to come. This semester we've seen a change in ACF dynamics as well as new work in the nursing school, neither of which I would have anticipated coming into the year. Every year something new happens that wasn't expected, which puts everything out of sync and puts everything into "survival mode."

What this season reminds me is that this is not a job where you can "fake it 'til you make it." Surviving and thriving means complete dependence on Jesus. The more I try and play "catch up" the further behind I get. This job means first and foremost, Jesus is in charge.

Friends, there are so many points of prayer but I want to highlight a few.
- Students are STRESSED right now. Pray that they will not turn to their own strength but turn to Jesus.
- Pray for HEALTH for both Megan and me. Now is not the time to get sick.
- Pray for PROVISION as we continue to work on our funding.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Road Trip!

Hello, friends!

Happy November to you all. It's Thanksgiving season, or if you ask some of the radio stations around here, it's Christmas season already. =0).

We've been working hard out here in Mid-Missouri. ACF is doing well; our numbers are down but we have a really solid core of students who love Jesus and are learning how to lead. International Christian Fellowship (ICF) is doing well too; Megan has been having so much fun gathering students and building a core. On Halloween we had 20 or so students over to carve pumpkins. =0). I've also been having a blast working with the ladies of Nursing Christian Fellowship (NCF) at Mizzou. We've had about a dozen or so ladies at each of the bible studies and the leaders are definitely women who love Jesus and love nursing. As the son of a nurse it warms my heart to see the next generation in action. 

I could spend much more time talking about each of the campuses where work IS happening (including Columbia College, where Charis continues to do good work in planting the chapter there) but this weekend was kind of special becuase we got to spend time on campuses where there ISN'T any InterVaristy work.

Earlier this semester, our Area Director proposed what he called a "discipleship road trip." The goal was to get students from St. Louis and Columbia, where all of our student work in the state currently is, on the road and scouting new campuses to see if there was potential to start new InterVaristy work there. Our goals were 3 fold. 1) We wanted to scout new campuses, 2) We wanted to give students a chance to be included in our planting vision, and 3) We wanted to show potential staff candidates what it would look like for them to be a part of the team in Mid-Missouri.

Friends, we had ourselves a PACKED weekend. Students arrived in Columbia around 10am where we started with some vision casting and training. From there we spent the first part of the afternoon scouting Mizzou then we broke up into 3 teams and went to Lincoln University (Jefferson City), Westminster College (Fulton), and Central Methodist University (Fayette). We came home around 6 for debrief and more teaching before heading to La Casa Leong for games and fellowship. Sunday morning we went to church together then spent our last chunk of time scouting Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, MO.

Looking back, I'm still not sure of what to make of our time together. On the one hand, we did get to scout some colleges and it feels like there may be some momentum at Lincoln University to potentially explore more. Students did get to see more of Mid-Missouri and in general, I think students had a good time. However, I'm not sure how well we were able to cast vision for what is happening outside of St. Louis and get potential staff excited about the possibility of moving out here to be a part of the team. Still, I'm glad it happened and I'm glad that students were able to partner with us to scout some campuses that we may not have gotten to this semester otherwise.

One last thought about scouting is that as I've scouted more and more campuses, I've learned more about what constitutes "success" and "failure" in terms of scouting. Early in my staff career, I though a successful scouting trip was only one that led to a chapter plant. If I didn't find students who wanted to start a group or administrators who felt like we were absolutely needed on campus, it felt like that scouting trip was a failure. Now I see that God speaks both in the affirmative as well as the negative. There are something like a dozen campuses within an hour of Mizzou (Columbia College, Stephens College, 2 Moberly Area Community Colleges, Central Methodist, State Fair Community College, Central Missouri University, Westminster College, William Woods, Lincoln University, etc.). Our team would potentially kill ourselves trying to get to all those campuses at once. Sometimes when we scout, the best thing we can hear is a "no, not yet" from God, which is a really freeing thing.

So friends, please be praying for us as we continue the discernment of where to plant next. There are a lot of options but we want to be seeking out Jesus in how we are planting.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam