Multiethnic Staff Conference

Hello, friends!

Last week I had the pleasure of joining staff from all over the country (and some from Canada!) at InterVarsity's Multiethnic Staff Conference (MESC). Every 3 years, InterVarsity invites its staff of color, and some White staff, to a smaller staff gathering, allowing us to explore as a community, God's call for multiethnicity and reconciliation, and what it means for our movement and our campuses. It is usually a time to reconnect with old friends, consider new things, and see how God is moving around the country through InterVarsity. Here are a few thoughts from my days in Orlando.

Spiritual warfare is real. Growing up Southern Baptist, I didn't have much experience with the more spiritual aspects of Christianity. I've never spoken in tongues or healed someone miraculously. However, my time in with InterVarsity has opened me up to many more opportunities to see the Spirit at work. This week I was reminded of how we are fighting a spiritual battle. We arrived Tuesday for MESC and by Wednesday morning I'd already come down with a fever. When that fever was broken Thursday morning, I was able to attend the morning session and lunch with a colleague, just enough time to get food poisoning that had me in and out of sessions (and sleep) until we left Friday night. I know that all this could be explained without using spiritual warfare. I probably caught something on the plane and ate a bad piece of sushi. But, given my track record of getting sick at conferences, I'm not ruling out the possibility of there being a spiritual aspect to my illnesses. As someone who has suffered with migraines for the better part of 15 years, usually at inopportune times, I believe that the enemy did not want me engaged in the conversation.

There is still much work to be done. MESC brings up stuff in our movement and this year was no different. There were questions about how our movement responded to the #blacklivesmatter movement, a conversation about whether Chinese staff have become the privileged majority in Asian American Ministries, and thought after thought about how to make sure that our funding and structural models can be more serving to minority staff. Friends, these are not easy conversations to have. In the time I was in session, I was challenged, convicted, and humbled by the words and actions of my colleagues. InterVarsity is by no means a perfect institution. There are many areas where we need to grow as an organziation. However, I am proud to call myself member of this fellowship so long as we continue to learn from our mistakes and pursue real racial reconciliation.

Much of the work needs to be done in me. Even though I wasn't there for everything, I was still there enough to get my world rocked in a few different ways. I'll highlight 2. The first way was how I was convicted about my privilege as a staff of Chinese heritage in Asian American Ministries. Frankly, there are more of us than any other Asian minority group. Things are usually done in a "Chinese" way, or at least more of an East Asian way. A majority of the Asian American students who are part of our movement are Chinese American. There are blinders that come along with being a part of such an overwhelming majority and I saw at MESC how I need to recognize that.

The second way my world was rocked was by a recognition of my fears and my need to trust God more. Lately, I've felt a strong sense of protectionism when it comes to AAM. The lie that I have believed is that if I don't do Asian American Ministries that no one else will. This has made it particularly hard to then give myself fully to the scouting that I'm doing at Lincoln and with Latin@ students are Mizzou because I am afraid that I am leaving a gap that isn't going to be filled. That is a lie and I need to get rid of it. God cares about the whole campus and that means that he will take care of the whole campus. That means that I have to trust that he will send workers to fill areas that I leave. I need that trust in God and my coworkers or the whole thing falls apart.

Friends, MESC was a crazy time for a number of reasons. While the journey is by no means done, I am glad that I was able to have this pitstop along the way.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam