Vincent Chin

Hello, friends! 

When I was working at Mizzou, one of the first things that I did was join the Asian American Association (AAA). With the population of Asian Americans at Mizzou being less than 3%, AAA was a great way for me to meet a large number of Asian Americans on campus without running around campus looking for a needle in a haystack. 

One of the things that I could always count on at AAA was that the first General Body Meeting (GBM) of the school year would be centered around the story of Vincent Chin. It was a story that I hadn't heard before I got to Mizzou, but one that affected me deeply as God has called me to more and more activism. Yesterday (Tuesday) was the 38th anniversary of his murder.  

I could recap Vincent Chin's story in my own words, but there are many people who are much better writers than me who have summarized the story well, so I'll be quoting one of them instead. Below is from a friend on Facebook. Please read it and learn. 

"Today is the 38th anniversary of the death of #VincentChin, a Chinese American man who was beaten to death by two white men, a father and a step son, who targeted Vincent over their frustrations with the rise of Japanese automobile imports into the US. After an initial altercation, the two men spent up to 30 minutes searching for Vincent. They found him at a nearby McDonald's. While hurling racial slurs, one of them held Vincent down and the other bludgeoned his head repeatedly with a baseball bat until his skull was cracked open. Vincent died 4 days later on June 23, 1982.

Sound familiar? A father and son, chasing down a person of color, murdered him in cold blood while making a mockery of his killing with racial slurs. This was practically the Asian American version of #AhmaudArbery. Two almost identical narratives separated by almost 40 years between the two incidents and you wonder why we are still taking the streets in protests.

The two men, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, were convicted in a county court for manslaughter after a plea bargain brought the charges down from second-degree murder. They served NO JAIL TIME, were given three years' probation, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $780 in court costs. When asked about the insanely lenient sentences, the judge responded by saying "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail... You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal."

While we wait begrudgingly for the trials of Gregory and Travis McMichael to unfold over the murder of #AhmaudArbery here in 2020, any true sense of hope seems to have been robbed by our exhausted cynicism. And after more than 120,000 American lives have been claimed in a matter of a few months, he gets on stage and says #KungFlu and the crowd known for their Confederate flags and the wielding of their guns began to scoff and laugh. And you wonder why we are traumatized while we lay awake at night wondering who's going to be the next #VincentChin, except this time the justification is not just car companies coming to "take their jobs", this time, it's "Kung Flu" coming to "kill Americans".'

A few weeks back, as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting, I wrote a post about how anti-Asian sentiment across the country was growing and how rhetoric around the coronavirus was putting my kids at a higher (albeit still unlikely) risk of having violence done against them. Vincent's story reminds me that this is the story we have lived for decades. May God have mercy on us all. 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Helping the Children...

Hello, friends! 

Today for lunch, Megan and I had the pleasure of presenting our ministry case to the staff team of our church, inviting them to partner with us and the work we do with InterVarsity. We provided the food (Thai food from a local restaurant) and they, like the good hosts that they always are, provided drinks and utensils and such. 

As we were talking, connecting, and eating our food, I was reminded of a very important job I needed to do. 

"Guys, can I have your soda can tabs?"

For the past few months, Ezra (with some help from Thaliea) has been collecting can tops. It started when I started drinking soda again. I told him that if he collected a bunch of them, he could donate them to a place that helps children.  Ezra was very excited about the possibility of helping children, so he was definitely on board. 

Since he started a while back, his little mason jar is probably about a quarter of the way full. My parents send him a little baggie full of tabs last week, which helped a lot. He's still collecting but he also lets Thaliea put a few tabs in the jar every now and then. 

If you're down for helping out some kiddos (both mine and the ones at the Ronald McDonald House), save your tabs and the next time you see me, I'd be glad to take them off your hands. Of course, you could send the tabs to me too (just message me and I'll get you an address) but I don't know if shipping costs defeats the purpose. Either way, we'd love to have you on the team as we help the children! 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

The Power of Prayer

Hello, friends! 

Last week, I posted about how tired I was on a number of different levels. There was a lot of stuff going on, and there still is a lot happening, and it was definitely a tough week. 

Friday night, the older kids had trouble falling asleep and Megan and I were up talking about the week, so we didn't get to bed until late. I went to bed really pretty exhausted. 

Jonah didn't sleep great that night, so it wasn't the best night of sleep. Still, when I woke up, I was really energized. I didn't snooze my alarm. I hopped right out of bed and got ready for the day. I hung out with Jesus, exercised, and even practiced a little Mandarin. When the kids got up, I made them breakfast and was part of a call that my church was doing for the men in the church. It was astounding how great I felt. 

Then I thought about it. It shouldn't be so astounding. When I last checked Facebook before falling asleep on Friday night, there were about a dozen or so friends who said they would be praying for me. That's definitely more interaction that I usually get on these blog posts, and it appears as though I got about twice the number of page views that I normally get, so it's safe to assume that there were more than just that dozen folk praying for me Friday into Saturday. 

Prayer is a powerful thing. 

I shouldn't be surprised by that. There are so many other times in my life when prayers have been answered. We make it a point to teach the kids that God answers prayers, particularly when we ask Him to heal various ouchies. It's nothing new.

And yet, it's still so good when I remember it. 

So, dear friends, if you're up for it, let's try praying together again! We've starting sleep training Jonah and we'd love for him to sleep through the night. We believe it can happen. Will you pray for us? 

Of course, we'd also love to pray for you too. If you have any prayer requests, whether it's personal, work related, health related, or whatever, please let us know.

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam 

Tired...

Hello, friends! 

I'm tired. I'm really tired. 

Being stuck in the house most days because of COVID-19 has made me mentally tired. 

Processing the deaths of Ahmaud Arbury, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and James Scurlock has made me emotionally tired. 

Trying to lead the staff team in MPD training as they are processing everything that is happening in the world and realizing that in my own fallibility, that I can't do everything perfectly, is making me spiritually tired. 

Jonah not sleeping great and my back hurting because I'm bouncing him a lot through the night is making me physically tired. 

What does one do when one is so tired? My tendency is to turn to food. The joke in our house for Megan and me is that after a particularly hard day, it's an "ice cream" night. I'm pretty sure I've had ice cream nights every night this week. I've also been craving french fries, which I know means I'm under duress. 

But food doesn't quite cut it. After eating, I'm still hungry. Sleep won't fix everything (though it will help) because focusing on the physical isn't quite enough. 

Simply put, I need Jesus. I've been reading through the bible chronologically and just finished the part where Saul dies and David is made king over Israel. The big difference that I've noticed between Saul and David is that they each have a different source when it comes to their strength. 

For Saul, his strength comes from the people. So many times, Saul acts because the people were restless or because the people were mad. It was almost always the wrong decision. David, on the other had, is constantly inquiring of the LORD. Even when he thinks he knows the answer, he asks, and sometimes he gets surprised. 

As I'm going through this this time of deep tired, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to go to Jesus. There have been some moments when he's spoken really clearly to me and energized me. There have been times when I've fallen asleep waiting for an answer. Both of those are OK. 

Y'all, I'd love for you to pray for me. Pray for Megan too, because she's just as tired as I am. Pray that God would give us rest and not just sleep. Pray that he would restore us and not just heal us. Pray that he would speak to us and be Jehovah Jireh, the one who provides. Much appreciated. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Time to run!

Hello, friends! 

Last June, Megan and I, along with our Regional Leadership Team (RLT) participated in a Ministry Partnership Development (MPD) Sprint. The goal was simple: Spend the entire month focused on asking new partners to hop on board with the work that we're doing with InterVarstiy, through Giving, Advocating, Praying, and/or Serving. Our 9 person team made nearly 150 asks and brought on dozens of new partners. It was hard and it was scary at times, but it was good. 

This June, I'll be leading our entire 40 person Regional Staff Team in another MPD Sprint. our goal is somewhere around 700 asks, which is crazy but also pretty cool. 

Everything starts next Wednesday when I'll be leading our staff team in a virtual training. I'm not super excited about 8 hours a day on video calls but when there's a pandemic, you adjust. Some folk from InterVarsity's National Office will be heading up the training alongside me and I'm excited to see how things will go. 

Given the state of the world right now, I'm feeling a lot of things, but mainly, I'm excited. When teams in our National movement do these Sprints, it's always followed the same script: folk are worried that it will be too hard, folk work really hard, folk are glad they did it. I'm hoping that this Sprint is no different.

If you could be praying for us, it would be much appreciated. Pray for me as I lead the team. Pray for our staff team as they do risky things. Pray for our potential ministry, that they'll be open to meeting. Pray that God will move in a really powerful way. 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Being a COVID-19 Loser...

Hello, friends! 

In high school, some friends and I decided that our New Year's resolution would be to give up soda. The year passed by and then it became a contest to see who could go the longest without soda. I think I went about 18 months before I decided that I'd proven my point and started drinking the bubbly stuff again. 

A few years later, I decided to try giving soda up for the year again and decided to make it an annual tradition. I would alternate between on soda years and off soday years, with me abstaining in odd numbered years. 

When Megan and I got married in 2012, I switched from full calorie soda to diet since that's what Megan drank and it didn't make sense for us to buy 2 kinds of soda. Still, I was on and off until 2019, when I realized that part of the appeal of not drinking soda was cutting back on the "empty calories" and that I my on and off strategy was actually counter-productive. On my on soda years, I was drinking diet, which doesn't have any calories. During my off soda years, I was drinking a lot more lemonade and Arnold Palmers, which definitely did have calories. 

So, in 2019, I decided to switch things up and do a lifestyle challenge. I would weigh myself every week. If I was over my target weight, no soda for that week. If I was under or at my target weight, I could drink soda. I figured that I was someone who usually hits his goals and can be dedicated to something once he puts his mind to it, so it shouldn't take too long to drop the necessary pounds. 

Friends, it took 14 months and a pandemic for me to finally start drinking soda again in March... =0). 

You are probably asking yourself two questions right now: 1) Why did it take so long and 2) How did being stuck in the house during the pandemic actually help things? The two are actually related. Friends, I have a confession to make...

My name is Adam Leong, and I love eating out...

During the "before times", I was actually eating out a fair amount. If I had a meeting with a ministry partner or a staff I was supervising, it made sense for us to center it around a meal, or at least a coffee and dessert of some sort. I could spend entire days doing work at the right coffee shot (like the dearly departed Omaha Bicycle Comany), which meant I would have a few drinks and maybe a snack or two during the day. I was by no means gorging myself or getting too overweight, but I also definitely wasn't working towards that soda goal too hard. 

Right around October of 2019, I realized that I had some work to do if I was going to actually get to soda before the end of 2019. The problem is that the Fall and Winter are really bad times in the year to start watching what you eat. There's Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas. Added to that, Megan was pregnant with Jonah, then Jonah was born, then we were parenting 3 kids. What I was eating wasn't top of mind. 

January of 2020 came and went, and so did February and I still wasn't at target. Then, cases of COVID-19 started showing up in the US and different states started going on lockdown. As an asthmatic, I knew that the smart thing to do would be to stay home as much as possible. Of course, that means eating out less. And when I'm eating out less, I'm consuming fewer calories, which means I'm losing more weight. Isn't it funny how that works? 

The big question is how long I can make this last. I've given myself a littl bit of margin so that if I have a gaining week, I'm not off soda again. After that first bottle of bubbles hit my lips (it was a Sangria soda that my dad left here when he visited in January), I remembered how much I loved soda. I don't plan on going off it again, which means I need to keep off the weight. For now, that's easier because we still aren't going anywhere (I took the kids on a donut run yesterday for a field trip, which was my first donut in 2+months), so the real test will be once it's safe to go outside again. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, I'll just keep enjoying my soda and eating home cooked meals. There are worse things in life. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam 

Happy Birthday, Thaliea!

Hello, friends! 

My dearest daughter, Thaliea, turns 3 today! As is per my tradition, below is the music video I made for her. Apologies to Little Nas X for butchering his song. =0). 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam