A Letter to My Younger Self

Hi TCF!

I just finished the book What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self, edited by Ellyn Spragins. For those ladies (or gentlemen) out there, I HIGHLY recommend it.

I decided to write my own letter, and anyone interested can read it below. It is written to the Barbara that was going through a difficult time last summer.

Dear Rising Junior Babs,

This summer is perfect for you. You have three months of nothing going on. Relish every moment of it and make it worthwhile to look back on.

Yes, you failed to get an internship. Your parents are not letting you come back to China because of that. You will helplessly crawl to someone to beg for a plane ticket to China, and he will give it to you, but you will not be truly passionate about the research that you will end up doing for him.

Babs, don’t accept the research money.I know you want to have something to put on your resume. I know you don’t want to come back to Tufts and report to everyone that you spent your summer doing nothing.  But it is not worth sacrificing your happiness for a paper you don’t even want to write. An impressive credential does not lead to greater human worth.

You will arrive in Beijing only to find out that everyone you were supposed to work with had finished their research and were gone or unavailable. You will be lost and without guidance. You will not tell your research granter this, because you are scared he will want the money back. But Babs, you need to tell him. You need to be more transparent with the people around you, especially those that trusted you with a task.

Stop having panic attacks about your future. Stay in Boston and learn how to drive. Explore the city and surrounding area more. Volunteer somewhere. Connect with the people that became founts of wisdom for you later on at Tufts: the hobos on the streets. You have friends who will be willing to let you stay for free at their place. It is not the money that is the issue, and money should never be the issue that you must focus on in life.

I know you want to be a leader in society one day. Your dreams are big and bold. But slow down for now. I know you well enough to tell you that your restless spirit and rare love for people will drag you to places you’ve always wanted to go and to do things you’ve always wanted to do. You will not let life get you down. No, I will not let you. So right now, Babs, “keep calm and carry on.”

Cherish your friends and relationships. Your high school friend John will die that summer, and a few days later your grandmother will die. The summer will end with your regretting everything. You will come back to Tufts without a smile on your face. It will make you lose all faith in yourself. You will not do well academically and be put on academic probation. You will be left lost and directionless again, feeling like your dreams of greatness are completely over.

But goods things will also happen. You will gain back the religion that you lost before coming to Tufts. You will rejoin Anchord and find that you actually cannot live without it in college. You will come back to your family during the summer with an internship in China. You will deepen your friendships at Tufts. And you will reconnect with your high school friends and find that you love them with your life.

So Babs, don’t worry. Your life can only get better. Just don’t forget to hold your head up high and smile when inevitable mistakes and failures come your way. They are your speed bumps that will keep you from driving too fast in life for no good reason. Go through them calmly, reflect on them, and learn how to avoid repeating the same ones in the future. Also, strive to be a good communicator. You will hurt less people, and you will bring more clarity to confusing situations.

And lastly, remember: idle time is never worthless or dead, but they are opportunities for an unexpected adventure. So live out your hyperactive brain full of ideas. From the moment you could think, you started to transform the kitchen floor into an ice skating rink using flour. Or you melted alphabet magnets in the oven to make pizza. You still have these crazy ideas, I know. Haven’t you always wanted to stay in Tisch after closing or post bright sticky notes all over the freedom trail in Boston?

Again, do not let life get you down.

Always confident in what you can do,

Rising Senior Babs

Does ‘religion’ ever let up?

A few weeks ago, I noticed that something had gone wrong. My free, excited, joyful spirit had somehow been invaded by someone that reminded me of who I once was–worried, tormented, and unable to hear God’s voice clearly.

At first I chalked it up to spiritual warfare. So I prayed more, in fact I prayed all the time. I was doing a Daniel Fast at the time, and I also stayed away from any kind of secular entertainment. I made sure that God was the last being I spoke to before going to bed, I listened to preachings throughout the night on my laptop even as I slept, and I woke up in the morning to pray to Him more. But something was still wrong. I could not hear Him, and I had lost my joy. I searched the scriptures for answers. I was reading Mark and came across the story of Jesus walking on water to His disciples just to be with them because He saw that they were troubled. This comforted me–I knew that no matter how small my worries seemed to others, God was taking me seriously and He had crossed the waters to surround me.

I wondered if I should just wait it out, but this thought filled me with dread. The last time I tried to ‘wait it out’ I almost lost everything. Passivity is not of God. Waiting on the Lord does not equal ‘waiting UNTIL the Lord’. Waiting must be active. So I continued to pray, and I shared my feelings with my best friend, who also prayed for me. Sitting on a bus coming home from work, a scripture began to resound in my head: ‘Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and turn back to me’. I was like, Lord, what height? When have I prayed to You more? Have I not removed all things that were not of You from my life? What have I fallen from?

Memories of my first two months as a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian began to fly through my head. I remembered the joy of FREEDOM and being led by the Spirit. Over a few days, I meditated on what had changed since then, and one thing I noted was the lack of hope. I had drifted into a pattern of thinking that was hopeless, and I had lost my trust in God. I didn’t actually know this, but what proved it more than the fact that I was so scared of losing Him that I was becoming obsessed with routines? What attitude could be farther from hope?

But I didn’t know how to regain my hope, how to get back to the height from which I had fallen. And somehow, between yesterday and today, it came. The reason I was born again was because I had found something NEW in the Lord, something that would never grow old. The Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit LEADS us into obedience. We are not supposed to wake up in the morning to a set of rules that we are supposed to follow, we are not supposed to try to manage our sin till we are “delivered”. We have been delivered already, into the freedom of Christ! I had, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, begun to avoid certain types of entertainment, and to embrace more and more prayer and Bible study, but that was not ME! Over time, I had forgotten this. I had tried to merely do what the Spirit made me do yesterday, making it a religion and not a relationship. I wasn’t letting Him do something new in my life EVERY morning.

Trying to do right things does not bring us closer to God. Our righteousness, as His Word says, is like a filthy rag before Him. Loving Him, that is what He wants. Trust. Faith. Without faith, as He says, it is impossible to please Him. And faith means letting go of ‘religion’, one of the deadliest weapons of the enemy, and embracing a life that only the Spirit can give. Only He makes us righteous, and we need to step aside and let Him live through us. One might ask, then, do you go to church? Answer: let Him lead. When I was letting Him lead, after just having been born again, He would wake me up and send me to church. It was never in the plan. It just kept happening.

Yesterday, I decided not to do my evening prayer, just to see what would happen. And as I was falling asleep, I began to chat with God and did so till I fell asleep. This morning, I didn’t rush to do my Bible study first. And I had a lovely phone call with my best friend as I cleaned. I’ve never cleaned so fast or enjoyed it so much before. Whatever the Spirit leads us to do is anointed, and it aligns with the Word. As I talked to my best friend, I was getting annoyed because she wasn’t really talking. The Holy Spirit just began to fill my head–’love is patient, love is kind’. How many times had I memorised those scriptures in a desperate attempt to teach MYSELF how to love? I had not allowed the Holy Spirit to do His own work. Divinely, He worked on my heart this morning and I was filled with love and peace. He totally saved the call :)

Praise this amazing God of ours, who does not want us to live in bondage but in perfect freedom :) And I think He’s leading me to do Bible study now, so l8ers ! Also, please comment so we can dialogue about this and have some communion while we are physically apart.

 

Tayo

Me + TCF= Love

Hey friends and future friends,

TCF is so special, and I just wanted to do a quick shout-out on my blog and record it on this blog for everyone to see :) Y’all have a special place in my heart, and I’m looking forward to the memories to come. This is an amazing journey to be on with y’all, and I’m so blessed.

http://anishastands.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/hello-love/

AND SIGN UP FOR SUMMIT (see picture below for inspiration):  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186741278038935

Look at how much fun we had at Summit! <3 You know you can't resist signing up RIGHT NOW.

God + Music = Wonders

A few of you know what I’ve been growing through at Tufts, academically. For those who don’t … let’s just say things aren’t going as well as I would’ve liked. I’m still undecided, in terms of my major, and yes, I know that’s normal for rising sophomores, but I’m the type of person who likes to know what’s going. I don’t like to guess what will happen; I want to have at least some idea of the near future.

So, you can imagine the state I’m in when my pre-major adviser and my academic dean discourage me from taking two sciences. And yeah, most of you are probably saying the same thing, “Don’t take two lab courses!” Honestly, I took this a bit offensively; I really do like science, but realistically, taking two lab courses probably won’t help my case.

During my neverending emailing with them, I’ve been listening to “Reach for the Light” by Tim Be Told (thanks to Anisha’s post). Whenever I start to freak out, I put this song on. Like Anisha said, it has such a great message in it. I can really hear God in this song; I keep trying to “save myself” by trying to convince myself with certain classes/majors, but in the end, I can’t. I have to give my worries up to Him. And you know, it’s great. Yeah, sure I start to worry again, but just hearing the first notes of this song immediately calms me down. In my recent emails with my dean, we’re trying to figure out my last class for fall semester, and I started to get anxious again. As I was listening to “Reach for the Light” (for like the bajillionth time), my dean emailed me back, and she basically affirmed a certain major that I’ve been thinking of and that I’ve been recommended by friends. I’m not sure if I’ll major in this subject, but maybe my dean’s email was a nudge from God.. o_O?

“After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

‘Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.^‘”

- Genesis 15:1

Like this passage and this song, I’ve just got to hold tight; I won’t be afraid.

It’ll be all right because hope is alive. :)

Hello from India!

I’m now sitting at a computer center at Payir Trust, the NGO BUILD is partnering with in India. We’re in a village called Thenur, and each day we travel the short distance between here and Thottiapatti, the village we’re working in. We don’t get internet as often as we’d like because the “current poaches” aka the electricity gets cut at random times, so please excuse my hastily written post.

This experience of working in ‘rural development’ with a secular group is a new one. My previous service trips to Nepal and Cambodia have always been mission trips with fellow Christians. There are quite a few similarities: the pace of life is always slower, things are more uncertain (read: ten minutes in Indian time = 2 hours in clock time), and the team has always come in with sincere hearts that genuinely want to help and serve. And of course, children are the same everywhere. They’re always a joy, and always excited to see you. I love that common quality about them. Apart from these basic similarities, however, this trip is pretty different.

For one, BUILD’s concern is long term sustainable development, while most of my trips have been short term service trips. And maybe it’s because of the nature of BUILD that we somehow end up focusing more on the task than the people at hand. After all, we wrote proposals and won grants. We’re here for the long term. these projects will seriously affect peoples lives. We can’t really afford to mess up. But somehow, along the way, we sometimes forget the importance of each person we’re serving. The end goal can’t just be the successful implementation of projects… it must be greater. It must be the changed life of each individual for the better.

One thing I miss about the way mission trips work is the focus on the individual, how each person we meet is a precious soul and already marked with worth. There seems to be an unchallenged sense of respect and love for each person, that is missing here. its not that BUILD is stoic and heartless… there’s just an additional something that is missing. Perhaps it is His love. His love knows no bounds and reaches across all barriers… even the pedestals we put ourselves on. His love makes people less critical and more forgiving. It extends grace when grace should not be extended.

Another is the knowledge that we don’t have to worry; that everything is in His hands. The projects will come through because He loves them. Everything in His time. Its so different because non believers take everything upon themselves – every failure, every triumph, every detail. A lack of worry seems preposterous… even lazy.

This isn’t to hate on BUILD. I love my team. They are amazing people and Ive so much respect for them, even more because they are non-Christians, I think. After all, they’ve lived thinking that there isn’t anyone to motivate them to care… but they care anyway. I think that puts me to shame.

Maybe He’s just showing me what its like to work with Him, and without Him. What a 180 degree turn.

About a week ago a Payir employee asked me about the importance of religion and development. I think He answered it pretty well for me. I don’t know about religion, but my God makes all the difference.

If you could spare some time, please pray for me. This trip has been a big test on my faith. There isn’t a chance for me to go to church and I haven’t met a Christian around here. I’ve had many conversations about religion and faith and while I’m grateful for all these opportunities, I’ve also questioned Him a lot. It’s getting better though. Please pray that I might grow stronger in Him, like a tree with deep roots that make it unshakable and unmovable. Also pray that my group members might know His love. :)
Till next time, love you guys,

Charmaine

Reach for the light

Hey errbody

I’m now obsessively listening to this song:

It’s such an encouraging message. We have hope. I have hope in all circumstances. I’m struggling now to be filled by God’s presence. I’m getting better with quiet times since the beginning of the summer, but I still don’t feel that passion and fire inside that I’d like to feel. I want to be in His presence so that I can hear His voice about what He wants to do in my life and for TCF next year. My prayer: for God to set a fire in my soul that I can’t contain, that I can’t control. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A8almp_nCU

Besides that, I’ve started summer school and I have a lot of work cut out for me. It’s gonna be great though :) I may or may not have a fried brain twice a week after my 3.5 hour lectures. I literally wrote in my notes on Thursday: “WAHHHH he’s going so fasttttt and my brain is so teareddddddddddd”. The summer in Boston is finally getting hot, but I’m not used to it quite yet. I am currently lounging in my room with the window open and a fan in my face. I remember last summer around this time I was desperately skyping friends that I missed a lot. It’s weird to think about where I was a year ago. And encouraging…God has really transformed me and it’s encouraging to see how He is blessing people with my blog. Whenever I start to doubt that it’s having any effect, He reminds me to keep going. Okay, enough rambling. Hope to hear from other peeps soon! miss you all

<3
sign up for Summit!!! https://www.gracefultools.com/summit2011/week4t

Prayers

Hi :)

It’s been a bit hard spending so much time with my family for the first time since I met Jesus. I find that they don’t understand a lot of the things I believe in now, and it’s frustrating sometimes. I have prayed about it and received guidance, but I wanted to ask for your prayers as well, and maybe since I’m sure I’m not the only one dealing with this, we could pray for everyone struggling with time away from the Christian community at school.

I know God has amazing things planned for us this summer and that He will reveal everything we need to do in due time. I’m so glad that we never have to fear, or worry, or give into despair. He is so good! It doesn’t quite feel that way right now, but it doesn’t matter because we know the truth.

Tayo

Pre-Uganda departure post…random ramblings

Romans 12:11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

I love this verse so much. I don’t know when I first saw it, but it’s one of those verses that it seems like people (or at least, I) always skim over. Then one day, you look back, and wow, how did I miss that verse? I love this verse, because it talks about fire. Don’t lack in zeal, don’t lack in passion. Burn for God. What does that mean? It means to stop being satisfied with your life. Don’t live it for the world. Look at your life, and ask, is this really what life is about? It means to stop living life according to what you see, but by faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Anything that does not come from faith is sin. Faith is what we were made for. Following God might be crazy, but it’s never boring. During my freshmen year at Tufts, I used to write faith on the back of my hands to remind myself to trust God. This idea was so utterly crazy and foreign to me (and still is). How is it that this stuff actually works? Because God is real. If you really want to know if God is real, place yourself in His hands. Not only that, but seek His voice. He’s the living God. The same God that did miracles through a fisherman in Acts, Peter, is the same God who lives in His saints today..

John 10:4 And when He has brought out all His own, He goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him because they know His voice.

Do you know that you can hear God’s voice? I used to think that that sort of stuff never happened. But one day, I heard God tell me, You see? This is how much I love you. And I broke down crying in a really undignified manner. You learn how to recognize God’s voice. Listen and see. Read your bible. God does not contradict His word. Pray and read His word. Learn to feel His presence. At TCF, we place an emphasis on being missional. Missional is good. But mission must come from your relationship with God. Don’t make ministry your god. Don’t go into ministry without God. Finally, love. Mission cannot happen without love. What does 1st Corinthians 13 follow? 1st Corinthians 12. Why? Because there is a connection between your spiritual gifts and love. You must love everyone, even the ones who reject you, even the ones who will never come to Jesus. If you hear His voice, if you know God’s heart, then mission will come, because God’s love for people will overwhelm you, because God himself will lead you. Seek God’s heart. I write this as a reminder to myself as well, because when this life ends, I don’t want to come face to face with God, see everything He is, and then wish I had spent more time with Him. We can have God now. I want Him now. I want to want Him now, if you guys can understand that.

Matthew 8:9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When we pray in Jesus’s name, what are we saying? We are saying we pray under the authority of His son Jesus. That’s why Jesus never prayed when He commanded people to be healed. He just told them, Be healed. There was one instance when Jesus prayed for someone’s healing…Lazarus’s resurrection. When Jesus was taken up to the mountain by Satan, Satan said, the kingdoms of the world are mine. Worship me, and they will be yours. At the end of the Gospels, however, Jesus says, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. We are people under the authority of God. If we know this, if we know we are His children, if we know what we are called to be, then we will be able to move like Jesus did. Remember that we are not just in a physical world. We are in a spiritual one, as well, and we fight strongholds and principalities. That’s why prayer is the biggest part of mission. That’s why I want to ask for your prayers as Jerry, Ezi, and I go on a trip this summer. I don’t want to make a mistake and believe that what I do is most important.

As I go to Uganda, I pray and ask for prayer for a few things:
Pray that God would grow our relationship.
Pray that I would learn how to love.
Pray that I would remain humble.

This last part is so important. God has taught me that I am His child. He has taught me not to be ashamed of the gifts He has given me. But He is now teaching me about humility. God’s kingdom is so funny. He says, whoever humbles Himself will be exalted. I don’t think God was joking when He said that. He really does mean it. It’s so easy for me to hear everyone’s praise, and begin to build myself on that praise, and to begin to live my life for that praise. Praise itself is not bad. Again, God made me who I am. I will not be sorry for that. But I know my weaknesses. I crave approval. But I pray that I will not crave that approval more than I crave God. Because eventually pride will lead me on this path where the only person I listen to is myself. I had to catch myself the other day. I had all these plans, but I never consulted God about any of them. God, please teach me how to be humble.

Galatians 1:10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, thank you for being blessings in my life. I miss all of you, and I pray that you are fighting the fight this summer with God. Remember that the fires we go through refine us, and that God does not test us beyond what we can bear. Remember that all things work for our good. Remember always to place God before everything and in everything you do. And please, remind me of that truth from time to time. I say that in all seriousness.

What I’ve learned from school

Okay, I usually try not make a big deal about school, but I do care about my grades. I just hate all the work that it takes to get a 4.2 GPA like a certain someone in our fellowship. Anyway, so this is a post dedicated to what God’s taught me through school.

I was fortunate enough this year to take a class called Christianity and Globalization this year with Professor Heather Curtis. It’s not a bad class, and it’s really interesting, but your grade relies on a big paper due at the end of the semester. It’s pretty cool, because you’re given a lot of freedom. You can pick a region of the world that you’re interested, and you’re also allowed to pick a time period. Because of that, I ended up focusing on Christianity in contemporary China, using a book called the Heavenly Man (highly recommended). My thesis was that the Communist government, despite its efforts to eradicate Christianity in China, actually paved the way for its revival. I’m glad I got to do a topic like that, because I basically got to stand in front of the class, and show them that like the early church in the book of Acts, the Chinese church also thrived in the middle of persecution and hardship (I hope they asked WHY…or WHO). And I admit, I got a lot of help on this project. While I was reading the Heavenly Man, and trying to figure out exactly how the Communist government helped spread Christianity, I was doing a weekly Monday Acts study with the Junior-Senior small group, and getting a lot of ideas from them. For example, did you know that the early church spread because Christians began running around the flee from persecution? The same thing happens in the Heavenly Man. Brother Yun, who is from a rural village in China, writes about believers did not return home because they feared government persecution, so they went to different villages…and ended up spreading the Gospel.

If you really want to see Christ working in history, you should really study how the early church was like. There’s a scene in Acts where Gamaliel says, if this movement is not from God, it will die out. Christianity started in a backwater (like New Jersey :DDDDD) of the Roman empire, through a bunch of disciples like Peter and Paul and Matthew. Out of the many people who claimed they were the messiah, the Christian messiah was a man who was staked to a cross. The Christian message was completely counter-cultural. There was no such thing as agape love. There is no such thing as becoming less…you do glorious works to be remembered forever, like Achilles or Hercules. You don’t love your enemies. You serve the gods, and you hope the gods don’t kill you or make your life a living hell. The gods do not serve you. There’s no such thing as grace. There’s no equality…do you know how crazy it was for Paul to say that there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free…? There’s so much I’m forgetting, but it’s amazing how stacked the odds were against Christianity. Like Gamaliel said, if this move is not from God, then leave it alone. It will die. But if it is from God, then you’re fighting against God, and you will fail.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/scholar-china-notices-link-between-christianity-us-economic-success-50287/

Romans 14:23
When I was preparing for Art of Love: Agape, God brought this verse to mind. About a week later, I struggled with this. I was in a group midterm for Ec 5, and there was one question that stumped us all, and I was so tempted to cheat and collaborate with the other groups to get that A (I told you guys I cared about my grades). I had been praying to God for an answer (and God answers pretty frequently lol…I’m always surprised though), and none had been given to me. I realize that God wanted me to face this temptation and that it was a sort of test (1st Corinthians 10:13). In the end, I learned the answer to that question, but I pulled back and did not end up using that answer, and instead, accepted a worse grade. In this moment, I learned that I had been placing my faith, not in God, but in me and my grades. I did not believe that, despite a bad grade, that God could bring me where He wanted me. And I realized that I had just willfully damaged my relationship with God, and not only that, I had also set a bad example for the people around me. God restores, but I’m learning more every day to live by faith. Even if I end up doing poorly in EC 5, I’m okay with it now. It’s scary, but God is in charge. Nothing ever stops Him. Faith doesn’t only mean praying for a good grade, but it means trusting Him for your future, instead of trusting in your test scores.

Hi everyone :)

Please post. Even a random sentence means a lot to me :) and I know that I often struggle when I go home with my faith, and to hear from you guys is always a blessing. I’ll be heading up to New Haven for Uganda training in a few days, but I’ll do my best to keep all of you posted. If anyone is really thinking about it, or wants to ask questions about Summit, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at waicheng257@gmail.com or ask questions here. I think Anisha was there last year, too, so don’t be afraid to ask questions :) I really recommend it, but it’s up to you.