Amazing Grace

The Lord has risen from the dead. We were dead in our old lifes, in our transgressions and sin but through the death and Resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ our King, we are made alive by him.

This weekend, I went to the International Student's Conference organised by InterVarsity at their "Campus by the Sea" campsite on Santa Catalina Island. It was awesome, just to be able to retreat from the everyday hassles of life and to just devote our time entirely to God. The campsite, as the campsite suggests, was right by the sea. To be able to just admire the beauty of God's creation was just breathtaking. I was fortunate enough to spend part of Saturday kayaking, snorkeling and hiking around the camp, to admire this beauty. Right now I am struggling to find words to describe how beautiful this place was, imagine how much more beautiful and awesome is the creator who made it.

This weekend, I was reminded of God's amazing grace and his everlasting love for us. Especially since this was Easter weekend. We are broken people, we ran away from our creator and our father. We were dead in our lifes, in our transgressions and sins. We decided to do it our own way. But God's love is just so crazy and amazing, it defy's all human logic. God chose to save us, to lead us from death to life. He did this by sending Jesus to live a perfect life on Earth and to die on the cross and then to rise again.

Amazing Grace
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.

Today, after returning to the mainland, we decided to go to Koreatown to have Korean BBQ. It was during this time, I experienced my first earthquake. I didn't realise that there was an earthquake going on until Kim or Esthela pointed out that we were swaying side to side. It was a very surreal experience. The swaying wasn't violent at all, it was like a gentle sway from side to side. It wasn't until after I returned home to Santa Barbara that I realised how serious this earthquake was. It was a 7.2 magnitude on the richter scale and it occured just across the border in mexico.

How Great is Our God

So I've been dragged back to Xanga today. >_< I've always liked xanga, but I don't really use it. It took me a while before I figured out how to post a blog. I'll try to post more on xanga and blogspot. I just want to share what I have been learning over the past few years and my time at UCSB.

Over the past few years, I've been through highs and lows...going through different seasons. I have questioned why this or that has happened in my life. But even through all this, God has always been with me. As I am writing this, I m reminded of the footprint poem:

One night I dreamed a dream.
I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to my Lord.

When the last scene of my life shot before me I looked back at the footprints in the sand. There was only one set of footprints. I realized that this was at the lowest and saddest times of my life. This always bothered me and I questioned the Lord about my dilemma.

"Lord, You told me when I decided to follow You, You would walk and talk with me all the way. But I'm aware that during the most troublesome times of my life there is only one set of footprints. I just don't understand why, when I need You most, You leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you, never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you."

I have always had trouble trusting in God 100%. I will always say that I trust in God, but did I trust in him fully? No. Did I worry about my future? A lot. However through various events and just studying the bible at BSF, God has taught me a lot about trusting in him. His providence never fails, He has plans for our lives far greater than the plans that we have for ours. God never leaves us, He carries us through our troubles. Why? Because he loves us. God loved us so much that He was willing to send his one and only son to die for us, so that we can be redeemed from our sins and be able to have a relationship with him. We did not deserve salvation because of our transgressions and disobedience, but yet He sent Jesus to save us. His love, mercy and grace is so great and it lasts forever. This year's theme at ACCF is "Seek ye first the kingdom of God...". This has been very encouraging. We should seek God FIRST in everything we do, in our classrooms, on the sports fields, when we hang out with friends etc. and then everything else would be added unto you. We should be spending time with God and giving our best times to God. Recently, I heard this from two different talks and I feel that it is very applicable as we are called to give our best for God. We should set out our best time of day for our devotional time with God. This could be in the morning, afternoon or even in the evening. You see, I'm not a morning person and I'm not very awake during the morning, and I do my devotionals during the morning. However am I giving my best to God? In the same way, are our conversations with a half-awake person beneficial for them or to us? No, because I wouldn't be able to remember what had happen.

Over the past months, I feel that God has been teaching met alot about and given me a heart for mission. Often we feel that mission is about going to a place thousands of miles away to a foreign country to preach the gospel. This is true, that God calls people to foreign countries to do his work. However mission does not start in that foriegn country, it starts everywhere you go. It starts in your home town, in your schools, on campus, on the streets, or even in your own house. We are called to love our neighbours. The greatest commandment that Jesus taught us was "Love your God with all your Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength and the Second is "Love your neighbours as you love yourself". These two commandments are interlinked. In order to love God, we must love our neighbours as well. Our mission must be intentional as well. Over the last couple of months, the story of Jesus visiting the Samaritan woman at the well has popped up everywhere. I had learnt a lot through this. First, that God's love is sufficient and it is for everyone. His love and salvation is for everyone. The Samaritan woman was the "ultimate outcast" during her times. She was a Samaritan, she was a woman and she had had five husbands. However Jesus still extended God's Love and Grace to her. In the same way, we have to extend God's Love and Grace to those we consider outcasts of this world. Secondly, mission must be intentional, we must go to those who are lost. The Samaritan woman did not go to Jesus, Jesus went to her. Jesus crossed all social lines of the day to reach to her...He went into Samaria, He started a conversation with a Samaritan, let alone a Samaritan woman. These were all social no-nos during those days. In the same way we should reach out to those who are rejected by this world. The church must go to them. One other thing that has been challenging me over the past couple of months was my prayer life through talks, bible studies and events that has occured. A lot of the time, I find myself praying for myself, for my needs. But how often do I pray for other people? Not often at all. God calls us to intercede for other people. Moses did it for the Israelites in te desert when they sinned against God. Jesus constantly did it and continues to interced for us. So shouldn't we intercede for other people?

Having said all this is useless without action. I feel that a lot of the time we say all these things, but do we act it out? Why are we so afraid to express our faith, to reach out to people about the good news of Jesus and the salvation, love and grace that He brought us. Why do we treasure our earthly things so much when they are just so temporary but the treasures in heaven last forever? Recently I have seen how short and how fragile life on Earth is. So why are we putting off God's work when we should putting it first? I struggle with these questions and many more. Recently I have been reading Francis Chan's "Crazy Love". A chapter he had was about the "lukewarm christian", I found myself ticking off all the boxes as he explained the criterias for being a "lukewarm christian". Is my life living out for God first or am I living for myself first and God second? Even with all these failures, God still loves us the same through eternity, His love never changes.

Spring Break

So...I haven't blogged in a very long time...

So this is my very first spring break....I've been having a lot of firsts doing my time in the States. However I've been having an amazing Spring Break.

So this Spring Break I decided to go up to San Francisco for a few days. I was able to catch a ride up with Justine...Thanks!! I stayed with Joshua in San Jose.

Day One:
The first day, we decided to stay in San Jose and not go into San Francisco since we were both tired from finals week and from the 5 - 6 hour journey up. I managed to sleep a long time...only waking up at 12.30pm. So we decided to take it easy and go to the flea market. It was pretty interesting, it was a typical flea market with lots of cheap things to buy. We walked around for a couple of hours and played in the arcade there. I also had my very first corndog. The taste was pretty interesting, I liked it but maybe I think I'm gonna stick to hot dogs for now. After the flea market, we went home and played fifa '06.

Day Two:
After Church, we took the Caltrain into San Francisco. The Caltrain took a little more than an hour to get into downtown San Francisco. I wasn't able to catch much of the scenery since Josh and I were having an in-depth talk about British History and the Alternative version of British History. This interesting talk caused time to fly-by and we were in San Francisco in no time. We were met by Wendy at the Caltrain Station. I owe a big Thank You to her for showing us around. We were warned that we would be walking alot and we walked a lot as we were taken on a walking tour of San Francisco. We walked from the station to the AT&T park, where the San Francisco Giants played.

After taking some photos, we carried on walking along the embarcadero, going past the even numbered piers and underneath the bay bridge and finally the ferry building, Interesting fact: Even numbered piers are to the south of The Bay Bridge and odd numbered piers are to the North.

The ferry building looked like a typical late 19th century ferry building. Inside, it was turned into a small shopping place with a lot of speciality shops, ranging from mushroom shops to gelato places to salted pork. We decided to try a small patisserie. Wendy and I tried the chocolate and vanilla cream cupcake and Joshua tried the macaroon (pronounced "maroon"). They were a bit heavy for a typical hot californian day but they were delicious nonetheless. Afterwards we walked down market street, just looking at the buildings and the main shopping street. There were some old style buildings and it reminded me a little bit of Manhatten. We turned onto Powell Street where we saw the cable cars, but we didn't go on one since it was too expensive ($5 for a single journey!!!). We then walked across union square and then up the hill and through the tunnel into a completely different world....Chinatown.
Chinatown reminded me of Hong Kong, as it was set on a hill and there were a lot of chinese people. The most chinese people I've seen on one street without a white person in site outside of Asia. We stopped and rested for a while in Chinatown where we had boba tea, egg waffle (雞蛋仔) and popcorn chicken. The boba tea had a lot of flavour, they had used the really strong HK tea...I Like! The popcorn chicken was awesome as well. The egg waffle wasn't as nice other one's I've tried but it was still decent. I also had some dimsum on the go in Chinatown. After Chinatown, we walked through little Italy and then up the very steep Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower. The view was amazing. I was able to see the downtown area, the bay and golden gate bridge. Afterwards we walked towards fisherman's wharf, where we concluded our walking tour and had clam chowder at the world famous Boudin's.

Day Three:
I stayed in San Jose after a tiring day in San Francisco. We decided to go shopping at Santana Row and Westfields Valley Fair. Santana Fair is like The Grove in LA. It's like a posh outdoor shopping centre/street. We played chess there as well. It was a gruelling game which took about an hour. In the end I manage to prevail, but only just. It was a close game. Afterwards we went to have lunch. We wanted to go to The Cheesecake factory because neither of us have been there but then decided against it because it was too expensive. We then went to watch Avatar 3D as I haven't seen it yet. It was an OK movie but the 3D was pretty good. It was very long. In the evening we went to play mini-golf with Daniel Yeh. It was fun and I was able to put my golfing skills to te practice.

Day Four:
I go into San Francisco for a second day...this time all by myself, to explore the weside of San Francisco. I arrive in downtown San Francisco. Having decided to walk to the tourist info. at Powell & Market, I set off on foot. On my way, I stumble upon a very large building with what seemed like a garden on its roof. I decided to explore this intriguing building.I found out I had stumpled upon Yerba Buena and the Yerba Buena Gardens. With its distinctive views of the city and its relaxing atmosphere, I decided to take a rest. I soon as i set down, I was approached by two people. They started asking me about the Bible and Chrisitanity. I didn't know who they were at first, but I told them that I was a Christian and what I believed in. They then prayed for me, it was an encouraging start to the day. Afterwards I found out they were from UCI Epic and they knew someone who I knew who was from UCI Epic. After this unique encounter, I went on my way. I bought a one day pass so that I can take the public transport. I took the bus to Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park is a very large park in SF, its kinda like Central Park in NYC. At the gate, I was set upon by a couple of guys who offered to sell me weed, which I promptly refused and carried on walking. Inside the park, there were many tribes sitting partially hidden by the bushes smoking weed and playing the guitar. However as I got further into the park, there were less and less of these tribes sitting around and became more and more of a touristy place. During my explorations of the park, I got lost in the botanical garden, with its boundaries fenced off, I could not get out. Finally, after 30 mins of searching, I found a way out. Afterwards I took the bus to the final frontier of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge. After exploring the Golden Gate Bridge, I went down to Fort Mason and Ghiradelli Square, where there was a lot of chocolate. Then I took the cable car back to Union Square to do some Shopping.