Christmas music

Driving around and running errands today, I turned to 103.5 for some Christmas songs just to get my spirit lifted up a bit. And it got me all happy and thinking about Christmas and stuff. Until Jingle Bells came on...then it reminded me of China.
The sounds of the kids obnoxiously singing at the top of their lungs rang in my head. I remembered it all: teaching them the songs, the melody, and even hand motions... then teaching them to sing as loud as they could so we could parade around the school and annoy the other teachers.
The thing about me reminiscing about China is that I start to think of each of the faces that I taught, played basketball with, sang with, and spent time with, and get to wondering what has happened to them. Even though it was 1 month out of my year, I always feel that it is too short. I want more than 1 month with them, I want eternity with them.
I know it's too late for me to go back now to each of my students and tell them all about the love of the Lord. And for the most part, I won't see them ever again, but with that I want to go back. I want to go and change the lives of everyone that I touch/see/come in contact with. I want them to have their eyes opened to a new world, the world of better than earthly riches, better than the comfortability of America, I want them to see God.

Lord send me. Take me from this heart wrenching place into a new place. Send me, I'll go.

The Preciousness of Soli Deo

I love my homegroup. I love the people. I love the atmosphere. I love everything about it. Just looking back at how far we've come, from the time I started praying for it in my senior year of High School all the way til this very day, I am amazed at what the Lord has done.
We are definitely learning how to strive in unity as a group, but at the same time we're also learning a lot about ourselves individually. But the one thing that always turns my frown into a smile is the joyfulness in our sisters.
Quite frankly I've been going through some crazy things recently (as you can tell from my last post) but when I started to zone out and into my own world, I feel a tap on my shoulder and as I turn around it's none other than Delia and all 30 teeth showing through the biggest smile I've ever seen. And I can't help but smile. It's nothing big, but a smile can definitely brighten a day.
Praise the Lord for Soli Deo.

The Love of a Father.

Despite the differences in opinions in almost every aspect of life, the bond between father and son places them aside and embraces the fact that family loves regardless.

lesson learned.

Almost three months ago I got into a huge argument with my dad. An argument which brutally destroyed every last known connection that I had with my father. I thought that the 3000 miles of separation would be the buffer which would ease the pain. And it did...for about a month. After that month I realized that my bitterness was gone, and all that was left was a void that was unfillable by anything. And even in the midst of seemingly "bigger" problems, I saw that the Lord was teaching me about the importance of family and friends.

And as I realized that today is officially my third year in having my license, I remembered that it was also my dad's birthday. I wanted to forgive him, but I didn't want to call him. I wanted to talk to him, but I couldn't bear pressing the call button. And so I didn't, for the longest time. Until today.

Today as I sat around in Tenju (still am sitting), I realized how badly I wanted to just talk to him. And as I pressed my speed dial 3, I got a message saying that the number was not in use anymore. I thought to myself "at least I tried." But for some reason my heart was not satisfied, so I searched my phone book for his second cellphone number. And within the first two rings, my dad picked up. The conversation went a little like this:

"Hi ba."
"Oh, JY?"
"No, it's goh goh" (older brother in canto)
"Oh, hi how are you?"
"Good, happy birthday"
"Thank you..."
some small talk, and then bye.
conversation time: less than a minute.

I remember I used to talk to my dad for 30 minutes to even an hour, but now I couldn't even hold a conversation for more than a minute. And the thing that got to me was that when he found out it was me, his voice turned so happy. But for some reason I couldn't talk to him for long...I couldn't bear to. I realized how much I missed my dad.

The thing that started to make me miss him was a conversation I had with my brother about my dad. I asked him how he was doing, and he said that my dad was a little sad because (this is what my dad said): "it doesn't matter that I won custody over your little step brother because even though I gained one son, I lost another one." And when he said that, it totally broke my heart.

I think I've learned a good lesson, and now I just need to pray for full restoration.

An adventure.

An adventure is not an adventure unless filled with ups and downs, trials by fire, triumphs in war, knights in shining armor, and fire breathing dragons...

okay. probably not the latter two, but God is definitely taking me on an adventure.

Reblog: What a contrast.

I like this post.


Reblog: What a contrast.
Christine Chiu


What a contrast.
What a contrast between this year and the last.  This whole year, I've just been walking through a season of refining, weakness & brokenness.  The outpourings of love and intimacy of last year are barely sustaining me now.  I can't live off stale bread.  My times with the Lord have become an aimless and fractic search for good soil upon which my roots may be planted and grounded firmly.  Slowly, the leaves are losing its nutrients.  I have hardly anymore love & grace to give.  I can't find it.  I can't find that place.  Perhaps, He's doing this so that my roots dig deeper, reach out wider, implant themselves more securely?  Perhaps, within the frantic search, Jesus is drawing me to fight harder, to press into Him more fervantly, to fight unceasingly.  In that sense, what may seem as an aimless search has actually been a guided one all along & more than that...by one of the best Guiders of them all.  & thus, my roots become ever more rooted and grounded.  Yea, maybe that's it.  I'm trying to make sense of something that makes no sense to me right now.  I don't want to be grasping at air in my times with You anymore.
Jesus, draw ever close to me.


"I know you don't come as easy as some...
But I will watch and pray
I will watch and pray."

Reblog: It's the beauty of Simplicity

I can't exactly take the pictures and stuff. Well I'm too lazy to. maybe later but here it is from Jane Wu's tumblr. Speaks the words right out of my mouth:


its the beauty of simplicity

C0R0N4

my safe place away from home. It now seems like a place where I can go and just forget about all of the problems of this nasty world.

And off I go!

Ministry.

Luke 10:38-42

 ³⁸Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. ³⁹And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, ⁴²but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Serving in ministry I'm constantly reminded of this short passage. It says that we must not be caught up in it so much that we forget about coming before the Lord and listening to him. The thing about it is that I've never thought of myself as being distracted, at least not from coming before the Lord. Serving, for me, usually entailed coming before the Lord so that I would have the strength to do ministry. But then I started to realize that I was placing the standard of "sitting before the Lord." Which consisted of seeking the Lord everyday, but only conveniently. And I think that is something that I have been learning throughout this quarter, how to seek the Lord in everything that I do, and everywhere in which I do it.

This past quarter has been quite an interesting one. Trials have been hitting me from the left and right, but this time the trials are fewer but they are definitely harder. Sometimes I feel like I would want to just click the fast forward button (watched part of click today) and just get this part of life over with, but a lot of the time I want to just stay in the moment forever. There were times where I felt like I was on top of the world, but more times than not I felt like I had just lost all hope to fight. The thing is though that I am far from done with one of the biggest, longest, hardest battle that I've possibly fought in my entire life.

God is teaching me so much, but sometimes I wish that he could just take it all away. But then again thats where the fun and excitement and sponteneousism from life comes from.

Speaking of spontaneous, I'm in Irvine now. Gosh, I need to stop with this fun training, it'll be the death of me.

I guess this post wasn't mostly about ministry, but I just decided to ramble...what am I saying....goodnight world.

Brothers Appreciation.

Yesterday marked the day of the first brothers appreciation!
So what I thought was that we just all would dress up nice, meet up and a place where the girls would pick us up and take us to one of their apartments or houses to eat. Little did I know what awaited me.

at around 7:30 I made it to Price Center, the meet up spot for the bros. And once we all got there Jared pulled this out...

I should've known that them SD girls were up to no good. And I knew we were going on a scavenger hunt across the largest UC campus. The next clue led us to...

Where we have morning prayer every Wednesday. By then we were all really hungry and decided that we should stop by the dining hall to grab a bite. JUST KIDDING! Moving on...

The next clue was at a place where we studied the night before. It took a long 10 minutes of uphill walking to get there...by then our jokes of eating at a dining hall were starting to turn into real thoughts

The next clue went something like this "...you need COURAGE to come in here..." and once we found out it was the women's restroom, everyone automatically volunteered me. SIGH. And when I ran in to grab it, a girl was in there and she screamed and slapped me. just kidding. I just had to walk in a little bit.

After that clue we got picked up and driven to Laura's house where the delicious food awaited us...

Cooked by none other than our beautiful Soli Deo sisters.

And after a game of Naked we decided to just chill and take pictures...

Here's us brothers with our superhero signs and our letter boxes from our sisters!

That's our beautiful homegroup!

Solely Deyooo!

And last but DEFINITELY not least...The ones that made this AMAZING night possible...our beautiful sisters!

Thanks gals for an amazing night! It really was a blessing and an encouragement to all of us brothers! We love you!

Cute.

Ever since last night when I burned Taylor Swift's Platinum edition CD from Christine, it's all I've been listening to. Yea I know, it's so girly or whatever, but hey her music is pretty catchy! It makes me all smiley just listening to just the lyrics to her new song "Jump then Fall." So yea, no reason to this post, just a little randomness that I ran to on the way back from studying.

As I was almost reached my apartment, something on the floor caught my eye. A bunch of colored paper arrows, a pink one, a green one, and I think a purple one, and it pointed up the stairs. As I took another step, the paper arrows became a paper heart. And at my next step, I saw some lit candles, and then the next step my eyes met with a pair of cute little eyes. It was a girl bundled up in a blanket, kinda shivering, but nonetheless she gave me a nice warm smile and kinda waved at me. And all I did was grin and kind of chuckle in a "that's cute, good luck way" (whatever way that is..haha).
The first thing I thought was, man she's cold. But I realized that despite the coldness in the air, she probably barely even noticed how hard she was shivering. oh, what love does to people. The second thing was that I remembered seeing a guy wandering lost around the apartment area, trying to look for the apartment building numbers, and I realized that he was looking for her! It was pretty cute. I hope they have a good time watching the meteor showers tonight.

Now I'm going to go shower, maybe watch the meteor shower for a while, then knock out.

Love.

Reblog Eddie Leu:

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

-
Neil Gaiman (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possible broken. If you want to make sure in keeping it intact. You must give your heart to no one and no thing. Be consumed in little hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in a casket of your selfishness. But in that casket, dark and motionless, you heart will not be broken. In fact, it will be unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable.
-C. S. Lewis


~
I guess as I read these quotes over and over again I realize the depth of where they came from. To write like this must come from a persons so hurt that it must be too hard to want to love again. To love, to like, to admire, to give your heart away, and in the end be received with closed arms is by far one of the most painful things. But is it worth it if you choose to not love out of fear of being hurt? Is it worth it to go through these struggles, in hopes to one day get this "love?"
The really "emo" post that I posted about a week ago has to do with just this...love. Actually, I wouldn't put it in words as strong as love, but rather as deep attraction, or something along those lines. And C.S. Lewis puts it in just the right words, I've given up (not on life, or anything of that sort) on the idea of pursuing love. Simple as that. Can't really say much more than this, but God is teaching me a lot about myself.

Living out the Power of God.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..." Romans 1:16

As I am continually being encouraged by the Christians that are living out the gospel in Merced, I am reminded of the message that I gave the night that we left to Merced.
The message was about the Gospel, but more importantly focusing on Living out the gospel before we preach it and spread it.
One thing that the Lord has been showing me goes along the lines of the saying "you talk the talk, but can you walk the walk."By backing up our words with our lives, we would are able to be true lights of God.
The Gospel is not just a message that we preach because Jesus commanded it, but I like to think of it as something very much like how Paul describes it, the "power of God." This power of God that we are able to wield is so strong that it can save the lost.
I remember reading a book that talked of why dressing nicely and having good hygiene was important. And now as I come to a point in realizing that being studious and hard working lies within the same boundaries, I'm aiming to perfect myself in every way possible. Perfection, I believe, is unattainable by human means, and that is why I must rely on the Power of God (a.k.a. the Gospel) to complete me.
Which leads me to my realization of the importance in pursuing the Lord. Yes, by living the life we can say we are already "pursuing God" but what I am saying is to actively, mindfully seek the Lord.
To do this requires discipline and a mindset ready to give up all to receive all. Sacrificing the self and all of the selfs desires to attain the desires of the most high God.

Another late night blog, and I know that when I wake up and reread this, I'll have found myself reading something that I probably don't remember writing.

New Resolutions for my future school years.

-I will go to every class and will not ditch without good reason (and without talking to the professor or T.A. ahead of time)
-I will sit within the first 5 rows of the classroom for lectures.
-I will sit within the first two rows of the classroom for sections.
-I will have my papers fully written 1 day before the due date.
-I will do my class readings on time.
-I will set apart 2 hours per class per week.

I know a lot of people are probably like "what the freak, YY you're never going to do this." But I am determined to prove each and every one of you wrong!
I guess the reason for such extreme measures is because I missed my midterm. And even though I just found out he's letting me make up half of it, I realized that I'm slacking way too much in my school work. Time to get to work!

Legit.

Last night was quite possibly one of the most intense nights I have had in my entire life. I was so encouraged by the testimonies of those from Merced. We went about 3 hours of just pouring our our hearts and the Lord was just really moving in their hearts.
I really see God doing AMAZING things here in Merced and I am so encouraged by the brothers and sisters fighting here on the Merced front. Boy, are these Mercedians so legit.

Merced.

As a heads up, this is not the note on which I tell of what is going on. That will be posted when I feel I am ready to put it all out.
I'm madly in love with Mercedians. They are so funny and really uplifting. It's only been half a day and I find myself feeling somewhat better. Driving up here in the A.M.s was surprisingly not hard at all. I drove the whole way up and I still was wide awake when I got here. I know that most of this awake-ness is coming from just having my thoughts racing all around my head.
All of this confusion and frustration is affecting me in ways that just are getting me more and more jacked up. My attitude is noticeably bad, to at least those who know me well enough, but I think as I start just chilling with Merced peeps more and more, I'm able to suppress a lot of these emotions that are consuming me.
Jackie, Cat, and Irving are all KTFO'd after a long night, well sort of. But I'm still wide awake and just trying to get my mind off of things. I pray that this would soon be gone, but that's just a wild dream.

"I'm desperate for your touch,
Never needed you so much,
Cause all I want is You"
oh God help me.

Defeated.

As I sit here in the wee hours, my head is swirling with thoughts. No caffeine is keeping me up, not my roommate up making a ruckus, and I'm definitely not wanting to be awake. I am up because emotions are swirling my head, and with Irvine guys here I definitely cannot show it. Simply put, I have reached the point of exhaustion to which I have never imagined that I would reach, I've found my limit to which I have lost the will to fight. And in this time, I feel lost, confused, frustrated, angry.
I've lost battles before, I've fought and fell in times of trials, but NEVER have I given up. There has not been one instance in which I have given up hope, and today, tonight, I have realized that I have reached the point of defeat. My sword is dropped and my shield is lowered, I've pushed for my all and have gotten nothing but pain in return, and I now clearly see that the road ahead is not to glory, but it is a road of just more frustration and anger. I have even lost the desire to be defeated with my head held high, I am no longer the cornered dog that would bark and growl, I can now only whimper. Or rather, I am now only whimpering.
My dreams are crushed and the only support that is barely keeping me on my legs is the Lord. Sad to say that there is no happy ending. This is the end of the book. Herein lies the final words of the warrior who fell. And although there very well might be a time where I reopen this book and continue writing, the chance to which I take this book and burn it, bury it, or hide it away forever is just as likely. I am a warrior defeated.

I know these words are very vague, and more than likely I'll post again about the truth of the matter, and maybe even give you a taste of what really is going on.

So Good So So Good to me!

"He picked me up and he turned me around, and he placed my feet on the solid ground!"

Oh God, I'm definitely starting to slack off a lot more. I really need the strength to push through these days of class. There's so much to do and so little time! Thanks for always encouraging me through your words and you quiet whispers.

The one thing that's been keeping me running this race, and not slowing down, is the joy that I get from the Lord when I open up my Bible. The Lord has really been showing me so much of the importance of the Gospel in just everywhere I turn. I guess I can't write too much about it now because I'm giving a message on it this Thursday and I don't want to spoil it for and Soli Deo people.
But I've definitely been learning how to LIVE the Gospel before I preach it.

Something short that's been on my mind before I start this busy day of classes.

Hallelujah Festival

reblog Soli Deo:

Man I love San Diego people. I love how they are sooo down to just do crazy stuff like make costumes and stuff. Anyway here’s a picture of Delia, Jared, and Jackie (not SD but whatevs) making our costumes of the lost boys in peter pan:

And here’s us making the costumes!

And here is the final outcome!

We’re so awesome.

Shred Til Ya Drop.

Bought a new Burton Clash SnowBoard @ Skidazzle this Saturday for $160.
Finally found time to attach my 08 Burton Freestyles.

Busted out my Burton Motos.
Once again unshelved my box of Snowboard ish.
















And the cherry on top is my Mt. High Season Pass.
What do I get? A season full of shredding.

Long days. Good days.

This week has been one of the most longest weeks, and weekends still don't seem like weekends, and chillin doesn't seem like chillin. Weird huh?
The thing about it is that these days, no matter how long, have been awesome. I survived midterms week, only to be awaited with a visit from the post college/college people for homegroup. Then after a great night of super sergios, there was my church's worship night, a praise night, then a much delayed trip to Temple City/Arcadia/errthang down there. Then this morning we went to skidazzle @ LA convention center, then had to go and prepare costumes for homegroup, then Hallelujah festival, then Catherine's birthday thing at mac grill.
By the way, Happy birthday Cat!
Anyway, things have been long, and I think I'm just halfway through. It's definitely been fun, but I'm dead exhausted. Praise the Lord for Daylight Savings.
Time to rest. Goodnight world.