2014 Chiago, Cancun Trip

• Japanese in American Midwest
• Drive from Chicago to Baltimore
• Good times in Cancun aka trying to drain a jacuzzi with +Albert Chu +Dustin Shung +Danny Shin 

From Residence to Home

It’s been a great week where I’ve been finally able to settle into Queens. Though labeled New York’s “most boring borough,” Queens is pretty ideal, and I can’t help but wonder if some of my colleagues in deafening Manhattan yearn for a little bit of “boring” as they work themselves to death. Rego Park is ideal in that Costco, Russian produce, the post office, the parks and rec, the library, and the train station are all one block away. The Chinese eateries are split between Elmhurst and Flushing in which Rego is in the middle, but really, my generous apartment space accommodates any Chinese food preparation I will undertake.

One fear (“fear” by the way is usually way too strong a word for males in talking about domestic things, but “concern” didn’t quite fit but it’s ok I’m over it) I had in coming was if I’d be able to make friends. I know many a young adult that struggle to establish themselves because making friends with people twice your age in a borough filled with immigrants while on a consistent work schedule is not easy. Christians have it a little easier because of an immediate network and spiritual kinship (Hebrews 10:25), but without immediate family in the same unit it’s still very difficult to feel “at home.”

Enter the Puerto Ricans. In my apartment building there resides an extremely hospitable Puerto Rican family who have been New Yorkers longer than I have been alive. I was asking fellow tenants basic questions about getting cable internet, and the next thing I knew, I was in a Puerto Rican apartment drinking French press coffee, Portuguese Porto, whiskey, Argentinian wine, Long Islands, and green tea while talking about life, marriage, and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” until midnight. Unbelievably hospitable. Us Chinese, with thousands of years of history, need to learn again what it means to be human, because as far as I see, the average Chinese immigrant in Queens treats complete strangers sub-dirt.

I look outside my window overlooking the courtyard, and our Russian super is trying to build community as well, getting involved with whatever he can. Last night, the neighbors and I went out to see the city’s most not-so-secret secret skyline by Long Island City – and it was unobstructed New York skyline magic. Queens is magic, and hopefully I can pay it back by learning a Russian and Spanish phrase or two.

2014 Cancun Bachelor Party

Bachelor Party AKA Justin Bieber “Beauty and the Beat” MV remake. Mad ups to @DShineee1 for equipment and editing! With +Albert Chu +Danny Shin  +Dustin Shung 

Normal Christianity #2

Most days I feel my set-apart-ness slipping away. I laugh at the same jokes and complain the same complaints as everyone else. Sometimes though it takes an oldie-but-a-goodie to bring you back to what it’s all about.

On the train ride back from Connecticut my phone decides to play Hillsong United’s Salvation Is Here. Wow, I couldn’t imagine how refreshing that was. It was surprising given my recent foray into the works of John Owen, whose writing can only be described as having a lumbering literary gait. But this song makes its point clear and fast: God has brought salvation in our midst (Matthew 16:18, 28:20, Luke 17:21).

No other religion has this claim, that salvation is not just a future thing but a very near present thing. Nay, salvation is a person.

It is this person, Jesus Christ, who will be with us until the end of the age, and all the while we are his instruments in proclaiming the gospel. By this gospel will the kingdom be ushered and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it. Ye Christian brethren, may our lives reflect the courage worthy of these promises.

Normal Christianity #1

One retreat that impacted me like none other was Bethel's winter retreat in 2009, titled, "Christianity A to Z." Pastor Hank blew open my mind, and soon after my heart, to the way God revealed the person of Jesus in every story of the Bible, from Abraham to Moses to David. This supposedly basic Christian teaching was a hard thing to swallow, in large part because of its peculiar absence in my initial Christian years when I would ostensibly be learning the "basics."

And so it is with all "basic" Christian teachings. We never stray too far from our baby "spiritual milk" (1 Corinthians 3:2) because sin is never too far in grounding us (Genesis 4:7).

All that was to really preface this first reflection in how I am attempting to live out normal Christianity in my maturation to full independence. I mean "independence" in the sense that the student environment provided many guards and brackets that shielded worldly temptations I now face, and "normal" in the sense of a "basic" Christian walk.

The first basic principle I must remind myself overandoverandover again is that every individual -- of the thousands that surround me everyday -- is in part a reflection of the eternal God (Genesis 1:27). Let's start with that. The implications are as such:

    There is a beauty about every individual because of God's own beauty.
    There is a respect due unto every individual because of God's own authority.
    There is an infinite value ascribed to each individual because of God's sovereign purposes.

This principle has been most effective in my everyday relational attitude. How can I disrespect any individual if God himself is imaged in him? How can I not have compassion on any individual if God sacrificed his son to bring him close? Innate human dignity is an epic level-setter that vertically silences my righteous heart and molds it into a vessel of grace for its daily horizontal transactions.

What Coworkers and I Laugh About #2

Let me totes end this non-series series.

• Using a rolling backpack at work elicits the same responses as it would in middle school.
  
• I am famous among security guards in Frisco because I badged incorrectly. I also invoke memories of the Vietnam War.
  
• A lesson in resource estimates: “Throwing more resources in this situation would be as useless as telling a pregnant woman that she can cut her lead-time from 9 months to 4 with help from another person.”

2014 Houston, Dallas Trip

• Houston: Breakfast Klub, Galleria, +Peter Wu + Jennifer Wedding, Dim Sum + Museum, Pool Park, Goode Company +Kevin Lee +Dustin Shung 
• Dallas: Boiling Crab, Tapoica Bar, Plano, , Holy Grail Pub, LA Burger +Jonathan Kang +Yonjoo Jane Lim +Samuel Lui +Eric Chen 
• +Lucy Song +Yolanda Z 

Weeks #49 - 52

• +Shang Wang and Amanda wedding
• NYC with +Albert Chu +Danny Shin +Stephen Zhu +Ravi Vaswani +Jason Choi +Mary Wang 
• Inayaka +Pingchuan Ma +Dustin Shung 
• Apartment cleaning +Kevin Lee 
• MD +Kevin Zhang +Diane Xu +Yolanda Z 
• Road trip +Lucy Song