by Betty Young
Last month we celebrated an ESL student’s 80th birthday. This student, like many others, returned year after year and in time, became like a friend to our teachers. There was much love as we gathered with other students to celebrate a significant birthday of a cherished member of our Rockspring community. Teachers, as well as students, shared delicious food while serving and honoring one another above themselves. Read more →
By H. Leung
(A mini-series on my journey of starting a bible study group at work)
In the late 90’s, there was a Hollywood movie called Armageddon. As the movie sets up for the climatic ending, the protagonist and his damsel in distress were having a romantic moment by the hillside prior to, literally, the end of the world. One quote that sticks out in my head 20 years later is this:
“Do you think it’s possible that anyone else in the world is doing this very same thing at this very same moment?” Read more →
By H. Leung
(A mini-series on my journey of starting a bible study group at work)
A week after our divine encounter on the escalators where I asked the “Simple Question”, we were supposed to have our inaugural meeting. I got to work and saw the email, “Sorry guys, I’m sick today and won’t make it to our meeting.” Of all the days to get sick?? Hrmm…. Read more →
By H. Leung
(A mini-series on my journey of starting a bible study group at work)
On an unassuming morning, I rode up the escalators with a co-worker that was in my BSF group 10 years ago. We engaged in typical workplace water-cooler small talk which I dread. For some reason, the escalator seemingly climbed slower than normal that morning. We simply couldn’t avoid the conversation about going back to BSF (1). Then we complained about the Bay Area traffic coming into work – and my friend listens to a podcast about apologetics (2) and listens to K-love (3). I notice a Mt. Hermon lanyard around his neck (4) and we go off about our latest experience with our retreats, retreats, and retreats (5). We commiserate into our challenge with balancing technology in our family’s lives which led to the discussion about the book, “The Techwise Family” (6). We discussed how the rat race in the Silicon Valley is driving people out of the Bay Area…yet this place has a plethora of the unreached (7).
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven……there were more. But in a casual conversation that one can have with anyone at work… the hints were all there. So before ending the conversation, I took that extra step and asked a simple question….
Me: “Y’know… Have you ever thought of starting a bible study at work?”
Him: “Y’know… I’ve recently been also thinking about that.”
And there it was…. the first step in our journey of a thousand miles. That first step… was prompted by a simple question. One simple question is all it takes….
Lesson #1: Have you asked YOUR simple question yet?
By Linda Yung
Today was one of my hardest days as a teacher. A few weeks ago, I got a new student who came with piles of incident reports of aggressive and uncontrollable behavior. When I heard that M was transferring to my class, I quickly e-mailed some teacher friends and asked them to pray that God would do a miracle and that this new student would be sent somewhere else. I already had three students with autism in my class and I just couldn’t see how I could handle another challenging student.
Well, my friends prayed and they all prayed that I would receive this student with God’s love. I was convicted and felt so grateful for friends who prayed God’s will and not mine. As M started four weeks ago, there were challenges, but overall, I was feeling very good that God was working… until today… Read more →
by Betty Young
“Others are like the seed planted in the good ground. They hear the teaching and accept it. Then they grow and produce fruit—sometimes thirty times more, sometimes sixty times more, and sometimes a hundred times more.” ~~Mark 4:20
Their story is like so many other stories. It is a story about an immigrant family travelling to the United States from an obscure village near Fuzhou, China. They came with nothing but a willingness to work hard. They didn’t come for themselves. They came for the sake of their children’s future. Read more →
by Hou Lei
Our Mandarin Congregation has been reaching out to San Jose State University (SJSU) students for almost a year now. We mainly provide them with free lunch and by that we are able to get to know them and share the Gospel with them. We learned this way from our Cantonese Congregation who pioneered their Soup Club ministry with fruitful results. This semester, a few other brothers & sisters who had a burden for this ministry also joined us, giving us additional helpful resources.
In the beginning of this semester, other than the students we met in the past, many new students were also drawn to our lunch activity. On of the Wednesday (9/12), our brother Jason Ho shared with the students the Four Spiritual Laws and 3 students decided to follow Jesus. This is indeed the work of God, and all glory be unto Him! Of course, we must have a sense of urgency to disciple them. On the other hand, we had an opportunity to meet with a group of 30 students who came from Taiwan for only a 3-month stay. We hope that we are able to get to know them more and share the Gospel with them. Please continue to pray for this SJSU outreach ministry for both the Cantonese and Mandarin Congregations. Thank you for your support!
By Derrick Duong
Leading our brothers & sisters from the Mandarin Congregation to pray for the 9/8 Evangelistic Meeting, I was in awe to witness how God’s Hand moved us to pray. God granted Elder Mike Chang and his wife, Julie, a piece of His Heart to love lost souls. Looking back at how God miraculously led him and his company (Alpha and Omega Semiconductor) to go through the ups and downs, Mike couldn’t help but to declare God’s goodness. Thus, an Evangelistic Meeting took place on 9/8 to give glory to Him.
It was that piece of God’s heart that joined the entire Mandarin Congregation together to confess, repent and cry out to God for greater faith and strength. It took 32 days of unceasing prayer amongst which 4 targeted prayer meetings were held at church. We received extraordinary faith and unprecedented joy while each and everyone of us was declaring and making our commitment to God to reach out, invite, intercede and offer help in any capacity. As a result, 150 new friends showed up, and 10+ answered the call for salvation!
It takes just one humble person who submits to the will of God, and then God’s hand moves the entire congregation to pray in unison, and only then, our prayers move God’s hand!
By Anonymous
Recently God has been using two books, Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend and Soul Care by Dr. Rob Reimer, to teach me that I am still a work in progress. Some days I succeed and some days I fail. Through the Holy Spirit, my goal is to bring God glory in all that I do, say and think.
In Boundaries, there are illustrations on how living with boundaries is necessary to protect one’s good and keep out the bad. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? Yes, he bandaged the injured victim of a robbery, found a safe lodging for him, and found a caring person to help the injured person recover. Let’s imagine a little…but what if the injured person insisted that the Good Samaritan stay and take care of him until he recovered? Maybe the Good Samaritan was on the road traveling to a business appointment to broker a camel trade? Read more →
By Jonathan C.
I did not have much anticipation for the Levites School because I had just come back from the Mexicali short term missions trip. Mexicali was a tiring week and I wanted to rest. I was also trying to spend as much time as I could with Josh Fong before he went back to Hong Kong. I felt bad that I was leaving him during his vacation. But I had already committed to the Levites School, so I still went.
I remember the past children’s Levites School that I went to and how it was mainly focused on songwriting and music. I thought this one would be similar, but it was not. There was more talk about the spiritual nature of worship. From that last Levites School to this one, I have matured greatly, in age and spiritually. I was able to grasp what I really wanted for myself and listened a lot more intensely. Read more →
