Ryu2.mind

In Boston now, for a conference -- about to leave the room, but just wanted to catch my virtual breath by posting a quick entry.

As you can imagine, recent activities have left me with little time to blog, and this being even after E3. Thankfully, I fully believe in the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I give you
over 400,000 new words from the last two months of my life in the Bay Area, LA, Denver, and Boston.

Oh and by the way, you can now comment on individual pictures in my album... so if there's something you've always wanted to tell me about any picture, from lavish praises to scathing censure, now's your chance! =)

Last weekend, I attended the Chinese Entrepreneur Association Conference, essentially a "by invitation" conference bringing together about 150 young Chinese-American Christian professionals with a desire to make an impact in their respective spheres. A lot of things I still need to process, and review, but that's how I usually learn anyhow... but in short, it was a time of encouragement and affirmation for me, that I'm far from alone in my decision to somehow meld my professional interests together with my interest in China and my desire for lay ministry out there. For the visual types, you can, of course, see the pictures here.

Michael Chang was one of the keynote speakers, and it was definitely a blessing for him to be in that role. He'd actually had visited GrX a few times before, but I didn't have a time to interact with him. But at the conference, I found out first hand he's very humble and down to earth, despite his obvious worldly success. It was this aspect of himself, rather than his own athetic accomplishments, which struck me the most about him. Not only that, he is a man of conviction and passion as well. Hearing him speak and talking with him, however briefly, made me convinced that Michael's greatest contribution to His kingdom are yet to come off of the tennis courts.

Lee and Miltinnie Yih were also key in making the conference what it was for me. I had heard both of them speak at the World Christian Conference in 2003, and it was indeed through WCC that I heard of this conference for the first time. Lee had immediately struck a note with me, as he and Miltinnie had lived for 17 years in Hong Kong working in the financial and education industries as a lay person, and being able to naturally build relationships and be a witness for Christ by opening up their lives wholeheartedly without abandon to others -- exactly what I want to do come a few years in Beijing. Even though it wasn't the first time I heard their life story and testimony, hearing them tell it again in their "home turf" and to a smaller, more focused group made listening to it for the second time around even more funnier and moving as well.

What was the most meaningful for me the most about the conference overall? For me, it was the networking, by far. It was especially good to meet many East Coast brothers and sisters... a few of them whom I had known via blogs through mutual friends, and was meeting for the first time in real life. For me, having grown up all my life in the Bay Area, including going to college and then working, it was largely a new experience for me, where nearly everyone was new to me, but yet, tied by common interests of integrating work, ministry, and missions together. Even in other Christian conferences like Urbana or WCC I've previously attended, I think my own vision of tentmaking overseas put me out in a "fringe" apart from the majority of the other attendees, but here, that "fringe" became the majority, so that aspect certainly made the interactions all that more valuable and memorable.

Indeed, I realize that the one common thread between all the really "connected" people I know -- eg: BC2DC, davelu, clieu, vgong, etc. have been that they've lived on both the East and West coasts for extended periods of time. And of course, doing business in general, but especially East Asia, and in particular, China is itself all about networking and cultivating the all-important guanxi (connections), so it was a good chance to make contacts, and that was by far the biggest value I got from it.

Incidentally, they should have named it the friends of clieu conference -- it seriously seemed at least two-thirds of the attendees knew her. A typical conversation went like this:
"I go to a church called Great Exchange, it's in Sunnyvale..."

"Oh yeah, I've heard of it... I have a friend who goes there. Do you know clieu?"

So, thanks, clieu for serving as an unwilling and unknowing icebreaker in many a conversation I had. =)

Speaking of GrX, I bumped into Kevin, Vanessa, Abbey, David, and Ivy from GrX as well. It was funny because none of us really had any idea the others were attending it as well, so it wasn't totally devoid of familiar faces for me.

It was overwhelming for me at times, simply because I like to meet people in smaller group settings, and usually I'm easily distracted in large groups because of all the hustle and bustle, but fortunately, we had a few times of "mentor huddles" where small groups of 4-6 people would meet with a "mentor" in a small group setting, and share and discuss openly, about topics ranging from doing business with a Christian outlook in the secular world to -- yes -- relationships.

Which brings me to the next point -- the conference explicitly mentioned that it was focused towards 25-35 year old and singles, so it sort of had a reputation amongst the Christian community as being sort of a big "set up", or "meat market", if that's what you want to call it. lcshih, someone I met at the conference addresses the issue very well in his entry, and for the most part, I agree with his thoughts. I didn't think of it as a big group date or anything like that. Is there potential for people to get together? Sure, but there's potential for people to get together by meeting in a church, at work, at school, in a bar, in an airplane, too...

Yes, the conference was probably more explicit about the singles focus than most others, which was most likely why as a venue it seemed a bit more explicitly "sketchy" than the aforementioned other places, but again, the topic of Christian singleness IS an issue that should be addressed and not swept under the rug as a taboo, and I'm glad that someone like Michael and the conference organizers see it fit to discuss frankly and honestly.

For me, I didn't even notice the singles focus part until after I registered, and so I honestly could justify to myself I was going for pure motivations. It did seem some people didn't want to admit that they were going, for fear that their friends would paint them as going to a "Christian meat market."

Did I meet some girls that I would like to get to know better? Sure, and I also met more guys I'd like to do the same thing as well. Indeed, the conference made me more secure and confident that I need to get my own life in shape first before thinking of relationships. so all in all, that whole "set up" aspect was a total non-issue for me.

All in all, it's a conference that should be repeated, perhaps replicated on the West Coast as well. I think a main obstacle for people who really have a heart for tentmaking/lay ministry is the belief that they seem to be doing something few others are doing, where in fact, it's by all accounts, something that will be a vital strategy of fulfilling the Great Commission in the 21st century. It was very pleasing for me that most people at the conference didn't need to be "sold" on the idea of lay ministry, for they already were. Rather, they just need to meet with peers and mentors to "make sure" their paths were straight, and be encouraged in their own journeys, and the CEA conference was splendid towards this goal.

"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching." -- Hebrews 10:25

I saw this while reading CNN. I didn't know those North Koreans only needed $16.79 more to become a nuclear power -- I'm sure Al Qaeda and the like would be more than willing to pony up that sum... ;P

This entry was auto-mirrored from http://www.markwang.com/log/

I tried my utmost not to laugh at this person's name, but failed miserably.

Thanks to Danny for unearthing this gem, which I just had to repost.

So, it seems that Gmail has just blessed many users, including myself, with a new and relatively abundant allocation of invites (10 in my case over the course of last week) to give to users of their service, which I've taken good advantage of.

It does seem that the supply of Gmail accounts has significantly increased in the past few weeks, to the point where auctions on eBay are actually having trouble attracting bidders -- $2-$3 dollars is considered lucky. This is in contrast to a few months ago, where invites were going for $50 to $100 each!

But that's not the most interesting Gmail twist I noticed recently. It seems that my Gmail invites I had sent out today were not being received by a large number of recipients -- upon further investigation, they all had Yahoo or Hotmail addresses. I asked them to check ther bulk/junk mail folder, and lo and behold, the Gmail invites were there!

A delibrate conspiracy by desparate incumbents? Or simply brain-dead overzealous spam filters that coincidentally targetted the invites? You decide... ;)

Itall started as a mere whim, a thought casually bandied about, a glimmerin my mind as I was talking with people about how to get GrX moreplugged into missions... I put two and two together, and decide toshoot my friend Tom an email.

Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 15:41:34 GMT To: mark at markwang.com Subject: Partnering with the Great Exchange From: tommylin at juno.com

Mark,

Thanksfor the update on your going to the Great Exchange. I know that church(New Song church plant, right?), and have heard my friend David Gibbonsmention it several times. My brother Jim has also served on the worshipteam there a few times (guest appearances with another Vineyard worshipleader).

Sure, we would love to discuss PARTNERSHIP with theGreat Exchange. Would the church be interested in having us sharesometime, while we池e in the Bay Area? We could share aboutopportunities in Mongolia, do a presentation, etc... And we couldprobably receive a summer team if the dates worked out.

For now,feel free to give them some info about us, point them to our website,or you can even show them the video(s) you made for us!

Blessings,
Tom

-- Mark Wang wrote:
No problem -- I must apologize, though, as I will have to push the
completion date of this video to this weekend... work has been keeping me
busier than I expected -- it's not "crazy" yet, but it's taking a slight
toll on me, so I need to get a good night's rest tonight.

Also, as you may or may not know, besides my new job, I've started to go to
another church, Great Exchange (GrX), in Sunnyvale, mainly for reasons of
it being a much better geographic and demographic fit than WCCC for me
right now. I've discussed the issue with Sam, and he agrees it's best for
me spiritually and relationship-wise at this point in my life, and so I'm
leaving with his blessing. I still maintain good relationships with those
at WCCC, and more relevantly for you. I'll still be willing to be the
contact person for your website updates for the time being.

What you might be interested in knowing is that I'm currently discussing a
missions awareness and plan for GrX with other like-minded folks, and we've
expressed interest in possibly sending a church team over to Mongolia
sometime next year, just like what other churches have done, if you guys
are available. Nothing is definite yet, but it's something we're thinking
of. So l'd definitely like to discuss this when I see you.

Talk to you soon,

-- Mark

Theidea of sending a team grew, at first, slowly, and with muchhesitation. Tom, David, and I met, and we decided, very much on faith,to try assembling a team together, despite the fact that I had neverreally talked to anyone else in church about it. Ideas were bandiedabout, dates and plans revised, revised again, and yet again.

Peopleslowly got word about the planned trip through word of mouth, but noone really knew if we could get a group of people leading cushy livesin the Silicon Valley interested in going to a relatively obscure andimpoverished country located in the midst of the Gobi desert.

Weprayed about it, and decided to give it a go. If we didn't get theminimum applications, we'd just lump them together with Japan orThailand.

Amidst the vagaries of the Mongolian school system andthe plans of other teams from around the world leading to a constantlychanging agenda for us (teaching English? No, working with orphans...wait, a prior group just cancelled, so it's back to teaching Englishagain), applications trickled in, slowly. The day before the deadline,we had about 4.

And then, something unexpected happened. Theystarted coming in. Perhaps it was human laziness, but I remainconvinced that God had something in store. The names of some of theapplicants surprised me -- Eleanor, Ohms, and others already withimportant responsibilities to GrX, willing to take two weeks off.Collin, who mobilized three of his fellow small group members to joinhim. Jennifer, whose application was almost written off because shethought herself that she had missed the deadline by mistake. Inliterally the last minutes, we not only reached our minimum, but ourmaximum team size of 12. No more, no less.

I knew from theoutset that in the (then unlikely) event we reached 12 members, I wouldhumbly bow out from the actual in-country team. I had been to Mongoliatwice already, and as much as I was interested in going again andworking with familiar faces, I realized that others ought to have achance to discover just how God is working there. And so, with a heartnot of disappointment, but of gratitude, I removed my hat of goer andchanged into that of a sender.

The first team meeting wasunremarkable, looking back on it. We were all hesistant, not reallyknowing each other as a whole, nor our real agenda that Tom and Nancywanted us to do. Introductions were made, some icebreakers played, andfuture meetings tentatively scheduled.

And yet, the ball startedrolling. Through many a lunch or dinner, training with OMF in the RockyMountains, and a lockin, we slowly bonded. Activities were slowlydeveloped and English lessons prepared. Everyone became a cheerleaderfor everyone else -- Go MonGOlia! And I was the biggest one of themall... seeing the team evolve from a disparate group of people into abody passionate and determined to love Mongolia, Tom and Nancy, andmost of all the Mongolians themselves, before they even set foot there.

Yesterday,I got a taste of the feeling a proud parent must have watching theirchild leave home for the first time. Eleven team members, and and overforty supporters assembled at SFO to pray and send us off. The othermissions teams, Pastors Steve and Ed, the coaches -- all assembled asone body to send us.

And I use the word "us" deliberately, forthere was no greater time that I proudly felt being a member of theteam just like everyone else, despite the fact I'm stateside. As I waswalking to the gate, personally sharing my last words with everyoneindividually, I almost missed my ride home who happened to be headingin the opposite direction. That was how strong the bond I felt was.

Onthe drive up, Dylan and I were reflecting about the unique compositionof the team -- how we had many members well experienced in ministry: afull time GrX staff member, two coaches, three small group leaders, aswell as new Christians, eager to channel their passion from theirnewfound faith into reaching others. Moreover, everyone's spiritualgiftings spanned the full gamut: from administration to music, fromteaching to exhortation. People on the team had exactly the righttalents to lead the Mongolians in lessons and activities. If we hadhandpicked the members of the team, we couldn't have done better.

Andyet, we did none of that. It was God's hand in bringing everyonetogether and assembling this group. Not myself, not David Kim, not Tomor Nancy -- but Him alone.

They say missions really isn't aboutsaving or helping others like we often tend to think -- it's not aboutus and our own actions, and it's not even about them. Rather, it'sabout God revealing His hand in all things making His glory manifestand making people worship Him all over the world. The unique andperfect composition of the Mongolia team itself already reflects that.The fact that an idea grew to fruition so richly in such a short timespan reflects that as well.

May they be the first of many such reflections.

Not to us, but to You be the glory. Amen.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. -- Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

Spiritual warfare is not completely foreign to me -- twice in the past, on separate occasions in China and Thailand, I've been gripped by inexplicable feelings of raw urgency and fear that I had never experienced before or afterwards. I've heard many testimonies from friends who had gone on missions trips in other Muslim or Buddhist countries which are just mind-blowingly crazy. And yet, in America, with our fast-paced lifestyle chock full of distractions, this "struggle" becomes rather abstract and distant for us, for Satan attacks us in so many much more subtle ways compared to those in poorer lands. But still, sometimes I'm reminded that we need to be praying for His protection...

As I shared earlier, we sent out the Mongolia team Friday night, and they arrived Saturday night Pacific time, around 11:30 PM or so. I went to bed Saturday night, and then probably while the team was enjoying their first Mongolian dinner, I woke up around 4 AM or so Pacific time, with a severe case of nasal congestion. It was perplexing, as I was fine when I went to bed, and I hadn't had a case of allergies for the past few weeks at least.

I tried to go back to sleep, and was briefly successful but then, in my slumber, I started feeling a feeling of asphyxiation, of being unable to breathe. I felt concious that I had to somehow wake myself up in order to get fresh air, but I was unable to for what seemed like several minutes. The condition is in fact what those with sleep apnea experience -- but for me, I only infrequently experience such episodes, so it is not a chronic condition that I have. After that, I sat awake, a bit chilled -- not because of the temperature. All I could do at that point was to say a brief silent prayer, before I resumed my slumber.

The nasal congestion and the other breathing difficulties was completely gone when I woke up for church that morning.

A coincidence -- or something more?

Sometimes we attribute things to spiritual warfare which are more mundane, and I hesitate to post this on the Mongolia team blog, but sometimes, we are reminded that indeed, there are "powers of this dark world" out there.

In any case, please pray for the rest of the team members out there too and their physical and spiritual health. Who knows what they're going through, in the heart of darkness out there?

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They finally did it. Singapore Airlines has finally kicked off the world's longest flight -- Singapore-Newark nonstop. I calculated the mileage -- SFO-EWR-SIN-EWR-SFO will get me just over 25,000 miles -- ie, I can make Mileage Plus Premiere in just one round trip! =) Yes, I'm lusting...

So... anyone want to go on a mileage run to Singapore with me? I wonder if my fellow United/Star Alliance mileage junkies (dreyersice or Markus) would be up for it...

Today - 28 June 2004, Singapore Airlines Limited - A Member of Star Alliance - inaugurated its world record breaking A340-500 non stop flight from Singapore Changi Airport to New York (Newark) Liberty Airport.

Flight SQ022 , left Gate F52 at 1204 Singapore Time and took off at 1224.

At the gate, passengers indulged in champagne and a buffet and also received a polaroid to commemorate the occasion, along with a commemorative plaque. An apple was also given to each passenger. The boarding music was Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York."

典he flights will take an average of 18 hours in each direction and will save customers up to four hours in travel time as compared to our one-stop services. Today痴 flight will travel even further but it will be in the comfort, style and high level of service that our A340-500 is now associated with," said Mr. Huang Cheng Eng - Executive Vice-President - Marketing and the Regions.