Winter is here

It's snowing outside! I've realized over the past year or so that snow doesn't necessarily = fun anymore. Especially when it comes to maintaining my aging 2005 Honda Civic (affectionately known as Francine). But snow is certainly one of the highlights of the winter season and it makes New England so special and beautiful. I wouldn't trade it for anything else... unless you're talking about an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii.

Along with the snow, I wanted to share some other recent highlights with you as well. This past weekend was our annual Epic East Coast conference held in Morristown, NJ. There were~120 students, 30 staff members, and 10 volunteers from Epic movements all over the East Coast (to name a few... SUNY-Buffalo, NYC colleges, Penn State, George Mason, Florida International). Umass brought 24 students from our area, a huge blessing considering our "faith goal" was initially 10-15 students!

The conference was refreshing on many levels personally. I had a blast talking with the staff from other campuses, sharing stories and learning from their experience. A lot of them have been serving in the ministry for many years, some even at the start of Epic in the 90s, and through them I gained a bigger perspective of the ministry. One staff pointed out how the conference size has doubled over the years. It's a peaceful reminder that as far as God wills our ministry, He will continue to provide laborers and students. It also brings me confidence to know that He is already ahead of us working and we are called to follow faithfully.

But by far the biggest refresher is witnessing people's hearts change for Christ. The theme of the conference was Transformed, appropriate because God is in the business of transforming lives. What made the conference stand out in my mind was seeing how God transforms us individually AND culturally as Asian-Americans. It's one of the first times I've seen the speaker address specific Asian-American issues and how the Gospel brings healing and change to it.

For example, the speaker addressed the issue of Asian-Americans' perfectionist mindset. He said that it's not an entirely bad thing to pursue perfection. After all, God is perfect and the pursuit of perfection would point us towards Him. However, when our culture twists it and points it to ourselves, we experience impossible standards, inevitable failure, insecurities, high pressure, and stress. But the Gospel is able to point us back to Christ - to know that where we've failed, Jesus has succeeded. In this way, we experience freedom from performance and we are restored as a culture.

That's just a snippet of what I experienced from the weekend! It's weekends like these that remind me of why I chose to join staff for Epic - growing in my walk with Christ and journeying with students through their walk. I'm amazingly blessed to serve the students and work alongside them to reach the rest of campus. Spring semester here we come! Thank you for your continual support!

Group picture at 2012 Epic East Coast Conference