New blog!

Hello friends! My blog has now moved to http://ajourneywithjess.blogspot.com. Thanks for reading!

A visual reminder of grace

I'm an engineer, and sometimes God speaks to me through math and physics. Somehow, seeing it visually in a context familiar to me as an engineer is far more powerful than hearing the words alone. I came across Romans 11:5-6 the other day:

^"5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶ And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace."

The very essence of grace is that it is not dependent on works. If y is God's love, and x is my works (what I can do or achieve for God), then y is a constant independent of x.

But far too often, I operate with this assumption: The harder I work, the more God will love me.

Praise be to God that this is not true!

A Conversation with a Homeless Princess

During our second week of summer project, we had a major push for evangelism where we asked students to consider what barriers they had to sharing their faith or people they were afraid to share with. We challenged them to face their fears during that week. Of course, it wouldn't have been fair for us staff to just sit back and watch, so we made our own list of fears in evangelism that we wanted to conquer. One of mine was to share my faith with a homeless person.

After living in NYC for the last six years, I am still at a loss for how to respond to homeless people around me. I confess that more often than not, I just hurry past them, avoiding their questioning gazes and the jingling cup of change in their hands, or I ignore them all together, keeping my eyes buried in the book I'm reading as they stumble down the subway car. What do you do? Six years later, it's a question I'm still asking.

So if I'm this uneasy just acknowledging the existence of homeless people, talking to them about my faith was about as far out of my comfort zone as the earth is from the moon.

Yet, one day as I was walking toward the Ferry Building from the Muni station, I passed by a petite, wiry, tanned woman with a silver gray ponytail sitting on the sidewalk outside of a Subway shop. I walked past her at first, but then felt a familiar whisper from the Holy Spirit to turn around and talk to her, so I did. I asked if she'd had lunch yet, and when she replied no, I asked if I could buy her a sandwich. I took her order, then came back out to sit with her and asked, "What's your story?"

Her name, she said, was Princess, but she also went by Frances since that's what most people think she says when she introduces herself as Princess. She said that she was trying to find her way home (London...but she had a Midwestern accent). She was stuck - she'd come out to the States for business, but then got left behind because "they" had conspired to keep her here after taking away her home. She told me that she belonged to the British royal family and pulled out a series of notarized documents proving (or "proving"?) her identity. To be honest, I had no idea whether to smile and nod or to challenge her claims.

Despite my doubts about her mental state, we had some lucid moments when our conversation turned toward faith. I don't remember how we got on the subject, but at one point I asked her if she had a religious background, and she asked me about mine. As I told her about experiencing forgiveness, Princess exclaimed, "That's incredible news! Thank you for telling me!" In that moment, I was taken aback - I've never had anyone respond so joyously to the gospel before! And then she went on to tell me how she met Jesus Christ in Arizona ("he's a Superstar, you know") and I was back to smiling and nodding again, unsure of whether anything I said made sense to her.

As I reflected on my 1.5 hour conversation with Princess/Frances, I realized:

• The Holy Spirit has never led me astray before, even when I don't want to do what he asks me to do
• I genuinely enjoyed talking to her
• I don't have to be afraid of homeless people
• I am ridiculously full of myself. God didn't put me in this conversation so that I could check off an item from my "evangelism fears to conquer" list for the week. This wasn't about me. It was about God and pointing Princess/Frances one step closer to Him, even if there will be 1,847 more steps in her spiritual journey before she decides to commit her life to Jesus (if at all). All I am asked to do is to be faithful with the step I've been given.

I hope that this conversation with Princess and the ones I had later this summer with Wilma and Billy & friends (all homeless) are not just isolated Summer Project experiences. Instead, I pray that they will translate to a different perspective and heart for the homeless here in NYC, even though it's so much easier to slip back into my practiced habit of ignoring them.

New Yorkers (or other city dwellers), what do you do when you encounter homeless people? What has influenced your thought process about homelessness and aid?

To the woman in seat 8B en route to NYC,

I don't remember what your name is, but I wanted to write and thank you for the conversation we had. Thank you for breaking the ice and for your friendly inquiries when I first sat down. You see, I fly a lot for work, and I happen to work for an organization where it seems like everyone has amazing spiritual conversations with their seatmates on the plane. Our founder Bill Bright led dozens of people to Christ during the course of his travels. But I must confess - when I get on planes (and this one was no exception), I usually tell God, "God, I'm fried. Can I just sleep on this flight?"

However, as I was putting my carry-on away in the overhead compartment, I saw you and felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to talk to you. I groaned inwardly, but then you greeted me and started a conversation with me! I had no excuse not to chat anymore.

Later on, when there was a lull in the conversation, I even tried taking a nap to get out of any further obligation to talk to you, but that didn't work either. You asked to borrow the People magazine that I had been reading -- which I never read, by the way. I just borrowed it from a coworker on the same flight because I had neglected to pack my own reading material. And it just happened to have a story on The Bachelorette, your favorite TV show. I'm amazed at what God used to bring us together into a conversation because from The Bachelorette, we talked for the rest of the cross-country flight on just about everything.

Thanks for opening up about your life, your family, and your culture. I really enjoyed learning about Jewish weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs and expectations Jewish parents have on their kids -- they're not so different from Asian parents! Thank you also for your openness and honesty in sharing about your exploration in spirituality and how unsatisfying, "God does everything for a purpose" sounds when you're in the middle of hard times and you can't understand why things are happening to you.

As I was reflecting on our conversation, I realized that that line is only meaningful when you know him and trust his character. I pray that you will not only learn about God in your searching, but as the Pslamist writes, that you will "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). I pray that you will get to know him, trust him, delight in him, and fall head over heels in love with him because he loves you far more fervently, relentlessly, and ardently than you know. May you find the satisfaction of your soul in his arms.

Your friend,

Jessica in 8C

Airplane stories...en route to Denver

I fly pretty often for work, and it seems that something goes wrong on at least one leg of my trips. If you've seen me on twitter, I've hash-tagged these as #airportstories, but it's hard to do these stories justice in 140 characters.

After summer project ended, I spent a few days hanging out with a college roommate and seeing some friends in the area before flying out to Colorado for CCC's national staff conference. The trip out there ranks among my worst flight experience ever.

The short version:
My original flight got cancelled, so I got rerouted for a flight out of a nearby airport, but I missed it and had to wait 5 hours for the next one, landing at midnight.

The long version:
I arrived at the SF airport on Saturday morning, panicked because I had left the house late that morning, genuinely concerned that I wouldn't make it in time for my flight. The good news: I got to the airport on time. Unfortunately, when I arrived, they told me that my flight had been cancelled due a hailstorm in Denver the night before that had damaged some of their aircraft. The only options were to wait until the next morning's 6am flight or to take a flight out of San Jose airport with a layover in Los Angeles, arriving at 7pm. It wasn't the most direct route, but at least I'd get there for the night meeting.

That worked out well enough. San Jose is only 45 minutes away and they gave me a voucher for a shuttle, and if I left right away, then I would be well on my way to Denver (via LA). The problem was...it was 10:30 when they gave me the voucher for a 12:15pm flight. When I got on a shuttle immediately, the driver asked me to get off and wait for the next shuttle, which didn't come for another 30 minutes (11am...already tight for my flight). I neglected to ask the second shuttle driver to drop me off first, so he started dropping off the other passengers before I spoke up, so I didn't get to the airport until 12:10. For my 12:15 flight >.<

I've never missed a flight before, but now I guess I can cross that off my bucket list. I got rebooked for a 5pm flight with a 3-hour layover in LA, arriving in Denver at midnight. As I waited, I tried calling the other airlines to see if there were any available seats for an earlier flight. Just when I thought I had a glimmer of hope on the phone with one airline that had a direct flight arriving at 6pm, it was quickly dashed to bits when I went to the corresponding counter and learned that the flight in question was, in fact, completely sold out. Argh....

I was so frustrated at the whole process, and I started playing the "If only..." game and blaming myself for being in the situation I was in.

• If only I had asked the ticket agent if I had enough time to get to the SJ airport...
• If only I had insisted that the first shuttle driver let me stay on...
• If only I had asked to be dropped off first...
• If only I had asked the ticket agent to check if there were any other flights before landing at midnight before I accepted the one he gave me...

If only, if only, if only....Somehow, I find ways to assume responsibility for things that I'm not actually responsible for. Yes, there were things I could have done differently, but there is no guarantee that any of them would have actually worked. Hopefully one of these days I'll learn to stop taking the blame for everything that could have possibly gone wrong. In the end, I got to Denver safely, I had a great time at staff conference, and I had a short reprieve before I had to face the airport again. Until next time...

SFSP - The first week

I've now been in San Francisco for a full week now, and it has been one CRAZY hectic week. First, the director team prepared for staff to arrive, then we worked with the staff to set up shop for the students. The students arrived on Wednesday, and within 48 hours, they had their first orientation, went through a historical walking tour of Chinatown (courtesy of our resident SF expert, Steve Hong), learned how to share the gospel, initiated spiritual conversations in downtown San Francisco, and went searching for jobs/ministry locations for the summer. Whew!

Transitioning to life in SF was a little harder than I expected. Maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist and a fast learner, but somehow I guess I expected to magically be able to learn the city and know everything about SF instantaneously. I don't think I really understand that it's ok to be in process along the learning curve; instead, I just wonder why I'm not arrived already.

Because I live in NYC, I just assumed that going from one big city to another wouldn't be that difficult. However, the newness of everything and how much I didn't know became overwhelming -- I didn't know where to eat, buy groceries, pick up forgotten travel items, work out or have fun, and I didn't know where the public transit went or the streets were laid out (we're on a grid, but the streets are all named and not in alphabetical order in this part of town. Furthermore, our particular neighborhood's grid intersects with the next neighborhood's grid at a 30 degree angle, so there can be up to 3-4 street names at the diagonal intersections).

Although the initial realization that I didn't know anything about the city was a bit disorienting and upsetting, over this last week, I've found a few surprising sources of comfort. The first was the practice room in the hostel where we're staying, so I had a chance to vent some of my stress on the piano. Other sources of comfort were riding the muni (subway), studying the transit map, walking through the surrounding neighborhoods and trying to memorize street names, discovering bookstores and coffee shops, and believe it or not -- hearing sirens go by my window at night, like a city lullaby. I'm glad that some things can stay constant from city to city!

Here are some pictures of our week so far:

View of a sequoia at the SF Botanical Garden during our staff day

Staff dinner at our new favorite restaurant (Zaoh Sushi)

Trying to transport 40+ people through the muni system (and not get lost!)

Steve telling us about the Golden Dragon Massacre (part of Chinatown's gang history)

Brent and Mushroom (Kevin) cutting hair for the guys before sending them out to look for jobs

San Francisco - first impressions

Today is my third day in SF (and also the day our staff arrive!) as the director team worked to , wrap up loose ends, purchase supplies, finalize our staff briefing schedule, and get a lay of the land. We're living in downtown San Francisco, and even as someone who's lived in NYC for the last 6 years, there are still a few things I'm not used to.

The first surprised was the number of homeless people here. It's not that I've never seen any in NYC; it just seems like there's a higher concentration of them here. Furthermore, most of the homeless people I encounter in NYC are either sitting on the sidewalk or walking through the subway cars, but the ones I see here are generally walking down the street. There's also a number of them camped out on the lawn at city hall, although I'm not sure if that's because they usually do that or if they were protesting. To be honest, even after all these years in NYC, I still feel uneasy when I'm around homeless people. Maybe this is God's way of pushing me out of my comfort zone and really forcing me to confront issues in my own heart.

On a personal note, I've had a really hard time adjusting to Pacific Time for some reason. I've been to California on a number of occasions, but this time I can't seem to shake the jetlag. I was falling asleep after dinner, and even though I purposely tried to go to bed later last night (at 11), I still woke up at 4:30 this morning. I eventually fell asleep again, but for the last few days, I've just been tired all the time. Please pray that I can get some rest before our students arrive on Wednesday!