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A Pursuit of Passion: Becoming a Novice Baker & Cook

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          Over the past couple of years, whenever people try something I have baked or cooked (that tastes delicious haha), they normally ask me when I started to become interested in baking and cooking. I have always enjoyed good food and I have always loved watching Food Network, but I did not become interested in actually baking and cooking on my own until college when I discovered that both activities were therapeutic for my soul and it was fun way for me to express affection and care towards my friends and InterVarsity family. Therefore, whenever I had the chance, I always volunteered to cook or bake something. Some of my college food endeavors included guava cake, dessert nachos, sweet and sour pork, and spicy crispy tofu.      After I graduated from college, made some money, and settled into a home with some friends, I was able to develop my baking passion even more. Whenever I had the chance, I tried baking up something delicious... and sometimes they resulted in epic fails. I
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My God Who Weeps: Lament & Grief, the Gospel, and Pastoral Ministry

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       During my seminary years, one of the most important courses I took was grief counseling. Although only an elective, grief counseling was healing for myself and helped me understand how pastors and ministry leaders have an important call to provide care for people who have experienced loss in our congregations. For me, grief refers to the process of experiencing the physical, psychological, behavioral, and social reactions to the perception of loss (Rando, 1993). Attune to this calling for myself, I could see all over social media that people were grieving in some manner because of the pandemic.       Towards the end of 2020, I saw a particular social media post from the parent of a former student who was expressing her frustration over the postponement of student athletics in the Central Valley and the toll it has had on all of her teenage kids. This made me begin thinking about the loss both 2020 graduates and 2021 graduates have experienced because of the pandemic: loss of soc
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Advent Devotional: Waiting on the World to Change

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I wrote this little piece for our church's advent devotional this year. My prayer is that it brings you a little bit of hope and peace during this crazy, unexpected year. Thanks for reading! “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.  2  But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.  3  And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. 4  Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5  Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.  6  He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of chi
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31 Years, 31 Songs & Lessons

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  Year 30 has been a whirlwind for me. If someone would have told me most of it would be spent trying to navigate through a pandemic, I would have laughed internally at them. Nevertheless, 2020 has given me a lot of time to reflect on my life and the lessons I have learned. I attempted to compile a list of 31 lessons I've learned so far...but the process involved a bit more rigor than I wanted to put forth haha. Therefore, I decided it would be a lot easier to share 31 songs that have impacted my life in some shape or form over the years and just might contain some of the lessons I've learned. With that said, in no particular order, here we go! "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2 I've always loved this song, but it deeply impacted me when I realized that the theological transformation I had undergone during seminary made me incompatible with the conservative culture and convictions of my previous church. This was when I knew it was time for
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Black Lives Still F***** Matter

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*Author Note: Thank you for taking the time to read this post. As a pastor/ministry leader, I always feel the pressure to make my posts explicitly theological and/or biblical. In this particular post, I had to give myself permission to not explicitly address the theology at risk or relevant biblical passages. These are simply thoughts and feelings that have been generating inside of me, particularly in regards how to my experience in the evangelical church and my Asian American background relates to justice issues for the Black community. Here we go! Five years ago, I wrote a blog post about why #blacklivesmatter to me, which I discovered was not received well by a number of people in the white evangelical context I was working in at the time. If you want to read the original post, you can click here . Three years ago, I invited Chris Pennywell to share with my previous high school students about his personal experience as a Black man in the Central Valley and how his Afri
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You Can See Me: Vulnerability, Emotional Attraction, and God's Self-Revelation

Have you wondered about what allows someone to be vulnerable? What circumstances or factors allows someone to disclose deep parts of their soul to another person? The religious/spiritual answer would be that it just happens. As I've considered my own acts of vulnerability and God's self-revelation to humanity (aka God as Jesus of Nazareth), I think a helpful explanation can be found in psychology and relationship analysis. Before I dive into the science-y stuff, let me reflect aloud on my own experiences. After the death of my maternal grandmother in fifth grade, I pretty much became an emotional shut-in.  I didn't allow myself to develop deep friendships. I didn't allow myself to open up to people emotionally (at least authentically). I didn't like sharing about my experiences and struggles. During the summer after my first year in college--where I experienced what an intimate relationship with God is and what authentic community looks and feels like--God provide
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The Road to Pentecost: Rediscovering Myself and Jesus

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I write this post knowing that I have twenty-seven final papers (I graded two and then tapped out after xP) to grade but zero motivation to grade them. I write this post with just having given the lecture about Acts 28 and explaining to the students how all we have read is the culmination of Jesus' commission for the disciples to be his witnesses and their empowerment at Pentecost. I write this post with many thoughts and feelings floating through my mind as my first semester of teaching wraps up and I reflect on how far God has brought me since this time last year. Most people don't know that--at this time last year--I knew that my ministry and employment at The Bridge was coming to an end as there were plans for me to part ways with them at the end of the summer. At this time last year, I was also waiting on hearing back from Trinity Lutheran to see if they were going to offer me my current ministry role. On top of all this, I was getting ready to graduate from seminary. As
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