My Experience of God Being in San Diego Urban Project
I want to thank you all for your financial support and prayers. I am so blessed by the San Diego Urban Project. Though the mission was not in another country, there were people from all nations gather in the inner city of San Diego, at City Heights. I have seen a part of America for which I thought it was not possible today: I seen poverty, refugees, giant poor apartment complexes in one block, and trash all over the landscape. There seems nothing significant and exciting about City Heights, when people in other parts of San Diego have fun in the beach or at Sea World. The place seems to be a boring and filthy…
I know that God would bring out His power and strength to let me see how much He cares about the poor, the needy, and the marginalized in our nation. He is after all, the God of justice. However, I have problem seeing how His principles can be live out in our reality. I also have problem how God says about the problems the world faces today. When our system is broken by greed and racism, some people turn a blind eye to serious issues of the world and instead pursue goals of being rich and famous.
God had spoken to all of the people in San Diego Urban Project and we saw Him worked in the city. I will the write a letter about the significant and important moments that have happened to me when I came on the trip. (If you want to talk to me more about the mission trip, you can Skype me or meet me in some place at San Diego so we can talk to each other during the weekdays.) After that, I close by telling a few stories I heard from people about the kids I had met at the trip. I divided the letter into four sections: San Diego Urban Project Overall, Learning Day, New Heights Project, and “Stories and Last Words”.
San Diego Urban Project Overall:
San Diego Urban Project is a mission trip to the inner city in San Diego in City Heights. In the past, the place is known for gangs, rising crime, and violence. It has high-density level in population because the area contains many apartment complexes and few single-family houses. The people who lived there are diverse: refugees from Africa and Asia and immigrants from Mexico and South America countries. The leader of the team is Chizu Shimzu, an InterVarsity staff who had worked in San Diego State University and has started to work with the International Christian Fellowship in UCSD this year. The team members are Thien Pham from California State University, Fullerton; Amber Kolkebeck from University of Illinois, Laura Uribe and Steven Yuan are from University of California, San Diego, and Patrick Chan and Jonathan Kao are UCSD graduates. Lastly, Brandon Buzbee, an InterVarsity staff from UCSD, came to the project with his wife Jes. That was our team. J
The project started at July 1 and ended at August 6. One of the rules in the urban project was that we were not allowed to use any technologies (laptop and cell phones). So in July, I didn’t what was going on the world. I had no idea that Lebron went to the Heats, BP oil spill was still going, or any comments that were made on Facebook. I only use the computer once to give you guys the update on Facebook at library. There were many things we did together in SDUP and, because of that, we became closer to each other and God.
One of the things we did in SDUP was that we went to a different church every Sunday. We went to five different churches: the first was a Somalia church; second was a mass at a Catholic Church, third was the black church, Grace Community Church; and the last one was Harbor Mid-City Church. Their way to worship God and preached to the people in church was different than I was used back in my home church and at Coast Vineyard, and, sometimes, those differences would make me feel a bit uncomfortable. Now that I look back, I wish I was not anxious and try to engage with the congregation. Despite that, I enjoyed going to these churches. The church I enjoyed the most was Harbor Mid-City and for many reasons I will say later on in this letter.
After church, the team did the Sabbath. I really enjoy the Sabbath with the team. When I did the Sabbath at my dorm in UCSD, I did it for four hours and all by myself. I know God was there, but the experience was really weak compare to the Sabbath I had at the mission trip. L At the Sabbath in the mission day, the Sabbath was a whole day with my teammates, talking about our life and God next to Starbucks at the Urban Village in City Heights and eating our 75 cents McDonald ice cream.J One of my favorite moments in the Sabbath was when some of the team did paint drawing. Laura Uribe had brought an art set and canvases. I got really excited when I started to paint and draw a picture of a city on the hill. The Sabbath proved to be the most relaxful time ever with God and our team. I really want to do this when I come back to school. (If you guys are interested, we can try to do the Sabbath together in one of the day per week. We go to McDonald near the apartments to eat our 75 cent McDonald ice cream cone and talk about life and God together. J)
During the project, we lived and interacted with the people in the inner city. The girls moved into the duplex (a building with two houses inside) while the guys and Brandon and Jes Buzbee moved in to the apartment complex in Pacific Cove. The apartment complex has three floors, and there was no elevator, but stairs. The living conditions and the structures of the place almost resemble to the old, high rise apartments in the ghettoes. The five guys had an apartment on the second floor and Brandon and Jes on the third floor. The apartment had one bedroom and one bathroom. It was problem when the guys didn’t bring any furniture, air conditioner, or mattresses for our apartment. Thank goodness Joon Han (used to be InterVarsity staff worker) and Chizu brought furniture such as a table and couches, a lamp, a fan, and the mattresses for us to use in our apartment. Without these gifts, the guys and I would be sleeping on the floor in burning temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit at pitched-dark night. All five guys slept in one bedroom and we rotated mattresses every night. Our neighbors who come to our apartment would be the kids in Pacific Cove. They would come to hang out. Sometimes Brandon and/or Jes would come to our place to play games like Bang! with the kids. Other times, we played soccer on the streets. We also hosted many parties. We had two surprise birthday parties, one for Patrick Chan and another for Steven Yuan. We invited the kids to join the celebration. The kids added the excitement to our friend birthday party. We had movie nights with the kids. We watched the movies from the projector in our apartment. We watched The Incredibles and The Lion King. The most difficult thing living in the apartment was food. Each person received $20 per week to buy food, tithe, and do laundry. The only way we (five guys) could survive was to pool and budget our money so we can buy very cheap food at Food-4-Less. Even though we saved a lot of money (from $20-$30 a week), we didn’t buy enough food for us to last throughout the week. It was our leaders generosity to give us meals that we are alive. J It was funny how we were able to live at all in the apartments with kids coming to our place and having $80 worth of food in our fridge. How we lived? It was all because of God, not us.
Another thing that we did in the mission trip was that the team explored San Diego. For a day, the team split into two groups and looked at two cities. They used the trolley and the bus to get around the San Diego County. Brandon, Laura, Patrick, Lyndsey, and I went to two cities while the other members went another two cities (but they didn’t know where the second city was, so they stayed at the first one, which was Barrio Logan). First city we went to was Downtown San Diego. This place has an interesting history. Ten years ago, the place was a rundown urban place that was blighted. The place would look like skid row in Los Angeles. However, today it is being renewed. It has tall buildings, a trolley station, and the Petco stadium where the major baseball team, Padres, played. Talk about a makeover. Brandon gave us the tour of Downtown San Diego. We went the police station, the luxurious apartments and condominiums, and walked around the fine city. Outside of the downtown, though, were the parts of the rundown urban place. We saw a big Catholic church called Father Joe. The church provided services to the poor and the homeless. I was shocked that there was such a sharp divide between poor and rich in downtown in such a small place; the poor were outside of downtown while the rich and middle class lived inside the city. After walking around downtown, we went on the trolley to the next city, San Ysidro. On the way, we got to see Tijuana in the distance. We could see a giant Mexican flag waving in the middle of that city. It was awesome. San Ysidro was the last stop because the city is near the San Diego-Tijuana border. The city was desolated. It was very dirty and the streets were long. There was a swat shop in the parking lot and some plazas. At the city, we went to see the border fence. The Border Patrols were at their station checking and passing vehicles. There was a lot of traffic from both sides. As we approach the fences, on the sidewalk, we saw the original Spanish missions all along the state of California. When we looked at the entry to Mexico, people walked through the rotating metal door. We walked up the stairs to the bridge that was over the
stations where security checks the vehicles. There was long line of cars we from both side. We looked at the difference between Tijuana and San Ysidro. There were ghettos in the TJ. However, San Ysidro seems to be undeveloped compare to Tijuana. The divide the fence created between two nations and two cities, and the heavy security from US reminded Brandon of the Berlin Wall when he went to Europe last summer. As the Berlin Wall divided the West and East of a German city during the Cold War, the fence divided two nations, created a barrier for coming to the USA, and separated families and friends.
stations where security checks the vehicles. There was long line of cars we from both side. We looked at the difference between Tijuana and San Ysidro. There were ghettos in the TJ. However, San Ysidro seems to be undeveloped compare to Tijuana. The divide the fence created between two nations and two cities, and the heavy security from US reminded Brandon of the Berlin Wall when he went to Europe last summer. As the Berlin Wall divided the West and East of a German city during the Cold War, the fence divided two nations, created a barrier for coming to the USA, and separated families and friends.
One day, the team did an interesting activity. We ate food like the kids in the urban community. First, we ate a candy bar for breakfast… That was disgusting. Then for lunch, we ate chips and candy bar… For dinner, we ate canned pasta of Chef Ravioli. That was the best meal of the day. We called this day Junk Food Day. The food was horrible; it gave me a headache, stomachache, and I was still hungry. The worst part of the day was going to the San Diego International Airport to pick up Lyndsey from Seattle. We were going on two buses for two hours. At first, we were playing games at the bus stop, very energetic from eating candy and chips. However, later on, I felt dizzy, tired and hungry from the long bus ride. I was happy when we came to the airport and met Lyndsey, but going back from the airport for two hours was not pleasing. The food was upsetting our body and we felt very unhealthy. How do the kids in the inner city survived, I have no know. Chizu explained that in the neighborhood, there was no grocery store or chain market; there were only liquor stores in our place. The food from liquor store provided only junk food to kids; there was no meat, vegetables or fruits. The kids that eat food from the liquor store would later on bring them to serious health issues such as diabetes and heart problems.
Learning Day:
The main activity that the team in SDUP did was Learning Day. Every Monday, we learned four main issues that the people in the inner-city community face: environmental issue, human trafficking, immigration issue, and race. We watched a movie and talked the issues. We visited place that address or affect these issues, talked about how God sees these problems, and how we should respond from what He says in His Word.
In environmental issue, we talked about how our nation mass produce our food. We put animals in small cramp spaces while using large amount of fields to make crops. However, mass-producing food for profit is bad because this method ruins the environment and the natural environmental system. Pests destroy our crops and become stronger after being immune to chemicals and animals are prone to diseases by being confined in close spaces. Adding vaccines and medicines only make the diseases become more potent than before. The way we mass-produce our food by making too much of crops in large fields and animals in small spaces is the reason why we had recalls on our food. In the movie, Fresh, there is a farmer who is a Christian. He raised chickens and cows organically, letting cows have space and eating grass and space to move. He talked about the importance of being stewards for the Earth and raising the animals and crops organically for their health (and it is good for our health once the animals and crops become our food). After the movie, we did a Bible study in Genesis where Creation begun with John, the director of Urban Project. The Bible says that God gave man authority over the Earth, but not to use it for our selfishness but to care for the Creation God has created. When we “subdue” creation, it is like the way we prune the trees. We make nature look more beautiful, not destroying the environment. After Bible study, we went to one of our friend house and met Jeremy and his wife. In their backyard, we saw the chickens in their chicken coup; the ducks and goose; and the compose where they put carbon base trash like banana peel and leaves into the box of dirt and worms to make the soil fertile and be use later on to grow crops. I liked their little farm. It was cool.
In human trafficking, we learned that human trafficking is the modern day slavery not only in Asia and South America countries but in America and Europe too. First, we watched a thriller called Trade. My mind was baffled of how girls in Third World countries could be abducted in street at daylight and Eastern European women, desperate for jobs, could be fool by smugglers claiming to be an agency that would give her the job. We visited to a secular group that deals with the issue in the legal system and rescue the victims of sex trafficking. The organization is committed to fight against sex trafficking that goes on between Tijuana and San Diego. The leader of the organization was passionate. She worked with victims of sex trafficking and told the tactics of how the smugglers bring women and children sex trade, and the victims were degraded to sex slaves. At the end of her presentation, she gave us fact sheets and posters about human trafficking. At night, a woman, who is the Christian, worked in a special place for women of abuse, ex-prostitutes, and victims of sex trafficking call shelters. She told stories their past and the start in their new life by going to school and working in a new job. The shelter is a refuge for the women to get away from pimps and abusive husbands. (I was not there at the time she came to talk about it. I went to medical clinic for my health issue with Chizu.) The loss of innocence and violating the women and children their very being and the image of God to meet the increasing demand for sex in this trade is frightful and pure evil. For them to recover their life from sex trafficking takes counseling and a very long time.
In the immigration issue, we went to the border with our guest speaker, Lars, in a California State Park, the Border Field State Park. In the park, we saw an old rusted fence that US created in 1992. We also saw another new higher fence being built to distance us from getting close to the old fence. I wonder about the amount of money put into this project to stop immigrants in Mexico and countries in South America and Central America from coming to the United States. Another interesting fact was how developed Tijuana was (there was city, people playing in the beach, and bull fighting stadium) but not the park in San Diego (it was an empty natural preserve, an abandoned park of empty dusty benches and unused public bathroom, and a border patrol). The park was also called Friendship Park. It was a special park because Pat Nixon, wife of President Nixon, went to the park to celebrate the idea that two nations could meet each other and have friendly relations. There was a statue to remember the event. When the fence came up in 1992, people from both sides of the fence came to meet together once for a while to see each other. Crossing over the border and deportation had separated parents from their children and husband from their wife. Sometimes people would hold hands through the fence to pray together. Well today, the fence not only ruined the park but it surrounded the statue. The border patrol told us we could not get near the statue. The desolation of park is a pretty depressing. Lars was our guest speaker. He had deep knowledge of the history of US in dealing with immigrants. We talked about government policies such as the North America Free Trade Act (NAFTA) negatively affected Mexico economy and destroyed their market. Because the people in Mexico have no opportunities to work and earn, they would faced starvation and death with their family. However, America offered a small yet significant opportunity for the people to gain higher living standard and give their family enough food by working as migrant workers, garden workers, and cleaners in gated communities. Many would take the risk to cross the border for a better life rather than starving to death or seeing their family dead. How could God be in this? We talked of ideas of how a rich nation, the US, can help Mexico with their economy rather than beating Mexico market to the ground. We don’t see any probable solutions and issue is very complicated, but since Mexico is our neighbor, I think God calls us to love and help them improve their living conditions in their place somehow. In addition, I remembered the verses in Exodus that Israel should treat foreigners kindly, because the Israelites were once foreigners who came and lived in the land of Egypt safely from famine. God does care about immigrants.
In the issue of race, it is extremely complicated. Race is part of America past and race still affects our society to this day. We watched two movies, Freedom Writers and Crash. We were not comfortable about the problems the minorities had to faced and how racism played in our government and its policies hurt a particular group. Inspired by Freedom Writers, we went on a road trip to Los Angeles to visit the Museum of Tolerance (MOT). We went to the Holocaust exhibit and saw how Nazis rose to power in Germany and persecute the Jewish people and heard a story of a Holocaust survivor. It was crazy the Nazis took advantage of the people in the times economic depression, distrust of their government, and low national pride. Because of this, Hitler rose to power and became their dictator. Hitler and the Nazis would used their power to plan and exterminate the Jews and brainwashed the nation to believe that the Jews were a problem to the Western society through propaganda. The Jews placed in ghettoes, and then killed without mercy in concentration camps. The realization that all that killing came from a stereotype and hate scared me. After the museum, we went to Kevin’s house. Kevin used to be an InterVarsity staff for USC. Now, he now works as a pastor in the inner city of Los Angeles. We looked through the passages from Genesis to Revelation of how His Word talks about race. To name a few examples, Esther when the Jews were about to be exterminated by Haman, Tower of Babel, at the Pentecost when people of different culture can hear their language from Peter, and when people of all tribes and nations praise God in heaven as described in Revelation. Then in the Commission, Jesus calls all Christians to go preach the gospel to all nations and tribes. I can see that in the Kingdom of God, people of different ethnicities praised Him together. It is difficult to admit but we do discriminate people by race and culture whether we know it or not. We are different, and God values that. However, our differences should not be the reason to hurt or tease them. It is strange that stereotypes can be true, but we not to looked down on them because of their stereotype that we can reach out to them. As the Samaritan show mercy to the Jewish man who was beaten and almost killed in road, we show mercy and grace to people of nations.
In the mission project, the team split up to three groups to work in their sites. There are three sites: Hope in the City, Bridge of Hope, and New Heights Project. Patrick and Lyndsey worked in Hope in the City with their leader Joon Han. He is a funny; he is serious and politically incorrect. They went to business meetings and seminars so they can learn how to create economic opportunities and teach people in the inner city to create their own business. Laura, Jonathan, and Brandon worked in the Bridge of Hope under the leadership of Sheri. This group is amazing. They donate furniture, food, and clothes to families who are in need. Most of the families were refugees who have come to America. The workers said that God worked wonders in that group. Whatever Sheri needs to provide furniture for the family or pay rent for the building, God answered her. The workers would drive to the donor’s house to take the furniture from the donors’ house and then delivered it to the people in need at their home. They had an adventure driving all over San Diego to pick up and deliver the furniture to the family. Lastly, I worked with Thien, Amber, and Steven in New Heights Project.
New Heights Project:
In the New Heights Project, we worked with high school students who lived in area to reach out to the kids in the urban poor community. Most of the high schoolers were Christians that are hoping to see how God will use them and increase their faith; but two, Isabel and Kevin, were agnostics and got the job to help kids while checking out the faith. Another student, Salut, was an atheist and Buddhist, who wanted the job for the money, and tries to understand what Christianity is. The high schoolers are interns, and they were paid $300 for one month, working with us in Vacation Bible School and San Diego Refugee Tutoring. The high school interns received Servant-Leader training, orientation how to do their jobs in the programs, and had debriefs every Tuesday and Thursday. Each servant-leader training and debrief had a sermon from a guest speaker or pastor about how God can influence the community in the positive way through the church. The groups split into four groups to discuss and support each other: each group has a college student as a leader and two-three high school interns. The job of the college students is to mentor the high school interns. In my group, I had one more college student, Ashlee, who worked with World Impact, and three high school interns, Jhordan, Melanie, and Ana. (Ashlee was on the missionary trip from Enumclaw, Washington, and came to teach immigrants and refugees how to speak English as their second language.) I loved my group. Each individual are great people. We got to opened up to talk about our life struggles and how God had done for them. We also worked together for Kidz Club. The leaders of the project are Kathy Pham, youth leader for Inward, Outward, and Beyond in Hoover High school, and Chris Brewster, assistant track coach from Hoover High school. In total, the project had 5 college students, 11 high school interns, and 2 leaders. Together we reached out to the kids in the poor urban community.
The first thing New Heights project done was promoting VBS. Each group did “Kidz Club” an area close to the church. My group got 53rd street. For two weeks on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00-5:00PM, we went to their apartment complex, spread the blue tarp on the parking lot, and started Kidz Club. We would invite the kids from 6-12 years old around the neighborhood and did games, worship, crafts, snack, and Bible storytelling. Each person was responsible for their station: Jhordan was on worship, Melanie on games, Ana on crafts, and I was on Bible storytelling. The kids were excited and it was difficult to calm them down. The kids were trying our patience, giving us a hard time. However, we actually being with them and enjoyed coming down there to spend time with the kids. At the last day of Kidz Club, we signed up for kids to register for VBS that would happen two weeks later.
New Heights Project also promoted VBS by ice cream social. After the last Kidz Club on Thursday, we had an ice cream social at the Colina De Sol Park. We served ice cream to parents and their kids. We played with the kids and tried to register them to VBS. We also went door-to-door around the area so we could bring kids to VBS.
After that, we had San Diego Refugee Camp. The three educators thought of the program back in January and wanted to make a summer program for the kids of refugee family. According to their experience, when kids had emigrated from the country that was reigned by government corruption, war, and persecution and put in a society that has structured and rules, it is difficult for them to assimilate. The kids saw war and hunger but never attended preschool and acquired the skills to sit in one place and listen to the authority. In addition, their culture differs from ours on what to eat, how to listen to authority, and how they learn. Right now, San Diego is #1 in US to receive refugees all over the world: Iraqi, Burma, and all parts of Africa including Sudan and Uganda. Their religious background and race are diverse: Muslim, Christian, nonreligious, and African, Middle-Eastern, and Burma. Thanks to Ashlee, she set up the program and created the San Diego Refugee Tutoring for the refugee kids. The program would last for three days. There, the children learned English and played a lot. They got to go to the Children Museum at Downtown San Diego. On another day, they saw chicken that one of the teachers brought and record on our cell phone what they have learned about chickens. Before the camp begun, we picked up the kids in their home and walked with them to an elementary school, Ibarra, where we hosted the program. I picked up Islam, Robriel, and Aram. They were from Africa and are Muslim. Then I picked up Kay Reh and Say Reh. They were Burmese. During the program, the kids split up into groups. Each group had three to five kids with two leaders, either two high school interns or one college and one high school. I worked with Mallysa, a high school intern, to teach and look over four kids. Shadhad and Ban were Iraqi refugees who came over to America two months ago. I was shocked that they know some English. Another kid in our group was Musa. He was from Africa, either Uganda or Sudan, and came over to America a year ago. The last kid was Prisca. She is African, but I don’t remembered where she was from, but she liked to talk to Mallysa and me. After the Refugee Camp, the next day the New Heights Project did a BBQ and invited the kids and their family to come. They also registered some of the kids to VBS. Overall, it was very fun. The kids enjoyed the camp and, though the little boys liked to jump on our backs all the time, we had fun too. When the BBQ was done on Sunday, we did Day Camp on Monday.
Three days before San Diego Refugee Tutoring, we prepped for Day Camp. Day Camp was VBS that was going to last from Monday to Friday at the time 9:00AM-3:00PM. We practiced skits, listed materials for crafts and games, trained camp counselors, and made a schedule for the program. It was going to last five days and we were expecting 150 kids to come. The program cost $3 for one kid or $5 for all the kids in the family from the age of 6-12. Four organizations worked together to make the program happened: the first organization is the New Heights Project, second is the Urban Life (a youth group of students who graduated or were from Crawford High School under the leadership of Rob), third is World Impact, and last is a team of missionaries from Alabama. (The team from Alabama was invited over by the pastor in Harbor Mid-City, who once lived in Alabama then was called to go to preach the gospel at City Heights.) Together, the groups worked together to reach out to the kids in our community, and it was extremely difficult. The first half, 9-12, was the rotation of games, craft, skits, and story time. The second would be the major recreational activities.
On the first day, we had 170 kids showed up. The registration was very slow to process all the kids. A camp counselor would supervised 10-12 kids in their group, and has difficulty managing the group when few kids were causing trouble or teasing at another kid. The food team was not prepared to serve that many kids, so they tried to feed the kids first and the adults later. As a result, many leaders were starving. L I was with the recreational and saw two to three kids go to the nurse for each game the kids played. The first day was overwhelming. The second and third day went smoother, but it was still difficult. I did not realized how kids could be cruel to other kids because of differences. Racism played a big part: “Stop that Mexican from hitting,” “That Asian kid started it.” Kids who behaved awkward (for mental illness or had problems at home) were victims of being teased a lot. We could feel the sense of frustration from their fights and inability to resolve the issues. Thank goodness Kathy gave the kids the stern warning about teasing others and telling them that the VBS is supposed to be a safe place. If they try to tease again, we would kick them out.
I was part of the recreational team. We set up the games, gave instructions, and played the games with the kids. Their favorite games were soccer and splish splish splash. (Splish Splish Splash is a game similar to duck duck goose except the person “splish” the people in the circle with a cup of water. The way the person tags the individual was to splash a cup of water on their head.)
On the fourth and fifth day, the kids have to go the community pool on the second half of the program. The girls went first, and then, the boys. They had such a fun time, even though the boys felt awkward changing their clothes in the locker after swimming. For some of the kids, this was their first time on the pool, especially for the refugee kids.
When Day Camp was over on Friday, we hosted a BBQ, inviting the family to come and enjoy the event with their children. The BBQ had two bouncing house for the kids.
The best part of the trip was when Isabel and Kevin accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior on one Wednesday at the second last week of the project. Isabel went with Thien and Kathy to McDonalds and she accepted Christ there. Later, Kevin went with Steven and Kathy to Jack-In-Box and he accepted Christ. At night, the SDUP invited Kevin and Isabel to join worship and prayer. We worshipped God together and we prayed for Kevin and Isabel. At the following Sunday, we were at Harbor Mid-City Church and saw them baptized and shared their testimony with us. It was awesome.
A week later after the mission trip, Mallysa was baptized and shared her testimony. I wished I was there to see her, but that is okay. J
Stories and Last Words:
Lastly, I want to depart to you the stories of the kids in the neighborhood I met in mission trip. I feel it is necessary to share their stories to you that you may know their life. God gave many kids and families to the people from SDUP and New Heights Project, and we love them as God as loved us.
Isaac is 11 or 12 years old. He was one of our neighbors when we lived at Pacific Cove and saw him at Day Camp. He came to our place to talk and hang out with guys in the apartment. When the guys had time, we would play soccer in the streets with a group of boys in the neighborhood. I heard that he is a very talented soccer player who is at an extremely talented team for the youth. Despite that, his parents don’t feel like attending his son games, which will be at Los Angeles during August. His coach takes him to LA so he can play with the team.
Christian is 12 years old. He was also one our neighbors in Pacific Cove. We loved him. He is really special to the kids in the apartment complex. He is sort like a leader of the group of kids in Pacific Cove. Thien taught Christian how to play couple of notes on the guitar. We also played soccer with him. Despite his smiles and coolness, he has a difficult past. His mother left him behind with his grandmother and grandpa. His mom was a crack-addict and a single mother of many kids (I forgot the number). When she was about to leave, she asked the grandmother to take Christen, because the mom said that Christian is “useless.”
One day, as Thien walked the Burmese kids up the tall hill, he asked the kids if the hill was difficult. They said it was not as difficult when they had to hike the hills for days back in their country. Later on, Ashlee told him Thien of their life back in their country. The kids and their family would hike over hills and walked through jungles to find food and run away from the soldiers and the government police. If the solider caught them, they would be killed.
Jonathan Kao and Steven Yuan have their stories for SDUP online. Here are the links to their blogs:
http://stly.tumblr.com/page/1 (Search the first and second page for his entries on SDUP.)
Thanks for reading this letter. The people whom God place in my life during the mission are in heart; I will remember until we meet in heaven. God bless you and good luck in your next chapter in your life. He is has been faithful and, as long as we follow, He will be with us until the very end. I will end in this verse, because I heard this verse used many times in SDUP.
Luke 4:16-19
So He [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the
brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are
oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of
the LORD.”
