The Ministry of Margaret Yu

Following our Hero and learning to become a hero for others…(Thanks for praying for our Epic Movement Student Conferences!)

Margaret — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:54:32 +0000

One of two Epic student Confs. (this is from Philly)

One of my heroes in life is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His life has profoundly impacted me. Because of him, I think of service, integrity and courage in a different way. Since his influence is so positive, he has definitely help shape my values and commitments to godly causes.

So, it was an honor for our Epic Movement nationwide to serve and lead Asian American college students to think about what it means to follow our Hero, Jesus and to become a hero for God’s kingdom; all during the MLK weekend. For students to learn what it means to be all that God wants them to be and be truly themselves and using their God given gifts to serve God and people. We also got to serve the various communities even on that Sunday. I think that honors Dr. King having us serve the community as it reflects his values. We went from passing out boxes of love for those in need. We survey people about their lives and communities. In fact, we saw Asian American students able to initiate so many spiritual conversations that Sunday We were able to see 13 people receive Christ into their lives on that day. These students and their faith also made heroic efforts to trust God and serve others. (We were so proud of these students faith and their hearts!)

We had 2 conferences in San Fran and Philly. It was so fun to have it simultaneously. That is the power of what God is doing in Epic. We were able to see the diversity of His works and yet, the work of his Holy Spirit yet so similar. We were able to be involved in also seeing God deepen their relationships with Him. God moved many of them to give their allegiance to Him.

Thanks for praying for me and our students for that weekend.

Your efforts help all of us to continue to share about the Hero of our lives, Jesus Christ to our communities. We long to see God raise up the next generation of heroes of faith for our communities of faith.

My own voice….(I found an old post from last year)

Margaret — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:39:36 +0000

Recently at a conference where I had to do a presentation on the state of our ministry, I found myself learning about me and how I deal with stress. Since I had not planned on doing this presentation earlier, I wanted my director’s notes on this presentation and what he wanted represented.
It turned out pretty frustrating when I discovered that all of his notes to me were just a plain old power point presentation.

I was flustered. I was also very tired since I was already very busy at the conference.
However, I did have some excitement as I love giving the direction or the vision of our ministry.
During those 24 hours, I found myself face to face with the real me.

My first encounter with myself again was to realised that when I am stressed, I turn into a more time conscious person. I also had a strong incident with my teammates because I felt they were not aware of the time. I sort of snapped at them. They were gracious. I did apologize once I heard my own voice of emotions or reactions. I heard my own voice of reactions or my heart.

I also found out that I am different from others who cannot embrace doing things like doing a power point. Although I do not prefer that style of communication as it feels so corporate and not as friendly, I can do use it if I had to. I learned that I definitely prefer a different style. I again found that I have been richly blessed with a different set of experiences as a woman leader than most. I have had to make many more of these types of presentation and I was not overwhelmed by it as much as others who were on my team.

Secondly, I discovered that when I was stressed and tired that I am not as calm. I saw this in myself in how I led the first part of our meeting. I was just nervous or stressed or tired.
I could feel it. I so long to be that calming leader. And yet, I see that I may never be that.
I was a bit down on myself when another older woman leader from another ministry commented on how the second day of my presentation, that I was really in my stride (which I felt as well.).
She noted that I was very much myself (which I always pray for.) and was able to engage all of us since I was so open about myself. She appreciated that.

Upon reflection, I was grateful for her comments. Because in some ways, I love the idea of being a calm presence, yet, I am not sure if I will ever be that given my personality. Perhaps the non anxious presence of leaders that help move a nation or a company or ministry to great works will never be my prototype. I am not sure? I do know that I can provide a presence that looks inward to being ourselves and being open to trust God for what he has for us. I think I can communicate the heart of the matter with a heart to connect with others. I think more than anything else, my desire to be myself can be my best gift to those that I lead and serve.
So, I think I may never be that calming non anxious leader. But I can be me.

Thanks Matty for my moment of Christmas!

Margaret — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:04:21 +0000

It had been a tiring but good day on Dec. 30. Sitting there on the bench, while my visiting nephew and niece were engaging at the fun train set display at the Discovery museum, I was just kind of out of it.

Earlier that day, I had been reflecting over my Christmas break thus far. I was reminded of how this break was good in terms of having family fly in to visit and having some time in Las Vegas. My brother and his family surprised my parents by flying into Las Vegas where we also met up with another family friend. It was a great surprise and all were shocked. We ate and we checked out the various hotels and the new city center. Parents enjoyed being able to play slots as well. It was very hectic and full of people. Then, after Christmas day, we all drove home to my house. So, my home was wall to wall people; but very cozy. My nephew and niece are the cutest ever. (I am biased.) Thus, my week had been very eventful and fast paced.
But again, this kind of Christmas break was more common place for my childhood as I did not grow up in a Christian home. Sad to say, I do not have many memories of celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.

So, there I was just sitting and resting when I spotted Matty. Matty was this little boy of 7 or 8 years who sat in a wheel chair near where I was sitting. It seemed that Matty probably has Cerebral Palsy and was not able to function as well in terms of moving around. In my short time of watching him and his Father, I never heard him say a word or move very much. But his eyes were on his family. As I became absorbed in his story for that moment, I began to feel really sad for him; almost pitying him. There he was sitting there, while all of the other children were running around trying to capture all of the fun and mischief. There he was not able to communicate to his family, while my nephew and niece and other children were chatting and gabbing away with their family and other kids. As I was feeling sad for Matty, I began to cry. Matty was so helpless and so fragile and vulnerable. He could do nothing by himself. His Father made sure that Matty was shuttled to and about to various displays and fun stations as he would seek to get Matty to receive the full fun experience.

It was at that moment that God confirmed in my heart that I did not need to feel sorry for Matty. But that I needed to look around to his family, esp. Matty’s Father. I was brought to mind by God how even though Matty could do nothing for his Dad, that this Dad was still pouring out patience and love to him. In that moment, I did not see helplessness per se, but I saw love flowing out. I saw the love of a Father for his son who would do everything within his power to make this a great afternoon for Matty. I also saw the trust and love that Matty had for his family, how much his family also needed Matty’s love and presence. He was a viable part of the family.

For that moment, I saw myself in Matty’s shoes or wheelchair. I am just like him, helpless in my human condition of weaknesses and sin. And yet, my Heavenly Father saw fit to make sure that he would love me no matter how I inept I was in repaying that love. That He loves me no matter how incapable I am at times of doing anything right for him. Really, that his love is not based on my actions or non actions. It simply is his love to me lived out in grace. And as Matty’s Father’s love also gave Matty dignity and the ability to love his Father back, I also relished in how Jesus gave me so much more in that while I was helpless or a sinner, God gave me dignity by dying on the cross for me in order to demonstrate his love. (Romans 5:8) Like Matty, I have so much worth from God, and thus I so long to love my Heavenly Father and others back. I so want to love him back for how he loves me first and foremost. (I John 4:10)

God also reminded me that he does not pity us in our frailty. But he actually gives us dignity and a new way of loving back with our response to him and others. God at that moment taught me again why Jesus came to be born on Christmas day. It is for people like me and Matty who are vulnerable, helpless or even at times hopeless. He came so that we could have dignity and learn the way of love…from Him and through him to others. My vulnerability is really for the way of love to be demonstrated.

I left the museum with my precious moment of Christmas. So, it was a great Christmas for me!
(Thank You, Matty!)

P.S. Since that time, I have had more thoughts on this. I think I cried because I am not comfortable with Matty or my own vulnerability. If I could have it my way, I rather not be fragile or vulnerable. It is scary and it is out of control as others can have power to help or hurt you. The Lord has been teaching me that vulnerability that seems most fearful can actually be a blessing for when God’s love can flow through supernaturally.

Jan 1: Sitting with a friend of mine who is a survivor of breast cancer, I learn so much about this way of love. My friend lives in fear of her cancer coming back and the potential of early death. She has never felt as vulnerable as she does today. Yet, in those moments of fear and panic, she is learning to lean into God and his love.

It is the way of love and it is the way the Father has carried her this past year. I cried with her, too.
For the way to learning about love is through her vulnerable state. I wish it was a different story. But it is actually the Christmas story in her life. (I love my friend and how like Matty, her vulnerability has taught me to receive love and to love.) It is the Christmas story in my life, too.

Thanks for praying for the Job Seekers club!

Margaret — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:15:58 +0000

It was a privilege to be able to just share with about 18 job seekers near where I live. It was a God thing to be able to serve them on Dec. 17. Thanks for praying for this opportunity. I sense that God used it.
The club itself is geared towards people who are job seeking; not a spiritual club.

I was asked to share about getting through the holidays while dealing with the stresses of job seeking. I gave a few pointers. But I just shared with them how being a job seeker requires mental and spiritual well being. I just encouraged folks to gain a holistic picture of job seeking. My gift to them was that I brought with me a few books that I had recommended….some Christian, some not. I brought out about 15 and folks took most of these, including one Bible.

I was much encouraged that others were encouraged by what I shared. So, thanks for praying.
Continue to pray for these job seekers and job seekers in our nation. Pray that during these hard times, that people will find their true calling from God to be his children and to live out his purposes.

One overall highlight was that when I finished, some of the club members stood up and said that they were Christian, too and that they encouraged resources for networking at a great church nearby our town. It was neat to see their hearts be so open about their faith with the other club members. My personal highlight was having a friend from my church come out and support me and pray for me during that hour.

God is so good. My cup runneth over that we can serve in the midst of this economical depression.

Women’s Brunch Update

Margaret — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:10:37 +0000

harvest women Big group picture 09Thanks for praying for our church’s women’s brunch. The fun thing about this was that it was first time that the team was made up of newer Harvest Church women. It was 1/2 by the women’s ministry team and 1/2 new women who wanted to serve. I had the privilege of coordinating our efforts.

Our highlights were hearing 5 women share their passion or ways that they are using their gifts. We also had a moment where we all sang Silent Night. It was as if we all slowed down and realised what this season is all about. We had prayed for women to feel pampered and loved on as well as feeling encouraged to share their gifts to serve God and others. God answered our prayers.

My first Christmas brunch was last year and I loved it. This year was even more fun to just serve and not speak and hear others share. We were very blessed and we felt the Spirit of God upon us. Originally we were a bit nervous with a count of 16 who rsvp’ed. But as with this time of year, we actually saw about 63 join us. It was such a refreshing time for me.

I also highly enjoyed serving with the other women who were so talented and gifted. I loved their hearts for women and serving others. I loved even their heart for women who don’t know God’s love. I believed God was honored by their faith and love and service.

I love my church and what God is doing. Thanks for praying! (Also, had yummy food!)

What God is doing.

Margaret — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:44:08 +0000

I was much encouraged by my visit to San Diego last weekend. The CEC church is a great church where God is blessing the congregation with some great leadership, be it Mandarin, Cantonese or English speaking.
I loved seeing how the Senior Pastor taught in English. But more so, that the entire church is being influenced greatly by the pastor’s heart. I loved listening to the Cantonese pastor’s wife talk humbly about grace and true guilt and false guilt. I loved seeing a Chinese American church having small groups to discuss the topic of : Life’s Healing Choices. God is at work! After seeing this, I am more excited than ever before about what we are seeking to do in Epic National. We are all seeking to do what is best in shepherding our people and in shepherding some of the Asian American cultural realities. It makes me want to partner more with the various AA churches. I am very humble by how God is choosing to work in our generation. Very FUN!

What it means to have faith….

Margaret — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:32:45 +0000

In chatting with my ministry sponsors and supporters recently, I have been hit with how faith is a very mysterious thing. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and yet, unseen. That is what we know from the Word of God. But really what does that mean? I think faith is very much an intangible and yet, very tangible thing that we must nourish.

In trusting God for my own financial situations and life, I have learned over and over again how we so often trust other things without realizing it. “Afaith” (I made up a word?): faith that is not typical of what it is and yet, seems more neutral. I believe “afaith” creeps into our souls very very easily and without much fight from us.

I have seen how faith must be nurtured, planted and built up like our muscles. I have learned that in order for me to grow in my faith, I must be diligent and diligent in grace and truth to live that kind of faith.
Even when I don’t like something, I must pursue and pursue. This is also very true when we think of the spiritual realm; that those who desire to live godly lives will be persecuted by the Enemy of our souls.

My growth lesson is that I tend to want to give up too soon whenever I find resistance. I almost always want to defer to others to do the calling or job rather than rolling up my sleeves and going after it all with God. I am learning that to practice faith, I must build up my endurance muscle. I had thought I was good at this. I think I have been good enough; but not quite the extent.

The Lord is teaching me that I cannot live my life with good enough. But that he desires for me to be vigilant about preserving and keeping my faith in Him. He wants me to overcome with faith in Him even when many obstacles are found.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit to continue to trust Him for our lives like that. To let Him give us faith while we are persistent to keeping faith in Him.
This is what it means to have faith in Him and with Him. I have many lessons to learn……

A Trend

Margaret — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:48:00 +0000

Anecdotely, I have heard of stories of Asian American women in their late 30’s and early forties who’d up and left their husband for the other side whose grass seemed greener. It has been a bit
unsettling to think about how devout Christians who serve God and his church are seeking divorce and running away from their families. In the last 3 years, I can name 3 of those cases of the wife running off to be with another man while forsaking their families. It grieves me alot to see this trend.
It makes me wonder if these women (who were involved in various campus ministries in the past) were mentored to handle such challenges as their hearts, fears, disappointments and emotions.
I makes me very sad to realize that I could have been a part of what drove them to this.

I don’t fully fault myself; just want to be learning from these incidents. When I look back at how I used to do ministry to AA’s, I do not think it was contextualized to deal with their deeper core issues. I know that I did not only focuse on skils; I recalled talking alot about the heart. But I do not think that my early years at Michigan, Milwaukee or Metamorphosis displayed ministries of the soul. I know this for I was not fully there myself. I could not have taken these women somewhere where I had not been myself.

So, all I can do now is pray for these women and their families. It does however motivate me to continue to minister differently with Epic. I want to help our students and staff be built up in healthy discipleship so that the above trend would happen less and less.

If I could do it all over again, I would..

Spend more time looking at their family of origin and deal with their father and mother wounds.

I would teach them to truly grow up as an adult emotinally, and spiritually.

I would teach them to feel, to live and be comfortable with emotions and feelings.

I would teach them to deal with disappointments and losses.

I would teach them to find their voice, and to find dignity in their worth.

I would live out a healthy community of grace and truth, one where confession is the norm.

I would teach them how to fail well without shaming themselves to death.

I would teach them to know how deeply loved they are.

I would teach them to deal with shame head on! And to deal with their cultural baggage.

I would teach them to also value AA cultural values, not just bag on AA values in general.

I would teach them to play and rest and enjoy life and not just survive it.

I would pray for God to heal them more.

I would pray for our ministry to model a community of grace, truth, and love, where failure is not the end of relationships.

I would teach them to deal with conflicts in a healthy way.

I would love them more!

I would pray to Jesus to break the bondages that are there in all of our souls.

Gun Shy

Margaret — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:35:00 +0000

I am really gun shy or almost afraid of anything that minimizes power displays and realities.
Having lived most of my life surviving so well as a minority, it is now my turn to truly live and not survive. No longer do I want to minimize my feelings, hurts, dreams and fears away. But instead, I want to feel it all without making excuses for those who may not understand or worse yet, for those who must truncate my emotions in order to avoid what my feelings may infer about them.

In these last few months, I am so aware of the degrees of pain that I have had shuffled under the table for the sake of harmony , and some times for the sake of spirituality. As I continue to listen to other minorities’ stories, I also get absorbed into their dismays which causes me to relive mine. It has been an emotional journey that has caught me by surprise. It is at times so frightening or so charged that I wonder about the power that it has over me.

Is this power good? Is it for revenge? Is it cynism that comes from betrayal? Is it basic distrust? It has made me wonder if I need to relive the various horrors and have Jesus reassure me of his presence and love. From there, I will find wisdom and truth of how to live. (Psalm 51:6)

For now, I am not comfortable with being myself. I am gun shy! For now, I think I need to live and stay in the pain before I move on too quickly which is my past defense mechanism for survival. What I need is to truly live and feel all of this with God and let him speak to my uneasy self.

My compass….

Margaret — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:38:00 +0000

This summer, I was blown away by 2 compliments that came my way. They both came at me in a nice surprising way. And I was very much taken aback by both of them.

As you can surmise, this summer was exciting yet humbling for me. It was a summer in which I felt I had to desperately seek others to help me sort through some deep emotional turmoil. (Read my previous blog about my humbling summer.) So, when one of our students wrote a thank you card to me…I was a bit insulted at first by her remarks. She mentioned the usual things that one says to enccourage a mentor : God used you to help her grow; You were an example of faith, etc. But then, she made this comment: ” I learned grace from you and you modeled this for me and us. You are one of the best at failing well.” At first, I was a bit shocked or disturbed by that comment; it is not something that anyone has ever said to me. Then, it hit me that this was what I wanted and prayed for esp. in light of ministering to Asian Americans who often times do not ever fail or fail well. It dawned on me that she had given me a compliment or encouragement that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me especially in this context. To me, it should be one of our goals as ministers for the AA community: That our lives would be examples of those who live out grace, and those who can fail well and teach others to do the same.

The second compliment came while I was having breakfast with a staff and her husband who is not in our circle of service but is very supportive of his wife. We had a great time fellowshipping over good food. As he shared his experiences in ministry, he also went on to share with me his outside perspective on our Epic National Staff Conf that took place a few days prior to our breakfast. He described similar things that I would expect from others: our conf. was modelled by vulnerabilty and honesty which he loved; engaging content that was visionary. It was rather encouraging and the usual suspect. However, I dropped my jaw when he said his final statement: Well, the most important thing that I felt from your national leadership in general that was different than other Christian leadership context was this: You all live out and showcased Servant Leadership. When he said this, I was speechless. I felt like he read a page out of our Epic National LD team’s notes and values and just recited back verbatim. It was indeed the kindest compliment that I think that one can ever receive in ministry: to live out servant leadership. For indeed, it is one thing to lead and yet another to be known for servant leadership like Jesus live out. I pondered on his statement for days.

These 2 compliments certainly put things into perspective for me. They blew me away and emphatically guided me back to some of the truest values that I want to live out as a minister in the AA community. I feel that these compliments have given me my compass for ministry with AA’s.