Enter In

 I recently designed this logo for this year's regional staff conference for my old region, Great Lakes East. The design concept came from the idea of a gothic rosette window, with a 'trinitarian' allusion. The theme "Enter In" refers to coming into God's presence in prayer. The conference will revolve around prayer and hearing from God an authoritative vision of where He is leading our campus ministry.

This process ended up being a lot of fun. I've never worked with rosettes before and I realized there are endless possibilities with color, shape, and lines when you have something with so many aspects of symmetry. Those artists in that era of architecture and art were super smart!

my interpretation of a gothic rosette as a logo

these were a few of the other designs i had mocked up for the client

example of a real gothic rosette window design

Speaking

Tonight was the first of four consecutive days of public speaking for me this week. I got to share about my ministry at my church's young adults fellowship group meeting. I think it went well, but already I'm beginning to feel nervous about the rest of this weekend's events!

Please pray for me over the next few days!

• Friday night: I'm speaking  on Nehemiah at Asian InterVarsity's large group meeting (in Ann Arbor). Pray that God would speak through me and that the students will receive God's Word and be challenged to take risks for God's mission. 
• Saturday afternoon: I'll be sharing with many from my support team and hosting a dinner for them at my family's house. Pray that it will be a time of mutual blessing as I connect with those who pray for and support me in my ministry. 
• (Pray for God's strength for my mom as well, who has been busy cleaning and cooking to help with this event, I thank God so much for her!) 
• Sunday morning: I'm sharing briefly in all 3 services at my home church, Chinese Bible Church. Pray that church members would be encouraged to see how God is working through InterVarsity.

Thank you all for praying, I am so grateful for each of you!

Topics?

I've been told that in order to have an effective blog you need to post regularly and often (at least 3 times a week). Yikes. I think I'm usually proud of myself if I am able to post twice a month.

I don't think I'd have enough work/projects to post more than once a week. So what other kinds of things should I write about here? Does anyone who reads this have any ideas? Here are some that you can give feedback on:

- reflections on Scripture I'm reading/studying
- art or design that I find inspiring
- media reviews (books or movies that I'm reading/watching)
- photography (once in a while I like to pretend that I am a photographer)
- tips and tools for design (which I will probably need to steal from other people who actually know what they're talking about)

Anything else?

Testimonies from international students

 

I designed this banner for their group as well.

Remember the ICF logo and shirt I designed a few weeks ago? Here's a short video with testimonies from that student group. It is exciting to see that international students are hungry and open to the Gospel of Christ, and God is changing their lives through the work of InterVarsity!

Note: you'll need access to Facebook to watch the video.

Click here to watch

10 years later...

Huaren Cultural Show in 2002 (I don't have digital pictures of that first performance in 2001!)

My first introduction to what is called "body worship" happened when I was a freshman in college. Body worship is a combination of sign language and dance and is performed along to music. CCF, Chinese Christian Fellowship (what is now known as Asian InterVarsity Christian Fellowship), has a tradition of performing body worship at Asian American cultural shows. It was an opportunity as an ethnic specific Christian group to share our faith with the broader Asian American community.

The song we performed was "God of Wonders" by Third Day & Caedmon's Call. We practiced for weeks and it was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot about what it means to worship God with not just your mouth but your body and soul and heart.

In the ten years since that performance, I have taught the movements to many other groups, including the CCF at Michigan State, and the youth group at my home church. This week, I am teaching it to a few young girls at my very non-Asian church to perform at our upcoming church talent show. It is quite a different experience teaching it to 4 to 8 year olds as opposed to college students!

Did I realize that what I learned 10 years ago would still stay with me and provide me opportunities to serve at my church, share a cultural experience, and continue to broaden people's views of worship? No. But I am grateful that God prepared me during college to bless his people for years to come. That's what InterVarsity is all about!

Greek InterVarsity featured in the New York Times

Click on the photo for more photos from NY Times.

Read full article here.

Coming Together

I recently worked on a piece that was very fun for me. Every month we include a small insert in donor receipts. This month the insert focused on InterVarsity's love for Bible study. We decided to make the insert not only a report on how InterVarsity trains students in studying Scripture, but to include a tear-out bookmark for donors to use themselves. This bookmark has a very brief guide to what InterVarsity calls the inductive Bible study method. Having previously spent much of my time on staff training students to study the Bible and to lead others in studying the Bible, I was excited have that particular passion be a part of my designing work.

I was able to use some of my own experience as a trainer to develop the bookmark's content, and I even used some of my own colorful manuscript pages in the design of the piece.

Some of you will receive this piece when you get your monthly receipt in the mail! For the rest of you download a printable version of the bookmark (a PDF file), click here. To view the content of the piece as well as some more Bible study resources, go here.