Who are Asian American college students?

Asian American Ministries from AAM InterVarsity on Vimeo.

Check out this video about Asian American college students animated and edited by my colleague David Hui.

The narrator's voice might sound a little familiar to you too. ;)

Food that fills, fruit that lasts

AIV students preparing to serve free bubble tea - they served over 1500 students!

AIV students at North Campus barbecue where they gave out free burgers to 800 students

I recently designed a tshirt for AIV, the chapter I worked with at University of Michigan. The concept behind the design stems from two images of Christ in Scripture: Jesus, the Bread of Life, the source of true satisfaction, and Jesus, the Vine, from whom we bear fruit as we abide in him. Together the bread and grapes represent communion, a symbol of Christ's body and blood. It is only through Christ that we find "food that fills" and we bear "fruit that lasts".

It was fun to be able to participate in their New Student Outreach events in this way, even though I am no longer there. Continue to keep students and staff in your prayers during this season of meeting new students and introducing them to Jesus!

2,615

click to view full size

I just designed this donor report which gets sent out to everyone who gives to InterVarsity. This edition is espcially interesting as it contains some data on this past year of our ministry. One of my favorites: 2,615 new believers this year! Praise God for all of those students and faculty who entered the kingdom!

Click on the image to see some of the ways God has been at work on campus thanks to you and all of our donors!

(Note - the annual report link is not yet live. if you go to the link shown on the report, you'll be directed to last year's report. I'll let you know when it's up! It will include much more information as well as some stories and videos about God's work through InterVarsity this past year.)

UPDATE: the Annual Report link on our website is now live! 

First Asian American Banner Printed

I designed a banner for Asian American chapters last year, and today I printed and trimmed the very first order! Special shout out and thank you to Christian Chin at University of Washington for ordering my banner design!

Change the university, and you change the world.

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Recently I created this infographic in honor of World Assembly. Isn't it quite amazing that only 13% of the world's college students are in North America? It certainly gives you perspective thinking about the 18 million students that InterVarsity is seeking to reach here in the US.

I'm so thankful that InterVarsity is part of International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, where we get to partner with over 150 other student ministries all over the world. It's great to work alongside thousands of staff and students who are seeking to proclaim Christ on university campuses everywhere. Pray that the nations would know Jesus Christ is Lord!

Compelling2011 - The Sign of Jonah

click here to go to website

Compelling is a training conference that happens in November and is hosted by the Michigan Division (all universities and colleges in the state of Michigan). For five years I have designed the look of the conference, including the flycard, website, and other materials like nametags and program. The website is now up if you want to check it out! Click on the link above. Below are images of the completed flycard!

front of flycard

The theme for this conference is "The Sign of Jonah". I know we have all seen countless Sunday school renditions of Jonah being swallowed by the whale. I tried hard to not go that route. I still reference that important aspect of Jonah's story using a fish tail, but I tried to make it less obvious, using darker shades and not making it the focal point.

back of flycard

The textures were created using a several different layers of images of clouds, waves and storms. I wanted the texture to look a little bit like a fairy tale or a children's storybook, which is also why I chose this serif font, that looks a little bit whimsical and unique. I also handwrote some of the words like "the sign of" "tracks" "speaker" and "registration".The wavy lines of text as well as grays and blues add to the feel of being in a storm on the water.

It'll be exciting for me this year because I am planning to attend the conference! Last year there was a record number of 600 students attending. It's been amazing to see how God has used this conference in hundreds of students lives for the past 5 years.

The LORD is gracious and compassionate...

I recently was assigned to work on a project for World Assembly, which is a conference for student ministry leaders, taking place July 26-August 3. It is sponsored by IFES - International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, the umbrella organization that InterVarsity is a part of, as are 150 other student movements from around the world. On the last day of this conference, Marilyn Stewart, who has been on staff with InterVarsity for over 50 (yes, FIFTY!) years, will be speaking on Psalm 145. She asked me to create a piece that each conference attendee (there will be over 600) could take home as a memento and reminder of all that God did and said during World Assembly.

This assignment was fun and yet quite challenging! For starters, how do you visualize ideas like "grace" or "righteousness"? And because there are people from all over the world who speak dozens of different languages, how do you do this without the use of a common language?

I ventured into this by starting at the passage itself. I spent many sittings just reading and rereading the passage, and letting God speak to me. I also gathered many of my teammates asking for their ideas and thoughts. I sketched a lot, and gathered images from online that I liked.

After all of this, I decided to try creating a painting that would capture at least some of this Psalm. I am not a painter and know very little about painting as an art form. I definitely felt out of my element on this project! However, as I spent nearly two days painting, it struck me at how privileged I was to be able to try out a new form of art as part of my job! When else does someone get to do that? I love my job!

front of postcard - painting

Here's the final product of the postcard design. The front shows the painting that I did. I purposely left a lot of blank space in the image to give room for people to write out in their own language whatever God was speaking to them. Psalm 145 is full of wonderful words, showing God's character and God's work among his people. There's a sense that all of our worship and praise is only a small echo of who God is and what he has done. I used rich yellows and oranges because those colors reminded me of the richness of God's love. There's a verse in the psalm that says "You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing." - what a wonderful picture of God's provision, gentleness and care!

back of postcard with main verse in English, French & Spanish

The back of the card shows the theme verse (8 - "The LORD is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love.") in the 3 languages that will be used at World Assembly.

Please pray that this conference will be an outpouring of God's love and compassion to IFES and its leaders. Pray for God's voice to be clear in inspiring student ministry workers to follow him in his work at universities around the world. Pray that Marilyn Stewart's talk on the last day would be full of truth and grace as participants head back to their mission fields.

Based on these designs I also worked on a video that will show during the talk while people are studying the passage and reflecting. When that's ready I will try to post it here for you to see. It features another one of the paintings I did.