Fight On Forever, Jennie

"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" 
                                                               ~ 1 Corinthians 15:55 

It is with tears still in my eyes and a heavy heart that I write this. Yesterday morning, my dear friend and AΔΧ sister Jennie 'excalibur' Yang went to be with our Father. She passed away in her sleep, which is what she wanted. 

As another sorority sister wrote, "Jennie did not lose this battle with cancer. She fought until King Jesus swept her up into His arms, and there, she is made new." While my heart aches, at the same time, I cannot help but also but be reminded in joy that Jennie is dancing up a storm in Heaven right now, with her new, pure and cancer-free body, unhindered by the pain and cares of this world (and her cool sword-cane). 

She was the epitome of what it means to "Fight On." She had Li Fraumeni syndrome, a genetic disease that made her susceptible to getting multiple types of cancer throughout her life. Jennie's first cancer, malignant fibrous histeocytoma, was diagnosed in June of 1989. Her second cancer, osteosarcoma, was diagnosed in November of 2004. Jennie had tumors in both her left and right hips, and her resulting surgeries caused her to walk with a cane. Her third cancer, glioblastoma, her sophomore year of college at USC, Halloween night. I still remember we were going to be Mulan and Mushu for Halloween until she was admitted into the hospital. About a month later, her osteosarcoma returned. About two years later, her osteosarcoma spread to her lungs. At the end of 2012, her glioblastoma also relapsed in the right frontal lobe. She was later also diagnosed with breast cancer. This past year she was on chemo and radiation, and also endured and overcame a severe bout of meningitis. About a month ago her brain cancer was found to have spread to most of the top part of her brain, and was pronounced untreatable. Even while her body began to lose its functions, her mom still wrote that Jennie would be smiling even as she slept. She endured more than anyone should ever have to endure, but in it and through it all, she never lost her joy, her faith, and her fighting spirit. 

I was extremely blessed to have the opportunity to visit her in Colorado in July, when she was still able to walk and hang out. We enjoyed my mother's homemade cookies and Mauna Loa chocolate macadamia nuts from Hawaii, reminisced on good times from SC, and laughed at our inability to take good "selfie" pics together. At SC, I was blessed with the opportunity to be in her accountability group in AΔΧ (where we mostly spent our time watching "Kittens Inspired by Kittens" and other silly Youtube videos with Theresa Lee) and to live with her in the AΔΧ house. She loved hugs, laughter, dancing and being ridiculous. She loved life, her friends, and most of all her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

She will forever live on as an inspiration to every person she ever met. More than anyone I've ever known, she "fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith." The Lord blessed this world with her presence many more years than any of us expected. She is a reminder to all of us to make the most of every day and every moment, to fill our lives with laughter and whimsy and love, and to take every opportunity to tell those we care about how much we love them. 

So I want to tell each of you how much you and your prayers have meant to me, Jennie and her family. Thank you so much for all your love, prayers and support. There are no words to describe how blessed I am to have you in my life. 

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien 

Warm up the dance floor for me in Heaven, my dear sister. I cannot wait to party with you again someday. 

 AΔΧ Invite 2008

 AΔΧ Halloween Party 2008, after winning the pie-eating contest 

 Hanging out at the AΔΧ house

 AΔΧ Beach Day 

 AΔΧ Spring Invite 

 My last time with Jennie, July 2013

Fight On Forever, Jennie. A hui hou. 

Reaping the Harvest

God is moving in these islands, stirring up the hearts of students and revealing to them their need and desire for Him!

Just in this past week, 3 students- THREE- have accepted Christ into their hearts.

While maybe this number does not seem significant compared to countries like China where thousands of people are actually becoming Christians daily, in a place like Hawaii, 3 students in one week is unheard of.

Tuesday morning we began the day with a time of prayer on campus at the UH Ampitheatre. We felt the conviction that “we do not have because we do not ask,” so we asked God for the faith to pray big prayers. We dreamed of the day when the entire ampitheatre would be filled to capacity with students desiring to pray and worship God. We prayed for God's Spirit to overwhelm the campus like lava overflowing from a volcano. We prayed for miracles.

That evening at our Cru weekly meeting, CRUcial, we got one.

Julian, one of our freshman guys made a decision to follow Christ.

He has attended our Monday freshman small group every week, but we were never really sure why. He had no interest in Christianity, would come late, text on his phone throughout the study, eat some snacks, then leave. But he kept coming back. And we took that as a sign of something good, though we couldn't tell what. Tuesday night at CRUcial, during the time of worship, I noticed Julian standing up and singing. The Lord squeezed my heart and I felt that we needed to be praying for him, so I asked a couple of our freshmen small group student leaders to pray for him with me. Later during worship, one of our student leaders went over to Julian and began talking with him. I found out later that he, noticing that Julian seemed very moved by the worship, had basically asked what he was feeling and what he believed. A couple minutes later I hear my name called and see the student beckoning me over.

“Julian would like to receive Christ into his heart,” he said.

“Excuse me WHAT?” I said.

“Julian would like to accept Christ into his heart,” he repeated.

“Are you sure?” I asked Julian. This was the kid whom, after I'd gone through the Gospel with him, had told me straight up “Yeah I understand but it doesn't apply to my life,” so I admit that I was a bit incredulous.

But Julian looked me straight in the eyes and said “Yes!”

“Oh! Um...ok then!” I exclaimed.

After explaining to him what exactly it meant and that all he had to do was pray with us, we prayed and Julian accepted Christ. Afterward we asked him how he felt.

“I feel all tingly,” he said. “I feel like I'm about to cry- it's like there's this huge weight that got taken off me.”

Two days later, a Japanese student, Yuki, also decided to accept Christ's love and freedom.

A day later, one of our interns and another student had the opportunity to lead another guy to the Lord.

After Julian accepted Christ, I was thinking how amazing it was when God spoke to me and said, “Kimi, why are you so surprised? Why are you so surprised when I answer your prayers?”

Valid question. If I believe what the Bible says, that if we ask, we shall receive, that we may ask anything in Jesus' name and it will be granted to us, that we are promised to do even greater things than Jesus himself in the power of the Holy Spirit...why am I surprised when a student decides to accept Christ? Why am I surprised at stories of redemption when I know that our God is the Redeemer? 

May we have the faith to pray big prayers every day!  

Over 100 students attended our weekly meeting last Tuesday

"Accidental" Providence

The second day of school, Charleen and her friend were wandering around campus when they stumbled upon a gathering of a big group of people. They were welcomed in by a friendly, energetic guy and so they decided to see what the gathering was all about. When Charleen realized it was a Christian group, she wasn't sure if she was allowed to stay because she did not have any religion, but she found it interesting and enjoyed herself, so she continued to come back every week. She also joined in the first week activities, including the UH vs. USC football game and an all-day beach BBQ, where she made friends and began to develop community. But midterms got in the way and no one heard from her for a couple weeks.

Flash forward to Friday evening, when Ashley, one of the girls I'm discipling, and I, were hanging out at Starbucks. Ashley and I had just finished a conversation about how she wanted to get more experience sharing her faith with others, when I received a text from Charleen asking if she could come to church with me sometime.

"But is it ok if I don't really have a religion? Am I still allowed to go?"
"Of course!" I replied
"Ok! By the way, you're a Christian right? How do I declare a religion?"

"Ashley," I said. "You're about to get your chance to get more experience sharing your faith."

We picked up Charleen and took her to dinner, where we had the opportunity to walk her through the Gospel and what it means to be a Christian. At the end, we asked her if it was something that she wanted for her life and she adamantly exclaimed, "Yes!"

We could hardly believe how easy and natural it was for her to want to believe. Obviously God's been working on her heart for awhile, we just happened to be available for that last step of showing her how.  I explained to her that all she had to do was pray to God and acknowledge that she was a sinner, that God exists, that she believed Jesus is the Son of God, died on a cross and took away all her sins, and that she wanted to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior and make Him the center of her life. She prayed and afterward when we asked her she felt, she said "I'm so excited! I feel wonderful!"

The next day I took her to Logos to buy her a Bible, and she got herself a journal for quiet times. We then went to lunch and a coffee shop where I walked her through the Bible and explained some ways to read the Bible. "I am so excited to have a Bible!" she exclaimed. "I cannot wait to get home and start reading it!"

Her enthusiasm, along with Lini's, is such a breath of fresh air, and also a conviction for my own heart- how many times do I think to myself, "I cannot wait to get home and read the Bible!"?

Lord, make us hungry and thirsty for your Word just like Charleen and Lini!

Ashley (left) and Charlene (right) after Charleen prayed to receive Christ

(Something about me wearing my hat...the past two times I've worn it, girls have decided to accept Christ into their hearts...coincidence?) 

Charlene and her new Bible! 

New Life, New Family, New Start

Last weekend we took 65 students to the west side of the island for our Fall Getaway 2013, our annual retreat to give students the opportunity to "getaway" from school and enjoy community, fellowship and God. We had a ton of new students, including Lini, a girl who stopped by our table the first week of school to ask for directions to a class- I didn't know where her class was, but I invited her to Cru instead and she ended up coming to my small group even though she wasn't a Christian. Saturday night of Fall Getaway, we had a really awesome time of worship where the Lord strongly put on my heart to pray for her, so strongly that my heart physically hurt. I prayed that the Lord would reach out and grab her heart and reveal Himself to her in a tangible way. One of the girls I'm discipling, Ashley, also felt a strong urge to pray for Lini, and sat next to her and prayed for her- during that time, Lini started crying. Later I also came to sit by Lini and prayed for her, and then we both stood up to worship. During worship, I noticed Lini was really into it and had her hands clutched in front of her. 

After the session, she came up to me and said that during worship, she was holding up her hands and felt Someone's hands on hers- "They were warm," she said. "And I felt that there was a Presence in front of me holding me and I just felt so loved in that moment." "Dude," I said to her. "That was GOD." I then asked her if anyone had ever told her how to have a relationship with God. "No," she replied. "Well...do you want to know?" I asked. "Yes, please!" she exclaimed. 

An hour later, Lini prayed to receive Christ into her heart and said that she felt like she was in a dream. I asked her if she had any questions, and the first thing she said was "When can I get baptized?" "Uhhh..." I stuttered. "What about tomorrow???" she asked. "Uhhh...sure?" I responded. After she'd gone to bed, I called one of my pastors from my home church (about 3 am my time) "Hey so uhh this girl just accepted Christ and wants to be baptized so apparently I'm baptizing her tomorrow WHAT DO I DO??!?!"  Thankfully, Jay is used to me freaking out because he's known me since I was little, and he walked me through how to baptize someone. He also affirmed that I was capable and equipped to baptize someone, which I appreciated because not gonna lie I was kind of doubting myself after growing up in a Presbyterian church where only pastors do that sort of thing. 

The next day after we'd packed up the camp, we all piled into cars and drove down to the beach, where in the bright blue ocean of Waialae, I performed my first baptism. As Lini was sharing her story with everyone who came to watch, she said, "I am so ready to get baptized. This is a new start, this is my new family, this is my new life." 

The next day I took her to Logos, a Christian bookstore, and bought her first Bible and a devotional for her to begin her new walk with Christ. Since then, she's been texting me every day to hang out and read the Bible. 

Praise God for Lini for her new passion for God! May it never fade away! 

Kaori.

So if you've been keeping up with my blog for awhile, or just my life, you might remember my friend Kaori. We met "randomly" at Waseda back in 2011 when we were both checking out the dance group Tokyo Hanabi, one of the yosakoi circles. Neither of us actually ended up joining the group (I joined Odori Samurai and Kaori went on to do ballet) but we remained friends and met up frequently over the next two years when I was in and out of Tokyo.

Last year she studied abroad at Columbia University (because she's crazy smart) and spent Thanksgiving with me and my family, where she came to church for the first time and we spent 3 hours talking about the Bible, God and Christianity. While she was not ready to become a Christian, she understood what I was saying.

Last week I received a Facebook message from Kaori- "Kimiyo! I am coming to Hawaii!" "WHEN???!?!" I replied. "In two days!!!"

SO crazy. She arrived Monday, and I invited her to our Cru weekly meeting on Tuesday. She came and after I gave the message on God's community, she said to me "That was wonderful! I am so proud of you!" Later in the evening during worship, our director Jamie challenged us to turn to the people around us and pray for one another for a couple minutes. Kaori turned to me and said "Kimiyo, I want to pray for you, but I do not know how." I then explained to her that prayer is really just talking to God, it doesn't have to be formal and you can do it anywhere and He hears you. I prayed for her to show her, and then she prayed for me. I want to share with you her prayer:

"Hello God, this is my very first time praying, and I want to pray for my very best friend Kimiyo."

I almost melted. It was such a wonderful, wonderful moment that words just can't fully express.

Please continue to pray for Kaori, that the Lord would reveal Himself in a real and powerful way in her life so that she has no choice but to believe.

Japan reunion! Such a wonderful surpise! 

Sunset from Spitting Cave, my favorite place on Oahu and where we took Kaori after a day at the beach on Saturday 

First Month in Hawaii

Wow. I've been in Hawaii for exactly one month now.

That's crazy.

I've had several "Wow I live in Hawaii" moments lately. Driving through the Pali tunnel and coming out to a breathtaking view of the cliffs and ocean and mountains. Hanging out with students at the beach all day for an outreach event. Going to a small hotel in Waikiki on Monday with my hanai family and enjoying a bunch of old local guys jamming on ukeleles and guitars and other people dancing hula, just for the fun of it. Watching the sunset over the ocean.

I'm truly blessed.

I'm still adjusting though. I'm not local yet, even though I did have some Australian tourists tell me I was beautiful and asked to take a picture with me because they "wanted to take a picture with a Hawaiian girl." Didn't have the heart to tell them I'm from Texas. But it made me feel good. I still don't speak like a local though- need to work on that.

I also need to practice my surfing. Uncle Steve has been humbling me a lot lately- I like to think of myself as a quick learner, but Uncle Steve apparently thinks I still need a lot of work. A student invited me to go surfing with them at a couple different locations, but when I asked Uncle, his exact words were, "Mmmmm I think you need to go to Waikiki." For anyone who's been surfing in Hawaii, that's not exactly a slap in the face, but it's close. Waikiki is for the beginners, the groms, the tourists. While there are locals that surf Queens or Canoes in Waikiki, the goal is to graduate from there to other breaks. So I said "Oh ok, so you think I should go there a few more times and then do you think I can try these places?" His exact words: "Mmmm I think you should go to Waikiki for awhile."

......ouch.

But I have to remember that this is good. I have this ridiculous expectation that I should be good at everything, immediately, or at least expert-status after a few times. But that is so unrealistic. No one becomes good at anything after a few times. It takes major perseverance, dedication, time, energy, effort. It takes falling off the board and getting back on. It takes getting tossed around by waves of adversity (see what I did there?) but continuing to paddle out again and again til you're able to consistently stand up and ride the waves. And sometimes that takes years. Uncle isn't telling me not to go to these more difficult surf spots to make me feel bad, he knows that I'll get cut up on the reefs and I'll get pummeled by waves and it won't be fun- it will just make me discouraged. And he wants me to love surfing. But he knows I will only learn to love it by taking baby steps. I don't like baby steps- I'm impatient. But how often do we do that with other things in life, and with God even? We think we're ready for the challenges, the difficult tasks, we think way more of our abilities than we're actually capable of, and we get frustrated and impatient when we're not given responsibilities "worthy of our talents." But God knows what we can handle and what we can't. He's not going to give us more than we can handle. And in reality, that's a comforting though. God looks at our faithfulness, not at our abilities.

And that applies to everything- to life, to our career, to ministry, to the Christian walk. If we're faithful in the small things, God will reward (and challenge) us with bigger things.

And on that note...it's time to surf.

Warrior Welcome, or Welcome, Warrior?

The first week of school is officially pau, or done. 
And I'm already exhausted.

It was an incredible week, but also super busy. I would leave the house at 8 am and get home at midnight. Even when I'd get home before that I'd still end up staying up til 2 am working on flyers, slides for our weekly meetings, etc. But it was totally worth it. 

While this past week was by far the most intense week of ministry I've ever done in my life, it was also probably the most rewarding. Every day for four hours, we set up a tent and table on campus and passed out free Cru water bottles and asked students to take a one minute spiritual survey to gage their interest in Cru, God and spiritual topics. 800 students filled out a survey and received a water bottle, and we met even more just through our first week outreach events.115 students attended our first weekly "CRUcial" meeting, the most we've ever had! Many students came simply because they saw our table and wanted to check us out. We even met a freshman who grew up in Japan and has no spiritual background at all, but said she really enjoyed the meeting and even came to our other events later in the week!

Our events included a coffee & cookies hangout in one of the dorm lounges, going to the UH vs. USC football game (in which we sat in the student section and I had to use all my willpower not to cheer for USC too loudly), and a huge game of Capture the Flag on campus. These events were a major test for me, as we were so uncertain as to how many people would show up and how exactly the events would go. The football game especially, which was given to me to spearhead last minute, forced me to surrender my control to God since I honestly had no idea how to plan for it- not only had I never even been to the stadium, we were unsure of how many students would come, how many cars we'd have to drive, where to park, where to sit, what to do after...basically, the whole event was up in the air, and I just had to be ok with it. But it was great! Because God's bigger than my inability to plan. Every event was really a testament to His sovereignty. God brought new students to every event, students from every spiritual background and from all over the world, including international students from Japan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Norway, even Iran! 

Last year, Hawaii Cru's director Shawn had a vision, that "Out of UH the Islands will be reached." This year, our goal is to make that vision a reality. He saw the four freshmen dorm towers as lighthouses shining their light to the rest of the Islands and beyond. This year, we are praying for a huge freshman class to shine their light to their classmates and the university. I truly believe that out of UH, not only the Islands, but the WORLD, will be reached, as these students from other countries were but a fraction of the many nationalities represented at UH. 

Now comes the process of following up with the hundreds of students who wrote down their contact info, and hopefully meeting with them and getting them plugged into Cru. This next week we also start up our small groups- once again, we really have no idea how many students will show up, or even the location for some of them, but we know that God will make it happen. It's HIS will after all. 

Here are some pics from this past week! 

115 students came to our first CRUcial meeting of the year- an all time record!

Worship band at our first weekly meeting

Students filling out spiritual surveys at our table in the freshmen courtyard 

Ran into Ruben, my old friend from UH Hilo while on campus! Definitely one of those "What are you doing here???" "Wait- what are YOU doing here???" moments - so great. 

Andy being lazy and not wanting to walk...we didn't make it very far. Silly interns.