A Transition in Leadership

Over the past few years of IVCF @ SFU, we have had the privilege of running small groups which invite students into deeper community and fellowship with Jesus and His Word.  This semester, we have had the chance to invite new 1st years, mostly Christians, into a deeper understanding of their faith.

However, even though we have an maxed out small groups this semester, something seems to be missing.  Barron, Lida and I feel that we are missing the vision of IVCF @ SFU in Reaching the Lost.  We have lots of Christians and they are finding it difficult to invite their friends to Bible Studies so what can we do?  We need to create other venues to invite our friends into.  Simple things like social events (potlucks, laser tag, extreme air park, etc.).  Ones that will encourage people who would normally not associate themselves with Christians to start building trust.

For that, we will actually need a team to organize and plan this.  We will be shifting from a core leaders group to an executive leaders group.  We'll still be holding our core leaders meetings for the spiritual nourishment and passing off of vision to the broader IVCF ministry but we need a group of committed students to take charge of things like social events, leadership development, teaching, etc.

Barron, Lida and I are really excited about this because it will help accommodate the growing ministry of IVCF.  Please be praying for us as we make this shift and transition into the New Year.

Annual Christmas Party

Extreme Air Park!!

Linsanity! - Jeremy Lin's Documentary

Burnaby Parables Small Group

Life After the Wedding

What?!  April and I have been married now for 2 months?!  It was weird that the wedding just came and went.  We're both finding it hard to believe that it actually happened.

The wedding though was incredible.  With the blessings of our family and friends and countless volunteers (over 50 volunteers) the wedding itself for us was a great deal of fun.  I wish I could share with you more pictures but here is a sneak peek on the photobooth pictures.

Stay tuned for the video of our wedding.

It has been a joy to be married finally.  I am really enjoying having someone to talk to everyday and wake up to every morning.  Yes, we have had our challenges especially around what we should be doing with our time but overall, it has been such a great experience.  The current place we are living in was an incredible blessing from God.  It's everything we could have asked for for our first place to live together.  It's strategically located right at the base of Burnaby Mountain (very close to SFU) and close to April's private practice.  The only downside to it is that it's quite far away from one of the places that April works.  Regardless, God has blessed us with this place and we want to use it to host well for students, family and friends.

Over this holiday, we will be going on our honeymoon to Cancun, Mexico.  We're REALLY excited about it.  Please be praying for safety in travels as well as on-site.

We're learning how to play the Ukulele's together

The Story of Abraham (The Student)

In his poem “Chicago,” the late American poet Carl Sandburg described it as a city “under the terrible burden of destiny, laughing as a young man laughs.” But as a young student at SFU, I never felt like laughing under this burden.

I grew up in a Christian household and was raised in the church, but much of my upbringing was very similar to the rest of my peers who didn’t grow up in the church. This similarity is that we all carry the burden of destiny: the burden to succeed and the burden to find purpose.  As Christians, we often carry this burden of destiny in the question of “what is God’s will for me?” This single question is related to so many others such as pursuing a career, relationships, finding a church, moving to a new city, and so many more. This October, I underwent a month long season of deep unhappiness caused by feeling “stuck.” I would spend despair over my lack of purpose and how I felt that I did not belong in the life I was currently living. The core of this unhappiness was ultimately due to a lack of understanding what God’s will for me was. I thought that God’s will was a bulls eye, a single target that I must aim towards and that “missing it” or living outside of God’s will and desires would lead to a derailing of my life. I would pour prayer upon prayer upon His alter, in hopes that He would tell me what I needed to know to fulfill His will but often to no avail.

It was during this time I felt the need to seek God again in the Scriptures. During my time in Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship at SFU (and under Justin’s mentorship), I began to seek solace and happiness from Scripture and how it was indeed “alive and active (Hebrews 4:12).” While I was studying Mark with IVCF SFU, God completely transformed my understanding about how I think about his will. Mark 1:38 says that Jesus went all throughout Galilee to preach; He came to preach about the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14). God’s will is actually remarkably clear, his will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day (John 6:40).” This is the will of God: the salvation of all and the destruction of none. It is that all people would be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, who became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is His will from Genesis when he promises Christ as an answer to humanity’s sin and brokenness, all the way until Revelation when he says, “Behold, I am making all things new (Revelation:21:5).” Rather than analyzing every action I make and whether they are a part of God’s will or not, I am instead led to ask, “How can I join into God’s great plan of redemption and reconciliation?” Rather than trying to fit God’s great will into my tiny life; I can ask myself how I, with the gifts and talents that God has given me, can participate more in His will rather than seeking to my own will. No matter where I am or stage of life I am in, in conversations with friends and family, within my church, within my school and community, and with IVCF SFU, I can join into God’s great will. God set me free from the terrible burden of destiny and instead set me free. And in my freedom, I am free to join in God’s great will, not just for me, but for all people. He has made known to me the paths of life and made me glad in His presence (Acts 2:28). Because in Christ, I can truly laugh as a young man laughs; not because I am under the “terrible burden of destiny,” but because I know I am living under the great will of God.

In Christ,

Abraham Wu 

Upcoming Events & Prayer Requests

Upcoming Events

• Honeymoon! - December 16-23
• Christmas - December 25 - Celebrate the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!
• Winter Conference - December 27-31
• First Day of Classes - January 6
• First Week Tabling - January 7-10
• Student Leadership Training (For the Executives) - January 10-12
• Clubs Days Burnaby - January 14-16
• Stories that Inspire Workshop (Evangelism Training) - January 17, 18
• Clubs Days Surrey - January 21, 22
• Missionsfest - January 24-26

Prayer Requests

Students & Campus

• Pray for the transition from a core leaders group to an executive leaders group this upcoming semester
• Pray for our Wednesday Leaders Core Group meetings.  Pray for vision and discernment on how to be keeping the vision and also passing the vision for Leaders-in-training.
• For the SFU Executive Team.  That they will continue to grow in shared vision
• For for our upcoming core leaders
• Pray for a restorative time over the Christmas break for our students
• Pray for Barron and I as we continue to mentor and disciple the leaders.  Pray for wisdom and discernment.

Personal

• Pray for my growth as a leader and mentor.
• Pray for me as I continue to network and connect with other Chinese Churches in the Lower Mainland.
• Pray for the Next Generation Dialogue between 1st and 2nd Generation Chinese Pastors.  
• Pray for mine & April's relationship in our new marriage.  Pray for opportunities to be witnesses to our neighbours and landlord.
• Pray for discernment for April and I as April is trying to figure out what is the next step in her career.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my Sabbaths
• Pray for me that I will be exercising more regularly.
• Pray for my health.

Praise Item

• I am nearly fully funded!  Praise the Lord.  Please be praying for the rest of the donations to come in.

7 Days

Oh my goodness, I am getting married in 7 days!!

Cue Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbLfaFYl62Y&feature=youtu.be

Everything still feels surreal.  I am trying to put words to how I am feeling but I'm failing miserably at it.  So I guess I will just say to everyone of you, Thank You.  Thank you for your prayers and support for me as I am ministering to students and also, for the future, thank you for your continued support for both April and I as we look to do ministry together.  April will not be working with IVCF but your support will still be having a big impact on our lives =).

As you may already know, you are all invited to the wedding =).  Looking forward to seeing some of you there in 7 days!

7 Small Groups (Hopefully soon!)

As Barron and I reflect along with the leadership team, we noticed that although it is good to have 5 small groups full of Christian students studying scripture, we realize that that might also be a bad thing.  Past years, we have had the joy and privilege of studying scripture with a majority of students who aren't Christians.  Skeptics, Out on Campus (GBLT Community), ones who left faith but are trying to find it again are a few of these people.  In fact, the past few years, we have had a great deal of trouble recruiting Christian students!  The things that we are concerned about is not having too many Christian students, but not going out and reaching the lost on our campus.  

I find that we as North American Christians are not easily freed from this North American dream and pursuit of comfort.  We go to church every Sunday, we go to fellowship once a week and maybe we're involved in a small group at church too.  In many ways, we are more witnesses at church than we are outside.  We are more lights within our churches than outside of our churches.  This piece has always been weighing VERY heavily on my heart and often, I have very little tolerance for ones that are Sunday Christians.  Now, God has been giving me a little bit of grace and mercy for these people, but only a little.  This is my constant Holy Discomfort and it motivates me to challenge and empower my students and the people I am mentoring.  

With that little rant, both Barron and I are starting to see ourselves and IVCF @ SFU be "comfortable" or are very quickly heading in that direction.  The mindset that we often fall into as Christians and as a ministry is, "We have people studying scripture and that is good.  So lets keep studying scripture."  Although studying scripture is good, this is only half of what we should be doing.  We should be going out into the SFU Campus and be building intentional relationships and loving our classmates and peers as Jesus loved.  Scripture is used to shape and form that.  If we were serious about sharing the gospel and being witnesses to our friends, the reality of our small groups would be VERY different.  We SHOULD have at least 1/2 of our small groups with people who aren't Christians who are interested in studying scripture whether it is for seeking or just even education.  

With this challenge, Barron and I are hoping to approach ones in our small groups who are grounded enough in their identity and faith to consider leading an Evangelistic Bible Study with their friends.  The invitation to some of these students may be a high call because some of them have only been in our small groups for 3 weeks and also they probably have never done it before, but if we don't instill the value of constant invitation to our friends, classmates, and peers into the Kingdom of God early, it will not be a strong value in the future.  Basically, we are going to shake things up.  So please be praying for us as we continue to follow-up on these students to take charge and lead these small groups.  

7 Students

Every single year we seem to be increasing the number of small groups.  However, these small groups can be as small as 2 and as large as 12.  This year we started with 5 small groups (Leaders, Parables x3, and Mark).  If we took the average of the students in each of these small groups we have 7 students/small group, most of which are 1st year Christian students!  

Upcoming Events & Prayer Requests

Upcoming Events

• Leaders Small Group - Wednesday Evenings
• The Big Day!! - October 12

Prayer Requests

Students & Campus

• Pray for our Wednesday Leaders Small Group meetings.  Pray for vision and discernment on how to be keeping the vision and also passing the vision for Leaders-in-training.
• For the SFU Team.  That they will continue to grow in shared vision
• For for our core leaders team
• Pray for the high calls we will be giving students in our small groups to start evangelistic bible studies.
• Pray for Barron and I as we continue to mentor and disciple the leaders.  Pray for wisdom and discernment.

Personal

• Pray for my growth as a leader and mentor.
• Pray for recruitment.
• Pray for me as I continue to network and connect with other Chinese Churches in the Lower Mainland.
• Pray for the Next Generation Dialogue between 1st and 2nd Generation Chinese Pastors.  
• Pray for mine & April's relationship and the last week of wedding planning.  Pray that this wedding will be honoring and glorifying God.
• Pray for my funding as I am sitting at around 80% of monthly's with the raise.  Pray that I will be fully funded within the next couple of months.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my Sabbaths
• Pray for me that I will be exercising more regularly.
• Pray for my health.  I am starting to develop a cold.

This is why I do what I do!

As I was dealing with the downs of the summer, it felt like I lost track of why I was actually doing my work with IVCF.  It wasn't until I went to support Vanessa for her info session that I had a chance to see the fruit of what God was calling me to do.

Vanessa Ignacio was a Business Student with the focus in HR.  She just recently graduated with her bachelor degree.  Over this past year, we had opportunities to meet up on a regular basis and ended up pioneering the SFU Surrey ministry.  Over the Christmas break, Vanessa decided to go to Urbana 12 with the team of SFU Students.  There, she had a chance to connect with an organization called International Care Ministries (ICM) which started her down an intense discernment process.  The leaders of ICM continued to follow-up with Vanessa and in time, they decided to hire her to work in their HR department in Hong Kong.

The process for her in making this decision lasted for 4 months and it wasn't easy.  God provided multiple opportunities to her and she was left with a decision.  She could try to find work after she graduated and get paid for a "normal" job, she could do the Internship with IVCF which would involve relocation and fundraising, or she could work with ICM in their HR department which would also involve relocation and fundraising.  Not easy choices, and all equally honoring to God, but as you may have guessed, she choose ICM.  In her discernment process, she felt that God was calling her into mission after graduation and I am happy to say that she followed through with that decision.

Being able to see Vanessa choose this decision for Jesus and walking with her each step of the way was such a joyful process.  It is during moments like these that I say to myself, "This is why I do the work that I do."

I'm Getting a Raise!

First of all... Thank You Everyone for all of your financial and prayer support over these past 3 years.  This ministry could not have happened without your incredible generosity.

It's as you have read it!  After 3 years of working with IVCF, I will be getting a raise, which means I get to fundraise more!  This raise will help increase my operational capacity to better serve and minister to students.  In my situation, it will cover the additional costs of rent as I am in a new prime location to do ministry.  Also, since I am getting married very shortly, the new amount will also cover extend health benefits for both April and I.

Here is an outline of the Before & After

Would you prayerfully consider an increase in your monthly support?

If God has placed on your heart to increase your support, I would love to have an opportunity to talk to you more about it.  If not, would you continue to be bathing the ministry in your prayers?  Either way, I would still love to be able to reconnect with all of you and chat via skype/phone.

Here's how to increase your support:

Credit Card:
Click Here
Click: "Donate"; Donation
Options
Section: Support a Member of our Staff
Section: Search for Staff - Justin Yuen
*All donations will be tax-receipted by Inter-Varsity

A Wedding Update

Only one more month to go!

A lot of progress has been made for April and I as we continue to plan out our wedding.  We have secured a different venue location which is closer to the Ceremony location and just looks so much better.  To make things even more incredible, the ones renting it to us offered it at an insanely reduced price!  Praise The Lord!

Also, we have secured the majority of our helpers and volunteers.  We are extremely grateful for all the love and support of our friends from Church, IVCF, and everywhere else.  We are truly blessed by everyone!

Some challenges we are facing right now are small but are still weighing on us.  The hunt for a make-up and hair artist is still in the mix.  We have been referred to 2 others but what happened was both had to cancel because they were pregnant.  April is meeting with a third one this week.  Pray that this 3rd one will work out for us.

Again, thank you all so much for your support and prayers as April and I embark on this journey together.

Upcoming Events & Prayer Requests

Upcoming Events

• Tabling in Burnaby SFU - September 3-5
• Burnaby Clubs Days - September 10-12
• Surrey Clubs Days - September 17, 18
• Leaders Small Group - Wednesday Evenings
• Pasta Night Welcome Event - September 13
• Helpers Dinner - September 15
• The Big Day!! - October 12

Prayer Requests

Students & Campus

• Pray for the 3 weeks of tabling.  Pray that it would be a place to meet new students.
• Pray for our Wednesday Leaders Small Group meetings.  Pray for vision and discernment on how to be keeping the vision and also passing the vision for Leaders-in-training.
• For the SFU Team.  That they will continue to grow in shared vision
• For for our core leaders team
• Pray for Barron and I as we continue to mentor and disciple the leaders.  Pray for wisdom and discernment.

Personal

• Pray for my growth as a leader and mentor.
• Pray for recruitment.
• Pray for me as I continue to network and connect with other Chinese Churches in the Lower Mainland.
• Pray for the Next Generation Dialogue between 1st and 2nd Generation Chinese Pastors.  
• Pray for mine & April's relationship and wedding planning.  Pray that this wedding will be honoring and glorifying God.
• Pray for my funding as I am sitting at around 80% of monthly's with the raise.  Pray that I will be fully funded within the next couple of months.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my Sabbaths
• Pray for me that I will be exercising more regularly.

VUP - Daily Schedule

So instead of trying to explain ALL the exciting things that happened on VUP, let me share with you the typical schedule of what each of our days looked like.

6:30am We pack away our bedding so our room can be used for shelter programming during the day.

We were actually setting up but it still looked like this in the mornings too 

7:15-7:30 We eat breakfast at the detox recovery center. Here we meet the nicest guys you'd want to meet and have engaging conversations over breakfast with residents of the program.

Marc Andre & Stewart.  Friends from Detox

7:30 to 9:00 we like to go hang out at Waves and do our devotions and read the paper.

9:00 to 11:30 we hold our morning Bible study at a nearby Catholic mission. The first week:  Amos, the second week:  Sermon on the Mount, the third week:  Urban Theology.  All which were incredibly challenging regarding God's clear call towards social justice.  During days we don't have Bible Studies, we had some speakers come and share their experiences with us.

Bible Studies 

When the weather is nice

Philip Owen - Mayor of Vancouver (1993-2002) speaking at VUP

11:30 For lunch we disperse in the neighbourhood to find lunch by lining up or paying a few dollars. Each week we receive $10 which has to cover some of these. Making $10 stretch is a great challenge for us who are used to so much excess.

Getting to know the Neighbourhood

1:00 to 4:30 Our afternoons are times to participate in internships with service organizations downtown - there are over 200 in the DTES.  We only focused on 4 (Salvation Army, Jacob's Well, Servant Partners, Mosaic Church)

Jacob's Well - Arts & Crafts time

4:30 to 10:30 We cook our dinner together at Mission Possible. Some evenings we hear from special speakers. We always end the day with a debrief and prayer. We also like to have a lot of fun just hanging around =)

Us Staff...  we also like to have fun =)

We had another group (Love Works) join us for 2 weeks 

We had ethnic dinner themes.  We wanted to try a white meal

Cooking for Mission Possible's Volunteer Appreciation Dinner

Four-fold Justice

When I was preparing and visioning for VUP, I asked the question, "What do I want my students & staff to take away from VUP?"  What I wanted for my students and staff to take from VUP was to have a more holistic view of Justice and for them to be able to better integrate their experiences back into their everyday communities.

To explain the holistic view of Justice, I want to refer to a book called, When Helping Hurts:  How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself - Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert.  If you get a chance to, I highly recommend this book.

Four-fold Justice Diagram (Shalom)

Originally, when I thought about Justice & Poverty, the first thing that came to my mind was more the social component.  Yet, this image paints a bigger picture of what Justice & Poverty is.  In the beginning (Genesis 2), everything was created to be in right relationship with each other:

Us & God:  Our relationship between us and God was good and our perspectives of God were good.
Us & Self:  Our perspectives of self are the perspectives that God sees us (No Shame)
Us & Others:  Our relationships with each other was beautiful and good. (No blaming each other)
Us & Rest of Creation (aka Work):  Our relationship with work is beautiful.  Care for the land and it will care for you.

Also, there is a overarching circle that includes the political, social, economic, and religious systems.  There are some things that are beyond the individuals control that could either lock people into poverty or remove them from poverty.  The systems affect the people and also vice versa, the people affect the systems.

Four-Fold Justice Diagram (The Fall)

However, The Fall did happen as we read in Genesis 3 and we see very quickly how all the relationships (us & God, us & self, us & others, us & rest of creation) become broken.  On top of that, since these relationships are broken it also can affect the systems around them too.  This diagram is more of a representation of today and our VUP team could see each and every aspect of this playing out more and more in the Downtown Eastside.

The great thing though is that God isn't about leaving these broken relationships broken.  He sent His only son Jesus to, first of all, repair our broken relationships between us and God and from that, restore the rest of our relationship (self, others, creation).  On top of that, He is in the business of repairing the broken systems.  The challenging thing is though... I believe He has called US to help repair these broken systems.

On VUP, we had a chance to take a look at each of these aspects or at least be exposed to how there can be brokenness in them.  Along with that though, we explored the hope in beginning to repair these broken relationships and redeeming the systems of injustice.

Studying scripture (Amos, Sermon on the Mount, Urban Theology)
Speakers (Dave Diewert, Philip Owen, etc)
Internships (Salvation Army, Jacob's Well, etc)
Other (Eating together, Group spiritual direction, small groups)

It was indeed both challenging and life-giving at the same time but I feel that we were able to walk away from VUP with a more holistic view of God's heart for Justice in this world.  How it doesn't just talk about social Justice but it includes all the aspects of Four-fold Justice.

Beauty in the Brokenness

A project that we got everyone to do was called The Beauty in the Brokenness Project.  During VUP, we are constantly exposed to brokenness all around us so this project is to help us see the beauty in the midst of the brokenness.  As we become aware of the beauty around us, we are then inspired to share it in any form possible.  Some of these include music, songs, poetry/spoken word, art, etc.  This year we invited people from our communities both inside and outside of the DTES to come and experience some of what we were experiencing.  Here are some pictures and links to the videos of the night.

Is Justice Worth it? - Micah Bournes

http://vimeo.com/60349898

Beautiful Things... with a twist

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=539403819482&l=7704195931070532434

East of Eden (Written & Performed by Sarah Wong & Farisia Thang)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=539408070962&l=7717929641812795220

Poetry by Clara Salter

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=539408564972&l=7187496789768118666

Music by Michael Louws

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=539410650792&l=8054725577098695469

"Where do you find beauty in the brokenness in your own setting?" 

A portrait of a resident by Anika Barlow

A painting done by Claire Chen

A piece of art done by a friend from Detox - Stewart 

Beauty in the Brokenness

Some of our friends chatting

Stewart

Mike Louws playing a song he composed

Upcoming Events & Prayer Requests

Upcoming Events

• Trip to Regina - June 9 - 16
• Campus Gathering (Toronto) - June 17 - 21
• Vacation (Toronto) - June 21 - 30
• Preaching at New Life (Vancouver) - July 14
• Trip to Creston, BC - July 21-23
• Intergenerational Meeting - July 24

Praise Items

• I am only 10% away from being Fully Funded!
• For and abundance of finances pouring in for April and I
• For Vanessa who has graduated and is going to be going to Hong Kong for work.
• For Garry who was the SFU student that decided to be baptized at Mark West Pacific
• For an abundance in the VUP Budget
• For a successful and fulfilling VUP
• For opportunities for me to lead and solidify my role as a leader.

Prayer Requests

Students & Campus

• Pray for our students as they will be all over the place for the summer.
• Pray for Anika who will be working at Pioneer Camp and heading to Uganda.  Pray for her fundraising efforts.
• Pray for Lida who is working at Camp Qwanoes for the summer as a support kitchen staff.
• Pray for Esther who is working in Ontario for the summer.
• Pray for our students who will be staying in Vancouver.
• Pray for Barron and I as we continue to vision and plan for next year.

Personal

• Pray for the Post VUP stuff that I need to finish.
• Pray for me as I continue to network and connect with other Chinese Churches in the Lower Mainland.
• Pray for the Next Generation Dialogue between 1st and 2nd Generation Chinese Pastors.  
• Pray for mine & April's relationship and wedding planning.  We are working at solidifying details and inviting people to volunteer.
• Pray for my funding as I am sitting at around 90% of monthly's.  Pray that I will be fully funded within the next couple of months.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my Sabbaths
• Pray for me that I will be exercising more regularly.
• Pray for my health since I will be travelling quite a bit this summer
• Pray for my trip back to Regina.  It definitely feels weird being home.

From Mark West Pacific to VUP

As most of you may already know, Mark West Pacific is a retreat with IVCF that invites students to be fully immersed in the Gospel of Mark for 40 hours in 7 days!  I want to report to you some of the exciting experiences from Mark West Pacific and then heading into VUP.

(l-r) Claire Chen, Jacqueline Brower (co-director/mark teacher), Justin Yuen (VUP director), Mike Bennett (co-director/mark teacher), Mike Louws (pictured above Mike Bennett -absent from Markwest but present on VUP), Esther Kong, Rachelle Castelino, Sarah Wong, Farisia Thang, Anika Barlow, Klara Salter, Aloka Kumarage.

Our team of 12 began the Vancouver Urban Partnership with the 7 day Mark West Pacific retreat at Pioneer Pacific Camp on beautiful Thetis Island. We studied the gospel of Mark for 6 hours per day. Our Mark study focused on chapters 8 to 16 of Mark which is full of Jesus giving the difficult call to discipleship "Pick up your cross and follow me", "Give up your life to find my life", "Deny self...". I was blessed and encouraged at how our our team shared vulnerably together, I could feel God's Spirit present teaching us.  

"One thing" from Mark really landed with our team during a teaching time. It was the impact of Jesus calling God "Abba Father". He prays to God in this way at his darkest hour in the garden of Gethsemene, we were really challenged with the idea that Jesus was facing his own temptation to fall away.  We came to the conclusion that what fueled his submission to God's redemptive plan and allowed him to pray "not my will, but yours be done" was his own intimate bond to Father God as "Abba"; best translated as Daddy. A couple girls in the room smiled as they recounted the tender names with which they call their dads. Several others averted their eyes with the pain of wishing the could echo the same intimacy with their dads. This yearning we have to know and be known by our parents is the one thing that God our father wants to fill us with - intimate knowing. Only as we experience God in this way will we, like Jesus, take up the cross of discipleship with tears of joy. This was just one example of how the Spirit lifted words off the page to apply them deep in our hearts through the week of scripture teaching. 

On April 30th, we spent the night experiencing and contemplating the Jesus' last supper in the upper room. Following a time of communion, songs, and prayer, we carried a wooden cross through the dark to a rocky outdoor chapel at the camp. On the cross we'd attached injustices that break our hearts (child abuse, the greed of rich unwilling to share, sex trafficking, child soldiers, etc). Acknowledging the broken relationships and world systems that result from human sin became a main focus of our bible study time. After holding a short candle light vigil of "watching, waiting, and praying", we extinguished candles and left Jesus' cross in the dark and cold of the night.




In the morning we returned to contemplate Jesus' resurrection at the foot of an empty cross topped with flowers which had replaced the injustices of the night before.
The smiles you see came out of genuine joy and hope. Approaching the pain of life through the hope of Jesus' resurrection was the conclusion we reached.  The team expressed some tangible fears on this last morning as we prepared to travel directly from the serenity of the Mark West camp directly into the uncertainty of Vancouver's downtown East side.

Pray along with us "Lord have Mercy". We want to lean on the hope of his mercy and grace as we face our fears to love and serve among the poor in Vancouver.

Outside of our VUP team preparation 80 other students were also experiencing Mark West. The joy of Mark west was capped off by witnessing 4 students choose baptism and one girl from China accept Jesus for the first time. It was a week of transformation!

Thank you for your prayers and support. 

Opportunities for Transformation

So it has been awhile since I last updated everyone, I am deeply sorry for that.  So much has happened since Urbana but I really want to take this time to highlight a few things on what is happening over this next month.

Mark West Pacific
As most of you may know, I am absolutely CRAZY about Mark West Pacific.  This opportunity to be immersed and transformed by scripture has been a huge turning point in my own walk with Jesus.  Now with the second year of being in BC, we have the privilege of taking more students to be studying half of the Gospel of Mark in the same way.

Now I know numbers don't really matter but bear with my Engineering nerdyness for a bit.

This is a plot over time on how many BC Students went to Mark West over the past 3 years.  I am excited to share with you that we have 91 students going to this year (compared to the 53 last year)!!  That means there are 91 students who are fully immersing themselves in the Gospel of Mark and hopefully 91 students will come out forever changed and transformed by the Word of God!  Please be praying for these students as there is a good handful of International students and ones who are not following Jesus yet.

Vancouver Urban Partnership (VUP)

Team VUP

VUP is starting tomorrow!!  It's hard to believe that after all the hard work and planning of the VUP staff team, it is finally here and we are ready to see what God is going to be doing during this project.

For those who do not know what VUP is, here is a short description:

The Vancouver Urban Partnership (VUP) is a month-long immersion into Canada’s poorest postal.  We will be living in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) from May 1-28, 2013.

The reason why we choose to fully immerse ourselves in the DTES is that we want to learn the culture of the neighbourhood.  We adopt the lifestyle of a homeless person: sleep on what is only provided to those who would be staying in shelters (we are not taking away beds from those who really need them), lining up for food, join the work of local organizations and learn first-hand about life of the residents of the DTES.  We immerse ourselves in Christian scripture to better understand God’s heart for Justice while partnering with local organizations which have different approaches to address the needs of the neighbourhood.  

Here are some prayer requests:

• A great orientation for the VUP team at Mark West Pacific
• The overall health of our team
• The team dynamics
• The internships that will be hosting us (Jacob's Well, Salvation Army, Mosaic Church)
• The speakers and teachers during VUP
• Mike, Jacqueline & I as we lead these students
• Continued Wisdom and Discernment as we teach and navigate through some difficult things that come up.
• The rest of the VUP Budget to come in.

If you feel God placing on your heart to contribute financially to VUP, we would love to have you come on as a financial partner.  Here is how you can do so:

How to Give

Cheque

Made out to:

Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship Canada

Memo:  Justin Yuen - VUP

Mail to:  

IVCF Canada

1 International Blvd.

Toronto, ON M9W6H3

Online

www.ivcf.ca

Donation Options > Support a Global, Urban or Camp Partnership participant

Type in my name in the “Fund Description” Box.  Select my name.

Enter in the amount of the donation.

Note: All donations are tax deductible.

The Urbana Experience

Main Plenary Session

"Does the word of God stop with
you or spread with you?"

"We don't come to Jesus to get stuff.
We come to Jesus to get Jesus!"
-David Platt

"If the message is not good here,
then it is not good for export"
-Calisto

From December 27-31, 16,000 students from all over the world congregated together in St. Louis, MO with one purpose and goal in mind.  To receive God's heart for missions.  During these 5 days, participants were both challenged and convicted to be living their lives for the Lord wherever and whenever they are at.  By the end of Urbana, over 4,000 committed their lives to long-term missions (+2 years).  Along with this, here are some of the other highlights:

- 96 people decided to become a first-time follower of Jesus.

- 2,740 recommitted their lives to Jesus.

- 6,434 committed to inviting a friend who does not follow Jesus to study the Bible.

- 7,058 committed to serving and learning in a global or cross-cultural setting.

- 5,744 committed to going on a short-term (less than one year) mission.

- 3,071 committed to going on a mid-term (one-to-two year) mission.

- 4,224 committed to investing their lives in long-term (more than two years) mission.

CSLT at Urbana.  Team SFU!!
From Left:
Mona, Lida, Vanessa, Esther, Anika, Andy, Christina

As most of you may already know, SFU sent a total of 7 students to Urbana involved with the Canadian Student Leadership Track (CSLT) where they embraced the Urbana experience through a Canadian lens.  As they were being challenged through intensely studying the gospel of Luke, three specific Canadian Idols (not the singers) were revealed to them:  Comfort, Tolerance, and Niceness.  It is these three idols in Canada that as long as they remain idols in our lives, the gospel cannot be advanced forward.

This is just one of the many things our students received from the CSLT track at Urbana.  

Click Here to read some testimonials of our Canadian SFU Students.

Please be praying for our students as they come into this next semester on fire for the Lord.

Old and New from SFU together at Urbana

Some of my closest friends throwing me an Engagement Party
at Urbana