January 2009 Prayer Letter

Happy New Year!!

Dear Friends,

As we move into the new year we wanted to share with you one of our highlights from December and probably all of 2008 was a meeting that I (Brian) helped facilitate a few weeks back between many on my Epic HR team and from Epic at large with Dr. John Townsend from New Life Ministries (http://www.cloudtownsend.com). The overall campus ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ established a partnership with Dr. Townsend and his partner Dr. Henry Cloud about 15 years ago in the effort of providing a model or paradigm to help with intentional character and leadership development. They’ve written many a book – you might have come across them.

I’ve been leading a working group for the past few months to explore and reframe some of their material so that it stays true to a Biblical paradigm of growth and maturity, but also resonates better culturally within the Asian American community – eliminating any unnecessary cultural stumbling blocks that may hinder students and staff from thinking more holistically about who they are and what God is doing in their lives.

This has been a very challenging process and it has stretched me greatly as a Caucasian trying to think from a different perspective. Christine and have continued to learn so much this year in this regard! It’s a huge challenge, but our calling to build leaders of character and integrity demands that we go after this. Having a model that resonates with Asian American values and language is very important to our vision of seeing these leaders raised up across the country, reproducing other leaders and teams and student leaders of character and integrity.

Our meeting was really awesome and I appreciated Townsend’s leadership and humility. It’s so nice when you get in a more intimate setting with a big time leader, but he doesn’t act big time. He was down to earth, asked questions when he needed to, but was very comfortable with his cross-cultural limitations regarding the question of how people of other ethnic groups experience his material and content. I think I was most encouraged by how energized he was in recognizing the depth of the need for what we’re trying to do in the Asian American community and how by the end he was using “we” language as we tried to determine our next steps.

We’ll see where this relationship and partnership goes, but what a great highlight for Epic in 2008 as a whole as well as for us personally. You can pray for us all we we continue to make progress in this challenging, but exciting endeavor.

As we try to keep you up to speed on what’s going on with Epic, we want to give a brief update on the development of WSN in Epic. As you remember, we used to serve in WSN – the campus ministries international sending arm of Campus Crusade. Here’s an update I borrowed from a friend who’s helping establish WSN for Epic:

“Right now our short-term priorities are focused on establishing leaders for our six summer projects and planning out how we will brief (training, team building, general prep) and debrief (evaluate, reflect, celebrate, deal with re-entry) our summer project teams.

A longer-term goal we have is to establish partnerships with three countries. Two countries will be Asian (e.g., Japan) and one will be a country with a large number of ‘displaced Asians.’ This term refers to Asians that have immigrated to other countries (for our purpose, anything besides the States.) For example Sao Paulo, Brazil has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan.”

It’s fun to think about the possibilities for Epic in making an international impact for Christ and I’ll be joining in some of those discussions soon as we begin to partner with WSN and HR in Epic in sending equipped and healthy teams to launch movements all around the world.

I just got this update on how things are shaping up for our Epic Conferences on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.  We have 1 in SF and one in Philly.  You can be praying that the Lord draws more students to these great venues for life change and ministry equipping.  Pray for the students coming already, for more to come, and that the Epic conferences raise up laborers and leaders on campus!

Epic Conference 09 East Coast: (as of Dec 5, 2008- end of Early Reg. period):
21 staff registered
100 students in the CRS tool:
87 Pre-Registered (staying in the hotel)
7 Pre-Registered Commuters

Epic Conference 09 West Coast: (as of Dec 5, 2008- end of Early Reg. period):
23 staff registered
218 students in the CRS tool: (plus 4 additional mail in reg.)
190 Pre-Registered (staying in the hotel)
11 Pre-Registered Commuters

Hi Friends!

Greetings to you as we enter the holiday season! We love this season of the year, partly because we begin to see some of the fruit of all the hard work that goes into starting the school year – especially on campuses all around the nation. Our movement launching training course is still under way. About 20 Epic or other CCC staff have finished with another 15 set to wrap things up shortly. It’s been fun to get feedback of how this training and process of leadership development is translating to new movements launched on the field, new laborers for the Kingdom, and new believers!

“Since the beginning of the training, we as a team have seen significant steps to launching movements. We have been apart of 3 movement launches. But the confidence that the training has given our team has been very useful when considering whywe launch, and how to do it. We are continually thinking of how to launch on other campuses and plan to launch 3 more movements before January. We’re excited about what God might do through these 6 movements, and consider it a joy to be a part of what God is doing.” — Epic Staff Member, Univ. of Texas

“A couple of us were meeting a student leader from Columbia and she said to Lara (Epic Staff, NYC). ‘Recently when you read from Luke 10 & 11, it was like God said very clearly to me about that I need to go into ministry when I graduate (Internship). It was very powerful how God used His word and what you said.’ Later I asked Lara how it felt to be so clearly used by God. She laughed a bit and said that she loved it! Then, she went on to say that she had gotten inspired through the class and had felt a very strong motivation about communicating what she had observed from Luke 10 & 11 from that assignment in the class. — Epic Staff Member, New York City

Obviously these are difficult economic times. We want you to know we’re praying for you – for God’s peace and provision. Some have asked about how we are doing in light of these realities so we want to give a brief update and also let you know how you can help us if you are in a position to. We have lost about $400-$500 in monthly support over the past 7 months which is significant for us. That adds up as the months go by. God has been faithful to provide some of that loss back in the form of some generous one time gifts, but the need is still there. We are trusting the Lord right now for $5000 in one-time, special gifts right now to
help with the immediate impact of this loss of support and for $400 in new monthly support.

If you are in a position to, please pray about joining our time financially or even increasing your current commitment.  We’re so energized by what God is doing right now among Asian Americans and all college students and we’re thankful for the opportunity to trust God with you for new believers, new movements, & Christ-centered leaders.

In this season know that we are extremely thankful for the Lord’s provision, His guidance, and for your partnership and generosity. We appreciate you!

In His Name,
Brian, Christine,
Morgan & Colin

Hi Friends!

We hope this finds you well as we enter Christmas season.  Holidays can have
their ups and downs, but we love this part of the year for some of the
opportunities to connect with family and have renewed focus on the
incarnation of Jesus.  It¹s an amazing thing to consider for sure!

Thanksgiving was a mixed bag of sorts.  We got the news about the passing of
my grandmother, my dad¹s mom, the week before Thanksgiving.  The viewing and
memorial service were scheduled for the Tuesday and Wednesday just before
Thanksgiving and with some very generous financial help we  were able to
take our whole family out to the 900 person town of Shannon, Illinois.
There were definitely moments of great sadness and loss.  For Delma was much
loved and respected and she¹s left a deep imprint on all of us ­ her 5 kids,
18 grandchildren, and 32 great-grandchildren.  However, at 94, she had been
long ready to meet her Lord ­ and at that we have much to celebrate.  The
week provided a spontaneous family reunion of sorts as well as I¹ve not seen
anyone on this side of the family apart from my grandma in over 10 years.
It was a neat time to reconnect with some folks and walk through the
experience with others who have had similar experiences.  It was very
special as so many have heard about or seen pictures of our kids, Morgan
especially, yet never have seen them in person.  It was in this context that
we celebrated thanksgiving ­ where there was some sadness, but great cause
to be thankful as well.

We appreciate you and as we¹ve been contemplating in this season for us, the
brevity of life and the weight of eternity, we¹re so thankful to be
partnered with you in this great endeavor of seeing student¹s lives changed
­ both here on earth and forever!

We aim to send out our 08 Christmas card in the next week or so.  If you did
not receive a hard copy of this letter in the mail we do not have your
address.  We¹d love to send you our Christmas card ­ but we need your
address to do it!  Can you reply and give us your current address in the
next few days?  We¹d love to include you for our Christmas card.

As you¹ll read in the letter, we¹ve included some ways you can help us meet
some financial needs as we approach the end of the year.  A link to our
online giving page is right below:

https://give.ccci.org/give?Action=ProcessPage&Page=VirtualCommonLinks…
er=viewDetail&Desig=0422845

Thank you so much and we¹re praying for God¹s presence and blessing on your
lives and families this special season,

Brian & Christine

P.S.  Here are some links of interest if you have time & interest:

Family Photo Shoot  –
http://blogginbeav.blogspot.com/2008/11/family-photos.html
Grandma Delma       –
http://blogginbeav.blogspot.com/2008/11/great-life-and-legacy.html
Trip to Shannon, IL   –
http://blogginbeav.blogspot.com/2008/11/back-from-shannon.html
Delma Day               –
http://blogginbeav.blogspot.com/2008/11/delma-day.html

Do You Want to See It?
You are invited to check out what we’ve been working
so hard on! We have set up a guest site that is secure.
You won’t be able to see people’s work or download any
files, but you can see what we’re doing and get a feel for it.
1. Visit: http://kingdomlearning.org/kingdomlearning
2. Scroll down and select “Epic Movement Launching –
For Guests”
3. Select “Login as Guest” (2nd button down on left)
4. Enter Guest Enrollment Key: EPICGUEST08
(It’s case sensitive)

Hi Friends!

Our next update will be coming soon, but given we just celebrated a big
landmark ­ Colin¹s one year birthday, we wanted to take a time out and
invite you to see some pics of the big day and some video of Colin¹s first
year.

We¹re appreciative of you for many things, but one of those is that we know
that so many are praying for our kids.  You¹re a part of our children¹s
lives and development so we¹re excited to share some of these moments with
you.

Thanks for your prayers for us and for Colin!

Colin¹s First Year Video
http://blogginbeav.blogspot.com/2008/11/colins-one-year-birthday-vide…

Birthday Pics
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80434&l=2868b&id=715941209

In Jesus,
Brian & Christine

Fall Fruitfulness!!
Dear Friends,
We’ve been praying for you. The last few
weeks have truly been anxious times for so many. We
don’t know how you have been affected by all that is
taking place economically, but we will continue to pray
for God’s presence and provision. You can pray for us
too. We’ve lost a little bit of our monthly support over
the past six months, we continue to be blessed by
your generosity – even in crazy economic times!
For us right now, this season of ministry has
been very fruitful and very exciting. The web-based
leadership development system has been launched
and our new 8-week ministry training on movement
launching and ministry pioneering is live. Right now
we have over 38 full-time staff and interns
involved and taking this course between our
semester and quarter tracks!

The feedback has been very positive thus far.
Some have been surprised by the amount of work
involved, but the feedback has been extremely positive
about its impact and effectiveness for the areas of
ministry and leadership development that we’re going
after. Here are some quotes we’ve heard from some
of the Epic staff taking the course. One staff member
said, “I wish all new staff in the Campus Ministry
were required to go through the content in the
course!” Another confided, “This is the most
development and helpful equipping I’ve
experienced in my years on staff!” We’ll be
soliciting more thorough feedback in a couple weeks,
but those quotes capture some of why we’re
encouraged thus far.

While that feedback is encouraging, we’re
excited that as part of the course, each student taking
the course is required to identify, decode, and
develop a plan to launch a movement within a
specific sub-culture on their campus. Right now that
means that over 30 full-time staff are in the
process of pioneering a new movement of
evangelism & discipleship in an ethnic subculture
on the campuses that they are serving at!
It’s been great to watch them dialogue and
collaborate and learn together. Ministry training in a
lot of places has often been done very individually or
cognitively (i.e. notebook based). But isn’t learning
way more fun when you are doing it with other people
doing the same things?
In His Name,
Brian & Christine