fighting a winning battle

SO. I just came back from this month's BTJ ... gathering/meeting/WORSHIP thing hehe
Thanks to YAHNI for inviting me x]

Hmm well my initial thoughts on this... Christina and I would be the only Taiwanese people there... and then Christina ended up not going... so I ended up being the only Taiwanese person there and EVERYBODY ELSE was Korean xP. But it wasn't my first experience of being the only ethnicity I was in the midst of dozens of Korean people - -. And I was a bit concerned of their worship and prayer because I knew the church I attend is wayy more conservative than any other church I have been too (and I was right - -"). So yea... those were my concerns in the beginning. Everything else was... pretty much okay.

The event was held in San Jose, right across from Jubilee, so I wanted to get a head start on arriving there because I knew it would be far. My dad and I 出發 around 6:40 ish (The event started at 7:00). I ended up arriving there at 7:30 because we got lost x________x... and it was dark, so we couldn't really see much.

But yea. I eventually got there, haha. I felt so intimidated (ish) while signing in... I don't get why we had to sign in though :[ All these Parks Kims Yoons Youngs Yoos and then... 'Lin' x囗x..... I was glad they didn't put my last name on my name tag, though haha - - [ I should be proud of my last name x____x] And then I walked inside this HUGE dark room and Yahni was working with the technical stuff in the back most of the time so I couldn't really stay with her a lot :[

MMm... about the actual WORSHIP. They.. sing.. a LOT hahaha.. and loud too, it hurt my ears a few times >< But they're really expressive and unafraid to let out their feelings.. unlike me - - I was just standing there and when they clapped I would clap too but that was pretty much it... There was this one song where everyone started jumping and I was like D: woahh haha I was shocked my church would never do this - -"... And then the praise leader dude wanted to 'worship as one' so the worship team and the audience gathered around in a circle to sing. I was originally just standing out of the circle and then this lady kind of pulled me in saying "Come on! Let's worship as one!" Haha so I had to go, too - -"... Thank God I knew most of the songs they sung :[

And their prayer... whenever they said like, pray to yourselves or something similar like that, everyone started praying out LOUD. Haha obviously this is all very new to me D: I bet some person reading this is like wow this person is lame she doesn't pray out loud. In fact I don't, there's really no wrong way to pray, you know - -. But yea when I was done praying silently to myself it was interesting listening to what others were shouting out to the Lord ^^;

I'd say the main speaker was... "Chorong Kim"? Something like that? haha :[ This 24 year old Korean lady talked about how God changed her life through her as a student missionary in Turkey. She stayed there for a year, and just came back in August. She talked about a lot of things that stood out to me, like how she was humbled during her mission, and purposes in life and such. There was this one part of the message I felt like crying - - but I held the tears in heeheeheehee. I think it was when she said like...

Why are we setting up so much standards for ourselves? Who made them? God certainly didn't make them so why are we bothering to follow them? I can bet like a million dollars the first numbers everyone thought in that room when hearing of 'standards' was 4.0 and 2400. She referred to verse in Ephesians(?) and basically said that we were all created differently. Not all of us are smart, or talented in a certain area, but God made us so in order to reach out to the billion kinds of people around the world about Him. She talked about how to reach the favor of people in Turkey, you had to eat a lot. And this one guy on her missionary team was a 'bear' and that he won the favor of families they visited and that was a great thing, because once they won the favor of that family, it would be easier to talk to them about the Gospel, and God made him that way to do His works. And this other girl that had the gift of spreading laughter, and God made her that way to do His works.

So she got us thinking. Who do we live for? Why do we wake up in the morning? Do the things we do glorify God or make us grow in Him and love Him more? Yea I think this was the part I felt like crying - -".... Cause I was like ahh I'm such a failure D: But in God's eyes I guess I haven't failed.. yet.. cause I guess I didn't really start anything yet so... I can only keep praying :[
So yea now I really don't know what to do the rest of my life - -"... Something I have been praying for lately :[

Ohh yea and the speaker talked about how Asian media culture is reaching all over the world, like Korea's. She was in this cafe and this teenage Turkish girl kept staring at her. She told the girl to come over and she looked at the girl's phone, and it had all these Korean dramas and Korean singers like SE7EN and stuff, hahahaha. And it wasn't only that girl, many students all over the world are getting attraced to Korean media (here is proof too - -), and to have Korean people reach out to them about the Gospel, I guess these students are very engaged in whatever messages these Korean missionaries have to say to them.

Omg the small group part was... very uncomfortable... seeing that I was the only girl in my group and was not with Yahni, I was very very quiet and I felt kind of intimidated. Especially when they asked me my last name. They were like 'Are you Korean'? And I said no and then they were like "Oh........................."... "....". But yea the group leader was the praise leader so I was a litttle bit more comforted by that cause it was one of the leaders I've seen all night instead of just some random person - -". D: He was 15! I was so shocked haha. >:O And he made me start off in prayer I BARELY pray out loud to other people so like I made it short and fast - -". And then we had to play a game and they couldn't think of any. The 12 year old suggested rock paper scissors? But they didn't play that.. And then they were like think of a game, Tiffany. So I told them about the Korean frying pan game and out of the seven of us, only three of us knew how to play it, so it was actually quite funny haha.

Oh and they also told me about what BTJ (Back to Jerusalem) actually was. Basically, while Christianity was traveling all over the 'west', like America, Europe, and parts of Asia like China and Korea, the places in the world that ORIGINALLY should have been Christian are becoming less of it, like the Middle East - Islam and Buddhism. So their vision and goal is to get the 10-40 window back on their feet to Christianity, going to places like Syria (where Yahni went over the summer), Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Vietnam, some place that started with a U - -", etc... Most of those places execute Christians, and to do missionary work there, I think it's very brave ^^; Actually, I think 這樣才比較對... I mean like, going to Southern America, Africa, China, and Taiwan is good too, these places are becoming more and more Christianized. To know that the original land of God is turning away from Him hurts Him, and to have people recognize this and focus on those areas more is very very smart. D: haha sorry I need to 練 more SAT vocab - -.

But yea that's pretty much all I have to say about the small groups - -".. I'm not really a group person. Yahni was a group leader! :D hehe

Yea and then we ended with worship and there was food but I didn't eat it cause I don't eat food after 8:00 but I ended up buying a Hot Vanilla Chai at Tapioca where there were all these 奇奇怪怪的人 - -"

AND TODAY was the first time I heard Switchfoot's "Mess of Me" on the radio!! I got so excited. And I saw this license plate that was "I PWN LOL". hahahahaha funny D:

Well, now I'm off to do APUSH and work on my testimony lala D: