by Judy Wang

Growing up in Chicago as the kid of Taiwanese immigrant parents, I remember with fondness all the wonderful smells of Ma’s cooking wafting from the kitchen. I can still smell it now, all my favorite Taiwanese foods – beef noodle soup, braised pork rice, pork & cabbage dumplings, tea eggs, flaky scallion pancakes, sweet potato rice porridge, sticky rice tamales, the list goes on.

When it comes to bringing people together, nothing quite compares to food, as my family would gather around the table and enjoy the meal family style. At times, we would mix traditions together – something from their homeland and something from America – like the one time, we celebrated Thanksgiving with a generous meal highlighted by Peking Duck with steamed buns.

The kitchen was Ma’s sanctuary, her sacred place, her little piece of Taiwan, her connection to her heritage and memories of everything she left behind to come to this brave new world called America and seek out a better future for her children. All the recipes she brought with her to her new home, she knew them by heart, never measured her ingredients, and seasoned everything by taste. Sometimes when she was in the mood and had enough time, she would call me into the kitchen to help her wrap dumplings, and we bonded as she imparted her recipe onto me. In this way, our family recipes and culture would pass on from one generation to the next.

In the same spirit and hope, the founders of Apples of Gold began their ministry to connect women, build up their faith, and create community within the church. Through this ministry, they desired to open their hearts and share godly wisdom and experiences with the next generation of women in the church. And, again, nothing compares to preparing and sharing a meal together to allow that holiest of exchanges to take place.

We focused on “Experiencing Life Together” as our theme this year and learned the “recipe” for creating true and genuine fellowship. I’d like to share with you a condensed version of that recipe:

Recipe: Experiencing Life Together

Ingredients:  

1 lb of Fellowship

1 tablespoon of Humility & Courage

1 serving of Mutuality

1 teaspoon of Sympathy

A handful of Mercy

Directions:

1.     Place the Fellowship into a home with a kitchen or a gathering where women break bread together. Because Fellowship starts when we are together, when we live out our day-to-day lives side-by-side.

2.     Gradually stir in Humility & Courage and mix it together to produce Authenticity. This flavor will create the foundation for all the following ingredients to build upon, for it is only with Authenticity that we are able “to grow spiritually and be emotionally healthy.” (pg. 140, The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren)

3.     Pour in Mutuality and whip it vigorously into the Fellowship. Because as Scripture says, “Make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” (Romans 14:19 NIV) For there are over 50 incidences in the New Testament where we are commanded to do different tasks to “one another” and “each other.” So this step in the recipe is crucial for experiencing life together.

4.     Then, take the Sympathy and fold it gently into the Fellowship. Because sometimes, we just need to know that we’re not crazy and that it’s ok to feel the way that we feel. In this way, “we enter into each other’s pain and grief and carry each other’s burdens.” (pg 142, The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren)

5.     And finally, take a handful of Mercy and sprinkle it liberally everywhere you see tension, misunderstanding, or sticky circumstances in the Fellowship. Because we all stumble sometimes, and we all need mercy.

6.     When you have finished, start from #1 and repeat this process over and over again.

And, voila! You have yourself a Fellowship that is a hearty meal of good spiritual food for the soul.

At the end of Apples of Gold, we received a cookbook compilation of all the recipes shared by the cooks from each different Apples group. Whenever I leaf through its pages, I am reminded of the delicious food, genuine conversations and hearty prayers we offered to one another during that time, and I am inspired to take the recipes for both “physical” and “spiritual” food and share it with another.

By Debra Fong

A good friend of mine is a high school counselor and in any given year, she may be responsible for up to 600 students.  Wow!  That is a lot of people to counsel and only so many work days to do it.

Who do you turn to when you need advice/counsel?

When faced with a big important decision in my life, I will usually seek the advice and counsel of those who are closest to me, those whom I trust and sometimes, those who may have expertise in a particular area.  However, in the end, the counsel of one is more important than all the others.

In Isaiah 9:6, it says “For a child will be born to us … And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God.  Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”  There is no greater counsel than that from our Heavenly Father! 

Do you seek the counsel of the Lord for those very important as well as those not so important decisions in your life?  Do you seek His counsel when deciding which school to go to? What career to pursue? What job to take? Where to live?  How to handle a difficult situation?

 “ … And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:  And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” – 1 Kings 19:11-12

Through prayer (and prayer trainings), I have learned to recognize and listen to the “still small voice” of the Lord.  Prayer is not just a one-way conversation where we come to the Lord with a list of our requests.  Prayer can be a conversation with God where we posture ourselves to listen to Him.  It’s a place where we can come before the Lord expectant to hear from Him.  God is always speaking to us…we just need to stop and listen.

So the next time you are faced with a decision, big or small, be sure to include God in your decision making process.  There’s no better place to be, than in His perfect will for your life.

 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” - John 10:27

If you would like to learn how to listen to God through prayer (listening prayer), please email ebcsgvprayer@gmail.com.

by Arnold Dichosa

Golf Ministry tournaments are planned months in advance so we’re always uncertain about the weather. The 2016 Arcadia golf tournament was forecast to rain around noon. It’s not fun playing when it’s cold and wet. We had to hope that everything would be fine despite the forecast weather. We decided to have every group start at the same time on different holes to try to beat the rain.

However, despite our efforts to end before the rain started, we were not able to avoid my biggest fear. THE RAIN. As the rain began to get heavier, I started to pray. God reminded me that He is sovereign and my focus should be on Jesus, not the issues or distractions around me. The weather didn’t get any better so I began to ask God what he wanted to show me. I was worried that the participants wouldn’t be able to play well or have fun due to the rain.

I was also reminded of how Peter stepped out of the boat in the stormy waters and focused his gaze on Jesus. He had peace and faith that God was in control. In the same way, I was able to experience God work in me during this tournament. God showed me to look beyond the weather and what I had thought would make a successful tournament. As I focused on Him, I didn’t see the heavy rain, muddy grass, or uncomfortable and cold surrounding. Instead, I saw His peace and joy in many of the faces of those who played.

After everyone had finished we gathered in the club house and I was surprised that everyone seemed happy, even sharing stories of their favorite shot or what could’ve been the winning putt. It was as if we played a round on a sunny day. I was amazed at how things turned out and how the weather did not affect the enjoyment of playing. It was a great time of fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. In the end, I didn’t need to worry about what I could not control but to trust God in the midst of the RAIN.

Ephesians 3:16–19b (NIV) “16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—”

The above verses are a portion from Paul’s prayer for the believers in Ephesus found in Ephesians 3:14-21. I’ve been reading and meditating over this prayer because it’s the theme verse of our college group at EvergreenSGV and we are teaching through it at the Tuesday summer worship nights. (By the way, these college worship nights will continue every Tuesday night in the MPR from 7:30pm to 9:30pm until August 15th, 2017. Come out and join us!)

As I have read this prayer over and over again and have prayed it for the church and loved ones, I’ve begun to better understand what Paul is praying for. In the prayer, Paul asks God that out of his glorious wealth (which is pretty much the whole universe and all that he is), he would strengthen the believers in Ephesus with power through his Spirit so that two main things might happen in their lives. What are those two things? One is that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith and the second is that they would be able to grasp and know the vast and limitless love of Christ

However, why would they, or you and I, need God’s gloriously supplied power by his Spirit to enable us to do these two things? Well, the obvious answer is that because without God’s empowerment we would not be able to do these two things.

I have a large Pepper tree in my front yard and I didn’t understand how much effort and work it would take to trim that tree until one year I decided to save money and do it myself. After about one hour of snipping, clipping and sawing off branches, I was done. I wasn’t done with trimming the tree; I was done with trying! On that day, sweaty and exhausted with a kink in my neck from constantly looking up, I came to truly comprehend how difficult and demanding it was to trim my Pepper tree.

I share this Pepper tree trimming story because in order for us to appreciate Paul’s prayer and to better understand why we need God’s Spirit empowered strength, we first need to comprehend how difficult it is to have Christ dwell in our hearts through faith and how demanding it is for us to grasp and know the infinite love of Christ. Until we truly comprehend how formidable these two things are to do, we will not be able to wholeheartedly pray Paul’s prayer for one another.

I will continue this topic in my next article.

“Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath’”. Mark 2:27

One of the things we human beings tend to experience is a thing called burnout. According to Merriam-Webster, burnout is defined as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration”. Dictionary.com describes burnout as “fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork, or intense activity”.

In 1 Kings 18, the Prophet Elijah experienced an incredible victory over the prophets of Baal. Immediately afterwards, he experienced a letdown and fled from Queen Jezebel. How could a man be so bold and brave one moment and so fearful and fragile the next? I believe Elijah was experiencing the symptoms of burnout as defined above.

So how did the Lord have Elijah deal with his burnout?

In 1 Kings 19:5-8, the Bible tells us one of the things that assisted Elijah in his recovery from his condition.

“He (Elijah) lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat.” 6 Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. 7 The angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.” 8 So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.” 1 Kings 19:5-8

The Lord had Elijah rest and tended to his physical needs. Elijah needed a respite from his responsibilities as a prophet of God. According to Mark 2:27, we were created by God to have a day of rest. Rest is not optional, it is essential.

So one of the things that prevents and helps alleviate burnout is rest.

I am going to take a respite from writing blogs for the month of August and will write about burnout after a period of rest.

How are you at resting? Is it time to take a break?

Something to think about…