In the beginning of March, I was invited to attend Asian-American Staff Conference, a triennial staff conference hosted by InterVarsity USA’s Asian-American Ministries.  I went with 10 Canadian staff to the conference which lasted 5 days in San Mateo, California. This was my first time encountering the Asian-American Ministries movement, and wasn’t sure what to expect; but I was excited to embark on this journey with the Canadian staff present, and to meet the staff of AAM movement.

The timing of this invitation was impeccable given the revelations I had at Urbana, and I was excited to receive training in issues of identity, calling and leadership that could be then used when mentoring/discipling bicultural students. I was also hoping to meet and find fellowship with some other North American South-Asian staff, since I am amongst a handful of South-Asian staff in Canada.

The conference exceeded my expectations! It was a time of having significant connections and fellowship with new friends in the American movement, and further cultivation of relationships with Canadian staff. Also there were many places where I had opportunities to receive healing by facing past pain and trusting that God would meet me in that process.

The conference began with Nikki Toyoma-Szeto, co-author of More Than Serving Tea and the associate director of programs for the Urbana 09, telling us the history of the Asian-American Ministries movement. The following morning James Choung, author of True Story and national director of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Asian American Ministries, told us the present reality of Asian-American Ministries and later that day gave us vision of what the future could look like. The following day we had opportunities to attend seminars about various topics pertaining to Asian-American Ministry; I first one I attended was called “Ethnic Empowerment and Ministry Effectiveness”, which gave me a new perspective of what leading from a healed ethnic identity looked like and why it was important. The second seminar I attended was called “Evangelism: Contextualizing the Gospel for Asian-American students”, this seminar opened up my eyes to how some methods of sharing the Gospel can lead to more bondage than freedom for Asian students and provided an alternative method of presenting the Gospel. The rest of the time at the conference was time spent with our small groups (I was in a small group with other Canadian staff) debriefing our experiences and also engaging the other staff at the conference and enjoying the beautiful San Mateo weather and sights.

By the end of the conference I had a new perspective of my identity and received vision of who I could be in leadership. I felt a strong call to both greatness and brokenness, and knew that the people surrounding me at that conference would be partners in that journey.

Originally, I had thought that my only purposes for being at that conference were to receive healing in my identity and vision for leadership, which I would then use in my work with students. What I soon realized upon returning is that my transformation as a fully committed follower of Jesus that is strong in both my Canadian and Asian identities is something that will be impact not only Ryerson students, but my staff peers on my regional staff team, as well as my peers and mentors in other ministries in Canada and abroad!

Some of the Canadian IVCF staff at AASC