Summer of South Asian Ministry
In some ways this summer was my summer for significant South Asian ministry, and in many ways a summer of answered prayers for clarity in my role as a minister to South Asians.
I directed the 2014 Bangladesh GUP, and here are a few of my reflections: Being the director of this GUP after serving as a staff for the past two years was adramatic change. Suddenly, I was the one people looked to for answers; I was responsible for booking flights, determining program with our hosts and making sure our team raised all their funds. There were aspects that I loved and aspects that I hated.
LOVED
• Working with a new staff team and figuring out how to free them to lead with their strengths and grow in their weaknesses
• Renewing and deepening relationships with BSFB staff and students
• Relying on God in new ways and seeing the ways He would meet me and call me to trust and partner with Him
HATED
• Making tough decisions on behalf of the team and the ways that would affect relationships between the team and myself
• The all-consuming thoughts about the GUP and the loneliness of leadership
• Needing to always be thinking on my feet and making quick changes due to unforeseen variables
But, now as I look back on the experience, I am grateful for the things that our team learned and experienced, how well we partnered with BSFB, and the ways that I grew as a leader. You can read more of my Bangladesh GUP reflections here.
I also took two Ryerson students with me to the 3rd South Asian InterVarsity Leadership Institute hosted by InterVarsity USA in Boston this August.
To be honest, I was not looking forward to this conference. I believed this would be a deeply enriching experience for the students, but I was tired from the GUP and other summer responsibilities and was sacrificing being part of some significant events in Toronto that week. But, our God is a gracious God. In all the places of need I felt, He met me with abundance. I felt a deep richness of partnership with my colleagues, I was empowered to lead and refueled after a long season of fruitful but tiring work. And I was amazed at what happened for my students. S, a recent graduate, told
me this story on the bus ride home: “I’m a Pastor’s son and have been a Christian my entire life but I NEVER talk about my faith with people. Even when my friends were thinking about becoming a Christian, I wouldn’t talk to them until after they made a decision to follow Christ. I always found talking about my faith awkward. But when we were in Boston sharing our faith with strangers, I realized it’s always awkward when you start but you have to get over it. So I did, and it was amazing!”After S got home, he had started a new job, and within 20 minutes of meeting his
supervisor he shared his faith and asked him to follow Jesus! And N was so excited to reach out to South Asians on our campus. He felt inspired by the ways he can easily build relationships with nonbelieving South Asians and be a witness. Since returning to campus, we have had more South Asians be involved in our ministries than ever before! Praise God!
Asian-American Staff Conference
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
Urbana 2009
This past December, I took part in Inter-Varsity’s triennial Missions conference, Urbana in St. Louis. It was exciting and exhilarating to be part of a group of 16, 000 people! I attended Urbana in 2006 as a student, but this time I attended as a Campus Staff Minister, though there was a significant change in role, it was clear that God has some special things planned for me.
There are so many stories I could tell, but I will share three of my highlights:
CSLT
My role at Urbana was as a Canadian Student Leadership Track Group Leader, meaning that I would walk alongside and shepherd Canadian university student leaders as they participated in this leadership track. Through a set of unexpected circumstances I was assigned to two other campuses before being assigned to a group of 6 students; 5 from Laurentian and 1 from Waterloo. Though I spent less than a week with these students, each one is imprinted on my heart. Walking alongside these students as they encountered Jesus and how He may be calling them to serve Him was exhilarating, and served as a reminder of why I love ministering to students. Each day I spent with these students, God showed me new ways He’d been ministering to me and preparing me for moments like these.
Jessica and Laura, two students from Laurentian offered these stories, click here to read them.
PRAY BIG & PRAY BOLD
There were so many wonderful performances, bible expositions and talks at Urbana, most of which can be viewed online at www.urbana09.org. However, the one talk that really inspired me was Sundar Krishnan’s Pray Big and Pray Bold. Sundar talked about the power of intercessors and encouraged us to pray to a sovereign God, a God who we believe can change things. He gave us an example by sharing how he prayed for a pastor who had been imprisoned; his prayer not changed how I saw intercessory prayer, but it also gave me a new perspective of my current situation and vision for the future.
To see the video of Sundar Krishnan’s talk, please click here.
A RENEWED CALL
Though my role at Urbana kept me pretty busy, I was able to catch a few seminars in the course of the conference. One seminar I attended was one lead by TV Thomas, who I had met last summer. The seminar was called “South Asian Mission Goes Glocal”, the title intrigued me and I was curious to see what TV had to say, so I went. I came right after a discouraging session of the CSLT, and wasn’t sure what to expect. TV started by telling us the history of South Asian Mission, and though it was one of the first times I’d heard this history, many of the things he mentioned gave vocabulary and meaning to some of previous experiences in South Asian churches. He then told us the present and gave his predictions for the future of South Asian Mission. While discussing the present, he mentioned something that haunted me; South Asian students in North America are less likely to hear the gospel than their peers in their home countries. Basically stating that students in these home countries (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh) have more missionaries intentionally sharing the gospel with them than students in North America. They are amongst the largest group of unreached people groups in North America! After hearing this piece, I felt convicted that I was called to this ministry for a reason, and saw that there were ways that as a South Asian person that I could minister to South Asian students. I felt a renewed call to student ministry and with it a call towards healing in my ethnic identity. Though I didn’t know it at the time, this seminar would greatly influence events that would take part in the weeks and months following Urbana.
Though each of these highlights were significant in different ways, each served as visions for what life as a full-time Campus Minister could be like.
The Arch 