The gospel for everyone

My October was bookended by two side quests – starting with a conference in Dallas, Texas, and ending with a global missions gathering in Seoul, South Korea. A missions mentor who I had met last year and lost contact with (more on that later) randomly reached out over the summer and welcomed me into these circles.

Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) Conference

First stop: Dallas! In between my work and church commitments, I managed to make a quick 48-hour trip to attend a missiology (the study of missions) conference on the theme of “Ecclesiology (the study of the Christian Church) and Mission.” Lots of “-ology” words… I had wondered how much I would be able to understand from the conference because of its academic nature, but it actually activated a part of my brain that I did not know could light up so much. I was hooked on the convergence of theology, missions strategy, and imagined application – perhaps an indicator of something to pay attention to in my future career change? Most of all, I loved how every presentation, no matter how heady, honed in on the importance of relationship.

As I sat in these discussions, I could not help but notice that the majority of the people in the room did not really look like me at all. I was often one of the few (from rare to rarest) people of color, women, or people probably under the age of 40, and I was certainly one of the only among the hundred or so attendees who represented the combination of all three categories. I note these observations not out of pessimism, but out of curiosity. What would it look like for younger voices to contribute to, maybe even to steer, conversation on the future of missions?

“So, what paper are you presenting about?” I am sure some people were just asking this out of politeness, but I think some people were also genuinely asking. Maybe in the future… but for now, I had fun responding with, “Oh, I’m not presenting, I’m just here to support my friends!”

This was my first time attending a conference outside the familiarity of my church’s network, which was a good primer to prepare me for my next, much bigger stop: the WEA General Assembly in Seoul.

World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) General Assembly (GA)

The WEA GA was a week-long missions conference that gathered over 1,000 delegates from 124 countries and 161 nations, plus over 5,000 Korean pastors. I was so excited and grateful to attend an international event like this that brought so many believers together. The worship was one of the most tangible foretastes of heaven that I have ever experienced…

On the other hand, I was confused by feelings akin to imposter syndrome that tried to silence my excitement and gratitude, mostly in two ways…

• I felt awkward trying to explain to my church acquaintances, even to friends, about why I was traveling to Korea just a month after returning from my Japan vision trip. It made sense to me, knowing how God orchestrated the series of events and conversations that led me to this opportunity, but there were more than a few times that I felt misunderstood or dismissed.
• I was attending the GA as part of an intergenerational group focused on raising up “NextGen” leaders, comprised of 20+ other Asians from eight countries, most of whom I would be meeting for the first time in Seoul. We had one Zoom meeting to exchange introductions where we answered an icebreaker question, “In what way would you most like to serve or contribute to this NextGen group or the WEA network?” These folks had a ton of expertise and giftings to offer, but me?

To expand more on the insecurity in the second bullet point… I got connected to this NextGen group through a mentor I had met last summer at an Asian-American missions gathering in Seattle. It was the same concept: bringing together about 20 folks across generations to reflect on our unique missional callings. I shocked my introverted, fear-of-unbelonging self by going even though I was entering as a stranger, but it turned out to be one of the greatest impacts on my missions journey so far. For the first time in all my years of expressing my desire to go on long-term missions, I felt the power of someone (and in this case, 20 people) who believed in me and took me seriously. How did I know that I could trust the encouragement of these people I had just met? Because each one of them is wholly living out their Kingdom calling with such intentionality and focus. Missions is not something they fit into their life, but a mentality and lifestyle that everything else in their life is propped up by.

If this gathering was a mountain top in my missions journey, about a month later I went on a short-term missions trip that brought me down to a valley low. Another nature metaphor could be an emotional earthquake: identity lies and some good ol’ team conflict rubbing against each other like tectonic plates along a fault line of spiritual warfare, until eventually there was a slip that sent everything in me flying.

I went into somewhat of a survival mode upon returning home, especially with my teammates gushing about how amazing the trip was to the rest of our church. I tried to give an appearance of being unbothered, but this internal self-projection did not last very long.

Immediately after the trip, I jumped into co-leading a new small group with a distinct vision for discipleship. My church is notorious for having a competitive small group culture with lotteries and waitlists to get in, but ours only had three people sign up. It felt like high school but a bit worse, because I should know better now as a follower of Jesus than to let myself feel like I came in last place in a popularity contest.

Then, it was already time for our church to begin planning the next year’s STM trips, which starts with choosing the team leaders. I found out that all of the women from my previous team were asked to lead the selective STM trips going back to the Muslim world, whereas my name had been decisively put on a list of people who would not be asked for any team at all. To be honest, I was not sure if I even wanted to be a team leader, but I had built an expectation after several jokes over the years from my church leadership to “be ready” after I came back from Guatemala. When I had inquired about why I was not asked again this year, I was told, “Well, the Middle East has a lot of spiritual warfare, and we had to keep that in mind…” Okay, got it.

In lieu of leading an STM team, I was instead tasked with leading a biweekly prayer gathering for the nations within our church’s missions ministry. I understood the importance of prayer as the “real work” of missions (as Hudson Taylor said, “When we work, we work. When we pray, God works.”), but my flesh was surely disappointed when many prayer gatherings only had one or two other people join and I could hear the chatter of my friends and peers in the fellowship hall just outside.

I felt like I was failing in everything I cared about. In my struggle to understand my place in my local church body, I fully leaned into my flight stress response, which included doing nothing to maintain the new relationships I began in Seattle (i.e. I regretfully and shamefully did the terrible act of ghosting). Maybe I did not “deserve” to be invited to their gathering in the first place, or as a more optimistic twist, maybe it was meant to be just a one-time experience for me. I knew anyways going into the gathering that my church had been offered two spots, and I was an afterthought pick after the previous invitees had declined. They could continue walking together without me as they were doing before, and I should just be grateful for the exposure I got.

Not all was lost, however. One action I did take away from Seattle was to begin writing about my faith journey outside of just an annual STM support letter, as if my life was one long STM trip. It took me almost a year to get started, but once I did, I noticed things happening – I think there is something about memorializing and sharing our journey that adds gravity to it and creates a new medium for God to speak.

I found myself stuck at the question, “Who am I (without missions)?” and taking a step of faith to explore that question during my Japan vision trip. Somehow one of the Seattle gathering mentors heard about what I was doing, which led to an invitation to the WEA GA. I was at first embarrassed and confused. What did I have to show for over the past year of silence to merit this reconnection? But as the WEA GA approached closer, instead of letting myself fall down a self-rejecting trap, I held tighter to this reflection that God had used to minister to me this year while in Japan.

"We touch here a great spiritual mystery: To be chosen does not mean that others are rejected.  It is very hard to conceive of this in a competitive world such as ours.  All of my memories of being chosen are linked to memories of others not being chosen . . . How often I needed the words: 'The fact that you are not chosen does not mean that you are not good, only that someone else is a little better.' . . . To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different.  Instead of excluding others, it includes others.  Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness.  It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice.  Our minds have great difficulty in coming to grips with such a reality. Maybe our minds will never understand it. Perhaps it is only our hearts that can accomplish this. Every time we hear about 'chosen people', 'chosen talents', or 'chosen friends', we almost automatically start thinking about elites and find ourselves not far from feelings of jealousy, anger, or resentment.  But I beg you, do not surrender the word 'chosen' to the world.  Dare to claim it as your own, even when it is constantly misunderstood.  You must hold on to the truth that you are the chosen one.  That truth is the bedrock on which you can build a life as the Beloved.  When you lose touch with your chosenness, you expose yourself to the temptation of self-rejection, and that temptation undermines the possibility of ever growing as the Beloved."
– Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

I had to learn the hard lesson of letting go of my perception of being “chosen” as informed by the world, which profits off of our fears of scarcity and rejection. It is not about proving ourselves impressive enough to be chosen for x-y-z thing; neither are we meant to flatten the world so that everyone is the same. I was unsure of how I would be received in Dallas and Seoul, but in daring to push past the fears and claim my Belovedness, I was reminded that the gospel creates a spot for me.

“We dream a dream of the gospel for everyone.” This was the WEA GA tagline and the great equalizer of why we all were at this gathering. This is the great unifier of why we as one body with many members all participate in God’s mission.

I have struggled to see myself capable of being a leader, but my time at the WEA GA challenged me to believe otherwise. I can always take initiative on my convictions from God (who is the real leader, let me not forget), regardless of what titles or influence I hold. Furthermore, I am being challenged to think beyond me as the individual but me as part of a bigger collective. Our NextGen group hosted two days of workshops featuring personal stories on a blend of topics in mental health, giftedness, and the digital age. It was inspiring to hear the voices of new friends and to see many attendees who wanted to learn from younger leaders.

I even had the opportunity to speak on day two, which was sprung on me the night before while sitting at a dessert cafe. Pre-WEA Jessica had passed on this opportunity weeks before when offered to the entire group because I just wanted to blend in as the new kid and figured I did not have anything noteworthy to share. Present-WEA Jessica felt a bit more empowered to take the three to five minutes of stage time and contribute to the conversation at large as a NextGen voice and more so as a member of Christ’s body.

I shared a tiny bit about how I have navigated mental health and grief from my Guatemala missions internship experience, alongside the stories of these other incredible folks

There are many reasons I am thankful to have participated in the WEA GA, but most of all for how it reinforced the gospel in my life. Where I had rejected myself for my shortcomings and mistakes, there I found the Father waiting for me all along, with his love made manifest through the body of Christ… pure grace.

I shared with our group’s mentor on our final night together in Seoul, “I have no idea why you invited me, but thank you.”

His response? “I have no idea why you said yes!”

Hmm. I had never thought about it that way before. I guess we could both have a point.

May I always choose to say “yes” to God’s grace and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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A short note on my first time visiting Korea

Once I got over the initial shock of being in a new foreign country, I found myself often having thoughts of how familiar Seoul felt. Living in Los Angeles with many Korean-American friends, I had eaten all the foods and seen all the fashion trends and heard the language spoken around me all before. Feeling even more familiar was my experience of the Korean Church, particularly their hospitality and fervent expressions of faith (I must say that experiencing tongsung kido [통성기도], the Korean style of praying out loud simultaneously, with thousands of people in one sanctuary was quite incredible).

In light of my previous reflection that touched on my experience being non-Korean at a predominantly Korean-American church, I came out of this trip with a lot of gratitude for the Korean Church’s faithfulness that has been carried through generations. I still may wrestle sometimes with how to exist in the Korean-American Church, but I realized how much I had taken it for granted, often forgetting the fact that the gospel had to once be brought to Korea, too. Although I do not think I will forget this again after visiting the Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery, walking among the rows and rows of graves, and honoring the missionaries who gave their lives away for the joy of sharing the love of Christ…

“If I had a thousand lives to give, Korea should have them all.”
– Missionary Ruby Kendrick

Something I also did not consider much before this visit is how Christianity in Korea grew so quickly and relatively recently in history. In the span of a century, Korea went from receiving these foreign missionaries to now South Korea being one of the largest missionary-sending countries in the world. As I observe how God has been turning many eyes to Japan as a missions field once again, Korea’s testimony gives me hope and prayer fuel for revival in Japan and for restoration between these two nations that have both been so impactful on my own life.

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Prototyping next steps

Often after an experience like a conference or a missions trip, in the weaving of the flashy lightbulb moments and the intimate communing moments, we go home with new images of the future beginning to take shape in our minds.

The challenge is to not lose momentum and get stuck on the first diamond with just images. There are two specific actions that I am taking now after these conferences to bring me from imagination to embodiment.

First, I want to act on a growing conviction of mine to lean into the role of a mobilizer as I make my own preparations to go. It feels like I would be missing the point of God’s mission to focus solely on my own journey at the cost of not encouraging others from my home base. I think about how former missionaries have told me that many people with a call to go never actually make it to the field… I wonder how many of them do not make it because of a lack of brotherly companionship along the way. Thinking about how to carry forth the spirit of these missional spaces I have been exposed to, I partnered with a friend to initiate our own version in our local church by bringing seasoned and aspiring goers together. We just had our first gathering and are excited for what will come of this group through prototyping together!

Second, Holy Spirit prompted me to consider switching to a part-time work schedule for the purpose of making more time to prepare for missions. Although I had received peace from God about eventually quitting my job, taking one foot out while my next step is still up in the air revealed hidden temptations in my heart. I processed this nudge with God and community, which led me to follow through and approach my manager… and he actually approved my request! I am astounded by God’s generous grace to me at this workplace over the past eight years: from my first internship there in 2017 that kept me in Los Angeles for the summer when I attended church for the first time, to the leave of absence I took in 2022 to serve in Guatemala for a year, to now this. While I intend to still make a full exit from engineering hopefully sooner than later, I do want to be a good steward of this job until the very end.

As for what my parents think, they have known that I want to make a career change and watched me bounce around from idea to idea over the past year. I shared with them more recently that I want to be a missionary potentially in Japan, and while they are not Christians and have their concerns, ultimately they are supportive – thank You, God, for this huge blessing! Not only that, but in response to me opening up about my desires, my parents later shared with me a crazy family fact… apparently, my step-grandma’s brother (who I did not even know existed) is a pastor in Japan! He moved there as a missionary and started a church in Tokyo in the 1970s. That church still exists today and, random bonus, has even been visited by several people from my church here in America. I try not to use emojis in writing like this, but I do not know how to describe my reaction to all of this other than: 🤯

God has me riding along the cusp of a big point of transition, and I have no idea what is around the bend… but one thing I do know is that every step on the path is the same invitation: to step further into God’s story as His Beloved.