Easter Retreat 2009

Although attendance was down this year, the folks who made it out to our church’s annual Easter Retreat enjoyed a relaxing weekend, fabulous weather, and a great time of fellowship (that’s church codeword for “hanging out”).

Since I lugged the Nikon along, I took a ton of pics. You can see as many (or as few) of the 488 on Smugmug.

If you want just a few, here they are:

And a few pictures since I finally worked out that “take lots of shots when I leave the trigger down” feature on my camera:

All hail the chief!

Congratulations to President Barack Obama on this historic day.

The blogosphere is buzzing with both positive and negative reviews of the President’s inauguration speech. I myself found the speech inspiring and a necessary reminder that government can only do so much to solve the many serious issues we’re facing as a country.

• As the son of immigrants, I identify deeply with the ideas of personal responsibility, working hard, and not expecting the (union, company, government, party) to take care of all our problems.
• As a Christian, I believe that while God can work through governments to help carry out his purposes, God also expects us to assume personal responsibility in helping the less fortunate.

Two other quick items about the inauguration speech.

First, courtesy of a high school friend (thanks Cecilia!) who shared this link on Facebook, here is an interesting word cloud visualization of the President’s address. Check out this link to see similar visualizations of some former presidents’ speeches.

Second, some of you may be curious about the Bible reference in the President’s inaugural speech. President Obama said, “We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.”

This reference comes from 1 Corinthians 13, a letter Paul wrote to the church at Corinth which includes the so-called “love chapter” which is commonly used in weddings. Many people are familiar with its proclamations about the nature of love from this letter: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Less well known is Paul’s description of what we’ll know when we meet God in person. The text reads:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (Emphasis mine.)

Most Christians understand this verse to mean that we will know things when we meet God in heaven that we don’t know — or only partly understand — today.

Just as we look back with some chagrin at the things we thought we knew as kids (“when I’m a parent, I’m never going to yell at my kids”), we’ll also get a good chuckle about the things we thought we knew here on earth once we’re seeing things from the vantage point of heaven.

As I read it, President Obama used this verse in his speech as an exhortation to get beyond partisan bickering — what he calls “the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

To which I say, amen. Let’s get to work.

And thank you President Obama, for the reminder that each one of us needs to part of the solution.

Wow: 40 years!

We were privileged to celebrate a momentous milestone with Fedora’s dad this weekend. He’s celebrating — count them — forty years of ministry with the 29th Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco.

In our twitchy, Twitter-y culture, people have a hard time doing anything for forty weeks continuously, much less forty years. Hats off to Reverend Chin for a lifetime of steadfast and sacrificial ministry on behalf of our God.

See more pictures on Smugmug.

Salt and Light Choir

We were blessed to have the Salt and Light Choir perform at our Thanksgiving Banquet. Things I learned about the choir:

• They are Korean.
• They can really sing!
• They practice at our church every other week. 
• They have lots of outfits. They must have changed 3 times during in the space of a half-hour show.

Most excellent.  See the entire event at Smugmug.

Pumpkin pies

…as far as the eye can see.

 

Thanksgiving Banquet

The two older kids ate an astounding amount at the annual FBC Thanksgiving Banquet. Who doesn’t love ham and turkey smothered in gravy? And while they were slightly disappointed this year didn’t feature mashed potatoes, they more than made up for it in holiday meat. 

 

This post also marks the blog debut of our new camera, the Canon Powershot SD880 IS. The wider-angle lens (28mm equivalent) and improved sensor + processor (the so-called Digic 4) is definitely yielding better pics.

The 7 Deadly Sins of the Financial Crisis

I taught a Sunday school class about the financial crisis last weekend. My presentation was packed with charts and included a crash course on mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps (not our typical Sunday school fare, in case you were wondering.)

In retrospect, this cartoon which I found on Digg, pretty much sums it all up without the financial mumbo-jumbo:

The Race

Our church sponsored a 4-week day camp for 100 first- through seventh-grade kids. The camp is staffed by kids from junior high to college, and given the natural exuberance of the campers, it’s no small miracle that it doesn’t turn into Lord of the Flies at the church. 

Campers have the opportunity to earn points by showing up, memorizing Bible verses, and cleaning up diligently. Colin racked up a slew of points this year, earning him the right to bring home one of their bigger projects — a wearable cardboard race car with pie tin wheels. Cameron seemed especially enamored with the pie tin wheels, as he exclaimed “look at the pie wheels! Colin’s car has pie wheels!” all the way home.

Good job, Colin! Daddy is very proud that you did so well at Day Camp.

Testimony Acapella at FBC

Stanford’s Testimony A Capella, a Christian a capella signing group led by our church’s own Jennifer Kim, dropped by the church to perform. It was a fabulous evening of music, skits, and heartfelt worship. Thanks to each member of the group for using their musical and dramatic talents for God’s glory.

The concert featured hilarious skits re-enacting various stories from the Bible (from creation to the apocalypse in less than 30 minutes, I believe the concert flyer said). Here you see the group with their take on the building of the Tower of Babel.

More pics when you click on the title link or here.

Buy their albums here (you can probably also get them at the Stanford Bookstore on campus).