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prudencenicoleluong · 11 years ago

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A SUMMARY on SUMMER PROJECT 2013.

Hello everyone!

I know I should have done this post about SFSP13 forever ago but I finally got around to do it today. I think there was a lot that happened on project that it was just hard for me to put it in one post. But I will try to keep it brief and straight to the point for you guys.. we shall see how this goes . . .

So as you know or may not know a couple weeks ago I was blessed with a sweet opportunity to serve as a staff member with Epic Movement’s San Francisco Summer Project. I was a student on this project last year and it totally changed my life, so I decided to come back to serve in the city of San Francisco again as a staff member (San Francisco is definitely special to my heart in many different ways!). There were 11 other staff members with 31 students from different part of the countries (New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Nebraska, California, Hawaii, Washington,...)

My verses for the summer:

Psalm 86:11

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.

The biggest thing I learned: (which I will go in details later…)

1. To be obedient to His Voice and dependent on the Holy Spirit.

2. My identity in Jesus Christ.

3. My heart for the city of San Francisco.

Ministry opportunities that I got to be involved in this summer:

my lovely Small group

- Leading Small group: I got to lead a lovely small group of 5 students and 2 staff. We were going through the Gospel of John. Gotta say it was the best leading Bible study experience I have ever had. I think my part in this was just mainly facilitating the discussion and throwing out questions. I was super blessed and amazed with the students . They gave very wise, insightful and new input into the Scripture. I definitely learned every time I got to lead the Study and was greatly humbled.

with my Women's time co-leader Mary. I am beyond grateful for this relationship.

- Co-leading women’s time: I got to plan and lead Women’s time with the loveliest staff member – Mary. This is a new role for me this summer because I personally didn’t have experience with leading women’s time ( yes I was super nervous when I got this role – if you have been on summer project before you know how intense and emotional women’s time could be). We focused on 3 things throughout the time me and Mary got to lead:

Experience life-giving Christ through...

1. the way God sees us (being known)

2. grace and healing

3. having a Voice.

It was a blessed experience leading the women’s ministry for the first time and my heart for it definitely grew after the experience. Leading with Mary had a lot to do with it I think.. She really challenged me and we worked very well together.

two lovely girls I got to disciple.

- Discipleship: I got to disciple two girls throughout my time on project: Jeanette and Grace. I feel like their personalities were totally different so it was fun and challenging at the same time to disciple them. I REALLY WISH I had more time to meet up with the girls, but I was super blessed that God has given me the opportunity to disciple these two lovely girls. Their love for Jesus humbled me a lot. Discipleship is probably my favorite part of ministry as a whole, as I got to sit down and talk Jesus with the girls one on one.

Team C in front of Salvation Army's venue.

going to Berkeley campus to share the Gospel.

- Being a part of a Ministry Team: The whole project was split into 3 different ministry teams ( A, B and C) and we focused on 3 ministry sides: Church, Campus and Salvation Army. I was a part of team C: We went to Berkeley for Campus Outreach, to a Korean Church as a part of Salvation Army to serve the kids in a summer camp, and then we have a partnership program with a Chinese Church every Sunday. Our schedule was super packed so we were busy with doing ministry throughout the week.

Beside those things mentioned above, our project had time together to learn about the city (we called it Experiential Learning), Project Social, Project Training (where we do ministry training: self growth, resolving conflicts, …). As staff, we had staff meeting every week. (probably my second to favorite part… being a staff was so much fun!)

More on what I have learned:

1. To be obedient to His Voice and dependent on the Holy Spirit:

Throughout serving this summer, God was calling me to be intentional and have a ministry minded approach in my conversations with people. I think I have learnt to communicate with God as I was communicating with students and staff. I asked the Holy Spirit “ What do you want me to tell this person?”, “ What is God doing in his/her life?”, “How could I be encouraging this individual?”. I think God’s voice was spoken clearly to me especially during discipleship because really there wasn’t a structured way for me to disciple the girls. It was mostly about asking the Holy Spirit in what way He wanted me to invest… And I was super amazed with how God gave me direction. I felt like God definitely gave the right word to speak to the girls, which I am humbled and thankful about.

2. My identify in Jesus Christ:

I realized the biggest thing coming out of this project was I never felt more confident about who I am as the daughter of the King. Being myself and knowing my identity was always a big thing that I am still working on, but I know at the end of project that I was able to expose my best and my worst to people, knowing that Christ has redeemed it all. Some of the teammates did confirm this to me and really I am just thankful for the freedom that the Gospel Jesus gave me.

3. My heart for the City:

The second summer and third time being in the city for the last year now and I found my heart was longing to be back. There is something about the city that I just fell in love with so easily and the city just absorbs me so well. As much as I love the place, there were times as I was walking around I couldn’t help but feeling a bit scared and insecure towards the surrounding. I asked the LORD if a place could be both beautiful and scary at the same time? He has challenge me with the question to learn to love the city the best possible way.

I think the last project I was still hesitated with reaching out to the homeless and gay community. This time have learnt that (quoting words of wisdom from my small group girl): “ We could look better than the homeless from the outside, but inside we are just as broken as them.” That fact just really blew my heart and me away for these people really changed.

I know that no place is too hard for the Gospel to reach, and a place like San Francisco, even when everything seems so diverse, liberal and busy, is nowhere an exception.

4. A couple other things that I learnt:

- Flexibility: One word we have used a lot on this project. We had some big challenges with our ministry venues: Salvation Army was the big one where there were some cultural and language barriers between the SA staff and us. There was a lot of misunderstanding or even conflict that we had to work through. With campus outreach, team B didn’t have a campus due to transportation issue. Our team did have a hard week going to Berkeley due to the Bart Strike. There were a lot of things that came up, requiring us to be flexible and give GRACE.

Some would think at a place like San Francisco, the ministry opportunities are always available and reachable. But God really taught us to overcome obstacles and come together to work through problems. I think it was a HUGE blessing to be in the staff team in the midst of this. I developed great respect and learnt a lot from the other staff of how to lead and encourage students during those hard times.

- Willingness to let God be in control: The fact the staff left half way through project was a hard thing for me, because I would love to be there the whole time to see how students grow and be involved with things. But I have learnt big time that I need to do my part and let God to be in control with the rest of the project when students took the leadership role. I think leaving the project I really felt a sense of Peace that I have done my part and I was ready to leave.

Overall, I was super grateful for the experience. Being on staff was a great challenge but I have to say it was everything I imagined it would be. I have learnt a lot from other staff members and I am thankful for all the care, encouragement, guidance and grace they have given me. Epic Staff probably one of the greatest people – they took ministry very seriously and they could be fun (yes very FUN) at the same time J

Greatest challenge?

( picture of me on the last night being with students... I pased out. )

Managing time was a hard one for me. I did not expect being of staff could be that busy. I had a hard time balance out between preparing for materials, being involved with students, doing the work and resting at the same time. Plus I was taking a summer class online (BAD DECISION – don’t do this) so it didn’t help either. I was super packed and overwhelmed with responsibilities for 3 weeks – and I meant it when I said: BUSY BUSY BUSY! But thankfully I loved what I got to do (well except staying up late to do homework). Looking back I think it was God’s power that I was able to run on 4 hours of sleep per night and did whatever I did. ( it took me a while to recover from that though). Side note: after Staff left, we did have a free time for all the staff to rest on the first day. We all went straight to take a nap. That explained a lot the hard work we did.

COOL STORY?

The second week of Women’s time, me and Mary decided to do an activity called Stand up for your sisters with the purpose to help the women on project to confess their sins to each other and experience Grace. As a part of this, some of the staff women decided to share the struggles they have gone through to the students. I think at the time the Lord has put a certain thing in my heart very heavily and I know He was wanting me to share it to the girls (I wouldn’t put it publicly here, but I would love to share the whole story with you if you wanna talk to me – basically something I was struggling with growing up). But I felt super scared and uncomfortable to bring up this heavy topic, especially in a big group setting. I told Mary that I would talk about something else (depression/ suicidal attempt) and we both agreed on that topic.

But that night as I sat with the Lord, He gave me the verse in Psalm 86:

“Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.”

It made sense to me right there. He was telling me: “ Prudence, don’t be afraid. The reason why you are scared because you have the fear of Man. But you are my beloved, you need to fear your Lord, your God only.”

My father was asking me to be obedient to His calling, and trusting Him the rest of the way.

So a week later, after some sleepless nights, the night before the women’s time, I told Mary what God was speaking to me, and told her what I would be sharing instead.

The night of women’s time, I was super nervous before my talk. But I think throughout the talk and after the talk, I just had the sense of perfect PEACE. I knew right on the spot that it was what I was supposed to do.

The students’ reaction to our stories was more than what I was expecting. It was good for many of them to know that they were not alone in their pain, struggles and sins. A lot of girls started to open up and be so vulnerable with their stories for the rest of the nights. A lot of tears. A lot of healing too.

I know that God has empowered me and brought me on to the team for a reason J. I was greatly confirmed and grateful from this experience. I couldn’t stop but PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE JESUS for His good plan.

with Daniel and Andy, 2 friends that were on project with me last year and came back as staff this year with me.

our staff team.

my roomate Faith from school was a student on this project. So fun to be around her this summer. She is awesome.

so sorry that it was lengthy. I hope that kind of summarized my 3 weeks being in San Francisco for you guys. Again I just want to say THANK YOU for all the people who were supporting me prayerfully and financially. Without you guys I wouldn’t have this great experience. I was blown away with how Jesus used me this summer on this team and in the city, and you guys were definitely a part of it. SO THANK YOU!

Thanks for staying with me till the end of this post. A couple things if you could be praying for:

- For the team of students as they are finishing up project this week! Praying that they would finish strong.

- I am currently in Vietnam visiting my family. So please pray for my time here. I would love to update you more with what I have been going through, but I will save it for another post.

- For transitioning back to the NEB : finishing MY LAST YEAR OF COLLEGE! ( say whaattt?) and leading Epic this year too.

Again I would love to talk to you one on one about summer project, so feel free to contact me. Let me know how I could be praying for you guys as well.

Blessings,

Prudence.

ps: pictures are from various sources, thanks to Mary and everyone that took them.

#summer project #sfsp #sfsp12 #sfsp13 #summer #project #cru #epic #movement #san #francisco #sf #god #jesus

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