These strategic leaders include the pastor of Chinatown's Chinese Congregational Church. I wanted to share their flyer (shown above) with you because it’s one way we “shame-reversal story-tell” to connect God’s Story to real places.

Churches and mission groups from all across the U.S. visited us in San Francisco to engage with these stories. These included students from both secular and seminary institutions, participants from conservative to progressive churches (like the church featured in this flyer), and ministry directors and pastors of SE Asians, Black, Indigenous, East Asians, and other ethnic and white ministries. We’ve also met and trained missionaries in other countries serving across the globe via zoom. I don’t travel any more; yet, our local work is resulting in global impact.

Of all these groups, training local InterVarsity staff and chapters was especially unique. Former board member Sarah Akutagawa led the training. Also present was IV's National Asian American Ministries Director Sabrina Chan. She drew from her new co-authored book “Learning Our Names” as we stood in front of the former Chinese Telephone Exchange where Chinese operators memorized thousands of names in several dialects. See the Gospel connection? Most Chinatown residents held false identities, but their true names were known by these Chinese operators. Similarly, God sees past all our false identities and calls us by our real names. (Adults pictured above are from L to R: KR’s bookkeeper Brook Maturo, Sabrina Chan, KR board member Felicia Larson, and me)

During debrief, one participant described our time as a “mini Urbana” (triennial stadium-sized missions conference), a fitting description because indeed our mission entails training influencers to engage with our communities more authentically and holistically.  However effective though, we are not satisfied with this level of work; our mission is not fulfilled until it is embodied in others. Therefore…