Hello Friends
Thank you for being a partnering with me with the TriBeCa summer project. I meant to write sooner but I was too exhausted from ministry and needed more time to gather all my thoughts. I have lot to say so I am going to cut to the chase and briefly share some of the experiences that impacted me the most.
Living in Mid-town Manhattan, NYC: I never liked NYC. There was nothing in it for me. I don’t see how walking on 42nd street and being harassed by flashing advertisements was fun. The people always seemed to rushing somewhere and pushing people on their way. I had several encounters where people walked into me and then dropped the F-bomb like I did something wrong! But during our project director, Ross’ speech on the first week, he outlined our vision: to be captivated by the Messiah and to pursue transformation for the city and ourselves. It had hit me why these people are the way they are. They were so broken that they were blinded by this world’s offerings. I feel that life is so fast paced that it disables them to stop and think why they are here and what are they doing. My heart for the city developed as I realized if God loved them, obviously I should too! Living in the middle of the city, one can not only see the cultures but also gastronomically experience it from within. Everyday we ate something new: Famous Halal cart on 53rd st and 6th ave, Grimaldi’s Brooklyn style pizza, Tangra’s Indian-Chinese fusion, Silent-H’s Vietnamese-American fusion, Woorijip’s Korean takeout, L&L Hawaiian fast-food, Jollibee’s Filipino fast food…etc to name a few. The concept of New York City becoming the New Jerusalem was not too far fetched with the number of nations represented in the city. I though to myself ‘If NYC was to be the New Jerusalem, we’ve got a lot work to do these 5 weeks.’
Sermons and worship, means to an end or end to the means? Don’t get too flustered here, the point I was trying to raise is that many a times we tend to pass criticisms on the means rather than focus on the end purpose of it, to glorify God. It was the first Saturday and I was deciding on what church I was going to attend the next day. I was very enthusiastic about going to Redeemer Church to see Tim Keller’s sermon. And that night Simon, my disciple warned me about the intentions of my heart and he was right. I was more enthusiastic about being in the presence of Tim Keller than of God. I felt blessed to be the only one from my track to be living with my disciple. On the first weekly meeting, Campus Track focused on this and my eyes were opened! What a message it was! I was completely ashamed of all those times when I drew myself to the focusing how the band sounded rather than how I was praising God. I further chewed on how worship is not limited to a location, community or music, it is a lifestyle. Never knew looking a homeless person in the eye and simply acknowledging is presence in this world could be an act of worship.
The Man behind the Mask: If there was one lecture that had impacted me the most throughout my life, don’t worry it is not Randy’s Last Lecture, it is Sy Roger’s 6 hour lecture on the bolded words of this paragraph. When Sy Rogers led a homosexual life back in the day during his college years, the only type of conversation he had with a Christian was arguing that his sexual practice is wrong and that he needs to correct it. He developed a concrete ear to these kinds of people and was ultimately ready to be a transsexual. During this time, the lord had started to show up momentarily. He travelled to Singapore and was ready to have a sex change. Even though God had his presence in his life, Sy did not think that He could stop him from doing this when suddenly during the morning news he read that there was a nationwide ban on all sex change clinics and his hospital was also included. This was when the world turned upside down and the rest … is history. After his story he explained how the people who wanted everything right the wrong way. How grace should always be the root of any kind of witnessing. How it is more important to win the person than the argument. Then he talks about sexual sin and how one must master their sexual desires, or it shall be their master. People are not capable of cleaning their dirt themselves and need to lift their filth to the one who can. I was very moved by how we can offer up all of ourselves to God, and the bad side is never rejected. God would rather have us messy than not have us at all. God didn’t take away our sinful appetites. He gave us the strength to kill them! He then wrapped his talk with his epilogue which should not be missed in any of our attendee’s newsletters: Sy was playing with her daughter Grace in her room where she had her favorite porcelain angel on a shelf. They were so into their fun that Sy mistakenly broke her porcelain angel. Grace started crying. Sy glued the pieces back together but to his best effort, the jagged angel did not resemble the angel before it had shattered. Defeated, Sy asked his daughter if he could just throw out the damaged angel and try to find her another one like it. But she answered, “its okay daddy, it doesn’t have to be perfect to be loved.”
That was the perfect ending to a never ending movie in which we are the broken porcelain angels and God is Grace, no pun intended.
Saturday Night Variety Show at the Silkroad café: Glennis, one of our staff members recruited a student staff to perform at this place. Knowing that I had never enjoyed variety shows, I went anyways to hear our Sarah Moon perform and show her support. Half of the room was filled familiar faces from our Tribeca team. The variety show did not have much variety to it. Majority of the show was dominated by comedians trying to pull a vulgar joke and failing or spilling their life failures like they do all the time. These people thought that was they were doing was funny, but we weren’t laughing. Half the room simply gave a poker face to the performers, not because we wanted to put the performers down, but because we honestly did not enjoy that kind of ‘humor’, if you want to call it that. The brokenness and insecurity of those people were so obvious that a lot of us felt sorry for them. One of the performers went as far as to calling us ‘Christians’ for not having to laugh at their jokes. I do enjoy open mic when the sexual reference is mild and actually funny, but this was purely their life story without the comic. My initial reaction in my head was ‘Yes! I am a Christian but that doesn’t have to do with anything, even the other half of the room wasn’t laughing. You are just bad in general.’ Of course I did not say that but I did not pay for nothing. Our featured artist title was transferred to our Sarah Moon, who gave a stunning performance with her original songs. Everyone one cheered when she was finished, she even got an encore. It was like after all those battered efforts; we finally get something that everyone enjoyed. It was evident that our presence in the room influenced the swings of the crowd. The contrast of substance was huge, Sarah’s beautiful voice with deep and uplifting lyrics vs. various boring rants about life and dry vulgar jokes. It felt like God brought us there for a specific reason, to show the diversity of people who have strayed away from Him. We were there to stand in the gap between them and Jesus. Even though we are just as broken as they are, the only difference is that we have our foothold in Christ. This makes us soldiers of God and as her pastor stated “don’t fight the world, fight for the world”.
Surveying various campuses: This activity took up majority of our time during the weeks. The campuses we visited consisted if the following: CUNY Baruch, CUNY City College, CUNT Hunter, SUNY Stony Brooks, and Columbia. We had a very wide range of responses to our surveys. The most interesting ones were the people who had already thought about what we just asked them. We had an Epic pizza party at Hunter because we wanted to start a movement there and we followed up with many people who showed up. I was assigned to a student names Steven. We met at a Starbucks and what was to be an hour conversation turned to a four hour lecture on Buddhism. I listened enthusiastically clearly following his logic. I learned more about Buddhism here than my entire life in India. Buddhism was not a religion but a philosophy of life. Whatever happens in one’s current life depends upon his or her performance in the previous life. The way to attain enlightenment is to one’s sole effort to practice the Noble Eightfold path. Monastic life is the surest way to get there. To me this was an infinite roundabout where one can never truly attain enlightenment because it requires a person to be morally infallible, which is virtually impossible unless that person is God Himself. But since they don’t believe in God we can eliminate the possibility of that too. I then presented the free gift of salvation in one lifetime by placing his faith in God rather than himself, which sounded like better deal by a whole nine yards. Unfortunately he was pretty established on his views and started to question the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus. It was set in stone, that even if I had proved those points, it wasn’t going to result in anything positive. I had done more than I could and it was all up to God to change his heart. From this event, I learned that it is always in His hands what He desires. There will always be people who are not open to the Gospel. The only way to speak the Gospel to this audience is through actions. I sat and listened for 4 continuous hours and I felt that God wanted me to know to show love for Steven even though he had a deaf ear to the good news.
There are no atheists in the foxholes: This might be a little to extreme of a comparison but cant find a better metaphor to zero in on the concept. I went into project knowing God is around me and all I have to do is be a good and obedient child of the God. I had about 30% of the total cost raised. I knew God would take care of it and I did not question his authority. I had no choice but to trust in God. This trust was a different type of trust, a trust that would prove that a God that delivers not only in our eternal lives but also our earthly ones. This was a great test of faith as I raising support. I could only call and write so many emails. The rest was up to Him. Everyday, I prayed to God to show me that if this was the right place to be… if I had gone with my will or His will. It was a greatest test of faith I was ever put through. And by the end of the project I had raised over 70% of the total cost. Yes, I haven’t raised the full amount yet. There are many who planned to give and with time ignorance triggered, doubts grew and Romans 14:23 came alive. I was the man who was being condemned because I had doubts. I had rather not ask and not be condemned than vice versa. But this action did not make any sense because ignorance does not achieve anything. As Reverend Joseph Quigley said ‘Do what you can reasonably and leave the rest to God’ and so
…. If you are interested in contributing, I have about $1000 to go….
Faithfully
Nicholas Li
There is a slideshow done by one of our project directors Jonathan Chan:
You will soon receive something in the mail too, tell me if you dont want another copy of this letter included, in the comment section below, trying to save gas, ink and trees (I have to to the the library to print).
