Fundraising: Why I love it.
I’m taking a week off campus this week to fundraise. I get a lot of panicked responses when I tell people this.
My greek professor is an extremely bubbly version of the Colonel from KFC. He always has hilariously stupid Christian jokes and puns, and an unwavering joy when he is teaching. Our first week of Greek, everyone filed into the classroom with anxiety weighing down on them. For many seminarians, Greek is one of those necessary but long-avoided classes. Learning a new language after the teenage years is one of the hardest things to do.
But my professor’s smile was uncanny. He just smiled, looked around, and said- “Guys, we’re going to make this work. Greek is fun!”
And this has been his motto this whole quarter. Some smirk, some chuckle to themselves every time he says it. But he really believes it with all his heart. And he says it straight to our faces with an unflinching smile, no matter how cynical the seminarians in his class are. The funny thing is that it has become… fun.
Fundraising seems to be in the same stream for a lot of people in ministry. People dread it. It keeps people from wanting to do ministry. Friends and families who know me automatically think it’s the most troubling part of my ministry.
I, however, have taken up my Greek professor’s stance. I tell people that I love fundraising. In fact, it might be one of my favorite parts of being an InterVarsity staff worker.
Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to be what I’m really feeling. But I take it as a statement of faith- that every time that I really am not liking fundraising, I just say it to other people, while praying to God that he would make it a reality in my heart.
But the truth is… I do love fundraising. It helps me remember that I am not alone. It reminds me that this ministry that God has placed in my hands is not just in my own hands, but is in His hands and the community that He surrounds me with. Fundraising isn’t some financial practice to me. It is a deeply spiritual and social act for me. It is my confession that ministry isn’t about charging forward alone, but it is about going forward with community.
I refuse to take the stance of despair and depression when it comes to fundraising. I refuse to fundraise out of desperation. That is a beggar’s stance. I choose to fundraise as a way of confessing my faith to Jehovah Jireh, who I confess as my King, good father and provider in all things. I choose to create a culture where fundraising is not a burden, but what gives our spirits life and energy- where we no longer sarcastically call it “character building”, but really mean it when we say it- to say with earnestness that fundraising is how God changes our hearts and stokes a passion for the campus that I am called to with greater fire than I could ever imagine.
“Guy’s, we’re going to make this work. Fundraising is fun!”
Protected: Breakthrough!
New NBC show!
There is a new NBC comedy called Community. It’s about community colleges. I think I will either be really offended by it or laughing my pants off. I hope the latter 
. Anyways, I’m glad that my ministry context is getting some publicity.
Protected: NSO Day 3+4
An Explanation
For those of you wondering why these latest posts are blocked…
I’m blogging my daily prayer requests for people who are on my email list for InterVarsity. Some of the prayer requests are very personal or may have sensitive information which I would not want the whole world reading. If you would like to read these posts, you’ll need to email me and ask.
If you are an MCC, Palomar or CSUSM student, sorry, I won’t be able to let you see these posts. You can ask me personally for any thoughts and observations I have 
. And just know there is a huge amount of prayer going up for you guys .
BUT, i’ll let you see some pictures.
Protected: NSO Day 2 Adventures
Protected: NSO:Day 1 adventures
A Thousand Questions
I’ve been so busy lately. Haven’t run in two days, just scrambling to get things ready for the beginning of the school year (Aug. 24!).
So because i’m too tired to write, this is a pretty intense video Ryan Pfeiffer, our new Divisional Director showed us during our divisional meetings. May it bless you.
Not a project.
I was sitting on the plane back from my vacation from Boston. The trip was full of pleasant surprises and lots of time to reflect. Call me strange, but I find cities extremely reflective and contemplative. Perhaps it’s the broken loneliness of the city redeemed for something good. I can just zone out and be alone even in the midst of thousands of people. And somehow in the clanking of metal and towers of concrete, I hear the soft whisper of God.
It’s really funny where one can hear God’s voice.
But I’ve already wandered after one paragraph. I was sitting on the plane (next to two German tourists). So there wasn’t much to talk to them about, except to let them know the stewardess was asking them what they wanted to drink. “Justification”, NT Wright’s response to Piper, was my only entertainment for the plane ride. But the book was so thick and academic… honestly, I think I’ve become dumber since I graduated. So that wasn’t going anywhere.
Luckily for me, they had an inflight movie, “The Soloist”, which I remembered only had a 54% on the tomatometer. It’s about a reporter (Robert Downey Jr.) who starts writing about a homeless man (Jamie Foxx) he meets who had dropped out of Juliard. I was surprised at how much the movie hit me. Perhaps it was my already lowered expectations. But wow. Luckily the german tourists were asleep, because I’m pretty sure I shed a tear or two. There were several moments of resonance for me… like when Jamie Foxx’s character took hold of a cello for the first time in years… if you didn’t know, the cello is one of my favorite instruments- its timbre, the way it resonates, how the notes can glide or puncture the air with sharp marcato’s… is just mind-numbing to me. And I know that feeling- getting to play your first instrument after a long time of not playing it and the emotions that rush in… I snapped out quickly as our plane hit turbulence.
But beyond all my music nerdiness, what impacted me most about this film was the reporter’s journey of figuring out what to do about his relationship with the homeless man. The homeless man started out as his means to a good article, to an improvement project… to a friend. It was really powerful to see his struggle as he saw the ugliness of his own conceited motives for hanging out with this homeless musician. It was beautiful to see his perspective of the man change from a project to… a real friend.
It got me thinking. As I talk to partners and donors about MiraCosta and my students… it is so easy to turn my students into objects and achievements. It’s so easy just to flash a picture of the strangest person on campus and say “I threw a frisbee at him” with a sense of accomplishment. But when it comes down to it, do I hang out with these people because I care for them or because I want a cool picture to show people so they give me money?
These ugly realities bounce in my head. I realize that this is what ministry is when I don’t know love. If I don’t know God’s heart for MiraCosta and the students there, I won’t know how to love them as people, and I will start to treat each of them like a project. And as I think about this, I just see each student individually saying, “I am not a project”.
The guy with low self esteem, “I am not a project”
The girl struggling with finances, “I am not a project”
The cutter, “I am not a project”
The guy I do GIGs with, “I am not a project”
The international student, “I am not a project”
I could name more students, and even stranger students that I meet every day, but even naming who I see seems like a way of showing them off as a project. But I pray every day that God would shed off these dehumanizing ways of objectifying the human beings that He has called me to love. I pray that every time that I mention one of my students to people outside of the ministry, that I would be speaking out of the heartbreaking, unrelenting, pure and compassionate love of the Father for His children whom he wants to see brought into the freedom that He created them for. I pray that I would never forget the core of ministry- friendship.
It is from our radical friendship with Himself which God offers us that ministry must flow from- and that must still be spoken in the language of friendship and love. We can have grand projects of reconciliation with the homosexual community, social justice, academic advancement, evangelism, prayer…. but they are empty without love, a banging of cymbals and just noise.
May the love of God come like an uncontrollable hurricane and leave my projects in shambles. May I never forget love.
~I Cor. 13.~
(my?) Heritage
As I sat on the Boston subway (affectionately named the “T”), the age was what was most apparent about this place. It is old. Dusty streets, cracked and cobbled sidewalks, dank subway tunnels… There is something old about this place. It’s full of memory and legacy.
When I think of America, all I get is this strange Californian version of it all. Everything seems newer, and all the old things are memories of a frontier culture where manifest destiny pushed America further and futher. Although quite a cultural and economic center today, it’s history seems placed strangely on the fringe.
This is the first time for me experiencing an America that seems to have a history that doesn’t involve a Spanish mission.
The question that has been rumbling in my head to the rhythm of the subway tracks is this… what part of this heritage is mine? The Boston tea party, the American revolution, Paul Revere… is it really mine? Is this history mine? As an Asian-American, can I take a grasp of this?
Perhaps it’s a trip of rediscovery of a side I take for granted as an Asian-American these days… my American side. Does this history of revolution and independence apply to me? For a member of an immigrant population that has arrived relatively late in this nation’s history, what do these things mean for us?
People keep coming up with different ways to define what it means to be Asian-American… indirect, face, community, language… I think those things are great. But what if being Asian-American was something on a much larger scale? Perhaps being Asian-American is the experience of dialogue that comes from the confluence of multiple narratives. We are the collision of histories, traditions, legacies and heritages. The Asian-American culture is the simultaneous incompatibility and blending of different contexts. It is the navigation of these contradictions.
Perhaps this is where Asian-Americans are at an advantage to bless the world. In one aspect, our disorientation between narratives makes it easier for us to grasp the disorienting nature of the gospel narrative. On the other hand, our reorientation between narratives gives us the ability to translate the disorienting narrative of the Gospel in ways that silence the dissonance of the Gospel to our cultures.
shrug. Been chewing on this for a while, still chewing on this.
more thoughts later.
Daniel Lui
Asian-American InterVarsity Team Leader at MiraCosta College in Oceanside. Trying to stay sharp in the articulation of my thoughts and my creative writing. Hopefully one day I will write a book. Until then, I'll just keep writing stream of conscious rants.
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