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Dear friends & family,
Holiday
Greetings to you all! We
wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Thank
you all for your prayers and encouragement over the past year!
Johnny has just completed the fifth semester of his 4-year
program (with 3 more semesters to go!).
It's
all because of Christmas that our lives could be changed from darkness
and desperation to light and hope.
We hope you would understand why we would share with you below
our "Precious memories because of Christmas".
(Click on the following underlined
links to see details and pictures)
Precious
memories because of Christmas
Click
here
Good
times in the past year
Not
so good times in the past year
In-between
times in the past year
Click
here
New
Year Plans
Click
here
Prayer
Requests
Click
here
We look forward to hearing from you too.
Have a wonderful holiday season!
In Christ
Nina
& Johnny
Precious
memories because of Christmas
We still remember
how we first experienced this life-changing power long time ago because
of Christmas, the birthday of our savior Jesus Christ.
The power came from one desperate sincere prayer we had before:
"Dear God, I know I'm a sinner.
I know my sin deserves to be punished.
I believe Christ was born for me, died for me and rose from the
grave for me. I trust Jesus
Christ alone as my Savior. Thank
You for the forgiveness and everlasting life I now have.
In Jesus' name, amen."
Johnny
still can remember vividly how joyful he was when he said this prayer at
a Chinese restaurant in Oakland China Town.
He jumped from his seat and shared with all other people in the
restaurant that he was saved from God's future judgment of all his sins
and that he no longer needed to be scared of death any more.
His
life has been changed 180 degrees since then.
Once he was alone in a foreign country.
Now he could call everybody in Christ brothers and sisters.
Once he was insecure, shy and introvert.
Now he was secure, outgoing and extrovert because he realized how
important he was in God's eyes. Once
he was deeply hurt in a previous relationship.
Now he was completely healed by the power of the resurrected
Christ and the love of his brothers and sisters in Christ.
In retrospect, he realized that it was indeed both a miracle and
gift from God that a spiritually and financially poor guy like him
could marry such a beautiful, talented, wise and helpful wife,
Nina.
From
that time on, this has become the prayer we share: "Dear God, I
know I'm a sinner saved by God's mercy (or grace).
I know my sin deserves to be punished.
Yet Christ died for all mankind's sins in the past, now and in
the future. I am desperate
in trying by my own power to live a life that measures up to your
perfect standard. I ask for
your forgiveness of my sins, submit to your lordship and let the power
of your resurrection overcome my weaknesses and make me strong in making
Christ known."
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Good
times in the past year
Happy
5th Wedding Anniversary! We
just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in December and we still
couldn't believe how fast the 5 years went by.
We experienced so many blessings and walked through many crises
together all because we had common faith in the resurrected,
still-living and forever-living Christ.
Our interaction with Christ smoothed out many of our sharp and
destructive corners and edges on and in us.
Christ's work in us is not done yet and we look up to Christ
again and again for guidance to strengthen our marriage.
It
was so sweet that our dear friend Jane from Florida remembered our
anniversary and sent us meaningful words of blessings.
2
of our seminary sisters in Christ, Imelda and Susan, sang a song and
left it in our voicemail box on our 5th wedding anniversary.
The song was so cute and heartwarming.
What a nice surprise!
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Attending 3 weddings
in California.
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Nina's previous friend and
co-worker Leana |
New Young Couples Fellowship at
CIBC |
Anita & Daniel's Wedding |
Nina UConn friends and family |
Ocean view in Monterey |
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Jennie & Stephen's Wedding |
Johnny Berkeley friends and
family |
Dear brother Tom and sister Lisa |
Terri & Jason's Wedding |
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Since
we experienced so much love at our wedding, we always cherish
opportunities to attend weddings if our schedule allows.
It worked out perfectly that we could attend 2 weddings in May
during the same trip. We also visited Monterey and other neighboring
cities. We gave 2 thumbs up
to the lobsters that we had at a restaurant with a nice ocean view in
Monterey. We attended the
3rd wedding in California during the July 4th weekend .
We gave our best wishes to all 3 couples who have been married
for half a year now. We
pray that the interaction they have with Christ daily would further
deepen their sweet relationship within the marriage.
It
was such a joy to see many of our old friends and family in Christ.
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Learning
to preach God's word resulted in a 30-pound weight loss.
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1st sermon on Self-control on 3/1/04 |
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3rd sermon on Disciple-making on
10/15/04 |
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God's
word is powerful and life-changing if we are willing to listen with a
humble and teachable heart and apply the teachings.
In the 1st preaching class Johnny took in Spring semester this
year, one of his sermons was about "Self control in
entertainment". He
understood the importance of experiencing God's word first himself
before preaching to others.
In
the process, he discovered that he needed to spend time on entertainment
more wisely. In a nutshell,
he prayed for empowerment to change his life style, exercised self
control according to the inner prompting from God.
He changed his diet and sleeping habits, cut down the time he
spent watching DVD movies and used the time saved to quietly meditate on
God's words and exercise daily. The
result is an amazing 30-pound weight loss, 10 pounds during the first 5
months of this year and 20 pounds during the summer.
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Learning
Taekwondo.
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The joy of passing the Green Belt
Test |
Since
May this year, Johnny has been taking a Taekwondo class at a Taekwondo
school close to home. Johnny
has been a martial arts fan since he was a little boy.
He sparred with his little friends, jumped from high walls after
Jet Li's first martial art movie "The Shaolin Temple" was
released. Though he never
received any formal training before, he taught himself one-fist push-ups
and used Bruce Lee's favorite weapon the nunchaku well.
It was his childhood dream to be a good martial artist.
It
was a humbling experience. He
had to start from the beginning level and learn from classmates much
younger (the youngest only 12 years old) despite his previous martial
arts knowledge. Initially, all
his classmates seemed to be more interested in the sport than the
people. He was frustrated
about his lack of progress in getting to know his classmates better as
friends. He then prayed
every time before and after class for opportunities to know his classmates.
Prayers
changed his attitude towards this Taekwondo experience.
He realized that the goal of martial art was to train the body and
the mind into a more disciplined condition.
It was for avoiding not inflicting conflict.
Yet without the spirit which is for knowing and interacting with
God and overseeing the mind and the body, the training can very easily
get out of hand and out of control.
Prayers helped him to be in good control of his mind and body so
that he could control himself from revenging when he was being hit during
sparring. Prayers also
helped him maintain a joyful heart towards this experience, and
naturally, he started having conversations with his classmates.
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Friendship
through Taekwondo and Tennis.
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Watching piano concerto with
Taekwondo classmate and friend. |
Amazingly
friendships started developing. There
were occasions his Hispanic classmate invited us to his home meeting his
family. Johnny was so happy to
have met his Taekwondo teacher and another classmate in the apartment
complex we live in.
We
enjoyed our friendship with another of Johnny's Taekwondo classmate from
Bangladesh and her husband. We
had dinner together, visited their beautiful new home, played tennis on
Sunday afternoons and went to a concert together.
There were occasions when they shared their Muslim faith with us
and we shared with them our Christian faith.
I pray that someday, they would see and accept Christ as the
Bible records it -- the Messiah, the savior-God who fulfilled all the
Old Testament prophecies about HIM.
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Teaching
Taekwondo.
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Attending Catholic friend's baby
son's baptism |
Since
the past semester, Johnny has been training his Catholic friend on
Taewondo every Saturday or Sunday morning at 6 a.m.
They first met at a Cafeteria of a fitness center and have been
friends since then. Johnny
enjoys conversations with him about work, family and questions about the
Bible. He felt so excited
one morning when his friend finally understood that salvation came from
trusting in Christ alone, not good works, for there was no other way to
solve our sin problem which would result in the ultimate judgment from
God.
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Welcoming
New Fellow Schoolmates.
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Welcoming new DTS students on 8/21/04 |
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DTS Students Celebrating Mid-Autumn
Festival on 9/26/04 |
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With great joy, we welcomed the new seminary students who joined
us in Spring and Fall. Among
them are Avery, Samuel, Irene & Jim, who are all from our home
church in Oakland, California. I
am so glad that they all have settled down in Dallas by now.
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Witnessing
our friends trusting Christ.
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Johnny's English class student
and her friend at our home |
On multiple occasions Johnny met several of his English class
students in his church. He
can only praise God for guiding each one of them to desire to know
Christ. One of his students
in the summer has become our close friends.
We witnessed how God opened her heart to our friendship, being
willing to know about the God we believe in through Christian movies,
attending church with us together, going to a fellowship group in church
and being willing to trust Christ as her personal savior after we shared
with her the Gospel.
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Not
so good times in the past year
First
allergic reaction. In
April this year Johnny developed pain and extreme itchiness due to
allergy for the first time of his life.
For the entire month, he needed to wake up frequently in the
middle of the night to use eye drops to stop the itchiness in his eyes.
He finally went to see a doctor who treated him and gave him
medicine for free as a token of support to seminary students.
This doctor was recommended by one of his seminary friends --
Joshua Lam. Thanks a lot
Joshua! During our seminary
Chinese Student bi-weekly potluck gathering in which we would always
pray for each other, the Chinese students prayed for Johnny's allergy
and miraculously 2 weeks before the final exams in May, it was gone!
Johnny now truly feels for those who are still suffering from
allergy and would love to pray for them.
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Last 2 required Hebrew classes he took in the summer.
It
was by God's grace that Johnny could
finish the last 2 required Hebrew classes in the past summer in 2 months
(June and July). He was
initially worried and unsure if he could finish them as planned.
He asked many to pray for him for having the focus and endurance
to finish well. In addition
to the classes, he had to attend his Taekwondo class 3 times a week, and
each month there would be a Taekwondo promotion test.
He also needed to share a message in church on June 30, just 1
day before his first Hebrew class final exam.
He was also teaching a Summer English class in a community center
where he has been teaching English for 2 years.
Mission Impossible? Yes,
it was impossible by his own power.
Luckily , our Lord, the resurrected Christ, is a living God who
would help whoever is willing to trust him and is poor in spirit and in
desperation cry out, "Jesus, save me!"
Johnny was saved and he survived the past summer thanks to all of
your prayers!
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Teaching Sunday School. During
the Fall quarter, Johnny had the opportunity to teach Adult Sunday
School to the English congregation.
It was a challenge for him because English was not his first
language. It was an even
greater challenge to teach on the crown or masterpiece of Paul's letter
to the Ephesians. He asked
his fellow schoolmates and some other friends to pray for him.
He made it by the power of prayers.
It was a great experience but it was also a lot of hard work to
prepare for each lesson from scratch.
It took him 5-8 hours each Saturday for 8 weeks to prepare for
each lesson. He learned a
lot through teaching the class and he enjoyed the time with his students
very much.
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Fareweling fellow schoolmates and friends from UTD.
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Fareweling our UTD friend |
It
was with mixed feelings for Johnny to see his fellow schoolmates and UTD
friends graduating and going back to their hometown outside Dallas or
the US. He was happy for
them being able to complete the tough training in seminary or UTD and reunite
with their family and old friends back home.
But that also means he won't be able to see them in the near
future. Farewell and keep
in touch! We are sure the mighty God who helped you through all
the impossible obstacles in the past would carry you through every
challenge in the future! Let's
remember each other in prayers and meet up when we drop by
your home!
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In-between
times in the past year
For most other times of the year, we enjoyed the opportunities to be
equipped for ministry, appreciated the fellowship and friendship with
schoolmates, church friends and other non-Christian friends day by day.
God's provision was more abundant than our actual needs and we
cherished our walk with Christ each day.
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New
Year Plans
We
would visit Johnny's mom, brother and sister-in-law 1/1-1/9. Then Johnny will begin his internship and other regular classes
including the last required Greek class. We are grateful that
God has provided him with Pastor Edmond Cheung, the Cantonese pastor at
our church here in Dallas, as his mentor. We look forward to more
learning opportunities in different ministries including learning from
Philip and Ada to be sponsors for the Cantonese Career Singles
Fellowship group (Timothy). So
we will be going to Timothy Fellowship meetings in the future.
Johnny will also go to California for another internship in his
home church in Oakland California in June and July of 2005. Nina will be with
Johnny for the beginning 3 weeks in June and the last week of July 2005.
We look forward to reuniting with our friends and family in
Christ in Oakland California soon.
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Prayer
Requests
--
We would have a safe trip to and back from Vancouver Canada 1/1-1/9 and
that we will enjoy a joyful family reunion with my mom, my brother and
my sister-in-law.
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Johnny would be able to review his Greek to get ready for the 5th and
the last required Greek class in
the next 2 weeks.
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Johnny's wisdom to prepare a Christmas message to be preached on 12/26
in a Chinese church in Richardson Chinatown.
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We would learn from Philip and Ada how to serve in Timothy as sponsors.
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Johnny would learn from Pastor Edmond Cheung how to serve in pastoral
ministries and live a Godly life.
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Johnny's students in his English class and personal Taekwondo training
would know Christ more and would be willing to trust Christ and be
blessed with all spiritual blessings from God.
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Johnny would have more opportunities to build deeper friendship with his
Taekwondo classmates and share the Gospel with them.
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We would be able to get ready for Johnny's summer internship in Oakland,
California and that it would be a great learning opportunity.
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