My time back home in the States -- Part One
Sorry this is a really overdue post. I think I have bride-to-be brain (...wedding date soon to be announced...). I'm finding focusing on one thing & completing tasks to be continually more challenging. :(
Anyway... I hope you've all had a good start to the new year. Late November 2014, as most of you know, I flew home to spend time with my family and also re-connect with my home church. One of the main reasons I chose to fly in November was because of a very momentous event -- the 50 year milestone of God guiding and blessing our home church.
I want to devote Part One exclusively to this because it was to me, a very significant event. I am very thankful for the strong roots of faith and Biblical grounding that I owe in great part to my home church -- all the pastors, Sunday School teachers, fellowship counselors, and Godly friends, "aunties" and "uncles" I had growing up there.
CEFC's (Chinese Evangelical Free Church's) focus on missions opened my eyes, even as a child to the needs around the world and prepared my heart early on to say "Yes, Lord. Wherever You want to me go, whatever You want me to do. Here I am. Send me." Today the church continues to support me in financial generosity and in prayer -- both of which are needed for a missionary to continue on the field. So-- thank you CEFC! And I thank God for calling together this body of believers in Monterey Park, CA to further His Kingdom work.
Happy Birthday/Anniversary CEFC!
Love,
Amy
CEFC celebrates her 50th birthday!
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| CEFC Los Angeles located in Monterey Park, CA |
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| CEFC Choir/Orchestra rehearsal |
Less than 48 hours after landing on American soil, On Saturday morning, Nov. 21st, I jumped into a final rehearsal (my first rehearsal) with the special choir & orchestra put together for the celebration. It's not so easy playing flute (or any other musical instrument) again after a long hiatus -- but it wasn't too too traumatic. And in fact, it was a joy to make music to the Lord. :) In addition to adding a flute part to the choir, I had a chance to play flute with the worship team again led by my good friend, Danette. :)
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The celebration reunited many old friends together. Here's Bonnie and I with Jeff Ho, another very gifted musician we grew up. We all sang in youth choir together too. |
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| I'm so glad Bonnie took dusted off her French Horn (which she has a music degree in) and blessed us with the beautiful sound of her horn. |
The Celebration Service -- November 23rd, 2014
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| Founding Pastor Samuel Lo (aka: my daddy) offers a prayer of thanksgiving.
First, a bit of our church history... In 1964, a group of Chinese believers in the Los Angeles area who'd been faithfully meeting together, decided to take a leap of faith and start a church. With some help from the Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton in the early stages of getting started, this small but faithful body of believers grew into what has now become for over 800 people, their regular place of worship. My dad, Rev. Samuel N. Lo was the founding pastor, so this celebration had on top of everything else, deeply sentimental meaning for us as a family. I'm so glad I was able to celebrate this Ebenezer moment with him, with my family, and with the body of believers at CEFC.
The celebration service was very moving from start to finish. Some thought it was rather long, but being used to worshipping in a Polish Pentecostal church where our services are typically two hours, the 1 1/2 hour service did not at all feel long to me -- especially since it was such a momentous event and it was filled with many special acts of service & celebration. And nowadays, we don't do line-by-line spoken translation into Mandarin, Cantonese, and English -- in which case it would have been much much longer! (We alternated between the languages and subtitles were projected onto the wall.)
For me, some of the highlights of the service were: the glorious sound of the choir/orchestra; all the pastors being honored from past to present; communion together as three congregations and yet, one church body; a special video capturing the history of our church (which included a lot of old photos that tugged on my sentimental strings and left me teary); and an encouraging word given by one of our regional representatives on behalf of our national denomination, EFCA (Evangelical Free Church of America). I love that he highlighted church planting as one of the most effective ways of unifying and growing the church. He challenged us in this area and I hope that we will pray and seek God's direction seriously in incorporating this into our church's missional vision.
A table was set up to promote veteran missionary, Doris Ekblad-Olson's new book. It was an honor have her visiting us for this joyous event. In a sense, she is a spiritual mother and grandmother to hundreds. Hong Kong was among many other countries she faithfully served in and there, the Lord used her to impact the lives of many-- including some who would later become founding members of CEFC. My mom was among those in the youth group whose faith was nurtured by her.
She is a spiritual giant in my eyes and it's all because she made herself available to the Lord -- to be at His disposal -- as we all should be. She's written an inspiring book about her experiences as a servant of God. And you can find her giving a powerful talk -- in Cantonese (gasp!) on you tube: Doris Ekblad talk (part 1) (You can easily find the other parts after that.) One of her main messages/themes is that if we just make ourselves available to the Lord, He can do extraordinary things with ordinary people. The Celebration Banquet |
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| Seated at the VIP table (hah hah!) ... My sisters and I shared a table with Richard & Danette, Tammy & Jesse, plus the Mayor and the Chief of Police of Monterey Park! (They were really nice.) |
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my very happy parents
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The Celebration Banquet took place at Ocean Star, A Chinese seafood restaurant. The place was packed and the event completely SOLD OUT. Over 600 people filled the restaurant and many others who wanted to come couldn't because the tickets sold very quickly.
The Cantonese congregation took a huge part in organizing the festivities. There were games, trivia, presentations, and testimonies. It was as you can imagine, a long evening and very very loud (which made it unfortunately difficult to talk to people -- even at my own table unless they were sitting up to two spaces away from me). But all in all, I had a great time. And it was nice to sit with my sisters at a CEFC event. Sharon now goes to another church and Bonnie lives in San Francisco and is active in Cornerstone Church there and obviously, I'm only home 1-2 times a year. So... even just sitting together at the event with my sisters was special.
And of course, we had tons of delicious Chinese food! Yum!!!
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| The very happy Lo Family |
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“'The Lord bless you and keep you;
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The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
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The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”’
Numbers 6:24-26 (NKJV)
