Saturday, December 12, 2009

A Stable Lamp is Lighted




A stable lamp is lighted
Whose glow shll wake the sky
The stars shall bend their voices
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
And straw like gold will shine
A barn shall harbour heaven
A stall become a shrine

This child through David’s city
Will ride in triumph by
The palm shall strew its branches
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
Though heavy, dull and dumb
And lie within the roadway
To pave the Kingdom come

Yet He shall be forsaken
And yielded up to die
The sky shall groan and darken
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
For thorny hearts of men
God’s blood upon the spearhead
God’s love refused again

But now as at the ending
The low is lifted high
The stars will bend their voices
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled
- Richard Wilbur

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Math is Wonderful! O_o

There are a lot of things I like about planning Project Destiny each year. One of them is working alongside people who are very different from me. Here's an unexpected e-mail conversation among the team that took off into outer space before landing quite nicely. It was too good to keep to ourselves. Enjoy at your own risk.

Mathematical Formula for Creating Classes
20 messages


Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:25 PM

To: Vernon Cheung, Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

Maybe this is really simple and I am overcomplicating it... but, is there a mathematical formula to figure out how many creating classes we need? Here are some parameters:

x campers
10 campers/ class session
y class sessions/ day
15 days
z classes

How do you solve for z? Am I looking at this problem the wrong way?


Steve


Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:49 PM

To: Steve Liu
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

z = (x campers /10) classes/cycle * 3 cycles

AKA: z = 3x/10


Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:55 PM

To: Vernon Cheung
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

What if the number of cycles is unknown? (i.e. what if we go back to 5 cycles with 3 creating classes each?)

Is it possible to factor in that variable using only x?

Steve


Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 2:04 PM

To: Steve Liu
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

It would still be: z = x * c / r
where z = classes, x = campers, c = cycles, and r = max campers per class

Actually, to be technical, it would be z = c * roundup(x / r) if you wanted r to be the max.


Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 2:37 PM

To: Vernon Cheung
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

I'm not sure if this factors in the limits of having only 15 days of classes and having to fit it all in that time span.

For example, if I have 50 campers and want to do 5 cycles, I end up with 25 classes, meaning there would have to be 5 classes per cycle, still. This would take us 25 creating days to do it (5 creating classes per week). But we only have 15 days (3 per week).

Is there a way to factor in the fact that we only have 15 days? I think this means that C has to be relative to X and a constant of 15 or something like that.

Thanks,
Steve


Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 3:22 PM

To: Steve Liu


It still works.

Referring to my previous equation: z = c * ceiling(x / r)...

I assumed that the number of days of classes (in this case, d = 15 days) are factored into determining c, the number of cycles you want. In order to decide on c, you must assume a set d, since c must be a factor of d. And without first determining c, you can't determine z.

So I suppose you could add a phrase to the equation:

z = c * ceiling(x / r)
where z = classes, x = campers, c = a factor of 15, and r = max campers per class

In your example with x = 50 campers and c = 5 cycles, you didn't include r, the max campers per class. If you choose r = 10, you would get:

z = c * ceiling(x / r)
= 5 * ceiling(50 / 10)
= 5 * ceiling(5)
= 5 * 5
= 25 classes

which, with c = 5 cycles, means there would be 5 classes per cycle.


Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 3:25 PM

To: Steve Liu
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

Oops, forgot to send to everyone.

And oops, I think you did use r = 10, but just didn't mention it. I think the confusion came in the final number, 25, being total classes, not creating days.


Emily Wu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 3:31 PM

To: Vernon Cheung
Cc: Steve Liu, Kam Ho Lau

I'm glad you like math, Vernon! (whoa -- I first typed 'Bernon'!!)

I'm sure Kam Ho would've been happy to jump into this conversation too, but he's probably been at school (HS) all day.

math makes my head swim..... =(


Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:00 PM

To: Emily Wu
Cc: Steve Liu, Kam Ho Lau

That's my should-be name!

Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:27 PM

To: Vernon Cheung, Emily Wu, Kam Ho Lau

But there can't be 5 classes in a cycle if there are 5 cycles-- in actual weeks, that would mean having a creating class every day for 5 weeks! How can we limit the results to include the reality?

From a correct result, we need limits on what C can possibly be, since you can't have 5 cycles of 5 classes (giving you 25 days of class!) nor can you have 5 cycles of 3 classes (giving you 15 days of class, but more than 10 kids per class!)

My assumption here has been that C cannot be arbitrarily set. Everything has to somehow be able to be determined through X and the other constants only. Maybe we need a related equation for C.


Steve


Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:33 PM

To: Vernon Cheung, Emily Wu, Kam Ho Lau

and k= z/c....so. OK, now I'm really stuck.

Kam Ho Lau
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 7:51 PM

To: Steve Liu, Vernon Cheung, Emily Wu

Wait, the question that started this thing:
 is there a mathematical formula to figure out how many creating classes we need?
The Number of Creating classes are determined by cycles and class per cycle. These are independent variables. This independent variable will determine the dependent variable such as however many students will be in the class (r). 


So back to the how many creating classes we need, 
It depends on how many cycles we want and how many classes per cycle. 
So let K=number of class per cycle and let C=number of cycle, and Z= Number of Creating class 
Z=KC. And we want Z<15, which will ended up by setting a restraint on the side.


So let Z=15, Then 15=KC. For Creating Classes should be whole numbers, the only factors of 15 are 1, 3, 5, 15.
So from that, we found that possible patterns are
1 cycle of 15 creating classes. (which is impossible, since that mean 15 classes have to go on at the same time)
3 cycle of 5 creating classes (this is what we are doing). 
5 cycle of 3 creating classes (a cycle a week)
15 cycle of 1 creating classes (this is not what we want, since it means that there will be just 1 class). 


Now that we analyzed the data, 
We can plug in to the formula. Let R=campers in each class in the cycle, X=total number of campers at camp, we will have the formula that X/K=R
For each case, we can put C=number of cycle and K=number of classes. 
Let X=50 

For C=1, K=15, 50/15=3.333 students per class
For C=3, K=5, 50/5=10 students per class
For C=5, K=3, 50/3=16.667 students per class
For C=15, K=1, 50/1=50 students per class


The equation that Vernon had, Z=X*C/R is right, but it is just that because you have given too much independent variable. There actually arent that much independent variables, so you cant actually plug in numbers as you did earlier. 
  • Z is a number less than 15, so thats a constraint
  • With that, C and K are suppose to be whole numbers which is another constraint. 
  • The number of students in a class is determined by the K (the number of classes), so you cant just plug a number in for R. 
  • Basically, Only X (Number of campers) and Z (number of creating class) are independent variable.
    So with your formula in looking for an independent variable, it does not work like this, since mathematics, you plug in an independent variable to obtain the dependent variable. 
I set a spreadsheet, further similate the process. You can change number in the green columns (A and D) and other numbers will appear. 
Remember only whole numbers work, since you cant have part of a class or part of a student (thats why we found factors earlier). 


Let me know if you have nay questions. 
Kam Ho



Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 8:46 PM

To: Kam Ho Lau
Cc: Steve Liu, Emily Wu

kh,

Your equation works, but not for what Steve asked for. Steve wanted to find Z, but you're setting Z and X to begin with.

Steve wants Z, given the rest of the variables.

So the question remains unsolved.


Kam Ho Lau
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 8:55 PM

To: Vernon Cheung
Cc: Steve Liu, Emily Wu

Given the constraint that steve gave, Steve had turn Z into an independent variable. Thus you cant solve for just one equation when Z is pre-determined, which turns it more a dependent. In an equation there should exist some independent and some variable that are dependent. If both C Cycle and K Classes are independently selected, then Z can be anything. In order to set a constraint, Both K and C are to be a factor.

Steve wants Z given the rest of the variable. It will not be possible, since the other variable depends on Z. because steve has set Z<15. So basically plugging in other numbers only give us a number with no factor that Z<15. This is actually something that is harder to limit its function behavior.

So what steve actually needs to do is to have systems of equations for which we can solve for the feasible region and putting it back into the Z equation to find which is more efficient.


Kam Ho


Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:23 PM

To: Kam Ho Lau
Cc: Vernon Cheung, Emily Wu


Thank you all for the math lesson. This has now officially gone off the deep end of my understanding. I have a sense that Kam Ho's last sentence is what I was thinking all along, but didn't know how to articulate in math terms. But I didn't know that there would be no way to put this into even a very complicated formula. Can't multi-variable calculus help us?


Steve


Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:49 PM

To: Kam Ho Lau
Cc: Steve Liu, Emily Wu

Take a look at Sheet 2 of the spreadsheet.

Given the number of campers = 50, we choose a max number of campers we want in a class in each cycle. Let's say 11. So we need 4.54545... classes per cycle, which we would have to round up to 5 (each class would have 10 campers, which still satisfies the max allowable).

Then we choose a number of cycles, which we agree must be a factor of 15 since there are 15 days of creating classes. 1 and 15 are unrealistic, so we choose either 3 or 5 cycles for the summer.

Column E are the total number of classes we need for the entire summer if we have 3 cycles. Column F are the total classes if have 5 cycles.

So for 50 campers, 10 campers per class, 5 cycles, you need 25 classes (as stated several emails ago). Of course, with 25 classes and 5 cycles, that means we have 5 classes over the course of 3 days. Which means not every camper will experience every creating class.

To solve this dilemma, we realize that with 5 cycles, each class may only meet 3 times, which means there should only be 3 classes per cycle. Similarly, with 3 cycles, we see that each class may only meet 5 times, which means there should only be 5 classes per cycle. In either case, K * C must be 15. In other words, K * C = Z = 15. Z must be 15. So we should only look at the pink boxes with Z = 15 (I bolded them).

I believe this solves the case!

So it turns out that Z is constant, and K must either be 3 or 5. All you have to input is the number of students, and what you get in the end is R, the max number of campers you can allow in a class.

So this equation actually solves for how many campers we can let into a class, since Z will always be 15 given the way our camp days are set up. So to solve the equation for R, I've simplified everything in Sheet 3.


v




Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:58 PM

To: Vernon Cheung
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

Props! We have solved it (mostly Kam Ho and Vernon... no credit to Emily except for moral support). Sheet three is actually pretty useful.

Steve



Steve Liu
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:05 PM

To: Vernon Cheung
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

I'm really impressed! Math is wonderful! I'm so close to understanding how this all came together... but it does exactly what I wanted it to AND it clarified which variable we were looking for (not Z but R!!!) I never would have guessed that.

Steve




Vernon Cheung
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:11 PM

To: Steve Liu
Cc: Kam Ho Lau, Emily Wu

I guess, to put it simply, if each camper were to go to a creating class each of the 15 days and participate in all creating classes by the end of summer, it makes sense that we will always need 15 classes. Z shouldn't have been a variable, but a constant!

In the end, the equation comes out to be:

R = roundup(X / K), where K = Z / C, with
is the max campers per class per cycle,
is the # campers,
is the number of classes per cycle,
Z = 15 is the number of classes, and
is the number of cycles, which would realistically be 3 or 5.


Kam Ho Lau
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:11 PM

To: Steve Liu
Cc: Vernon Cheung, Emily Wu

wow impressive. ...
Yes, Math is wonderful! And this is one way how we can apply 4 years of Math Education into Ministry! =P
Kam Ho



Saturday, November 14, 2009

Guest Blogger: C-Town Librarian

This month, I'll feature a guest blogger, Emily Wu. She's volunteering at the Chinatown Storefront Library, an involvement I'd love to take if I were still living in the area. She hosts "English Conversations with Emily" on the days that she volunteers. Her words:


I'm sitting in a beanbag chair in the Drawing Lab section of the the temporary Chinatown Storefront Library, a nice cozy place to be on a rainy fall afternoon. Glancing around as I walked in, I counted easily 20+ others here. Most look like they live in Chinatown-- children huddled together on the stools that make up the "children's pod," and elderly men and women reading newspapers in the "reading room" area that they have claimed as their own. The red-cushioned stools that are usually stored under the shelves have been pulled out and arranged to form a circle in the corner, creating a sense of community where a family is gathered, reading together.




From my vantage point, the lines a curves of the space are pleasing to the eye-- the suspended lighting over the contoured shelving constructed by the Harvard grad students, the black-and-white wall to my left, covered with drawings by youth and children.


Sam Davol just walked by with a high-school-aged volunteer, showing her the ropes or perhaps giving her an assignment. I realize that the volunteer is a former Project Destiny camper! (Later on she notices me too and greets me as "Ms. Wu." =) ) It's much busier here now than on a Wednesday afternoon, when I first came in to volunteer.

As I write in my journal, I also engage in another favorite pastime of mine-- people-observing. The father and daughter who were in the circle of cushioned chairs are now in the Drawing Lab, speaking Cantonese. But the daughter reads the directions to the touch station and zoetrope aloud in English. She likes when her dad is nearby, watching her. Whenever he starts to move away to another area, she looks up from her work and calls out to him. 


A mother and son have entered the Drawing Lab. Mom tells her toddler, “¡SiĆ©ntate!” on the chairs and also exclaims,  “¡QuĆ© lindo!” over the drawings on the wall. Dad speaks to the boy in English but then switches to Spanish with an American accent to say that it's raining out and they should leave soon. 


The Cantonese-speaking father is now speaking English to his daughter, as he shows her something in a book about hot air balloons. "Interesting things here... you see?"


A pair of sisters comes in and takes over the Drawing Lab activities. "Jie jie! Can I copy you??" This appeal is repeated three times by the younger sister until the older sister deigns to notice and gives her assent.






More than a place for books and educational resources, a library in Chinatown can bring a neighborhood together. People who would be considered "strangers" in any other setting become "neighbors" when we share an afternoon at the library. Already this temporary storefront library has become a gathering place. It has been open for 8 days. I wonder if and how we'll feel the loss when it's all over in three months.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Like Francis of Assisi

You may have heard the legends of St. Francis of Assisi, who would preach to birds and they would listen to him. Is it possible that I am mastering the art of attracting animals? Am I becoming more like St. Francis? You judge:



Picture taken at Ipswich River yesterday. The bird was a Black-Capped Chickadee. I think bird watching (and attracting) will be my next hobby if I can't fish.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Getting Paid as...

Reading week was pretty productive-- I got a lot of reading done and had some time to earn some money... as a bouncer. Well, perhaps my title wasn't bouncer. It was more like "hired helper," but the job was mostly guarding the door of the new Storefront Chinatown Library during their opening ceremony. I got to stand next to and greet Mayor Menino, Councilor Flaherty, and Councilor Yoon all at once! (notice my gaze directed not to the Mayor, but to my buddy Sam Tsoi, Sampan reporter covering the event) Moreover, I got to reconnect with a few folks in the neighborhood, helping me to feel as if I wasn't totally disconnected from what's happening in Chinatown.




If you go back a few months on this blog, you'll know that for a while, I was involved on a neighborhood committee to plan and recommend a Boston Public Library branch library in Chinatown. This privately funded "Storefront Library" is something that grew out of that process. After we finished our work as a committee, the city did not allocate funding for a new branch, so many of those who were involved, including one of the architects for the project and various community groups continued to push for SOMETHING. That something ended up being this Storefront Library, organized by Sam and Leslie Davol on Washington St.

It is temporary, which is good. That lack of permanence highlights the need for a true city-funded library-- though in tough times like these for the city, who knows when that will happen? In any case, it's a nice, though small library and it's the type of thing I'd like to be involved in if I were in town. Go check it out if you're in town.

more info: http://www.wbur.org/2009/10/15/chinatown-library

Friday, September 25, 2009

32 Inches!!!


striper...
i <3 singing beach...
(in addition to other things and people)

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Thoughts on Preaching Class

I had my first preaching class today. As I was saying in my last post, I am very excited to see what the Lord will show me in this class. Dr. Gibson has been here for some time and he directs the preacher training program here at Gordon Conwell. Highlights and thoughts from class:
  • I'm one of the students with the most preaching experience there. This does not mean I preach well or better than anybody else in the class. It's just surprising that most of my classmates have had fewer preaching opportunities, aside from those who are much older than me.
  • Explaining what expositional preaching is not, Dr. Gibson preached a 6 minute "sermon", deadpan, on "Old Mother Hubbard", expounding on each word in the poem: Old, mother, hubbard, went, cupboard. My favorite moment: "Indeed, we all love to go to the cupboard, don't we? We love going to it because it's just there!" I felt sorry for the international students who might not have known what was going on.
  • This is not just Dr. Gibson, but also many other preaching profs as well: there is the sense here that the preacher is the intermediary between God's word and his people. The exact words that wereused is that the pastor is a"bridge between two worlds." I have a high view of the importance of preaching and the role of the preacher, but I don't think I agree with this idea. It seems to imply that lay-people have no chance of understanding God's word without a special in-between guy who interprets the Bible. It suggests we are the messangers, we are the ones with God's authority, we are at the center of God's communication to his people-- it's all resting on us... What happened to the priesthood of all believers? Doesn't the Holy Spirit minister in lay people as well as ordained? Jesus was the final intermediary between God and Man. We don't need to set up another. Preachers are not bridges, nor priests, nor special prophets. We're called to be shepherds, to lead God's people to the green pastures of his living Word. They can read that word themselves without us. Our work on Sundays and Fridays and other preaching days should result in a greater hunger for God's word and God's people growing in reading and obeying that word on their own. What do you think is the preacher's role in relation to God's word and his people?
It has been a restful week: not much work yet and no sermon this Friday.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Moving Back In

Year Two of seminary begins tomorrow. I'll be moving into my room tonight and getting ready for my first class Hebrew, which starts tomorrow. Energy-wise, I am ready-- as I relearned this summer, three weeks of rest is more than enough. But I've forgotten a lot of my Greek and studying seems like a foreign concept after an action-packed summer. There is a mental shift I need to make to get back into student-mode.

It is exciting to get back into structure and purpose. There are many things I miss about Project Destiny, but one of them is waking up every day to see the same people, following a predictable routine, with every minute of the day directed purposefully toward ministering the Gospel. I'm looking forward to applying that same kind of focus once again to my studies.

This semester, I'll be taking my first preaching class! I'm not sure exactly how long I've been preaching God's word-- perhaps only three years, but it feels longer. Nevertheless, I've never taken a real class in preaching; and aside from some tips from a few pastors, I've mostly just picked up techniques from listening to others. I'm eager for God to use Dr. Gibson and the class to shape the way I preach.

Finally, I will mention a fellow seminary blogger whom some of you will know: the venerable Doctor Chu has joined me, along with a few other guys I know from my home church, BCEC. Calvin's blog is http://calvin-at-seminary.blogspot.com/. I hope you will hop on over to his site and pray for him; but please continue to read my blog and pray for me! It's like McDonald's and Chick-Fil-A: you don't have to choose one over the other.

Please drop me a note if there is some way I can be praying for you as you pray for me.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

PD Final Update

Dear Friends—

Project Destiny ended a little less than a month ago. I’ve gotten plenty of opportunities to rest up between then and now, even with helping program a youth retreat and planning our Fall teaching series scattered in there. It was a bonus to be able to go to Cape Cod for biking, bird-watching, and camping in August. I’m just about ready to head back to school and I’ll soon be spending time reviewing Greek and getting used to thinking academically again.

I’m really grateful for having had another opportunity to direct PD again. Last year, as I may have told you, was a tough summer that God used to teach me a lot about leading and caring for people. This year, I got to apply some of those lessons to a new team. Once again, this year, God showed me that I am not the shepherd that He wants me to be yet—I am more task oriented than I thought and love people less than I imagine. But He is leading me in that direction and shaping me in that way. By his grace, we fielded an outstanding team that learned to depend on the Lord through the daily ups and downs of ministry life together.

One of the things I like most about directing PD is having a team that might not usually work together. That was the case this year as our young and diverse team came together from Newton, Chinatown, suburbs, the city, out of state, out of country, and many different walks of life. One of the first devotionals of the summer was the passage in 1 Corinthians, which speaks of care for one another as a defining characteristic of Christ’s Body. The first day of training, I must say, was a little quiet. People didn’t intermingle very much. And during free times, instead of playing, everyone would just work on their lesson plans! I began to wonder if this team would ever gel to the point of opening up to one another. But over the course of the next few weeks, as we spent more time together, God knit the team closer together. At our overnight retreat, we had an extraordinary time sharing about how God had shown grace, an evening punctuated by spontaneous singing! The very next week, we saw personalities come out in an uplifting time of candlepin bowling on one of the team nights.

As camp started the team dealt with the day-to-day challenges of working together. We encountered our own expectations and shortcomings as well as God’s faithfulness and provision. Throughout camp, I sprinkled in several devotionals about the resources that the gospel gives us to love one another. I taught on patience vs. grace, how our seeing our own sinfulness enables us to love, and how we only begin to truly love people when we deal with their sin. What a huge privilege it was to lead this team from the point of not knowing each other to the point of almost knowing each other too well! It was amazing to see how God’s Word is always fruitful and applicable to every situation and that his Holy Spirit in us helps us to respond to that Word, giving us insight and changing us to better glorify and proclaim Jesus as savior and lord.

As far as campers go, we had 50 students this year. 37 of them decided to come to Summer Teen Conference, our church’s regular youth group retreat. Up to 10 kids said they wanted to receive Jesus as their savior—praise God! While I’m grateful for those numbers, I know it is the work of the Holy Spirit to hold and sustain those campers and that not all planted seeds will yield a lasting crop. More encouraging to me is the numbers of PD kids who expressed interest in attending regular youth group, where they can continually hear God’s Word preached and where they can be cared for by adult counselors. In years past, I remember having huge farewells and lots of hugs at the end of camp because we were unsure of when we’d see each other again. This year, there were fewer of those. I like to think it’s because more of them know they’ll probably see each other at youth group. It takes a long time to make a disciple—I know it usually doesn’t happen in one summer. So praise God for the campers that continue coming to church regularly, who make up about 40% of our regular Friday night ministries!

As September comes, I’ll be back at regular youth work. It seems I’m getting deeper and deeper into the planning of the Friday Night ministry. I remember when I began youth work—I was a three-month call-up to my friend’s Dorchester church to help set up a worship band of teenagers. Now God has put me in a church with resources to do large-scale urban ministry—He has given me much of the responsibility for teaching and shepherding 80 youths, as well as directing the summer entry-point for the majority of the newcomers. It’s crazy, scary, and humbling at the same time. Please pray for me as I depend on the Lord to show me how to balance my time between ministry, seminary, relationships, and possibly work in the Fall.

I hope to be back at this for PD 2010. Lord wiling, we’ll begin planning for the next summer in October or November. I’ll try to keep y’all updated via my sadly mismanaged blog: bostonministry.blogspot.com

Thanks for all your prayers and support! Please feel free to catch me to ask me about anything . You’ve been a huge blessing to me this summer in providing for my needs and praying for me. Thanks again!

Peace,

Steve

Images: 1) Cape Cod Biking 2) Some counselors at my house in Quincy celebrating my 28th Birthday 3) Two counselors hard at work

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Mid-Camp Update


July 25, 2008

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well and making the most of the summer. Already we’re at the half-way point of our camp here at Project Destiny. Thanks for your prayers and financial support. I have a few updates to tell you about:

  1. One of the things I was most concerned about was the numbers of campers vs. the numbers of counselors—young counselors at that! To put it in perspective, there is one senior counselor who is 28, which is my age. The next oldest is 24, then 22, 19, 18, 18, and 17. That makes 7 senior counselors, most under 20 years old, most with very little experience working with middle-schoolers. Praise God, though: While our staff struggles to apply the love of Christ consistently, God has been equipping us so that the 50 campers we have don’t seem so many. It is a challenge, but God is teaching us to work together with the entire staff to cover and help each other.

  2. Sicknesses have come, depleting our numbers, especially during the 3rd week, when we were missing at least one counselor every day. It was encouraging to see everyone covering for one another, even when some of those covering for others weren’t feeling 100% either. I’m also thankful that our counselors happened to get sick on days when their responsibilities were fewer, making it easier to cover their roles.

  3. I’m more than half way through with all my preaching and teaching for the summer. Over the past few weeks, I’ve preached 6 lessons and prepared 20 devotionals for the staff. I’ve never spent so much time thinking about God’s word and how to apply it to the circumstances of people around me. The Lord has been growing my confidence in this area greatly with each passing day.

  4. The kids are really enjoying camp. With every shared experience, they are opening up more to their counselors and one another. They’ve been bonding over field trips, like a cruise to George’s Island, a visit to Old Sturbridge Village, and massive multi-player action-flex sword melee battles. Many of the new-comers to PD have visited our regular Jr. High English ministry, TWR.

Alright, that’s all I will write for now. I’d love to tell you more, but perhaps I can tell some of it in person. I can’t believe there’s only 2 more weeks of camp until it ends. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been here for ages. Sometimes it feels like it’s been so fast and I’m afraid it will slip by before I really get to appreciate all that God is showing me and giving me the opportunity to do. ..

  • Please pray for diligence, energy, and passion for our staff as they approach the final stretch. It is easy to get complacent now that the end is in sight.
  • Please pray for me as I give two more sermons. I want to be able to connect the gospel to the lives of the campers. I’ll be preaching on Thursday and next Tuesday.

Thanks!
Steve

Monday, July 06, 2009

Project Destiny 2009 First Week


Hi Friends. I'm back in Project Destiny once again. Today was actually the first day of camp (we're still in it as I write). We've got 48 campers who arrived and learned how to find references in a Bible today, some kids who have never looked into a Bible before, and most of whom have not looked at one within the month (counting by a show of hands). As you may recall, this is my major project during the bulk of the year and especially during the summer.

This is my second year directing the program here in Chinatown, and I'm having a blast. My favorite part of all this is the way God has been bringing our team together over the past 2 weeks of training. They come from all over the place and are from different age groups, but God is molding us into a team that shows the unity of Christ's Body. I've been giving devotionals every day (I'm running out of creativity!) and soon I'll be preaching our evangelistic messages during our chapel times

I'm actually writing to send a quick request out for prayer. Thanks to those of you who asked how I've been. Due to some logistical licensing stuff, I didn't get much sleep last night (the night before camp started) and I'm very tired. Please pray that I'd get rest and also that the Lord would keep me from letting self-serving and grace-less motives take over my interactions with others in my tiredness this week. I love being here, and helping others to be Christ's ambassadors in the city-- pray that I would continue to serve with joy and love.

Thanks!
(picture: the busy street and building at Emerson College on Boyleston St. where I'm living this summer with the PD Counselor Staff)

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Rising Drop Out Rate for Boston's ELL's

A report will be released tomorrow by UMass Boston and the Center for Collaborative Education showing how the "English Only" rule in Boston's public schools has led to a doubling of drop-out rates by English Language Learners. If you might remember, back in 2002, Boston voted to enact the rule and erase bilingual education from the books so that all students would learn through "immersion." The report that will be released will show how, over a period of two years, student drop out rates have gone from 6% to 12% among immigrant children.

I am by no means a proponent of bilingual education. My mother was a bilingual educator for many years and even she would claim that there was much to be desired in that system: many teachers, whose comfort level in English was lower, would fail to help students transition; and parents would elect to keep their children in bilingual programs, stunting their children's growth. Students, too, would self-segregate along linguistic and (ultimately) ethnic lines. However, with that said, the inadequate programs we had back then were better than the ones we have now.

Frankly, I am not surprised at the findings of this report. It confirms my experiences over the past four years of teaching English at a 6-12 school. There was not a single year that I didn't encounter three or more students whom I could not devote enough of my personal resources to. Though I can't list them here, each of their names come to mind as I type-- they are phantoms that haunt me whenever I evaluate how I, as a member of an educating team, "left behind" many kids. There were the ones who began the year already jaded, who had long ago decided to give up. There were the few who were excited to get a brand new start, but then buckled under the weight of unreachable standards. I stayed with a student after school for 2 hours a day once; but it was never enough. They couldn't read. They couldn't understand the assignments. They were lonely and bored and, eventually, bitter. And they were under-served. During my time in the school, no fewer than ten of my students dropped out or had to transfer out of the system-- and we were considered one of the better clusters in the district.

The "English Only" folks will get defensive here-- and they are right to be because they are being blamed for ruining the futures of a 6% of our language learner youths per year! While there are a lot of reasons for parents, advocates, politicians, and ultimately teachers and students to take that position and be angry, I want to step back from that and deal with the realities we've got instead of the ideological should-haves.

The problem is not with whether you've got an "English Only" school or a bilingual system. In fact in a perfect world, you might have schools that model both within the same district and parents could choose. The reason, however, that the "English Only" rule was so devasting to Boston was that it came from outsiders who had no intimate knowledge of what the school system was like. And when schools were required to implement it, often against their better judgment and will, we weren't ready.

A lot of folks will say that it should be easy-- their grandparents didn't have any "special programs" to help them learn English and they did fine. Just drop 'em in and make 'em swim! The problem with this is that the picture, especially in urban districts, has gotten very complicated. With increasing numbers of minorities and people living in ethnically divided neighborhoods, there is no world of "correct English" from which these students can absorb the language. Also, consider the numbers of special needs learners that are integrated into every single classroom in the district: there is no way that a teacher can tackle giving the extra attention to both the ELL kids AND special needs learners at once, especially once you get into the secondary school level, where kids rotate through a minimum of six teachers a day. But if they don't get this from extra attention by the teacher, where will they get it? This is why supplemental ELL classes (traditionally "ESL") are needed in bountiful supply.

Over the past four years of teaching, that was a reality that I tried to work with and around. There were times I tried to be that program. There were times I gritted my teeth and told my self to be realistic-- it's just a fact of life that I'll lose some. And there were times when I gave a shot at advocating for hiring changes so that there would be more money designated for ELL teachers . There were times I did my best; and there were times when, honestly, I was too tired to try do my best. In the end, though, we weren't ready because we didn't have the programs, teachers, training, and money in place to do what we needed to do.

A lot of people will be reading that report in the next few days. But teachers who have seen it all and wrestled with these failures won't be surprised at the numbers-- after all, the numbers are never worse than the stories behind them. If anything, maybe many of us will breath a sigh of cathartic relief that the dirty little secret is finally out.

A not-so-radical proposal: Our schools need to hire full-time, full service ELL teachers. You cannot turn back the clocks now on "English Only." There's no money in the city to hire an entire parallel system of teachers who speak Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Portugese and more. But what we have to do is make sure our ELL programs are adequately funded and have enough teachers, whose schedule and pay allows them to focus ONLY on ELL issues and students. ELL classes need to have no more than six students for every one adult. There must be a department of English Language Learner Education in every school that has more than 20 ELL students with a department head who has a reduced teaching load. Regular classes must have a paraprofessional to assist students for every class that has 2 or more ELL kids who are classified in the lowest proficiency category. Even when implemented to the full measure of this proposal, this would cost far less than returning to "bilingual" education; and I have no doubt that it would not only lower the drop-rates among ELL and regular students alike, but it would also significantly improve test scores across the board.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

When you have no money...

When I arrived at seminary, several people I talked to spoke of the money-saving virtue of cutting your own hair. Down to my last $___, I finally thought I'd give it a try. Emily was visiting, and on a whim decided to help me complete my seminary experience. I know many of you may be strapped for cash, too, in these hard times, and I want to encourage you to consider the possibilities. It took 3 hours, but I'm sure once you get some practice it goes a lot quicker. I considered not posting these, but when I was assured that this was an integral part of the seminary experience, I decided to share:

At one point, a mistake occurred that appeared irredeemable. My hair was contoured with locks of hair on the back of my head much shorter than the hair on the side of my head! I was ready to shave it all off... but with expert craftsmanship, my new favorite hair-stylist fixed it. It strikes me that, Biblically and in my own experience, just when you think you're done, God is just getting started. He is the master hair-stylist... or potter. (no, emily didn't take her hair off and put it on mine, so that she had bad hair and I had good hair... this is not an illustration of substitutionary atonement!)

p.s. this is not a subtle plea for financial support... really, it's not!

Retreat! Retreat!

Boy, it's been an exciting whirlwind of a month! I wanted to quickly update to those of you who still read this thing and (gasp) even pray for me!

Winter Teen Conference


January was all about preparing for Winter Teen Conference, our church youth retreat (which had 230 kids this year!). I was tasked with assembling and preparing an inter-church worship team to lead our retreat in worship. Meeting over the course of two months, we rehearsed, prayed, trained our hearts and attitudes, and ate together. Then we went to Conference in February and played and worshiped our hearts out. If you have talked to me before about worship, you know my thoughts about the difference between "lead worshipers" and "band members"-- a band member plays to glorify music or himself; a "lead worshiper" joins the singing in their music and in their example to help others glorify God. During that weekend, the kids were musically excellent, faithful with the small stuff, level-headed, and most impressively, they took seriously their role of being "lead worshipers." I think I realized that one night as we were gathered around in a powerful time of prayer before a worship set. God certainly worked in the lives of those teenagers... it was a lot of fun and a big encouragement to worship with them.

Serving the Servants

More recently, I got to expand my ministry repertoire. Last weekend, I did some "college ministry" (ok maybe you wouldn't call it that!) . The college group at BCEC had its retreat, and I got to attend... as the childcare provider for two of the staff-workers' families! It took me back to those years that I was working at Mary Johnson's Children's Center and wondered if that was what I'd be satisfied doing for the rest of my life. With only four young children and both Emily and me to share the work, it was more fun than challenging as we did stuff like read "The Pigeon Eats a Hot Dog", have bacon for snack, and go on a scavenger hunt. Though I didn't get as much homework done as I hoped to, it was a very nice, different weekend as I got to be a servant to those who were serving others.

Studies...

Meanwhile, I've fallen a little behind on my studies... as in thousands of pages behind. Still, the Lord continues to provide. For example, I didn't get my Word Study paper done on time for class on Monday, but I got an extension because we had a snow storm that shut down the school. Maybe God won't always give me an extension like that, but I'm reminded that I can trust the Lord whenever I follow his promptings to serve or to put priorities on things outside my own narrow interests and inside the interests of his kingdom and glory.

pictures-- top: worship team at WTC, bottom: scavenger hunt to find a snowman (we just built it)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

New Term and Philemon

I hope to do better than one post per month in the future.

Well, the break in between classes was shorter than I expected. In fact, I managed to miss two classes of my January Term course, Christ in the Old Testament. Last Monday night, I happened to be browsing the Gordon-Conwell web site, when I found out that the term had begun the on the preceding Friday! I packed up my things and made the drive back immediately. Thankfully, when I arrived at the next class, we hadn't gotten very far. I had missed two-ninths of the class, yet we were still on Genesis 1:2! I was very grateful for my American Literature training in undergrad as I caught up with 200 pages of reading over the next two days.

Meanwhile, the youth ministry is in the middle of a short series in Philemon (though I don't suppose you could have a long series in Philemon, could you?). In the shortest of Paul's letters, he writes to Philemon, apparently a slave owner who has been wronged by his runaway slave, Onesimus, and implores him to receive the newly converted slave as his brother. It stands as a beautiful portrait of how the Gospel holds power to transform the paradigms of our human relationships. It was fun to design the series; and the first talk, which I delivered last week, went well. Although the letter is less than a page in lenght, I have acquired nearly 1,000 pages of commentary on it!