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| back to jerusalemso i've been reading this book called back to jerusalem in preparation for my trip to china kinda. it's so fascinating. i 'm only on like page...50. but i have learned so much about the church movement for the past 100 or so years in china. it's really inspiring. it challenges my faith and it leads me to think that our perception of God is so limited here in the u.s.
i think i'm really struggling with the fact that the christians over in China desire to be in fellowship with other believers so much, and yet they are not given that opportunity. we talk about community a lot here and how it's important to our chinese community, but i can only imagine what it's like to feel isolated over there because you believe that God is God. it's heartbreaking to read about how they treat the believers over there.
however, i am amazed that God has paved the way for this "back to jerusalem" movement. the people who have formed it and who are a part of it, are so dedicated to God and his mission. it makes me feel like i have very little faith in the things that God can do. i am inspired that God has been working in the area that i'm going to. that God's presence is still there even though the government forbids it.
one segment i like from the beginning of the book says,
"one lunch time i asked several church leaders how many christians they thought there would be i nchina in twenty or thirty years time if the gospel continued to blaze is way through the nation as it had been doing for the previous decade. 'two hundered million believers?' i asked with a smile on my face. 'three hundred million?'
the chinese brothers didn't answer. they understood the questoin, but didn't understand my lack of faith! after repeating the question one leader, with a puzzled look on his face, said, 'of course in twenty or thirty years all of china will know the lord!'"
in sunday school yesterday, i really liked this verse from 1 peter 5 which said,
" 8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist
him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers
throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."
it is so encouraging to know that people around the world are striving to see God's kingdom grow on earth. the chinese people have inspired me with their committment to serve God...whatever it takes.
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| it's been a while...i am apalled at my xanga entry skills. i haven't been on xanga in so long that i forgot how to log in to my account. is that not pathetic?
well, i wrote an entry two weeks ago but the formatting on xanga is so weird and it made my pictures look weird. don't worry, i'll unveil that post eventually. not that a lot of people read xanga anymore though. :/ well, the real reason i was writing this post was cause i was going down memory lane and i was feeling a tad bit sentimental.
as i was packing up and moving out my room (never to return again) i was just thinking about all the good times i've had in it. and then it made me think about all the good times i had in college. i hate goodbyes. i'm a sentimental person and i really hate throwing things away. call me a pack rat, but everything i own has a little bit of sentimental value. i think that's why i like to name things a lot...humanizes some inanimate objects sometimes. (okay, i hope this doesn't make me sound crazy).
anyways, this school year has been blissfully good for me. i was exhausted and tired a lot of the times, but i felt like everything was so rewarding. i maybe spread myself thin a few times, but God never ceased to remind me how he could use me during those broken times of failure. i admit, there were times this past year where i've really had the urge to give up and just admit defeat. it's hard when you feel like you're constantly on the go and you wanna do everything and be everyone's friend. but i dunno, there was something about this year that was just so different from all the other ones. i think it has to do with me maturing and growing up a little...
another year over so it's goodbye to....
dorm life room #215, j2 and all your delicious cuisine, the piano lounge, community bathrooms, my wonderful roommate of 3 years, having all the 2nd floor girls minutes away, jcl and your overpriced food.
social work cohort that i just got to get to know this semester, volunteering with my favorite mentee eli, the yearbook staff, stim training weekends, immaturity (???), and a lot of other things. i swear when i was thinking up this list, i had a lot more sappy things... well...senior farewell was the other day...soo goodbye seniors of 2007.
(i don't have a pic of your class from senior farewell this year...so i'll post one from last year)  HELLO SENIOR YEAR (i can't believe it's gonna believe we're gonna be the seniors next year)   p.s. now that it's summer i'm gonna try to update, promise.
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| i need your help!hi friends,
it has been a long long time since i've xanga-ed...i
think that was kinda unintentional too. a lot has been going on! i
hope i get to share some of the things i've been learning with you all,
but if not...read my xanga for more.
i don't want to sound
like a broken record, but i am going on STiM this summer...a missions
training program for students through intervarsity to go on global and
urban missions trips. this summer i'll be going to china with about 10
other people from texas...7 of which are students. needless to say, i
am EXCITED!! i have already gone through two training sessions in good
ol tehuacana, tx. yeah, if you haven't heard of it...you're not the
only one! while there, i have learned so much about myself and just
entering in to new cultures and so much about GOD'S HEART FOR
MISSIONS. if that's not exciting, i don't know what is.
here are some pics of some of my favorite new friends!
we <3 koreena!
 and so do the boys...:X
this is what they make the girls do at stim...clean. :/ jk jk. (hi rebecca and kim!)
 
and this is what the boys getta do...play football. jk jk. (you can't tell that they're playing football, but they are)
 
east asia team '07...minus a few people.
so, i'm showing you all these FUN pictures for a reason. i need your help. i have already begged a lot of you guys for your mailing addresses and have handed out a lot of letters to you in person, but we really need everyone that's close to us to be on board for all of this! as a team, we have to raise about $120,000...folks, that's enough to buy a HOUSE...and a few really nice cars. individually, i have to raise $4,772!!!
they're big numbers but we have a BIG God! you can also help by PRAYING of course, donating STAMPS, and just anything you can give...we appreciate EVERYONE'S GENEROSITY. also, God will smile that all his people are coming together to do his work too.
here's my some of my old sg girls. i put them to work one night! w00t w00t thanks girls, miss you!
here's a passage from acts that i love: acts 5:29-32, 38-39
29Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men! 30The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. 32We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."
38Therefore, in the present
case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their
purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."
email me at kelleyelou@mail.utexas.edu, aim me @ k00lkelley0, or fb me (i love that!) or any time you see me, feel free to ask me for more info...i'd love to share with you what God is doing and your thoughts and prayers are always a blessing to me! also, if you want a support letter...you can give me your addy and i'll send you one or can access it on my webspace!
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| yeah, that's a good feelingi had a test this morning. but as i was walking to my test with my roomie (i miss those days) i was telling her how i felt about the bike dismount zones. you know, where there are CLEARLY signs that read "bike dismount zone...please dismount your bike" (or something to that effect). i was telling her how i feel really grateful to those people who do decide to dismoutn their bike for the good of us pedestrians, etc. the ones that whiz by me and almost run over my toe...no good! bikes are dangerous! just ask james yao..he once got hit by a biker, but she ended up falling over her bike and having to go to the ssb cause she had a concussion.
so the point of my lil bike story is that i sometimes just walk down the street and i think these random things (such as the biker thing) in my head. and it got me thinking about how i think of the most random things when i'm walking by myself to class or whatever. i look like a normal kid (relatively) but if you knew what was going on in my head...sometimes i randomly smile and i thought (today) about the things that randomly make me smile when i'm walking...here's a list..
while walking, i smile when...
i see the following uncommon sights
-a random guy dressed up in a pikachu costume wearing very tiny ut shirt, waving to students...
-the oscar meyer weiner truck!! nough said, wrote a whole post about it
-a guy DRESSED UP AS A KIDNEY, trying to get people to be organ donors...very creative must say
-people dressed up in sandwich boards for aacm talent show (sigh, that was a good week last week guys)
i think about
-what i'm gonna eat for lunch. "yes! j2 has meat loaf today!"
-how i got out of class early
-how i probably bombed that test/quiz i just took, but i got out early!
-how i'm gonna go take a nap once i get to my room
i feel
-the sun beaming down on me
-the wind blowing in my hair and ruining my good hair day
i hear
-a really good song come on
-people shouting ridiculous things on west mall
i see
-someone trip/almost trip...and worry that someone saw them. yes, i saw you and i giggled a little inside b/c of your misfortune
-whenever i see the 40 acres bus..i think "YES, FA!" ...even if i don't have to get on it to ride anywhere and i'm coming home - just knowing that i timed my walking so perfectly makes me a lil giddy inside..i'm always so tempted to ride it anways
-cute little kids wandering around ut...sometimes ya see it!
-someone passing out something FREE.
-someone i know and they wave to me!
-to add on to the previous one, someone that i've meet like FOUR times and have never had the pleasure of them acknowledging me, FINALLY wave/smile at me. that's a good feeling. people, wave or smile or say hi...it can make someone's day! 
the end! have a blessed day now that you've read this. COMMENT and add some of your own too. :)
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| putting the chinese in new yearso today (or 1 hr ago) was chinese new year. it's funny b/c if it hadn't said "chinese new year" on my cuute little hello kitty calendar, i woulda sworn chinese new year was last week (or i wouldn't have known period.). the reason for this is b/c well, i'm not your traditional chinese kid. sure, from my cute xanga profile with the long, korean spoon...you'd think i was some kind of asian, but you really wouldn't know if you didn't ask me. this is a long post.
so here i am...in this predicament where i have this cultural clash. i look like "every other asian person" but until i came to college, i had no connection/bond with my heritage. *insert asian-y looking picture of me*
 allison took this ridiculous picture of me in st. louis, thank you allison.
i like to call my new found asian-ness my "asian awakening." i would classify myself as a "fob-abee" (a wannabe fob or something like that) according to this funny asian thing i read on xiao yu's xanga. if you guys knew me in hs (which some of you who read this funny xanga did), you'd know that i was known as the "twinkee" or "the banana" or even what i think lizz called me once, "white trailer trash" (this was said jokingly of course). kids would joke and kid with me that i was going to marry a white guy and my name would become "kelley smith" to which i just laughed and shurgged it off. i was told that i was a "white girl, stuck in an asian girls body, who occasionally tried to be black."
this is me trying to be a fob again with my sister and my cousin clarissa. somehow, i have made "being fob" my new picture trend. someone once asked me why i did this and i don't really have an answer. (it's fun? something to do with your hands?)
all of this was amusing to me. i never was confronted with this idea that i was asian until kids made fun of me. i am in an asian american studies class called "chinese in america" and basically every article i read talks about asian kids getting made fun of. no matter where you grew up, no matter how rich or poor you were, what kinda asian you were, asians were singled out for whatever reason. i desperately tried to rid the stereotypes and i would never even consider embracing what it meant to be chinese or chinese-american for that matter.
this is my cousin stanley and his WIFE vivan. (hi vivian!) at their wedding reception. at their wedding, vivian's dad gave a toast and he said vivian asked him what he thought of stanley. he said, "i gave him a 9.5...she asked 'why not a 10?' i said, 'because he doesn't speak chinese.'" my cousin stanley is one of the most white-y people i know, but we still love him.
i was not good at school, i did not speak chinese, my parents spoke perfect english, and that was about it. both of my parents grew up in the united states and have never been to china. my grandfather on my mother's side moved to the u.s. very young to go to school, you could call him a "paper son." i insert that fact because i am learning so much in my chinese in america class. my family comes from the taishan province in guangdong and it's a very very rural province. at first i felt ashamed of my ancestory because it seemed like all my friends in college were fobs themselves or had fob parents. they would always try to speak chinese to me and i would just politely smile. i felt so inferior and it was not because of anything they said to me, but because i couldn't even speak back.
this is a picture from my cousin's "wedding banquet" at fung's kitchen in houston. the two older people are my great uncle and aunt...my great uncle always says funny things to me and he use to give me a lot of money as a lil kid. they are our only connection in some sense to my grandma's life in taishan.
i told my mom how ashamed i felt that i didn't know about where my grandparents grew up (my grandparents on my dad's side laid their roots initially in mississippi.) i never felt that i was given an opportunity to learn about why my grandparents came to the u.s. (actually, my dad's dad was born here...his dad worked on the railroads way back in the day). two of the social work classes i took last year allowed me to explore my family's background and also how my culture and ethnicity played in to my makeup as a person.
this is my mom and her sisters. she insisted that i take this pic of them with this character (which they say means "double happiness") because it proves that we're chinese.
in short, i am still really learning and growing in to being a chinese-american. i put a hyphen between it because i feel like the two are deeply connected. throughout the course of this semester, i will probably post more about my cultural clash. i am thankful for classes that i have taken in college, professors, classmates, and aacm. aacm has showed me how important it is to know that as a christian, i am also ASIAN and there is value in that.
my dad really loves bbq. because he grew up in the south he LOVES soul food and the like. whenever i make them eat with me in chinatown, they think i'm strange.
OH ALSO. i am going to china this summer on a missions trip. is that exciting or what? my first training weekend is coming up and i will definitely have a lot to post on that. God has definitely ignited this interest in my chinese roots for a reason. so even though i love korean things and people (i know, creepy) i am chinese at heart.
this is a fun pic of my family at christmas time. we love wearing matching things...tada, santa hats! (the coloring is off cause we tried to do the "red" feature on my fancy new camera)
p.s. sorry if this is long and unorganized. i really do have a lot to say on this matter an i encourage you to dialogue with me about this. 
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