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a spring blog

First foray into portraiture.

As the Cambodia team started financially preparing for the summer mission trip I am going to be a part of (leaving Monday!) a few months ago, a lot of creative fundraising methods came to life—K basically started a pie and fruit tart shop, BJ cranked out several hundred macarons, the team collectively sold baptism/graduation flowers/fruit/Italian soda…and then there was me. I sat around, basically just hoping that my campus job would financially sustain me, a safe option that I had carefully planned out and calculated, leaving little room for error.

For the past however many years that I have been participating in mission trips and 30 Hour Famines and this and thats, I’ve never really had the need to push myself to earn funds. I am blessed to have parents who are always willing to subsidize and support me, and so although I have faced hefty costs going to wherever caught my heart, I’ve never felt a need to take significant steps of faith in asking others to support me for my trips.

But somewhere in between the grind of schoolwork and getting increasingly excited for Cambodia, it struck me that maybe I should try something different—take a risk and do some fundraising to put myself out there, in a vulnerable situation where my success/failure would be public and would result in embarrassment if things didn’t go so well. One of my greatest ongoing struggles is dealing with the reality that I am incompetent and cannot earn the approval of the world, not while being convicted of the Bible’s proclamation that the love, grace, and mercy I receive on a daily basis is completely undeserved and irrelevant to my performance. Being someone who is used to investing minimal effort and easily yielding favorable results, pushing myself in the area of photography is something I have aggressively refused. I don’t take classes or seminars out of fear of ruining the ubiquitous thought that I am completely self-taught, I chose to ignore the technical rules of photography for years in order to continue projecting the image that everything I do can be attributed to a natural eye—that I can break ISO rules, aperture rules, and shoot with whatever settings I want to and still produce a good photo…ultimately, the art and hobby is, despite my justifications, mostly all about myself and my own glory.

So, the idea: to ask people to donate to my mission trip funds in return for graduation photos. This is something I definitely did not want to do, but in light of several messages and prayer meetings speaking to me about leaning into God and trusting him, and the persisting egging of D, it was something I finally caved into. I decided to toss up a status to the Facebook world the day before graduations started and just mention that I was considering taking photos, and would anyone be interested.

To make a long story short, the response and support I’ve received through this experience has been overwhelming. My friends have been more excited than I have; I’ve been humbled by the number of my peers and younger ones who have been willing to help me by waking up at 7am and walking around campus carrying around obnoxious 42” light reflectors, humbled by those who have been spreading my fundraising efforts through word of mouth and doing a lot more than they need to in order to help me get “customers”, humbled by the people who are actually letting me experiment on them as it’s pretty well known that I don’t like taking pictures of people (secretly because I am really bad at it.), humbled by these people who then financially give me much more than I expect and deserve out of a heart of wanting me to be able to experience God’s will in Cambodia without the pressures of worrying how I am going to pay for it myself, humbled by the encouraging check-ups and text messages I get concerning how things are going, humbled by the flood of advice that D has poured over me in terms of posing and lighting to the extent of even trusting me to borrow his and his father’s beautiful L-series equipment. And in terms of the art itself, I’ve been humbled by how little I truly know about photography, how my self-proclaimed preference for shooting landscapes has really been, all of these years, a defense and excuse for my laziness in learning how to explore beyond what is easy; I am again humbled by how bad my technical knowledge and retention of such knowledge is, and humbled by how I 100% do not deserve the equipment I have…

There’s a lot more to say, per usual, but I’ll stop there. Mostly since I have to wake up early to take photos for another group of people, haha…but I guess at the end of the day, I just want to try and express an ounce of the thankfulness and privilege and blessing I’ve been feeling and have received in the past week, in being able to catch a glimpse of God’s faithfulness and patience with me, an immensely prideful and stubborn sinner, even before the mission trip and training for it begins.

Another long day of photos ahead, and then three long days of training, but again I find myself in a place where I know that I cannot even being to think to complain about how I am tired, or how I am getting sick, or about the overarching craziness that has epitomized graduation week. God is setting me in a place of thanks, and I hope I can continue to dwell in this place and learn to know Him through offering what little I have and hoping He will multiply it and reveal Himself in the process.

* Please pray for our trip! It will last from May 27th (Monday) to June 10th (also Monday) and we need all the spiritual support you can offer us :). Thank you!

23:32

Eating some humble pie, gawking at the 85 f/1.2 that D is lending me for graduation week (…….), thankful but bittersweet that sophomore year is officially over, ready to finish watching The Sea In Between, remaking some vows for next year. God, thank you for the chance to really learn what it means to play background. Your kingdom come, your will be done.

Amen.

23:02

If I fail Econ this semester, I’m going to do English and be happy. Decided.

02:33

Something that has been hitting me this week: I am really thankful for the spiritual older brother figures God has placed in my life since college began. Witnessing genuine zeal for God and a singleminded-ness towards the Creator in these godly men has been important in healing my trust and cynicism/skepticism. I wish I could actively appreciate people more and stop realizing these things only in hindsight. But hey, I’ll take it.

I am starting to see bits of the myriad of avenues by which God is trying to help me get a better glimpse of his character. I’ve been really blessed today. Thanks, Father :)

rediscovering mr. garrels x mason jar music collaborations :)

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep — Tom Read

02:15

Today, I was reminded yet again of what covenant really means in the context of a God-honoring community. I find it sad that I never encountered this word before college—how is that possible, having grown up in the church? Unfortunately, it is way too possible, way too common—but I feel incredibly blessed to be able to experience it at all, now. Both through testimony and in my life, personally.

I think what strengthens me is knowing that the intense zeal for God I see in these seniors, these staff, these leaders? It happened as short a time ago as even last year. Transformation is always happening, and although I frequently feel that I am late, that I wish I had pulled my act together in high school; God can use me and work in me no matter the platform I am now starting again on. Like one of the points from last week emphasized, the past is not wasted. What’s now is what matters, though, and I need to make sure I’m moving forward.

Yep. Just so, so blessed. Feeling really spiritually nourished. Also thankful for a lot of things, like last night’s conversation with M which really reminded me of how far my friendships have come in even one year of living together…and also thankful that my body is slowly building up immunity towards typhoid. Boy, did I not expect that rock-hard wave of nausea and headache that hit me this afternoon. I’ve been forced to take my studies a lot slower than I would like, this being one of the relevant situations, but it’s actually quite a blessing. I’m getting to talk and be with people and really enjoy one another’s company. Of far greater value than this school thing, anyway :).

09:53

Today is a new day and I’m blessed to be alive, breathing, healthy, and happy. Despite imminent exams trying to threaten my future and worth, I know that my education is at best just another way that God is helping me grow my understanding of stewardship and responsibility; a means to teach me and not to harm me. I will go about my day with a sense of hope and eagerness of what my Father has in store to mold me into someone more like Him, rather than burdened by stresses and anxieties. I will cast all my cares upon Him, because He loves me.

Yep :)

22:57

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

—

The hardest.

21:11

  1. Struggling with forward motion. Been running in circles for the past year—a good circle, but a circle nevertheless—and it’s time that changes. I’m grateful for the times of refreshing that come with repentance, but I think a lot of my feelings of being stuck come from being unwilling to grow into the roles set before me.

    Today at summer orientation for the DC, a passing comment was made that “being an editor entails taking up responsibility,” which hit harder than it should have. There are a lot of things to see to, a lot of things I want to do and take ownership over, but ultimately I shy away from stewardship because I am afraid of failure. And fear of failure comes from insecurity in my identity as a daughter of God, not trusting that He will come through, still wanting to depend on myself as the primary giver.

    C once wrote on Tumblr that through the experience of spraining her ankle, she saw that God was gently asking her to slow down, take a breath, and trust in Him. As my cold/illness approaches its 2-week mark, you would think that I would be struck by the same notion, but despite being constantly forced by my body to shut down and sleep, I have yet to relinquish control over anything. It’s sad. It takes a lot of pride to uphold this behavior and clearly I have a deep well full of it, hah.

  2. On a more uplifting note, I’ve been really undeservedly blessed throughout this week. Starting with last Sunday, I’ve been able to see a lot of really amazing things happen. The last day with our Element high schoolers: K baking up a storm yet again for the mentors, A making me a really professional-grade bracelet, the overall thoughtfulness of all the girls. Unexpectedly being shown and reaffirmed that the relationships I have mean a lot to both parties: the French Lily from M, being asked like old times to outreach with N, plain expressions of friendship from K, K, S, A…the all-college rally on Tuesday and hearing about God’s faithfulness with the Austin church, the first night of production and finally getting a lot of anxieties about not being able to do everything out of the way, praise band practice in the closet, barely but mercifully able to pass the libel test for DC, dropped grades to accomodate my sickness, Iron Man 3 premier and Pepper and Tony, a flawless IUT that made my job a lot easier, Asha and kiwi fruit tea, the quilt coming together and M&A really loving it and that whole bizarre baby shower in general, today’s lifegroup time at Tomi to celebrate our winter break goals being met, the jar of verses…amazing that our lg can even do that for each other now.

  3. Goals for next week: it doesn’t feel like instruction is actually over, because I haven’t really been in class for the past week anyway…but thorough studying is one thing I want to focus on. And just focusing in general; it’s being more and more obvious every day that I am just a very distracted person. I have to think more about that (and just think more in general…), and I know I probably won’t make much progress in just a week, but you have to start somewhere.

  4. Last thing: E is getting baptized tomorrow! I’m really excited. I want to be better about celebrating these things and writing/making cards, so…something is going to come together before tomorrow. Hooray :)

  5. Slowly but surely. Philippians 1:6