much needed update...

Google Asian Jesus ...

May is Asian Pacific American Month!

Googled "Asian Jesus" for power point I am putting together for APA month at my church... and this is what came up...

Which reminded me of...

  Plastic Easter eggs from my mother-in-law (Who knew Hello Kitty celebrates Jesus too)

Don't judge me...

First impressions - we all have them.  Lables - we're all given them.  Thinking about such things makes me feel unsafe; if not a bit paranoid.  "How do people percieve me?" "How do people think I am percieving them?"  But at a Diversity conference that brings together national practicioners of Multicultural training from all streams of institutions (public/private/corporate/non-profit) this should feel like a safe place...  *should*  

Yet, throw in a visible group of Christians... and yikes, it becomes unsafe for everyone. 

"When I walked into the room and saw there were all these people working for this 'Christian' group I immediately though 'oh no'"  - woman in my class 

Here are the challenges I am currently navigating:
- In the invisible minority:  what does it mean to push on a multiethnic conversation/teaching that is limiting its scope to only "black/white"?
- In the visible majority:  what does it mean to wear the label "Christian" (literally too - since it's in the name of my organization on my nametag) into a room of people where "Christians" are seen as embodying everything that is against the tolerance; openmindedness; and diversity which is being taught?

Greetings from MN, I'm Minneapolis for the MultiCultural Institute's Spring Conference.  I am attending the TOT II track.  It's the "Training of Trainers" curriculum the MCI has.  I'm in the "advanced" course learning how to facilitate Diversity Curriculum within our corporations/non-profits we work for. The other participants in our class are amazing. There is a woman who works for the Canadian Police Dept. (specifically Calgary).  Her job is to revamp the police dept's diversity training.  In my small group yesterday was a woman with a headcovering.  I was curious to know where she was from.  She is from Somolia.  To my left was a woman born in India who works at Wash U.  There is also a good mix of men/women and life stages/age. 

And yet in the mix of all of this, a little over a 1/3 of our class of 25 folk is from IV.  It's hard to ignore us.  I think it's good IV is here at this conference as it pushes us to continue to be relevant and engaging in the culture outside the Christian bubble as well as pushing the "Diversity and inclusion" champions of America to wrestle with interacting with Christians (who are often seen as quite intolerant).  

During our lunches, dinners, and evenings all of us from IV who are here (about 9) continue to meet together to pound out the Managing and Leading Diversity course we are doing for a select group of Black, Latino, Asian, and White IV staff (about 20-25 total) this June.  It's a honor to be sitting literally at the (conference) table with this distinguised group of men & women planning this training.

Shooter; Sorrow; Shame

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Read the latest VA Tech IV ministry prayer requests & update on www.studentsoul.org  
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As students and the nation grieves - I find myself mentally/emotionally transported back to my NYC staffing days during 9-11.   While I logically know the circumstances surrounding the 2 events are different; I constantly am having to refocus myself on the current work/ministry in front of me today.  Currently, I am working on some simple resources to be posted to IV's Asian American Ministries website to help guide people ministering to Asian/Asian Americans living in fear and/or shame in light of the shooter's ethnic identity.  To shed light on today's blog entry title here is a sampling from the plethora of emails in my inbox over the past 24 hours:

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Sent:  Monday, April 16, 2007 11:22 PM PST
To:      Multiethnic Leaders in IV
From:  Person who sits on IV's National Asian American Coordinating Team with me 

Hip replacements & the marvels of modern medicine in the Windy.... uh I mean "Snowy" City

At midnight when my brother (who just flew in from Boston) and I arrived at my mom’s house there was snow on the ground.  

In a ½ hour all three of us are leaving for Rush Memorial Hospital for my mom’s hip replacement surgery.  When I went to the pre-op classes with her last week I was amazed that one of the litmus tests for being released from the DAY OF the surgery is the ability to walk up a flight of stairs!  So if all goes as planned; tonight my mom will be back home in the comforts of her own bed.  Being that her bedroom on the 2^nd floor, before I attended the pre-op classes I wondered if this was finally my reason to call Ty and the crew at Extreme Makeover Home Edition to build a fancy smancy home with an elevator (or how about an escalator!)  so my mom could go up and down easily.  But alas, with the marvels of modern medicine; my mom will be able to get upstairs sans the elevator.

* Please pray for my mom during her surgery and post-op recovery.