He is Risen!

Haec dies quam fecit Dominus. "This is the day which the Lord has made", let us be glad and rejoice. Give praise to the Lord for he is good, for His mercy endures forever. Alleluia! 

I pray that everyone had a blessed Easter!

Who Killed Jesus?: An Examination

Monday is usually not very fun. It’s team meeting + administrative work day.

We had team Holy Hour, team development, and team meeting till 12:30 PM. Then I spent the rest of the day finishing up some administrative work, renewed my car insurance, and took my car to the auto shop for a state inspection and oil change. Went to Mass at 5 PM, and I just got home from team dinner.....

Phew. Long and exhausting, but very productive.

As we enter into Holy Week, I’ve been thinking a lot about Christ’s Passion. We read about Judas’ betrayal in yesterday’s Gospel, and all of a sudden it hit me, “why did the high priest need Judas to hand over Jesus? Why couldn’t they just go and find Jesus themselves?” Later, my friend told me that was “because they didn’t know where Jesus was.”  A very simple and reasonable answer, but I’m not completely sold. 

Interestingly, one of my favorite writers, Fr. James Martin, SJ, posted an article called “Who Killed Jesus?: An Examination” on his Facebook page. The article is an excerpt from his book An Jesuit Off-Broadway. If you haven’t heard of Fr. Martin, he is an excellent writer - his books are funny, easy-to-read, but full of spiritual insights. You can check out his blog here.

"Ecce Homo," by Antonio Ciseri

Who Killed Jesus?

An excerpt from A Jesuit Off-Broadway

For six months in 2004, I was invited to serve as “theological adviser” to a new production of an Off-Broadway play, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, written by the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis.  The play put Judas Iscariot on trial for his betrayal of Jesus. In A Jesuit Off-Broadway, just released in paperback this month, the discussions with the playwright and the cast led to a conversation over a key aspect of the play: responsibility for  the death of Jesus.

                

Responsibility for the death of Jesus, a hotly controverted question, was critical for the purposes of Stephen Adly Guirgis's play on Judas.  The controversy surrounding the presentation of Jewish responsibility in Mel Gibson's blockbuster movie, "The Passion of the Christ," made Stephen see that the treatment of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea in the time of Jesus, and the Jewish high priest Caiaphas would need to be carefully written.  In our conversations we probed the more reasonable explanations for the crucifixion in the recent books and films and discarded the less reasonable ones.  Stephen was careful to repeat to me, however, that he had purposely avoided seeing Gibson's film, to prevent him from writing a "response" to it. 

"The Passion of the Christ" once again raised the controversial question of "Who killed Jesus?"  (Almost entirely overlooked was the more interesting question of "Why?")  Mel Gibson's film generated hours of face-time for a variety of expert (and not-so-expert) commentators on network television and coverage in every major magazine and newspaper.  Critics of the movie contended that by making Pontius Pilate appear as a thoughtful and conflicted official, the movie tipped the balance of responsibility to the Jewish leaders at the time.  The movie's supporters, on the other hand, contended that any attempt to remove guilt from the Jewish leaders amounted to a "whitewashing" of history. 

One problem with the public conversation that surrounded "The Passion of the Christ" was the frequent presentation of a dichotomy between reason and faith.  Some on the secular left contended that religious faith necessarily blinds a person to the need for serious historical scholarship.  That is, religious people are willfully ignorant of facts--or just idiots.  Some on the religious right, on the other hand, counter that appeals to historical evidence betray a lack of faith.  That is, academics are prejudiced against religion--or just atheists.  

But this is a false dichotomy.  

The majority of Christian denominations have long recognized the importance of serious Scripture scholarship, as well as the need for using historical tools to understand the Bible.  Underlying this recognition is the belief that Scripture is one of the primary means through which God is revealed.  The Second Vatican Council, for example, a gathering of Catholic bishops in the early 1960s to consider contemporary theological issues, wrote in its document Dei Verbum ("The Word of God"): "Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God..."  This reemphasis on serious Scripture scholarship (long the domain of dedicated Protestant theologians, philologists and historians) led to a flowering of Catholic biblical scholarship in the last few decades.

From as early as the second century, a handful of Gospel passages have been used to support the charge of "deicide" (literally, God-murdering) against the Jewish people as a whole.  Used most often was a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, where "the people" say, in response to Pontius Pilate, "His blood be on us and on our children." 

Until recently, the history of Christian-Jewish relations has been largely a record of Christian hostility, persecution and cruelty.  Throughout European history, Jews were murdered in the name of the Church, and exiled from their homes.  Both anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism were also, as noted before, given expression and encouraged by medieval Passion plays sponsored by Catholic churches and organizations.  This was the last thing Stephen Adly Guirgis wanted to emulate in his new play. 

Eric Bogosian, the actor and writer who would play Satan in Stephen's play, offered an example of how anti-Semitic sentiments operate in subtle ways in the film and television industry.  Though a Christian hailing from an Armenian background, Eric told me that with his olive complexion, aquiline profile and dark curly hair, many people assumed that he comes from another ethnic background.  "I look Jewish," he said bluntly.  "And in the real world that seems to make me a natural bad guy: my black curly hair, and so on, is a quality equated with evil."  As a result, the actor is often offered the role of the heavy in films.  "It's part of the continuing vilification of the Jews," he said. 

More tellingly, almost every review of "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" would celebrate Eric's performance as Satan.  He hoped that it was because of his acting skills, but suspected that something else might be involved. 

"I found it interesting that many of the reviews said, 'Bogosian is perfect as Satan.'  I wondered how much of that had to do with the way I look.  Did the fact that I have Semitic looks make me 'perfect' to play Satan?" 

All of this, it could be argued, is a residue from the way that the story of Judas, the Jews and the crucifixion has been told over the centuries.  Indeed, the long history of Christian anti-Semitism and the horrific fate of the Jews during the Second World War are in themselves reason enough to consider carefully the ways in which Christians understand and present the Passion story.

In one of its most important decisions, the Second Vatican Council, after decades of work on Catholic-Jewish relations, published its document Nostra Aetate ("In Our Age").  Echoing the statements of Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans, the Council reaffirmed the role of the Jews as "the people to whom the covenants and promises [of God] were given."  Nostra Aetate also repudiated the ancient accusations that charged the Jewish people as a whole for the death of Jesus: "True," the Council wrote, "authorities of the Jews and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ.  Still, what happened in His Passion cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews today." 

More recently, the late Pope John Paul II worked diligently on Catholic-Jewish relations.  Apologizing for the Church's historic role in Jewish persecution, he stated, "erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability [for the crucifixion] have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of hostility toward this people."     

What scholars call the "historical-critical" approach also makes sense intellectually.  Put simply, a completely literalist or fundamentalist interpretation is an impossibility.  The proof for this is simple: the gospels are not always consistent.

A few examples will suffice.  Jesus makes only one journey to Jerusalem in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), while he makes several in John.  The story of Jesus' birth in the Gospel of Matthew describes Mary and Joseph as living in Bethlehem, fleeing to Egypt and then moving for the first time to Nazareth, while Luke has the two living originally in Nazareth, traveling to Bethlehem in time for the birth and then returning home again.  Mark and John have nothing of such traditions.  More seriously, some of the Resurrection stories are substantially different.  In some accounts, the risen Christ appears as a material being; in others he can walk through walls.

The various ways of telling the story reflect the different views and concerns of the Gospel writers (and, in the case of the Resurrection, the difficulty of expressing what the earlier witnesses had experienced).  They make it clear that, despite what many fundamentalist Christians contend, the Gospels are not to be treated as strictly historical chronicles.

This points up the need for a careful approach to even the most familiar of New Testament stories, such as the betrayal of Jesus by Judas.  The first-century writers of the Gospels presented different views of Jesus Christ, and did so with different communities, concerns and readers in mind.  So when arguing about historical accuracy, it is not enough simply to say, "It's in the Bible."  

Likewise, when believers raise questions about the accuracy of certain historical contexts, unearth inconsistencies in the narratives, or critique a reliance on literalist interpretations, they are not trying to "water down" the Gospels, they are engaging in part of the life of faith.  Theologians call this adopting a stance that is "historically conscious."  And in mainstream Christian theology, reason and faith are not opposed to one another: both are seen as expressions of God's leading human beings to the search for truth.  Indeed, one of the most venerable definitions of theology comes from the eleventh-century Saint Anselm of Canterbury, who defined the study as Fides quaerens intellectum: Faith seeking understanding. 

Stephen Adly Guirgis's own "historically conscious" questions into what really happened to Jesus and Judas were therefore an important part of his own spiritual journey.  And once put on stage, they would become part of the journey of the audience--at least for a few hours. 

All of this was part of our discussion about the responsibility for the death of Jesus, which was, after all, the underlying theme of his play.  The answer to "Who killed Jesus?" would help to unlock the riddle of Judas Iscariot.  

But Stephen wanted to get to the heart of the matter.  After all of his research, he wanted to hear what I thought.

"So who do you think was responsible?" he asked me one evening, a few days before Thanksgiving.  "Caiaphas or Pilate?"

The most notable recent effort to answer Stephen's question is a gargantuan, 1,600 page, two-volume work The Death of the Messiah, written by Raymond E. Brown, a Catholic priest and one of the leading New Testament scholars of the late twentieth-century. 

As Brown points out, while it is clear that some of the Jewish leaders were opposed to Jesus, it is also clear that only Rome had the power to condemn and crucify a man.  Strains of anti-Judaism crept into the New Testament as the early Christians began to move away from Jewish traditions and embrace non-Jews into their movement.  That is, as the early church sought to distance itself from its Jewish roots, it encouraged readings of the events of the Passion that would cast the Jewish authorities in a poor light.  The writers of the gospels were not immune to this.  Contemporary scholarship therefore treats this issue with justifiable care and attention. 

No matter how fine the scholarship, one has to remember that we are dealing with what are essentially reconstructions of what happened by the followers of Jesus, anxious to tell an inspiring tale.  The Gospel accounts are not necessarily eyewitness accounts.

But to get to the point.  In an essay entitled "Who Killed Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., a renowned New Testament scholar, answers the question simply: "Pontius Pilate, cooperating with some Jewish leaders, was responsible for the death of Jesus."  

The key point is that Jesus was executed by Romans for a Roman crime, that is, sedition.  "Jesus was, in fact, executed by the Romans," writes D. Moody Smith, professor of New Testament at Duke University, in an essay in Harper's Bible Commentary.  Still, there were some Jewish religious leaders angered by what they saw as Jesus's blasphemous utterances, as well as actions that threatened their understanding of their religious duty--among other things, his claim to have the power to forgive sin, his violent expulsion of the money changers from the Temple grounds, his association with people considered "unclean," and his followers' declaration of their teacher as the Messiah. 

But the gospels are murky about precisely what lay behind the death of Jesus.  For they were not as much concerned with providing an historically accurate picture as modern readers might assume.  "From the outset," writes Raymond E. Brown about the Passion narratives, "we must be cautious about the New Testament reports."  Here is a blunt warning from one of the most learned of Scripture scholars against simplistic interpretations of the Gospel narratives.

What Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are intent on providing is not historical truth but something more elusive, and far more important for the early Christians, the religious meaning of the events in question.  As a result, the descriptions of the last days of Jesus differ from Gospel to Gospel.  As one example, while in the other gospels Jesus is virtually silent during his Roman trial, the Gospel of John has him speaking at length to Pilate.

In another of his books, An Introduction to the New Testament, Raymond Brown notes that only one gospel tries to give a more or less complete explanation:

Only John explains clearly why Jesus was brought to Pilate (the Jews were not permitted to put anyone to death) and why Pilate rendered a death sentence even though he knew that Jesus did not deserve a punishment (he would be denounced to the Emperor for not being diligent in punishing a so-called king.)

It is critical to note that the use of the word "the Jews" in the Gospels as a description of the opponents of Jesus does not mean "all Jewish leaders" any more than it means "the Jewish people."  Sadly, phrases like "the Jews" in the Gospel of John have been used as a tool for anti-Semitism.  That particular phrase, tragically, has been used to blame all Jews for the decisions of some religious leaders who have been dead for almost two millennia.  As D. Moody Smith notes, "Certainly the Evangelist could not have foreseen the awful implication and effects of his words as they have resounded through the centuries."

This is one reason that Mel Gibson's blockbuster film, "The Passion of the Christ" proved so problematic for many theologians and biblical scholars.  His film, which focused on the last several hours in the life of Jesus, beginning with his betrayal by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane and ending with his crucifixion and resurrection, was both exceedingly popular and exceedingly violent, sparing viewers little of the blood and gore of Jesus's execution. 

While "The Passion" superbly portrayed the utter brutality of the crucifixion and the emotional responses of the disciples, and did so in the language of Jesus and his circle--Gibson's brilliant use of Aramaic neatly avoided the problem of the Oxford-educated Jesus--it did a poorer job in handling the complicated question of Jewish and Roman responsibility.  For all his emphasis on getting things accurate, it was far from a "historically conscious" presentation.

"The Passion of the Christ" contained scenes and dialogues that, in general, make the Jews look worse and Pilate look better.  For example, the gospels are unclear about the number of Jews in the city of Jerusalem who demanded the crucifixion.  The movie, however, shows a large mob, visually implying that the city's Jewish community wanted him dead.  But Scripture scholars point out that Jesus most likely had many Jewish supporters in Jerusalem: one reason that the Romans arrested him at night, as mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, was probably to minimize angering his many supporters.  John Dominic Crossan, the New Testament scholar, has pointed that the pilgrims at the Temple were much taken by Jesus's teaching on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and that by Friday there was every reason to believe that the authorities would have been reluctant to take him by daylight.

In addition, what are called the Palm Sunday narratives present Jesus entering Jerusalem the week before his death to the adulation of celebrating crowds.  That the whole Jewish people would have flip-flopped from adulation to publicly calling for his execution seems unlikely.

Just as important as what is included in Mel Gibson's movie is what is excluded.  The film, for example, omits the most famous action of a man named Joseph of Arimathea, a notably sympathetic Jewish leader, who appears prominently in the Gospel of Mark.  Joseph, a "respected member of the council," generously provides a tomb for Jesus.  Thus an opportunity for the film to portray a specific Jewish leader in a positive light--and one that is actually found in the New Testament--is unaccountably omitted.

Pontius Pilate, on the other hand, appears as a more benign figure in Gibson's film than he does in the Gospels on the whole.  Historical research into other ancient sources suggests that Pilate was a brutal Roman governor, who had no qualms about crucifixion, and who was recalled to Rome because of cruelty towards his subjects.  "Inflexible, stubborn and cruel" is how one contemporary described him.  "In Judea," notes Anne Wroe in her biography, "Pilate possessed every kind of blood-spilling power."

In "The Passion of the Christ," however, he is presented as a pensive and conflicted man, certainly more careful about sentencing a man to death than is the Jewish high priest Caiaphas.  Pilate, for example, graciously offers Jesus a drink from his cup (a scene that is not found in Scripture and is dubious given the Roman attitude towards their Judean subjects).  Later, Pilate carefully deliberates on his role in sentencing Jesus, in stark contrast to the quick and angry decisions of the Jewish high priests.  As if to make the contrast more striking, the film has Pilate ask the high priest (after Jesus, in another non-biblical scene, has been savagely beaten by the Jewish crowd) the question, "Do you always punish your prisoners before they are judged?"  These words appear nowhere in the New Testament--but do in a film that was supposedly strictly based on biblical sources.

In many ways, "The Passion of the Christ" was a needed corrective to the saccharine and bloodless portrayals of the crucifixion in many mainstream Jesus movies.  But the movie subtly shifted the burden of responsibility for the death of Jesus away from Pontius Pilate and to the Jewish leaders.  Mel Gibson's film thereby overlooks many of the insights of modern Scripture scholars and, sadly, frustrates the desire of many mainstream Christian denominations to avoid precisely this kind of misrepresentation in a film that many viewers took, wittingly or unwittingly, as "historically accurate."

At the same time, any artistic retelling of historical events must take liberties with the original story, for dramatic purposes.  Some events will have to be omitted for the sake of time, conversations will have to be invented to convey information, and characters will have to be eliminated for the sake of simplicity.  The question is how much liberty can one take, and whether these liberties fundamentally alter the underlying history.  

Even the most rigorous of historians would accept the validity of this question.  In 1997, for example, Edmund Morgan, one of the most admired historians of colonial and early America, wrote an appreciative review of the film version of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Joan Allen and Winona Ryder.  Based on Miller's successful stage play of the same name, which was written at the height of the anti-Communist crusades of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the mid-1950s, the film takes as its subject the ghastly Salem witchcraft trials in late-seventeenth-century Massachusetts.  The trials ended in the executions of 19 people.

Morgan's provocative essay is included in a collection of essays entitled The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America.  "A playwright dealing with historical figures can scarcely ignore what is known or knowable about them," wrote Morgan.  "The only question is how closely a playwright must be tied to what is known, for he cannot be tied so closely that his film becomes merely a documentary.  He is surely entitled to make up things that did not happen.  Indeed he must make things up if he is to give us more understanding of what did happen than historians have been able to do in confining themselves to proven facts."  Though the artist and historian draw from the same well of historical data, they use the material for different ends.  

The central weakness in the presentation of the last days of Jesus of Nazareth in Mel Gibson's movie was, therefore, not that it was one man's artistic representation of the crucifixion, but that it substantially tipped the balance of responsibility to the Jews in ways unsupported by historical evidence--and did so while the film's producers publicly proclaimed its historical accuracy. 

In tackling essentially the same story, and in trying to achieve the delicate balance between historically accurate material and artistically compelling action, Stephen Adly Guirgis knew what a difficult task he was taking on.

From A Jesuit Off-Broadway: Center Stage with Faith, Doubt, Forgiveness and More.

7 Quick Takes Friday

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Special Photo Project!
Last Sunday was my good friend Natalie’s 22nd birthday :) To celebrate her big day (she’s all the way back in Hong Kong!), we all made signs saying “Happy Birthday” and take pictures, so that we can put all the photos together in a scrapbook for her. 

I asked my wonderfully talented friend, James Ramos, to help me out. So for an hour or so, I got a little taste of the life of a super model, hahahahaha. Here’re some of the shoots he took:

-- 2 --

I had my very first surfing lesson last weekend**  And it was sooooo much fun! I’ve always assumed that the most difficult part of surfing was the pop-up & positioning on the wave (aka. the actual getting onto the board & surfing part). But the hardest part is actually predicting the wave set and trying to determine where they will break (aka. drop in positioning to catch a wave), which requires a lot of experience. 

Being out in the water reminded me how much I love the ocean. It’s so calm, yet so powerful; looks so simple, yet so mysterious - there’re still a lot of marine species that are yet to be discovered. While I was thinking about the ocean and trying to relate it to the love and mercy of our God, I googled “God, ocean”, and this is what I found. LOL 

-- 3 --

Recently, I’m addicted to food blogs. They are all so well-written and fun to read, I just wanted to try cooking everything. Here’re two of my favorites:

Dinner: A Love Story - Jenny, food editor of Bon Appetit, Cookie, Real Simple, and a mother of two, her blog is super fun & easy to read. Recipes are always simple & easy to follow.

The Pioneer Woman - I have a very hard time believing that Ree (aka. the Pioneer Woman), started this website all by herself. It is so much more than just a food blog, she writes about homeschooling, gardening, created a place for others to share their recipes... all these she does from her country home with her 4 beautiful kids.

-- 4 --

Speaking of food blogs and such... I cook lunch for my Bible Study every Friday, and since we’re in the season of Lent, I need to be a little more creative because we can’t have meat. Thus, our menu of the day is Tomato Basil Soup + Twice Baked Potatoes. Yummmm! Check out the recipes, they’re super easy & quick to make!

-- 5 --

And speaking of my Bible Study... Here’s a picture of my wonderful girls:

They are all freshmen & sophomores. I have 2 new girls, Lori and Brittney, who joined a few weeks ago, so we now we have a wonderful Bible Study of 7! Right now, we’re studying Salvation History, please pray for us!

-- 6 --

There Be Dragons. We received a media packet for the movie There Be Dragons this morning! Both me and my roommate are super excited ;) If you haven’t heard of the movie yet, you need to check out the trailer.

The film explores the theme of betrayal, forgiveness, friendship, dealing with our own “dragons”, and finding meaning in every day life. I can’t wait to bring my students to watch it! 

-- 7 --

Prayer request: Please pray for Nathan and Ryanne, both of whom are former missionaries with FOCUS. They just learnt yesterday that their son’s heartbeat stopped - they were due to give birth on Easter Sunday. Please pray that our Lord can give them peace and hope in His will. They named their little boy Caleb Benedict.

Small Acts with a Big Heart

Thursday is always difficult. I have to wake up early in the morning for adoration, women’s rosary, and mass, followed by homemade breakfast for the students at our house. But really, when I say early, I mean 6:30 a.m.... so who am I to complain when there’re men and women, fathers and mothers, doctors and teachers, who wake up way earlier than me each morning, just so that they could take care of their family, patients, students, or just to do their job well?

Moreover, I’m waking up early so that I could see our Lord. How wonderful is that!

One of my student disciples, Thuy, is working on a project. Her nature goal this week is to do a random act of kindness. So after women’s rosary & mass, she came over to my house and started working. Here’s what she came up with:

Hand-crafted notes with inspiration quotes. How cool is that??! Her goal is to give this out to the students on campus, so that she could bring a smile on their faces, and ultimately, as she would put it, “win their hearts for Christ”. 

One might wonder what good can one small random note do? But God’s grace works in mysterious ways, and moving a student to begin a relationship with Him through a simple hand-written note could just be one of them. 

Yet, grace is grace. 

Ultimately, all we need is to do our part, and God will take care of the rest.

Spring Awakening

I’ve realized that blogging is really not my “thing”. Perhaps I just lack the discipline to organize my thoughts, put it into words, and publish them online on a regular basis. Yet, this is a wonderful place to collect my daily inspirations... I would love to keep up with it, so I might have to stray away from my original concept a little to make things work.

Spring is such a wonderful time to start anew. It makes me want to sit outside as much as possible and buy flowers every day. Or maybe it’s the season of Lent - a time to rethink about our lives, to build good habits again and recollect with God - and the anticipation of Easter that gives the world a sense of renewal.

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” - William Shakespeare

Here’re some of my spring inspirations. Happy Spring!

by oh, hello friend

Oscar de la Renta via Vogue

by Cannelle et Vanille

by Cannelle et Vanille

7 Quick Takes Friday

-- 1 --

Interesting FACT #1: I’m actually writing this post back home in Hong Kong! Which means...

-- 2 --

My End-of-the-Semester Madness is officially over.  Well, kind of! I still need to send out newsletters to all of my mission partners who support my mission on campus generously on a monthly basis. But other than that, I’m pretty much done with all of my on-campus work :)

-- 3 --

Wednesday was actually a pretty crazy day for me. First of all, I missed my flight... I think it was totally God’s will, though the truth was I left my bag at home with my passport in it. Yup, pretty lame, I know. Luckily, my friend, Emilie (aka. the Rock Star), was with us, so she went home to pick up my bag for me while I helped my mom to check in with her flight. At the end, I missed my first connection flight to New York, but I was put on standby for the next one, and barely made it to my connection flight back to Hong Kong with my mom. My guardian angel must be helping me, cos it’s a pretty close one! Then of course, after all the rush, I got super sick on the plane, and needless to say, my 15-hour plane ride was no fun at all. The thought of getting on a plane again in 3 months makes me sick, could I take a cruise back to Texas instead??

-- 4 --

Now a little info about my hometown - Hong Kong. If you’ve never been to Hong Kong, you’re missing out!! Check out this YouTube link*

-- 5 --

On other news, my cousin just got confirmed yesterday! It is truly through the grace of God that he could received this Sacrament, since his parents were both fall-away Catholics. I am so glad that he continued to go to Sunday mass and attend Sunday School weekly in order to receive Confirmation. He has once told my mom that he’ll probably stop going to Church once he gets Confirmed -- little does he know that by the Sacrament of Confirmation, he is bounded to the Church more perfectly, and he will be forever sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit! Please pray for my cousin, Bernard, that after enriched by the special strengths of the Spirit, he will continue to grow in his faith.

-- 6 --

I mentioned from my last 7 Quick Takes that we had a Mustache Party for our students. Here’re the snapshots that I promised to post, they're pretty awesome!

And these two are the winners for the Best Real & Best Fake Mustache*

-- 7 --

Fun FACT #2: I kinda cheated for 7 Quick Takes this week, I am actually writing this on Saturday morning! BUT, it’s totally legit, since it’s still Friday night in America, ha ;)

Enjoy your weekend!

7 Quick Takes Friday

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Where did April go? I just looked at my calendar to see that May starts TOMORROW. I am going to have to ask God for a month extension, or better yet, a day extension because 24 hours a day is simply not enough...

-- 2 --

Tomorrow will mark the beginning of our End-of-the-Semester-Madness.  May is always a busy month for missionaries - not only do we have to start wrapping up the school year (finish all of our paperworks, meet up with our bible studies & student disciples before everyone heads home), we also need to start planning for next year, figure out where we’ll be assigned to after the summer, and start packing either for staff training or our trip back home. Since I’m heading back to Hong Kong for summer, I have a lot of work to get done before I leave on the 19th!!

-- 3 --

Oh, and did I mention that my mom will be here in a week? Both of my parents will be in San Francisco next week for my dad’s 40th anniversary with his company. I’m going to join them for my dad’s reception and take a little tour of San Francisco for the weekend. After that, my mama is going to come and stay in Houston with me for a while before we both head back to Hong Kong! Of course, I’ll still have to work, but it’ll be awesome to have my mama around ;)

-- 4 --

I had the first crawfish of my life last week. The Black Student Association at UST was having a Crawfish Broil Party last Friday, and for the price of $5, you can get 2 big boxes (about 3 lbs) of crawfish with drinks! Kailey and I went together as our discipleship. Digging into the crawfish with your hands and peeling off their shells was kinda messy, I do love the crawfish with the yummy spices, but personally, that was a little too much work for me... I’m just too lazy!

-- 5 --

After the Crawfish Bowl, we went to watch Kick-Ass, and well, I have to admit that it was a darn good movie :P Now, I don’t want to give too much away, however, if comedy + action is your thing, and you don’t mind to see a little too much blood, I say GO FOR IT, you won’t regret it!!! I thought Kick-Ass was just another seemingly pointless comedy, yet I was pleasantly surprised. It will certainly go on my list of movies that’s worth re-watching on DVD.

-- 6 --

I just walked home from the gym, and I have to say it definitely felt like I was swimming in the open air. We have 87% humidity in Houston today. One word: GROSS!

-- 7 --

We’re having a Mustache Party for the students tonight - no mustache, no admission, no exception! The weather is still a little be yucky right now, but we’ll open up our patio, our little FOCUS house is simply too small to fit everybody! I still need to decorate the house and prepare some snacks, but hopefully everything will go well. I’ll be sure to include some pictures next week ;)

Have a great weekend!