I am plagued by this deadness of the spirit even while I am blessed. The spiritual warfare I feel about me is so acute. I feel like I am fighting to stay alive..... fighting to keep my heart beating. I know all that is important.... all that is vital....

I feel like I'm in a war zone. Perhaps it is fantasy, made up.... but I cannot explain how dead I feel. And music has been rather dead to me lately. It doesn't sweep my heart away.... the magic is usually lost.....

It is hard to work with youth kids. The apparent failure of all the times I have tried youth ministry come looming back in my face. I remember year after year, sweating and praying and weeping over my youth group.... burning out..... having so much love and so much hope for my youth group and then seeing it all be crushed as people have sunk continually into despair and sin....

I remember the past two summers.... just really struggling to try to have some sort of breakthrough with the kids.... praying for their eyes to be opened.... asking them questions....nothing.

Retreat after retreat...... just to hear kids say "I was sort of high, and now I'm not." It drives me crazy.... I hate it all. "I was sort of closer to God, but now I'm not."

We are so lost.....

I wish I could proclaim the hope of God on the rooftops... shake the kids free...

Last week at church no one stood up or clapped during the praise time.... it was so discouraging. I was angry. I wanted to throw off my guitar...I wanted to scream.... the injustice of it.

But that is my heart... totally in the wrong place. No love. Just hatred, bitterness, despair.

We gotta pull out of this. We gotta fight. No wonder there's all that talk of the armor of God and being a Christian soldier.

Wow. It has been a long, long long time since I updated this thing. Sorry for the people who check it semi frequently. I don't mean to be so slow at it.

So I've begun my internship with the Boston Project Ministries in Dorchester, Massachusetts. It's been really great.... mostly because of the people that are around me.... the staff I'm working with this summer is so awesome.

They are the most encouraging, down-to-earth, God loving people I've met in a long time. They aren't afraid of their emotions....nor are they afraid to encourage one another. I have noticed the difference immensely.... my heart has been so encouraged by these people. I still have a lot of bitterness which has accumlated over the past year, but it's started to ease up and my heart is starting to beat again.

I realize how little Asian-American Christians encourage one another. It's really ridiculous. We're so afraid of people taking things the wrong way.....or we feel like we shouldn't puff peoples' heads up..... it's pretty ridiculous. None of that "unspoken" stuff.... no awkwardness here. It's really refreshing, and it helps me enjoy people more and love people more. My heart's really been opened up again.

I can totally see why God has sent me here this summer..... I am learning so much...about myself and about what God has planned for my life.

I think one of the hardest things is that through the kids that come to the program I have to interact and see people who remind me of my youth group days........ sometimes it is really painful, because I have to remember who I really am inside......it's hard. I have to remember my insecurity...the pain of being picked on... the sensitivity that exists in me. It's rough.

This week I wanted to take one of the kids and shake him and yell, "You don't have to be this way. Don't let them think you're weird. Don't let them pick on you. Rise above their shit....because GOd sees you as better." At the same time I wanted to run away from that kid, because I didn't want to remember who I am.

Still, it's amazing to look back see how God can work in such weak, foolish people like me.

I'm starting to understand why Jesus says not to throw the pearls to the pigs. Certain things are not to be understood by all people.