289 times...at least

In the Bible, God is referred as "Sovereign LORD" 289 times.

LORD, (actually 'Yahweh'), is so holy of a name that the writers of the Bible didn't dare write it down but instead opted to use "LORD." 'Yahweh' is God's proper name, just as my proper name is "Nancy Wu." Given the significance of names in the Bible, it is especially important when we discover that Yahweh, God's name, means "I AM." God just is. . . He doesn't depend on anything else to exist; He just is, He has, and He will be.

Now, dictionary.com defines sovereign as "supreme power and authority," but I feel like Doctor Steve's description from AMI has more oomph and oooooh to it: Sovereign means that nothing can happen without first passing through God's hands.

So now, here we have an all-powerful, all-loving God who IS and at the same time controls all things in our lives and in this world. Take this statement to be absolutely and infallibly true, and apply it to our lives. This is huge! Like, really mind-blowingly huge! Every little part of my life has been in God's control this entire time, and it will continue to be for the rest of my life. It's even more assuring because I know that God acts in a way that is all-loving for me, giving me exactly what He knows is best for me.

So why am I writing this post at 1:45 in the morning? Today, I found out a lot of stuff that is going on with my family, and I guess I just wanted to process it all ...

With the recent earthquake in LA (no major damage, thankfully), a really serious car accident in the family (please, please pray!!), and just all the kinks that come with transitioning and living far apart and in new environments, I have to cling onto the promise that God is sovereign. He is absolutely in control of my life, of my aunt's life, of my family's lives. . . When Jesus says "do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." (John 14:1), I can let my heart rest at peace with all the chaos going on because I believe in a God who is trustworthy and sovereign over everything. I have that promise, not just 289 times repeated to me on paper, but infinitely fulfilled for me here on earth and into eternity.

Read this!

Excerpt from Chapter 14 of Revolution in World Missions, by K.P. Yohannan:

Asia makes up the vast majority of 3.8 billion hidden peoples who are being missed by traditional missionary efforts and mass media evangelism. They are most lost of the lost -- trapped in utter spiritual darkness.


I am not trying to minimize the social and material needs of the Asian nations, but it is important to reemphasize that Asia's basic problem is a spiritual one. When the Western media focuses almost entirely on our problems of hunger, for example showing all these pictures of starving children on TV, it is difficult for Americans not to get the false impression that hunger is the biggest problem.


But what causes the hunger? Asian Christians knows these horrible conditions are only symptoms of the real problem -- spiritual bondage to satanic philosophies. They key factor -- and the most neglected -- in understanding India's hunger problem is the Hindi belief system and its effect on food production. Most people know of the "sacred cows" that roam free, eating tons of grain while nearby people starve. But a lesser-known and more sinister culprit is another animal protected by religious belief -- the rat.


According to those who believe in reincarnation, the rat must be protected as a likely recipient for a reincarnated soul on its way up the ladder of spiritual evolution to Nirvana. Though many reject this and seek to poison rats, large-scale efforts of extermination have been thwarted by religious outcry. As one of India's statesmen has said, "India's problems will never cease until her religion changes."


Rats eat or spoil 20 percent of India's food grain every year. A recent survey in the wheat-growing district of Hapur in north India revealed an average of ten rats per house.

Of the 1982 harvest of cereals in India, including maize, wheat, rice, millet and so on -- a total of 134 million metric tons -- the 20% loss from rats amounted to 26.8 million metric tons. The picture becomes more comprehensible by imagining a train of boxcars cars carrying that amount of grain. With each car holding about 82% metric tons, the train would contain 327,000 cars and stretch for 3,097 miles. The annual food grain loss in India would fill a train longer than the distance between NY and LA.



The devastating effects of the rat in India should make it an object of scorn. Instead, because of the spiritual blindness of the people, the rat is protected and in some places, like a temple thirty miles south of Bikaner in north India, even worshipped.

Clearly, the agony we see in the faces of those starving children and beggars is actually caused by centuries of religious slavery. In my own beloved home of India, thousands of lives and billions of dollars go into social programs, education and medical and relief efforts every year...



The real culprit is not a person, lack of natural resources of a system of government. It is spiritual darkness. It thwarts every effort to make progress. It dooms our people to misery to both in this world and in the world to come. The single most important social reform that can be brought to Asia is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Over 300 million of my people have never heard the name of Jesus Christ. They need the hope and truth that only the Lord Jesus can provide.

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty....I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

John 6:35, 48-51

Priority #1 isn't more food programs or charities -- the world needs Jesus.

Eat and eat till you're replete

When I visited the French Culinary Institute a few weeks ago, they gave me a grand tour of the entire school, including their 5-star restaurant where their students cook up fantastic meals for the public. They invited me in for a meal for 2 (on them), and I happily obliged and promised them I would make a reservation soon. So this past Wednesday, Mallory (a huge foodie) and I had the privilege to dine and feast at L'ecole for free!

We went in expecting a good meal, but what we received was mind-boggling VIP treatment! There were so many moments when Mal and I just stared at each other in disbelief. We were placed in the corner window seat, treated with complimentary chilled Fiji water, and even though we had already chosen our 5 courses, they brought out additional dishes "on the house" for us to try!!! Oh, the joys of being "special guests of the school." ^_^

Their baguettes are considered the "best in the city," and Mal and I tried not to fill ourselves up with this amazing bread... Thankfully, they brought out a complimentary beef tartar for us to eat before our appetizers came out. Raw meat never tasted so good.

1st course: Appetizers
Gnocchi Parisienne with Fresh Peas, Grape Tomatoes and Parmesan Reggiano
Five-spice Marinated Duck Breast with Pickled Cherries and Goat Cheese (YUM to the max!!!!)

They also brought out an extra appetizer just for fun: Shrimp, Tomato and Basil Pizza (the shrimp were ginormous and super fresh!)

2nd course: Fish
Fillet of Bass with Creamed Corn, Fava Beans and Grilled Squid in a Spiced Lobster Broth
Sautéed Diver Sea Scallops with Oyster Mushrooms and Sweet Curried Carrot Sauce (the scallops were the biggest scallops I've ever seen in my life -- 2-3 inch diameter!)




3rd course: Meat
Beef Tenderloin with Pomme Fondant, Cremini Mushrooms and Red Wine Reduction
Leg of Lamb with Sweet and Sour Black Pepper Sauce, Potato Gratin and Baby Bok Choy



And..they brought out an extra vegetarian dish as well! Carrot ginger soup and a sandwich...




4th course: Digestive Salad
Arugula, Peach Sorbet, and Ricotta Cheese


5th course: Dessert + Coffee

All of the desserts looked pretty good, and I was indecisive about which one I wanted. I asked Mal, "Hm. If I say that I can't decide between two, do you think they'll just bring out both for me?" I gave it a go, and when the waitress heard my dilemma, she said "Why don't we just bring out both for you." O M G. We were both like O_O "SERIOUSLY?!" To make matters even crazier, she asked us if we wanted their "really good" coffee or cappuccino, "on the house, of course." We both ordered a latte, decaf. Yum.

Chocolate-Almond Cake with Lemon Cream
Fruit Soup with Vanilla-ginger Ice Cream (the ginger hits you afterwards!! =D )
Apple and Cherry Pie with Cherry Sorbet (Don't be fooled by the humble name. It's actually a "deconstructed pie". The apple was wrapped around this cream filling and you eat it together with their cherries and granola "streusel topping" -- BEST dish of the night)



All in all, we were both ridiculously satiated with food and we felt gluttonous for eating 14 dishes between the two of us. Hahaha... Thank you, French Culinary, for a wonderful meal and mind-blowingly awesome experience!

treats truck, my butt

As someone who loves baked goods, I want to try out all the good bakeries around and gain some ideas and insights into the bakery world. I recently heard about treats truck, a bakery shop on wheels that parks itself in different locations throughout NYC on different days. Today they were finally parked by my work place, so I decided to make the 4-avenue trek over to see if it was any good.

The line from its 45th St. and 6th Ave location was a good 10 people deep, and they had only been open for 20 minutes. Although I had already looked at their menu online, I was intrigued by their goodies on display in the window of the truck, like their cupcake cone or their peanut-butter sandwich cookies. Waiting in the humidity, I observed as the people in front of me bought cookies by the dozens. But wait, these cookies were tiny, and they cost roughly $1.25-$3 each!! One particularly popular cookie was the "lemon drop," and it was literally a 1/5 inch thick, 3-inch diameter cookie with a light layer of frosting and sparsely scattered sprinkles. Those were going for $1.75 each. o_O After laying down their $25+ purchases for their small bag of brownies and cookies, people walked away with huge smiles on their faces. As my turn quickly approached, I made impulse decisions on what I wanted to try, and I settled on a Mint Chocolate Trucker and a Peanut Butter Chocolate-Creme Sandwich Cookie. The total came out to $3.75, and I cringed a little when I walked away with my tiny, tiny cookies and my slightly thinner wallet.


I waited until I got back to my office to try these. As soon as I bit into the PB cookie, everything crumbled and fell apart. A few nibbles into it, I got a headache from the overdose of sugar. As for the mint chocolate chipper: it was nice and soft, but worth the $1.75? Hardly.

Now, call me strange, but I started to get really angry. Hear me out on this...

I don't understand why people were shelling out big bucks for cookies that were 1) really really expensive given their size and 2) weren't even that good. They would wait in line for 20 minutes and drool over them in line with their friends and talk about how "delicious" that lemon drop cookie looks when in reality those baked goods weren't any better than Subway cookies (which are 3 for $1.29, mind you). Is it because these came out of a truck? Shoot, give me a car and I'll sell cupcakes out of my "Cupcake Cruiser."

I just don't get it... Seriously, $2 for a cookie? I could make a batch of cookies with the money I spent on two cookies.

Okay, I digress...

The point is.... I think I'm angry because I feel the injustice. People are getting ripped off!
Or maybe, I'm angry because I'm envious. I envy the fact that they can rip people off with bad baked goods when all this time I feel like I could feed people so much better, and still make the same amount of $ treats truck makes... It made me envious to see people walking away so happily with their crappy expensive baked goods, because deep in my heart, I wish I was the one that made them that happy.

Yargh. treats truck... *shakes fist in air*

Directive

(For those of you who haven't watched the movie yet, this might contain slight spoilers)
























"After 700 years of doing what he was built for, Wall-E discovered what he was meant for."

There's a critical moment in the movie where Eve and Wall-E are thrown into the trash chute, and Eve must make a decision to either save Wall-E or to bring the plant to the center of the Axiom ship. Wall-E's controller card had been fried by Autopilot, and he was almost at the end of his battery life. Eve, now emotionally invested in Wall-E, insisted on looking for a replacement controller card for him, but Wall-E kept on pushing the plant into her face, repeating "directive... directive" because he knew the importance of the ship returning to Earth, not only for his own sake of getting replacement parts but also because Earth needed the humans to return.

How accurately this can apply to our Christian lives as well...

Wall-E was "built" for trash compacting, but who would have guessed that this humble, rickety, lovesick robot was meant to play a role in the "salvation" of humans out of their own gluttony and laziness and back into experiencing what life truly is -- pizza trees, dancing, and hoe-downs included.


Similarly, we humans may be "built" for schooling, working, producing... but there's so much more. Jesus' last command for us it to: go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matthew 28: 19-20). This is our directive, this is what we are meant for. I mean, let's look at Jesus' directive:

Matthew 20:28
the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

John 10:10
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness. What if he hadn't come and made a way for us to have this eternal life? You all felt how incredibly sad it was seeing those people on the Axiom wasting their lives away, but how much more does your heart break for people who aren't experiencing the fullness of God's infinite love? John 17:3 "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Eternal life starts here and now.

Our directive is this: Make disciples of all nations, baptize them, teach them to obey, open their eyes to see the life they can have. What a great privilege it is to do so; it's no wonder Wall-E was willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of the passengers on the Axiom.

So we can choose to be like the old Wall-E, living our lives day after day comfortably compacting garbage, but I believe that in our hearts there is a deeper aching for something greater, something of far worthier purpose.