in our effort to understand more concerning the demographic makeup of Cerritos, Helen and I decide to learn more about the south-asian Indians in our neighborhood. we got introduced to a young female pastor in the Norwalk area. while she is not your typical Indian woman, her experience as an ex-Catholic who had a visitation from Jesus transformed her life of party to a completely new path, surrendered to follow Him. her husband a Hindu witnessed her transformation and became her most trusted support in her ministry today. they've been feeding the local Hispanic and Indian-American population with delicious Indian cuisine and the Word, for several years now. they now have a small hispanic following on Sundays. after eating some delicious Indian food tonight, we prayed for each other. it was delightful. i'm sure we'll meet again. 

this mission's conference is not your ordinary conference. it's more like a revival meeting. God used this conference to remind the attendees that the Holy Spirit is an integral part of missional life. a Christian has all the anointing and power as did our Lord Jesus while he was on earth and we're to "do greater things." we also had two ex-gang member come up to the stage, one gave our plenary message and the other gave a personal testimony. God is powerfully at work in His people. every worship, every altar call was moving and transforming. even the rain (unusual for Southern California weather) on Saturday reminded us of His grace and mercy. It was good time.

had our first family sunday this morning. it was amazing. 44 people showed up, more importantly God showed up. and He gave us a great time together. the children and the family came in record number for our church. there was a lot of unexpected things that happened as confirmation of God working in our midst. first of all, my friend tim & linda came with their 4 kids not knowing this was family sunday. afterwards, linda said the kids understood everything that was going on and really enjoyed it. another thing was the communion. can you believe it, the number of communion cups was exactly the needed number for the service today, not one more nor one less. that was pretty cool. sister phoebe prepared it, and she had no idea how many to prepare. the whole time, everyone was engaging and having a great time. tiffany mentioned to helen that this was so much better than any of our past family sundays at other much larger churches. wow, thank God!!!

it's been a month and God's been good. there were times when I wanted to look behind me during the worship and I was afraid if there wasn't going to anyone sitting back there, but I kept my cool and just focused my attention on God. so far, we're averaging about 30 per week in the English service. March is our mission's month. I will be introducing a few mission's project for our church. And starting April, we will be doing some outreach to the local community, passing out brochures in street corners and market. i wonder what will happen when we step out. will it be amazing? please keep us in prayer.

i can't wait to see what God will do today. i think it will be amazing. 

wow! 33 people came to our English service last sunday and 80+ came to the Chinese service. everyone in the leadership was amazed by the turn out. i looked around and I saw a lot of faces i've never seen before. God is good. 

Happy New Year, 2012!
Many of you I’ve known for many years and others I’ve gotten to know over these past months preparing for CMC. And it gives me great pleasure to tell you, what a raving review I’ve received from everyone for the work that was done this past week. Praise be to our God Who is above all and in all! I don’t know how many people came to me and told me what a great job I did, chuckle... No, God did it and He did it through an amazing team of dedicated lovers of God.
Moments before the closing ceremony KC and I were just talking about how smooth this week went by, almost without a glitch (although there were glitches). Of course, immediately things started to fall apart for the closing ceremony, but that was no big deal. God gave me courage and I stomached the situation (I had stomach cramp from it), as I trusted in Him once again. That night, as I had the privilege of standing on the stage right next to Reverend Joshua Ting during the communion service, I felt the love of God for the Chinese American church. Although I do not have the words to describe the love I felt in my heart in that moment, I knew He has great things prepared for His church. He is ready to pour out His extravagant love for all of us, and we are to be the recipient of one of the greatest blessing in human history as a strategic instrument of God. At that moment, I wept. I felt so unworthy, and loved. Later, at the altar call, I witnessed wave after waves of people coming forward by the movement of the Spirit. I felt His anointing to call forth more and more people. What we saw at CMC was only the tip of the iceberg. There will be more. Everyone of us have been given that gift to pray for more harvesters for the kingdom and our Lord will answer, because He is a prayer answering God. I hope this short sharing brings you encouragement.
Anyways, I’m not going to name names and tell you what a great job you did at CMC, because God knows your faithfulness and that’s enough. Thank you for the labor of love, your service will sow in eternal dividends. 

this is a recent visitor who came to our site and filled out this survey. My response is in purple.
Name.last anonymous Name.firstI prefer to stay Email anonymous@anonymous.com How did you hear about this site? Friend If Other please specify: What are your thoughts about TCM? I want to learn more about TCM ministry Comment Pastor James, I'm confused as to why your church is restricted to only believers. Is not the mission of Christians to bring others to faith, so that they too can embrace the love of God? I know people who have been on missions as non-believers, more as accompanists and not as teachers, who had their realization during their missionary trip. Why deprive those who need it most of this opportunity? TCM is not restricted to only believers. in fact, for our church to live out our purpose we must be in the context of non-believing friends. relationally everyone is at a different stage with Jesus. some are close and others are far and indifferent. the role of the church is to introduce non-believing friends to join this journey following the way of Jesus. yes, sometimes a short-term mission trip is a great place to see the love of God in action. so, we welcome people of different faith to join us, as long as they keep an open mind to Jesus and the Bible. we'd love to fellowship everyone.

when I finally arrived in Surabaya, I received my itinerary. it was packed with events and i began to learn about this ministry that started 20 years by Mama Hanna called Pondok Kasih (House of Love). it was twenty years ago when mama hanna went through a physical ailment where she received healing by the grace of God. she then devoted the rest of her life to God for whatever God wanted her to do. her ministry began when a homeless couple that lived on the street came to her house. she took care of them. over time, more came. one time her husband went on a business trip and returned finding their house full of the poor. since then, they remodeled their house and made a chapel, bought the house across the street and made it into an office. they now serve, the poor, the street kids, the orphans, the homosexuals, the prostitutes, the transvestites, and all the societal rejects. their mobile medical clinic makes 3 to 4 calls to serve the needs of the local poor, their bi-weekly wednesday chapel for the poor has a modest attendance  over 3000. they have classes for children and adults that helps them with basic needs to business entrepreneurship. they have over 27 street kid groups. they started something called inter-faith dialogue, where they brought the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Catholics, the Christians and more together to talk about faith. there has been tremendous reconciliation taking place through her ministry. they also put together this thing called, mass wedding, where over 4500 people of different faiths participated in July 2011. apparently, the poor cannot receive even the government's subsidies without a proper marriage certificate, but most of the poor in indonesia do not have the money to pay for one. …will continue in PART III