April 2026

I hope y’all had a blessed Easter! For Easter weekend, I had the opportunity to fly home to California and attend the ‘last kid wedding’ in my family—my cousin, Alice, got married! Now there are no more weddings for my generation in the family until the next ones… in 2 decades or so.

We’re gearing up to go to SICM next week! If you haven’t heard.. we’re bringing just shy of 200 people to Washington to attend this leadership conference! It’s been a beast to plan and coordinate; please pray for our students, that they can learn and grow this week and that things go smoothly!

Lily looks so funny in this picture to me. But here we are at the wedding!

We got to go to the Dallas Arboretum. In my (almost) ten years of living in Dallas, this was only the second time I had been! It was a blast people-watching and seeing all the flowers with our friend, Renae. (This is the only hat we have for Lily so that’s why she’s always wearing it in the sun.)

(Okay.. unless you count this hat, but it doesn’t protect her face very much.) Ever since I was little, there has periodically been a ‘pomelo picture’ in our family: pictures taken of me and my siblings wearing a pomelo peel on our head. I think I took one in high school and another while I was college. It was just… a thing we did. I recently looked it up and it turns out that it’s a symbol/prayer of good fortune and health in Taiwan. So here is Lily in her pomelo peel hat!

Here is a picture of me in a pomelo peel.

UTD FOCUS (and the other Christian organizations on campus and in the area) hosted Rez Fair, a day of worship and tabling for Easter. It was so cool getting to see all the students gathering and getting plugged in or learning more about what Easter is all about.

If you remember, I’ve mentioned Advait before. He is someone that I have gotten consistent time with over the past few years—he is not a believer, but I believe that God is working in his life! (I know you’re reading this, Advait.) He has been a consistent presence at UTD FOCUS: attending The Grove, core, and any event that FOCUS puts on, even on other campuses! Where once he told me he would never step foot in a church, he has been coming to Northeast almost weekly. Please continue praying for Advait as he graduates and is sent into the world!

I finished FOJ with Bronson, a student at UTD. Having the opportunity to lead this study has been one of a sweetest experiences this year. He has grown in his curiosity and insight when reading the Bible—so often those of us who have grown in the church can quickly gloss over ‘Christianese’ words like grace or baptism, but what exactly does the Bible say about it… and what does that mean to me as a believer? Can I put what I believe down in words? Or do I only have a vague sense of what it is? I’m excited to see where he goes from here!