daren lou on the open mic

The other day, I [Chris] had lunch with one of our EPIC students, Daren Lou [a fifth year CSULB student] and I was compelled to have him post some of what God's teaching him.  Enjoy.

You know it's hard to imagine that it has already been 2 months since I came back from China. Hey, if you don't know me, my name is Daren Lou and I was in the college group 2 years ago. GVBC made a huge impact in my life, what fueled my passion to find answers was the need to find responsibility because I knew my previous life of seeking worldly experiences to fill my desires were finite. None of them lasted long and I seemed to be spiraling down, brought down by my own nervous, judgmental personality that seemed to eat away at my life. I recognized it most with my family because I had few friends. My sister kept on attending Church, and it was not until my Uncle Yosh Amano asked me to come to the Men's retreat 2 years ago (2008). The message moved me, especially the book of Matthew, with all the lessons on how to develop the qualities that Jesus modeled as an example to the people he created. I know it was going to be tough, but I never looked back from there. I got baptized after a short time of becoming a Christian, became more involved with college group, went to retreats with my Asian American Christian Fellowship at college, cabin lead, went to leadership camp, and soon I felt God was calling me to test my faith by going to China.

In the months before leaving China I was really unsure about going. People were asking me the same questions, my mom was being more naggy, and I had no idea how to speak Chinese. Absolutely 0. I can tell you that when I took the leap of faith during China, I had some of my best fellowship, worship, and ministering times that gave me a joy that seemed to surpass all things I have done before. Because I was away from home, could not order food, had to fill out applications for housing/cell phone bill/ etc etc; I was constantly speaking to God to help me and I was sincerely fighting to get closer to Him in order to see the right decisions and mold my personality to God's. There are way too many stories to tell about China, but if you have maybe an hour of your time; I am making a slide-show on some stuff I experienced.

One thing I have to share with you, is that when I was in China, my small group that us 3 guys formed there, were all hyped up about hearing God's voice on a more personal level. I mean how epic would it be if he told you to talk to this person, heal them, or like...maybe speak to this guy in Chinese that you have studied for about a month! Well I had lots of those chances, and China was the best place to do it. I used to do a lot of prayer walks/listening to sermons on my iPod, and I would feel God tugging at my heart to go into this building, go on the second floor, and talk to this one guy that I couldn't take my eyes off of. Now after I got past "Where do you live?" "How old are you?" "What is your major?" questions; I had to seriously switch this random conversation into a spiritual one and tell him what the heck I was doing randomly bothering him. This is when I quickly learned words like Jesus, Holy Spirit, God, Faith, Grace, etc etc. But I basically told him that I felt I was sent by God to talk to you and I was not sure why. I had some failures too. I went up and talked to this guard once and I was doing my preliminary questions...unfortunately I realized that those questions can seem too direct because I don't even know the person I'm talking too, and I'm already asking about their history without light conversation. So I got ignored, yup, it was kind of sad. But getting yelled at and ignored is something I got used to, and something God gave me the power to overcome as I was there struggling to learn Chinese while looking like I could speak Chinese (I'm half Chinese).

But, I can honestly say, that my experience in China allowed me to know Christ much better because of all the problems I went through on a daily basis. He allowed me to have many blessings with relationships and experiences that I never thought would happen to a guy with a past like mine.