FIVE-Oh! Birthday Jam

The 4 weeks of preparing for the event was fraught with illness, hardship and setbacks, and was an advanced lesson in character formation! For those who helped, it was very exciting to see what unusual windows were opened when many doors got shut. I'm still learning of setbacks: both video cameras from the 1st half did not work! I'd arranged for 2 so I'd have a back up!*

In the end we made great memories, and have encouraged and inspired each other to live generous lives submitted to God. As an entertainer and evangelist, I wish I could have filled the auditorium! As I reflect, probably the most lasting impact above the memories of what turned out to be a collaborative creative circus was the way God filled me with grace and peace to model an empowering leadership style with the 50 or so people involved. People are extremely generous and really shine when they are given a platform to serve in their area of passion.

So for those 50 or so who were involved as my "slaves" for the day, it was everything I'd hoped it would be.

In seeing who rallied for or attended the concert, it was a watershed event to help give direction for my future and where to focus my energy for ministry.

*We had setbacks too numerous to mention. But I'll share two: 

1. I sang for 7 hours last Saturday - 4 hours was rehearsal - and I started the afternoon with a red and raw throat. Due to illness and fatigue, I'd not been able to do much of any conditioning to prepare (much like running a 10K without any training and just looking over the map of the route). I knew going into the day that only by the power of God would I be able to physically make it thru the afternoon's rehearsal, let alone the "jam." What fun to walk through that day by faith feeling like I was walking on water!

2. At about 4PM it seemed like my imac computer crashed in that little room backstage. There were so many technical problems at home, i'd brought it in hoping that someone might be able to sort it out at church that afternoon while we rehearsed on stage. This apparent "crash" meant that 3 of the 4 songs with slides would have none, and dropping one of the songs (the one with a singer and a modern dance). The last option for retrieving his minus one, was on that computer. After even checking the fuse on my mac's power cord (it was fine) someone noticed a black power cord among the sound equipment. It worked on the imac and everything was retrieved and used for the concert.

The Best Birthday Gift:

From Kim Zovak. Girl, you took some time (and I must say, IMAGINATION) to think and write this out. Thanks for such an encouraging list.

1. You have a great sense of humor.

2. You are read interesting books.

3. You live your values.

4. You are amazingly creative..

5. You are generous.

6. You live a balanced life.

7. You make things happen.

8. You are wise and mature, and also eager to learn and grow.

9. You are practical.

10. You bring out good things in others.

11. You are authentic.

12. You are FUN!

13. You abide in Jesus.

14. You have strong convictions and don't hide them.

15. You are great wife and mom.

16. You have a beautiful voice.

17. You are patient.

18. You read scripture and apply it to yourself.

19. You are intelligent.

20. You are joyful and full of life.

21. You are kind.

22. You are a good listener.

23. You are sensitive to the needs of others.

24. You enjoy life.

25. You are comfortable in your own skin.

26. You are inspiring.

27. You are a good steward of your resources.

28. You are thoughtful.

29. You have cross-cultural savvy.

30. You are beautiful.

31. You are flexible.

32. You have integrity.

33. You show others that they are important.

34. You take time to notice God's creation.

35. You are a leader, and you can also follow.

36. You like to try new things.

37. You share what you have with others.

38. You are self-aware but not self-condeming.

39. You have a wealth of life experience.

40. You are peaceful.

41. You are both hip and unconventional.

42. You are mission-minded.

43. You are both strong and gentle.

44. You get involved in a variety of things.

45. You are honest.

46. You are gracious.

47. You have great ideas.

48. You get along well with a variety of people

49. You don't take yourself too seriously.

50. You live in hope, and give hope to others.

CRMS Staff Monthly Update: November

Highlight(s) Last Month:

·      TCA Graduation – great to be a part of such a good school.

·      Get away with James to Phukett.

·      I had to miss a women’s leadership meeting in Spain, and God arranged for my week to be full of sweet Singapore adventures: Seeing Namiko thrilled with the Island Gals Worship Hula group’s first legit performance, Singing for Handmade 3 (a Grace Assembly outreach), a great chat with leaders from my home church on how I can be of help, and conducting a super performance by the Oldham Hall leaders in Playback theatre for a big dinner event.

·      Submitting a Proposal for bi-monthly Missions Agency Benefit Concerts in 2012 in Chinatown with Redemption Hill Church

·      Realizing I have more frequent flier miles than I knew and booking a flight home for Thanksgiving to see family and Tyler.

·      Attending the Global Leadership Summit with James.

·      Meeting a whole pack of Cameron’s teachers to compare notes and move fwd.

·      Helping out at ICS: coaching the drama for elementary Christmas musical

·      Dinner with our Muslim neighbors (took us more than 2 years, but it was nice!)

·      Getting reacquainted with Justin and Nickki Hess who’ve moved here recently – she’ll help as she can with admin at CRMS with the loss of Regina.

·      Discovering LeVel33 with my brother’s inlaws from USA

·      Helping an old friend launch in her role of Missions Director of her home church in Virginia.

·      I left behind my CRMS shirt in a restaurant and it wasn’t lost forever!

·      Stimulating long conversation with Lai Kheng Pousson.

·      Seeing one of the gals in my bible study get a great job.

·      Happy end to another year of football.

·      Making an awesome memory quilt for Tyler.

·      Meeting the President of Yong En Care Centre, Tsai Kuo Tsing – strong potential partnership with our home church who is their neighbor.

·      Not being quite as broke as we were LAST month.

Something I Learned:

·      Not everyone or every church is thrilled with Love Singapore.

·      Heed my own advice: “This is a leadership lesson for you to move forward without getting to bugged by problem people who offer some road blocks and negativity, but really don’t matter. Don’t let them get to you so much.”

·      Be more in tune with assessing people’s capacity, and don’t be judgmental (or hard on myself) when it’s not what I think it should be.

Events/Travel This Month (give dates):

Meeting with potential staff November 14

CRM Day of Prayer November 17^th

USA with family November 22- December 2

Goals for This Month:

·      Let’s get planning for 2012!

Prayer Requests:

·      Fix my email glitches so that it’s more streamlined and not a headache.

·      Cameron to love studying and learning.

Any Ideas/Questions/Requests/Suggestions for me?

Have a great time at the CoNext meetings in London and come back refreshed, motivated and hopeful about the future of CRMS.

Top ten things I do well or enjoy

An excercise for our group study:

1. 1.     Writing – finding ways to communicate our stories (not made up stories, but life stories)
2. 2.     Loving others.
3. 3.     Encouraging people I know in what I see are their strengths.
4. 4.     Reaching out in friendliness to lift people’s spirits.
5. 5.     Performing/entertaining –singing, dancing, acting
6. 6.     Directing – plays, tours, a class, getting to be the boss and lead people in being creative.
7. 7.     Leading kids in activities and finding ways to make their life fun.
8. 8.     Technical gadgets/tools for communication & influence
9. 9.     Learning about just about everything (except stuff with numbers)
10. 10. Sharing what I’ve learned to help others-Facilitating groups to learn

Top things I’m awful at

1. 1.     Cooking
2. 2.     Housework
3. 3.     Admin with details requiring accuracy
4. 4.     Being on time
5. 5.     Focusing on one thing at a time
6. 6.     Finishing what I start
7. 7.     Prioritizing
8. 8.     Taking criticism
9. 9.     Planning details for travel/trips/outings
10. 10. Any kind of planning. I’m best at spontaneous.

My Parent's 50th Anniversary Celebration

23 June 2011

For Mom and Dad

We’re finally here after more than a year of anticipation & planning. Celebrating 50 years of devotion plus the years you dated.

When we’re young we tend to look at our family and parents and experiences as “the norm” because it’s what is normal for us. But as we’ve grown up and meet others and learn of what their families are like we’ve learned that this familly that grandma and grandpa made is very ABNORMAL. There was no abuse, yelling, physical, substance, psychological…well, maybe psychological in teasing, but we won’t go there anymore. The Qualities I see you as having passed on are: You were and are:

·    Loyal

·    Hardworking

·    Self-sacrificing

·    Disciplined

·    Honest

·    Putting God and his Kingdom first- Jesus is not merely your Savior, he’s your Lord & iintimate friend.

Other things you’ve passed on are:

·      Passion for sports especially PAC 10 and NCAA

·      Love of Beach/Ocean

·      Camping

·      Organizing Parties and making fun for friends

·      Make home a place people want to hang out and visit often

In the Past…

Growing up as your child, other kids were always envious. You were young and energetic. You both have loved life and saw it as an adventure and found fun ways to include others, expand our small family, make our home a fun place to play, practice generosity in more ways than putting money in the offering plate.

I can’t remember a time that you weren’t sponsors for church activities that Kevin and I were in involved in Jr. Astronauts, Head of Christian Education at Magnolia, Pioneer Girls and Boys Brigade on Wednesdays. You seemed to love spending time with us and our friends no matter what age we were. You created a family that was enjoyable even into our teens we enjoyed being with you because you enjoyed us.

Dad:

From my perspective as a kid, you had a job in order to support the family. It didn’t matter so much what you did, your heart wasn’t focused on career. Your ambition was always for your family and helping others. We had plenty and saw how hard working and selfless you are. That’s one of your qualities that I think has had the biggest influence on me: and that’s why it’s been so sweetly gratifying to see you be able to walk in this giving role 100% of your time these past years.

Mom:

Through our childhood, you worked full time + drill team. You never once, that I can remember, complained about the workload of caring for the family, long commute and teaching (you may have made some cracks about the best months being June, July and August, or about middle schoolers being irritating, but you wouldn’t have stayed at Oak Ave School, if you didn’t like kids that age!) Whenever I whine about the laundry or admit that I don’t cook, I feel like a wimp! You carried a big responsibility and did it with grace and with what seems like limitless energy and reserves.

Ambition & Your Legacy:

Recently I was having a conversation with someone about ambition and significance, two drives I have in abundance, and was fostered in our family that taught us to go for it, to try for things to work at being the best we can be, and that anything is possible.

I used to dream of being the #1 best in the world at something, to find my niche and be world class at it. Be famous, be the kind of person others write biographies about. That’s what I’d grown to believe significance was.

But I was looking at where I was at this point and being realistic. I realize I do have something I’m capable of becoming “world class” in, and that is in being a “world class lover of people.”

It’s something I had good training in from the time I was tiny, with you two as parents modeling for me: I can be a

World Class Lover of People.

Mother's Day Update

It's been a good year of embracing motherhood. It's about time. The boys are teenagers. A lot of energy used to stay on top of Cameron! He seems to have matured a bit this year and as of last week had all his missing assignments turned in. One thing I love about their school here is the individual attention they've given to him. The new middle school principal has been meeting with him a couple times a week - just to check in - not threatening, but an "I'm on your team and want to see you succeed." Teachers help us stay with him to keep him honest. Everyone promises that unless he's psychotic he will grow out of it. 

BIG NEWS is he broke two bones in his ankle friday night at 10:30PM - playing basketball. He's made me his slave and is LOVING being needy and "helpless" even to the point of "needing" me to put his SHIRT on this morning for school. He made us late driving him to school this morning. Tyler wrote on his tardy slip, REASON: "crippled brother is lazy." Ah, the adventure of boys.

Tyler pulled the trigger for Cal Poly SLO, even though he didn't have super strong feelings about it v. a couple of his other choices. Finances/Aid offers made the decision to nix a couple. He did get some generous offers from a couple of the private schools. It wasn't enough. There were a couple of circumstances come up that we felt were Divine interventions in helping him make his choice. Since then, it's been nothing but affirmation and confirmation that he made the right choice. Not the least of which is that two longtime good friends, and former pastors from our Los Angeles home church have daughters who are 1 week older than Tyler; they also chose Cal Poly. We all laughed and said there will be a little "Mustang corral" next year for kids of former Rolling Hills Covenant Pastor's kids...(I'm sure these teenagers who don't really know each other yet just LOVE that...). 

We continue to manage just about every night eating off the downstairs hawkers without food poisoning. My little "flock" in the neighborhood has grown this year...Yi Hui has been a regular feature in our home and she has made some strides in learning to read and some other skills. I've managed to make it into the good graces of the family and pray that by the end of the year we can convince them to send her to a special school rather than put her to work at the end of the year. She'll certainly fail the primary school leaving exams, so no secondary school which will accept her. There's A LOT of strife, abuse and ignorance in her home, so we navigate how to help her with a lot of prayer.

All mine got for me was one of the freebie flowers from church (which the stem had broken at the top by the time it came to me), but I still felt deeply loved which is most important. Seriously been having some sweet family times with our guys. They love me, don't need flowers to prove it. Though taking out the trash without being reminded is also nice...

Two single guys in their 30's who are roommates and motherless called at 6 and came by with Subway sandwiches from the mall. One even gave me a red envelope cause he said he wanted to bless a mother and had decided it would be me. they were sweet, and a good object lesson for the boys for the future. I asked James to pray and when he'd finished (including thanking God for me), Cameron says, "SO is it mother's day or something? I wondered 'cause dad was making such a big deal about mom..." Later we called grandmas and on the speaker phone, they all asked, "so did your boys treat you well today?" and I went on and on about how "They made me feel like a Queen from morning till night." Grinning at the guys who were rolling their eyes and giggling.

My mother-in-law says, "Kimberly, you're not a good an actress as you used to be."

This is true.

Dropping Balls. An Excuse Email not sent.

Sorry to miss the call. My phone had died (though I charged it last night), so there was no alarm. You didn't get my skype address, because my crms email isn't working and the email with my skype address for you was still in my outbox after 4 days (I've not been on my computer to even notice, because we've had a CRMS retreat in Malaysia since Sunday).

At this point, there is so much going on here already, that none of our CRMS people really have time or interest in helping me with this, I am the point person by default because I replied to Cynthe's first email about it.

As you can see, I'm having a hard time trying to have a life and ministry in Singapore (which is, I thought why we are here) while juggling the things that US and the CRM SIngapore events have asked of me.

Again, sorry to let you down. I'd like to have plenty of time to try to chase down more people to come on this vision trip. I don't know what else to say. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go get ready for entertaining CRM guests who are in town this week. After taking them sightseeing today, we have two full day seminars.

I used to think I was called to do ministry in the arts. 

49!

PERSONAL VISION these days...

Confidently waiting on my Heavenly Father to give me some more specific future whether there's some kind of banquet before heaven, 

I know the now is to: 

mix up creative small batches of love to

feed those who are in my immediate family 

and close circle of friends (that would include you!), 

see the boys "launch" well fed, and eager to feed others, 

making sure we're eating a healthy BALANCED diet, 

and working from a tidy kitchen with clean tools, and a healthier chef.

(who's not spreading it too thin)

That means: Exercise the "no Muscle" on new inspirations by setting them on the back burner for the time being.

LOOKING BACK 2010

Here's a link to a template you can use.

HIghlight Photos

The Chora Church in Istanbul

This year I learned to...

..play some worship songs in the piano.


Strengthen the "NO" muscle.


Calm [some of] the chaos.

I grew most in…

My BMI (haha!)



What I call: "Systemizing and Structurizing." 

A long way to go, but it started with using only ONE purse and keeping my phone and keys in the same place in that purse! By the end of the year, my calendars/planning are in order, I've got a system for accounting and prioritizing emails, and the piles are diminishing as I enter the data and purge!



Spiritually I grew in hearing God's voice - for instruction，comfort, wisdom, empowerment, direction, and encouragement. 

depending in him moment by moment. 

surrendering to his plans and giving up mine.

A Scripture verse, passage or book that was important to me was…


Matt 6:28 "See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin and yet your heavenly father feeds them."



Isaiah 40:1 "Comfort YE, my people says the Lord. " -this is our mission! there's a lot of conciseness people out there!



Psalm 46 "Be still and know that I am God."



John 17:4 "Father, I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work that you had for me to do."



Books: Streams in the Desert, ADHD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life, Have a New Kid By Friday, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, a Knock at the Door (on the Armenian genocide),

One of my best adventures was...

…Getting lost in Turkey with the boys.
Meeting some shopkeepers w iPhone
in the middle of countryside.

 










I saw/knew God was doing something when…

We started eating dinners down in the
Hawker Centers and local Food stalls.

August 2010 Yi hui started coming over
and making herself at home. Just this week I review last year's resolution:
(under Adventure/Risk)
"Ruthlessly say no to the things other people
ask me to do, until August"

"Suffer the little children to come unto me" 

Regarding rules and consequences the first 2 weeks- 

"Just love her" -Jesus



A real gift from God was…

Another year at Redemption Hill Church as it grows,
and the friendships deepening within our Home Group Oasis

I got to see my brother Kevin on both coasts this summer.
Here we were dining on the rooftop near his LA Office.

Tyler touches the hem of His garment
as we tour BIOLA University,
my alma mater. James and I met
while he was in seminary at
Talbot School of Theology.

Cameron and Tyler toss cousin Paris in the pool
4th of July was fun with family and dear old friends
the Conner Clan.

We finished our college road trip wiht 2 nights in NYC.

Cameron Gets his dream come true @ 13:
A few days in Washington DC with
Grammy Lynn and Grandpa Howard,

A tradition to take a photo in the C of the entrance of
Disney's Theme Park:
CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE entrance.

USA college road trip driving 2 coasts
and seeing so many friends and family
along the way.


Mom and Dad's visit during football season

 

...when James and I were Liason Officers for the SYOG.
Bob and Shirley Trott came again this year to help in
mentoring Pastors and Christian leaders.

Some things I really enjoyed doing more of was…

...paying more attention to those who initiated with me as a way to decide what relationships to invest in.

...sending "The Original Coffee to Go Mug"
to financial supporters at Chinese New Year.

The CREASMAN CHALLENGE
(family date on Sunday afternoons)
got us out of our rut and doing some
fun creative things together.

Some of the happiest memories I’d like to freeze in my mind...

…"Leapfrog across Turkey."

Caroling at RHC home partie

I was really brave when…


I just left things undone that the kids were supposed to do. Initialted "Operation No-Nagging" (I'll never forget how happily relieved the boys were at the idea that I wouldn't be reminding them of their chores, though it's taking weeks of docking allowance - cause I paid Yi Hui or someone else to do it!)

I let the boys go on that motorcycle trip into
the jungles of Thailand with Dean Overholt.

...I had to say goodbye to the Webbs
as they moved back to Seattle.

I’m still trying to learn what God wants to teach me through this hard experience...

The Chingay Parade debacle. Really trying to help, being so frustrated, sticking my neck out to invite so many people along and ending up being embarassed about it.

...But I think perhaps, it’s:


Humility. Humiliation. I don't do team under others' leadership very well. Need to study that DISC report some more and see how I can grow, or stick to projects that I lead or know I can partner well with.

The best word of advice or encouragement I can remember...


 "Let this be a Jubilee Year. Let the water be calm for a year and see what happens." Dr Tay, January 19, 2010



"She's got her big girl panties on today." -Caroline Faris

"We all just need to get on the K Train." -James

Something I’m looking forward to in this new year...


...Yayas taking turns leading, and in smaller accountability groups. 




…seeing Tyler at Christmas 2011;
after he's had a semester in college and succeeded on his own.




Seeing what happens with Cameron
will he get it together with 
personal discipline and studies?
Or will he have to go to boarding school?





Get dancing singing and playing piano again! 
Worship hula w Namiko?
Where this thing with the 
neighbor kids goes! Lord lead on!