Kevin Kwak’s Blog

Don’t you sometimes get that feeling, you want to learn a new skill but you just don’t have the time to get it going. So much to learn but not enough time in a day, not enough days in a week, not enough weeks in a month, not enough months in a year, not enough years in your lifetime.

I need to stay focused.

Speaking of the praise team in the previous blog entry, I decided to discontinue serving in the prison ministry recently. I’ve only served thrice this past months and each and each time was a true blessing. Unfortunately, I need some break for the time being and hopefully will get back in the near future. Here is a photo of our lovely praise team members:

Just looking at the photo brings a wide smile on my face. God will bless them abundantly. Amen!

I’m so glad that Pastor Michael found his vision to serve in the prison ministry. Pastor Michael leads a group of members that consists of his family, relatives, friends, and other church members. The volunteers prepare goodies filled with snacks and gifts to hand out to the juvenile inmates. This is not a simple task. They need to prepare near one hundred of this gift bags before the event.

Once in every month, the team prepares and heads out to one of the juvenile rehabilitation center. I’ve been to Calabasas (next to Malibu/Pepperdine Uni), Downtown Los Angeles (Union Station), and a city near San Dimas. Wherever God calls, the team follows. The worship starts off with praise, a sermon prepared by Pastor Michael, followed with an altar call. It is powerful! I can’t help but feel humble while playing the drum and seeing the Holy Spirit open the hearts of the teenagers.

After each event, everyone in the team go out for dinner. During the 3rd time I went to serve in the prison ministry (which would be my last ), I got to meet Matt. A twenty year old teenager. He knew Pastor Michael from long time and he came to serve for his first time. We spoke during dinner and he shared with me of his past. Back in the days, he was one of those juvenile inmates in a rehabilitation center. He said that even during his time, group of church volunteers visited ocassionally to the juvenile center to share the gospel. During the church’s first visit, his life was changed. He was very curious of who God and Jesus Christ was. He began to read the word of God in his dorm. And God slowly changed his life and brought Pastor Michael into his life. I pray that he will serve God with his heart.

Summer was splendid. Fall season has been swell so far too.

You know what, life has been very good so far and God is fair. I’m always amazed at what God brings to each of our lives. The past weeks, every moment that I experienced seemed like a routine in which I was obligated to go through. Church was becoming more of a routine especially Friday night service and praise practice that followed the service (Operation Christmas Child was fun though).

I remember a few years ago when I was sitting in one of the hundred chairs in the english college service at Sarang Community Church. I was there ten minutes early, sitting quietly by myself in the middle section, preparing my heart while observing the praise team getting ready for the worship. I couldn’t help but observe the drummer play. The entire praise team were glowing with joy and unity amongst the members were ever so present. It was apparent that they all had a joyful heart, the heart of worship, they were the unquenchable worshippers.

Few years have past and with God’s awesome grace, I found myself in a church praise team as a DRUMMER! How incredible is that! I have the honor to play my favorite instrument to praise my God. Months have past and I was becoming tired with staying late on Fridays, setting up the drum equipments every Friday and Sunday, and becoming physically and mentally tired with the routine. But that was when I received a copy of Matt Redman’s Unquenchable Worshipper from Jonathan, our praise team worship leader.

Matt Redman, a worship leader himself shares essential knowledge using God’s word and his own experience as a praise team member.
BTW, I can’t wait for the upcoming Chris Tomlin “Indescribable Tour” with Matt Redman. Two great worship artists. It will be awesome! Can’t wait.

This weekend was simply awesome. It went by so fast and I loved every hour of it.

Came home, spoke to my parents for awhile, ate my second dinner, and here I am. Checked all my e-mails and one of group member is pissed because some of us did not submit our parts of the project. Thank goodness there is no school tomorrow.

Changing subject, due to the tragic downtime of calpolyonline, many of the sites have lost their high position in Google’s SEO ranking. The sites are still listed high in Yahoo and MSN but not on Google. It should take about a good month or two to get back up to the top three positions again. It is all good though.

Changing subject, I’ve never spent so much time in church before and lately, it really consumed up my time. Although I love everything about it, I hope and pray that God will help me achieve my goal and dreams along the way. I know that if our goals and dreams are for God’s glory, it will come true and I know it!
I been so blessed lately because everytime I prayed with an earnest and faithful heart, God really answered my prayers. It happened twice over this week and this was no small prayer requests. It was amazing after realizing that God did answer my prayers.

Changing subject, this Saturday will be my third time joining MYC church in Los Angeles to go to a prison ministry. Let me share with you briefly of how different life is inside the rehabilitation/juvenile hall. The invitation alone by the superintendant and supervisors to allow a christian church group to come, prepare food and goodies and praise and worship is such a blessing time. I’ll go into details in the future.
Unfortunately, I decided to make this my last time volunteering to the prison ministry. I feel so bad though because besides Michael JDSN, all the members from MYC church are female and they really need a young male (that’s me) to do some labor work such as transporting the equipments and what not. The main reason why I’ve decided to stop committing to the ministry is that I will have difficulty managing different things in short time period. I’m sure there are others that are involved with more commitments but I don’t want to compare other’s workload to mine. I want to put my full energy and thoughts into what I do and if I have ‘too much food on the dinner table, I simply can not enjoy everything that there is.’ I want to put my family as my priority, school, church, and my goals.

Changing subject, I need to do some serious catch up to do with my studies now. This weekday will go by really fast and I know it!