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17 Build a support system to push yourself forward
Hello, I’m Elaine Kung. Blessings from California in the United States. We're in the finale of our Work-Life Balance series, number seventeen. Today, I will share many examples of what I have shared with you on all the principles and practice how I put them into my life and my student how they also apply, and what the benefits are. Reminding us to live a bi-vocational ministry, integrated life and these five ‘F’s.
And it’s a reflection of my past life journey, from a very difficult poor family, troublemaker, homeless at one point and immigrant as a refugee from Hong Kong to United States. And how my whole life journey is filled with miracles as I except Jesus into my life and became a peacemaker. And you can see that God open doors for education, for career, for ministry. And now, in our retirement and ‘re-Firement’, God continue to use everything in the past without wasting a thing. We said God is so Asian, he does not waste anything.
So collectively throughout different seasons, we are wise in managing our time, managing our life that we shared over the last 16 sessions. And then we now see that our life has these three ‘C’s, the calling, career and community. And these three are not separate, they are not compartmentalized, but they are all integrated, because every area of these three ‘C’s build on each other.
And now I have the few decades of whole life experience to build on and share. And when I give 20 to 30 some talk a month, I share how I’ve learned from my education, career planning, marriage, parenting, leadership, soft skill, and life skill. That is so exciting. And that's how we manage our life and manage our time to then share the gospel and build relationship and make disciples of all nation.
And from all that, there were two secret weapon. One was self-care, which we went through before. The other one we also talked about is the five ‘P’ blessing. So I’m gonna give you many examples of my life. Now, during refinement, how these five ‘P’ blessings are life giving, what I’m doing in my ministry, using my past experience. Every day I experience God’s presence, promises, power, provisions, and pleasant surprises. And that gives us so much energy. And they feel like it’s almost unlimited time and unlimited energy, because God just continue to show up.
Here are some examples and I’m gonna be sharing a lot of pictures and like a movie from moments from my life. So, in September this week, I gave nine talks. And from Sunday through Saturday, every day, these are examples of pleasant surprises. My family fun time is one. And then I need someone to read chinese poem, and then finally God show me a mentee who goes to Stanford. And she surprised me that she can read the chinese poem. And then Monday I want to cook for my family, but my schedule was full. But then a student changed the one-on-one schedule to following weeks so I had the time. Then that week, I met three Elaine’s, same name as me, three different people on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, pleasant surprise.
And then Tuesday I met this sister from Yunnan. And I got to know her in three events within 24 hours, including how she came to my seminary class that I’m teaching at the Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary. Very pleasant surprise. And then she shared with me how she's using the time management skill to help her 300 students and their parents. So effectively 900 people are using these skills. Then she sent me pictures showing how the children set up their schedule according to what I teach. What an encouragement.
And then I have many different example from people who learn from my parenting class. At night on Saturday I had a good sleep, 7 hours, rating of 91/100. That's great. And then I talked in my dream, and my husband said that I spoke in mandarin, and my mother tongue Cantonese. He said that I was giving a talk in my dream. Wow that is fascinating. And then mentee made some mooncake at home and she wants to send some to me. Woah, many pleasant surprises.
So I’m gonna show you some quick pictures of these pleasant surprises. So, our family time, including my daughter's dog. Fun, fun, fun. Isn't she cute? She's very smart. And then the 3 hours of cooking for my family. And these are the ingredients and taking snapshots of what I did and what that I prepare, including some garbage out there. And these are finished products and then delivering boxes and boxes of food to our children. And then there's the mooncake because it was during the mooncake festival. And these are more dishes that I cook. And then I also do a lot of hotpots in the upper-right. Simple, easy, and healthy.
And then recently, we finally went out for the first time in 18 months, due to the COVID season. This is our favorite restaurant, Japanese. And then we set up schedule for fun. So, Tasty Travel Thursday, or Fun Foody Friday, that we set up time to go out to visit gardens in our area, to go up to the mountain and see the whole San Diego city, and to go to beaches, to go to national park. And then this is my feet, I apologize. I'm resting in my backyard and resting a few times a week in the sitting there or listening, or watching some program, or taking walks. And this is the mid-autumn festival, when we took a walk and take a picture of our neighborhood.
And then this is two very busy weeks during September, I gave 35 talks. And mid-September, 9 talks, and that's the schedules of the talks. And then third week of September, 11 talks. So, there's some early morning ones because of Asia time zone, and then some late evening again, because of the Asia schedule. And all of these could sound tiring and exhausting. And yet, they are very fulfilling, it's life changing. And I’ll give you examples.
So, during COVID, I taught 15 series of courses that's ranging from 5 to 70 weeks long. Wow, so encouraging. It's really remarkable. They're on faith and work could be mandarin, Cantonese or in English, or some broadcasting series like this one here. And then from our classes, we have graduation, very fancy celebration. And the students surprise me with all the grateful words that they wrote for me in cards and in application. And some students live near me, they deliver mooncakes, balloons, gifts, flowers, and cards. So many five ‘P’ blessings from God.
So, in conclusion, I want to encourage you. When we look at this map in Israel, there are two bodies of water. The Sea of Galilee in the North, and a Dead Sea on the bottom in the South. I encourage us to be the Sea of Galilee, that the water coming in from Jordan river and flow out. So, it's a beautiful sea with living things in the water and the beautiful fish. And we've been there, we enjoyed it. Our life should be like to Sea of Galilee. God has given us gifts, so that we can give as well. So blessings come in our life and blessings go out. And that you invest into other people. We don't want to be like the dead sea, the water come in, and it got stuck because it's the lowest level in the ground. So, we will only be receiving form God and not giving. So we want to be like the Sea of Galilee and that's how we would have good, meaningful life. And that's how I reflected in my few past decades, as I’m living my retirement or ‘re-Firement’ now.
And the next few examples are my students sharing on what they learned from our ‘Called To Work’ classes. Before and after, you can see what a big difference. They thought work was for living, they were time consumers, not knowing themselves well, they were avoiding and escaping and barely survive. But now, they know work is a calling. After the class, they learned how to manage their time and be more self-aware and use their strength and became assertive and build healthy emotional quotient, and they thrive.
And some even became Christian after they came to our class. Before they were not a Christian, they were very competitive, excluding, no personal connection, thinking just win-lose and very vicious cycle. But now they want to be very collaborative, very including other people, appreciate them, and a win-win mindset and is thriving.
Another student use graphics to show they were not walking with God before, and they were very sad and feel like a victim, very bitter. But now they walk with God, and we have a joyful princess face, and they are victor. Instead of bitter, they are now better, and really put on the full armor of God. At home, they were always fighting. Now they build up loving relationship. At work, they feel like they're victim. She is a professor, so she feel like the students sometimes accuse her. Now they are serving leaders. Before they feel like it's too much information, I cannot digest in Elaine’s class. The ‘Called To Work’ is too much. Now they have very good appetite. They want to learn more, and they listen the lesson multiple times, some listen to 3 times, 5 times. Lately, someone told me they listen 10 times to really digest, apply and integrate.
So, in our class, we want to multiply serving leaders. And it's a very healthy, practical, workplace discipleship program to help us to take ACTION, because it's active learning, and I’ll show you what that means. And we coach you to become bi-vocational serving leader. And you can talk in your small groups and then implement life applications, and you own how you are gonna mature and how you make progress. And then nurture, very important, peer-to-peer accountability. So, we always have a pair of students, becoming each other's angel.
So, these are the four tools that we always remind our students in our class. And that's how we have this life application and life transformation. Number one, ‘4H’. This ‘4H’ is better than the 5G, even though I work for a communication company. So that you don't just have head knowledge, what you learn. But you also have heart conviction, and you put application and practice with your hand. And then not just once, but you have ongoing habits and put it into your daily lifestyle. That's the ‘4H’ as your first important tool.
Second, learning pyramid. You don't want to just retain 5% from listening to the lecture. You read, you replay, you watch again, and you demonstrate, you discuss with each other, and you practice, then you even teach others. You can then go all the way to 90% retention. That's what we want our students to do. That's a second tool.
The third tool is when you have accountability. So, we find in every small group, a pair of angels that will match up and help and encourage one another, instead of struggling. When you don't have an angel, you're in a vicious cycle. You learn, but then you're not taking action, then you judge yourself, and then you lack confidence. It’s a vicious cycle, in the orange circle. But now, we have a peer who's our angel. We Prepare what to practice and what to share, then Reflect on what we learn, and then we Act on this action plan, and Yield to God and ask Him to help us. Then you go into the green virtual cycle and even share with our family members, and guide by God's Holy Spirit.
Finally, the fourth tool. When we have this accountability partner, we can decide what we're gonna start doing, the new things that we choose to do. And then the wrong things that we want to stop doing, minus. And then what we're gonna do more, multiply more. And then what we're gonna do less, divide. So, these four math symbols, plus, minus, multiply, and divide, really keep us on track on the changes we're gonna make in our life.
So, in summary, I also teach courses like this to live an integrated life, to manage our seven ‘F’s. So, we already talked about the five ‘F’s before. And the other 6th and 7th ‘F’ is the finance and our fun. This way, we learn many different practical tools to really live and integrated and healthy life as a bi-vocational minister.
So, this is our website, calledtowork.org. We welcome you to visit and join our Line group or WhatsApp group and see the resources on our website.
I bless you and congratulate you for finishing this 17-topic series on work-life balance, that you could have joy at home and joy at work. including a chinese phrase saying that when we work with God, and by God's grace, we can half the effort and double the result. But if we do it on our own and using our own will, our own ability, you’ll end up spending double the effort and half the result.
I wish you the best and God bless you, and you keep doing your best and God will bless you with the rest. Goodbye.
Reflections:
1. What impressed you most about this series of studies? Have you practiced this in real life?
2. Have you experienced any stressful events recently? Try to sort it out with the "List of Stressful Events" introduced by Teacher Kung.
3. In order to achieve harmony in work, life and ministry, what adjustments will you make next, and what practical actions will you take?