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Day 91: Pineapple Harvest

7/5/2015

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Growing up on Maui, life was surrounded by fields of pineapples.

I could tell it was harvesting time when masses of laborers appeared in the fields. I felt a special connection with the laborers, as my Chinese ancestors migrated to Hawaii to work on the plantations.

For days, under the hot sun, they picked pineapples with their gloved hands, and loaded them onto a conveyor belt. Each pineapple travelled up the conveyor belt, and then was packed into bins. Trucks transported the pineapples to the cannery to be processed and distributed.

Sometimes, if we timed it correctly, my friends and I would sneak into the pineapple fields at night to grab our own pineapples before they got harvested. The fields were private property, so we had to find an area off the main roads. Armed with a flashlight, we crept through the field in search of ripe pineapples. We figured taking one or two was reasonable, and not enough to result in getting in too much trouble.

After collecting our pineapples, we headed home to cut into the delicious fruit. Somehow, the stolen ones tasted even better than ones purchased at the store.
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Day 90: Part of the Family

7/4/2015

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There was one particular moment when I knew that I was part of Steve’s family. He and I were engaged, and visiting his parents’ Lodi home for Christmas. We walked into the house after the long drive from Los Angeles, and found the entire place decorated from ceiling to floor. The tree was ornamented, a wreath was fastened to the door, and stockings were hung above the fireplace. Debbie had made each family member a felt Christmas stocking, handsewn and embroidered with his or her name. Nestled in the middle of the row was a new stocking that hadn’t been there in previous Christmases. A stocking with my name on it. Welcomed and embraced into the family.
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Day 89: September 11

7/3/2015

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I am sleeping on my dorm bed, nestled deep in my comforter. My roommate Natasha is also asleep. It is a typical morning on the campus of USC, until we are awakened by the ring of Natasha’s phone. It is her mother, telling us to turn on the television and watch the news. “Something bad happened,” Natasha says to me, getting out of bed to look for the remote control.

It is September 11, 2001, and we stand in our pajamas in silence as we see images of airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center. Slowly throughout the day, the news reports trickle in. Deaths. Highjacking. Terrorism. National security. Everyone in the dorm is calling home. New York natives are checking in with loved ones.

There was a chilling change in the air that morning, as an entire nation was awakened from a comfortable sleep into a new reality.
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Day 88: Transformation

7/2/2015

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I am intrigued by the notion of transformation. How does something or someone change and evolve and develop? What goes into the process of transformation? What factors help or hinder transformation?

When I am baking bread in my kitchen, these are the questions that enter my mind. Bread has the amazing capacity to transform. You begin with a few simple, unassuming ingredients - flour, salt & water. Then you mix in yeast. Yeast...these tiny particles that have the magical power to alter a static lump of dough into a airy risen mass. When the dough is fully risen, heat from the oven changes that into a beautiful and delicious loaf of bread.

The first time I made my own yeast bread, I wondered if I could truly trust the process of mixing, kneading, rising, and baking. I watched the yeast ferment and bubble with awe. What a thrill it was to pull a browned, fragrant, soft loaf of bread from the oven. Even after baking many, many breads, I still love witnessing it change before my eyes.


A bread baker knows that there is a process of transformation to be trusted. The baker provides the right conditions, handles the materials with care, and helps create a way for the ingredients to thrive. The baker also knows there is a waiting that is necessary, an intentional stepping aside and watching that allows the changes to happen. 

Maybe my love of bread baking is the same reason why I love being a part of other transformations around me. My role as a parent, my involvement in mentoring people in their spiritual journey, my process as an artist - those all areas where I participate in transformation. I desperately long to see the people and things around me fully become what they are meant to be. May I have the wisdom and care to trust the natural process of transformation, knowing when to engage and when to wait. 
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Day 87: RerouteĀ 

7/1/2015

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It was mid-semester of my senior year of college, and I was pleased with my life plan for the next five years. I was going to apply for Teach For America, work in a low-income school for two years, meet my future spouse (who would also be a teacher), get married, and settle in LA where we’d start a family.

My friend and mentor Jenny asked me about post-graduation, so I filled her in on my plan. She suggested that I possibly work for the college ministry that I was a part of. No thanks, I told her, without actually seriously considering it. It didn’t fit with the direction I envisioned my life taking.

Apparently life didn’t sign on to my plan, because it started throwing unexpected events my way.

After sending in what I thought was a stellar and guaranteed application to the Teach For America program, I received a polite letter from them in the mail. “Thank you for applying to our program. Unfortunately…” Plans rerouted.

That same day, I bumped into three different people, who all said basically the same thing as Jenny had. They thought I should work in college ministry, because, in their words, it seemed like a “great fit for me.” After the third person said that to me, I began to pause. Maybe my life plan needed a little tinkering.

I ended up working with the college ministry for over a decade. It was one of the most foundational seasons of my life, filled with personal growth, joy in my work, and partnership with people who are some of my greatest friends. Oh, and I met my future husband.
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