By Jessica Gracewski
S
an Francisco is home. I love watching how God makes His way present in this city. The collective community of believers desire to see renewal in our beloved city, and we acknowledge the ways in which God works often are unseen and unknowing, including the AACC prayer rally on Sunday, March 28th. This particular journey with God and others in the AAPI community was nothing less than God working masterfully. The experience at the rally helped embody and experience how I imagine heaven to be like - multi-generational and muliti-ethnic believers gathered together for a common hope to restore dignity.
One of the first things that came to mind as I experienced the prayer rally on Sunday is how God already has big things in store. God can turn these seemingly small hopes into a grand idea and it can lead to something larger like a group of ideas that somehow turns into large teams of people. The body of Christ is fascinating. He can take small inklings and inspire large invitations and opportunities for other voices calling others out, up and forward and then poof - a rally (or 14) is born! This was an incredible thing to watch and take part in. God inspires others to exhort one another upwards together to Christ, and I was honored to witness each speaker bring their unique beauty and story of what God is doing on behalf of our shared AAPI heritage.
Personally, I am still in awe as God used His creative ways to make a space and stage for my story and my voice with the invitation to speak.
The pastoral staff of Sunset Church called me with an intentional invitation to hear my story, my thoughts and to intentionally highlight voices from AAPI Christian women in our community. This was a collective posture of unity and solidarity from many co-host organizations that included: Sunset Church, Mobilize Love, and Stop AAPI Hate. This invitation embodied the power of the Holy Spirit through faith, action and empowerment of others. It was a powerful display of the church in action. This was an act of love, unity and solidarity to ask and desire to highlight voices outside of their own church communities. The speakers also highlighted our unique voices and interconnectedness through different and diverse perspectives and voices that included Joey Chen (Pastor, Sunset Church), Lauren Gee (Journalist), Russell Jeung (Professor, SF State, Stop AAPI Hate co-founder), Jane Lam (Pastor, Social worker), Jeannie Lee (Children’s ministry director, Great Exchange Covenant Church), Teresa Young (SF Native, Public sector leader), Gerald Mann (Pastor, Sunset Ministry Church), Drew Yamamoto (Pastor, Trinity Church), and Francis Chan (Pastor, Crazy Love).
For me, being part of a larger story of what God was doing in our community really inspired me. I knew that this invitation and honor was a posture to show others that listening, hearing, and giving voice to AAPI Christian women mattered. During the event, listening to various generations of Asian American women was insightful and impactful because we got to see and experience how women’s unique stories and perspectives were important, valued, and needed to be heard. The platform and invitation was not one I agreed to lightly. I knew my story and my voice carried an invitation for other women to be known, heard, seen, and embodied. To be totally transparent, saying “my” story and “my” voice causes my entire inside to cringe. Saying “yes” was a leap of faith and the process I experienced in taking this step was a way I felt convicted to show others how we can use our unique voices, individuality, perspectives, and the specific way we were each created to embody the fullness of the Gospel and family of God. It was to show how our created beings can be a powerful move of solidarity.
I shared at the rally, “We NEED our voices, we need our minds, our beings, our complexities and specifically our AAPI heritage. We are light and image bearers of God and it is necessary to embody the fullness of God and the good news of the gospel.”
I also spoke from my unique perspective as an Asian American woman, minister, and spiritual director who identifies with many cultural and mixed ethnic spaces. I am a Korean Japanese American transracial adoptee. My family culture is a mix of Polish, Scotch, Irish, and German heritages, and extended family of fellow adoptees, ethnicities, and expansive cultures. I would say my journey to find my voice has often been shadowed by a lot of complex emotions, shame, confusion, and lies that made me believe that my Asian heritage did not have a major role to play. I felt like it disqualified me because of the complexity of how Jesus has redefined family, ethnicity, culture, and identity. I have experienced that feeling of not quite “Asian” enough, but just “Asian” enough to be a target for racist remarks, jokes, bullying, and discrimination. I also recognize that as an Asian American woman, there is a particular kind of weight that comes with speaking out against sexualizing our AAPI sisters, misogyny, demanding a stop to hurtful and hateful slurs and actively speaking up to protect our elderly and children. It is weighty because I can relate in many ways and it has been deeply personal.
I encouraged those listening, “Speaking out and processing pain must be a journey with God and with one another. They are weighty because they are personal. Our activism MUST be our own. This work requires more than just words - it requires lament, grief, listening, and engaging. We must not fear, because we do not go through this alone.”
I also added, “Specifically, I want to speak and encourage the Asian American Community of Christians to actively engage using our unique voices, individuality, perspectives, and the specific way we were each created. These are an incredible way that the fullness of the Gospel and family of God must be embodied and experienced. We must use our voices to be a powerful move of solidarity in the way to grieve, lament, and engage in our churches and communities as a unique reflection of the ways in which God can work. We must be light and image bearers that can instill hope and dignity wherever we are.”
It has been a complex thing to untangle, but stepping out in faith on that stage continues to be a reminder that steps of faith are worth it and that the good news of the Gospel is that God is not deterred by our pain or complexity, rather He joins us and empowers us. I am also continually reminded that God deeply cares about our individual stories and continues to renew and redeem all of our stories as beautiful masterful reflections of his character, dignity, and intention for the collective Church.
The public words and demonstrations of remembrance, processing pain, prayers for healing, call to repentance, and proclaiming dignity and sacredness of specifically AAPI life was powerful beyond words. And yet, we have an even deeper invitation to encourage our AAPI community to not only come alongside our fellow Asian Americans, but to be in solidarity with all of our Black, Brown, and fellow indigenous brothers and sisters that experience any kind of racist violent attacks and opposition to restoration of dignity as human beings.
This is a journey with God and with others and we must love sincerely. We must not fear, because we do not go through this alone. Lord, have mercy.
Photos by Anjelica Dumanovsky.
Jessica is an Asian American Transracial Adoptee, Spiritual Director and Minister at Reality SF Church in San Francisco, CA.