Presence Newsletter
活現簡訊
2015 May
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President’s Words // Agnes Ip, PhD, LMFT
2014 was a fruitful and challenging year for Presence and for me personally. Presence experienced God’s faithfulness, guidance and grace; His growth of our ministry in both quality and quantity; and expansion into areas outside of LA. On the other hand, as Presence grows in all these areas, we also feel challenged and pressured by a lack of funding. Expanding the horizon In order to better serve Northern California, Presence has extended its ministries into the Bay Area. This year, we plan to hold workshops in churches about parenting, self-growth, marriage, seasons of life for men and women, and mental health. Our “Presence Possibilities” ministry will also be offering professional assessments and consultations about learning styles for elementary school students and about careers and majors for those entering college or seeking a change in their career paths. Last November, Presence-Hong Kong began its ministries in China. I traveled to China and held “Presence SelfGrowth” workshops for about thirty pastors. I was able to speak at several workshops about parenting and cultural differences between generations. While I was in Hong Kong, I spoke at workshops about dating, marriage, depression and personality disorders, and I had a chance to minister to a group of Master’s degree students from China. These workshops were very well received by the attendees. During this trip, I realized that the culture and
values of youth in China have changed dramatically in recent years, similar to what is happening in the United States. This presents additional challenges for us at Presence, as it is our mission to minister to and mold the next generation. Therefore, in the next two years, in order to cultivate “A Generation for the Cultural Mission,” Presence will undertake the task of researching and developing materials and training about understanding the culture and values, parenting, and leadership development of the younger generation. Our goal is to provide help and support to parents and churches in order to build up the next generation for His Kingdom.
ministries, we have added coworkers and volunteers to our team in LA, Hong Kong, and the Bay Area. I am so thankful for this excellent and faithful team that God has put together for us. In addition, in order to accommodate our growing team and ministry in LA, God has recently provided us with an feet in size. It is located at 17181 Gale Ave, Unit C, City of Industry, CA 91745 (near the Azusa exit of the 60 Freeway). This will also enable us to hold more activities and training, and ultimately serve more people. Personal milestones I praise God for seeing me through
However, our work has been hindered We are still short of help in areas like audio-visual and graphic design, and many times we have to struggle to meet the payroll. As partners in this timely and meaningful mission, we sincerely ask you to pray for us and consider
received my PhD in Clinical Psychology in the fall of 2014. Moreover, November 26, 2014 was my silver anniversary with my husband, Benny. To celebrate, we returned to Northern Europe where we met and served together as short-term missionaries from Hong Kong 27 years ago, and we visited many old friends
Expanding our ministry team
vacation since I started serving at
Building a healthy team of coworkers to serve together has always been an important part of Presence. We place a lot of importance on our weekly prayer meeting when we pray, study God’s Word, and support each other. We continue to strive to be God-honoring as we serve with integrity, humility, respect for and appreciation of others.
thanksgiving. I also want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for your support of Presence and me throughout these years.
As Presence grows and expands its
May God richly bless you and your family!
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Expanding Your Potential Enriching Your Life Introducing Services by Presence Possibilities By Joanna Wu (Chief Editor)
What’s your major? Undeclared? Many college students often feel unsure about what they want to study, or what career path to take. Presence Possibilities addresses these doubts and questions by offering assessments and consultation services for people seeking direction or advice on how to choose a college major, or a career that would best fit his or her personality and interests. Presence Possibilities not only offers professional assessment and consultation services for high school students and above, but also offers Learning Styles Assessments for students from 4th to 7th grade. The Learning Styles & Multiple Intelligences Services are targeted to parents with children within this age group to help them understand their child’s learning style. To learn more about the College Major & Career Exploration services, we invite you to continue reading about one of our client’s recent experience. College Major & Career Exploration Services Ariana Lui, currently studying International Business Management at Cal Poly Pomona, sought help from
Presence Possibilities last year. After taking an inventory, she received an individual profile to better understand her personality, her interests, and possible career options. One of the things Ariana found most helpful was having experts help her process and understand more about her personality, as well as receiving others’ feedback and input. “Seeing how attentive they are at what you say in response to their follow-up questions indicates how passionate they are in wanting to help you as an individual,” said Ariana. Because of this experience, she has a clearer idea of what careers to consider, and has a better appreciation for specific classes she knows are necessary to help reach her next step. These services are primarily geared toward juniors and seniors in high school, college students, as well as adults seeking career changes. The assessment process considers a person’s individual interests, as well as his or her personality. Having a better understanding of oneself not only improves self-awareness but also builds confidence and improves interpersonal relationships. Another unique part of Presence Possibilities is its commitment to providing wholistic attention: “Our clients often tell us that they feel genuinely cared for,” said Vanessa Lai, Presence Possibilities’ Program Manager. “We meet with our clients one-on-one to verify and explain the results from their reports, and provide guidance. We invest time in analyzing the results to provide a personalized integration.”  In addition to administering widelyused assessment tools, holistic attention, and individual reports, Presence Possibilities also provides resources, training, an extensive social
network and services at competitive rates. Learning Styles & Multiple Intelligences Assessments Presence Possibilities also provides services to help young students and parents understand their learning styles. Parents often may find it challenging to understand and work with their children because they have different learning styles, which could be visual, audio, or tactile. This service aims to help parents and children discover his or her learning style to better facilitate the child’s progress in school and to also improve communication and understanding between parent-child relationships. Parents who have gone through the services have found it helpful in identifying their child’s strengths and weaknesses, some realizing that multiple learning styles and methods are acceptable. One parent of a student in 5th grade said, “I used to lean towards only one ‘proper’ way to learn and do things.” Presence Possibilities’ ultimate goal is to provide services and assessments to help individuals identify and utilize their talents to effectively serve and lead in their communities. The initiative started in 2013 under Presence Quotient ®, and works alongside Presence and its other ministry initiatives. For more information, or to make an appointment for a consultation, visit www.PPossibilities.org.
30% off Show this Ad to receive a discount on our Assessment & Consultation services. Valid until September 30, 2015. Contact: (626) 810 5200 E-mail: info@ppossibilities.org www.PPossibilities.org
Presence Newsletter
活現簡訊
2015 May
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Presence Hong Kong Ministry Update Polly Chan (Ministry Coordinator of Presence Hong Kong)
Presence Possibilities Ministry Update Vanessa Lai (Program Manager)
College student with parent, receiving career direction assessment and consultation
In November 2014, Presence Hong Kong hosted a series of workshops and seminars, presented by our founder Dr. Agnes Ip, about various topics on “Conflicts in Marriage”, “Being Happy and Content”, “Christian Dating and Courtship”, “Stress Management”, “Depression and Personality Disorder”, “Seven Seasons of Manhood,” and “How to Deal with Friends and Family Members with Personality Disorder”. There were a total of 997 participants at 14 activities. We have received a
overwhelming number of responses. One of the participants, Cissy, stated, “After attending Seven Seasons of Manhood workshop, I have learned to review my success and failure, as well as understand my stress in the frame of my sense of satisfaction and my growing pain, and thus how to reduce my stress. Hope that they will organize more classes. Topics can be about how couples walk together when handling family issues, taking care of family members and serving God.”
Praise God that starting this year, Presence Possibilities has now extended to Northern California. Our Project Managers Ning and Rosa Sizto from Northern California are ready to provide our professional assessment and consultation services in the Bay Area. Back in August 2014, we had two families come down to our LA office from the Bay Area for the Learning Styles assessment and consultation. We helped each of the parents and their children better understand how their child learns and helped to enhance their communication and parenting strategies. Towards the end of 2014, we had high school students come for the College Major/Career Direction consultation. It was our privilege to be of service to them, and to guide them one by one. We were encouraged by our clients’ high reviews of our services. They could feel that we genuinely cared for them.
In addition to our assessment and consultation services, we offer free workshops to students and young adults to better prepare them for the workplace. In November 2014, we held our “Preparing for Job Interviews” workshop. Participants were very appreciative of our workshop and found it helpful. They liked that our speaker Tom was very experienced and that he was able to provide real-life examples and practical advice. In 2015, we look forward to continuously providing these free workshops not only in our office in City of Industry but also in other cities.
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Presence Quotient ® (N.CA) Ministry Update Dr. Ning & Rosa Sizto (Northern California Regional Ministry Coordinator)
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RE:NEW Ministry Update Phoebe Ng (RE:NEW Project Manager)
a Presence movement
Looking back on the past 3.5 years of ministry work, I never would have imagined that we would be where we are today. The Lord took our small offering of faithfulness and made it bigger than any of our dreams combined. We started 2014 with our Money Matters Seminar, which would later become a solid and continually growing partnership with Presence Possibilities as we worked side by side to help youth and young adults integrate their faith with their professional career goals and studies. Around the same time, and in the months following,
We have been serving in the area of marriage and families for about 20 years. In recent years, we have seen the intergenerational gap widening due to rapid cultural and societal shifts, and we felt called to bridge the gap between the generations. We want to help raise a generation that lives out their Christian values and impacts the culture and society with the Gospel. We were excited when we learned about Presence’s vision, mission and ministries, and Ning decided to join the team as full-time staff. Presence was established in Southern California 11
we would be privileged to attend and partake in various community events including Biola’s Annual Missions Conference, where I was blessed with the opportunity to hold a workshop for over 100 students on the importance of having a missional mindset towards our homes, schools and workplaces. As the year progressed, we were able to hold our third annual Faith Seminar on the topic of “Theology of Work” which discussed how the workplace can be a vehicle for living out our faith. We also co-hosted our very first concert! Together with Good Fruit, The Great Company, and artists like MC Jin, AMP, Mickey Cho, Gowe, NAK and so many others, we were able to cohost the Fearless Tour and empower young people to utilize music and the arts as a platform for sharing their faith journey and glorifying God. This past year has been a definite turning point for us, and nowhere do I see this change more strongly reflected than in our volunteers. Our team of 25 has gone through a lot of changes. Some of us have graduated. Some of
years ago, and has since developed a wealth of resources, training, and services in the areas of selfgrowth, marriage, parenting, and leadership development among youth and young adults. It is our goal to extend Presence’s ministries to families, churches and the community in Northern California. We are praying that God will use Presence as a platform to equip each of us to build up the next generation for His Kingdom. We invite you to partner with us in this timely and meaningful mission by participating, praying, and giving financially.
us have started new jobs, switched churches, left the team and then came back. Some of us even got married! But the most consistent trend has been one of growth. More than anyone else that we have reached through this ministry, our volunteers have grown the most. Their skills have improved exponentially. Their leadership, character, and commitment to biblical values has matured considerably. And best of all: they live and breathe our mission. When we started out, we made it our goal to challenge young people to live with purpose, to live for Christ in any and every situation, big or small, day in and day out. What we ended up doing, is living out that mission ourselves. I could not be more proud of what our team has been able to achieve together simply because we dared to take ourselves up on our own challenge. We took ourselves seriously, and I hope you will too.
活現簡訊
Presence Newsletter
Presence Quotient ® Ministry Update Joanne Wong (Ministry Coordinator)
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In 2014, Presence hosted and co-hosted 35 events, about 7,976 people attended.
Our staff and volunteers from S. CA & N.CA
Testimony sharing at Walnut High School’s Christian club by Phoebe Ng We conducted professional seminars for college majors or those seeking changes in their career paths. We received good feedback on our free Resume Writing and Interview Skills Workshops. Later this year, we provided assessments for elementary students and their parents on Different L earning Styles and Multiple Intelligence. We want to help parents find better ways to increase their children’s learning abilities. More importantly, we hope to reduce
2015 May
conflicts between them so the children will enjoy learning. RE:NEW was blessed to be chosen by “2015 Love Changes Everything” Christmas Concert to be one of the six youth organizations to receive a substantial gift. On December 14, 2014, $5,000 was donated through this good cause which is very encouraging and comforting to our team. Events update 1/19–2/27/2015: 40 Day Impact Challenge Together with N.CA and Hong Kong, we launched the 40 Day Impact Challenge, called believers to use 40 days to seek God’s will for their life through praying, fasting and Bible reading. Participants set 3 challenges, e.g. doing daily devotions, spending less time on the internet, or stop playing computer games. We provided daily devotions and reflections in both Chinese and English on our website. If your church or fellowship wants to do your own challenge and want to use our devotions, please email us at impact@ presencequotient.org. 2/27/2015 (Fri): Impact Praise Night 40 D ay Impact Challenge Praise Night was held on 2/27, the last day of this Challenge. Many youth have joined us for such thanksgiving and worship night. We had singspiration, dance performance, message sharing, and participants shared their journeys with Father God in the past 40 Days. We thank God for sending the 58 writers and translators who contributed their time and effort on the devotions, that helped and blessed many people. 3/28/2015 (Sat): Riding the Waves Youth Conference—Equipping Youth Workers for Mentorship. Evangelical Formosan Church in LA and we partnered to organize the
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youth conference, aimed to help youth workers to become better mentors. On that day, RE:NEW introduced the Campus Representatives Initiatives (CRI), giving guidelines and resources to youth mentors on how to better guide their youth. Besides the three experienced workshop speakers from Presence Quotient ®, we invited Dr. Benjamin Shin, professor of Talbot Seminary, to be our keynote speaker. We encourage all pastors, youth pastors, English speaking pastors, and youth leaders to attend. For more info, visit: www.renewtheresponse.org/event/ ridingthewaves 4/18/2015 (Sat): Open House We have moved! With God’s grace, the new office space is located in the City of Industry, bright and spacious, an ideal venue for providing training. If you want to invite our speakers for seminars, please email us at info@presencequotient.org or call: 626 810 5200 In the year of 2014, our total income was $194,877.18, expense was $195,118, deficit $241. As of May 19, 2015, our deficit was $45,868.We humbly ask you to pledge every month to support Presence, so we can provide training in the community continuously. We at Presence wish that we will always be here to benefit churches and families, especially the new generation. May God bless you abundantly.
Presence Possibilities Team
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Learning about mentorship from “Riding the Waves” conference
Dr. Benjamin Shin (Associate Professor of Bible Exposition, Talbot School of Theology)
Dr. Rev. Richard Chung (English pastor at the Chinese Evangelical Free Church in Monterey Park)
Dr. Agnes Ip (President and Founder of Presence)
Annette Jewik (LMFT)
By Geoffrey Hughes
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This year’s “Riding the Waves” Conference was a thorough time of learning about the ins-and-outs of mentorship. Attendees received a diverse collection of lessons and details from the conference speakers explaining how mentorship is about trust, effort, time, and building relationships. Youth pastors, church workers, teacher’s assistants, and others who were interested in the topic came to learn more about mentoring and were reminded that youth ministry is essentially all about Christ.
God has made them and to send them forth in doing the good works which God has prepared for them to do.”
types can help you identify suitable roles for your leaders and better equip leaders on how to respond to conflict.” She reviewed personality styles and In the first morning workshop, Rev. Dr. learning styles, encouraging everyone Richard Chung talked about coaching and to assess their own learning style to caring skills in mentorship, teaching, “the support a safe learning environment. art of communication in coaching and She exhorted attendees to prepare for how to show care and concern.” He said handling conflicts through understanding that you can choose a mentor by looking personal challenges, monitoring for someone who is stable, and that personal reactions, and going about mentoring is about relational and spiritual confrontation in a good way. Dr. Ip said, maturity and direction, resulting in a long “Understanding how personal challenges and steady growth—not perfection. Rev. and experiences influence your work The keynote message was given by Dr. Chung explained that it is important with a mentee will help each mentor to Dr. Benjamin Shin, who shared from for mentors to be asking the Lord about prepare to handle conflicts because his experience on how to effectively how to respond, allowing the response to personalities play a role in conflict and in mentor the next generation. He said, be formed by an understanding of what the mentorship as a whole as well.” “Mentorship can be an essential part in the mentee is saying rather than thinking getting students interested in spiritual about your own response. He said, “A Family therapist Annette Jewik, matters.” He mentioned, however, that mentor will always have to pray for LMFT, talked about having important these things are competing with students’ wisdom about how to respond in showing boundaries to, “Create a respectful other interests such as academic pursuits, compassion or even in challenging the mentorship relationship and to build sporting events on Sundays, etc. Dr. Shin individual being mentored to grow in rapport.” Additionally, the differences exhorted us to realize that God’s people certain ways.” in values and characteristics between cannot give up time with the Lord for friendship and mentorship were explored, other activities. He went on to say that Dr. Agnes Ip explored personality such as how there needs to be explicit there may not be one way of mentoring profiles and conflict resolution in the boundaries in mentorship that may that fits all youth, and most people want second workshop. Through lessonnot be in friendship. She also said that something greater to believe in and based exercises, Dr. Ip taught about mentorship relationships need defined somewhere to aim for beyond where they how, “Understanding different personality times of being with one another. are at. “The goal,” he said, “is to find how
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A Generation for the Cultural Mission
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