Chi Alpha @ Stanford

FYI: our very own Shaowei Lin just placed #11 in the Put­nam Com­pe­ti­tion (a nation­wide math contest).

That’s right. By at least one mea­sure, Shaowei is one of the 11 best col­lege stu­dents at math in America.

I hear he’s avail­able for tutor­ing.

Thought every­one might be inter­ested to know that Andrew was so incensed at the French stance on reli­gious garb in schools that he wrote a let­ter to the edi­tor which was pub­lished in the San Jose Mer­cury News and the Wash­ing­ton Post.

In case the links don’t work any­more, you can find the text on Andrew’s web­site.

While Shaowei Lin has had a web­site for quite a while, most other Chi Alphans have been slow to get online.

Andrew Wright has just launched a web­site: Andrew’s Pearls.

Another Chi Alphan online is Nathaniel Rice, who runs two sites: Ran­dom­ness From Surf­ing and Occa­sional For­ays Into Thought.

And one of our alumni, Jimmy Lim, is run­ning You Always Sing the First Line of a Blues Song Twice.

Way to go, guys (all guys at this point–we need our ladies to get webby with it).

Hi, my name is Shaowei, and I am an inter­na­tional stu­dent from Sin­ga­pore. Know­ing the Lord has been the best thing that has ever hap­pened in my whole life. My encounter with the Lord has been one that is full of excite­ment and joy, but it has not been an easy one.

It began when I gave my life over to Christ in July 2000. As a young Chris­t­ian, I was often unsure of my faith, but I always had spir­i­tual broth­ers and sis­ters encour­ag­ing me and giv­ing me advice in my walk with Him. When I first came to Stan­ford in Sep­tem­ber 2002, I was wor­ried because I heard rumors about how col­lege life can be a stum­bling block to one’s spir­i­tual life, because of the heavy work­load and because of the intel­lec­tu­al­ism that shakes one’s faith.

So I sought out sev­eral Chris­t­ian fel­low­ship groups, and the one that caught my atten­tion was Chi Alpha. On our first day, the stu­dents and staff were extremely friendly to the new­com­ers. We had a won­der­ful time of wor­ship, and Glen, the pas­tor, gave a very hilar­i­ous talk (I still remem­ber he had his doctor’s gear on) that was also very deep and prac­ti­cal to col­lege life. I fell in love with Chi Alpha because I saw how all the stu­dents truly loved God and truly loved each other.

Since then, all of us at Chi Alpha have been through thick and thin together. We shared our feel­ings, prayed for one another, lead wor­ship, ate and had fun together, went for excit­ing retreats, and shared our faith with oth­ers. One way in which Chi Alpha really changed my life was when one of the pas­tors prayed for me at the Spring Retreat and I was deliv­ered from the fre­quent night­mares which I had since I was five. Since then, I was able to sleep well and peace­fully! Most impor­tantly, Chi Alpha has taught me, both directly and indi­rectly, how much the Lord loves me, and how to love the Lord.

Col­lege life may be busy or intel­lec­tu­ally intim­i­dat­ing, but we need to con­tinue to put our trust and hope in the Lord so that He can show us how to live it pur­pose­fully. For Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do noth­ing” (John 15:5). I pray that you will find the fel­low­ship group that the Lord has called you to soon. Take care and God Bless : )

Check it out: our very own Chi Alpha pres­i­dent, Luis Tru­jillo, is in the Stan­ford Daily for help­ing to con­struct a com­mu­nity cen­ter for abused teens, for­mer pros­ti­tutes and oth­ers in Guatemala: Class designs facil­ity for Guatemalan town.

The Guatemalan facil­ity will be a cam­pus for the Cen­ter for the Restora­tion of Women and the Socially Dis­re­garded, also referred to as the CEREM project, after the Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion spon­sor­ing its devel­op­ment. The cen­ter will act as a res­i­den­tial cen­ter and school for home­less chil­dren and for­mer pros­ti­tutes, as well as a church and place of retreat.

…

Luis has actu­ally been a key player in this thing from start to fin­ish. He’s got a mar­ginal role in the arti­cle, but Luis is the guy who set the ball in motion, hooked CEREM up with the Stan­ford class, and has gen­er­ally been push­ing to make it happen!

Way to go, Luis! We’re proud of you: get­ting a Stan­ford class to design a Chris­t­ian min­istry cen­ter is an awe­some way to lever­age the gifts and oppor­tu­ni­ties God has given you.

UPDATE: there’s another arti­cle on the Stan­ford web­site that cov­ers the project from a slightly dif­fer­ent angle. It also gives Luis a lit­tle more promi­nence (well-deserved, I might add).

Hi–my name is Andrew Wright. As this is my first blog post­ing, I should tell you a lit­tle bit about myself. I’m a sopho­more major­ing in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions, and this year (2002) I’ll be a peer aca­d­e­mic advi­sor for eight lucky fresh­men in Rinconada!

See­ing that fresh­men will be arriv­ing on Thurs­day, I thought it appro­pri­ate that I throw out some tips for new students.

1) You won’t use half of what you bring! Most of those books you thought you’d bring to look smarter, will only col­lect dust. So will your 5 extra bath tow­els, 3 heavy jack­ets, and pos­si­bly even your stereo sys­tem (should you decide to pirate music on your com­puter). School sup­plies can be bought at fair prices from the book­store. Not only do you have stu­dent dis­count, fresh­men are enti­tled to an even larger dis­count on cer­tain impor­tant items. Not only are they cheap, but that have “Stan­ford” writ­ten all over them (literally)!

2) Present your­self as you truly are! Over-exuberance or first-week acts of folly can quickly lead to a rep­u­ta­tion or expec­ta­tions that you may find hard to live up to. Remem­ber, you have to live with your dor­m­mates for an entire year, so be your­self and you’ll have noth­ing to regret.

3) The pat­terns you set now will deter­mine who you become. Don’t neglect your devo­tional life because the more time that goes by, the eas­ier it will be for you to shrug it off. As Glen once said, “We’re defined by our habits, so choose yours carefully.”

4) Search thor­oughly, but plug into a Chris­t­ian group quickly. Imme­di­ately you’re going to be bom­barded with tons of dif­fer­ent philoso­phies, and if you don’t have a group to help you explore and rein­force your own you’ll be one con­fused fresh­man! Also, friend­ships and bonds within the group tend to form quickly. And the longer you wait to join a group, the greater the chance you’ll feel awk­ward when you visit the group.

If you have any ques­tions or con­trary opin­ions, just make a com­ment below.