Mission Team Builds Trust With Service Across Ethnic Lines

Even in Hollywood, the entertainment capital of the world, high school-age singers from the First Chinese Baptist Church in Chinatown stand out.

They have a way of combining their musical talents with community service to build trust and make new friends across ethnic, economic and neighborhood lines.

From Los Angeles to Bakersfield, from Hardrock, Ariz., to Tijuana, members of the High School Mission Team travel to bring their messages of God’s love through singing, mime and puppetry. They perform at hospitals and retirement homes, rescue missions and Indian reservations and at dump sites near the Mexican border where impoverished families live in cardboard houses. They deliver food and clothing to the poor, bathe street urchins and comb their hair.

The outreach team was started 28 years ago to provide service opportunities for young members of the church, which is in the heart of Los Angeles’ Chinatown. Since its inception in 1952 in a vacant noodle factory on Hill Street, First Chinese Baptist has grown from nine members to its current congregation of 2,000, predominantly Chinese American. Many drive in from distant suburbs to attend one of three Sunday services, conducted in English and Cantonese, at its present Yale Street site. A new 1,000-seat sanctuary, a multipurpose gym and a parking structure are under construction across the street.

On a recent Sunday in Hollywood, 15 girls and three boys from this year’s team put on their “evangelical concert” in a room full of children and families who had come for dinner and fellowship at the Lord’s Lighthouse--an outreach ministry to the poor that is affiliated with the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.

Instead of aggressively proselytizing or urging members of their audience to attend church, they tried to show their faith through deeds.

Fitting right in with regular volunteers, the singers helped set tables, serve food, bus dirty plates and take out the garbage.

“I think God is calling you to do more than just sing,” said Karissa Owyang, an 11th-grader at Maranatha High School in Sierra Madre, who has been with the youth group since last fall. “So you help in every way.”

Open to students in grades 10 through 12, membership requires a commitment of one year, with a two-hour session every Sunday afternoon and trips from a weekend to more than a week long. Most students remain members longer--two, even three years.

Being part of the group has changed her perspective on many things, said Stacey Lo, an 11th-grader also at Maranatha. “Material things don’t seem that important anymore,” she said.

Chet Fortune, a retired hairstylist and a Lord’s Lighthouse volunteer, said he was very impressed with the team.

“If more parents would raise their children like them, the world would be a better place,” he said. “I get goose bumps watching them do the mime.”

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At the recent Hollywood program, Victor Chu, one of the four adult leaders, played a clown, complete with a painted face and big red nose.

Delighted children laughed, squealed and touched him.

Chris Tomokiyo, the team’s adult music director, also departed from the rehearsed script and invited everyone to join in the singing. Even preschool children rose to the occasion.

“Praise him, praise him, all the little children,” they sang. “God is love, God is love.”

Caught up in the spirit, 2-year-old David Edwards grabbed a microphone and sang to his heart’s content, loving the attention he was getting.

Stanley Fung sang with David, seated on the stage to be at the child’s level. The 17-year-old senior at Walnut High School said he had a wonderful time, even though he was initially nervous at what was his first program on stage.

“It was joy being with the kids,” he said. “After I saw those kids, I felt at ease.”

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Love, hope and grace are consistent themes in their program.

In that endeavor, neither race nor culture nor age seems to be an obstacle.

“Once you let God take over, all the barriers drop,” said John Fong, another adult leader. “God is so awesome.”

A song the team includes in nearly every concert is “Life, Love and Other Mysteries,” which goes like this:

Some say that life is a string of romances.

To some it’s a series of choices and chances.

While some only live, for the curious dances of whatever music’s at hand.

And some look for love in the eyes of a stranger.

And some love the thrill of the edges of danger.

But I have found joy in a world filled with anger, ‘cause I fin’ly understand . . .

You are the Lord of life, love and other mysteries.

You know my future, You know my history.

I find in you all I ever need to know about life and love and other mysteries.

Leslie Fung, a 10th-grader at Walnut High and Stanley’s younger sibling, has tried to live the meaning of the song since joining the group last year.

Growing up in a comfortable Chinese American home, she and her two brothers had not experienced material discomfort.

But her travels to a Navajo reservation in Arizona and a dump site in Tijuana have taught her that it is possible to feel close to people who are very different from her.

She confessed that she felt uncomfortable at first, especially about hygiene.

“I am very clean and I didn’t want to get my hands dirty,” she recalled. Then she saw how much the unkempt children around her appreciated her presence.

Now, she has no qualms about indulging 20 third- and fourth-graders on the reservation in one of their favorite activities--piggyback rides.

And in Tijuana, she fell in love with the children whose tangled hair she combed and braided for hours after they were bathed with water from a traveling truck.

That positive experience can weave a fabric of trust and goodwill between different cultures, races and economic conditions.

“My philosophy is, one person can make a difference,” said coordinator Chu, a native Angeleno who works as a senior project manager at a computer firm in Fullerton. “If we can touch one person we’ve done our job.”