C4SO is committed to more fully cooperating with the vision of racial and ethnic diversity in Revelation 7:9, so amplifying the voices of our Asian American brothers and sisters is a step toward this Kingdom vision. This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we will provide opportunities for deeper learning, reflection and conversation as we begin to experience the beauty of God’s desire for diversity amongst his people.
As part of our celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, C4SO is pleased to feature Shin Maeng, an artist and illustrator whose style is influenced by urban art and manga, while the content of his drawings highlights his Christian faith. Each Sunday in May we will reflect on one of Shin’s artworks, accompanied by a poem or meditation by his wife and collaborator, author Sarah Shin.
We also invite you to join C4SO’s 6-week Zoom study of Sarah’s book, Beyond Colorblind.
Week 1 Artwork: American 한 (Han)
by Shin Maeng
Description from Shin Maeng’s Instagram: I am Korean American. Historically, cream-white was the robe of mourning worn by Koreans at funerals, and that is what the woman at the top is wearing over my take on a han-bok. There are lamenting faces woven into the collar of her robe. Her arms are outstretched around her mother, who bears the traditional hairstyle of Korean queens in days past. (“Ma Ma” ironically means your majesty in Korean.) The 할머니 (grandmother) wears the gold-red robes that were only reserved for kings, a rightful honoring of her womanhood and protest against the invalidation, misogyny, and oppression so many Korean and Asian women by their own brothers and fathers. My wife and I grew up with Asian women pastors and leaders. We honor you. The grandmother has her arms outstretched around her granddaughter, who holds a cup full of the tears that flow down her mother’s face, down her 할머니’s face, and cascades out as they are poured onto the ground. There are no tears on the little one’s face which looks up with hope, but the tears are an offering of prayer, pain, and love, the love of mothers who sacrifice for the sake of their future families. It is a plea and prayer for help, of women of faith who have kept the family knit together in their persevering and too-often suffering love.
Poem: Beyond Invisible
by Sarah Shin
The tears were always there.
You just didn’t recognize my face.
Nor did you see behind the hunched back of the one doing your nails
The steel frame of a mother feeding her family with 14 hour work days.
Instead of seeing in our bodies and our face
The altar of the broken faithful awaiting resurrection
You make them instead into a graveyard for your sins.
But some habits just die hard, huh?
Inconvenient convenience it would be
To behold in a flattened story
The freedom-fighters who battled war, demagogues, oceans, and despair
And tore themselves from everything they knew to be home
The heartache of sacrificing family past to give family future a chance.
Anchors they have served to be as we strive to make this home
But cut into them and you’ve cut loose
Everything that told us to bear it
Everything that said hope was worth it
To swallow tears and keep our heads down.
No more now.
Our dams are broke and now they flood
All around you, all around me.
Do you see beyond just my face now?
Do you see beyond what you didn’t see in my eyes now?
Do you see me
Can you see me
Can you see me now?
To participate in C4SO’s celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter.
Shin Maeng resides in St. Andrews Scotland. He grew up in Bridgewater, NJ, New Haven, CT and Cambridge, MA. He is married to Sarah and has a wee lass. Shin loves to create on his iPad and also loves to get his hands dirty. He has a Masters of Urban Leadership from GCTS Boston. Music, cities, stories, Marvel comics, dancing, most things on YouTube, food, justice and the movement of God’s hand are a few things that inspire Shin to create. Learn more about Shin.
Sarah Shin is a speaker and trainer in ethnicity, evangelism, and the arts, and she is the author of Beyond Colorblind. A fine artist and painter, Sarah has a master’s degree in theology from Gordon-Cromwell Theological Seminary and a master’s degree in city planning and development from MIT. She is continuing her theological studies as a PhD student at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Previously, Sarah served as associate national director of evangelism for InterVarsity. Before serving in that position, she was an area director in Boston and a regional coordinator of multiethnicity. She and her husband live in Saint Andrews, Scotland, with their daughter. Follow Sarah on Twitter: @SarahShinAuthor.