Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography
By Joy Wong
Can you believe it?! This is indeed our 100th post since this blog was first started in September 2007, three years after AAWOL began as a handful of Asian American women leaders who knew they needed each other for support. This blog began as an effort to reach beyond our immediate circle to offer something that had helped us immensely: the sharing of our stories. Through sharing and hearing each other’s stories, we found understanding, compassion, wisdom, and hope in facing our struggles. Also, through our relationships and solidarity with one another, we found courage and strength, knowing that we are not alone, as we once thought we were.
About a year ago, I decided to begin interviewing Asian American women leaders for their insights and stories, which you may have read in the form of our Spotlight interviews or Shared Insight entries. As I interview these women, I am always struck by how unaware they seem of the impact of their stories on my life in that moment. I walk away from each interview with my heart soaring and a sense of fullness, as if I had just been fed a hearty meal. I am constantly in awe of the beauty and strength I see in these women, and I feel a great sense of personal fulfillment in being in a position to disseminate these stories which would otherwise be hidden, or at least, kept in a closed, inner circle.
Looking back, it’s clear that we’ve all come quite a ways. We’ve journeyed and grown through the changing seasons of life and fielded the ups and downs that came with them — relational difficulties, marriage joys and challenges, office politics, health issues, family crises, griefs and losses, job promotions, vocational discernment, etc. As time goes by, it’s my hope that this blog continues to bring attention to what God is doing in and among Asian American women ministry leaders. Many of us shy away from the limelight, and we find safety in hiding and keeping our lives private. But there is an amazing work of God happening in and among us, and my hope is that this blog will shine a light on it.
Today, we celebrate our 100th post. At the same time, while 100 seems like a grand number, the journey to this milestone was made up of the many fragments and pieces of our stories and journeys along the way. Each step was an integral part to where we are now. May we continue with faith in the journey ahead, with God’s hope in our hearts, wisdom to know how to cultivate the joy we’ve been given, and thanksgiving for the amazing gift we have in Christ and in each other!
Joy Wong has an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, a BA in English from Princeton University, as well as four years’ experience in industrial distribution management. She is a contributing author to Mirrored Reflections: Reframing Biblical Characters, published in September 2010. Joy and her husband live in Pasadena, California and attend New City Church of Los Angeles.
aawolsisters.com 
When I first heard of this blog, I admit some skepticism: did I really need to hear the stories of others to move forward in my journey? However, once that idea took shape in my mind, and a month went by, I realized, YES I DO! * THANK YOU to all of the many women who have contributed in the past to this blog… As perhaps one of the newest readers — I’m SO grateful for all of you who have created this space on the web!
Thanks for your affirmation, Tina!! I’m so glad you’ve joined us (at least, in cyberspace:) so we can journey together… and I hope we can get more of your story out too, for the encouragement of others! Thanks again:)
In celebrating Joy’s accomplishment in gathering ANA women leaders’ stories through a blog, I’d like to share insights about the power of stories from Ugandan author, Emmanuel Katongole in his latest book The Sacrifice of Africa by Eerdman:
“All politics are about stories and imagination. Stories not only shape how we view reality but also how we respond to life and indeed the very sort of persons we become…[w]e are how we imagine ourselves and how others imagine us… who we are, and who we are capable of becoming depends very much on the stories we tell, the stories we listen to, and the stories we live…stories are part of our social ecology.”
For this reason, 100th blog merits celebration when we all gather in January sometime.