Dear Alumni, Greetings in Christ Jesus our Lord. We, David Bu and ...

Dear Alumni,
Greetings in Christ Jesus our Lord. We, David Bu and Justin Deng, are writing to you in order
to inform and update you on the ministry of Chinese Bible Study. In this way, we hope to share
our lives with you so that you may continue to be encouraged by the works of God in and
through CBS long after you’ve departed. After all, no matter where we are and whatever stage
of life we’re in, we are still brothers and sisters through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Vision
Our vision for CBS in this coming school year stems from Philippians 3:8-11:
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so
that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own
derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes
from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and
the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to
the resurrection from the dead.
It is a natural tendency of ours to be distracted by things other than God. At times, we can be
so focused on CBS, or on our brothers and sisters, or on anything else, that we can forget about
the ultimate purpose that we have as Christians--to know God in a life-defining way. In the
many things that CBS does, we want to remind ourselves that its purpose is to glorify God and
gain a deeper understanding of Him, not just in our head, but also in our heart. To work towards
our vision, we want to have pastors chronologically speak on passages throughout Luke as a
way to get to know Christ. We also want to be flexible in the topics we talk about at CBS, in that
we want to be able to suspend the book study for a week to talk about a topic that those in CBS
may need to hear at that particular time.
Brother/Sister Groups
Through much prayer and talking to others, we have decided to change the structure and name
of Bible Studies. The reason we decided to make changes is because we wanted the Bible
Studies to be more than just increasing our head knowledge of the Bible. We discussed this
possibility with several of the alumni/older folk in CBS that we knew. After getting confirmation
and advice that the change was a good idea, we talked about it with Servant Team, discussing
reasons for and against it. Then we all prayed for a few days, some of us fasted, and then we
made the decision to change from Bible Studies to Brother and Sister Groups.
The changes to the structure include: making them single-gender, making them more location
based, and not having a dedicated seeker’s group. By making them single-gender, we hope to
increase deeper sharing and accountability in the groups. In this way, we want to be able to
work together to learn God’s word through our experiences. After all, no one is an expert on the
Bible and we wanted to increase knowledge in our hearts, and not just our minds.
We wanted brother/sister groups to be location-based so that they are more accessible to
everyone. We assigned certain locations to each of the groups (North Campus, Central
Campus, West Campus, or Collegetown). We have tried to take into account the locations of
the group leaders, as well as which locations would be convenient for their targeted
audiences. Of course, no one is required to attend the group nearest to them, but it is mainly a
suggestion and for more convenience.

In the past two years, we felt that the “Seeker Bible Study” had not been effective. One of the
reasons is that there were not enough people who consistently went to the Seeker Bible Study
to justify its existence. Also, by putting all of the seekers together, we were not really allowing
them to feel connected to the majority of CBS. So instead, we want each brother/sister group to
be seeker-friendly. This means having the group leaders be aware of the seekers in their
groups, and be more intentional about loving them and answering their questions. This way, we
hope seekers will understand and learn about God’s love through personal lives.
Recent Developments
Through our four years at Cornell, we have noticed that there has been an increasing focus on
inter-fellowship unity and evangelism. Campus on a Hill has been more active in setting up
inter-fellowship events like prayer meetings, evangelism and outreach events. This year, COAH
organized the Freshmen 15 in which the fellowships coordinated to have 15 events or games to
get to know the freshmen during orientation. The coordination among fellowships has been
increasing as people hang out more with other Christians.
This school year, CBS is also looking to being more involved in the Asian American
community. We have representatives at CAPSU meetings (the umbrella Asian American
organization), and were recently part of the Mid-Autumn festival. We hope to outreach to the
Asian American community and share with them the Gospel because Asian Americans have
become the target audience of CBS.
The new freshmen class is fun and energetic. They are a diverse group and they love the
Lord. We can’t wait to see how God will use them and grow them in these exciting times at
Cornell. So, with the fellowship growing and changing, we would like to ask your help in
supporting us prayerfully, financially, or both. Please pray for us as the coordinators--that we
would be wise, discerning, and disciplined as the coordinators for CBS. We know that we can
fall into many traps as coordinators, whether that be idolizing CBS’s “success” instead of
focusing on God’s glory or losing our motivation for continued service. For CBS, in general, pray
that God would continually draw people who are seeking, and be growing the Christians in CBS.
We hope that all of us would come to place all of our treasure and hope in God, wherever we
are currently. On a personal note, during this time, both of us will be thinking about our future
and applying to either jobs or graduate school. If you could pray that we would be diligent in
doing so, and trusting in God.
Thank you for being faithful and keeping us in your prayers.
By His Grace and for His Glory,
David Bu Justin Deng
Co-Coordinator Co-Coordinator
yb48@cornell.edu jsd65@cornell.edu

If you feel led to partner with us, please fill out the following and return it to us by email, or mail
to:
Chinese Bible Study
Cornell University
Willard Straight Hall Box 25
Ithaca, NY 14853
Name: _____________________________
I would like to partner through (please check all that apply):
Prayer: □ Weekly
Email Address: ______________________ (For Prayer Updates)
Finances: □ Amount: __________________
(Please make checks out to “Chinese Bible Study”)
Please also indicate if you would like your donation used in a particular way:
□ General – funding for most fellowship activities (food, financial assistance for retreats,
transportation, events)
□ Worship – funds used to purchase and maintain sound equipment, worship music licenses
□ Missions – used to fund evangelistic activities (i.e. coffeehouse) and to support mission trips
□ Other – Please specify:
(If you have no preference, your donation will be placed into the General Fund)
Thank You!

Build-a-House freshmen welcome event
on North Campus
David Bu (left) and Justin Deng (right)
Servant Team ’11-’12 (missing EV ministry)
Chalking for large group at North Campus
Sophomores at Welcome Picnic