Jesse Sun and Sophia Chen are moving to Nashville. This will be their last Sunday at Blacknall. Jesse recently accepted the position of Assistant Professor of History of Christianity at Belmont University. Jesse and Sophia wanted to take an opportunity to express their gratitude to the congregation. We’re sorry to see them go and pray for the best in this next stage of their journey!
Dear Blacknall community,
As Sophia and I are planning our move to Nashville, which should take place on June 7-8, we want to acknowledge how God has been working through you all to bless us. Please pardon our littered thoughts below. They are our way of saying thank you and that we love you.
Blacknall is the first church we visited when we came to Durham five years ago. A church friend in Michigan made the recommendation, and we followed it. For the next year or so, we followed a call for service to the Chinese church but eventually returned to Blacknall. Back here, we found the spiritual nourishment in worship and sermon that we craved. Amazingly, this returning experience is not unique in our case, as I found out in multiple conversations. We the prodigal sons somehow found our way back.
Even after all these years in the U.S., cultural and language challenges still hold their force. At Blacknall, you all have helped us grasp this great promise: God is sovereign over the world’s claims to power, and we in Christ have a fundamental identity that transcends its earthly rivals. We can love each other despite glaring differences. And we must. This is probably the single lesson we take from Blacknall. It shall follow us always.
For this is the kind of love you showed us, whether it’s Joyce and Mike Kight who took us into the kitchen side of the Marriage Course where we served with the most wonderful team, or learning commitment and insight in various Sunday Schools with John Hamilton and Aaron Ebert, or the small group at Helen and Mark Atkinson’s place where we walked together through the trying period of my program at Duke. We were even daring enough to volunteer for the audio service, and Leslie Eibest worked with us graciously despite my technological awkwardness. These names are but a small segment of a much larger cloud of witnesses at Blacknall.
Lastly, if we could voice a final call for help: would you mind lending us some able hands--and a dolly--when we load up the Uhaul truck on June 7 afternoon? We will start around 4 and should finish fairly soon.
If you ever come to Nashville, please let us know!
In Christ,
Jesse Sun and Sophia Chen