Liberty Common, 10 years of Memories and counting

I can't pinpoint only one memory because my significant memories at Liberty Common span over 10 years in 3 distinct phases (2014, 2018, and 2022). Each phase is located on a different street name all within the Liberty Common community in Fremont. All the street names end with "Common." In each phase, we gave birth to something new too which is underlined.

Phase 1: Sunday, March 2, 2014 @ Gilman Common
My new family and meeting my new pastors

My first memory of Liberty Common was on March 2, 2014, at a house in Gilman Common. My then-girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I were invited by my pastor, Pastor David, to attend an in-house baptism at someone's house. We were invited because, at that time, my girlfriend and I were thinking about getting married. She is from Hong Kong and doesn't have any friends here. So my pastor thought it would be a good idea to connect us with this family because they are also from Hong Kong. The family at Gilman Common that day had a baptism event at their house. When we went to their house, my girlfriend and the wife of the house (Sonia) quickly became like best friends, long-lost sisters. Sonia also happened to be the Cantonese group's main leader at my church. When she met my girlfriend, she urged her not to go back to Hong Kong and to marry me instead. We were extremely shocked because Sonia did not know we were planning to get married, nor had we told anyone yet, not even my pastor. We took this as one of the many signs from God to settle down; we were astonished. Over the years, this family, both the wife and husband, became our beloved pastors, a relationship that continues to this day, 10 years as I am writing this memory.

After getting married, my wife became pregnant, bearing my son the very same year we got married. We entered into a financial downward spiral. When my parents retired in 2016, they decided to exit their business by selling it. I grew up in a wealthy family and had always relied on the family business for financial stability. I felt so lost and was not sure what to do. Still, to this day, we think my parents made a poor choice in selling the company. If I had known the difficult future that lay ahead and had understood the gravity of starting over, I would have stopped my parents from making this grave miscalculation.

Phase 2: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 @ Ellery Common
My new job at Octalysis Prime with Yu-kai

Mistakes came with blessings. Because of their mistake, I was able to pursue a new path for myself. I was looking into the field of Education and Technology for my future while trying different things. I can't remember how it came to be, but one day a friend from church asked if I could help create and edit videos for him. I was surprised because the videos he was creating were along the lines of Education and Technology, specifically Gamification Design. I began going to my friend's house at Ellery Common every week to create educational videos (Octalysis Prime) together. I had a wonderful time meeting in person every week for two years until the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world. My friend and his family moved to Taiwan, and we began meeting on Zoom every week to push progress forward with our product and platform.

When the pandemic started in 2020, my family and I moved to his vacant house for a few months to take care of his property. At this time, my wife gave birth to my daughter. My daughter was pretty much born and grew up at Ellery Common for the first few months of her life. My son, who started Kindergarten, was attending school online from home. It was such a stressful time in our lives. Despite the stress, there were so many blessings that came out of it. At Ellery Common, I found my calling in the space of Education Technology. Thank you to my brother Yu-kai for creating this space and going on this life journey together, forever grateful, I love you man. (I know you are reading this memory here)

Phase 3: Thursday, December 1, 2022 @ Langdon Common
Moving to our new home and starting my home learning studio

In the Summer of 2022, my family and I went on a church mission trip to Hawaii. Hawaii sounds lovely, but we were still financially struggling, so going on trips like this was more stressful than enjoyable for me. To add to the stress, my landlord messaged me during the trip to tell us that they needed to "repurpose" the house we had been staying at after 5 years of living there. We weren't upset at all because our landlord was very generous and kind to us. We knew God had a new plan for us. Our old house was really small, so we hardly had friends and family come over. We always wanted to have a place that was bigger so we could open our house for family and friends to come over for meals and spend quality time together. We took this opportunity to look for a bigger place, even though financially we weren't ready yet. We took another leap of faith. In the process of leaping, we were denied three different places because our income was not strong enough. It was very discouraging.

One day, Sonia, our pastor, told us that her neighbor across the street was renting out their place and it was not on the market yet. My wife and I visited the house at Langdon Common and we knew this was the place for us. The house had the same layout as my pastor's! We rented the house at another generous price point. Thank you, God! There is also a large area that we envisioned to turn into a learning studio for me to teach Technology and Media to students during after-school and summer. Langdon Common is the house where we began to see a little bit of light at the end of the dark financial tunnel. Langdon Common became the birthplace of MR.JU Tech & Media. Here at Langdon Common, is our little space where we begin our adventure to equip kids with tech and media skills and open our home to our family and friends to have a good time eating together and learning together.