Meet the RICE 2010 Core Team:
SAM MAK | Director of RICE Youth
Sam is married to Millie. He is the Youth Ministry Worker at Kirkplace Presbyterian Church while studying at Presbyterian Theological Centrein his 3rd Year. He loves West Wing, 24, Macs, coffee, basketball and going snowboarding! Sam is also the Director of RICE Youth Australia and oversees all of the RICE Youth Sydney events: RICEfever and RICErally and believes God is working & blessing this movement of RICE Youth. He is convicted that RICE is a platform where youth are strengthened and encouraged to be bold about Jesus, where we depend on the Scriptures, and pray in absolute faith to God our Father, and where we rely entirely on the Spirit's power to bring this city into repentance.
CAZ YUEN | RICE Youth Sydney Operations Manager
Caz when not enjoying cool gigs from her job, she loves to hang out, going to live concerts, playing and watching sports and rocking out on Guitar Hero or on bass with the music team at Beverly Hills Baptist. Caz's passion is that through RICE theYouth of Sydney will know the good news of Jesus Christ and for their hearts and minds to be renewed for the glory of God. In the RICE core team Caz is our Head of Operations - using her skills from the workplace to help the team run as smooth as possible.
MILLIE MAK | RYS Evangelism Coordinator (RICErally)
Millie is married to Sam and is working as a metro trainee(or intern) at Kirkplace in Kogarah. Her role there is to co-ordinate the childrens ministry. For RICE this year her role is to co-ordinate evangelism across both events. Millie also loves reading, watching movies and listening to good live music.
ASHLEIGH MAXWELL | RYS Evangelism Coordinator (RICEfever)
Ash is on fire for God and on fire for the life He's given. She has dedicated her life to teaching, and has a passion to help others see and know God. She spent 4 years in a Chinese church and loved getting stuck into dramas & azn food with her youth girls (<3 her fav's are jap Hana Kimi, My Girl & You're Beautiful).Whether that is by serving in a variety of ministries, acting crazy, or making lemon-meringue pies, Ash just can't help spreading God's love.
BORIS YU | RICEfever Coordinator
There are a few great loves in Boris’ life – Jesus and Andy Roddick being two of them. When not crying over Roddick’s defeat to Federer, Boris is an accountant by day and at RICE meetings the rest of the time, with a team he absolutely loves.
It was during high school that Boris came to recognise Jesus as his saviour and king. After RICErally 2005, Boris realised that there was definitely “more to life” than the world. He currently attends ‘Australia Ling Liang Church’ in Asquith and absolutely loves serving the teens at his church’s youth group – CrossWord. Boris has a great passion for God’s work to be done in the youth of Sydney and cannot wait for them to call upon Jesus as their King and Saviour!
MICAH CHUA | RICEfever Co-ordinator
Micah spends his days filling blank sheets with words or pictures. If he doesn't make it as a writer, pro wrestling is his plan B. Keep watching Monday Night Raw, you might even see him as 'The Janitor' doing his signature back-slamming pile-drive move whilst reciting his catchphrase: 'Time to take out the trash!'
This is his 4th year on the Rice team and he's excited about the opportunity to serve youth and serve God. Micah wants to see a whole culture moved to serve and honour Christ. Eventually, he’ll get to! ☺
HIROSHI TSE | RICEfever Games Coordinator
Hiroshi graduated from Cornerstone Youth (CY) in 2008 and is now a Leader at CY. This year he is working with Dan Marr (The RICE08 Video guy) in pioneering a revolutionary Media Ministry for CY.
Don’t ask Hiro to explain what his nationality is because the explanation is confusing. He is fluent in English, Japanese and Cantonese. He is in second year Uni, studying Bachelor of Music at Wesley institute consecutive with a Bachelor of Theology. In his spare time he likes to research about theology, and he is also known to watch the Facebook News feed like aneagle, while spamming it with updates.
He has a burden, passion and calling for apologetics, discernment and eschatology and really yearns to see the youth of the world really passionate and delight in the word of God and truly anticipate the Lord’s return.
YANDY SO | RICEfever Centre Stage Co-ordinator
This is Yandy. You can't tell from this photo, but she really really likes cheese. Come say hi to her at RICE. And if you bring along some cheese too, she'll be your best friend. She also looovves her TV, so if you ever need a pop culture trivia partner or are just thinking, “where’s that quote from again?” – Yandy’s your woman. So give her a holler, though you might have to shout “Yanz!”, “Oi Yandina!” or “hey Yazman” for her to actually respond. Though it’ll be worth it, because you’ll be able to talk to her about anything and she’ll listen, she does do human resources after all. Oh, but one more thing – don’t ever ask her to sing. Anything.
ANDREW WIBAWA | RICEfever ‘RICE Cup’ Coordinator
In my spare time I enjoy all sports (except netball which isn't really a sport) particularly Sydney Swans and Everton. I used to follow the Sydney Kings but they don't exist anymore...
You can find me in the gym usually a few times a week although I've started becoming lazy.
I also teach piano in my spare time as well as music helps me escape accounting which can be horrible.
RICE is such a unique opportunity to as Jesus commanded make disciples of all nations. As his commands insinuate we are to do the work of evangelists by having an outside-in approach and I believe both RICE fever and rally break down the cultural barriers and stereotypes of our GENY society allowing us to spread the gospel and inform and englighten the youth of today of the answers they are grasping and searching for so desperately! It really is an exciting time when geeks, emos, skaters, musos, alternatives etc. can gather in one place at one event all united and driven for the one purpose.
Not only that but you get to meet a great bunch of leaders who are passionate and on fire for Christ and are extremely supportive to keep you encouraged whilst following Christ.
MING-YEE MA | RICErally Coordinator
By day she is a lawyer, but in her spare time Ming-Yee enjoys listening to 90s music, extolling the virtues of Vegemite and employing her useless abilities – including being able to lick her elbow – for the greater good of no one. Ming-Yee attends Northern Districts Chinese Christian Church and loves leading at their youth group, 180, which she’s been doing for 5 years. Ming-Yee dreams a lot when she's sleeping, but one dream that she has while she's awake is for the youth of Sydney to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and believes that RICE Rally 2010 will be an excellent opportunity for this to happen – all to the glory of God!
FAITH WAN | RICErally Creative Coordinator
Meet Faith - during the week, she takes the alias of an IT geek, however in her free time, you'll find her doing what she loves: hanging at her church CBC (Central Batist Church) jamming on the piano and singing, watching T-dramas and TVBJ, cheering on Roger Federer (15th Grand Slam baby!!Wooohooo!!), snowboarding and K with her mates (and of course, meetings withthe very cool RICE10 Core Team!). But Jesus is who Faith loves the most - and that's in whom she finds her real identity. Knowing what Jesus did in her place has really made an impact on Faith's life and she loves living under God'samazing grace (it totally rocks!).
Faith's passion for RICE is to see the youth of Sydney come to know the Lord Jesus whom she loves and has "faith" in (no pun intended). This year, Faith has the awesome privilege of serving alongside somevery talented musos and dancers as she oversees the creative production forRICE Rally - she simply can't wait to be part of God's work through RICE10!!
ESTHER KIM | RICE Youth Choir Coordinator
When Esther is not being a super-enthusiastic-shakespeare-loving HSC English teacher, she spends her time playing and singing with her Christian band, Intr3p1d, to musically reach out to the youth of Sydney. With a passion for Jesus, music and youth, she faithfully serves with her gifts to organise and plan awesome outreach events at her Korean church (Shalom Community Church) and, teaming up with Andy, toco-ordinate and conduct the always amazing RICE youth choir!
ANDY FUNG | RICE Youth Choir Coordinator
Andy can be classified as “the dude that’s always at the piano” who currently is completing a Bachelor of Music (Classical Piano) at theAustralian Institute of Music.
He is a piano tutor specializing in classical music and absolutely loves about music.
His hobbies include: Playing piano, singing, composing music, reading music history and theory, collect musical instruments and sheet music and loves to play silly pranks on people and occasionally likes to bite people!!!
Andy serves at Beverly Hills Chinese Baptist Church as the music director and loves to serve God with his gift of Music. “I believe musicis a spiritual gift from God which allows emotions to be brought out from within. It is something that God does in the music which moves the people toworship!”- Andy
JONO CHOW | RICErally Venue Control Coordinator
Ahoy! I’m Jono and I lead at the TeenSS youth group of CCC!I love playing basketball+soccer, and am a self confessed geek who spends alarge chunk of his time playing NBA Live and fantasy basketball when I’m not creating kitchen nightmares or at UNSW. But my deepest passion is to see highschoolers fired up for Jesus!
INES LAM | RICErally
From once being a youth herself attending RICE events to nowhaving the privilege of serving within the RICE team itself, she knows firsthand at just how powerful & awesome God is in drawing & reconciling His people, His children, back to Himself.
Her prayer & desire is for her youth group - CLAY atNSCCCS and for the youth of Sydney to know & experience the unfailing love, peace & true joy of having Christ in their life.
SARAH SIE | RICErally Skit Co-ordinator
When Sarah isn't procrastibaking at ridiculous hours of the night, she is a crazy-haired UNSW Arts student who enjoys chocolate, alliteration and ferns. And while she’d like you to believe an assortment of random things, the truth is that she still finds fart jokes disproportionately funny and she has no idea when she won’t.
Other than that, Sarah goes to Hurstville Indonesian Presbyterian Church and loves serving at their sparkly new and crazy cool young adults group. She does this having been convinced that Jesus Christ died for all and knowing that following Him has been the most important thing that has ever happened to her. So Sarah is pretty ecstatic about serving with some pretty awesome people this year and it’s her sincere prayer that many will come to know Jesus!
ANNA TAI | RYS Secretary & Admin Team Coordinator
This year, Anna is looking forward to doing some crashtesting just like ones you see on TV (only without the car) for her thesis to finish off her 5th year of (bio)medical science and engineering. Having been around equally long as a youth leader, and very keen on good music, she directs the LYC band at Living Stone Evangelical Free Church. At work, Anna does some databasing which comes quite handy at RICE, where she is keeping on being an admin guru. Most of all, Anna really wants youths to hear about Jesus, so they can know and love Him and to treasure Him for who He is – He is everything!
MAN WAI WONG | RYS Admin Officer
When not studying and nerding it up with her med textbooks, Man Wai enjoys catching up with friends, reading books and singing along tokids songs. She loves cheesecake, all things stationery and collecting recipes, but most of all, she loves God! Man Wai became a Christian during high schoolafter coming to know God. She’s really thankful and awed by just how much God loves us, and hopes that many more youth (and many more people!) will come to know and love God too. She currently serves at Beverly Hills Chinese Baptist Church, and has an awesome time teaching the youth there about Jesus.
CINDY TAN | RYS Admin Officer (RICErally)
This will be the 6th year Cindy is involved in RICE. She currently finishing her studies in engineering at UTS and will be off to Dubai to serve with the IFES team at the end of the year. She enjoys music, watching soccer and loves eating mangoes. At her church SCAC Rockdale, she has recently started working with the overseas students but misses working with the youth at her church.
Cindy dislikes public speaking but enjoys meeting up one on one with others and serving through admin, and thus loves serving on the RICE admin team Anna and Man Wai. In RICE 2010 Cindy hopes that it will be another great year where youth will come to know Jesus and that many will be challenged about where they are at in their relationship with God.
PHIL MARKS | RYS Video Production
Phil does not sleep and lives on Red Bull.
JOE KIM | RYS Logistics Coordinator
Joe is our awesome RICE Youth Sydney logistics ninja! He and his ninja team have been working around the clock stealthily to co-ordinate aseamless movement of chairs, tables, vans and all sorts of other crazy stuff toand from the RICE events. When not falling asleep in engineering lectures Joe dreams of getting into automotive design, serving with the young guns at SYNC...and eating noodles.
VIRGINIA CHOY | RYS Design & Communications Coordinator
Basically if you give Vee some scrap cardboard she would manage to come back with something that is worth buying. She has a wacky senseof humour, enjoys using her creative skills to benefit others in ministry and thinks that Beverly Hills Baptist is one awesome church to be part of.
Vee is thankful for everyone’s prayers and support for RICE and is looking forward to working alongside the ever-amazing RICE leaders, RICE design team and youth to see many come to know our Lord Jesus Christ.
CHRISTINA KHOO | RYS Design Team Coordinator
Hi!!!! I'm Chrissy, I attend ESCCC and am part of our youthgroup Globe. I'm currently in my final year at UNSW studying InteriorArchitecture and am a lover of all things sugary. I love all things hands on, making models, designing on the computer, making jewelry, singing randomly and often live off chocolate and pure adrenaline. But most of all I have a passion for Jesus and seeing his Kingdom grow!!
JOHNNY CHAN | RYS Design Team Coordinator
Johnny is a youth leader at Hebron Alliance Church and is currently studying Design & Education at UNSW’s College of Fine Arts. Having served on RICE Design team for the past three years, he is now ready and equipped to lead the design team with Chrissy Khoo for RICE 2010.