Asian and Asian American authors are asking vital questions, offering fresh theological insight, and speaking with hard-won wisdom into the life of the church and the world. Their work challenges, forms, and enlarges the faith of every reader who encounters it. Every May, we celebrate AAPI Heritage Month by spotlighting these authors and the conversations they're leading. Explore their books, articles, videos, and podcasts below!
Len Tang is the director of Fuller Theological Seminary's church-planting program. He is a Fuller alum and an ordained Presbyterian pastor, and currently is planting his second church, Missio Community Church in Pasadena, California.
La Thao (Hmong American) is an InterVarsity campus staff in Wisconsin and previously served as the director of InterVarsity's Hmong Christian Collegiate Conference.
Paul Tokunaga (Master of Christian Studies, New College, Berkeley) is vice president and director of strategic ministries for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. He started with InterVarsity as a student at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and has also worked with 2100 Productions and as Southeast Regional Director.
Nikki A. Toyama-Szeto is senior director of biblical justice integration and mobilization at International Justice Mission (IJM) in Washington, DC. She provides strategic leadership to the IJM Institute for Biblical Justice and IJM's Global Prayerteam to ignite passion for biblical justice among the global church. She previously served as program director for InterVarsity's Urbana Student Missions Convention. She is the coauthor of Partnering with the Global Church and More ThanServing Tea.
Gideon Yee Shun Tsang is an artist, writer, photographer, and spiritual leader. He was the founding pastor at Vox Veniae in Austin, Texas, where he's been living for the past twenty years. He originally hails from Canada. He can be found meandering the country in his van, bike camping in national forests, or cliff jumping into cenotes.
Shao Kai Tseng (DPhil, University of Oxford) is assistant professor of systematic theology at China Evangelical Seminary in Taipei, Taiwan. Previously he served as a pastor at Faith Chinese North American Baptist Church in his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.
J. D. Tseng (pseudonym) is a prolific writer and editor who has worked in Chinese Christian journals and publications for many years.
Kathy Tuan-MacLean (PhD, Northwestern) serves as faculty ministry national director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, where she invites and resources faculty to follow Jesus together. She's a mother of three adult children and an overly anxious labradoodle. Since joining InterVarsity in 1990, she has led numerous students and faculty in Bible study, spiritual formation, and leadership development. She is also a spiritual director who has led marriage ministry and women's retreats. In herchurch, you can find her occasionally preaching, often teaching, serving as an elder, and regularly cooking for and hosting gatherings.
Van Riesen is an area director with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship serving students at Stanford University, Santa Clara University, UC Santa Cruz and California State Monteray Bay University. Her parents emigrated from Korea when she was five years old. She is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.
Prasanta Verma (MBA, MPH) was born under an Asian sun, raised in the Appalachian foothills in the South, and now resides in the Upper Midwest. Her essays and poetry have been published in Sojourners, Propel Women, (in)courage, Inheritance Magazine, the Indianapolis Review, Barren Magazine, and the Mudroom blog. She served as a speech and debate coach for over ten years. When she's not writing, speaking, or working, she's drinking chai, walking, or reading. Prasantalives with her family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Hear More from AAPI Authors
Prayer can be daunting as a parent and as a family because what can be more intimate and vulnerable than opening ourselves with humility, hope, and honesty to the all-knowing, all-seeing God of the universe? Inspired by Kaylee Prays for the Children of the World, here are four ideas for how you can lean into the lessons of the book and create a culture of prayer in your own family.
In this interview, IVP authors Carmen Joy Imes, Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young, E. K. Strawser, Nijay Gupta, Rob Dixon, and Sandra L. Glahn reflect on Women’s History Month and the importance of hearing women—and what we miss when we don’t. Gilmore-Young and Gupta are hosts of the IVP podcast Hear Women.