Saturday, October 21, 2006

This week is my last week of holiday before going back to school for the new semester. Sadly, I did not have the opportunity and time to work for a while. But all is not lost as I have gained a great deal during this period of holiday.

Basically, I was super packed this week and feeling quite tired. Started from monday evening till about 1pm today, I was helping crusade staff babysit their kids as they were having their Staff Summit at NSRCC. There were about 19 kids and they were mostly 4-5 years old and below. The oldest one was 8 yrs old. The helpers were as below:

Monday 6pm to 9.30pm - bo chun, jocelyn, annabel and myself
Tuesday 9am to 5pm - auntie patsy, yap min, grace, jocelyn and myself
8pm to 9.30pm - annabel and jocelyn
Wednesday 9am to 4.30pm - yap min, grace, jocelyn and myself
7.30pm to 9.30om - yap min, jocelyn, annabel and myself
Thursday 9am to 1pm - auntie patsy, auntie valerie, auntie irene and myself

What we did with the kids were things like taking care of them, bringing them to the indoor/outdoor playground and outside to blow bubbles, giving them tea (snacks) and so on. It was fun although tiring and soemtimes at my wits end when anyone of them start crying for their mummy. Some of them were quite havoc as well. Overall, auntie shirley was in charge of the babysitting and she is really good with the kids. Hmmm..must learn from her. Hee ;) O and during the summit, I saw the games the staff were playing and it was funny. It was my first time seeing them acting like kids and they were saying luckily no student was around. Haha. Too bad. ;P And I found out that auntie patsy is involved in BRMC's children ministry and she knows uncle alan. What a small world.

On tuesday evening, auntie patsy gave yap min, grace and myself a ride to PS as we were having TP outing. Her car is super nice and spacious . Hee. :) The three of us, together with ben, phyllis and michelle, went to have out dinner at Mos Burger first before meeting the rest at Minds Cafe. This time round with a camera. Haha. It was fun playing the new games and we ended late as well, being the last group to leave the place. What's new?

As for today after babysitting, I was given a ride by auntie patsy to orchard where I was going to meet simon, ben and wen hao. Before that, auntie patsy introduced her daughter, sharon mah, to me and I found out that there are not only 3 sharons but 4. Hmmm...who is the other one? A mystery to me. Haha ;P Anyway, the guys and I ended walking to Cinneleisure to watch "The Prestige." At first, we were still thinking whether we wanted to as simon and myself wanted to crash the staff's party in the evening. It is rarely that we see the staff acting crazy. Hehe ;) In the end we did watched and it was a good show. Dinner at Kobayashi was the same three people as wen hao needed to go off. As usual, it was another eventful and interesting session.

It started off with ben sharing a weird dream that he had yesterday and he wanted to find out what it means. He shared about his pastor (i think) keeping a record of his dreams and how some actually came true. Simon shared a few of his and they were quite an eye opener. For me, my dreams are freaky as the people in my dreams are real life. They seem real as I am looking from a first person point of view. Brrrr... From this conversation, it went to the topic on magic and so concidentally, ben dreamt of magic and the movie we just watched was on magic as well. Whoa!! We started talking the magic that david blaine and criss angel perform, which we described it was black magic. The sharing continued to david copperfield, who ben said is a Christian, and pastor lawrence and we asked ourselves, "What is the difference between the magic these 2 groups performed?" "What is the difference between white magic and black magic?"

And from this topic, we went into Christian stuffs that simon brought up, "Blind Faith and Faith." and he said this that stunned me, " There are errors in the bible." He showed us some verses that his DGL shared with him and there is no mistake about it. At first, I was trying to find some ways to sort of "proof him wrong." But as the discussion went on, I realised why.

The first thing that came to my mind was, "Isn't the bible suppose to be perfect?" It is God's Word and God is perfect. So how can there be errors? Sounds contradicting doesn't it? But think about these: What is perfect? What is perfect to you? When I thought about that, it brought everything to a whole new meaning. Our mindset has been set on the meaning of perfect by the world, by man. 'Perfect' as defined by man means correct, pure, flawless and absolute. But what does 'perfect' mean by God? Have you ever thought that these "errors" were placed in the bible for a reason? That God has intended it to be? Why? No one knows. Only God does. And simon shared that "God uses the foolish to shame the wise." (Paraphrase) This also brought up the topic on "Christian Ego."
After the discussion, I saw things in a different light. We need the wisdom to read the bible that comes from God and not from man. The bible is God's not man's.

Okie..I need to sleep already as I have a long day tmr. Anybody has any views just tag me. I would like to hear from you.

Dre@my JeSs Life Written @ 7:06 AM

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Usually for my entries, I just title them with whatever event that happened in during that particular week. But for this entry I am about to blog, I have entitled it, "Everything happens for a reason."

This sentence has been so real and outstanding to me throughout this week. It started when I went to town with simon, ben and avon where we caught a movie, You, Me and Dupree. The show was hilarious especially the '-ness' part and after sending avon off, the three of us went for dinner and that was where everything started off. We were talking about crusade, church and lots of other stuffs. One of the question I asked was, "Why are we going to church/youth ministry?" and it was encouraging to hear one another's testimonies especially simon's. Two main points he brought up were: 1) The place where your life was changed and 2) There is a reason why God has placed you in that church/youth ministry. All the sharings made me think back to the times I spent in youth ministry since I stepped into it. It was only then I realised that youth ministry has actually played a large role in my Christian life. Without it, I may still be a 'Christian' by name.

The second time was when I met up with irene, yap min, lee huan and howe luen for a time of catching up at Kennedy Rogers. It was good food, good fellowship and good sharing. Lee huan shared this one thing that I will never forget, "What I learned and gone through in crusade can be applied in church." That hit me and I asked myself, "Why am I in crusade?" I remembered that I did not want to have anything to do with "Christian stuffs" when I first entered TP, especially crusade since I first heard it from cheryl and jialing. I wanted my life back. It is not that I did not have a life when I was in secondary school. I had a wonderful time going out and spending time with church people and serving in church. It is only that when I thought back, church took up most of my secondary school life and now? Hence when I entered TP, I just wanted to make friends and hang out.

But still, I ended up in crusade and not only that, I became super involved in it. It is so ironic but I never once regretted being in crusade. Instead, I thank God for pulling me into this ministry. And it is so true that what I grew in and learned in crusade can be applied in church (though I am not doing it). Is that why God placed me in crusade in the first place?

As for the third time, it happened during ST meeting today when phyllis shared about her classmate's death. I shall not go into it but I will share some main points. In her sharing, she said that she asked God how come and God replied her through the Word that He allowed it to happen. God allowed it to happen because He has His reasons. And it was true. Lecturers whom phyllis did not know were Christians, went down to the hospital to pray for her friend.When her friend died, she and her Christian classmate,together with 6-8 non-Christians, gathered to pray although she could see the uneasiness in them.And phyllis's only Christian classmate started talking to her about stuffs that they never talk about before until this happened and the deceased happened to be a non-Christian. This whole incident has created a breakthrough and reminded us that life is fragile.

Indeed everything happens for a reason whether you know it or not!!! For me right now, I have no idea why I am still going to church where I feel lost and empty. All I can do is seek God and pray about it.

Dre@my JeSs Life Written @ 5:02 PM

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

O gosh! My allowance has been reduced. Bleah. This sux. O well..come what may. Nothing much different has happened for the past week. I met up with yap min and ben for D&R meeting cum lunch in the afternoon on monday. Asriel was supposed to be present for the meeting but somewhere the timing got mixed up with the guys' DG. After that, we went to take a bus down to RP for their life meeting. At the bus-stop, the guys gathered in the circle to pray for daniel as he was heading to work. Then in the bus, they also continued to pray. It was really an amazing sight to see as others (public) were looking at what they were doing. Anyway, life meeting was great especially the sharing. It was wonderful hearing how God has answered some of their prayers. Praise God!!! :) As for dinner, we went to eat at Macs and there, we continued D&R meeting. This time with asriel present. Haha. ;)

Now tuesday was a super duper fun evening. We spent the entire night at Mind's Cafe and it was ladies' night. Hence, the girls all played for free. Wahahaha ;P The people present were bo chun, daniel, ben, wen hao, jia liang, ronald, ron, han sheng, phyllis, yap min, grace, esther and myself. A total of 13 people. All of us were so engrossed in playing that though we were hungry, we continued playing till we had to catch the last train home. Haha. Personally for myself, I was super happy to see esther and grace joining us for this outing. Esther is one of my disciples so it was great getting to know her better. Hopefully. i can raise her up as ESM. Hmm..will see how it goes and is up to God as well though I really hope it happened. Hee :D

There was supposed to have a D&R meeting on wed but I decided to cancel it to give everyone a break. It had been lots of planning since the start of the holidays. As for thursday, there was SM Training at 10am, GCTC. As there were still quite a few details to settle, I asked my D&R com (including yap min) if we could meet at 8am, habourfront station, and have meeting cum breakfast at Macs. And surprisingly, all replied can and they did. We met for breakfast and discussed everything we needed to. I really have to thank each one of them, for all their committment, effort and time. Thanks a million guys!!! :D O..and we got a cake to celebrate joelle's b'dae in advance plus a big card.

SM Training was enriching and I learned a lot from the sharing ronald (crusade staff) gave on 'Prayer Movements'. He shared about the passion that TP crusaders have in their prayers and prayer movements happening around the world. He also shared how he saw people praying so frevently that they were crying though they were guys. I guess this happened when we really want something so badly and it can only be done in the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. Both TP and RP have been praying non-stop to become recognised as a CCA and will continue to pray till it happen. And I believe we will not stop there. We want to see breakthrough in our campuses and creating movements everywhere. The mission and vision we have taken up and owned and will do what it takes in God's power to make them happen.

And I saw amber and lindy at GCTC. One was a stinter ongoing training there while the other was having meeting there as well, NUS side. I got to know more about amber during dinner at Serangoon Prata and listened to her story. It was somewhat 'shocking', 'amazing' and 'encouraging'. All three combined into one and I was touched by it as well. It is so amazing to hear about how God has worked in her life. Thank God for this sister!!! :)

As for today, I refused to get up of bed till afternoon. Actually I wanted to swim in the morning but was hazy, so I changed my mind. Maybe tmr?? See first I guess. Argh. There are things for me to do but I'm being lazy. Bleah. :P I have better try to get rid of that laziness.

Ok..nothing to say already. Nitez.

Dre@my JeSs Life Written @ 4:30 PM