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(Monday, May 28, 2007-)
+5:37 PM]*
# Draw Me Closer
I foresee that this is going to be a long post. But somehow, these past ew days have been very memorable and meaingful. Yup, to everyone who was a part of it, txs for being around. I know it might seem nothing much to you guys, but Im happy!
Just something I was pondering over. Shuming mentioned in her blog that she read that different people were having ups and downs of their lives. And for me, I know many people who aren't exactly cruising along in the race of life. Like what Rachael once said in YA, many of us are already injured athletes. We were running the race, and because of some incident or another, we're kind of by the side now, waiting for first aid. To all those who I know u're "injured" one way or another, I really do hope all the best for you. Will be praying for you.
Then while I was doing laundry, this thought came to me (yes, i do my own laundry thank you). God has emotions. His heart feels for us, and me, who can't possibly love as much as he does, feels hurt for the people i know around me, how does God feel? He knows every hurt everyone is going through, He feels so much more. And then, how does He feel happy for others that are having great times in their lives. I guess God must have hyper-threading emotion processor.
But really, God must feel really sad for so many of us I wonder if He ever just wants to force His way into our lives and help us out. God, you must really be having a tough time. Especially with so many people hurting and injured or getting injured right now.
Zsa, Yumei, Cass, Pei Zhi, Aaron, Claire, Fang Xian, Bing Sheng
Saturday
Okay, this happened after a long long break. I slept for about 15 hours! Haha! So much for surviving 2 days with 4 hours of sleep. Lol! Yup, woke up for music prac and arrived late... Darn. We practised two "new" songs cuz one was so old it became new for me. And also Consuming Fire. Dunno where the cons(h)uming joke came from though. Haha. Practise was good although we used very funny jargons or actions to describe what was lacking. Musicians out there might understand.
Poor Winnie was at the sound board with a leaking nose and had to bear with all of us. Our prac went fine and we sounded quite good at the end when we were coming together already. Although I think my right ear is getting more and more deaf everytime. Maybe the bass should shift to the left of the drums to give me even deafness. Haha!
Then after music prac, i was still sleepy so i went to the youth room to rest. Pei Ting, Alex, Rachel, Xiu Yu and .. oh no... i dunno how to spell her name. Shall not attempt. Hehe! People were there, yup and we were all basically talking crap and Rachel was supposedly studying. Winnie and I were trying to sleep while Fang Xian was being high. Shouldn't have gave her the chocolate.
Soon enough it was the awesome engine-room prayer meeting with Isaac. It was really meaningful prayer as we really prayed for the Holy Spirit to come down for our service this time. Yup, it was the Holy Spirit night as some people called it. And people were getting really serious and I guess thats what really made it more meaningful. Yeah, we prayed our hearts and tears out (even without my voice after soccer cheering) with screams and shouts and stomps and jumping and kneeling. Yup, an awesome prayer meeting! Radical for Jesus. Chosen to Serve!
Then it was service time and we were all excited. Atmosphere was good, but i guess it just wasn't time yet for the Holy Spirit to be poured out. Like the 120 in the upper room, they didn't know it was gonna be Pentecost when the Promise would come, neither did we and tonight wasn't that night, but we're still gonna be hungry but ironically, its for the Holy Spirit to devour us! Hehe =)
Service was great and after service, the chairs were a little off. Like people lining up at wrong lines, the chairs were re-organizing themselves. Haha. Soon we got it all sorted out and then headed down for dinner! Yay! How often do you get free dinner ryte? Txs Aunty Ang!! Fried rice! Yay. Wanted to take 12 home but a tragic incident happened. 12 came. On time. Come on.. what gives... 12, u're always late!! And the day im enjoying my fried rice, u come on time.. So i took a nice walk home.
Came home, chatted, blog surfed, slept.
Sunday
Oh yeah, this the eventful day. It started of simple enough with church in the morning. EVeryone was early and on time! Cool eh? Pre-service prayer was really different in the sense that Ps Khoon Mei asked us to get real with God. Yes, we've been getting ready for Pentecost Sunday, but instead of "hyping" us up and get excited/anticipatory of something great, we were asked to get real with God. Tell Him, if we didn't feel like life is going our way. Tell Him if we're angry when He didn't come through for us. Tell Him we're far away and not ready for Pentecost Sunday. Nothing loud. Nothing flashy. Just getting real. It's one of those moments u realise that church is so real. That we don't have to "be" a Christian. We just have to come as we are. Failures, disappointments, shortcomings, troubles. No need to be all cheery and jumping around when we're not happy with God on the inside. And just lay it all out for Him. And He's a God that will never turn us away. I mean, that's so.. unfair! How can He be so nice to us when all we do throughout the week is ignore Him and then blame Him on Sunday. Yet, His love never fails. He never fails to let us lay our burdens at His cross. Simply put -Amazing Love-
Sunday service was arguably the best whole year! Ps Jonathan gave an awesome message abt the cripple at the gate called Beautiful. The empowerment of the Holy Spirit. How we need it so much. How we always seem to not be able to do the things we ought to be doing, and how we need to be filled once again! So who's NOT looking forward to church camp?!!
In case u're interested, its at Port Dickson, Tiara Beach Resort from 11th to 15th June. I'll be there. He'll be there. Will you?
Ok, thats all for camp promo, but really, this camp is going to kickstart something awesome in Emmanuel, we all feel it!! I mean, how can it not when we serve the Living God?!
So cool with the church service for that day, altar call was good, although the ending gives rise to the question of church security. Yup, Hosea brought that up. Hehe. Then we had cell meeting which lasted forever but came to no conclusion. I guess 40 year old virgin is not something you watch after such an awesome Sunday service?
So as Marcus "prophesied", we went down to Beer Garden to eat lunch, which I jz tagged along for fun. Then headed back to church for Habitudes seminar to substitute Gabriel who was at Global Day of Prayer practice!
Ok, let's see what I think about the YA comm
-They're a wacky bunch of ppl!!
-->shoulder to shoulder
-->unscrewing heads is a process
-->Shrek Team
-->Rayvin sabo-ing Roland
-->Buying 20 Nuggets after arriving late
-->It is no longer an Iceberg
-They're a very diverse group of people
-->Stealing each others' ideas
-->Quoting each other to avoid getting into trouble
-They're very open
-->yeah, they openly talk about their cell groups and how things have come along
Yup, it was a fun, eye-opening, wacky, no-holds-barred session with them and The Cloud and Aunty Aye Lan =)
Most likely i might be a Habitudes fascilitator but then again, since only me and FX going, might be no need for that. But i can foresee that the next 6 weeks is going to involve a lot of real, tangible goal setting =) Yup Christianity is getting more and more real =)
Okay, once the whole thing was over, it was soon time for the peak of the day, actually, Sunday service was already the peak, but this is a different sort of peak. Think Mt Everest and North Pole. Ok, so this peak's name is Global Day of Prayer, truncated into GDOP cuz Singapore will not allow you to have any words with 3 syllables or more, what more, 4 words! Oh the crime!
Yes, GDOP was starting at 6pm to many people's unknowing shock. Not their fault cuz the organizers didn't include the Youth Praise n Worship session in the bulletin. But it was super funny! Let me give u a description of what CFC from Emmanuel did. We waited, in the sun instead of under the bus stop for the bus. Reason? NONE! Haha!
Then we arrived about 5.35, and we walked to our seats in the East section. After about 10 minutes, Ps Mark had a call and we were called to go down. I was like.. huh? Go where? This stadium is already so big and way too empty for anything to be starting, why we need to move?So we all moved like obedient sheep. Haha, walked and walked, no idea where we were going. Gate 1, oh ok, lets go. On the other side of Gate 1 - THE MAIN STAGE!
We were like about 20 plus of us standing right in the middle of the National Stadium having praise and worship! With barely 500 people in the whole stadium, there was CFC youths jumping and praising God in front of everyone with Ps Jeremy Seaward and Rachael leading us! Woo hoo!! A really surreal experience. Of course it was rather embarrassing also cuz i told Louisa we had seats, and then the next moment, we were right smack in the middle of the whole GDOP set up! Soon other youths joined us. Yup, it was really really cool! Such an experience. Imagine in heaven, that it'll be multiplied a million fold! Whee!!
Yeah, after praise and worship (youth) the Salvation Army Brass Band started playing and we headed back to... erm.. somewhere. Our seats were already taken. Roland wanted to sit on the main stage cuz there were chairs there. Haha! So we wandered around and while wandering, I bumped into Louisa and her bro! Haha, so much for having to try to find each other.
So we walked like obedient sheep until we reached a place to sit. Then the whole GDOP started. It was cool. Except the songs were those from the Days of Elijah. Haha, yes, it was that bad ok! It was like... all hymns or whatever it was people sang before that. The newest song was Here I Am To Worship (without Call Upon The Name of the Lord) and Louisa bro and I were waiting for that song cuz we were sure of how to sing it! Haha! And to Louisa, yup, our church is Charismatic so GDOP is so not the usual way our prayer meetings are. Surprise, culture shock, I don't know. But i guess that's why the churches are quite "divided" in that sense. Cuz God doesn't limit the way we praise/worhsip/seek Him and so there are so many ways of doing it that there has to be different denominations to cater to Christians from all walks of life.
Yup, i initially said i wouldn't go for another GDOP cuz it wasn't my cup of tea, but after thinking it through, i realised its people like me who are unconsciously dividing the church. So GDOP 2008, Kenneth will be there. I might be 1 in 50000 but I know it matters =) Yeah, and not to mention i was sooo hungry cuz i fasted lunch that day. Yup. CFC took forever to leave and finally i decided to eat dinner with Matthew and Gabriel. Went to Old Airport Road, the one which Simin brought me once for awesome pasta, but it moved down the road. The food was horrible and Gabriel and I were craving McDonald's. Him-20 piece nuggets. Me-McSpicy Meal. AARRRGGGHHHH.. But txs to shuming for keeping me company while i was dying of hunger! Haha. And that mushroom is a mutant lar! Eat two dinners! Haha! You ate more dinners than i did meals! Haha!
Yup, she was kind enough to listen to me rambling about how i wanted mcdonalds and was super hungry. Hehe. And then the worst thing happened and i bet the mushroom was rolling all over the room laughing at me.
I wanted to take 10 home, so Matthew and I walked out. Then Matthew said i should take from Side A (i dunno how else to describe the sides of the road) and i said it should be Side B. while walking, i missed 2 10s on side A. But i thought it was OK, since Side B is the correct one. Then we waited on Side B. And Matthew's bus came, but it showed that Side B was the wrong side. But i said it is ok cuz bus 30 is weird. Always opposite side from normal busses like 12.
Miss count for bus 10 - 2
Then we asked the people there, and they said Side A was actually correct, so i crossed over. And then as i was crossing, i missed another 10
Miss count - 3
Waited at Side A, and it was the correct side. For Matthew... He took his bus after missing like 2 for no reason. He just didn't stop the bus. Lol. So i waited patiently back on Side A and after a while, the two people i asked for directions told me that they saw the most recent 10 and Side B was actually the correct side and they made a mistake earlier. I was like ok, i crossed back to Side B
Miss count - 4
While waiting, i was whining to Shuming. Haha, and she didn't know if she should be sad or laugh. *bites* Okay, shall not be mean to a defenceless mushroom. So on Side B now. (i bet its so confusing u dun care which side im on anymore ryte?) Bus 10 came. I asked the driver, he said the other side. Those ppl cheated me. TWICE!! Arrghh.. but i wasn't too pissed. Cuz i had the time. And it was their mistake. How did i know? THEY WERE ON THE FREAKING WRONG SIDE TOO!! LOL!!! Their 31 finally came and they had to cross over. Lol.
Miss count - 5!!
Yup, waited on Side A which is the correct side and finally took my 10. Stopped whining and got home! Yay. Interesting Sunday.!!Labels: Bus 10, Church Camp, Global Day of Prayer, Louisa, National Stadium, Pentecost Sunday, Ps Jonathan, Shuming
the story ends like this;
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