learnt this in GOTP, think it's kinda cool:
''In our Lord Jesus Christ, there was:
meekness without weakness;
tenderness without feebleness;
firmness without coarseness;
love without sentimentality;
holiness without self-righteousness;
lowliness without lowness;
truth without error;
enthusiasm without fanaticism;
passion without prejudice;
carefreeness without carelessness;
service without servility;
confidence without egoism;
judgement without harshness;
seriousness without gloominess;
mercy without softness."
pastor shared with us that if sot is really God's plan in our live, then He'll give us the strength needed to get through whatever obstacles we face during it....and i think that's really really true haha (:
guowei had a headache last friday and wasn't feeling well...john and i prayed for him and by fri night he was hopping around
bert had a super tiring week and slept really little during the weekend ( i think only 3+ hrs on one day and 5-6 on the other) but he woke up feeling amazingly energetic
john shared that there was this part when he empathised with pastor's detailing on how hard it is to keep awake, but after that, he started feeling more awake and energetic by the day
and for me..i still feel the breakthrough day was the morning after OPM. was so shagged that i pleaded with God for a lifeline...and that was the morning that i absorbed the most from lessons the entire week (:
we still need to do better though....the learning curve gotta be explosive!
i've just finished submitting my ntu application form, gonna aim to finish the nus and smu ones by tmr. haha im such a procrastinator, thank God sally came along to poke me into action (:
anw, i cant wait to get all the uni stuff over and done with so i'll have more time in my schedule. i really need to pray more, play more and practise my guitar more! i'm super grateful that there's no lesson this sun cos of easter, so i've extra time to chiong. phew. and yea i need the play factor cos i think my social life is getting very dreary. actually i'm quite comfortable with my pace of life right now but i think i need to add in some more fun just in case so i dont burn out haha. wouldnt hurt to revise some of the bs lessons and put more planning into my tuition lesson plans either.
gonna sleep now, night~
rachel shifted her tuition to next week so i'm home early (:
anw, was sharing with cal and mark just now that i had a word yesterday which i was meditating on throughout the entire prayer meeting, but somehow i totally forgot about it when i started speaking. so yep here it is.
when i was wondering which item to pray for and asking God for a revelation that would touch the members' hearts, what i really felt strongly to pray about was multiplication. actually, i know nuts about multiplication cos e449 is my first cg and i've never been through the process. all i know is that our cg has been tgt for coming on 3 years and it's time we started branching out and getting ready to multiply in august. when i first joined the cg, i really loved the fellowship here and i didnt want us to multiply cos it'd mean i might not spend so much time with members in a different cg, and the concept of a new cg that i might not be so comfortable with was quite ... disturbing haha.
but somehow, i started thinking that maybe it'd be good for us to start multiplying and venturing out of our comfort zones? even before God impressed on my heart that 'every healthy living thing will grow', i kinda feel like He's telling me that perhaps we've been together for so long that we're a little too comfortable with our roles in the cg, a little too comfortable with the friends we stick with, a little too lethargic about wanting to take on new responsibilities and moving on to the next spiritual level. and that's very scary cos arent we taught that whenever we're satisfied with where we are, the first become last and the last become first?
haha, i don't know whether i'll leave or stay. but i know whichever happens, i'm just super excited thinking about the period of growth we're gonna grow through before, during and after multiplication! and i really hope it's gonna be explosive in both quantity and quality! new guitarists, new cgcs, new cgls rising up. new talents and gifts unfolding as we're pushed to our limits and as we open our hearts to serve more. cal once said that we have so many talented people in our cg, we can just start our own service lol. we have people who can sing, dance, preach, prophecy, discern, use media skills, play guitar, write well...etc etc. there are so many talented artistes and professionals out there in society today who have these skills, even though they dont know God and might not have His special grace and anointing on their lives. so can you imagine how much more we could do if we have these skills AND the blessings of the coolest Daddy ever? it's so...wow!!!
if we really love e449 so much, then all the more, we should be excited to share with the world all that our beloved cg has taught us. all the more, we should be brave and courageous in taking up new roles and responsibilities in serving God's kingdom. and only when we've truly borne good fruit can we say with pride that we were once part of a super awesome e449 (:
i love this pic alot (:
starting the week afresh tmr whee.
this is my coolio team (:
hahaha life's been good to me. the sot schedule is really quite killer but as long as i don't slack off, it's still possible to squeeze in tuition and guitar prac with bs stuff at night etc. even managed to squeeze in a trip to the gym with deborah yesterday, and i just came home from a trip with her to jurong point :D
sot life is cool cos unexpected stuff keeps popping up haha. we just had OPM on wed night and we didnt even know it until wed morning haha! awesome experience camping over at church fb-ing with dan and guowei. my teammates went to crash, john went back to ntu, bert and deb were sleeping (:
130 am -- 4am: OPM
4am -- 5am: bought food and ate w gw and daniel
5am -- 7am: chiong tuition stuff
7am -- 8am: went out for breakfast
8am -- 9am: fellowship, sign in, book seats etc
9am -- 1pm: sot lessons
1pm -- 230 pm: rush off for tuition
230 pm -- 930 pm: tuition
930 pm-- 1030 pm: stone back home
1030 --1130 pm: QT bs guitar etc lol
okay i need to go chiong guitar now. byeee
was telling cal just now, it's possible to reach home at some unearthly hour and still pray till you feel the peace of God come into your heart, then rely on the Spirit the next day to bring you through your tiredness. but it is so not possible to crash early without praying and walk into class unprepared the next day...
so much to learn and so much to to tackle. Lord, guard my heart and keep it safe.
haha sot prep course is officially over. honestly i'm kinda relieved but i think everyone's kinda sad that we prob wont be in the same team once school formally starts hai.
deb slept over last night so we could cook breakfast (porridge n noodles!) for the guys this morn. lol we were assuring them of food hygiene standards the day before when daniel announced, 'nvm, bible says all food is sanctified alr! so the sisters anyhow cook also can.' lol i think the rest of the guys wanted to kill him on the spot haha.
so yep, last night...HAHAHA. very spastic episode! basically deb asked daniel to book seats but being the no-faith-in-other-ppl-to-not-be-late person i am, i msged john, guowei and bertrand as well. deb was telling me, 'eh xinhui if they all reach early you die la. they'll find out you had no faith in any one of them and asked them all to book seats!' haha i ignored her warning and when we stepped in today, lo and behold, turns out that john, daniel AND guowei had all reached at 730 to book seats hahahahhaha. daniel went, 'xinhui! how come john was here when you asked me book seats??' hahaha then john came over too and...lol. most epic encounter ever trying to explain myself.
mid-morn, almost all of us fell asleep haha! too heavy a breakfast lol. so the brothers went out to buy us coffee and they very smartly stuck plastic straws into the boiling coffee, using the hole in the lid that's meant for stirrers lol. so yes we trooped back into the sot audi looking like some dumb army, each holding a white cup with a straw sticking out. wonder what pastor bobby must have thought lol.
kinda sucks to think that from next mon onwards, we prob wont be spending so much time tgt anymore ): ahh glory to glory ba. better things are yet to come!
sot life's been falling into quite a comfortable everyday routine now...and i gotta say it's AWESOME!! (:
lessons start at 9am so i usually reach before 8am to book second row seats for us haha. front row's always taken by the taiwanese whom reach at 7.25 am lol. (they bought me breakfast today, so nice!) deborah reaches around 8 so we'd slack and have some girltalk (i'm gonna be smart and do my makeup in sch like her so i can sleep more lol) before bertrand reaches around 830. john, daniel and guowei troop in around 840 and from then on it's basically breakfast and fellowship till lessons start.
lessons are cool cos praise and worship can last as long as AN HOUR hahaha. trains stamina! super cool to be able to dedicate so much time to the Lord each day (:
lunch break, deb eats with her church friend so i'll go tapao food with the guys...kwok leong's dropped by to say hi a couple of times. so far lunch time's been centred around helping me choose my uni course, haha i'm srsly grateful (: lessons end at 5 then byebye!
anyway, yesterday was extremely cool cos deborah and i bought pastor breakfast!!!!! HAHAHAH EPIC EVENT OF THE DAY. when bennie asked us to help, we were so excited that we took the wrong turning and rushed down the elevator insteda of the lifts. halfway down we realised we didnt ask what kinda bread he wants, so when we banged into bertrand at the entrance we asked him to ask bennie and call us. rushed out, almost went the wrong direction (ok la my fault lol), chionged to the kopitiam, (spied on the ppl taking orders in front of us and)realised there's only one kinda bread ... promptly called bertrand not to ask bennie so we wouldn't look like noobs lol. went back and died laughing at our retardness haha.
and today, lixin cooked up a feast for us at her house! (: taiwan students went with deb and i. it's very sweet to see how everyone's practically family alr in just one week (:
byebye!
haha there's this dumb inside joke going around my group of sot friends now and i think it's SUPER true lol:
'never ask a sot student for advice. all they'll do is tell you to pray and fast.'
ABLAZE 2009--2010
now that As is over, i guess our work in hc is finally done (:
"Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:30-31
i guess i always thought that somehow, some day, some way, God would give us the same kind of miraculous testimony He once gave sally and cal. that somehow, we'd be able to rise above all those who mocked us, threw cold water at us, every single person who seemed to have it made--looks fame cca sports leadership money portfolio whatever--and who technically knew God, but had kinda...confusing lives.
you know, sharon and i discussed this topic umpteen times. would God choose to be glorified through us by helping us get aweseome results against all odds, or would He be glorified by us standing strong in the faith even when we get bad results thrown at us? lol so now we finally know which path was chosen.
honestly, out of our group of ~ 10 ppl, i still don't know the results of 3 ppl. and for those that i do know, only 1-2 came out unscathed. but i guess this is truly a time when we've gotta trust His Heart when we can't see His Hand. Father, during that one last meeting, we prayed for faith to accept our results and that You'd open up a fresh new chapter in our lives for us. and Lord no matter where our paths lead, no matter how dramatically yesterday may have changed our lives...i know we still love You. i know that no matter what the world's gonna throw at us now, we'll still stand strong because nothing can change the fact that we're children of the most high God. and i know that somehow, we're gonna make it through this (:
wahahahah my results are awesome man. awesomely FAIL, i just joined the ranks of sad people that throw hc's reputation down the drain lol. i got ABBCC! hahaha i have no idea where i can even go with that kinda results...research more another day!
and the most important thing is....IM SUPER PROUD OF MY PRAYER GROUP (: today's meeting was awesome, we had 14 ppl and it really felt as though everyone was doing their best to contribute. the revelations put forth were just...wow.i'm really really happy that they didn't just pray for good results, they prayed that we'd be able to put our feelings aside after receiving results and go around comforting and praying for ppl. makes folding all the paper cranes worthwhile lol. and the best part is, they really practised what they preached--there were some who cried upon receiving results, then swallowed their disappointment and went to pray for others who were just as devastated. guys, i'm super proud of y'all (:
oh yea, and sot. it's mindblowing! hahaha i went in thinking, 'okay...these 2 wks are just e prep course right?' and came out thinking, 'wow if tht was the prep course, the real thing is gonna...lol. rock ttm.' there's so much hands-on practise and Mr Holy Spirit keeps showing up at super unexpected times. pastor derek healed some ppl on the 2nd day and on the 4th, he prayed for some of us to overcome fear and ended up some people got delivered. yes mark i finally understand why you say fear is a spirit and not a feeling lol. the people there are really fun as well. i met a pastor and his 'cook', 2 full-time staff fr taiwan, a pastor's daughter fr malaysia, a member of pastor tan's cg..etc etc. so many people to learn from, its really a v humbling experience (:
and john finally showed up today! just in time cos pastor asked us to pray for our neighbours' family...friends...church etc, and yup its easier to do w people you know. i liked his prayer for me alot (: but, i feel kinda bad cos i didnt really know what to pray for him, and in the end there wasn't even time to do so. oh well. still have 6 months left so nvm haha.
okay going off to meet the cg ppl now!byebye!
