Jetlagged

The snow is falling
Gently covering the earth
Morning quietly comes
:a haiku:

I'm back in Carleton. And I'm incredibly jetlagged. I'm not sure if I've ever been jetlagged like this. I went to bed at 11 last night, pretty exhausted, and woke up at 1:45am. Went back to bed and got up at about 7am. So, guess I'll be early getting ready for church today. Or not. We'll see.

New Year's Eve

I spent New Year's Eve in Singapore with Alex, a good friend of mine, and I'm ashamed to admit, a Singaporean. *grin* But he was ever the hospitable host. We ate and hung out with his friends a lot, and later at night, we went to his church for their WatchNight service.

That was quite an experience too. I'd never been to a Methodist church before, and initially the use of liturgy and all the stand-up-sit-down-stand-up-sit-down threw me off a little. But maybe it was the emotions that came with leaving home, or the uncertainty of stepping over the threshold into a new year, or perhaps the long flight ahead - whatever it was, it was amazing to see and feel God move through the liturgy. Through the "And also to you"s and the "Thanks be to God"s. I would be reciting line after line and then suddenly BOOM something would hit me, and I'd be moved to tears. Even with HYMNS! *gasp*

I also liked what the pastor said. I'm sure it's something they normally say. But it was such a good reminder. When they were going to collect the offering he said "Let us now give to God His tithes and our offerings".

All too often people conveniently forget to bring their tithes into the house of God. Yours truly included. And when the Bible says that when we do that we rob God, I'd never really thought about it till I heard that phrase. Tithes BELONG to God. No questions. It's like someone taking your webcam (yep, I just got mine) and not returning it to you. (Ok, not the best analogy. But it's 7:30 in the morning.)

So during the service, I felt in my heart to make a New Year's Resolution. Now, I'm not one to make resolutions for the New Year. The only other time I ever made a resolution, I didn't achieve it. I'm still not Brad Pitt. Ha. Kidding.

But this year, the prompting was strong.

An hour a day
What? One hour?! At Carleton? I don't have that kind of time...
Let us give to God HIS tithes...
Okay, so I tithe my time. That's 2.4 hours a day??
And you can't even tithe ONE hour?
Wow. Time is my most precious commodity at Carleton. And God does deserve the firstfruits and the best of it, doesn't He?

My New Year's resolution: To spend an hour a day with God doing different things - in the Word, worship, writing songs, meditating on Him. I'm telling different people to hold me accountable. But so can you! :)

Happy New Year... again

So when I arrived in Minneapolis, it was HAPPY NEW YEAR all over again because of the time change. I arrived. One of my bags arrived. The other did not. Yeah, yeah, I'm used to it now. But praise God, later that night, I received a phone call telling me that my bag will come some time today between 8-2.

So Erica and her sister, Jaynie, were there to pick me up. I came in on the same flight as Tyler, but us economy class people don't get to mingle with the snooty business class people who sit up there and smoke their cuban cigars. Hehe. Anyway, I went to the Leung house for lunch and had the privilege of meeting all the Leungs. Well, the one other Leung I hadn't met already, Erica's brother Justin.

It was a good time of fellowship and food. A true Penangnite's two favorite F's. Mrs Leung made pot stickers - kind of like gyoza / wantan - and we had noodles and pailla? or something like that - and fruitcake. :) Spent the afternoon there. And had a blast.

We left late in the afternoon. It had started to snow a bit. But praise God for a safe journey, salty conversations... even in my semi-aware state of jetlagness... and Carleton.

Back at Carleton

Celebrated Tyler's birthday. Back in my room. All is well.

Praise God for his protection. Psalm 91. Praise God for His grace that's sufficient for me and his steadfast mercies that are new every morning.

The sleepy world stirs
It looks so different now
A new year begins