Week Seven

The dreaded week seven striked again. Last year, it was a horrible illness. This year it was unprecedented amounts of stress... and the return of the cough.

So as not to dwell on pity

My week, in a nutshell, was very tiring. Lack of sleep (we're talking about 5 hours or less a night) + a lot of work (French test, psych readings) + NATS singing competition next week + Mustard Seed + violin recital coming up soon + performing at studio class, etc = STRESSED OUT JOSH.

But what was good about the week, you ask

On Friday, the Hvass's (SoulZone Ministries) had a night of healing and prayer at their house from 9pm to midnight. It was an awesome time of soaking in prayer and extended worship - seeking God's face, and His will, and His presence, and His touch. We split up into small groups of five after a time of worship, and I went into the den with Gary, Will, Leslie, and a gal from St Olaf, Laura. We spent more than two hours just praying... when a person was prayed for, he sat on this really comfortable rocking chair, and the rest surrounded him.

So I got prayed for for about a half hour I would think. It was awesome. God spoke to me in many ways... about stressing out, taking on too many things (and He even specifically told me what to drop from my plate because really this term has been one of the most tiring and stressful terms for me...) and even an insight as to why my cough is persisting. I believe it may be related to stress! :) We'll see. I'm going to try and take things easier till the end of the term (how that's going to happen I don't know, because things are getting BUSIER... AND we have to start registering for next term... but I'm trusting God on this one). And then look forward to going home!

Hey, God's already working. Today, Saturday, I woke up at 2pm. And I had NOTHING to do!! What a change. I actually felt so strange... like something was wrong. But I have to confess that I created work for me to do... well, read on.

Access to the secret room... my precious

So Annie (musical arranging genius, Exit 69) has the key to the Midi Lab, which is a room, always locked, in the basement of the Music and Drama Center... and in this room are treasures untold. Computers hooked up to keyboards and Sibelius!! :)

I spent all of today (pretty much the whole afternoon, and then from about 8-ish till midnight, with a break in between when I met up with Rashika and gang for a break) in the Midi Lab. Arranging music for caroling this year. Woot!

I am so excited about caroling!! :) And it will rock.

So yeah...

Tomorrow is Sunday. And then the craziness will begin again. But for now, I thank God that at least I got a chance to take a breather today (sort of) and even have time to blog about this.

God, I need more balance in my life. And time to CHILL... and just be like Mary. I want to find the better part. Help me.

Who's Who at Carleton

Apparently, famous people do come to Northfield. Today, the people on the Kerry Edwards campaign trail came to... my college! Yes, there was a big rally in the concert hall of Carleton College. And in addition to Kerry's stepsons, who I would suppose are famous in their own right, there was also Ashton Kutcher of That 70's show and Dude where's my car? fame. Yeah, and I was just watching tv, and they even showed Carleton on the news. Yeah... it lasted all of two seconds: "Later, Ashton Kutcher went to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota". Saw the side of the concert hall flash on screen and disappear. Hélas, that was our two seconds of fame.

Storm

Tyler, Chieko and Erica came over for dinner... and we cooked up a storm. Seriously. We made baked salmon with mushroom and soy sauce, pek cham kay, french beans with minced pork, foo yong tan, tomato and potato soup (ha trying saying THAT), leftovers from House of Wu... Sorry, Rashika, I did invite you. :)

Thank God for SUNdays

Worship at church today: awesome. Weather: perfect. Tennis: YEAH! Thank God for SUNdays.

What a week!

Up a lazy river

What an exciting week it's been. Besides having tons of exciting school work, I also had a lot of other great experiences. Last week, for example, was midterm break. Initially I had planned on doing the standard midterm-go-up-to-the-cities-and-splurge thing, but then I thought to myself: I'm in Minnesota.... I need to get out to the great outdoors. So together with Emily, Steph and Tyler, we went to Cannon Falls, about 1/2 hour from here, and went canoeing on the Cannon River.




So, amazingly, it turns out that only Steph had been canoeing before. Tyler had been out once... on a lake, with his grandparents. And turns out, that I hadn't gone canoeing before... at least not in this kind of canoe... apparently it was a kayak that I had been out on. So, this was definitely going to be an interesting ride. Add to that the fact that the temperature was a not too balmy 50-ish degrees fahrenheit... which is approximately 11 deg. celsius maybe?... and you can see why I did not want to tip the canoe and fall into the cold waters of Cannon River.

Anyway, it was with a fair bit of nervousness that we all climbed into two separate canoes (Emily had decided she'd rather be with Steph who had been canoeing before, rather than two Asian city boys who felt more at home in a car battling thousands of motorists than on a canoe in a big river... okay, so maybe Tyler doesn't drive, but that's besides the point).

So, the first thing the guy tells us (oh btw, the place we rented canoes from was this dilapidated laundromat-cum-canoe-rental shack, where the owner lived in a trailer behind the building... even more cause to be edgy). Anyway, he gave us some instructions that began like this: "So, once you push off the bank, and make it past the current that goes this way, you want to continue on the right, and look 50 yards ahead for any rapids..." And at this point, I'm going "Waitaminute! Hold on! Current?? Rapids?? What???" All this in my head of course. Nothing would belie my cool and collected exterior. And then I had to ask... how long exactly is the trip? To which he replied with the degree of nonchalance only a seasoned canoe..er could muster: "Oh.. just about 8 miles". Ack.

Anyway, turns out, it wasn't too bad... well, maybe it was. 100 metres into our trip Steph and Em got stuck on shallow rocks... so Tyler and I tried to divert that and went left... onto shallow-ER rocks. So we were wedged pretty good... and the fact that we both probably weighed more than Steph, Em, her nalgene bottle, and the canoe combined didn't help at all. It was a funny sight, I would have to say... we almost tipped, and that would have been miserable, because we had a two hour journey ahead of us. So after much frantic prayers mustered amidst gargantuan efforts punctuated by "Puuuuushhhhh"... we managed to dislodge ourselves. Yeah, we could have gotten out, gotten our feet wet, but where's the fun in that?

So anyway, we went on our way... and it was beautiful! Simply magnificent! There is something about being out in the open, out in nature, rowing down a river, never knowing what was awaiting us around the bend... at many points, the river split into two going around an island, and we had to choose which way to go. Tyler and I usually went left, just because it looked safer... and there was this one time when we went left, because it was SO TRANQUIL, but after rounding a bend... we came across some mini rapids... mini because it was in shallow water, rapids because... the water flowed... rapidly... and that was kind of exciting. But, just being there, seeing blue jays... and eagles... and we even came really close to a crane or a heron... I don't know, I'm not a bird guy... that just flew over our heads... it really lifted my spirits, and made me realize how BIG our God is. And how BEAUTIFUL He must be.

And then, I got hungry. :) So anyway, this was us, 2 and a half hours after our tumultuous beginning... safe and ashore. Yeah!

Cannon River, created by God the creative creator... isn't it beautiful?

So, our souls filled with wonder, we proceeded next to fill our stomachs with food. Good ol' American food. Country Kitchen. This is Steph with her "Country Boy Burger"... it's bigger than her face. Seriously. But we were all FAMISHED. So that was my midterm break.

Joshua meets Joshua

Another incredibly exciting thing that happened this week was that Joshua Bell came to perform at my college. Once a year, the St Paul Chamber Orchestra performs at Carleton. Last year, Sarah Chang was the guest artiste, and this year it was JOSHUA BELL! For the uninitiated, Joshua Bell is only one of the BEST violinists around, Grammy-award winner, played the violin in the Red Violin soundtrack, among many other things. He made his debut performance at age 14... and he owns a $4 million dollar Strad!! Joshua Bell.com for more info. Anyway, the concert was phenomenal, he played Vivaldi's four seasons, then a movement from Mozart's and then played with the orchestra... and the best part? I had FRONT ROW SEATS! Anyway, at the end of the concert, some of us hung around... to take in the ambience, in awe at the virtuosity that we had just witnessed... me? I wanted an autograph! hehhehheh. Yeah, I got it, AND I got a picture too. I'm so inspired to practice. Well, maybe not to practice. But I sure wish I could sound like the other Joshua. :)

Other exciting happenings

Another exciting thing that happened over the weekend last week... was Homecoming. Yeah, we had a home game, and our football team won their first home game in four years! 55-14. Go Knights!

And oh yeah, last night I also went to my first ballet by the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia!. That was the only reason I went though... because they're good. And it was good... only it was a contemporary interpretation of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet... so it felt a bit more like West Side Story than Swan Lake. But it was good. And today, we had "Singles' Night" at FISH... haha... and we had sundaes, malts and then we went to SUMO to watch Spiderman 2! Sigh, still love the movie. "I've always been standing at your door". Oh yes, and I also watched all of Season 6 and I'm almost through with Season 7 of FRIENDS. It's so addicitve but so funny! I know, I'm sad. :D

So, it's been a crazy week. Lots of homework, papers due, appointments, ,meetings... but God is faithful. And God is good. It's super that in the midst of the storms of your week, He is STILL the calmer of the storm. And He is still perfect peace.

And... I miss home. And... you guys need to EMAIL ME! :) Love you all. Here's a pic of Mustard Seed. Yes we all need psychological help. Who knows, I just might be a psych major after all. 

A milestone of sorts, or Australian Open here I come!

Today marks another milestone in my life. This time, however, it was not something that will echo through the corridors of eternity. Or maybe it will. Who knows? But, I won my first IM tennis match of this term! Yippee yi yay. Yes, it's not a big deal, and yes I beat a freshman girl, but the thing is not so much that I won, but the manner in which the victory was secured.

See, it was just one of those days where as hard as one might try, it would seem impossible to get ahead in the competition. I held a game, she held a game. I broke her serve, she breaks my serve. It was infuriatingly s..l...o....w. At 4-4, I was ready to quit. I was so hungry! I had been playing for a while... and it was getting cold and dark... and I had wanted to cook dinner.

But not one to throw in the towel without a fight, I kept at it... and tried to pick up the pace. But so did she. Darn!

Finally, we were even at 7 games a piece. This is uncharted territory for me. Me who lost both of my previous matches. So Tyler yelled out "You play a tie break". At that point, all the "I'm hungry" thoughts became "I'm hungry for this win". Ok, so I didn't actually think those words, but hey...

Anyway, so yes, I won the tie break. And no, I didn't cook after. Too tired. And too hungry. So yes, I went to LDC. Eek. :)

It was great!

House of Wu

Yes it is a corny name. And yes they had a corny sign. But oh my gosh, I hadn't realized how much I missed char siew, siew bak and roast duck until I sunk my teeth into the delectable food! We also had bean curd and kai lan. We being me, Tyler, Jon, Vince, Erica and her sister, Jaynie, who is a Carleton alum and a real cool person. Good times!

(Yeah, just so you guys know that I miss food at home!! ARGH!)

Thank God It's Friday!

At the risk of going on blogger overload, here are some pictures I took while on my bike ride today. It was GREAT. It's beautiful today! Thank God it's Friday!! In the picture below, you can see the wind turbine that belongs to Carleton - yeah we're the first college in the US to own its own wind turbine. Yay?

Finally, COWS, colleges and contentment...

I went for a walk in the arb too...

Isn't it gorgeous?

Flexing my photographer muscle...

:) 

The latest update on the busy life of Josh

Now for another installment of "The Busy Life of Big J Holla". Yeah, I have been incredibly busy lately - with school work (if you do pray for me, please remember me specifically in the area of academics - I just feel like I'm not doing as well as I can be. But also pray that God will give me greater grace to work out Matthew 6:33 and not stress out too much over homework!). Well, anyway, I thought I would give a quick update - and what I lack in words, I'm hoping the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" will suffice for now... so here it is. A quick update...

So last weekend was the Carleton Christian Community retreat. It began on Friday with a combined worship with St Olaf and the Northfield community. Owing to bad weather, "Worship in the Park" became "Worship in Olaf". But it was cool. Later, we all returned to FISH House to hang out and play games. It was a crazy time. I was wired, or so my housemates claim. They have decided that it is their God-given responsibility to keep me away from all things sugary or caffeine-y. This is a picture of (L-R): Jason, Steph, Jori, Ben -faroeb-, me and Mary at FISH house. I think this happened while we were playing a raucous rendition of Mafia.

The retreat was held at an awesome place called "Lonnie Land" (because the owner's name is Lonnie, duh) just 10 minutes away from Carleton. It's a huge place - and Lonnie, who is a GREAT guy, made the lake on his own! Yeah. Seems he does excavation or something as his work... and there I was having a mental picture of him digging up the ground with a shovel. Haha. Go Josh. So anyway, Lonnie Land is super! There was a mega trampoline...

... a super cool slide...

... a beautiful lake on which to go paddle boating (that's me with Amenah. She didn't know how to steer... and there was this fountain in the middle of the lake... so I was steering her into it... she started pedaling furiously in reverse - it was hilarious!) ...

... paddle boating again...

... fun games - there was a beach volleyball court, a basketball hoop, ping pong table... a cabin to hang out in... and here we are trying to untangle ourselves... I stepped out to take this photo...

... and of course, great fellowship! The theme of the retreat was "It's All About Grace" and this theme extended to the Mustard Seed Chapel Service ("Amazing Grace") on Sunday. It went really well, thanks to those who prayed for it. I even had the opportunity to share a song I wrote during the worship. Guess what it's called? Guess quick! Yeah, Amazing Grace. I will try and record it and post it some time. When I'm not as busy... that would probably be... Christmas time. Ha! :) Let's see what else has been happening...

I've been cooking a lot! :) Eating at home is so much nicer than eating in the dining hall. BUT, it's so much more time consuming. Especially since I have been so used to GOOD food (Thanks to my MOMMY and MAMA and yeah my DADDY... and even my BROTHER can cook! yup. He cooked for me before I left for the US the last time around! Except Karsimah lah. She doesn't cook that well. :D) So yeah this was a couple of days ago. I took this photo because I was excited to make my favorite soup... recognize that Mom? It was almost like my mom's except I forgot the carrots. Oh well. And that chicken... well, I take after my dad in that we like to just throw things together... I don't even know what to call it... oh wait I do.... DELICIOUS. Haha.

One of my housemates, Pam, also celebrated her 21st birthday yesterday! Now she can drink! haha. :) Her room mate Emily baked her zucchini bread (her favorite it seems) and we all gave her a surprise party. Except she came home while we were putting up decorations... so ... surprise.

So yeah, that's what's been going on recently. God's grace is the only thing that has been keeping me going. What with all my work, Mustard Seed, Sola, Exit, working on the website, preparation for NATS (a national singing competition type thing... please pray... I have to sing in English, Italian AND German... I hate German! Auch!), coughing (still coughing a bit... but much better), and seeking His kingdom... and trying to live a life that would count for something... man, it's TIRING. BUT, the verse for the day... or this season is... "His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses." Isn't that awesome?

Some things that I am looking forward to:

• Concert with Joshua Bell - he's coming to Carleton... if you don't know who he is... he's the guy who played the violin in "The Red Violin"... he's AWESOME. Just bought his latest CD.
• Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet by the BOLSHOI BALLET COMPANY!!! YAH!!!!!
• How God is going to show Himself real next... He IS the God of the miraculous! and of course...
• going home! :)

To the people at home, I miss you all heaps... and thanks for praying for me! :) Please send e-mails... and tag me! :) To the people at Carleton: what are you doing reading this? You should be talking to ME in person! :) Kidding. I love you all too!! To the people I don't know... yeah. :) Ok. Write me. Gotta go. French test tomorrow. Pray! BYE! Oh yeah... this pic is what I get to look at just outside my window :) 

Frigid Fall

It's such a dreary Friday. It is now 1:49pm, I am in the LDC trying to start on my French paper, listening to KTIS, and... it is 5.9 degrees celsius outside! Can you believe that? It's not even October yet. Oh wait, it is! It's supposed to be freezing tonight, and when I say freezing I don't mean it metaphorically. It's going to literally FREEZE tonight. We're like a couple of weeks into fall. Come on!

Oh well. Back to work. :)

Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides

Another day, another milestone, another testimony of God's unending faithfulness and grace. This whole week has been one big grace-filled week. Grace to live a victorious life. Grace to love as Christ loved us.

Today, God showed His grace and favor when Micah, Erica and I went to the Budget Committee to get funding for the Mustard Seed BBQ and Open Mic Night. It is a nerve-wracking process, and one might feel akin to Daniel being thrust into the lion's den. But like Daniel, we had the Lord on our side. And indeed, the Lord is the stronghold of our lives, of whom shall we be afraid? His grace is sufficient. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. And He showed Himself strong.

Not only did we get some money from the CSA, we got full funding for this Monday! Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

On a different note, please keep the Christian Community retreat ("It's all about grace") and the Chapel Service ("Amazing Grace") in prayer. It all happens this weekend, and we're believing God for a great revelation of His grace. For when we begin to understand His grace, we begin to understand what He is all about, and we begin to understand who we are in Christ.

God of the miraculous

Last night, my computer died.

It happened like this: I was waiting for Micah to come over to work on some songs for the chapel service, and had made myself a cup of steaming hot Milo to drink while waiting. I was also playing the guitar and semi-writing a song at the same time. So, Micah knocks on the door, I turn to say hi, and with one fell swoop, the whole mug of Milo tips over and covers my desk which has my LAPTOP on it!

I rush to remove my laptop from the sticky brown liquid and try to dry it off as best as I can. After cleaning up the mess, I survey my Muse (which is what I call my laptop, no kidding) for any potential damage. It looks fine. So I bring up Internet Explorer because we need to look up some artwork... and then it happens. First the cursor freezes. And then everything freezes. Nothing moves. At all.

I try re-starting my computer, but that doesn't work, too. So I do a hard re-boot and that works... but my computer freezes. Again. Windows won't load. So I try again. And again. And again. And this goes on for a while. Each time without any success.

Anyway Micah and I did what we had to do, and at midnight a whole bunch of people arrive at my room, because the fire alarm went off at Parish. Anyway, they leave after that, Erica stays back and she prays for me... because I am distraught. Everything in my computer - rendered inaccesible - my work, my pictures, my songs, stuff I just finished arranging, my chord charts, all the training notes for the worship team, my LIFE...!

And all the while I'm thinking "I need to call my parents" because what's going to happen? How much am I going to have to spend on repairs? Can it even be repaired? Am I going to have to buy a new computer?? What am I going to do???

Phone rings. And mom calls. Asks me if they should send me cough medicine... I have been sick for a while, but praise God I am much better today!... anyway, I tell her what happened, and she prays for me, my dad prays for me, gives me a verse.

And suddenly I'm reminded of how God has given us authority, and of the lyrics of some of the words in the songs we sang at Mustard Seed that night:

Only you can shake the mountains
Only you can calm the oceans
Only you can hold the heavens
In the palm of your hands...

Then it hits me. THIS is the God of wonders. The God who fashioned the world from nothingness. The God who SPOKE LIFE into man. Surely, a laptop would be nothing to Him!

And I am also reminded: with faith as big as a mustard seed, it says in His word that if we tell a mountain to move it will move.

So, I look at my computer. The screen is black. It's dead. I try turning it on, it boots for 3 seconds and dies. And I speak, in the name of Jesus, "Work!" with all the faith that I could muster.

Then Erica and I just hang out for a while more... worshipping some, listening to music, talking about stuff... and then I hit the power button.

And...

MY COMPUTER CAME BACK TO LIFE!

Isn't our God amazing? Isn't He wonderful? Isn't it great to know that the same God who put the stars in the heavens, who was and is and is to come... is so concerned about EVERY SINGLE MINUTE DETAIL of our lives... even a spilled mug of milo and a dead computer... and that the Great I AM seizes every opportunity to show Himself real to us?

I am truly blessed. I am truly grateful.

This is my milestone. My altar of thanksgiving I am building for the God of the miraculous!

Living in a house has its advantages I must admit, and one of them is being able to invite people over for dinner. Today I invited Rashika, Alex, and two freshmen - Wayne from Singapore and Dashini from... MALAYSIA - to dinner. I did most of the cooking... Rashika (from Sri Lanka) brought spices and helped peel and chop onions... I refuse to. I don't know how. Really. :) Our menu? Oh... the usual... rice with stir fried vegetables - string beans with oyster sauce and pork, taugeh with salted fish (we bought taugeh in a CAN... it was gross... but tasted fine albeit not very fresh), steamed pork, 10 herbs soup with chicken, and.... curry kapitan chicken! YUM. Not bad eh? First time cooking all this... oh yeah, and I bought a rice cooker with a steamer too... only $19.90! So yay. In the picture (L-R): Alex & Wayne (from Singapore), Dashini (Malaysia.. yeah!), Rashika and moi.

My curry chicken and look at the sorry looking taugeh in the background.... :) Looks more like noodles to me. Oh well... beggars can't be choosers... we had a great dinner. And made the freshmen do the dishes! haha. No seriously... they wanted to help. So I let them. :) I went to a piano recital! haha... Nicola Melville... the new piano prof... it was SUPERB! She played this piece called "Tentang Chara Gamelan"... which we all know if we speak Malay doesn't make that much sense... but it sounded like gamelans alright. So anyways, tomorrow going to try and make chicken rice.... we'll see how that goes. Good night for now. It's sad that my updates orbit around food. :D  

High on life

Have you ever wondered what Josh would sound like if he were a chipmunk? Well, wonder no more. By clicking on this link: Chipmunk Josh, all your questions will be answered, and you will also receive early yuletide greetings. Post your comments! :D

Home, love, family

Today, I had the honor and privilege of being invited to dinner at my pastor's house for dinner. Together with Tyler, we enjoyed a lovely meal and wonderful fellowship with Dan, Joanne, and their two daughters Breanna and Aimee. It was wonderful to be in a warm and welcoming Christian home, and to just be a part of a family here in Northfield, even though for just an evening. But praise God for awesome people like Dan and Joanne... I was truly and deeply blessed.  


After dinner, Joanne showed us around the house - and it's beautiful. The Clites moved in not too long ago, too. And in the basement, they had that hockey game you play... I forget what it's called, they had this basketball game, they had a ping pong table - it was fun! And then we all just chilled in the family room, and watched TV! Yeah, the simple pleasures of life that too often we take for granted...

Spending time with this family, I realized how much impact one thoughtful gesture, one hospitable act of warmth and love goes such a long way in making an impression on a person. Having someone over for dinner, or taking someone or a few people out to lunch, goes a long way in showing that you care and that you want to take time to get to know a person.

I pray that amidst the busyness of our every day lives we would take time to share the warmth and joy of His love to others.

Welcome to Milestones, welcome to my life.

Welcome to Milestones, one and all. Of late, if you've been coming to my site and have found yourself disappointed, dismayed and distraught time and time again at the lack of activity on my journal,... BE DISMAYED NO MORE. For it is almost Friday, and I can almost finally breathe again... yes, it's only been first week, and I have already been SWAMPED with work. But, more on that later. For now, welcome to Milestones, and welcome to the Official Tour of Josh's Habitat!

Located on the corner of 3rd and College streets, Douglas House is home to F.I.S.H. (Fellowship In the Son's Hope) House, Carleton's only Christian interest house, and incidentally, home to yours truly. Upon entry, we climb the stairs, about 10 in total (I forget, and I'm in the library now, so tant pis, you'll have to live in suspense), and the room on the left is Douglas 201: ma belle chambre.

This is my door sign, except it's on the wall next to my door because I have a Penang hanging thing on my door. Steph Dodge, my awesome House Manager and friend, made one for all the residents in F.I.S.H. All six girls and me. Yup, I am the only Martian in a Venusian (Venutian?) world.

So it's now time for the before and after. This picture was taken when I first stepped into my room on August 30th. Happy Birthday Pin Lee! :) BEFORE.

... and AFTER. I love my room!

BEFORE...

... and AFTER.

Now, wasn't that fun. We now proceed downstairs to my favorite part of the house... where is it? Quick... guess before the picture loads.... the KITCHEN. Our kitchen is small, but adequate. And another plus of living with a houseful of females is that our kitchen is so well stocked. We even had THREE blenders at one point. Now, I think we only have two.

To the one side of the kitchen is our lovely dining area. Windows on three sides, it's a beautiful place to do morning devotions while chomping down on home-made scrambled eggs and sausage patties. Yup, I've been actually doing devotions IN THE MORNING!

On the other side of the kitchen is the lounge. It's small, but we fit the whole of Mustard Seed in it last Monday for our first meeting of the year. No mean feat, I can tell you that! And as of now, there is an Xbox sitting there... and Topspin... an uber cool tennis game. No, doesn't belong to me... it's Alex's. But it's mine for now. Muahaha.

And finally. Finally, I think... is our basement, which we have converted into the Mustard Seed practice room! It's GREAT. We have a couch, a lawn chair, Jars of Clay posters, and instruments... :) I get to play the guitar and the keyboard any time I want to! Yay.

Well, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed the tour. It's been a long week for me... getting back into the swing of things, meetings, responsibilities... and immense work loads! For this one class (with lab) I had 2 chapters (50+ pages) to read, 4 e-reserve readings (each averaging 25 pages) and an activitity to complete. And this was only for that class. I had to do even more reading for the lab... all in a span of TWO DAYS! But I'll be okay... just got to get back into the flow of things. Also, please pray that my cough would go away. I don't feel sick or anything, it's just that the cough has been bugging me for so long... almost 3 weeks. And it's so ANNOYING! :) But thanks be to God... heheh... Can't wait for the weekend to come. Exit auditions, CHURCH, hang out time... and lots of homework, boo hoo. But thanks be to God! And because I have much faith, I will leave you with a picture of me walking on water.... be blessed you guys, love you much. PLEASE EMAIL ME! 

Backlog: an inaugural entry

12:42 AM - 28/08/04
I'm writing this right after coming back from City Harvest Church, Singapore. I had heard a lot about this church, and had even visited the City Harvest Church in KL when I visited the fireBRANDS at Nilai - from the glass bowl basins to the waterfall wall - so it goes without saying that I was pretty excited to go there.

Our journey began at 6:00pm. Francis and I had to take a bus from his hostel to another bus stop somewhere in NUS where we took another bus to the Clementi MRT station where we took the MRT to Boon Lay interchange where we took another bus to City Harvest Church. Wow. All in all, our journey took us slightly over an hour. We had a quick dinner (SGD 3.80 for rice with four dishes - not bad lah hor?) and made it to church half an hour before the service started. Fran had been to City Harvest before and the queue was pretty bad, so we didn't want to take any chances.

Once inside, the jakun Josh had to start taking photos. Mr Usher promptly appeared and reminded us not to take photos once the worship started. After Mr Usher left, another Mr Usher came and rather brusquely said "You can't take photos inside the auditorium". I was, naturally, annoyed.

Anyway, a little while later, Mr CG Leader who looks uncannily like a younger version of my uncle Kher Hwa, comes up to us and asks if this was our first time here. (This, by the way, all happened before the service started - they have a 15 minute prayer meeting before service began at 8pm) So I move into "have-to-tell-them-that-I-don't-appreciate-being-treated-like-that" mode and told them I didn't appreciate being treated like that. Not so rudely-lah, but something like that. I said "We weren't even welcomed to church", and Mr CG Leader immediately said "Welcome, welcome!" with every ounce of earnesty he had in him. That put a smile on my face.

But the silver lining in that cloud came when Mr CG Leader actually told all his CG members there, and all of them came to welcome us and make us feel at home. There was a lot of warmth and acceptance in that group. After service, they invited us to go and makan with them too. So we had a good time of fellowship... such a good time, in fact, that when we took the bus to the MRT station (yes, all of them rode the bus to church), we found out that we had missed the last train! Goodness! The only way we could get back was probably by cab... and that would have cost quite a bit since it was almost midnight by then. This girl in the CG who has one of the most optimistic attitudes I've ever seen was like, "All things work together for good - don't worry one!". True enough, wonders of wonders, we found out that there was a bus that stops just outside Francis' dorm. And it was the LAST bus too! Praise the Lord.

So enough about your escapades, what about church?
Church rocked. Worship was powerful and anointed - and I was reminded of how we used to have this kind of powerful "Hands Lifted High"-esque (Yeah, I'm getting back into the -esque mentality - preparation for Carleton) worship on Sundays in church. It was great. And this church really emphasizes excellence for God - they acknowledged the people who make it in the news too. I know some people will say "Oh... this is prideful", but I really believe it was not a matter of pride but of spurring one another to do greater things for God, to give others a sense of "Hey we can do that too". And that's something I learned from being there.

Of course, the church building is beautiful, although admittedly, I think it looks better in the website than in real life. The surroundings probably have something to do with it. It's not exactly in a very pretty neighborhood. But where else will you find an outdoor pond, a no-idea-how-many-storeys-high revolving titanium cross, and Gloria Jeans in church?

What did I learn?
I think I learned more today from just being there than from the message (which I will admit wasn't very revelational, more... motivational).

1. Friendliness. I think the larger our church gets, the more we will need to make sure that first timers don't feel "engulfed" by the whole church experience. And definitely, ALWAYS be warm to others in church. After all, we're there to demonstrate God's love right? So don't gruffly tell people: Don't take photographs. Hehe. :)

2. Touching base. One interesting thing they did was at the end of the service, the CG leader would gather his people (they usually sit together or near one another - hey hey is this cliquing? Maybe not such a bad thing after all?) and touch base with them, talking a bit about the sermon and asking them to talk to him or get in touch with him at some point during the week. How will this affect our church FGAC? I think, that as we begin to implement the G-12 module and our church begins to see growth in numbers (Our vision is to have 10,000 people by 2010!) we could learn from this. After all, worshipping with 9,999 other people, it won't be like Sundays in North Zone where we can 'kheng-kai' with the whole church after service. So, touching base will be important - otherwise church will have become impersonal.

3. Excellence. The church needs to be excellent in EVERYTHING she does. Mayo was sharing about what Wong Kim Kong had preached in Central last Sunday. And I was tremendously encouraged and challenged by what she said. If the church doesn't rise up now, it will weaken! How shocking is that? We usually don't think about the church in terms of weakening, but if you think about it, the Chinese population has dwindled by 9% over the last 10 years! (GO HAVE MORE BABIES! Haha) and we say "Wow... so many people unsaved" then we have one prayer meeting and go home feeling happy. We need to put some feet on our faith lah people! I'm getting side-tracked. But anyway, coming back to what I was saying, one way for the church to make its mark in society today is through EXCELLENCE. If you are a student, BE THE BEST STUDENT - why shouldn't the top STPM scorer be a God-fearing passionate Christian? (Yay, FRAN!). If you are a teacher, BE THE BEST TEACHER in your field. We need to NOT be lazy, NOT be apathetic, NOT be middle of the road! This is one thing that I found they do in City Harvest. They honor excellence. They publicly acknowledged members in church who excelled in their respective fields: there was this guy who was some big Japanese chef...yumyum! :)

4. The prayer of a righteous man avails much. How true! Their prayer meeting, although only 15 minutes long, really set the spiritual atmosphere for the night. Imagine like hundreds of people coming EARLY TO CHURCH, praying in the Spirit for the service... when worship starts, people won't be like "oooh.. I don't feeel the spirit moving today".

5. Finally, commitment. This girl I met lives on the other side of Singapore. It takes her TWO HOURS IN TOTAL to get to church by bus and MRT! And she does this weekly! I can think of other people in FGA, people like Saw Ai who travels from the other side of the island, changing buses and all that, EVERYWEEK for rehearsals, for church, etc. Francis hit the nail on the head when we were talking on the bus ride home when he said, "It really is a sad thing when the church has to revolve around people's lives." How true. Aiya, don't want to go for service - no parking. Aiya, must wake up so early. Aiya, the songs so old. Aiya, the music so bad. PEOPLE! The Kingdom of God needs COMMITTED CHRISTIANS not CRITICAL CHRISTIANS! I have been guilty of this. Blame it on my perfectionistic streak or whatnot, but God has and is dealing with me here. Now when I go to church, it's not what I can get from service, but how can I contribute to it?

How? You don't have to be on stage serving. Even coming on time is contributing to the service. It's showing to others that you are not the center of the universe, that you are honoring God with your time. Praying for the service is another way to contribute. Greeting newcomers, linking up with them, TAKING THEM OUT FOR A MEAL with your friends - like the people did with Francis and I - that's a SUPER WAY of establishing bridges. So many things, so many ways, if we would only take the time to do it.

Wow. That was a long entry. Time for a shower!

And yes, welcome to Milestones. This is the inaugural post. I will post a more "official" entry soon! Nighty night. Keep me in prayers as I begin my long and butt-numbing journey back to the US.

Also, my church in the US has a website up and they even have audio clips! In case you're interested, Rejoice! Church. Peace!