gonna be away for the next couple of days, overseas. wah i realised its been more than a year since i went on vacation with my family. as in it is one year since we did something together. oh well i hope to send more time with family and grandmother as well. and the best part is, there is no itinerary! so its like free and easy. oh yeah. and my phone wont be in service too, didnt put my phone up for roaming, told my mom save money lah haha. i guess like what qianjin said its a good time to take a break from ministry as well, and go on holiday with God! haha oh well till then.

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine

i guess its really time to do some serious reflection and reality check. it suddenly dawn upon me the urgency for the guys jc group to seriously grow. we were like some big piece of mass with so much inertia, and how very hard it was to get the group going. and then it seems like we are like slowly slowing down in our fervour for God and stuff. yes talking bout head knowledge, i believe that we have grown. but if u look at things from a spiritual light, it do seem that the group has become rather stagnant; for far too long. things are getting so challenging and urgent, with the restructuring taking place this sat, and the J2s whom probably gonna transfer over to the NS group in a month or so, i realise how pathetic the strength of the group would be. 4 i guess, a real pathetic 4.

and then i saw how important it was to really have the joy in serving. i guessed i reached a point where commitment is no longer an issue, as in im ready to give any amount of time to serving God as it is, and priority is also no longer much of an issue in my life. yes God's kingdom first definitely. they say growth is a norm in God's kingdom, and if we should stop growing it would indirectly indicate that we are backsliding from God. how very true it is. God, i wanna grow in my spiritual stamina, i wanna grow in my spiritual awareness. i want to have that joy in serving once again. i dont wanna just serve as a norm in that sense that it becomes so routine. dont wanna just have my head there but my heart there as well.

and then i remembered the time a couple of months back when i shared with Gideon how i dont have as much desire to serve God as i had before. and how i learnt about desire being something as simple as a decision. a decision to wanna love people more. a decision to want to place God above everything else. a decision to be a man after God's own heart like King David. and of course, a decision to desire.

hearing the song 'the stand' by Hillsong(sorry for being so random!) suddenly brings back that feeling of how easy and joyous it was to go all out for God. how joyful it was in my spirits to share the Gospel. in fact, i seemed to love doing it! i wanna thank God for subsequently putting all those challenges in my life. oh how it was so very difficult to choose God's Kingdom over something which i dearly love. but im proud of my decision, and i hope you are proud of yours too. i guess tough times really shape a person. God please put more challenges in my life!! i need to grow seriously. i wanna be able to teach and invest in people not just in fair weather but in rain or snow.

i felt that today's shepherding with gideon and matt was really useful. haha gideon and his counseling techniques. he made us ask him questions about how we felt of the other party. as in matt and me. like i ask gi how he felt about matt and matt ask gi how he felt about me and stuff. then we asked about what areas we could grow in and what concerns he has for our lives. i guess it really made things easier to share in a good way. and i learnt lots from that. i wanna be able to stretch and grow my spiritual life at the pace i am committing and serving outwardly. i wanna know, as in really know and recognise, why i serve and commit and not just serve and commit. yes the joy in serving!! haha okay i feel so motivated and convicted as i type.

and lastly, i wanna lead my life as an encouragement to people, especially other Christians out there. i hope i can impact them in a way or another, perhaps show them the joy in serving. and i really hope that the MCG bbq event tml would turn out well. i hope many responsive prebelievers would turn up. and i hope it doesnt rain!! haha pls dont let it rain. oh well. farewell CG for the YJCians later. Amen growth would soon follow.

and then when i opened the fridge door, a lizard ran into my fridge!! then it ran all the way to the back, hidden deep deep somewhere inside my fridge. ah nonsense! if i close the door it probably poo all over my food or something. so i had to like remove everything from my fridge, then i realised it could have ran into the freezer compartment or the vegetables compartment from inside the fridge, but chances are it would be smart enough not to go into the freezer compartment. haha. so yeah after removing everything i still couldnt find it lah.

and then...

see!!! it reappeared. yucks lah its so sticky. but okay lah i saved the day by somehow removing it with some sorta stick.

Do they have radios in heaven?
I hope they do
'Cause they're playing my song on the radio
And I'm singing it to you

If they don't have radios in heaven
here's what I'll do
I can bring my guitar when my time is up
And I'll play it for you

okay just to update. things happened lately. AND i particularly wanna mention one incident i felt really disturbing.

okay i think on sat on the way home with jonathan, we were on the train to bishan. and then there was this young malay couple beside me, with their child, age 4-5 i suppose. the child was real badly behaved lah. making a LOT of noise and stuff. but oh well kids i suppose. the mom was talking to her husband. then the child did something quite immature and silly. he spat on his mother's jeans. okay lah the child IS very badly behaved. and then i was expecting the mom to like educate her son or something. and then she did something totally unexpected that caught me by surprise. she just paused the conversation, leaned over to her son, and spat down back at him!!! i couldn't believe my eyes lah. i was really really disgusted and shocked. how is the child gonna learn like that!! ah sheesh lah. haha okay its a few days ago now so the impact kinda died off. oh well. sheesh.

and then lots of other things happen. like how our OP went real well for our group and like we rehearsed from 1pm to 12.30am the day before, with me only being able to have my first meal at 8pm. prayed with the group before our OP began for God's will to be done in the grp, and realised how it really did wonders to calm our nerves. the grp question went real well. i had a surprising easy question which nearly caught me by surprise and i just crapped my way through. emmeline had the EXACT same question miss ho gave her during our dry run so she was well prepared. shirnee had a rather tough question but by God's grace she crapped a logical and very correct answer. shiayee had a simple question with a well developed answer. and Hooper had a real tough question, BUT thank God he knew the answer as he was the only one in the group who read the sec 4 SS textbook to do the research. God's real amazing man, thankfully he was incharged of that part of the OP, so he had to research on that, which led him to know the answer.

oh well. God works wonders!