Sunday service

Today's youth service was awesome. It's not just today, I love going to church. Before I say further, let me first admit what I don't like about Sundays.
1. It's typically a long day from 11.30 am to 5.30pm. For those who only go for 2-hr services, yes, you heard me correctly. We have activities that span the late morning and the entire afternoon.
2. I can't help but sleep during sermons sometime. Sometimes the sermons have no real focus or impact.

That said, I love being in God's house. I love being with His people.

Today was especially good because Bethel's worship pastor led worship today, it felt several notches better than usual. This is what happens when you put a very talented and anointed man in the right job. That's not to say that the usual youth worship leaders aren't good, they are. But Pastor Aaron brings with him an anointing and gifting that is so specialised in the area of leading worship, I can only say that God is truly with this man!

But strangely I only felt that way today, on other days when I go for adults services, and Aaron is leading, it's not so strong. This is my hypothesis, which I told Jan. The adult crowd is a lot bigger, but not enough to make a full auditorium. So, we have a huge auditorium with people sparsely disperse all around. THIS is a setting for tough crowd. Plus, the older adults are less flexible with the song choices. In youth, we sing songs that are contemporary to us, that makes sense when we kinda sing-shout the praises of God. Plus we youth all gather to the front of the auditorium to worship, so that makes us a squeezy bunch of worshippers. And you can awesomely feel the heat of praising God spreading.

This is not about comparing different styles of worship, even though that's exactly what I have done. It's about coming to worship God with no reservations. Let me repeat that, no reservations. And I think I only started to really learn that today.

As for sermon, Pastor Daniel shared something powerful. My zone really liked his style of preaching because it was short, sharp and sweet. It made sense, we felt the conviction and it was clear. It was on discipleship. I haven't hear a good sermon on prayer for a long time. The last memorable sermon on prayer was by Pastor Rachel, when I was like sec 2. I need someone to inspire me to pray!

Anyway, I'm really stressed now. I'm thinking of all my projects and going, OH MY OH MY OH MY OH MY etc.

Book list by Anna Han

Christian Books:

Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris - Whether you're Christian or not, the book offers a refreshing take on courtship. Visit concepts that might blow your mind. For Christians, it's a must read whether you're single or not.

Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels - Very inspiring book. This book specifically addresses leadership in church and for church. Applies to pastors, cell leaders and leaders in between. I know this book is given to all leaders in Bethel Assembly of God, but I suspect not everyone is making use of this wonderful book. So read! Those not in leadership should take the initiative and borrow from your leaders. (But I haven't read mine finish yet!)

Heavenly Man by Brother Yun - Nope, it's not written by a Catholic. Written by a Chinese National, he describes his powerful (and painful) experiences as an underground Christian in China. Very very breathtaking. You'll be left stunned at how much God can move in your life, if you allow Him to. By the way, the book is banned in China, for obvious reasons.

Radical Womenhood by Carolyn McCulley - Really by chance that I bought this book because I usually read recommended books. A must-read for all Christian women. McCulley brings us through the history of feminism and how it has impacted our culture. Are women really liberated when they are able to strip in front of cameras? Is the sacrifice of staying home to care for your young children a waste? If you knew your unborn was going to have Down Syndrome, would you go for abortion? "Because being a biblical woman in a modern world is a radical act" Husbands and boyfriends should read it too, just to understand women a little better and help their partners uphold these standards.

Secular Books:

Start Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer - A book of insight into Israel's economy. Very interesting.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - I'm generally a fan of this talented man. His books are easy to read and they make a lot of sense.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman - I read the 'Expressing your commitment to your mate' version. Josh says it's the best investment he's made (on me) so far.

Now I'm reading...

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman

Packaging Girlhood by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown

Why build this book list? Well, I was just wondering what I've been reading. Ta Da, there you go. And I realise I hardly read fiction. Ok, off the top of my head, I remember reading Time Traveler's Wife over Christmas. Yeah, that's about it. I know the opposite is true my very literature-biased friends Rebekah and Janice. Yup, encourage you guys to start reading today!

Bye Abi!

Bye Abi!

A best friend of mine has left for Korea for exchange. She will be away for four months... Just wanna say: Abi, so gonna miss you. 4 months aren't very long, enjoy it while you can. :)

It was a huge send off at Changi Airport T3. Choir friends sang her Irish Blessing. It was definitely one of the more memorable send offs I know. But as Pris says, sending people off for exchange now is so common that sending off itself isn't very special anymore. Also, "4 months very fast pass wan la", and I must agree.

The other memorable send off was Meryl's to Toronto, Canada. A few of us even handmade a Goodbye Banner for her you know! It was kinda funny marching her to the departure with the banner saying goodbye. And it was like a 6am flight, so we were there at 4am. It was a pretty huge turnout, given the wicked timing. And might I add that Meryl is so popular that when she came back, she had another Welcome Back banner at the airport.

CNY

Cousins in my room
My beloved niece, Le Tian. I LOOOOOVE HER.
Jethro with my brother. Hmmm, they look alike!

CNY 2010

Hey, happy new year to all my Chinese friends!

First up, the big news: Josh and I got attached last week. Yaaaaaay.

Now, I'm gonna talk about my CNY (long) weekend. After reunion dinner, Josh and I went to Esplanade Bay to watch fireworks. (We didn't have reunion dinner together!) On Chu Yi, we had church service, went to Grandfather's and Big aunt's place. Then I visited Josh's grandma's place. His grandma so cute, when giving me the ang pao, she pointed to me and said to Josh, "Your ger-fend?'

Chu Er was really fuuuun. Watched Little Big Soldier with bros and cousins. In the evening, it was family gathering at my house. Whoa, my house is getting too small as the Hainanese family increase in size. (2 cousins are married with family, and they bring their children along!) The little kids kept bouncing on my bed. I should claim maintenance fee from the parents. ;p Food was awesome. Gosh, I should really learn to cook. Some cousins know about my boyfriend and asked why I didn't ask him over. Next time lah.

Chu San, I went to Jeremy's place and had a really good lunch. It was claypot rice, nian gao wtih sweet potato and yam, braised pork in bun, macaroni dessert. They had really good snacks too, like kueh bangkit, a sweet treat from Bakerzin. WOW. When I went to Josh's place, for the first time at 1.15pm, I expected everyone to have eaten but apparently not. So I had a mini second lunch. I met Josh's relatives and cousins. It could have been overwhelming but I felt comfortable. :)

For Valentine's, Josh got me a beautiful keychain and a book titled, "The Five Love Languages". As of now, I'm happy as a clam. I wanna thank God for the wonderful weekend.

Fantabulous weekend

Hmm, let's start with Friday! I met most of the cell people to eat at Vintage Delicafe, located near Arab Street. I chose grilled fish and it was goooooooood. Don't order their mix platter or drumlets. It's way too fried! We were there to celebrate Gab's birthday. It was fun.

The highlight's saturday, of course. Why? It was Abi's surprise birthday party! Firstly, we started planning in early Jan, together with a couple of friends from SMU and church. (Me, Meryl, Jeremy, Jonavan, Joshua and Amanda) We even had very nice post cards as invitations! Since the party was at her house, we had to plan how to get her out and bring her back without seeming suspicious. So after an L4D2 session with Jon, Joel and Abi, we persuaded her to let us come her house to play Wii. Oh My Gosh, she was so unconvinced. As if it would kill her to let us play wii. [She was very suspicious also because Evan told her the day before that she'll be meeting her the next day!!]

In any case, we managed to bring her home and SURPRISE!! And yes, according to what Jan said, she had this 'oh my gosh x3' face. And when she opened the door to the living room, there the choir friends from SMU who came sang her a 4-part birthday song harmony. SHIOK leh!

Was it a lot of hard work to plan? Well, not exactly. But it was mentally tiring to keep a secret and wondering how successful it would be. And thank God the person we're surprising is ABI, who is blur enough to miss all the small details.

Continuing with the fab weekend, we went to Abi's house (again) on Sunday to play Wii. It was fun fun fun fun fun.

But like all SMU students, I felt this tremendous amount of guilt on Sunday night for not doing work at all. Even if there weren't work to do, I felt uncomfortable not doing work stuff. At the same time while I experienced this emotional upheaval, God brought to mind what Ps Chia said in the morning, we can bring our requests to God, knowing that He WILL listen to our prayers. So for the first time in a long while, I kinda really took my time to pray and think about what's important in my life. I also remembered that I had just pledged a huge amount of money for the church's building fund, and what it meant when I did that. I thought of all the adjustments I had to make, financially, in my life. No more movies once a week, no more better-than-kopitiam food, no more just-buy-lah attitude. And definitely no cheating by mis-using my supplementary credit card.

Pastor Naomi Dowdy words really spoke to me when she said over the pulpit, 'No release, no increase (from God)'.

Ok that's it for now, need to do work and won't be blogging for a week unless some earth-shattering thing happen in my life. :)

Hitler Responds to iPad. WAHAHA.

La Muerte Del Angel

This is the hardest song I've sung in a choir. How does this choir do it??? They sing in one voice and when the high sops hit the high notes, it's so round. Have been trying, at the house piano, to smoothly hit those high notes with very little success. Gosh, I sound strained. Even though I've sung the crazy sop solo line in Chua Ay before, it's harder in Muerte.

I'm envious of them!