Listen to how the snowflakes fall.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Yes yes I am alive! Just too caught up with the holidays that I have forgotten blogging. Recently, there has been one issue on my mind. Bugging me and I so want to get rid of it. What do you do when a certain group of people have marbles for brains when they meet a certain element? And guess what? They lost their marbles. Too many have fallen faced with this element and not recognising the initial warning signs. I have watched many replays, some faster, some with different situations but all coming and asking "How?" That's a very good question. But you know what, I hope to encounter less of the question now. Its tiring. I really hope that I will be able to continue to trust that they have pure intentions, however difficult it is to convince me. God, you really have to step into the picture this time.

Are platonic relationships possible? Personally, I think that they are NOT! So how does one continue to tread this path of ours without venturing across the line and being able to make sound minded decisions? Decisions which do not end up destroying ourselves or a friendship with the other party? I don't have the exact answer, but I hope to find out slowly in the future with more interactions. I pray that I might be able to divert my attention to other more important matters. Cease the boiling of blood. Relationships are a tricky affair. I pray that they might gain back their marbles soon and be able to back up their good heart with pure intentions. Well, I guess relationships at our age is an issue that most would encounter, being normal human beings.

Moving on, last night i had an immense craving for unagi, salmon sashimi, fried tofu, sushi, salmon. Lo and behold, I managed to satisfy this craving today at Sakae!!! Went with Huiying, Cai and Lirong. As usual, Cai was being her old self and really saying and doing funny things. Weird character man. Lirong is her hapless roomie who is sleep deprived due to Cai's need to HTHT at ungodly hours. Huiying is the calm one who watches all our antics. It was truly an enjoyable time, being able to laugh. Tis a good feeling. Being able to tease knowing that the individual doesn't mind. Tis a good feeling. Being able to be carefree walking down from Orchard to City hall with the breeze on your face knowing that you don't have school tomorrow. Tis a good feeling. I pray that I would be able to enjoy these simple luxuries of life even when school reopens. Arghhh next sem, I only have one free day, MON! Ok that's all folks! I shall be doing snippets of events that had gone on during the period of my absence on this blog of mine.

Sweet Memories.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Last but not least, the final installment for this post! After only 4 hours of sleep due to supper, I hauled my deadbeat body out of bed and made my way down at 830 to somerset for HOPEKIDS LIVE!!! Haha its really great working in this ministry and getting to interact with so many children!

Today was special cuz I got to know a certain someone better this service! She is one other than!!!!! ELYSE!!!!!

Xiangyu came along to visit today and attempted swallowing a wooden stick lol! Crazy woman!

After service, Me and Freedy were assigned with the task of looking after Elyse and her brother Jonathan!

She doesn't like to eat yoghurt so guess who finished it up? LOL

Looking cute with presents and the bears behind!

The video games are actually quite fun! Its been ages since I went to a toy store and played around lol!

Intently playing

Its been great knowing her better lol! She loves all thing pink! Cuteness! Shall look forward to my next serving in HopeKIDS!

Tomorrow is gonna be a crazy day, so I prepared the Christmas cards for my favorite girls first! Will be meeting them for Christmas Dinner tomorrow night! :)

God Bless You, God is moving this Christmas! :)))

Sweet Memories.

Saturday was truly exciting, we celebrated the birthdays of 3 very dear people on that day! First up, we celebrated the birthdays of Yanyu and Zach! Yanyu officially turns 19 today, a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU MY DEAR SISTER! The celebration consisted of people from the old transition CG and our special guest, Ben Tay's brother who looks nothing like him lol! Pictures will be up soon! They are with MDS tsk tsk!

Next important event, our last service at Nexus! our CG had a theme today and it was STRIPES!!!! I was feeling real excited and sad about it being our last service at Nexus. Happy that we would have our own tertiary service and thus have more flexibility in adjusting the service to suit our needs. Hope we find a great venue sooon! It sad to see the last of nexus, we won't have to chance to brush shoulders with or bump into people from other services anymore. It is sorta like a child moving out to live by ourselves for the first time. Nexus has been our home, the place where we belong. Wells, no more Hope Resource any longer or Isle Cafe. But I believe that God has things greater in store for us! :)

Carrie's Kitty Paw!

Group Pic outside Nexus

Shem

Wee Keong (Looking insane as usual)

We love Nexus!

Someone is acting cute pls spot

Liyi

Okay Folks! Its time for ZZ's birthday!!!!! Our dear CL who is pushing the 30 mark soon LOL!

Celebrating at Meridien b4 service

The birthday board!

Nettie is trying to Muay Thai Punch someone

Close up of our Birthday Board to him!

Replicating the pose again

Maureen! :)

Extras behind

This time with flash

The shot we laboured for

Group shot again! STRIPES

The birthday boy!

The girls of the group

Thank you ZZ for devoting yourself to growing the CG! Thanks for being there and persevering on! Lets grow this CG strong! :) Happy Birthday again! :) I love you NEXUS!

Sweet Memories.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Okay this will be a special day haha I am going to do 3 installments. The first installment for this post is the prawning session that took place on Friday! It was my first attempt prawning, but not too bad, I caught FIVE! Yay! Haha! XD I think catching the prawns was more satisfying than eating them cause it took so long to cook the irritating prawns! Here are some snapshots of us fighting out, Me, Joseph and Victor. Victor kept getting his bait eaten by the prawns poor guy. I emerged victorious out of the trio, with a total of 5, they caught 2 each lol!

I think Joseph is trying to tell me that there are prawns in the pond lol!

My first prawn!!!!

My 4th one I think! Haha looking retarded guys!

Finally he got one with pincers!

Yesh yesh pincers!

Zhangyushao shares the joy in our takings for the day!

Where we do the cooking

Posing with the number 3!

Yay Liyi! The girl who loves to torment me during missions but is now a dear sister-in-christ! :)

O my goodness look at the size of those pincers!!! Sherli is trying to sneak a kiss on him i think.

Haha the most spontaneous kid who took a pic with me! XD WORLD PEACE!

More kids!

With Uncle Victor

It was truly great getting to spend time with my CG members and talking with the friends they invited! Prawning is really a new exp! Haha lol I seem to spot kids where ever I go and can't resist taking pictures with them! Love kids! :) Do try prawning! It is a refreshing experience truly! :)

Went supper with Jon Foo, Ben tay, Nettie, MDS, Yanyu and Guo Feng after tt. Went Chinatown to have frog porridge and fried mini crabs! Had a good time talking and doing a video on ZYS LOL! Catch her on facebook! The pics will be up soon, MDS hasn't sent them to me yet. End of first installment.

Special Segment on Zhangyushao

How do we know that people love her?

People cam whore with her!

She makes new friends LOL!

End of special segment lol! the funny things you type at 3am!

Sweet Memories.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Today shall be a light post! Haha I am still recuperating from the Manila missions trip! When i was waiting for Hong tao yesterday, I saw Guan Zhen and Ming Xi at the Orchard station, so I headed over to them. Suddenly, one of the mrt staff approached me and tapped me. I thought for a moment there that I had broken one of the rules in the MRT and was going to get reprimanded or something! To my surprise! It turned out to be someone I knew, my junior from NYJC! Haha holiday job eh! Looking cute with the santa hat! Sorry if I guffawed too much with laughter! You had me in shock there!

Zhen Zhi the Customer Service Assistant!

The prayer meeting yesterday was great! I felt that Wen Jiang's teaching really made a lot of sense, save for the constant lame moments... I think if he cut down on those, the teaching would have been a whole lot more powerful. Well anyway, good job Joshua! Having a 'semblance of spirituality' Hmm, something definitely for us to chew upon. Are we really carrying out what we do in our lives as a Christian out of duty, out of obligation, or do we truly comprehend the real motive behind our actions? It is very dangerous and sad if we realize at the end of the day that what we have is merely a 'semblance of spirituality'. I hope that we would be able to find a location for our service that is conducive, convenient and cheap! LOL! Yes the 3Cs! God we need your help now!!!!

Went to pick up my mother from surgery this afternoon at 3pm. It was at some place in the medical centre nested in an area of paragon. My mom was still drowsy from the effects of Anaesthesia, so she bid me to go shopping or walk around. Walk around I did for 2 hours. Nothing is nice, but girls do check out Mango, it has reductions up to 50%. Still searching for my LBD for Christmas. The only purchase I made today was apple juice (good for your complexion) and a huge scoop of Dark Choc ice-cream from Venezia! I applaud the recipe! I really felt super happy licking away at the huge scoop! Alas, it was finished very soon... A big thank you to all who were concerned about me and my mother's operation! :)))) I really appreciate it :) Smooches to all! XD

Lastly, I wanna say a big happy birthday to my MOM! Shall not disclose her age, but I will be celebrating her birthday as a surprise for her tomorrow at her flat. Here's the card I made for her!!! Sorry guys haha Manila part 2 will be up soon. Hope to catch loads of prawns tomorrow!

You have no idea how much time it took to stick those stuff on

The back!

Kat is happily munching on Dark Chocolate Toberlone at 1am :))))

Sweet Memories.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Haha this will be part one of the Manila Trip. I will be uploading one part a day haha a total of 8 parts and perhaps a special post after the installments. LoL! Hope to give you guys reading my blog a taste of what it was like, the 8 days of missions in Manila.

It was really when when i got onto the plane and found my seat that I thought yeah I am really going to Manila for missions lol! This is not a dream! The Filipino lady beside me began talking to me in Tagalog. I didn't realize it was Tagalog till 2 attempts of trying to understand what she was trying to say lol! Do I look like a Filipino? LOL XD We arrived at the Manila Airport and met with our first problem, we couldn't find the people from Hope Manila who were supposed to pick us up lol! Thanks to Bentay, we found them. Yayness and we met Hani and Jasmine for the first time, 2 dear sisters from Hope Manila.

It was real fascinating, as we sat in the cab headed for the church, we discovered that Manila had many other forms of transportation different from Singapore. They have a total of five forms of public transport. The Jeepney, the cab, the LRT, the bus and the tricycle. The Jeepney was something very fascinating to me, as the Jeepney owners were allowed to decorate the Jeepney as they pleased. For car racing fanatics, you could catch glimpses of F1 printed across the Jeepney, or if the guy is a anime fanatic, you could even see dragonball characters! They have style man haha something you probably wouldn't be able to see in Singapore. The traffic there is really horrendous. Its amazing that amidst the complexity and mess, things still function. I have never witnessed a single car accident or people getting knocked down when I was there. I really applaud the drivers, I think that perhaps Manila has the best drivers!

One of the more toned down Jeepneys

The bus

The Tricycle

Zhangyushao has been to Philippines!

Zac loves her!

Guan loves her too!

Sitting in the taxi, I took the time to observe everything that was around me. Drinking in the views of this new land that was going to be my home for the moment. One thing that struck me other than the heavy traffic was the poverty that i witnessed there. Stark poverty. You may have read about it, heard about it, squatter settlements, slums, but seeing it personally spells a whole different story all together. How bad can it get you could have thought, when reading about them, but when you see them, that's how bad it can get and it can get worse. imagine living in a house made out of cardboard by the roadside. Imagine bringing up your kids and family in them. No privacy, save electricity and a source of fresh drinking water. It really makes me wonder, how are the poeple going to continue to live like this? Can they survive? What about their children? I felt my compassion grow, but feeling is one thing and doing something about it is another. I seriously do not have any idea how I as an individual can do something to help the thousands and thousands of people out of poverty. This would be something on my mind, as I grow up. How can I give back to the society, I really thank God that i was born in Singapore and do not have to live from hand to mouth.

We then arrived at our first stop, the Joyce Apartelle. We were quite excited, cuz it really looked like a nice place to live in. We sat at the floor level of the apartment waiting for Jasmine to check if there were apartments that we could rent. Alas, haha it was not to be, there were no apartments available, so we had to go to the church first then decide later our tentative venues to spend the night in. On to the church we trudged. One thing about walking on the streets in Manila. You have to be careful about your bags, especially if you are a foreigner! haha I look like a Filipino so i think i am safe lol! Next, you need the use of your ears. When you are walking and looking in front of you, you need your ears to detect the sounds of on coming traffic! the roads are very narrow so much caution is needed! It is too early to lose any member now haha!

Waiting for our apartment

When we finally arrived at Hope Manila, I heaved a sigh of relief. At last, we have reached the church! Haha! I didn't really arrive with any expectations of how the church would be like so I was quite excited with what I saw. It is a fairly huge compound. We were met by the sight of teenagers playing basketball in the basketball court cum carpark the church had. The building was a lovely sky blue. Really looked like a place of solace lol! We walked into the church and really, the church is not rundown at all. The walls were whitewashed, the floor tiled with some lovely white tiles and the stage was just like the one we have at nexus. At one end of the church, there were 4 rooms which meetings or classes were held, much like our own america room and africa room. All of them had aircons in them, including the hall too. So the church is really quite well furnished and equipped! Praise the Lord!

At the church

A toast for making it ths far!

After we settled down our stuff. we set off for our very first CG visitation. Dulce's CG! It was to take place at the Pastor's house! We took a train and 2 Jeepneys! The train concept is very similar to the one we have in Singapore, even the signs. However, we have to have our bags checked before we enter the station. this is due to a bombing incident that had occured in the past. Riding on the Jeepney was a fun experience. 'Bayan Paur' means here's my change. the jeep has 2 rows of seats facing each other. You can even choose to sit beside the driver, I was really amazed about the honesty of the Filipinos. You pay your fare by passing it in front, aided by the people who sit in front of you. The change is then passed back by the respective people too! haha great honesty! Really amazing! The driver too is amazing! He has to navigate the vehicle amidst the crazy traffic, collect the fare, count out the change and listen out for people who want to alight. A pretty amazing feat aint it?

In the Jeepney with Jasmine

I got to talk more to Jasmine and I was really impressed and encouraged by the testimonies she shared. On average, people require 1-2 hours to get to their CG venue. Little are late! There were a couple of sisters who couldn't afford the transportation fare, so they travelled to their CG venue by foot! imagine walking the distance that is covered by a vehicle in 2 hours! Amazing perseverance, really encouraged! We should think twice now before complaining about having to travel to our CG venue now aint it?

Arriving at the CG venue, we were met with very enthusiastic people who were ready to praise the Lord!!!! We did a Holy Spirit Baptism for them and I think that yeah I have loads more to grow in terms of my prayer stamina haha! The people in the group have much potential! Hope to see them rise up soon! I am really touched by Dulce's and Odete's spirit in wanting to serve!

Dulce's CG

We then travelled after a long day back to the church! We met the pastor's wife, Pastor Eunice! She is such a motherly figure! She helped us a lot in finding a place to stay for the night. The arrangement we ended up having was that the guys, me and Jingting would sleep in the church while Guan Zhen and Liyi would stay in the Ministry house! I am not scared of cockroaches or lizards or rats, infact I am filled with an urge to kill them! Haha so I was quite content with sleeping in the rooms in the church even though there might be rats and cockroaches running around. That night, I killed 2 cockroaches and ended up breaking the church's broom lol! Wells, had a good time talking to Jingting, a chance I wouldn't normally have back in Singapore! Was really blessed by it, got to know her better! My thoughts on the first night were! "Lord, I don't know how this is going to go, but I trust that this mission trip is in your hands so I shall not worry too much!" I used Zhangyushao as a pillow that night! Lolz she is useful! Wells end of part one! The next will come soon!

The broom I broke! The corpse of the cockroach is beneath!

Our bed for the night!

Sweet Memories.