Alright alright… I’m back! Finally. It has been a very long while, is it not? My apologies. December has been the busiest yet purposeful month of the year. It was only 6 months back that I was rolled out of the operating theatre and home-ridden for weeks. And now, I’m up and running/jumping/walking yada yada yada. Thanking God for hearing my prayers. Thanking God for answering them. Thanking God for His love and protection that I am able to experience such a meaningful December. Amen!
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Church Camps!
Skywalker. Well, that’s the name of the camp. Skywalker. 天路客 to be precise. Interesting thing was that the camp chief was Luke. Such coincidence! Luke Skywalker. Hmmm…
It was an amazing camp. Organized by youths from various Chinese Anglican churches for youths/teenagers to understand the meaning of a Skywalker, and how to lead the life of one. If I’m not wrong, there were close to 200 participants for the camp. It certainly wasn’t easy for the organizers. Planning for activities for so many people, catering to their needs… Simply amazing. Took them more than 6months to prepare for the camp and thank God, it went tremendously well for everyone.
Went to the camp as one of the group leaders. There were 3 tribes and about 15 groups in total, each group with about 10-15 participants. My group was one of the smaller ones, with 10 participants only. The youngest was 13, oldest 18. Somehow there was a gulf between the younger and older ones, but gratefully, there was Ruth the ever hyper assistant leader. Always running around, urging and encouraging. I wonder how dreadful I state I would be in if not for her. =)
There were worships, talks/sharing, team-games, small-group discussion and small-group activities. I am proud to say that we thought we had one of the best small-group activities. The ‘faith walk’ activity in particular; in my opinion; was well received and the group really had fun.
Then there was the life-size game of Monopoly. Just that this time, it’s real-time and the objective is to earn money and build our own ‘church’. ‘Money’ could be earned by singing carols, solving quizzes and puzzles, doing physical labor, or gambling in at the ‘casino’ (which so happens that NO one wins anything from there); and in turn, the building material such as cardboard, ice-cream sticks, sticky-tape can be bought with the ‘money’. Throughout the game, prices of materials fluctuate due to inflation, national disasters, economic downturn, etc. and natural disasters such as flood, earthquake, hurricane would descend and destroy the half-built churches. Then there was the ‘occupation/invasion’ where all activity cease, and all small-group leaders were called onto the stage and made to kneel down UNTIL their corresponding small groups are able to recite an entire passage of Bible verse together. I was considered lucky, having only kneeled for about 15minutes. Another leader was there for almost half an hour and she couldn’t even stand… had to attend to her after that. Phew. Lucky me.
Left early for basketball training and missed the break-camp ceremony. It’s certainly memorable and much has been learned. Glad that I was part of it. =)
The following week, we had our own church camp. In conjunction with the youth/teen merger next year, our church decided to hold a chalet/camp for all youth/teen for them to cohere and ‘get used to each other’. Was the chief for the camp, and surprisingly, we took only 2 weeks to plan for it. Cool huh? A camp for 50 odd people done in 2 weeks. Amazing how God works among us!
The theme for the camp was P-cube (Mathematically. In other words, P to the power of 3). Pray, Play, em-Power. Held at Changi Fairy Point chalet, it was a 4-days 3-night camp. We had sharing, praise & worship, scavenger hunts, cheering competition, Bible trivia, night-walk, and so much more. On the last night, we had everyone cooking their dinner outdoors with mess tins and solid fuels. Yes yes… that’s essentially “outdoor cooking”. Haha. Everyone had SO much fun cooking their own food in mess tins, as many were doing it for the first time. At the end of it, we had Ah Ma and sister Liping (they were the camp chefs. FANTASTIC chefs.) to taste and rate our food. Somehow, I think we’re going to have this again next year. Haha!
The toilet in my group’s room was choked and the water overflowed overnight on the first day. It was disgusting and our room smelled like crap for the rest of the camp. Haha. Oh, and so were my clothes. They were on the floor that night. Disgusting. Urgh.
On the last night we had our group performances. Some group sang, some performed skits, some made a fool of themselves, my group danced, basically making a fool out of ourselves too. =)
There was also the late night zi char supper for the committee members, courtesy of our pastor, and the crazy 3am heart-attack games that we played on the last night. Nuts. Fun.
I’m really happy that everything went so surprisingly smoothly and everyone went home with a smile on their faces. Not to forget, the 导师’s put in a lot of hard work and effort to help us in this camp. Kudos to them. 爱的鼓励！
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Training
Let’s see. Hmm… Was playing for the Hall basketball team. We had trainings throughout the month. Interesting people on the team, interesting things happening all month round. Sad thing was we didn’t have an out-and-out shooter. And guess what? I was made the ‘shooter’. My instructions from the captain for the competition was “once you get a good look, just shoot”. Not only so, Wensen was injured for the first match… and he was playing the pivotal center position. We had a very hard time playing catch-up with Hall 10 on the first match and were eventually thrashed. Some of the guys didn’t even get to play. We were just leaking points from the first whistle to the last.
I didn’t get to score many as well. After scoring that jump-shot from the baseline, was dead marked. Sometimes double-teamed. It was total crap. Ran my lungs out to get open shots, but somehow the ball just didn’t get into my hand.
The second match was much better. It was really close. Managed to score more this time round and we had the belief that we could win. It was then when I think we made a crucially wrong substitution in the fourth quarter. We couldn’t handle the their centre as we’ve got smaller and faster guys at that point of time, instead of bigger and more dominating ones. We rued our chances and ya… lost it.
But hey! It was good. having trained with all the guys. The 2 Raymonds, Iwan, Jeffery, Xiongwei, Nanyu, Choon Pang, PC, Wensen, Weijian, Kingman, Kianlin, Kehang… looking forward to the games next year, and the Wednesday night ‘gathering’ at the courts. Maybe next time round I won’t be the guy shooting. Fingers crossed. =)
OH! There were the hockey matches too! I tell you, hockey is so much more difficult than it seems to be. Hitting the ball with that wooden stick requires so much technique and strength. Not to forget the dribbling and lobbing and stuff. Amazing things you can do with a ball and stick. Haha.
‘Sticks down!’ was what we heard so often during matches, calling the defenders to lower their sticks and stop the opponents; ‘cut their left’ was our offensive strategy as the left is always the blind-spot for hockey players.
We made it to the quarters, and lost on penalties to hall 6 on the quarter-finals. We did well overall, having made it so far. I think seldom or never did our hall did so well for hockey. =)
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ARK16
I’m still wondering why they named it ARK. Maybe it’s got something to do with Noah’s Ark. Just maybe. Anyways, it’s just a group of people in our hall, helping out at this childcare centre for the needy. And so we went down to the childcare centre for the first time, and I think most of us got shocked out of our skins. Well, it’s hard to put it in words. It put it simply; they were from problematic families and most were, well, rude. Some were worse than you can ever imagine. Primary school kids with loads of angst, well equipped with a huge arsenal of Hokkien and informal English. You get what I mean. One of our guys ALMOST strangled one of them. Well, I guess it can’t be helped to hear ‘colorful’ comments after that. And there were. Very ‘colorful’ ones indeed.
We now wonder, how are we going to settle them down to study next time round. Hoping for a miracle man.
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Christmas
“Have yourself, a merry little Christmas…”
Favorite Christmas song. =) Anyways, had a party in church. Went early to help with the decorations… sat on the upper deck during the sermon; the main hall was packed. Got to chat with Huimin after the deco preparations. It was the first time we got to talk. Thought that her job was cool, even though she thinks that it’s not as glam as it seems. Was a Japanese studies student and now’s a Japanese translator. I mean, how many people on this planet are trilingual?
Got quite a bit of chocolates that day. Very nice people giving out very nice chocolates. And there’s this Body Shop bubble bath, emergency pen, vouchers, yada yada. Haha. So gonna get fat with all the chocs.
Went for the Christmas party at Scout’s HQ. Did a mutual gift-exchange with Raymond. Haha. Got myself a new Nalgene bottle, he’s got a really cute toilet paper holder. =) Played the usual Actionary and had plenty to eat. I wonder how much food were left that day. Left early and went over to cousin’s place. Caught some soccer action over beer and munchies. No wonder the numbers on the weighing balance increase with leaps and bounds.
Well, it was fun. We had fun. And for the first time, I really felt what Christmas really meant. The sharing, the love. =)
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6ist gathering
Hmmm. Finally! We’ve visited Sentosa. TOGETHER. Well, with 2 people missing of course. Frisbee, Big-Gulp, volleyball, Sandbob squarepants, girl with revealing bikini, ham and bread, open-concept toilets and people getting burnt. It was a good day at the little island.
Things to notes are that Raymond can throw the Frisbee very accurately in a curling manner; Ber can’t throw the Frisbee straight; both Lings should slap on more sunblock next time; Jerry is a close-concept kinda guy; and PE is HOT (so says everyone else.)
Went for BBQ at Alv’s in the evening. Played some games, talked some nonsense. I think we should meet up again soon. Just the few of us. I didn’t get to talk to anyone that day. Well, not more than 5 minutes to be precise. Yeaps. Steamboat? Zi char? Anyone?
And oh, that video. It’s funny. Really funny. *sniff sniff* I’m so glad I’m the cameraman… you guys looked so dumb. Ha!
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Wedding
YAAY! You looked so pretty. =) Congratulations! HS was funny on stage. “My new mum”. “My original mum”. Hilarious I tell you. And just how on earth did he know it was you? Haha.
Enjoy your honeymoon!
Next up, Markus.
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Blood Donation
Went for my 3rd blood donation with Ber yesterday. See I told you! It doesn’t hurt. Haha. Anyone else interested in donating blood? Come on. =)
Had dinner at Bugis. Black plate and white plate. We’re thinking that the rest of us should meet up for Zi Char there next time. The curry fish head looked VERY tempting. Everyone around us that night was having it. Haha.
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Well… that’s it for now I guess. It wasn’t a really good semester this time round. Straight B’s. GPA dropped quite a bit. Have to work extra extra hard this sem. Extra mugging, extra effort. Urgh.
So what exactly do you mean? Somehow, it felt weird, yet… so warm and familiar. Haha. Perhaps you’re right. I know what I want, yet I don’t know what I want. Perhaps you should further enlighten me.
May all have a blessed new year. God bless! Jesus loves you. =)
