Let me judge not

Last night we had the churchwide bible study in the JW church on Ezekiel. But the previous night I slept too early at 7pm and woke up at 2+am, and no matter what I couldnt get back to sleep. And i went to swim in the afternoon. Not to say it wasnt justified, but i wasnt totally expecting myself to be so exhausted by the night time. ended up, i just keep dozing off. I didnt want to.

Anyway, I realized I am a very judgmental person. Saw pastor derek's tweet - we always judge others by their actions and own by intentions, thus condemning others while excusing ourselves. i totally agree man. on one hand, i was thinking, why so-and-so is just so AA, and I really wonder what is he here for. yet on the other hand, i was dozing off.

I really need to learn to be less judgmental (also less self-condemnation as jl puts it).

Anyway, I realized that my quiet time is more efficient in the morning than in the nite. I'm so silly. in my 7 years of christianity, i always had problem with my quiet time at night. only thru the camp i realized that hey! quiet time can be in the morning too! well, maybe next time i can have both, but for now, just let me try to do it in the morning? :) As revelations get unfolded, i realized the youversion bibile daily reading plan can be reset to today. finally, i can catch up on it. another 20 odd days and i should be able to complete the bible once through. then i shall go deeper into bible study. maybe resume my CL, VL etc.

Today is a good day!

Dear father bdae!

After I came back from VR Youth Encounter Camp, I rushed and packed my stuffs to go marsiling so uncle can picked me up and we three (with Tania) can go Malaysia together. I slept most of the way, and I was glad that he was mad at me sleeping. we had a super fulfilling dinner at a restaurant there, and the fish was so big we ordered three dishes using the same fish. we had shao rou and char siew and duck as well, and vege. it was SHIOK to the max.

as we are going back, uncle actually asked me to drive his car! *faints* but i accepted and drove back, somemore by the darker and harder-to-drive road, tho i managed to drive there safely. then... auntie asked me to drive her car!! we went out to buy bread, and well, her sitting beside me was scary, with her screams etc, but with that i can really sense how much she wana teach me and cared for all of us, so i dun blame her. :) i slept upstairs alone, but it was good.

woke up in the morning at 9.45 and rushed, cuz they said fall in at 1030, just to realize tania and her dad not prepared yet, so did a little housework and waited for them. went to some T-mall (I drove again!! now with 7 passengers including myself, uncle auntie, tania, tammie, aaron, win). had lunch at a super good herbal shop and watched kungfu panda 2, there were a lot of puns, and it was very funny, but i was just too tired and thus fell asleep. felt a little bad to waste the money tho. after that we had dinner at lavender, a bread shop whose waiter cant speak proper english and ended up pronouncing other words which made us laughed like crazy. a little mean but he really did changed the words and the result was funny.

uncle drove us back, we all had a short nap, before auntie drove me and aaron, while uncle drove the rest back.

so, finally, after 4 nites of not sleeping in my bed, the gravitational pull of my bed strengthens and i got sucked in and slept...

back to singapore, back to reality.

VR Zone Youth Encounter Day 3

we woke up to excellent breakfast (leftovers from yesterday bbq). hotdogs, watermelon. simply nice. the kids are shuffling again... We packed up and went to the nursing home, and sang and danced with the old folks with malay songs and chinese er ge... basically victor learned the moves from the tv and jane and i follow suit. HAHAHA... hilarious was an understatement.

lizheng and xinhuan cried (of cuz not together) because of some stuffs that happened there that ignite some compassion and sorrow for them. I wonder why I did not experience that. was it because I do not understand, or was it because I always tried my best to treasure people around me so I would not regret, in the future, for not treating them better.

Finally we ate at the tampines food court while the kids went to play LAN (SERIOUSLY?) and went to buy koi with jane and victor. i never knew jane was so fun until i started talking to her like last nite or this morning. esp during the dance. :) the three of us are just funny. period. hahaha. after that went back with jialiang and ashley and cherise (which I nagged to her all the way, LOL) to yishun. and HOLA! a new day begins...

VR Zone Youth Encounter Day 2

Day two started with some breakfast, monopoly deal with pok keong, seili, meiz, and jianhao. We were competing for more mosquitoes kill (pok keong caught one single handedly), trying to make meiz turned her back on seili though, it was hilarious. But one thing kinda spooked me, as when i knew qiao ying tried to find me and want to talk to me last night, from many people like seili, kelly, pok, etc... whoa, better not get too attached to me man. My heart is still in the process of enlarging, but last time I knew my patience was hitting a cap. Luckily and thankfully, kelly took the initiative and talked to her.

then we went to the beach for some beach games. we got the untangling game, the tie sponge to your body and go into the water and come back up to squeeze water game, and the water bombs game. quite fun i must say. then went back and knew about the s*** in the toilet incident and never used that shower again (zonghan did, awkwardly). while the cheerleaders, usher, security, dancers, organizers, basically almost everyone, left, we were left with the task of coming up with the performance item. As we already foresee the lack in numbers, we decided to combine with team 3 (awesome) so people like shihui and ashley and seili can help out. well, i didnt choose the songs, qing fei de yi and peng you (small esther dont like cuz she nv hear such songs before), i think either seili or kelly did. i just wana do my part. so i helped to think of the actions, though i gave pretty much most of the credit to shihui. hah! so basically we had most of the actions done with the song, which was later rejected by esther (big)...

so we went there by bus, and with a long walk, we reached aloha loyang. so my security duty is up. It was sooo hard to capture all five of them, even if jeremy's help. luckily they last minute brought Timothy back, if not I cant imagine how it would have been like with him shouting shi chen da hai right in the middle of Pastor Kong preaching. but still, I was left with xinhao who loves to wander around. The trouble came when Paul came by himself, but he told jeremy and victor he was going to the toilet, but I cant find him in the toilet. Searched for him frantically, and knew he most likely went out from the security post, so i ran all the way close to downtown east liao, but couldnt find. oh wells. got a call saying that he is not under our control, so i can stop finding him. i was reluctant. What do you mean by not under our control. I'm finding him not because of responsibility, i was finding him because i was worried. I knew from qiao ying he didnt take him medication, and his bag is with jeremy, so what if his wallet is not with him. it would be dangerous for him, considering his condition. but nonetheless, i knew searching was futile, as he most likely left by bus already, and so i went back to service. the items were gr8, the cheerleading, the dancing, the singing (if she didnt cry that much), the testimonial by Rhoda. and of cuz, annabelle's worship and pastor kong's preaching. I stood for the entire service after that run, and even went to catch people at the altar call. accidentally knocked onto the middle aged lady's head, her name was cindy, but she really fell so differently from the rest I was caught unaware. Again, I felt the urge to went forward and Veron prayed for me again. I can see Diwei touched by God too. Just like how me, Jane and Seili were touched by God with our hearts broken for Him once again last nite.

well, after that was the BBQ and the campfire, where all teams performed the items after some campfire songs. germaine got issues with fiance, who came all the way here to aloha loyang to sort out stuffs, while shihui got angry her idea was rejected so refused to perform. Kelly was just lost. Brannon, Jackson, and esther was busy hosting? In the end, i just had to stepped up to the occasion and bring the group together, bringing Seili, Liyun and Venis to the item (they didnt know the changes) to make up the numbers, changing the arrangements so people behind can learn as we perform, while I lead the actions. seriously, if this is naruto, i feel that im shikamaru. I know I had leadership skills, i know i had talents, musical or others, but i just felt it was way too much trouble. I dont like trouble, i just want to lead life simple. but yup, i'm glad i managed to piece the performance up and together and pass the day. Whew. Seriously...

On the way back we played the numbers game with li leng, pok, jialiang, me, windez, marilyn, and zonghan. because of that game i felt a little closer to zonghan, li leng and vindez. Im glad i intro-ed this game to them. :)

Well, after all of us had bathed we went to changi v to see ah gua and eat nasi lemak. me diwei, victor and seili, despite the fatigue we had. we came back and saw a bunch of them at the table talking still. haha, i dun care, i kop victor's pillow (cushion) and went str to sleep)...

VR Zone Youth Encounter Day 1

The youth encounter camp spans from 31May to 2 Jun. I had a gr8 start, by forgetting to sleep the nite before (or rather, played iPhone games till it was bright and I knew I was late for the camp) and cabbing there with jialiang and cherise. Kelly was my team leader, and I was in team 5, which I knew the night before when Kelly smsed me.

Alright, so the day started off with me talking rubbish with victor (cheah). I didnt know at that time that there were simei care people around (which afterwards I asked Jeremy, their caretaker, and knew that in total for the two days a total of 8 SCC people attended) and one of the most notorious one, Timothy, came over and squeeze my biceps and nod. Well, to be friendly I nodded back with assurance, bet it must have looked hilarious from the side. Anyway, even if I knew he was from SCC, I would do the same anyway.

So after a long bus ride we went to aloha changi, our base camp for the three days. Started off with knowing team 5, which consist of Germaine, Kelly, me, Yuling and Qiao Ying, which I later found out that the latter two are from SCC. Qiao ying i definitely can tell got some issues, while Yuling I cant tell. Even after a full day, I couldnt really tell. The first tell tale sign actually should surface to me when I see that yuling and qiao ying seems to know each other before this camp. But to bring the spirit of loving people fervently, I tried my best to accommodate and make this camp fun for them as well. At the end of the day, looking back at the past me, who condemned people, outcasted, bully, and make life hell for those "unlovable" in the past, I am really quite amazed at the change in me.

So after we had amazing race, and cip in the blocks to ask if people need help etc, we went back to camp for more games. New addition includes (xiao) Esther, Ronald, Nicholas, XueMing. Firstly, the building of a structure with straws and scotch tape for height ad stability. Next is lifting the team across a rafia string tied up high. Our team got last, and got the forfeit of being fed with a banana with the feeder blind folded. Subsequently we were preparing for our performance item on the next day during the campfire night. but as we were preparing, suddenly everyone started playing ice breaker games. the key game definitely was the 50cents game. esp after we combined two teams. as five teams got together, we were stopped for a preaching session, which me and kenneth kept exchanging info about timothy, but we didnt talk bad lar... after that we were trained to dance the mass dance, frenship dance, but as i was seeing a fren, or maybe at least a young christian, sort of got left out, i offered to let him be in and substitute my number, and went with junwei to pei rhoda out (apparently she's very scared of the dark?) and when we came back it was the last worship session.

This session is amazing. Pure amazing. I gave my heart to Jesus once again. I was very moved by the Holy Spirit already. and when I heard heart of worship, i just broke down. It is by his grace and mercy that I can be back in the kingdom of God once again. Not by power, not be might, but by the Holy Spirit. I always feel very condemned, like as if I was not worthy of Him. Sometimes I sin unknowingly, but most of the time I sin knowing what I am doing. I remembered the Word says that a christian who do not walk in ways of the Word is worse than a sinner. I felt sinful. But that nite, I think I heard Him telling me to go back once again. I was one of the first of the many to respond, and despite I was supposed to help with security, I couldnt do so. My heart was so broken that there was no way for me to catch people properly. I just want to get into His presence once again. As when Veron prayed for me, she seemed to be speaking right into my heart. Renewed passion, renewed love once agian. And after when I was down, up, and moved right to the back to not obstruct them, I knelt again, confessing my sins to Him once again. How long has it been since I felt so strongly of His presence. And in the midst of my confession, I thought I heard Him saying...

"So what have you been doing with these talents I have given you for the past seven years?"

I wept even more. Although I do not know what talents is He referring to, I know I have kinda failed Him. But I know He is not reprimanding me. He just wants me to start serving. And since I dont know where to serve, I guess I'm starting with the usher ministry. And after the security briefing by Howard to the seven of us, Howard, Jialiang, zong han, pok keong, weihao, juncheng and me + victor, the day finally came to an end.