22nd August 2008
January 1st, 2008
Some of my favourite posts and more significant events along with all the sharings of last year.
January
February
May
Photodump! - FBFI Conference Break Edition
All Things Work For Good - Romans 8:28
June
Money and The Abundant Life, can they co-exist?
Romans 9 - The Sovereign Will of God
July
August
RECORDING.. Recording.. recording…
September
Photodump! - YH, the Brothers and 2 Pretty Girls Edition
October
November
December
December 24th, 2007
Just cycled back from caroling, washed up and sitting down to write a couple more cards. Was singing “Go tell it on the mountain” when I thought about the meaning of the carol. Honestly I haven’t sat down to appreciate Christmas, each year it rushes by. We go for caroling, baptism, then settle down and do our own things. And then a few days of relaxing and off to another madcap year. Shall finish a few cards up for tomorrow. Goodness, this year I wrote so few but I made them so it slightly more time than normal. I guess I just didn’t sit down and focus thats why.
Hannah seems to be bawling non-stop. I think its quite.. interesting to have a baby. Even with a mom living upstairs I’ still unfazed. I guess its cos I’m not going to be the one giving birth and feeding every 2 hours (though if i could i would..) hmmm.. imagine, Jesus as a baby THAT tiny. I mean.. God would actually stoop down soooooo low just to save us. He was willing to become so weak just for us. Ah… I’m desperate, but obviously not enough.
Hi darren, If you’re reading this I thought of you and called you but you didn’t pick up. Pick up next time leh. haha..
December 16th, 2007
My photography skills came out of hiding again abit today. ahha.. Cos Joel was there early and pretty much handled the entire day today. I’m so thankful for him.
Oh well, going to get up at 415 to get the van and drive to airport so I can get it to church after. Shall shower and wash up while the photos upload. I’m particularly proud of some of them. Today was a nice day for photos. Some are in uncle buck’s flickr too cos I used his nice 50mm prime to shoot a few photos. Links come when Its done.
December 14th, 2007
Being in the control room, it can be tough and pressurising sometimes. The expectations of us are so high. This is why we must be serious and focused during the cantata. This is a picture of my work area and here are some notes on it.
Don’t let the drawings fool you, its all important! KW can’t find the “Mute/Cut” button everytime (Thats why the phone sfx keeps going on after the actor picks it up) so I had to mark it out with glow in the dark tape.
Ming Yong is the superly important light man. In this picture he’s actually giving a secret eye signal to the light people outside. Also, the finger points to the ones he wants to turn on and off. The board below is operated by his toes, hence the high chair he needs to sit on.
Here kok wing is pretending to be important and more serious than us. We’re already so serious, he purposely wants to make us look bad.
Kok Wing pretending some more
It gets cramped in the control room too. Here is a picture of me stretching over kok wing just to turn up the choir mics. Ming Yong is giving more secret eye signals. With the additional light under the face the same signals can mean different things.
My view..
I hope this helps everyone to realise how stressed and terribly busy we are in the control room. Continue to feed us with sweets and munchy things and be nice to us. Here are the rest of the photos kthxbye.
December 8th, 2007
I’ve been doing a little thinking about how a camp is emotional/not-emotional. However, both of them work together and are not mutually exclusive. This I say, because I think people define what they think abit inaccurately.
Most people say a camp is not as emotional when actually the camp is more like, intellectual. What they really mean was - “The camp stirred my brain more than the heart” or “The camp didn’t stir my heart”. Of course, these statements mean different things (The camp could have not stirred the brain as well the heart) but for the purpose of this post, I will suppose that the message stirred the mind into a decision but the heart wasn’t really moved greatly to the point of tears.
Over the last weeks I’ve felt myself become very open and shut off from God at the same time. More specifically, pastor’s message last week about the lepers and all.. I’d consider myself to be the army hiding in the city. Anyways, I was pretty much touched emotionally, but a day or two after, I couldn’t remember the specifics of the message. This disturbed me because
So I went to recall what was said and all so that it wouldn’t be a worthless moving of my heart.
After reading a few posts about the camp being “not as emotional as before” I’d question the interpretation of that being better/worse than before. A better word would be “Different” but most people think it is “better”. I would like to say however, that is is not worse or better, it is “Different” (as christine says) and more accurately, “Same”.
A moving of the mind, without the heart, is as worthless and the moving of the heart without the mind. Moving of both.. seems to be the best.
It brings me back to the story of a man who witnessed an accident and said nonchalently “this guy’s bleeding out, he’s going to need an ambulance”. But when the ambulance arrived and flipped the guy face up, the man realised it was his brother he had watched bleed out without doing anything and cried out “thats my brother!!”. After that emotional outburst, he didn’t stop there and went take action to help the medics. This man, clearly knew what was going on but only moved his mind into action. Once his emotions got engaged, that wasn’t the end of the story, cos it wouldn’t have helped to just be moved emotionally. What really changed his final action and attitude was the moving of both his mind and emotions and taking action on it to go help the medics
Similarly, after this camp as people say “Its not as emotional as before, its better than last time..” Nay, it is not better. Its the same. Only when you FEEL it and KNOW it. THEN you will carry through with it. I say this without criticism to what people might feel but with love, knowing I’ve been there and felt that before and now can look back. It is however, notable that they are a good couple of years younger than me. Which makes me wonder what took me so long.
As Pastor Mike said, “Is the old old story, old to you? If it is, you need revival.” (this is for people who don’t know what the old old story is) Only with the emotional heart and the intellectual mind can a person take action with true conviction and compassion.
Something Theron said during sharing also made me hear myself when I said the same thing just 3 or 4 years ago I think (wow.. I was 19 before). “When you’re close to God the whole year, you won’t feel the camp is like a mountain top experience” or something to that effect. I was talking to ben during the Encountering Christ camp and I told him.. I think I already encountered him. haha.. That said, I need a daily encountering him now. I feel so fallen away.
Lastly, if you’ve gotten this far, I felt like saying “I have nothing good to share” during the sharing with the Surely Saved group. While that could have been accurate, I was more like.. not wanting to open myself emotionally to them. I really just wanted prayer for myself because I was not feeling particularly great about myself recently. Everything seems to be in limbo as far as spiritual things are concerned. “I feel utterly detached from the things of God” was a good enough summary. With the cantata coming up and my desire to be a counsellor instead of being stuck in the control room (hence the reason for Joel to be soundman), I still wonder what I am doing. This constant battle with self is not simple at all. I wish it were a simple as a one time decision.. but is not. Its a daily daily daily decision. In fact, its more like a second-ly decision. I read this year’s birthday post and think.. the need and desire is the same then, and now. What a difference a day makes.. I used to think.. because, within the hour, a man can go from spiritual to fleshly as long as he doesn’t abide with God.
All is talk, until I do something about it.
November 27th, 2007
Hi, managed to go down to children’s camp to hang around on YX’s birthday. Anyway, I’ve hit a really large wall with regards to study. I can’t get anything in! Its too hard to understand! Oh man. By this time tomorow I’ll be finishing up my ee2007 paper, waiting for the collection.
On a lighter note, I drove the van! Haha.. twice today. Its really quite easy to drive. Quite safe also cos its so slow. Suspension is terrible though.. lucky I was the only one inside when I felt like I flew off my seat going over the small hump. haha.. I grabbed it to go eat bak chor mee.. managed to sit down eat, have a drink and get out within the 15 min grace period. Not bad eh?
Anyway, the photos I took today are weird. I think its because I took it at -0.7ev. The colours look so dull and flat despite the colourful subjects. Weird.
November 25th, 2007
Somehow missing it doesn’t affect me at all. Just like the past 4 years or so, I’m unable to come and stick around full time. Well, I used to look towards the camps with anticipation and so much excitement. Staying overnight, with friends, fooling around (when they children aren’t looking), playing games.. Of course, if you like someone in church, who can deny enjoying being around the girl(s)/guy(s) you like for 5 WHOLE days? haha.. I know I did. I mean, you understand what I mean la. Its just an extra on the side, not the main thing for you hopefully.
Girls - Check out the guys who clear rubbish/clean toilet/take care of kids automatically.. haha.. certainly a good place to get your dream guy
All that aside, I think I really missed the whole point so many times over. In fact, I was not burdened for their salvation very much. At least, not enough to be thinking and praying about it all the time. Which I really think is so so important. We can run and help out all we want but the whole point is to sow the seed and if God is willing, reap it as well.
Seeing the youth mature, (I mean relatively compared to the past) I guess they will be fine handling all the work. It still amuses me that kids who can’t take care of themselves very well are taking care of others peoples kids - but who can blame them? Nobody was born an adult (*ouch* for mommy if that happened). Haha.. that was a joke. Really. Take time to learn and listen from old ppl kiddos!
Anyways, it doesn’t matter than none of you willl read this but I’ll be praying for all of you over there at children’s camp! 5 whole days I’ll be thinking of you all!
November 15th, 2007
In the past 48 hours, I have only spent 2 sleeping. My tests were terrible. Couldn’t do much. I really need to study up.
Speaking of which, Joel’s sick and not coming for tomorrow.. plus kok wing in malaysia for some school thing. I guess I’m going to do both jobs cos there doesn’t seem to be any suitable candidate around.. Goodness, I never expected to get this. Thankfully its not that bad la. Spent the entire train trip from boon lay to pasir ris copying annotations from kw’s script. The scary thing is I’m not even done! Haha.. its just chock full of his scribbling. I’m happy this sound engineer guy is coming down. Look forward to learning much from him.