What better way to show your appreciation towards someone than to make him / her laugh at your expense?
Flying Without Wings from Joash Chan on Vimeo.
More than 4 hours of recording, and about 13 hours of editing.
GetLife09 was awesome!! So awesome that it has restored my faith in camps. Thank God for open heavens at youth camp '09 & beyond.
Looking back now, God's hand had been with us all along. Yes, there was a dark cloud hovering above us - but our God is King above the storms, & He is Emmanuel, God with us. Throughout the camp, we prayed for open heavens & praise be to God for answering our plea. I praise God for the work He has done amongst us in this youth camp. Lives were touched, & 1 soul was added to the Kingdom!! YAY!!
1 thing that amazed me was that everybody that should have been at GetLife09 were there. And I'm happy to have witnessed the display of excellence by all campers, especially in the 3 days Amazing Race. Kudos to the camp committee for creating a race that drew the best out of everyone, & congratulations to all participants for their passion & enthusiasm.
There's really no telling what this generation can do in God - the sky's the limit. And personally, it's both comforting & scary. Comforting, because I know that this generation is in God's hand & God will use us to do great things; scary, because as a leader, I have the responsibility to lead without overshadowing or hindering the growth of each individual - finding that balance has been a challenge I knew I had to face. But this is a sign of critical mass, a place where small moves will determine if we leap ahead or fade away.
And therefore, now more than ever, is our time to do that one thing that's needed, that one good, noble thing - to sit at the feet of Jesus, to draw joy, peace, strength; to get life from the everlasting source.
Get life, till our cups overflow.
Yes I still do see the dark cloud hovering over the sky. As our youth camp approaches I begin to see a storm brewing. But that's not going to intimidate us. Our God is bigger, stronger, tougher, greater... We just gotta keep praying & keep praising until we see a clear blue sky and then do some more praying & praising.
Here are some photos of the hardworking youth camp committee - just riding the storms & enjoying the moment in Jesus:
Here's Jacklyn after an all-nighter in Megah Court. Notice how small her car is!!
Later we also worked in the church office. Thank you Aunty Agnes for helping out!!On Friday, as I was preparing for the youth service the next day, a picture dropped into my thoughts - it was a dark cloud hovering over the sky. & with that, I begin to have a clearer understanding of the things that I've been experiencing for a long while now.
You see, I've been noticing a lot of strange behaviour. There was something weird in the spiritual atmosphere, but I couldn't pin-point what it was. Somehow people around me (even myself) are making senseless decisions, acting & behaving senselessly. Often times I find myself reflecting upon incidents & situations, and later say "that doesn't make sense" - that has been my catch-phrase for the longest time.
If I begin to tell you all the happenings that have led me to such conclusion, you would probably find logical explanations for all of them - and you would be right. I could too. But something was tugging my heart, leading me to believe that there are movements beyond the logical that we can't see. The church word to use here is spiritual discernment.
I shared that picture of a dark cloud with the youths. I believe God showed me this picture, not for me to be fearful of it, but that I will cling onto faith - to use all the things provided unto us on the cross of Calvary & somehow punch a hole through that dark cloud. And so we sang, like Paul & Silas in shackles, believing that as we open our mouths & declare the praises of God & His Kingdom, He will open the heavens & stay. And when God comes, you can be sure that the earth will tremble, & dark clouds be pierced.
Either led by the Spirit or just me running out of a song to sing, I asked the youth if anyone had a song in their hearts. Justin gave a fast song - a song that declares that Jesus is good, & in His presence we have nothing to fear. I thank God for that song, for it assures me that whatever storms we're facing or dark clouds hovering over our lives, we have God as our anchor, we have Jesus in the boat with us. Amen & amen.
Parents' Appreciation Day has come and gone. My thanks & congratulations to all TOUCH members who were involved that day. The ushers, the food, kitchen staff, performances, speeches, games - you were all exceptional in your work. I'm proud of each and everyone of you. I also want to thank the parents for their participation & patience throughout the event. I'm especially glad to have had the opportunity to address the youths & parents together. And of course, my deepest appreciation goes to our TOUCH Core leaders, especially Jacklyn Kang.
Will recap on PAD 09 as soon as we have the video & photos ready. But now, we can finally look forward towards...
TOUCH's Parents' Appreciation Day is here again & I'm getting really excited about it. Things are starting to fall into place & at the moment, we have 22 adults confirmed to attend this event. We do hope for more parents to make it, as we have really great performances lined up to bless our parents. Yesterday while we had our final briefing, I just sense the excitement from those performing special numbers. What pleases me also is that this year we won't be re-using the songs from Mothers' Day & Fathers' Day (last year we used our Sisters' Day & Fathers' Day songs), as those songs were really unique & special, and should remain as such. There's even a possibility of yet another original song!! That would be great addition to an already wonderful event.
Do pray for me as I will once again be giving a speech as youth leader. I rarely get an opportunity to speak to an adult audience over the pulpit (so far this is my 2nd time). But I really desire to be a blessing to them through my words & also let them experience a little of TOUCH. I hope I succeed.
Very privileged to have written this song with along this group - Joseph, Esther, Anna, Jacklyn, Chi Wing & Lynn Yen. All of them wrote their own parts & thus made the song extremely unique. Not forgetting also May & Ken Chung for helping to compose the initial format, chorus & melody.
I think this song will be remembered for many years to come.
Micah 6:6 - 8 raises a very important question - one we should ask often - What is pleasing & good in the sight of our God? Is it our giving, our sacrifices, songs, & various acts of service unto him? The answer - act justly, love mercy, walk humbly.
Jesus also spoke on this in Matthew 23:23 - citing justice, faith, & mercy as weightier matters of the law. Yes He did!! According to Jesus, these are more important things that we must not neglect. Paul resounded the importance of the matter in 1 Cor 13:1-3. And it is simply summed like this - without love, nothing we do - be it of good intentions or with great excellence - would matter.
I believe a shift in focus is necessary. The church, collectively, needs that. After all, the church is the body of Christ, purposed & empowered to do good & spread love on this earth. For too long we have been focusing on excelling in the duties we perform within the 4 walls of our building. Even our best 'reaching out' efforts are mostly aimed at bringing people into the church first.
I look at myself, & things I'm supposedly good at - song leading, script writing, teaching... All these are good gifts from God, but so far I've been using them effectively only within a church setting. I can think of so many good things we do within the church, but my brain gets stuck when it comes to schools, neighbourhoods, cafes, community halls, etc. It's not that we don't care - it's that we don't care enough to think more about it.
I'm not saying that excelling in church duties & in-house evangelistic programmes are wrong; I'm asking if those are the only things we know how to do.I'm talking about a shift in focus, a change of paradigm.
John 13:35 - By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
Congratulations to all the cast members for putting on a great performance. It was fun working with you guys. Based on the audience's response, I believe we can make the skit better (back to the writing). Maybe for Easter. What say you?
Big thanks to Josephine for documenting the performance. Check all the photos here.
Finally something to blog about without offending some poor guy's feelings...
I knew 3 weeks is too short a time to prepare for a skit, but saying 'yes' wasn't a difficult decision to make. There was a tugging in my heart & I knew we should do it. Besides, who knows what the future holds for TOUCH & our God-given dreams come April? Could this be our last hurray? I don't know; all I know is we must put on a great performance & deliver the gospel.
Credit to my wife, May, for coming up with the initial idea. And with the help of Justin and Daniel (decided to keep the script writing team tight this time), this one might just be our best script yet!! Everything will be done in just one scene - something we haven't tried before. So it's gonna be interesting...
The greatest pressure will of course fall on the actors & actresses. We only finished the script last Saturday, & our practices will be have be squeezed into the next few days. Adding further to the fact that there's a lot of script to remember (even though it's only 1 scene), this is the first time I'm writing the script without basing on any of our casts. So the actors & actresses will have to really ACT this time - a challenge I believe the cast is more than capable of.
Here are snap shots of my co-writers:
Sunday, March 22nd 2009, 5.30pm - 7.30pm.
The Ambassadors International Church KL
Komplex Mutiara 10th floor
Unit 568-10-7
Jalan Ipoh Batu 3 1/2,
51200 KL.
I was just thinking about how awesome it is to be a youth worker in a local church now. Especially now - in this time of age where youths are despised & generalized negatively (yes even in the church) - it feels awesome to be the few who understands enough to stand by them through this crazy stage of their lives. It's such a great honour, joy, privilege, and responsibility!! Too many people choose to dwell on the little things that supports their childish, unfounded prejudices. With that they miss out on amazing things that God will do in & through this generation, and for that I pity them.
To the people of TOUCH, I want you to know that I love this youth group very much!! I'm so thankful for your trust towards me, allowing me to walk with you & participate in your life journey. I've been amazed by what God has done in your lives & I'm extremely excited about what He plans to do amongst us. The world & even people in the church may despise you - let them be - the important thing is that you don't despise yourselves, because you are the apple of His eye. Don't ever forget that.
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,[a] and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
Galatians 5:1-6If you read in context, the freedom that Paul was talking about is freedom from circumcision, from keeping the law, from being justified by law. Wow!! The audience to whom this letter was adressed somehow had a liberty that isn't really liberty, a freedom that isn't really freedom. It sounds weird, yet many Christians have settled for that sort of 'freedom'. I've been guilty of that myself. That's why the writer had to emphasize on the need to stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free.
That's right. I popped the question.
Wong Mei Chin (people like to call her Ah May, Mei Mei, May Jie, May Wong) said "yes" on September 20th, 2008, in the presence of our closest friends. You can read the full account here, while I jot down my experience & thoughts here.
I kept waiting for a right moment to ask for May's hand in marriage, hoping for the perfect situation. Things have been rough, you see (that's why I don't blog that often lately). To add to our family's financial instability, my dad & I were released from our jobs under a rather unbelievable situation. It's sad because, I was just starting to find my place in that organization (after an orientation week), & I felt I could really help them for the long run. It was quite devastating, considering that I actually like the job & it was suppose to be my first stable job after 1 year of trying to live a dream.
The church is also in a funky situation at the moment (yes funky is the right choice of words right now), and the dreams we share as TOUCH are under jeopardy too. So you could imagine how last week's youth service turned out to be the youth service of the year. Anyway, I hope this is enough to tell you how my journey of running with a God-given dream is in a bad spot right now. My 24th birthday is just around the corner too, & that feeling of inadequacy is truly overwhelming.
On Friday May wrote me a letter. She assured me that in spite of it all, she knows that we are meant for each other. And she told me that she wants us to be together through happy and sad moments, be rich / poor together, for the rest of our lives. That's kind of the gist of the letter, of course her words were way better. But reading it really reminded me of God's love. I can imagine the day when I get to heaven & see the Dream-Giver face-to-face, & He'll show me the plans He had designed for me even before I was born. And as I look at that plan I'll be going like "Oh my God, how far have I missed the mark!! All that potential & energy & dreams were so under-utilized!!". But in all that, He calls me to look into His eyes & He'll say:
warning: incoherrent mumblings...
I've been doing much reflecting lately, choosing not to blog or write or email until I came to a conclusion, or at least an understanding which I'll be temporarily satisfied with. I'm grateful for God's timely intervention in our church camp. I dare not say that I have fully comprehended the things God is trying to say to us, hence the much reflecting.
Still, as the youth leader, I felt compelled to take on the leadership role in helping the youth to move forward in their personal journey, as well as TOUCH's direction. That gave me a greater urgency to study about brokenness, God's presence... Amazingly, even with my limited understanding of the hand of God right now & me feeling inadequet everytime I raise my voice (no pulpit or microphone at youth service) to preach, I sense God helping me through the sermon - as though God was using me to TEACH ME!! At the end of the service, I feel like I'm the one who has gained the most. Haha. Amazing. Yes, God is still speaking. God is still speaking to me.
On a more personal level, I have gained a little headway on what / how God wants me to move forward. I've spent the past week editting the Fathers' Day skit script, which was written by Daniel & team. The storyline is really good, & the script had a lot of good stuff in it. Being able to chip in my ideas into the script just made me feel great to be part of something awesome. Our first practices went really really well too. The talents are truly impressive. I think you'll agree when Fathers' Day come... (or when the video is uploaded to our TOUCH Pictures).
May and I were discussing about this. & it really got me thinking about how before all the videos & dreams of film-making, my passion was really for script-writing. "You think I should start inOCrea again?" - I posted that question to May. Her answer gave me an assurance & put a smile on my face. I think I'm gonna do it.
In conjunction with Teachers' Day & in our attempt to be a blessing to the secondary schools around Jalan Ipoh, TOUCH will be giving gifts to 120 teachers in SMK Raja Ali. We chose Raja Ali because it's the nearest school from our church., & we chose to bless the teachers because... what better way to penetrate into a school than to first touch the hearts of teachers, right?
Yesterday (Thursday) a bunch of helpful volunteers came over to my humble room to make beautiful paperweights. It took us (9 people if you include Rebecca & I, missing from the picture) 4 hours to complete 52 paperweights, simply because we (by that, I mean they) put our hearts & souls into each one - we want every teacher to be blessed by this small little gift. Tomorrow, we'll hope to finish another 68 more paperweights, while making another 120 handcrafted bookmarks. I hope that tomorrow's bunch will be able to give as much passion & enthusiasm as those yesterday.
Oh, in order to fund this community project & also others to come, we've started selling car stickers with our (new!!) TOUCH logo & our blip.tv link on them. Hopefully as we document our God-given ventures, www.touchpictures.blip.tv will create awareness towards our cause. I've recorded yesterday's paperweight-producing moments, that video will be up soon.
Many thanks to those who have given to help out in this endeavour - your talents, money, time, petrol are well-invested. THANK YOU.
Last Saturday I had an interesting & refreshing encounter. I forgot when was the last time I invited some of the youths to stay over at my place. We watched a bit of football, played Boggle, & then settled down in my room (which amazingly can still host 4 people!!). Very intentionally, I kicked off the conversation, trying to make the most of the night. But I found out that they were much more eager to use that time to be involved in a meaningful conversation. And boy, I really admire the openness, transparency, & honesty of those young men. I've never been as opened as they were with my youth leader or in a group. And I don't think it's because I've presented myself as an approachable guy (I try to though). I believe it's a work that God is doing in our young people in FCC. Among many things, we talked about girls, salvation for friends, disappointments, frustrations, hope, heaven, death, dreams & ambitions...
Oh, last Friday's cell meeting was quite cool as well. We celebrated April birthdays with Anna, Chi Wing & Michelle (who wasn't there). Everyone had to think of a question to ask both Anna & Chi Wing, & boy the questions were really interesting & smart. In that time of Q&A, we've really got to know the birthday boy & girl in greater measure - and I felt that it was a really beautiful time.
I really treasure that few hours we connected on a deeper level. I believe God showed us a glimpse of true communion in the fellowship of the body of Christ. & I love this community God has created me in.
Rabeeka has become a very close friend to May & I. She will be leaving for National Service tonight & it's extremely heartbreaking, knowing that we won't be sensing her presence for the next 3 months.
I met her on Saturday styling a brand new (accidental) hairdo. But she looks as lovely as ever, doesn't she? Gosh I think I need a haircut too. And a new face & body. Maybe get a life too...
Will be missing you greatly, Rabeeka!! Will be praying for your safety & welfare as you have a blast in Sabah. Hope you'll find direction & purpose too.
Sisters' Day has come & gone. Thanks to all the people who helped out in the kitchen, preparation & serving of food & the performances... Josephine documented the whole event on her blog. For videos, you'll have to wait... But you sure can look forward to our next big event:
For the very first time, TOUCH will be having special events in appreciation of brothers & sisters in this wonderful family we have. First up is Sisters' Day, where the guys will work together to give a memorable evening for the lovely girls of TOUCH. There are some really cool programmes arranged for that special event & I'm really excited. I can't wait to see the smiles on their face. It's going to be amazing.
Girls, you're gonna love us... MUAHAHA....
