Where do I begin?

Firstly.. Wow! What a weekend! My head is overflowing with so many different thoughts that I don’t even know where or how to begin. So here I go in my attempt to organize my many thoughts so that they may be less tiresome for you to read, and not simply a jumble of mindless thoughts as they hit me.

Short Summary
I did the bulk of my immediate homework on Friday night before going online, updating my blog, and chatting with friends from both church and school.

Saturday morning/afternoon I spent the day at Koorong with Debby as we stocked up and did one2one bible study. Then at night my family and I went to Susan’s place to discuss a certain desirable event *wink*.

Sunday went to One Way/Remaja as usual, no growth groups afterwards, so instead bummed around at Leonard & Kenneth’s place with Chin, Tommy, & Natasha, until it was time to go to Steph’s 21^st Birthday party!

And who knows what today will bring! Besides updating my blog, I should probably do some more stuff for school. We shall see *wink* hehe.

Koorong
I woke up at nine (not too bad) and caught a train to Central with my Mum where Deb picked me up and off we drove to Koorong to stock up and do our one2one bible study on Mark. The drive felt quite short because we talked all the way, which was great! I missed one2one actually so it was awesome to start again!

We split up for an hour to do our shopping. I ended up buying 2 copies of Nathan Tasker’s cd A Look Inside (one for Steph and one for myself), Elisabeth Elliot’s Let me be a Woman (and we also bought a copy of that for Daniel to give to Steph), John Dickson’s A spectators guide to World Religions, and a card for Steph as well. All in all I spent a little over a hundred, which seems to be a regular occurrence whenever I go to Koorong, but I absolutely don’t mind; they’re worth it!

Being a Woman
I started reading Elisabeth Elliot’s book and it’s quite good. The way she writes is not as easy to read as other authors are, so I often have to slow down and take it all in, which is actually quite beneficial. The book basically talks about what it means to be a Christian woman. It talks about issues such as subordination, the single life, self-discipline, masculinity vs. feminity, the right kind of pride, and what makes a marriage work. I’d be happy to lend it out to anyone that wants to read (guys even, if you want to see what is at the core of being a woman in order to better understand the women in your lives) as soon as I’m done with it.

World Religions
I haven’t read much, except the opening introductory chapter, but already, I’m loving it! Lately I’ve been interested in learning about other religions so that I may be better informed and more understanding of the people of various religious/cultural backgrounds around me. This book is written by the same guy that wrote A Sneaking Suspicion and is very very easy to read. Deb suggested it to me and I would suggest it also to anyone who would like to read it, as soon as I’ve read it of course hehe *wink*

One2One
Afterwards we had lunch at the café up the back and had our bible study. It was great. Short, simple, and a lot of discussion. We talked about who Jesus was, who he was to me, what it meant to follow Jesus, and what stops us from following Jesus.

One2One’s great because you get to get more into detail in the discussions than you generally would in Growth Group (which has it’s pros too).

One Way
Went with my Dad to the airport because he had a pick up and caught a 400 from there. Andreas from Pemuda/Young Adult fellowship was our guest musician this week. We sung All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises for the first time. Brought back memories of Kyckstart again =).

Andrew Wong was our guest speaker and he spoke on the passage about the Vine and Branches. A summary of the talk can be found below *wink*. I thought it was excellent. The passage of course, was a great passage, which makes it easier for the speaker, but he did it very faithfully and clearly. He even gave practical tips for us which was awesome! He also came to the village and ate with us which none of our guest speakers have ever done before.

CD Swap
I lent Jemz Bethany Dillon’s self-titled début album (which is absolutely awesome! Acoustic Rock style, and she was only 15 when she wrote the songs! Amazing..), and Jeremy Camp’s Stay which is quite a good alternative album, in exchange for Casting Crown’s self-titled album, which I am very much enjoying at this very minute. I think I promised Tommy I’d lend him my Nathan Tasker and Chin my Bethany Dillon, which I’m happy also to lend out to anyone else interested. They’re fantastic albums by Christian people and are extremely encouraging.

Books, books, and more books!
I was saying to Deb on Saturday that I was looking for a good book to read after reading P&P for the third time (reading it makes reading other novels hard to bear! hehe). Now I have 4 books that I would love to read all at the same time if I could! Two of them being the ones I bought at Koorong, and the other 2 being John Chapman’s A Fresh Start that we had been considering going through in lunchtime bible study, and Phillip Yancey’s Where is God when it hurts? to answer some of the questions raised during our last lunchtime bible study together. Can’t wait to read them all!

Bumming around
No growth groups for a few months now, and they’ve been replaced by one2one bible studies so, having done my one2one the day before, I found myself with nothing to do. Jeremy, Nathan, and Sam went to Andy’s “recording studio” to record Jeremy’s single so the remainder of us, i.e. Kenneth, Chin, Tommy, and myself decided to go bum at Kenneth’s place. Nat and Leonard joined us after Nat was done with one2one.
Lol I’m sorry guys, but your place looks like a bomb hit it, but mine probably would too if my Mum weren’t here, haha!

Tommy and Kenneth busied themselves on the computer playing Gunbound so Chin and I decided to watch Ever After, although Chin was reading anime most of the time, or is it manga? And then we watched Ocean’s Twelve.

I know that Ever After is old and all, and has been on tv thousands of times, but I still had never seen it before. It was the best Cinderella story I think I’ve ever seen. Hated Drew Barrymore’s accent but thought she looked very pretty. Managed not to cry, probably because there were people around, but I probably would have if I was by myself. Anyway, it was very sweet and defiantly fulfilled my longing to watch a chick flick.

I thought that Ocean’s Twelve was brilliant! It was so smart and funny, especially the part with Julia Roberts! Omgosh! Matt Damon was hilarious, he played that role so well. All in all, it was a great movie! I think I’ll have to watch it again though to fully understand it, haha. I actually thought it was better than the first, or at least as good.

Then played NBA Live for a while with Tommy after being coerced off the computer by Kenneth, lol. Nat had to go home because she got guinea pig poop on her jacket and rabbit fur on her shirt! Yeah, Kenneth and Leonard’s guinea pig and rabbit are so cute! Damon popped in for a bit then left again for Debby’s place.

Steph’s 21st
Excellent. Fantasic. Hilarious. Touching. Moving. Loud. Crazy. Clean. Fun. It was just, absolutely fantastic! Rav picked Chin and myself up after Night Church and drove us there. Thanks Rav! You’re always picking up/dropping off people. It doesn’t go unnoticed, at least on my part. When we got there, there were beautiful candles everywhere and a bunch of them on the front porch saying “Steph’s 21^st B’day Party” which was such a good idea! I walked round to the back and the place was beautifully decorated with fairy lights on the trees, candles, the street heater thing, and a huge umbrella! It was beautiful! Felt very magical.

The guys took to playing spin the bottle, dare version. Lol. Oh man. There was a moment during the night when I was standing with Kate, Debby, and Sarah-Jane (Steph’s family friend) by the heater and noticed that the guys were looking at us very suspiciously. We figured that they were scoping out for a dare. Deb, Rev. Joe, and my Dad were all victims, lol, but it was very funny. The guys all standing together laughing and being ‘manly’ and us girls standing by the fire, chatting discreetly. Sort of like a mating ritual, lol, but no, not really. From a spectator’s point of view maybe, hehe. The discreet chatting didn’t last for long though as most of the girls joined in in the guy’s ‘antics’. Just kidding, no we just sat by the BBQ and sang songs, played music, laughed, and were very loud I think, hehe.

During the course of the evening, the stopped to do the usual tradition with the cake, and also.. speeches! It was very sweet to see all the people that loved Steph and that Steph loved there and some of them gave very sweet speeches. When Deb said her bit, my eyes started getting a bit watery, and then when Rav’s turn came, and then Steph’s, I was on the verge of tears. Just to witness so much love and heartfelt gratitude in them all was extremely touching. I was definitely moved.

Amidst all this was some rapidly spreading news. I’m happy for them of course; it’s awesome. I think we all knew it was coming, and now it’s finally happened! So God bless them. By the end of the night, I’m sure most people knew hehe. It’s kind of hard to miss, lol!

All in all, it was a beautiful fantastic night, and it just made my weekend!

Singleness
At the risk of publicly exposing myself, I’d like to share some of my most innermost thoughts and struggles. One thing about last night that was a bit more bittersweet was that, from seeing all these happy couples around me, I couldn’t help but think, ‘when will my turn come?’ Selfish right? The longing to love and be loved in return is always great isn’t it? I mean, most of us are always searching for that ‘special someone’ and waiting for the day when they come into our lives. I myself am no exception. I know that I often cannot help but wish for its hurried arrival. I struggle more often than not with being content as a single person. Contentment is a constant struggle, I know.

But I am reminded now that in all my need to love and be loved in return, I’ve forgotten that I am loved, by my loving King and Saviour Jesus. The talk at One Way/Remaja today was about being loved by God, by Jesus, to the very point that Jesus was crucified, was punished, that he died in our place, in our shame. There’s no greater love than this, not even human love. So I know that I can be content, that by God’s grace and strength I am able to be content in whatever walk of life I am in, in whatever he has given me and has not given me. In everything, I can be glad, because Jesus loves me! Jesus really loves me! No words can express what joy that brings.

But please, do pray for me guys. I’d be extremely grateful. And please also pray that I may trust God’s timing and plan for my life utterly and completely. Thanks so much =)

Concluding Statements
Wow! I’ve spent about an hour and a half typing this up! If you’ve gotten down to this point, I thank you for taking such an interest into my affairs. God bless you. I hope that you have obtained whatever you sought to achieve from reading this entry, and that I haven’t just wasted 15 minutes of your time.

Bye!

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love."
- John 15: 9-10