Offering?

Last night, at youth fellowship we looked at the book of Hebrews and discussed how we should pay attention to Jesus so that we shall not drift away. In the application we talked about some things which could result in us drifting away eg. money.

Just today I felt convicted by how willing I would have been to give a phone company $200 to cancel my plan in order to get a new phone free compared to my weekly offering to church. It felt so easy just to whack out the debit card and SWIPE it. But when you come to think of it, how come you cant do that when you are at church. Why the reluctance?

This conviction lead to me not paying a cent for lunch outside instead I went home and ate left-overs.

Grass is always greener on the other side

Having just come back from Sydney, I feel like going back. It felt so good to wake up in the morning with no real plan at all apart from having to feed the cat and hang out in the city. Even though each day did involve eating at China Town and walking up and down George St and Pitt St. It felt good to have no stress. The taste of Freedom.

Just the idea of being able to hang out with Sydney people. Do crazy things like go to the Apple Store and check-in on our Virgin Blue Flight. Taking photos in Apple Store and all. Spending time with the Sydney people - Naz, Cindy, Susie (Mum), Vee, Smak and all.

Back to Brisbane... Back to uni... Back to reality.
I've only been back in Brisbane for two days and already it seems like truckloads of work has been thrown onto my shoulders. So many events to plan like CiA Camp, Rural Placement. The stress of making sure i respect Parents advice on study and also trying to make sure everything is in order and not left to the last minutes. Sometimes i ask myself "where does all my time go?"

Seriously, I even forgot my dad's Bday is tomorrow. That is how busy my brain is. Argh.... When will i have some of my own down time again. When...???

Sydney Trip '08

Well if some of you have been wondering where I have been over the last few days. I was down in Sydney for an event called RICE Rally '08. It was really encouraging to see over 3000 teens turn up to this event, some teens came just because they heard someone mention it on the streets. Praise God that he can work in many ways, bringing anyone to come to know him.

I must say compared to RICE Brisbane, the only word i can use to describe this event was "Oh my gosh". This event was held in the Sydney Entertainment Centre which can hold a capacity of over 10000 seats. The equipment that was being used for audio/visual was literally a dream. The amount of foldback speakers, lighting, video cameras would probably take us another 5 years before we get anywhere near that amount.

So what happened....

Before the RICE event we had a new branch known as RICE Regenerate. A event for people between 19-25 YO. We were fortunate to have Mark Driscoll from America come talk to us about the 10 things he wish he had known at the age of 25. He was a great speaker and he really hit everyone hard about the reality of being a Christian, the reality of being involved in ministry, the reality of living in a earthly world.

Then we had RICE Rally at 5:30pm. And i must say Sydney people are crazy. Steve Chong decided to play King Caratacus with 3000 teens in the Arena. To see massive groups of kids get up and yell "NO SIR NOT I SIR" was absolutely crazy. The theme of the Rally was "I can change the world" (I think) Once again Mark Driscoll gave an evangelistic talk to the kids. I really liked the way he preached. He didnt hold back at all. He gave the teens the cold hard facts. The truth about how Jesus died for our sins. That it was not easy for Jesus to go through death on the cross. The pain of having your bones crushed by the balls of the cat-o-nine-tails and flesh ripped off by the hooks. The suffering of having to carry your own cross on his raw back. Then only to be nailed through the most sensitive parts of the body. At the hands and feet. And having long thorns driven through his head. And all this for what...

So that all who believe may receive salvation. Being a Christian is not a religion where you have to do so much in order to get a reward. Its about just believing that is all.

Some other highlgihts of my Sydney Trip is how amazing it was to be able to have a random conversation with a random guy in Market city. I had no idea who this guy was but he approached me and asked me about RICE and all and it almost seemed like i had known him for decade. I found out that he was a youth leader who was bringing his teens to attend RICE. Amen.

The other thing was meeting NAZ. Being from Brisbane the leaders had no real role in preparation for RICE. Originally we were going to help out with the RICE Lounge. But God had something better planned for us. Here we were 7 RICE Brisbane leaders standing there with nothing to do. And there was NAZ with her Maccas stressing out as 500 welcome packs had to be repacked with Gospel Tracts and she was the only leader w/o blue leaders. Just from that we had fun with the production line and working together as a team. And from that I feel i have made a life-long friend.

So what more can i say.... I am missing Sydney, the people i met and the many brothers and sisters in Christ who have joined the big family.

My first crash

When I first got my license I remembered my parents telling me of horror stories how if you dont drive responsibility you would be a danger on the road. And if you do get into an accident, get their insurance information. Im thinking you kidding right. That will never happen...

I might be a bit biased in this story but this is what happened. I was going down beenleigh rd towards Coopers Plains. Everytime I go near the Dominos intersection I start breaking to maintain 60km/hr. Up ahead I see a green light ahead. And there are three cars from the other direction wanting to turn right which would cross my path. Considering i have a green light it meant they had a "turn right with care". So as i am going down the road, with no cars in front of me two of the cars turn right. This part was okay. Then sitting on the opposite side of the road is a white camry the last to make a turn. As i entered the traffic zone of the intersection I had a strong suspicion that this car would make a turn at the last minute. I breaked a little. And guess what. Just as that happened. The white camry went for it with only 4-5m in between me and them. With in mind that they have to accelerate from 0km/hr to at least 40km/hr and me having to go 40-50km/hr downhill. There was a very slim chance that it would be a near miss. Unfortunately even though i was breaking the distance wasnt great enough for me to clear them entirely and i clipped their back. Another thing i should praise God was the line of cars behind me didnt crash into me cuz that would have been bad.

So i got out of the car and there was a husband and wife both from Korea. They come to me and say "are you all right?" I am like "yeh i am" I think they seemed like they were in more shock than i was. They had 3 adults and a young kid in the car. The man was like "i speak little english" I was like that's fine. Checking my car there was only a scuff on the front bumper, which is very lucky. We exchanged details. And then he told me his wife had a headache from it. So me being the typical pharmacy student started counselling him on what to do. I dont know why i did that i just did. I told him to take it easy and to look after his wife and if anything ill give him a call.

Sigh...

Praise God that no one was hurt in the crash
Praise God that both cars managed to escape with minor damage
Praise God that I was not quick to anger but humble in how i reacted
Pray that they will not have to claim any insurance
Pray that the driver's wife will be healed from her headache

Chocolate... Not as innocent as it seems

It's kinda funny how easily we can indulge in chocolate... how we can melt it, turn it into a drink and no matter what we do to it still is so good.

So how can we possibly say anything bad about chocolate. From PERSONAL EXPERIENCE tonight, watch out.... chocolate can bite.

I was innocently enjoying a strawberry with Cappucino Indulgence ice cream covered in melted chocolate topping. (Note: this is third night i pigged out on ice cream and chocolate) And low and behold i am biting on some chocolate and what happens. I feel this pain shooting form my tongue. It goes numb and next thing i know i am missing parts of my tongue and im bleeding. For the sake of my love for chocolate i took the consequences of nearly bleeding to death.

Now i understand why that song is called Bleeding Love