Sunday, October 03, 2004
retreat!
wow havent blogged for abt 2 days...coz I went for church retreat on fri... aft sch went dwn, stayed over until sat, then went home ard 10 plus ystday... was v tired ystday so din blog...hmmm anw, met my zone at parkway for dinner, yoshinoya but I took pretzels... hahaz, then we took bus dwn to somewhere close to costa sands, e east coast one.. then we walked a distance in.. I was e only one in sch u.. hahaz so awkward.. anw, we reached e chalet at ard 7, hung ard until 7:30, when uncle james called all of us to sit dwn to sing.. kai en played e guitar.. yup sang a few songs, then uncle james told us go take 5 min water n toilet break, coz he'll b talking quite long.. so yup at ard 8 we gathered back at e guys' chalet.. pei fen booked two adjacent chalets, one for e gals n one for e guys.. yup..
Hmmm yup when we gathered back uncle james handed out e retreat booklet n started talking.. he referred to jeremiah 17: 7-8 as e central verse.. so tt all reading don hav to reach for ur Bibles, i'll type it dwn... sorry today's entry will b super long coz quite abit to say... here goes: "But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Yup e central theme was the 'root principle', and under this there are 3 main points: we must have 1) connection 2) stability 3) depth. e whole thing's v long, i'll mention points tt intrigued me, e rest i’ll type it in a word doc n upload or smth.. yup under connection basically is tt we must hav connection wif e source of Life; jus as e roots must hav connection wif water to survive, we must hav connection wif e living source of water, God. ya are we? yup under stability a point tt struck me was tt the invisible function is e crucial factor for stability. at first din understand, then uncle james explained: roots are vital for a tree's growth, but they are usually underground, invisible to us n e rest. similarly, we usually do QT at home ourselves, away from and invisible to others, but it is vital for our Christian growth. this point is linked to another behind, but since they’r linked, i'll mention it now.. so are we jus Sunday Christians, since gg to service is visible to others so u go, but actually u hav no deep roots? are we jus a tree full of leaves (visible) or do we hav roots? this point really hit me pretty hard.. yup then for depth, our desire to get right wif God shld b our ultimate motivation, not force, and we shld b able to taste e goodness of ministry and NOT ENOUGH (not complacent). many times when we see gd responses, we taste e sweetness n goodness of ministry, but 'gou le'.. is it really gou le?
aft all these triggering questions, uncle jams mentioned our cyyam (Chinese youth and young adult ministry) mission -> to win true worshippers from the changing world with the unchanging truth of Christ thru disciple making. product of disciple making obviously is disciple la, n he reminded us tt we as disciples are happy bcoz we are living a life pleasing to Him and unhappy when we've done smth against Him. shld b wat we are upset n happy abt, not simply any materialistic thing. yup we recapped our 5 departments... those who noe noe la. ya then they showed e no. of seekers this yr according to age, etc, all e statistics la.. i saw jc -> none stayed. i was lyk ok this is IT. i’m gg to make it NOT 0. yup, then we split to pray for ourselves n to reflect..
aft tt i went to bathe, do homework wif xiao ling, li kuan, jonathan, yingrou, meifoong n shuyun.. yup was pretty fun, but it was alrdy lyk 10 plus 11... yup then we all slept ard 1 plus.. xiao ling, me, fiana, shuyun and jia en squeezed into e bed, wai yee, meifoong, pei fen n yingrou on e mattress. end of day 1.
day 2. we mostly woke up at ard 6:30, jia en alrdy awake studying. at ard 7 hengyi, chenghung, kai en, jonathan, li kuan, xiao ling, shuyun and donno who else walked to mac for breakfast... since ailing bought a lot of bread and cake, I decided to hav it for breakfast so wont b so wasted.. meifoong and waiyee also had bread n cake... vinc, yingrou n fiana went jogging.. hahaz.. then peifen n wei en went to send jia en to NUS.. coz she still had to go sch.. then peifen n wei en sun bian bought some food back.. yup.. then at ard 9 everybody gathered in e guys' chalet again to discuss budgeting.. but to b honest was sorta dozing off, tho can see everyone also.. tired n pretty dreary mah.. yup.. then at ard 12 plus we e non-committee head were allowed to go get lunch.. e committee stayed to discuss some stuff.. yup wei en, chenghung, kai en, jonathan and i think jing qiang went to rent bicycles to ride to e hawker centre to buy lunch, coz our chalet v v far frm e hawker centre, nearest 7-11 alrdy v far.. so ya, we gals who din want to eat hawker centre food, went 7-11 to get food.. i had a milo.. :) yup then at ard 2 we resumed, zone sharing of past yr’s guidance n this coming yr’s direction. yup, then was sharing of sec sch ministry…aft e sharing, committee met again, we had free time, so we went to e beach to play Frisbee, split into two grps, one grp was chenghung, kai en, xiao ling, heng yi; second grp was su mei, shuyun, wei en, jonathan, and me la. hahaz v funny...
yup, then ard 6 plus we ended game, ard 7 fiana, me, kai en and wei en went out dinner.. walked to mac, then back, then my dad came to pick me up. yup…
all in all, it was a great retreat, managed to reflect a fair bit, but really must pray for e willingness to change problem areas... yup... :)
xiao jo
@ 11:05 PM
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