A snap decision and a really foolhardy endeavour led me to take care of all aspects of the youth service tonight! From leading worship to sharing message and the prayer sessions and everything. Usually I try to do just one thing and not take up any other things, because it has usually been disastrous past few attempts because I cannot sustain that level of energy to focus on more than one major thing haha. But tonight was good, so thankful that I pulled through everything without muddling anything up and that I was still coherent and sane enough towards the end! Thankful for as many as three different lozenges from different sources that helped my throat, grateful for the encouragements, and so eternally in debt to the wonderful worship team that made all the difficult songs sound easy on one seamless try.

Right before today's service, there was a 2-day worship ministry retreat which just about took out all the energy from everyone, which made tonight's service an even more herculean effort for everyone involved. According to Cheryl it's the first time we've ever had a retreat on this scale where there are group practices and instrument sectionals and Bible studies for a full two days. But what strikes me more is how the next-generation band is so compelling and so skilled! Remarkably, a lot of them are still beginners and still undergoing lessons, and it is really amazing to listen to them put together a song decently. And I think I've officially reached my sell-by date in youth worship team haha, everything is taken care of by the younger leaders and I am only hanging around at the retreat because I'm trying to find something to do, like oven-heat pizzas for lunch and praying for them and guiding guitars when they're probably more capable than they think they are.

All in all, past week has been absolutely great, and really thankful for all the opportunities to reach out and make a difference somewhere. 

So Christmas came and left, and this time it was right smack in the weekends! Which meant that there were more engagements, more parties to attend, more stuff to do. Haha I speak as if I was planning a tonne of activities for Christmas, but nope! This Christmas was really just relax and enjoy and attend and soak in all the peace and joy. Partly because I was having reservist right up to Christmas, which meant that I eschewed away from a lot of things haha. And really, this weekend has been one of the better Christmases that I remember of, maybe I need to do this more often heh take more breaks. There's caroling this year, we went down to Beo Crescent one-room flats to sing and deliver food parcels to them, which is always easily one of the more meaningful things to do for me because it really is getting down and dirty to the ground. It is one thing to go visit all the families I know from church and sing carols at their gatherings, but I can't think of any other more purposeful reason than to bring Christmas into people less fortunate than us. Haha and there were parties and gatherings here and there, which kinda completed the many activities over Christmas.

But one thing kinda remains the same every year, I think. After Christmas service in the morning, we have the usual gift exchanges flurry and everyone goes around being Santa and receiving presents from another Santa at the same time. And after all that has been completed, we always always always struggle to find things to do! Going home seemed quite inappropriate given that it's Christmas, but going out to hang out runs out of ideas after a while because there quite simply isn't anything much to do haha. One of the great mysteries of Christmas afternoon, that it is always so bleh.

I have a few days before I need to start bidding for my modules for next year's new semester, and I'm making the most of it by going out and trying to do as many things I can in the mean time before I'm trapped by the school cycle again, really not looking forward to readings and assignments and essays and presentations again! Feeling as if the holidays weren't long enough, and rightly so because there was reservist. Haha oh well will make do! 

So the sudden random activity for the night is to head down all the way to Changi airport to welcome the return of Joelynn, whose birthday also happened to be today! She was away in Thailand for a church mission trip, and a group of us decided to surprise her with an unexpected audience at the arrival gates and sing happy birthday for her. Then somehow along the way, we discovered that Meng Ren and his family was arriving back from Turkey tonight too! He told me he will only be back on the 23rd but it obviously turned out much earlier. And both the flights were like about 15 minutes apart from each other, and a few gates in between. Which meant that it was absolutely convenient for us to hop over from one arrival gate to another in a flash.

Other news include the many breaking-downs of the MRT system! I have not been affected much perfectly, but I do notice that it does take slightly longer travelling times due to the slow speed. More importantly, I am very upset at the way SMRT handles the whole debacle! You can't just "sorry" after everything has already happened, and then advising people to take alternative transport has got to be the most ludicrous joke. So we are all to find rocket boosters, or we need to grow wings, or we need to travel on horses and cows. Their PR skills are really very very poor, and don't see how this justifies the fare increases we always have to pay.

Okay, time to get to bed. 

I think I'm getting really rusty with worship leading haha. Okay this morning may not be the best example to quote because there were simply too many songs! The brass band is away in Myanmar, God bless them im their ministry whatever they are doing right now, think they are comig back tomorrow. And I honestly cannot remember when was the last time I led worship on Sunday morning! So nervous and incoherent and then I don't know what to play on lead guitar either. Inexperienced hahaha.

Anyway, updates on my life include my attempts to try to read the Twilight series! I'm currently on the first book, the writing isn't exactly the most readable to me hahaha it might be more appealing to a young teenage girl, but I'm forcing myself to plough it through for the sake of connecting with girls at that young teenage age! It's sappy romantic and vampires and werewolves. Hmmmmmm.

The week came and went so quickly, that I barely had time to register what was happening all the time! And it's a good week, because I managed to complete like 90% of my Christmas shopping and cards and presents. I'm opting to go mass gifts this year for everyone except cell group, whom I always feel more at liberty to spend more for their presents because they are my cell group after all! And managed to get out for a cell outing with them yesterday, we were cycling at East Coast and then came back to church for movies. Today was lunch with the mentees and then Starbucks kettling, which I kinda think was one of the best experiences for this Christmas! Not saying that I had nasty encounters previous years, but we did at Citylink mall and the Starbucks staff were super nice and friendly to work with. Yes I am spending a lot of time with Tyrus and Si Xuan this week haha they are like here almost every week somewhere in my life.

Tomorrow is the beginning of a two-week reservist stint, will still get to come out quite a bit I think, but can't help but think how reluctant I am to go because it is taking up my holidays time haha.

Okay gotta get to bed! 

This is the first blog post typed on iPad! My mum just got a new one and I've been fiddling with it for the past week, haha feels no different from an iPhone except that it's ostensibly much bigger. Anyway, Kids Games is finally over! And I have to say that I have quite a deeper appreciation of what children's ministry is like now. So apart from the first day which was kinda disastrous because I was like some fish out of water, the subsequent two days were much much better because over time you sort of know how to manage each of them and the things that make them excited or will frustrate them. Happy for a new experience and a new way of approaching ministry! Now I tell my cell group about all the horror stories of the children misbehaving and I threaten them "don't be like Kids Games!" hahaha not the best approach but considering that my cell is just one or two years after Sunday School, it kinda works hahaha.

So it being children's ministry, they have a points system for each group which they constantly use to motivate all of them. I am mildly amused whenever one of the teachers award like 2000 points each for all groups, because it kinda seems senseless to me as everyone will just be on the same level! Then might as well don't give if there's no inequality right. Hahaha but each time they earn points, they cheer like crazy, even if all groups get the same points. And all the denominations are huge and inflated, haha I don't even think they understand how much a thousand is, they just like to feel great that they have so many points. And one thing I really wish the same for youth ministry is the level of enthusiasm that all the children have towards games! The games team announces that we are going to play captain's ball, and all of them just yayyyy! It's never like this in youth.

Anyway enough of that, happy for the new friends made (although they very young) and had lots of fun, although I'm left really tired. So it was with quite a lot of trepidation that my lack of sleep this past week will end up affecting me today! Today was the Standard Chartered marathon, I did the half marathon instead of running the full. Quite an experience, because I have never ran anything more than 12km or 13km in my life. Even when I was in army, I missed both years of the Army Half Marathon because of guard duty both years! But anyway it was a great personal achievement, glad I finished even though I was walking most of it haha and I finished in three hours. It can be something that I will consider doing again! But for now my legs are absolutely aching and I am super sleepy. They said there will be energy gels and bananas, but apparently the half-marathon is second-rate to the full, because I didn't see any gels or bananas at all. And we only got our 100 plus after the 12km water point, whereas the full marathon had it at EVERY water point. Bah still a great experience nonetheless, didn't really train for this but ahhh I did it!

Oh my it's 6am now and I just woke up out of nowhere, I have at least another hour of sleep to grab before I need to get up and prepare for Kids Games, but shall document this blog post first heh. My thoughts could do with this mulling in blogosphere haha. So yesterday's first foray into children's ministry was not the best of the best experiences. I've done some stuff with my Sunday School before, but now thinking back, I realized that those activities were mostly stuck at the upper primary levels. We've had those adopt-a-kid thingy at JC where we bring little ones all around the school, but it's just not the same when it comes to church ministry. And the reason why I thought I had such a difficult time yesterday was because I really really don't know what to do with so many 6-year-olds, and a handful of 7s and 8s and 9s and 10s blah. Haha maybe it's because I've been so comfortable in youth ministry, and to approach children so young is inherently a much different experience altogether. 

Then again it could be because I got a trying group, truth be told they each are angels and the cutest soft toys ever, but then they get excited and refuse to sit down and keep quiet and run around everywhere. And partly because I'm not a disciplinarian, I always think that if I do become a teacher and they put me as the discipline master, all hell will break loose in the school because I really wouldn't know how to be firm and scold all the time! Okay la it's really heartwarming when you see them put effort into the crafts they are doing or the games they are playing, and then out of nowhere they cling to you and ask you to be their partner and want to sit beside you and hold your hand everywhere they go, but these are all the fine and fluffy things the moment they start to quarrel and get frustrated and cry and refuse to listen ugh. Maybe it's just my group la haha I had crazy temperamental ones, but yeah I seriously think we came in last in all the games because they don't like to cooperate as a team. Not like I think they really care about winning hahaha they just want to have fun. But it becomes a little demoralizing for me and I am so tired of trying to manage them. 

Okay today is day 2, and hope that it is a better day! Seriously lacking sleep, aftermath of exams. 

I am done with exams! On the overall this has gotta be one of the more easy-going semesters in the two plus three years that I've been at university. The reading requirements are a lot less demanding than previous years, because the modules that I took this semester just somehow happened to be that way. As a result I am reading more novels and plays and poetry this semester instead of boring dissertation papers or scholarly journal articles. And one of the modules was a 100% continual assessment, which meant no final exams for that module! And another was a MCQ which I could afford to not place much attention to. But still, studying took its toll and assignments were horribly late. Anyway the semester is over! 

Just about the most dramatic that happened was that I mistook my exam dates! I thought that the last two papers that I was supposed to sit for was on Tuesday, but it turned out to be on Wednesday instead. Thankfully it was not after the paper is over that I realize I missed it! But anyway that gave me an unexpected extra day to study. Haha now to look forward to Kids Games for the next three days, and then I have a half-marathon to run on Sunday. Instantaneously busy the moment exams end.