I kinda left this blog for dead more than a year ago, and I think it might actually be good for me to revive it at this juncture of my life now. The reason why I persisted in blogging is because it actually helps me to structure my thoughts somewhat. The process of writing actually forces me to compartmentalize and rationalize my emotions.
It has been more than a year since I first started work, and perhaps a year and a half more since I graduated from university. There were some talks here and there after I graduated about working in Ipoh for a Salvation Army children's home, but it did not come to fruition and I was honestly left bereft of focus in the church for a while. I took up work in New Life Community Services, am in the youth services department running programmes like guitar and leadership and magic courses, as well as spending most of my afternoons in the youth centres playing Xbox and PS3 games. Oh there's a pool table and a table tennis table too.
It actually does not feel like work, because in some sense it was really easy for me to walk into office thinking that it is an extension of whatever that I am doing in my youth group at church. It only made sense that I am working in a youth-related industry, because it was something I was really gifted in and there was an undeniable calling to God's cause. I enjoyed the intentionality of the community work that I was in at my workplace. Back at church, I continued to lead my Sec 1 and 2 (and now 3 too) cell group. There was more of a focus in my church youth work to delegate and hand over and relinquish now, because I am too much of an oldie and also because there were upcoming leaders who were much more capable than me. I approximate 70% of my waking moments to be spent among the presence of youths, either at church or at school.
Within the past few months, however, I had to seriously ask myself what was in it for me after I step down from church leadership at the end of this year. I think I might have taken for granted the leadership opportunities that were accorded to me, because I quite literally walked my way into practically any leadership team there was in church. It was something that I may have excelled in, and it was something that I honestly find very easy to do. But with hand over transitions, it comes with letting down your pride and surrendering the things that you have been passionately fighting for for the past 12 years. So many things that I hold dear once to me, I had to give up and give way and give in.
It is with regret that I have decided I will be going to another church for half a year or so, and I may likely change church after this break. It is not easy to come to this decision, because Salvation Army has been my home church since I was 8 years old, and it has been a formative part of my process of growth to the person I am now at age 26. It is also with regret that I have ended my 4-year-plus relationship with my girlfriend. It is also not easy to come to this decision too, because I don't know how you can spend 4 years of your life with someone special and then walk away from it as if nothing has happened.
Amidst all the transition work that will be taking place in my life, especially as this year draws to an impending close, I am grateful for God for just being God in my life, that I can count my identity secure in Him and that He is the one that never changes. I am grateful for friends and mentors whom I rely on for support in this difficult journey where the hyper self-consciousness me comes into play and messes things up in my life. I am also grateful that I gatecrashed church youth camp for the past two days, and I'm seeing prayer and support and leadership at a level that I have never seen before. I am so accustomed to being the one preaching or leading or directing or getting down on my knees and interceding and praying for others, but last evening was a conscious choice for me to not be involved. And it is also probably the surest indication to me that the youth ministry that I am leaving behind is in good hands.
