Catchin' Up

In the spirit of procrastinating my JS blog posts, let me write about today. Today was — if I could sum it up — a day of connecting with people I love.

First up, Theresa called me and we talked for about one and a half hours. I rarely miss people, but I think I actually do miss my adoptive mummy! :( As gay as it sounds, it was so good to hear her voice and her retarded 'What!' and 'Seriously?' interjections. We talked about all sorts of nonsense. We talked about deeper things. I told her stuff. She told me stuff. And I felt so blessed to have a friend like her. Anyway in the end, neither of us hung up — but the call just got cut by itself. The phone probably thought that we'd talked too much! But besides phone calls and text messages, the both of us keep in touch via... wait for it... snail mail. My first letter has reached her already (Pos Malaysia, thank you for not failing me) and I can't wait for her reply. There's always something special about getting a letter in the mail that's not a bill. And especially a letter from someone you love. Mummy!

Anyway, Sarah and I were scheduled for lunch today. And I realized yet again she's one of the most random people I know. In just one text message, she managed to say that:
- Her sister-in-law asked her for a favor
- She'd be picking me up at 1.10
- While she was baking a banana cake, she'd think of where to go for lunch
- And she asked me, "Do you have a chess board?"
Oh good grief. So anyway, she picked me up from my house and we went to Decanter to eat. We admittedly had a pretty life-giving, in-depth conversation over assam laksa and steak pie. I enjoyed talking to her! She's one of those people with whom you can dive into deep conversations straight away, without having to skirt over small talk first.
But after lunch... we put our forks and chopsticks down and picked up our chess pieces. And an epic chess battle began. (Okay, maybe the lopsided nature of the game didn't make it thaaat epic. But I digress.) Throughout the game, I enjoyed seeing Sarah's mentally-constipated face, especially when I had to explain the difference between a fork and a pin to her. And what castling meant. I did win in the end, but she put up a gallant battle. How can I tactfully describe it... Alright, let's just say that her chess pieces had the spirit of Japanese kamikazes. Yeah.
So I suggested another game — 'Suicide'. Basically the chess pieces were arranged as usual, but the aim of this game was to be the first to eliminate all pieces. The rule was that when you're in the position to capture an opponent's piece, you must capture it. Unfortunately for Sarah, her pieces refused to die. So I won again. I'm so sorry! We'll be facing off in a game of Scrabble in the train on the way to Ipoh sometime next week. And we'll see how that goes then.
But I really did enjoy today's lunch — so Sarah, if you're reading this, I sincerely enjoy your random, retarded company. :)

Then, at night, I got to chat a little with Pei. We haven't gotten to talk the way we used to at high school since we left, so it was just awesome to hear from her again. :) Thanks for having confidence in me, zui hao de peng you. If it came from anyone else, I wouldn't really have believed them (because they'd probably just be trying to make me feel better), but since the confidence came from you — I trust you, Panda! <3

After that, I caught up with the soulmate. We talked and talked and talked about hygiene issues (hahaha), music, life overseas, JS stories, and everything else under the sun. Well — not much I can type out here, is there? ;)

I guess what I'm trying to get at by writing this post is that I appreciate people. And I'm learning to invest more time in people rather than tasks! :) I love you all.

Introversion

I'm going to interrupt my series of JS blog posts for a bit with this post.

Having gone away for six weeks, I hadn't had the time to digest much of my monthly brain food (the TIME magazine!). So today I curled up in my chair, ate my lunch, magazine in hand. And here I came across a thoughtful and insightful article by Susan Cain: 'The Upside of Being an Introvert'.

People have always told me that I'm a total extrovert by nature. And I've always believed them. After all, it's a pretty awesome thing to be an extrovert in this world, you know? Always the life of the party, always the one who speaks up, always the one with all the attention in the room. Never the painfully quiet kid sitting at the corner.
But through experience, I've come to realize that extroversion isn't all as wonderful as it seems, and that introversion certainly has its merits. They both have their pros and cons.

In this age, this is the norm: the loudest voice wins. (Too bad the extroverts have the loudest voices.) I've been through too many unsuccessful group meetings, collaborations and projects to know that the magnitude of one's voice doesn't mirror the magnitude of one's brain. Chances are, you've been to a meeting where the most brash, domineering and extroverted team member insisted that everyone should just accept his idea — although his idea was pure rubbish. Chances are, you and your other team members accepted his rubbish idea just because of his inability to stop talking. And chances are, there'd have been an introvert in the group who'd thought through things carefully and had come up with a brilliant idea... but didn't want to push it through because of the extrovert's insistence on his own not-so-brilliant idea. This is what Cain has to say:

"Anyone who has spent time in any organization knows that there is rarely a correlation between the quality of an idea and the volume at which it is presented. Defying the loudest speaker—and the groupthink that tends to build around the person—can be painful for anyone." (emphasis added)

I guess my experiences of brash extroverted leaders have molded the way I act when I'm put in a position of leadership. I try to connect with introverts at a deeper level, sharing and listening to each their personal thoughts and reflections — before I even try to connect with them at the group level. Only when I've built that sort of trust can I effectively engage them in group collaboration. I asked Szehui, an introverted friend about this last week, and she replied with an emphatic, "Yes! We need to trust you before we'll talk!"

Anyway, one of the things I love doing in meetings is to intentionally make the extroverts shut up, and to gently invite the introverts to share their ideas and opinions. In some cases, introverts can say in three minutes gems of wisdom that the extroverts have bumbled around trying to grasp for two hours! Why so? Cain comments about the decision-making ability of introverts as compared to extroverts:

"Introverts are more cautious and deliberate than extroverts, but that means they tend to think things through more thoroughly, which means they can often make smarter decisions."

And Cain writes more about the edge that introverts hold over extroverts:

"Introverts may be able to fit all their friends in a phone booth, but those relationships tend to be deep and rewarding. ... Introverts are better at listening—which, after all, is easier to do if you're not talking—and that in turn can make them better business leaders... And simply by virtue of their ability to sit still and focus, introverts find it easier to spend long periods in solitary work, which turns out to be the best way to come up with a fresh idea or master a skill." (emphasis added)

And personally, many of my deepest, treasured relationships are with none other than introverts. They've got so much depth in them. I'd actually love to name them all here, but I'm afraid that I'll miss someone out and make things awkward haha. So no names, except maybe Kimmy and Panda. You know who you are.

But I'm not writing this post in order to prove that introverts trump extroverts. Not at all. In fact, I want to  emphasize that the world needs both extroverts and introverts. (Plus, I'd like to clarify that some of my generalizations were just... generalizations. I'm sure that we've got thoughtful, genuinely intelligent extroverts around; as well as unthinking introverts who are poor decision-makers.) What I'm basically trying to say is that the world puts so much emphasis on developing people with extrovert-traits such as assertiveness, that the merit of introversion goes unrecognized. And that maybe we should give introversion a chance.

So here I am once more, curled up in my seat, magazine in hand. In a sidebar beside this article, there is a survey included to gauge readers' introversion. (You can get it online too, click here.) So I am doing it just for fun. And guess what? Of the twenty statements, more than half of mine — twelve, in fact — are inclined to introversion. So that makes me neither an introvert, nor an extrovert, but perhaps more of an ambivert with an introverted view to life. Now that's something new.

Jeremiah School Week 3.5

Since it was already halfway through the third week of JS, the time was ripe for some pranks to be played. And of course, who else was the mastermind but our very own feisty Cheryl Francis? So this is what we did. We girls sent messengers to whisper to the guys, "We're going out to lepak by the beach at 1 a.m. So join us and bring all your snacks okay!"

The fourteen pranksters, minus ACQ

Then guess what our plan was? We wouldn't turn up at 1 a.m. And the guys would be left floundering there, wondering what was happening! So of course, Dwayne and Khai Meng were really gung ho about it and they spread the news to the other guys. The girls' dorm was next to the boys' dorm, and when we kept really quiet, we could hear everything that they were saying. So that particular night, it sounded a bit like this:

Our two gullible friends

"Eh, macha! Macha!"

"Yeah, what's up bro?"

"Macha, tonight the girls are calling us out. Lepak at 1 a.m.!"

"Eh yeah yeah okay bro! Let's do this!"

(Note: The next day, we learnt that all of the guys had training drills one by one to ensure that all of them could descend from the bunks as quietly as a cat. And okay, I'm sorry if I busted your secret to the mentors by writing this here. HAHA.)

So the next morning, fourteen of us girls woke up very well rested — after all, we didn't get up at one in the morning, right? But when we listened to the guys through the thin dorm wall again, this is more or less what was heard:

"Aiyo, Edmund, what happened la? How come you didn't wake us up?"

"The girls are going to kill us la!"

"What are we gonna say to them?"

We broke down and laughed and laughed and laughed. Yet that was not the end of the morning's hilarity. It so happened that that day was a quiet retreat day, and we had to shut up from 7 a.m. onwards! And this meant that the guys couldn't communicate their remorse or give peace offerings or anything of the sort. 

So the morning went on as usual. I did my quiet time reading on the bench by the sea. And guess who sidled up to me, hands pressed together like a monk, mouthing the word 'Shalom'? Dwayne Tan. I could've died laughing. But like a good JS student on a quiet retreat, I nodded once and broke off eye contact at once.

Anyway, this quiet retreat was done a little differently than the first one. For the first half of the day after quiet time, we sat in the hall together and the mentors guided us through the Seven Steps to Freedom. Step 3: 'Bitterness vs Forgiveness' was particularly life-giving. We had to reflect about the people we'd hurt or offended or had conflicts with throughout JS so far. And if we'd wronged someone, we were encouraged to go up to the person, apologize and ask for forgiveness. I went to a couple of people or so, and a couple of people also came to me. It was a powerful moment. But of course, the sombre atmosphere was suddenly made lighter when Khai Meng came up on behalf of the guys and apologized for 'making empty promises and not turning up at 1 a.m.' I had absolutely no idea how to respond, so I just said, "Mm yeah. It's okay." (GRIN) Besides JS mates, we also forgave people back where we came from. It was great to just let go of old grudges and to free myself from unforgiveness.

In the evening, we had a beach-cleaning exercise. We still had to maintain silence, and while picking up rubbish by our stretch of beach, we were instructed to reflect upon sin in our life. And here's what I wrote in my journal after the activity:

"1. To deal with sin, I must consciously look for sin in my life

Previously, I hadn't noticed that there was so much rubbish along the beach. And only when we were told to clean the beach did I notice the cigarette butts, plastic wrappers and glass bottles at every region of the beach.

2. Sin is found in the darkest corners of human hearts

The stretch of beach where we usually hang out is more or less clean. But the darker, shaded area behind was full of fly-infested rubbish heaps. Those corners were also where the most filthy rubbish could be found. I have to constantly visit the dark corners of my heart which I'm unwilling to face in order to keep them clean.

3. Sin goes deeper than I think

I often tugged at small plastic wrappers, only to find that they were just the tips of much larger wrappers buried deep underground. I wonder how deeply pride has buried itself in the sand of my heart...

4. Dealing with sin is a community matter

I guess I've never seen the importance of publicly dealing with sin and asking for forgiveness from others and all. But none of us could have cleared so much rubbish by ourselves — our bags were full and heavy by the end of the activity. In the same way, sin is best dealt with together for accountability and support.

5. Sin recurs, but don't be discouraged!

Once we finished clearing up the rubbish, I felt pretty satisfied and that it was the end of it all. But as Dwayne carried our garbage bag to the bin, it split and lots of rubbish came tumbling out. So we picked it all up and packed it back into the bag. Sin — especially habitual sins — recurs and it can cause me to lose hope. But I've got to remember to just pick up the pieces and go on (after all, the garbage bag did reach the dumpster in the end!)."


Then we also had a BGR session, inclusive of some private girl time and private guy time where we could just talk and share our thoughts. Theresa and I very cleverly chose a strategic place to sit (behind the pillar!) and kept inconspicuously silent throughout the session. LOL.

The end of Week 3.5 marked the halfway point of JS, as all of us returned to our families for Chinese New Year. 

Jeremiah School Week 3.0

So here goes — Week 3.0 of JS!

I found Dr Chew Tow Yow's sessions really good. These were the sort of sessions that made my brain work really hard. And when my brain works hard, it's happy. I'm really grateful that he took the effort to come and teach us despite busyness and age and all. But I guess that we learnt way more than can condensed here in my blog — so I'll just skip over this. I'll just include one powerful thing that I learnt here:

"We are saved from the world for the world."

Hmm. Thought-provoking. Then James came over to run a worship session with us, and once again I'll leave a quote with you:

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."

Besides that, throughout JS, there was this ongoing debate about thinking-vs-feeling (mainly in ACQ's mentoring group plus Francis). And of course I was in the thinking camp. My fellow JS mates went as far as to call me 'man tou' because I have no fillings (feelings) hahaha. And my fellow soldier in the thinking camp was Francis; so a typical conversation would go like this:

Me: What is sadness to you? To me it's a state of mind.

Francis: Yeah, something like that. It's a figure of speech. Yes, sadness is just a figure of speech!

Me: Hmm, you've got a point there. Yeah.

Sarah: Nooo, guys, let me try to explain this. Sadness is... (very very long pause) ... it's this feeling of heaviness in your heart!

Francis and I: Huh? What's this feeling thing you speak of?

Haha. I miss those moments; the bewilderment on the faces of the JS 'tau sar paus'. But anyway, James shared another quote with us:

"Truth without emotions produces dead orthodoxy. Emotions without truth produces empty frenzy."

So yeah. I guess both thinking (truth) and feelings (emotions) are needed in balance. And to add to this, there was one day when Ellie and I spent some time talking. We ended up having quite an interesting conversation about thinkers and feelers. As always, she came up with an analogy to describe the two extremes and the regions in between them.

People are like potatoes. Some people feel more; some think more. Others are in between. Feelers are like raw potatoes. They're fresh and they're full of nutrients. But you can't eat them, can you? They're unprocessed, and therefore inedible. On the other hand, thinkers are like French fries. They're perfectly salted, processed, cut neatly into rectangles, and they have high market value. But sometimes they're processed too much that their nutritional value is nil. The middle ground would be the best way to go — boiled potatoes, lightly salted. With flavour; with nutrition. 

So I said, "Ellie? I think you're a boiled potato, lightly salted."
And apparently, at that point in time, I was a French fry — cut and salted, but not yet fried. Lol. (Ellie, if you're reading this, fast forward three weeks since you gave your potato diagnosis. What potato am I now?)

Then Uncle Pook Seong came to do a session about Missions. And here's what I learnt:

"If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart towards him, how can the love of God abide in him? (1John 3:17-18)"

And then he screened a certain video which it completely infuriated me. I think it infuriated Ellie dear too. It wasn't that the video was bad or anything — in fact, it was a fantastic video — but the clips of the injustice and apathy that's so rife today struck a chord within me. The video only worked to strengthen my conviction that we as Malaysians need to help our brothers and sisters — fellow countrymen — who are oppressed, marginalized and in poverty. I mean, we have a voice, so why not use it for those who may not have a voice?

Oh, and let me write about a random but memorable experience some of us had. Uncle Herbie captured a grass snake and whacked it half-dead. So while it was still wriggling, some of us played with it! It felt pretty squeamish just to touch the snake initially, but after a while I got used to it. And it was really fun, chasing Kai Yen and Nel, the two people who were the most frightened of reptiles. :) Sorry mates. And it's just too bad the snake pictures haven't been uploaded yet. Heh.

Hence, Week 3.0 — Check. √

Jeremiah School Week 2.5

Note: I'm going to sound a bit loony in this post to readers who aren't too familiar with how God speaks in the Christian context. So when I write about God speaking to me and all, I don't really mean an audible voice that goes, "Hannahhhh! Hannahhh! I speaketh!" or stuff like that. It's more of a quiet impression that God puts upon my heart that strikes a chord with me. Gotcha? :) Here goes!

On Friday we had our first quiet retreat. Not just our first JS quiet retreat — but I believe that this was the first ever time many of us had to shut up for one full day. No talking, no eye contact, no interaction with others whatsoever. Just you with God; me with God. Alone. Silence. Tweet tweet. Birds singing. Footsteps crunching. Kai Yen sleep talking. Francis falling down (half-naked hehe). The silent thrumming of Austin's malfunctioning car. Heng Wei's sudden burping. God's still, soft voice. The sort of beautiful sounds we've learnt to tune out in our everyday lives.

The sound of silence.

So our first quiet retreat was entitled "Walk With Jesus". We had a sheet of guidelines to follow throughout the day, and I'll just post some of the things that struck me the most.

1. Mark 1:14-20


In this passage, Jesus meets Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John for the first time, and they are fishing. He says, "Come, follow me." Simon and Andrew immediately leave their fishing nets and follow Jesus. James and John leave their father Zebedee and the boat and the hired men and they follow Jesus too. None of the men ask any questions.
As I reflected, I realized that I'm hardly able to act with such faith. Had I been in the fishermen's shoes, I'd have asked Jesus some questions before following him:

1. Who are you? (Come on. You would probably have done it too, if a random bearded stranger approached you one day and said, "Come, follow me.")
2. Where are we going? (I mean, you don't simply follow random bearded strangers around town... at least, that's what mummy taught me when I was a kid.)
3. What about my livelihood and family? (Why should I give up these things which are so dear to me for someone I don't even know?)

I guess not all questions can be answered, and some will only be answered with time (like the second and third question). But the first question — Who are you? — was one I really had to grapple with that morning. Here's an edited version of what I wrote in my journal:

"Who are you? Are you the God of my parents? The God I've followed just because I was born into a Christian family? The God I'm so fervent for just because of my single-minded nature? What if I was born into a family of another religion? Or into a community of atheists? Would my love for 'rational' debate have led me to explain you away by the means of logic? Who are you? Who are you to me?"

A titanic inner struggle. But after quite a lot of debating with God (yes, we have fun debating together), God said, "Your faith won't be shaken because of the way you've experienced me so deeply in your life." And I realized that yeah, no matter how I questioned my faith, no matter how many questions were left unanswered — I sincerely believe in Jesus because he lives in me and he's truly transformed my life. Who is he to me? He's the one I want to be following all my life.

2. Mr Ugly

The beach gate was left open the entire day for us to bury our toes in the sand or let the waves lap around our ankles. So I went there. But guess who was waiting for me at the gate?

A filthy, old, stinking, diseased, hairless dog. Its skin was terribly coarse and folded — berkedut-kedut seems to be the most accurate term to use here. (Ellie says that the dog used to be white but it lost all its hair so it's now black. Gross.) It was so ugly that Ellie christened it Mr Ugly. You can take a look at him here.

a) MR UGLY PART 1

So I tried to skirt my way around Mr Ugly, but the beach gate had a one-man (or one-dog!) opening. So I was stuck. And keep in mind that I wasn't allowed to talk or communicate at all with anyone, so I had no knight in shining armor to rescue me from this leper of a dog. But then I began to sense God speaking to me. 

"Hannah!"

"Yes?"

"Pat him."

"No way! Why, God?"

"Just pat him."

"Aww, come on. This is a quiet retreat. You're supposed to be giving me a peaceful, serene, refreshing time right now. And certainly not making me interact with this dog."

"But you can't go through the gate without touching him anyway."

"Gosh. Seriously? Alright, you win."

So I did.  

And here is where I type in another journal excerpt:

"The first few touches were cold and awkward, then I quickly withdrew my hand — just as if to say, 'Here, I've fulfilled my obligation to love you. I'm going now.' But then God drew me to stay on. And although I was terrified of diseases and filth and all,  I grew to love him a little more. He trotted at my heels; he licked my hand. It was as if God was telling me that loving people isn't as easy as I think it is. Maybe they'll have diseases. Maybe they'll have habits I'm not comfortable with. Maybe they'll be dirty. But that's no excuse not to love them — for I'm no better than them, and they, no better me."

 Conclusion of Mr Ugly Part 1: I have to learn to love the Mr Uglies around me.

b) MR UGLY PART 2

Although I did grow a little fond of Mr Ugly, I was relieved when I finally left him — because the fact that I was fond of him didn't change the fact that he was utterly disgusting.

But God drew me back to Mr Ugly after a little while. And this time, God said, "Walk this stretch of beach with him." So we walked for quite a distance (yes, Uncle Herbie, within visual distance of the gate!) together. As we walked, Mr Ugly would once in a while jump up at me, paws in my hands, tongue hanging out. 

And then God said, "You are the dog."

This mangy, wretched animal who was probably going to die soon anyway. 

"Would you die for this dog?" he probed.

"No," I replied.

"But I died for you," God said. 

Conclusion of Mr Ugly Part 2: I am Mr Ugly, and Jesus died for me.

c) MR UGLY PART 3

I took another walk with Mr Ugly. By this time we were really good friends already lol. Arf! As we doggy-wrestled and walked with each other, Jesus said, "I became like this dog for your sake."

And that was it. A beautiful statement; a beautiful moment.

Conclusion of Mr Ugly Part 3: Jesus became like Mr Ugly for my sake.

And so this is basically the summary of my journey with Mr Ugly:

"As Jesus has loved me, so must I love others."

That weekend, we visited EMC and Whispering Hope. I was in the WH team, so we only got to drop by EMC for a few hours — but in those few hours, I got to meet up with Sue Anne the Dino, Rheena, Shenna and others. And the WH team was blessed because we were taken into Uncle Simon's house to lodge for the night. He and his family were really hospitable towards us, and we had awesome nasi lemak yo. :D After dinner, some of us adjourned to play Monopoly Deal. And guess what? Jo and Anne Grace cheated! Morons! They stole some of Kai Yen's cards, I think. But restitution was done and I won the game despite the fact that there were frauds around. HAHA. I loved the cheats, though. They made life interesting. Oh, and I was scheduled to share at WH the next morning, so Theresa simply sat down with me and helped me organize my points and all. I don't know what I'd have done if she wasn't there to hear me out. 

So on Sunday, I shared about my quiet-retreat-debate-with-God (the same one I wrote about at the beginning of this post). It went alright, I think? Haha. 

And so that's it for Week 2.5. :)

Jeremiah School Week 2.0

I looked forward to Week 2.0 of JS because we got to watch the second half of Martin Luther! As with the previous week, the movie had us all on edge. There were two scenes that particularly struck me: i) When Luther refused to recant the books he'd written, knowing that doing so could lead to his death; and ii) When all the German princes knelt down in willingness for their heads to be chopped off for what they believed in.

But the real highlight of the week was when Pastor Wai Yin came over to do two days' worth of sessions with us. She guided us in doing a survey of the Old Testament — what I loved about her sessions was that she didn't spoon feed us with lots of information, but she let us dig deep and explore the Bible for ourselves. So I paired up with Nel and went from station to station, exploring the different facets of the OT for ourselves. The station that most intrigued me was the Prophets station. Pastor Wai Yin explained in a nutshell who the prophets were — people who felt so deeply for God and were called to speak forth His word, persevering through years and years of fruitlessness. I guess that the hallmark of the prophets is faithfulness! In the face of long-term rejection, failure and no progress, what is our response? After her brief explanation, she left us to complete a few activities, one of which was to study a historical timeline of the prophets and kings. I love history, and it was pretty amazing to see how all the historical civilizations, events and people corresponded with each other. It just goes to show that the Bible isn't just a book full of loony stories; but rather, it is historically sound record of significant events in the past. We also had to explore certain Bible references that were given to us, just to get an overall taste of the prophetic books. And here's a verse that I've always loved, that I picked up from that session:

"He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

Another station which I found pretty awesome was the Exile station. Guess what? We had to read the entire book of Esther — all ten chapters of it! So Dwayne, Khai Meng, Nel and I sat together and took turns to read it. The funny thing was that just a few hours earlier, I'd told myself to read through the book of Esther and survey it for any potential sermon material. And here I was, having to read it at the station! Great stuff.

The following day, we did a survey of the New Testament instead. And of the four worksheets we went through, the Epistles was the most eye-opening. My group divided the work amongst ourselves, and I had to figure out this task: 'Read Paul's letter to the Colossians. How do the first 2 chapters (doctrine) become the basis for the next 2 chapters (practice)?' Tough one. But as I read and re-read Colossians, this was what I discovered:

DOCTRINE	PRACTICE
1. Supremacy of Christ	1. Set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God
2. We have been reconciled by Christ’s death and are now without blemish	2. We are to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature
3. We have been given fullness in Christ	3. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will also appear with him in glory
4. We are not to practice self-imposed worship or harsh treatment of the body	4. Clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience instead

Terribly interesting, this.

After the NT survey, we continued with more sessions about interpreting the Bible. So we started off with the most common of all psalms — Psalm 23. And we realized that there was more to the psalm than we'd ever realized throughout the years. I worked with Jia and we began to ask some fascinating questions. The bit that goes — 'He makes me lie down in green pastures' — if the green pastures were so good for the sheep, then why did the shepherd have to make it lie down there? Wouldn't the sheep have lain down there on its own accord? I don't think we've answered this question satisfactorily yet, but for now we've settled on the idea that since sheep are stubborn animals, they don't see the need to rest. But the shepherd knows that sheep need rest (because they need to make a journey from the grazing area back to the sheep fold in the evening). And so, although this particular sheep would probably prefer to do its own thing and wander around for a bit, the shepherd makes it lie down and rest. A bit like all of us, really. We work and work and work and never have time for a break, and so sometimes God has to put a stop to our draining work through various circumstances!

Sessions aside, we made time for fun and bonding. During Beach Day, Francis, Sunshine, Nel and I held hands and ran in the sea and sang songs like complete idiots. But that was just so life-giving. Besides that, if I'm not wrong, this was the week when Ellie started playing the Grums for worship. (Grums is a guitar played as drums! :D) Since Golden Sands didn't have a drum set, she took my guitar and hit it in a similar way in which you would hit a cajon, and it sounded magnificent. The Grums stuck on for the rest of JS. And after hearing her play, I'd love to swear off drums for a while and embrace grumming!

So that's Week 2.0. :)

Jeremiah School Week 1.5

The second half of this first week of JS had an immense impact on me — it helped me to condense my knowledge of myself and channel it to a purposeful direction. So here goes!

Uncle Alan Seow came over as an invited speaker and took on a session called Core Values. By definition, core values are ethics, virtues, beliefs, guiding principles, ideals and a personal moral compass to which to live life. He gave us a worksheet to complete, and through this, we were able to discover the core values which we hold dear to us. And I was really, really intrigued to see the final list of my ten core values (which we later called my 'Khaw Values', pun intended!). Here they are, in order of importance:

1. Religious beliefs
2. Equality
3. Courage
4. Integrity
5. Democracy
6. Perseverance
7. Generosity
8. Competency
9. Accountability
10. Commitment

It was incredibly interesting to see how different people seemed to pick core values that seamlessly integrated with each other and that led in a specific direction. For instance, more relationship-based people tended to have love, joy, peace, friends and family in their lists. Compliant and methodical people, on the other hand, chose values such as punctuality, reliability, commitment and competency. Nation-minded people picked out equality, courage, integrity, and democracy.

The Core Values session was followed by the Personal Mission Statement session. This was yet another fantastic session — we had to write mission statements for our lives (okay that was obvious haha). Uncle Alan explained the reason why we were writing personal mission statements. Basically in one sentence: We only have one life each — make it count! And so this was what I came up with:

"I will strive to be faithful to God in green pastures and in the valley of the shadow of death; to uphold equality for the marginalized; to be the voice to the voiceless and the arms and legs to those without arms and legs; to fearlessly stand up for justice in fearful times, to uphold integrity in the midst of corruption, lies and political suppression; to persevere and embrace suffering; to be a hungry learner to fulfill God's purposes, aided by my God-given capabilities; to love my nation and its indigenous people as I love myself."

And I guess I didn't treat this as just a writing exercise; rather, I'm pretty determined to live by what I've written. Come to think of it, this totally belongs on the wall of my room or something.

We also went through another worksheet detailing the character qualities of a godly leader, and each of us pinpointed three of our strongest areas and three of our weakest areas. My three strongest areas were: i) Courage; ii) Values-driven; iii) Perseverance. And my three weakest areas were: i) Humility; ii) Patience; iii) Forgiveness. I really worked hard on my weakest areas during the entire duration of JS after that! Glad to say that I made quite a bit of headway on the patience and forgiveness bit. (I'll never forget the moments with Ellie, Nel, Kai Yen, Theresa and goodness knows who else, when I declared that 'God has granted me extraordinary measures of patience today' LOL.)

Every weekend, we made trips to Methodist churches all over Malaysia. So for the first weekend, we headed to TUMC and Seremban Wesley. My mentoring group went to TUMC and took over the MYF meeting. I guess we were still pretty new and unfamiliar with each other, so there was a bit of friction here and there and things didn't go too smoothly. But in the end, things turned out pretty okay! And Michael shared his testimony at the main service too.
Activities aside, we got the chance to bond with each other over some hilarious incidents. One night, we girls heard a loud shriek from the bathroom. Soon enough, I heard that there was a big spider there. "Pathetic. It's just a spider," I thought to myself, "and whoever screamed must be that sort of girly girl who's scared of insects." So I remained lying down on the couch.  But the screaming persisted, so I went to check it out. And went I saw the spider, my jaw dropped. (But I didn't scream. I take pride in being calm and self-composed in all situations, except when I am being tickled.) It was a huge, thick, black, furry spider. And it was haunting our bathroom. So I called for a roll of newspaper, but when none could be found, I grabbed the old copy of Berita TRAC — sorry about that, TUMC! — and whacked the spider squarely on its body. It died. The girly screams also died out. Peace reigned.

So that's it for week one! :)

Jeremiah School Week 1.0

I'm back from Jeremiah School! :) I've been trying to figure out how to blog about my experience — because there's just so much to write about that I don't know where to start. So I've decided to do it Ellie-style and split my posts into half-weeks.

So in early January I arrived at Golden Sands Baptist Centre, which was to be my new home for six weeks. I think I was the JS student with the most family members who sent me off (dad, mum, Uncle Alvin, Aunty Huey Fern and Andrew boy). And I was the probably the JS student with the most luggage — one mega luggage bag, one regular-sized one, a pail, a guitar, a backpack, and a canvas bag! So embarrassing lol. So I settled into the dorm and began to make friends with the girls who'd arrived earlier than me. I remember that we began making friends because we all had to fill in a form about ourselves and when it came to areas of ministry, no one had the guts to tick preaching. Plus, we three Hannahs (yes, three Hannahs — Foo, Lim and Khaw) purposely didn't write our surnames on our forms just to confuse our mentors. Tee hee. 

Soon enough, our mentoring groups were announced (mentoring groups meet in the morning to do devotion sharing and at night to share what we went through during the day). I was in Aunty Choy Quin's group with a core group of girls who'd soon become family to me — Kai Yen (Hannah Foo), Crystal, Michelle, Mother Theresa, Anne Grace and Heng Wei. And during class time, we had different table groups — and mine consisted of Ivan, Jeremiah, Theresa, Heng Wei, Jia Qi and myself. 

During the first few days, we sat through some crazy interesting classes conducted by our JS mentors. I found the session Knowing God the Father really thought-provoking.

We explored the question — does God exist? And why? Uncle Herbie taught us about the Logic of Dimensions, using Mr and Mrs Flat as examples. I'd explain it here, but unfortunately our computer screens display two-dimensional images and I need a three-dimensional medium to explain things. So if you see me face-to-face, I can try to show it to you (if I can remember it properly!). 

And then we explored the names of God, which was a really mind-blowing experience for me. We tend to get so used to calling God 'God' that we miss out on His different characteristics that we can derive from His other Hebrew names. Here are some of the names that have imprinted themselves on my mind: Yahweh (self-existent One), Elohim (Strong One), El Elyon (Most High), El Shaddai (Almighty God), Yahweh Sabbaoth (the Lord of hosts), Yahweh Maccaddeshcem (the Lord your Sanctifier), and Yahweh Shammah (the Lord who is present). 

Then we learnt a Hebrew song. Knowing me, I love languages and that song just opened my eyes to the reverent beauty of Yahweh. Kadosh!

We watched half of the movie 'Martin Luther' (yes, the same one we learnt about in Sejarah). It was one of the most greatest movies I'd ever watched — it left a great impact on me. There were some questions in my mind after the half-movie. What is courage to me? What will I do in the face of doubts? What if I go all out courageously for a cause I believe is right, and in the end discover that it's not as it seems to be? What will I do with the undefined grey areas in life? Food for thought; questions with no answers. And of course we were all distressed when the movie was cut off halfway, and the dreaded words were uttered: 'To be continued'. 

When we had some free time, Crystal, Ellie, Kai Yen and I jammed at the hall. I guess that was the beginning of our love affair with unstructured worship sessions. It was just Ellie on the guitar (that girl is amazing), Kai Yen and Crystal with the vocals, and myself on the piano, playing any song that came to mind. Pretty awesome.

It was also during this week that we began to pick up some domestic skills — yes, I admit that I am extremely inept at washing clothes and hanging them to dry and doing the dishes and stuff like that. We had to wash our clothes by hand, which I never really got used to... even until now! So this is how washing clothes goes:

1. Soak clothes in a pail and add washing detergent
2. Wait
3. Wait
4. Wait
5. Pour the dirty water out
6. Fill the pail with clean water
7. Take clothes out of the pail
8. Scrub clothes
9. Rinse
10. Hang to dry
11. Sprint to the washing line if it starts raining
12. Harvest dry clothes after a few hours
13. Fold clothes
14. Stack clothes
15. Keep clothes

CAN DIE. Thankfully I had Nel and Kai Yen to give me some maid-like advice.

However, bathroom times weren't all terrible. We also had our fantastically fun moments. Kai Yen, Ellie and I created our bathroom singing gang and sang incredible song medleys everyday, complete with the soprano + alto parts! Those were truly life-giving moments, and bathroom singing is one thing I really miss about JS now. 

We also had a Nature session, whereby we had to look for something from nature that reflected our relationship with God. I found a blade of grass — it was short, but it was so deeply rooted into the ground that I couldn't pull it out at all (I had to tear the blade of grass away from the root in the end). And lying down on the grass, I could see all sorts of insects seeking shelter underneath the grass. So that's what I picked up. Then we had a Psalm 23 activity, which I won't write about in case there are any future JS students reading this. Would be nice to keep it a surprise. :)

We also had a Meditation: Scripture session which left quite a deep impact on me. (No, meditation here doesn't mean that I wear a robe and go "AUMMMMM" and do a yoga pose and close my eyes. Basically it's just reading a passage from the Bible and understanding it in a deeper manner. Heh.) My table group worked on a chunk of the Bible about Peter and Jesus walking on water together with Pastor Lucy. And verse 28 caught me eye: 

Peter said to Jesus, "If it is You, Lord, tell me to come to You on the water."

Humans grow the most through challenges in life. Yet we tend to be resistant to challenges because they typically come along with great struggles and suffering. So sometimes God has to intentionally put us through challenges because we don't actively seek struggles and suffering for ourselves. In this passage, though, Peter asked Jesus for a challenge. And I shared that in the past, God has constantly drawn me to proverbially throw myself into the water first, instead of waiting for Him to throw me in. Throwing myself in the water has always been difficult, but rewarding. I wonder where I'll throw myself into next!

The same night, after the night session, Lucy called me over to talk. (I'm telling you, it's terrifying when mentors or any adult JS helpers call you over and ask, "Can I talk to you for ten minutes?" HAHA.) We'd hardly spent any time together prior to this, besides the Meditation: Scripture session. So I was rather surprised to be pulled aside. So we sat down, and she said, "I'm going back tomorrow. So I called you because I noticed some things about you and I want to encourage you." We chatted about the ability to quickly analyze things accurately, courage, giftings, leadership. Then she said one thing that struck me: "... because of your giftings, your words and actions will influence others". And of course it hit me that influence can work two ways — either for the better, or for the worse. I guess I spent the rest of the night thinking.

That's it for the first half of the first week of JS! :)

Cbox

So apparently Shoutmix doesn't provide free chatboxes any longer so I've reverted to the good ol' Cbox.

JS

I'll be going away from January 2 - February 19 for this thing called Jeremiah School. I won't have internet access the entire time (save for a short CNY break), so there won't be blog updates for the duration of JS. Mobile phones are only usable during weekends, so save your text messages for Saturday and Sunday!

Come back in late February and I promise you that this blog will not die. :)