Me?

After church today I was meant to join the choir, but Jessica needed me to teach her some chemistry, so I decided I'd just join next week.

Some of the youth group were also keen to go to the Lantern Festival tonight as well, but it was a little difficult sorting it out, and I was going to go to the Japan Festival with my family before the Lantern Festival first, so I let them sort it out.

After I had helped Jessica out, and everyone had gone home, there were just a few of us still at church, including artist extraordinaire, Wei. He's been selling paintings at the Lantern Festival for the past two nights, and I asked him if he could do a caricature of me, and this is what he came up with!

The Table is Here!

Our relatives on our mum's side offered us a dining room table set for free, as they are replacing it and want to get rid of it. 

We didn't have any vehicle big enough to transport it, so we paid some guys with a big truck to bring it over. It was just lucky we got back home from music just in time!

Parents Dinner Together

Tonight our parents' church group had a potluck dinner

While the parents sat around talking, us younger people formed our own circle and had our conversation, getting to know our special friend Kathy a bit better!

Warm Fuzzies

Tonight for youth group, Andrew, Wei and Rebecca were organising activities for us!

Andrew started off the night playing a game in the hall where we had to pass a small ball to each other. If we were passed the ball, we would have to name one person from another fellowship we met last week, and two facts about them. I got passed the ball first, and named Dannie, my pharmacist friend (that was pretty easy!)

The next game was organised by Wei. We were split into three groups. We had to complete these random tasks, such as hug 10 people, find several objects that were pink, or blue, or plastic, declare to several people that we love them, act out a way to declare your love for another without using the word 'love'...(you can get the overall theme!) For each task completed, we were given a clue to the code, which was a Bible verse. In our group, Jenny was was tasked with cracking that code!

The final activity organised by Rebecca was quite cool. We were each given a piece of paper, asked to write our name on top of it, then pass it around the circle for each person to write a nice message on, in the spirit of Valentine's Day. Some wrote ...interesting messages on others' pieces of paper, while I started to cause a backlog as I tried writing something meaningful!

Eventually we each got our pieces of paper back. They were really nice comments! 

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it! It's nice to hear once in a while (or just to get that reassurance) that people appreciate you!

Happy 14th of February

Happy Valentine's Day/Singles Appreciation Day everyone!

As usual it was just another sunny Thursday at home for me, enjoying the simple life of watching The Biggest Loser at home.

I did one surprise in the mail though. A week or two ago, I saw an ad on the side of my Facebook page, offering some free razor, so I thought I'd just fill out the form and see if they'd really give me something for free...

Sure enough, a delivery guy was at the door with a package for me!

It will definitely be a beardless Valentine's Day!

Gotcha!

I was asked to work again at the pharmacy today till late, which meant I would be working sole charge for the last two hours of the evening before closing up. Fortunately I was with one of the technicians, so I had a bit of back-up just in case!

I had one interesting customer. She had prescriptions for her daughter. We got her medicine ready, and I brought them out to her. I was explaining the medicines to her, when she told me that she knew all about them as she was a dentist.

As I was scanning all the items she wanted, she asked me,

"Oh, and do you sell snake skin oil?"

My first thought was hmmmmm...that sounds a bit weird. Maybe it's just some natural product. I turned to the shop girl and asked if we sold it, and as she was about to type it into the computer to look it up, the dentist mother shouted out

"GOTCHA!"

And couldn't stop herself from laughing! She said I had made her day, and couldn't wait to tell her doctor friends! She kept laughing as she walked out with her daughter!

I'm getting better work stories everyday!

No Driving Lesson Today

I was meant to have a driving lesson about half an hour ago, but my driving instructor still hasn't shown up! I have to leave for work in an hour, so I'll have to postpone my lesson.

I gave my instructor a call, and apparently she locked herself out of her car!

My Baptism Testimony Transcript

大家早上好。我叫安天慈，(Good morning everyone. My name is An Tian-Ci), or as most of you know me, Calum. I feel like I’ve been a Christian since I was very young, having attended my grandma’s church when I was a little child, and attending weekly Bible classes at primary school. For several years though, I attended Chinese school on Sunday mornings, and so I stopped going to church.

Eventually I stopped going to Chinese school on Sundays, and started enjoying Sunday morning cartoons at home. It wasn’t until another mother at the music school we attended suggested this nearby Chinese church to my mum. Thanks Stephanie and Vanessa's mum! My mum thought it would be a good idea to attend, so that we could not only learn more about God, but also improve our Chinese!

Having only just started high school, I was thrown right into the deep end, attending Sunday School class with teenagers who were almost four or five years older than me. I didn’t understand anything. I didn’t understand anyone. As we were the new family at the church, and were not quite Chinese enough to mix with others, we became Sunday Christians.

We were like that for a few years. We attended church and Sunday School on Sundays, then went home. Sure, we believed in God, we followed his ways, and we had a Bible, but it wasn’t a major part of our lives. I remember how a couple of my best friends at high school would spend a lot of their spare time at church, and would wonder to myself, how can you spend so much time at church?

I guess back then, I had many questions. I’m someone who doesn’t like to leave anything down to chance. I wanted an answer for everything. Things pertaining to God were things I couldn’t explain. I thought that I should believe in God just in case he really did exist! I tried to have my foot in both camps. I thought, that if I chose to be ignorant of all arguments against Christianity and just believed whatever I was told at church and by others, then that would be fine.

I would try find a compromise for arguments against God. 

Up to that point, whenever people commented on my personality or on what I was like, they would ask if I was Christian. This displeased me, as I felt the way I was, was just that – a reflection of who I was, and of my upbringing. I didn’t understand why everything had to be attributed to religion.

Ultimately, all these uncertainties about God led me to hide my faith from others. I prefer to avoid confrontation, and debates about heated issues I feel I am not knowledgeable about, such as religion. I had many non-Christian friends, many who were passionate atheists. I’m sure they would’ve respected my views, but it was just something I didn’t want to talk about. I would avoid telling anyone I was a Christian, for fear of being judged.

It was not until the Oddfellows English youth group was established that God started playing a more influential role in my life. God finally started to open my eyes, and made me realise that I’m not alone. There were others my age who believed in God! Being around others who were of a similar age to me, being able to discuss issues that affected us…in English, having fun and the support and encouragement we gave each other – it all helped me become more comfortable with my faith.

Funnily enough, it was an Oddfellows picnic at Cornwall Park when I first realised, I have nothing to hide. After a day of playing games involving dress-ups and other random activities at the park with other youth group members, I came home and the first thing I did was jump on Facebook and came out of the closet. I declared to the world in my profile that I AM A CHRISTIAN!

I have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, today I realise more than ever that Christianity and God has shaped my life more than anything. The way I am, the wonderful family and friends I have, where I am right now and what I am doing, it is all God’s work. I have developed a passion for serving the church, especially in the music field and with children. The people at this church have all helped me navigate my Christian life. 

I have been contemplating my future career path, asking myself what really matters? What can I do to make a difference in this world? Regardless of how big or small the difference I make, I know God has a plan and he will guide me along that path as long as I obey Him and His word.

The Experiencing God programme that I am currently doing with a few others has challenged me to rethink my relationship with God. I have come to realise, when you have a relationship with God, it is all or nothing.  You can’t pick and choose what you want to believe. You can’t be selective, and you can’t have it both ways. This has been a struggle for me at times, and something I am constantly working on.

I’ve always thought of baptism is something you do to show that you are, or have become the perfect Christian. That is why it has taken me so long to get to this point!

We will never be ready though. We will never will be perfect in God’s eyes. Then again, baptism isn’t an endpoint, but the beginning of a new chapter in one’s relationship with God. It is to show one’s dedication of their life to God. While I may still not be the perfect Christian, and I still sometimes have questions, I believe I am ready to dedicate my life to Him.

谢谢。 (Thank you).

Time to Testify!

Tomorrow morning Hamish and I will be giving my baptism testimony at church! Aonghas will be giving his next month, and then we'll hopefully be getting baptised in Easter.

We were originally meant to get baptised last Christmas, but because of exams and work, we decided to postpone it a bit so we could put some thought and effort into our testimonies.

Admittedly, Karvin, our youth pastor reminded us a couple Sundays ago to submit our testimonies to him by the following Wednesday, as we had had months to get it ready. However, Hamish and I hadn't finished them! We scrambled to finish them. I found it difficult to start, as with most essays and reports I write. However, once I got started, it just all came out.

I think the same thing happened with Hamish. He took a while to get started, but once he got started, HE GOT GOING.

We decided to walk to church that following Friday morning (our mum had already gone to church to help out with some kids playgroup, so we had no transport!) to work on our testimonies with Karvin. Hamish had a job interview on the telephone along the way which was extra cool.

We read our testimonies to Karvin, and he was fine with mine. Originally Hamish had four pages of writing, but managed to cut it down to two. Even with his abridged version though, it took 11 minutes! They worked on it a bit more and managed to halve it down to about five minutes.

For me, I've always wanted read my testimony in Chinese ever since I joined our church and witnessed others giving their testimonies in Chinese. To me, I just feel like it would be demonstrating how it has been a big influence in my faith (being a Chinese church), and that since the majority of the congregation is Chinese, I should put in the effort to speak their language! I'll have a translator anyway, right?

What I find funny is that up till this point people have been asking me if I will be presenting my testimony in Chinese, and have been encouraging me to do so. However, in the weeks leading up to it, I've been discouraged from doing so, for fear of no one understanding me! Maybe they will know how I feel when Chinese baptism testimonies don't get translated into English!

A few close friends of mine told me I should pray about it, so I did.

Anyway, with not wanting to let go of a long-held dream of mine, I was determined to give my testimony in Chinese, even though the pastor was thinking I was going to do it in English. The plan was I would practise in Chinese, then make a decision closer to the day and let the pastor know if I did decide to do it in Chinese.

However, it looks like I'll be doing it in English, seeing as the translation won't be ready in time for me to practise. There goes another dream of mine!

Maybe this was how it was meant to be in the end? I suppose it's not the end of the world, and at least I will be more comfortable with my delivery.

And as Jenny has tried pointing out to me, it's a declaration of my commitment to God in front of others and that's what is most important (or something like that!).

What will make tomorrow extra special is that we'll be having a Chinese New Year pot luck lunch after the combined service and Sunday school, so it'll be an interesting day! Oh...and I have to lead kid's worship!

I better practise more!

Chinese New Year Get-Together

Tonight was the first official fellowship night for our Oddfellows youth group, and possibly the two other fellowships at our church. One is a Mandarin speaking high school/uni group, while the other is a Mandarin speaking group for working people.

Since Chinese New Year is coming, we had a combined pot luck dinner together before having a combined fellowship evening so we would be able to get to know people from other fellowships a bit better. Some people also brought some friends along which was cool too!

Our mum cooked chicken nuggets and some noodles for the dinner for us, but I accidentally dropped a few in the car park as I got out of the car! Woops...

There was quite a lot of food for dinner! As usual, we let the women eat first before us guys swarmed in.

I noticed that once again people were sitting with people from their own fellowship, instead of mixing with others! I guess it's just a habit, and you tend to stick to people you're most comfortable with. I admit I was guilty of that too. That's something we'll have to change!

After dinner we went into the auditorium for a bit of worship singing. Each fellowship was in charge of leading one song. Aonghas, Grace and I led 'Lord, I Lift Your Name on High' in between the two other fellowships' songs. We went over to Grace's house the night before to practise, just so we could get it right! We sung it once in Chinese, and then in English. Unfortunately the other fellowships only chose to sing in Chinese, so we had a little trouble singing along, but that's OK, we could hum!

After worship, each of our fellowships got into a line, numbered off into eight mixed groups and then went into the gym for the activity for the night. Each group was given a few random objects, a random setting, a couple random verbs and nouns and given about half an hour to plan a little skit incorporating all of those things.

Our group's setting was an earthquake, with our props being a badminton racquet, a hoola hoop, a teapot and a helmet, and our nouns and verbs being hat, blender, itch (is that a verb?) and punch.

We were quite stumped for a while! We were thinking of incorporating zombies, and then started thinking of doing a Twilight spoof, before settling on our final skit which was a bit random and didn't make much sense! All the other groups were practising hard out while we just sat there thinking!

It was eventually time for each group to present their skit in front of everyone. We had a skit on plane crash survivors stuck on a deserted island in search of toilet paper, a prince who wanted to buy chocolate for his princess, some girls who got chased by haunted trees, some school kids who were riding in a bus dying in a bus crash, and some queen having someone play a piano for her (I think that's what happened?).

As for our skit, it went something like this - we were all in a cooking class learning how to blend from our teacher (Dannie), when an earthquake hit. As we got up, checking that everyone else was OK, we started to get itchy. We all then started feeling like punching each other and we all died. Lemuel, the engineer (with his hat on) then came in to check on our house, found us all dead, and moved on.

And that was it for the night! We then had supper where I had some interesting discussions and a cup of water poured over my head. Good times.

OK Who's Been Playing with my Phone Again?

A Day in (Roto)Vegas

Happy Waitangi Day everyone!

It's Aonghas's last free week before he has to start work, so since my dad had today off, we thought we might go on our second family outing of the year. It took us half the day to decide, but finally by midday we decided we'd drive down to Rotorua for the day - a roughly three hour drive! Thanks Aonghas for driving us!

 I had a long sleep before we had our first stop...at Ngaruawahia! 

We parked in exactly the same car park as last time when we went down south to pick blueberries. We had a quick toilet break before we got going again!

We passed a few icons, such as the Huntly Power Station and, well a lot of grace, trees and farm animals, before we eventually passed Cambridge and Hamilton.

We soon reached our destination, Rotorua!

We came across a park with some hot pools.

 We could tell by the fences surrounding some rocks and trees.

We parked and got out to have a look. You could definitely see the steam, smell the sulphur and hear the bubbling!

There were no shooting geysers though. We saw this small pool with steam rising from it. We could hear this noise that was getting louder. We originally thought maybe it was a geyser about to shoot up, but then realised it was just a helicopter taking off from the neighbouring hospital!

Our dad said there might be some more exciting geysers at nearby Whakarewarewa, so we headed towards there, driving through the city centre.

We saw the nearby Lake Rotorua though, and decided to stop there for a toilet break and to take in the sights!



The lake was really nice. There were sleeping black ducks, little paddle boats, the old Lakeside Queen was parked at a wharf, and a plane boat (or do you call it a boat plane?) was taking off nearby!

There were also quite a few Korean tourists around the place taking photos!

We were on a tight time frame with only a couple hours left to go.

We drove to Whakarewarewa, which was completely empty! There was a nearby Maori village, with some kids jumping off a bridge into a river.

We didn't know if we were allowed to cross that bridge into the river though, so we went over to the Information Centre. They told us it was closed and to try down the road around the back at Te Puia.

We jumped into the car, drove down the road and found Te Puia. It was open, but admission was about $47 per adult! Too expensive!

We tried to have a look through the fence, before taking a glimpse of the helicopter at the neighbouring helipad, then got back in the car and drove a little further down the road to see if there was anything left.

There was another entrance, which let us cross a bridge. We got a good view of the surrounding forest and one possible geyser. The bridge just took us to that other entrance though, so we walked back.

It was almost 6pm, and time to head back home!

We did take stop by Tirau to take some photos of the giant corrugated iron statues and buildings in the shape of various animals though!

 They really must love corrugated iron at that town!

On our way back, we stopped at Burger King in Hamilton, where we had dinner. Aonghas ordered five value meal deals upsized. They gave them to Aonghas, but didn't upsize them. Fortunately Aonghas noticed, so he took the food back and they reluctantly upsized the fries and gave larger cups. I had already filled my small cup up, and so they told Aonghas just to refill that cup, but Aonghas told them that we were driving back to Auckland, so they again reluctantly gave us a larger cup! The ice-cream sundaes were some of the smallest we've seen as well, with the cups barely half full! Lucky we probably won't be going to that Burger King again!

We made it back home in time for Hell's Kitchen, so it was a perfectly timed, one day trip!