Fireworks go off with a Bang!

Tonight was the annual Waitakere Fireworks display at the Trusts Stadium. It almost didn't happen and was originally postponed, but fortunately it was un-postponed!

It's too expensive for us to pay to go in and watch the fireworks, but we're lucky our church is right across the road, so we can just watch them from there.

We showed up at about 8pm after dinner. We were originally tossing up between going out for dinner to celebrate Hamish's birthday (which is tomorrow), or just to eat in and celebrate it another time. We ended up staying home for dinner.

It was only once the stunt planes flew noisily over our house in formation that we started realising we should really get a move on!

As we drove to church, there were quite a few people sitting on the banks opposite the stadium ready to watch the fireworks for free. There must be a lot of cheap people like us in West Auckland!

When we got to church, the other fellowship was already there playing games. There were a few people from my own fellowship who had already shown up and joined in with them.

They were all sitting in a circle playing this game called Do You Love Your Neighbour? If you say 'yes', everyone has to swap seats, and the last person standing is stuck in the middle. If you say 'no', then only the two people beside you have to swap seats and you have to try swap seats with them without being the last person standing. Sound confusing? It was for me the first few times!

We were about to play this other game which required us to get into several teams. We were then given a few Chinese characters. Each team member would pick one character and call it out right at the same time, and the opposing team would have to guess what Chinese characters had been said and then use them to make a sentence or phrase.

We didn't get too far before the fireworks were about to start and we all rushed outside!

The fireworks started off slow and small, but they started to get bigger and bigger. Once again, car alarms were set off, and despite our car being parked at the far end of the car park, I had the beeper to turn it off every once in a while!

I'll let the photos do the talking though.

(http://youtu.be/h78JJwExQHo)

Don't Trust Kids with Whiteboard Markers

I've been trying to improve my fashion sense by wearing better clothes than just a t-shirt and shorts, which I guess isn't too hard to improve on...

This has seen me wearing pants at church recently, and today I thought I'd wear my mustard coloured chino's that I bought on sale at Hallenstein's (TMI) for only the second time.

Not a good idea around kids...

This little girl who had been scribbling all over the whiteboard with a red whiteboard marker in a room I was in ran up behind me and dotted me on the back of my pants! She then attempted to do more damage, and I had to restrain her and confiscate the whiteboard marker off her.

Unfortunately the damage was already done!

When I got home, I tried putting some washing powder on it and scrubbing with a toothbrush, but it's still there! What am I supposed to do now!

Mid-Autumn Festival Awks

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was being held across the road from our church at the Trusts Stadium today, and so after church we had a shorted choir rehearsal so that we could go across to check it out...or so I thought...

The minister's wife who is also in the choir showed everyone these cool little pens with a piece of paper you can pull out and it talks about God and Jesus. I initially thought...phew OK it's in Chinese. I'll be off the hook since I don't understand what's on the pen. That's when they showed the other side to reveal the English side!

I've never gone and done outreach before, as I never feel like I'm ready or would be able to say the right things, so I thought I might just give this time a pass as well.

When I got across to the stadium though, I found all the church people there and in the end they persuaded me to give it a go! They taught me how to say

'Happy Mid-Autumn Festival' 

and

'Jesus loves you!'

in Chinese. I tried approaching some people and saying that to them as they walked by, but was completely ignored the first three times, as if I didn't even exist!

My first success was a little child. To be honest I just asked her if she would like a free pen!

I bumped into my old pharmacy friend Ai Ping and had a bit of a catch-up, which was pretty cool! She didn't want a pen!

Half way through, I realised I wasn't saying the right thing in Chinese to people, and then without thinking wished someone a Happy Chinese New Year!

Realising I was failing on my own, I decided to pair up with Antonia who did the talking and I handed out the pens. We were much more successful! I think people are more willing to listen to a girl than some ugly old guy like me!

When we had finally given everything out, it was time to go exploring! We went inside the stadium to check out what was going on, but it didn't seem as though much was actually happening. Everyone had gathered around the stage, but we couldn't tell what for.

We decided to go back outside and check out the food stalls. We caught up with Claire, someone we haven't seen in a while. It was so good catching up with people!

I was starting to get phone calls from the adults wanting their children back, so we had to rush to find something to eat. I offered to shout everyone squid, but it seemed as though every stall had sold out of squid! We eventually found a stall that sold it. It was a little spicy but it was OK!

Once we returned to church to reunite some of the people with their parents, we went back across the road to the festival, hoping for some discounts on food since it was almost the end of the festival. Sadly we were disappointed.

It's good to see WTV holding some Chinese festivals out west though. Usually they're held in the city or out in South Auckland. I don't think I'd ever seen as many Chinese people in one area in a long time as I did today! Hopefully there'll be more festivals to come!

(http://youtu.be/bDq9r7J7neU)

Fire! Fire!

OK..not really, but we had the first fire evacuation practice at church that I can remember! Maybe I just can't remember any of the others, or maybe it's just because this is the first time I was actually directly involved in this one as one of the fire wardens.

I wasn't a very good one though...I was caught off-guard a little. The siren was meant to sound after the service at around 11.30. We were meant to be by the door we were looking after at that point, but I was packing up equipment from the English service when it sounded!

I rushed off to the door where Ben was (both Ben and I were together), and by then everyone had exited that door, so there wasn't really much more for me to do, except to show off my cool neon-orange armband!

Everyone had to evacuate to the carpark. It was only a few minutes before the all-clear was given and we could return.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfh-RhqUpeY)

The Birth of our Worship Band

This morning our church held its first English service after break of just over a month due to the church's Mission month.

What was going to make this English service slightly more special was the fact that our 'worship band' would be doing worship for the first time! Usually our set up for worship is just the worship leader, two back-up singers and a pianist/keyboardist. Our group today consisted of me as the leader (and also playing the cajon - a drum that looks like a wooden box!), a back-up singer and two other singers on instruments, two keyboardists, a guitarist and a bass guitarist. We decided to use the first two English services to try out a few new arrangements and just see what we're capable of. I was to lead the first week, then Angie would lead next week.

The songs I picked to lead this time around were:

Blessed - Hillsong

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y383zE_8kYo)

Desert Song - Hillsong

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmOgyohx_y4)

Unending Love - Hillsong

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDIuFrdKiXg)

How Great is our God - Chris Tomlin

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvXweftb7UU)

To Be Like You - Hillsong

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zneDiI1-09o)

I've been struggling a little in the past couple weeks with a bit of a cold and a cough, thanks to overnighters trying to finish assignments, and I thought it was coming right just in time yesterday when I was just able to sing that last song To Be Like You, which goes up really high! However, I woke up this morning with the cough back again and my throat not feeling the greatest! I was quite anxious about it! 

We had a bigger congregation than usual this morning. I noticed quite a few people from the Mandarin fellowship at our service, which must have been the first time for them! I was talking to one of them the day before at our rehearsal, light-heartedly saying they should come along and bring everyone from their fellowship. I didn't think it'd actually happen! There were also a few new people too which was quite cool!

10am was soon approaching, and we were frantically getting Aonghas and the others to play a little background music as everyone waited. There was a bit of an awkward silence till that happened!

Once it hit 10am though, it was time to go! I started off with a prayer, reading something I had prepared earlier on my tablet. As soon as I finished, the band came in, and as they were playing the intro, I was meant to say to everyone

"OK everyone let's all get on our feet, raise our hands, raise our voices and praise the Lord Almighty!"

Instead, what came out was 

"OK everyone let's all get on our feet and raise our feet..."

That's when I quickly went into damage control mode to correct that just in time before the end of the intro and the beginning of the verse! At the same time my pdf file with the lyrics was on the wrong song and so on top of correcting myself, I was trying to swipe back to the correct song in my pdf file!

The rest of worship went a bit more smoothly. 

During the sermon I was still worrying about the response song, which was To Be Like You (the one with the really high notes!). I was tossing up over whether to sing down low or just sing as is. In the end I sang as is and managed to get through it!

PHEW!

We made it through! Hopefully we can do this a bit more regularly! We've got next week to prepare for now though!

What Late Nights do to You

We had another rehearsal for our worship band today, and I was struggling to sing properly! I swear I'm coming down with a cold! I just kept coughing and couldn't even reach the high notes!

I think I must've caught the cold over the past two days, having slept at 4am in the morning trying to finish my assignments. It's been pretty cold recently and by the time I had finished my assignment on Friday morning, my fingers were freezing!

Hopefully I get better by next weekend though, as I will be leading worship!

Farewell Benson and Derek!

Today was a sad day, as Benson one of the church deacons who has been with us for many years, and Derek, one of the guys at church who always brings us laughs, were both to be farewelled. Benson is going back to Hong Kong to study to become a pastor, while Derek is going to Hong Kong to work.

During the service, Benson was invited to come up on stage and sing a song with the pastor which was really nice! A few words were said and a powerpoint show with photos of Benson and his family were played.

The Siloam Fellowship, the fellowship that Benson has been helping lead then got up on stage and sang a song for him. It was really moving, and I could see quite a few of them getting a bit teary-eyed!

We had Sunday School as usual, but for lunch we had a special combined potluck lunch. There was a variety of food that everyone had brought. We all got our food before it was time for Oddfellows to perform a little song we had been practising for him!

We all got up and I had to say a few words before we got Benson, his family and Derek up front to sing a hymn to them. We were all in our nice Oddfellows t-shirts too! Well...most of us anyway! We got those who didn't have one or forgot to wear it to just stick Oddfellows written on a piece of paper on their shirts! REPRESENT

Once we finished, we all rushed to them for a group hug, and unfortunately upset poor Eliza who started crying! At least she'll have something to remember us by!

Other people came up one at a time to say a few words about Benson. There was also a video of Sherman who is currently over in Australia, who had a few words to say as well!

We will miss you Benson and Derek!

Getting Back into the Groove

I haven't attended dancing with the aunties at church since last year because of various commitments and...sleeping in...but I decided to make an appearance again today after Rebecca said she was going.

I have to admit it was quite a workout! I was sweating by the end of it, not to mention the stitch I got from drinking too much water throughout.

There were quite a few women who turned out today, and surprisingly one guy! He must've been someone's husband. He approached me afterwards, thanking me for not making him the only guy there as he was feeling a little lonely, and said he hoped I'd come again next week! haha

While having morning tea (besides being challenged to eat wasabi covered biscuit by Rebecca), a lady came over to talk to me about getting her daughter to attend our youth group. They just arrived in NZ six months ago, and her daughter's English isn't too good yet, and so she'd like her to come to our youth group to improve her English. It looks like we'll have a new friend this Friday!

Joylynn joined us for morning tea. She didn't do dancing as she had been helping out at the kindy today. I think she's getting some experience to put on her CV.

Everyone started leaving as I played with some of the kids. Soon everyone was gone, except for Rebecca, her brother David and me, just playing some 'Guess the Logo' game on my phone. My mum had went to the hospital with a few other aunties to visit one of their friends. Rebecca's parents had bought them lunch, and kindly invited me to join them! Thanks Liao family!

Eventually my parents came back and we went home. I just crashed on the couch! All that dancing must've taken its toll on me!

Oh, and this is something we created at church today for Joanna's birthday (one of the girls at church)

In case you were wondering, the hearts are not from me. Rebecca designed this! And yes I know, I know....I got the 'J' around the wrong way!

A Good Friday

It was Good Friday today, the day we commemorate the death of Jesus Christ!

The day started off with a service in the morning. Our church choir was to perform, so we had to meet up earlier at church for a final rehearsal. When I walked in, I thought I saw Stephanie (a youth group friend) at the water cooler, and called out

"Good morning Steph.."

As she turned around, I realised it was her mum! Woops...

After we got into our gowns, we rehearsed a few parts of the song 'No Greater Love' before the bell rang and the service started.

The service started with a hymn, and the choir sang the first part of 'No Greater Love'. After, the pastor gave a sermon.

The choir sang the second part of the song, followed by the communion, and then the last part of the song.

We finished the service with some prayer. I was quite surprised at how there was quite a bit of English translation at the service today, and attendance seemed to be up on past years!

There were quite a few photographers taking photos around the place today. I think it's a sign the photography group at church are onto it!

I hope the choir sounded good though! I have to commend Ruth for playing the piano very well! The song is quite long and there's a lot to play! The soloists and Yangzi, the narrator were quite good too!

After the service, we all went to the hall for some hot cross buns. Our fellowship and a few members of the Jeshuan fellowship stayed behind for shared lunch before fellowship. Quite a few people forgot to bring food though, so those people who didn't bring anything contributed money to some extra food that Tim bought.

Aonghas, Grace and I (aka OFB) left early to do a quick practice with Joylynn and Gabrielle, who were leading worship for the combined fellowship. Aonghas was on piano, Grace on acoustic guitar and me on bass. I used over six plasters just to protect my fingers this time!

We did two songs, 'In Christ Alone' and 'Because He Lives', and we didn't actually sound too bad! Well...I hope we didn't. It did sound like everyone was singing though!

We then watched this documentary called Mama Heidi, about a lady called Heidi who had been doing missionary work in Mozambique. It was quite touching, seeing the difference she was making over there. It kinda inspires me to do something like that, but I sometimes wonder if I'd be strong enough!

Andrew, one of the guys at our church who spent three years in Taiwan and two months in Cambodia, then shared his experience with us, showing some pictures of his time in Cambodia. It was quite fascinating! He taught English there along with doing missionary work.

We finished the afternoon by sharing what we thought was the thing that caught our attention the most, and then writing a letter to Jesus/God and laying it by the large cross on stage.

This evening we've just been chilling out in front of the TV. For the first time in a long time, the whole family sat down and watched Police Academy together! Usually our dad hardly ever watches movies! It was quite nice just to do something together, as simple as that (even though my mum fell asleep halfway through it!).

To end our Good Friday, we made a late dash to Wendy's for dinner! Now that is a good Friday.

(Some photos courtesy of Anni Zhou)

Preparing for the Big One

That big weekend for Christians is coming up...Easter! It'll be extra special for us Anderson brothers, as we will finally be getting baptised! It certainly has been a long time coming!

It'll start off tomorrow morning with a Good Friday service. Our choir will be performing this pretty long song, called No Greater Love. It's over 50 pages long, and we're singing the abridged version! I think it describes Jesus's life and death? It's all in Chinese so I'm not quite too sure! I should probably study its meaning before we perform it tomorrow!

I joined the choir a few weeks ago, and have to admit I've only been able to attend a few rehearsals prior to tonight because of other events popping up, so I've had to get help writing down the pinyin under the characters to help me sing them. Thanks Jenny's dad and Rebeca's dad! (As you can tell, I sit at the back with the dads) I'm fine with singing in tune, it's just being able to pronounce the Chinese properly!

Tonight we had our final rehearsal. I think we only managed to go through the whole song once in the time we rehearsed! It sounds really good though, so hopefully all goes well tomorrow!

I Need Tougher Fingers! 00000iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz

Tonight our OFB (Oddfellows band) had a little rehearsal at church after work to prepare for this Friday's Good Friday combined fellowship. Joylynn is leading, and so we thought we'd back her up.

I'm going to attempt bass guitar again, despite still not having my own! After a night of playing though, I had blisters on four of my fingers and one of my thumbs! I must've have really soft fingers! Apparently the more you play, the more calloused and rough your fingers get! I don't think I want rough fingers! I might just have to try find gloves or plaster my fingers up to protect them!

Hopefully the blisters will go down by Friday at least!

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!

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!

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.

A Late Night Sing

Tonight after church a group of us went to the Baptist Tabernacle in the city to check out their evening service. I think the last time I was at that church was probably the church conference last year!

Originally I thought the service would be in the main hall, but it turned out to be in the upstairs dining hall! We all sat around tables instead of in rows of chairs, which was a new experience! There were Bibles at each of the tables as well.

There was a worship band on the small raised stage, who led us with a few songs, before one of the pastors gave his sermon.

After the service, we all decided to have a vote on what to have for dinner before some would be going home, and a few of us to karaoke! Some of the adults initially suggested Taiwanese food, but after all the money we spent last night on dinner and ice-skating, they were out-voted by us young people who all voted for Wendy's!

  

It worked out well in the end though, as there wasn't much time before we were meant to be at the karaoke place. Most of us ordered the value meal which came with a burger, fries, drink and a sundae. We also got a free milk shake via the Wendy's app! It was quite filling. I almost couldn't finish it all!

We soon had to cross the road to the karaoke bar which is located in what used to be a giant gaming arcade. It looks quite nice now! It's sorta underground too. We were booked in to Room One.

There were about fifteen of us. Most of them were fluent in Chinese, so naturally they chose Mandarin and Cantonese songs. I didn't understand most of them, so I just cheered and tried singing as much as I could. Hamish, Grace and I (the English group) tried to fit in a few English songs as much as we could, even though the Chinese songs outnumbered most of them!

We did get to sing a few English songs throughout the night! There were a couple we didn't realise would have swear words in them! Uh oh! I also tried singing a couple Chinese songs, like Kiss Goodbye by Wang Lee Hom and Ai Mei by Rainie Yang!

We had the room for four hours, and each of us were allowed to order anything up to a total of $20, so I tried the red bean crush and some deep-fried fish. I'm not too sure if it was worth it for the price, but I guess at least it's something!

Aonghas soon joined us after he finished work over at uni.

Our room was booked till midnight, so by midnight we had to leave. Fortunately it's a holiday tomorrow!

And the Programme Begins!

Today was the first day of the children's summer programme at our church. We all had to be there by 8.30am in the morning for a 9am start. We got there slightly late...as usual, but fortunately things hadn't really begun yet.

We started the programme with some games as we waited for all the kids to arrive. We were a little caught off-guard as we hadn't thought much about the games in the morning! The younger kids played simple games like Duck, Duck, Goose while we managed to come up with games such as Octopus, this game where boys and girls had to tag the other before they reached the other end, and the shark game involving a parachute, where kids who were underneath the parachute were the sharks!

The real programme started at 9.30, when the kids were welcomed and told of the rules, and then it was down to me to do some singing with them. I led one song 'Awesome God' with the kids with Joylynn and Antonia as my helpers and Aonghas playing keyboard for me. It's quite simple and short, so I just had to mix it up a bit, getting the kids to sing the song a little different each time, such as singing it quieter and then really loud. I like how when you get them to sing it really loud, they get really into it and start shouting! It makes you feel good!

Tim and Tania, who usually come to our church to run the programme, were running all the activities today, so they played some games and told a few stories to the kids while us helpers sat among the kids to support them. I got in a little trouble for talking a bit too much. Thanks a lot Rebecca, she's always getting me in trouble!

It was time for morning tea, and so the kids went to wash their hands before they came back to eat. I was the leader of the dark blue group, with Alex, Ben and Eva helping out. Our group consisted of nine-year-olds, including Enoch and Tommy, two kids who I'm very familiar with at church! I was surprised at how little the kids ate! There were still biscuits, chips and fruit left on the plates afterwards!

After morning tea, Tim and Tania continued with their programme. All the kids got into their activity groups (different to their craft groups, the age of the kids are all mixed) and were asked to discuss the questions put up on the powerpoint. Each group then had to send two representatives up to Tim to give an answer, with the team giving the best answer giving points. Our team was the smallest for some reason! NO wonder our group (the skulls with the hat) had been losing all day! I always seem to be put in the losing group!

The last activity we did with the kids was craft! Today's craft was making an edible treasure chest, using jelly beans, fruit loops, Cheerios, icing sugar and those healthy wafer biscuits. Once again the kids were quite quick and finished making their creations very fast! They soon started to just eat the lollies straight out of the bowl! To be honest, I was expecting a whole lot more trouble from these kids!

The programme ends at around midday each day, and we still had a few minutes to spare, so I was asked to do singing with the kids one more time. I just repeated the same song I did with them earlier in the day.

All of us helpers remained behind for a bit of a review of the day, and then lunch!

The day went by quite fast! I guess it'll go by even faster when we're more involved tomorrow.

We all ended up leaving church by 3pm, but I got home and just found it absolutely boring! I had nothing to do! To make things worse, it was quite hot! I just ended up falling asleep on the laptop again! When I see everyone's statuses on Facebook about returning to work today, I kinda wish I had a job to go back to now! I really need the money!

Not a Goodbye, but a Cya Soon

Tonight we had a farewell dinner for John, our Sunday School teacher, as he returns to China later in the coming week. He has to return to China to work while his family remains in New Zealand. Hopefully he returns in a few months' time though!

We all went to Aunty Stephanie's (one of our former Sunday School teachers) house for a shared dinner. We usually have good get-togethers at her house! We were one of the last to arrive, as we had to drop Grace home, then take Cham and Andrew food shopping before the dinner, then pick our mum up from home.

We blessed the food before we all dug in. There was a lot of good food there, such as chicken wings, sushi, mini-spring rolls, dumplings and fried rice!

All us young people all ate together and caught up with one another. Aonghas tried drawing Leonie in some dress on his new phone.

After dinner, it was time for the speeches! We all gathered in the lounge, and us students were asked first to give speeches. Because I earlier complained to Jenny that she always sounded so smart and put us to shame (jokingly of course!), I was egged on to speak first! I thanked him for always teaching us new things, keeping on time, and being there for us. Others shared how John is a gentle giant, and incredibly patient, putting up with the long silences in our Sunday School class!

Angie and Jenny then presented John with a card and farewell present on behalf of us, which was a book and a little backpack for his kids!

Some of the others gave some speeches and Tim presented a present on behalf of the church (he is in charge of English Sunday School at our church!)

before we concluded by singing a song based on Psalms. Aunty Stephanie then asked if I wanted to sing a song! She mistakenly thought I wanted to sing a song! I was a little caught off-guard, and all I could think of was that we sing Amazing Grace, so that ended up being the last song we sung!

It was time for supper! Jenny had baked some muffins which were quite nice! She did spoil it a little by telling us she used a muffin mix! That's OK, it took nothing away from how good it tasted! There was also some nice mango ice-cream that Time had brought too.

People were soon leaving as it got later. We had church the next day after all! As we were about to leave, we discovered Angie had left her phone behind! I guess it was up to me to return it to her again!

It'll be sad seeing John leave. He was a great teacher, and always had something insightful to share with us. I really do hope he comes back sometime in the not too distant future! All the best, John, no matter where the future leads you!

Who Knew There was a Forest Around Here?

Straight after our children's summer programme training, we had our Experiencing God programme. Today was a little different. Instead of sharing what we learnt over the past week and watching a video, Karvin took us across the road to have a little walk through this mini-forest behind the Trusts Stadium. I had no idea it was there!

He told us to bring a plastic bag, to talk to nobody, but to just follow him, look at what is around us and talk to God.

As we walked along the path, some people picked leaves off the ground, while others just picked up rubbish! We eventually stopped at this area, where we were asked to compare these tall trees. One had completely fallen over, while these other two were really tall. We were asked what we saw in these trees. Everyone gave these really deep, metaphorical answers, relating them to God and life! I was last to speak, and obviously struggling to come up with some intelligent answer! All I could say was that to me, they were trees! I just shared with them the dead branch I walked over, explaining how I felt sorry for it!

It was a nice, peaceful and thought-provoking walk though!

(http://youtu.be/Kq7gZ2q0gk0)