Articulation is lost in my mind

Three more days.

Man, I still need to find that glove. And sock.

The meeting went alright tonight. Am so glad I decided to put in the worship bit, it feels like everyone has been working so hard we’ve lost the purpose of what we’re going there for. Nigel did a fantastic job, that guy’s really gifted. It was a bit strange though, the youth understand prayer and why we do it, and how to do it. I’m not sure the adults do. We got everyone to pray in twos and the adults finished really quickly and then started talking? I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t jump to conclusions so quickly. But I reckon they need to know. And man, I realised I was completely planning the boot camp for people who have been before. I hope it isn’t too intense for them. It’s difficult.. I mean most of them are in their 60s, how do you teach someone at that age? I mean fair enough, they do have HEAPS of life experiences and stuff - I’m in no way trying to discredit them - but how do we get them to see beyond that. There’s no limit to how much you can learn about Christ. It’s never ever just about using our talents and skills to ‘do a job’. What about the spiritual part? What about the relationship part?

This is all rambling.

Meeting Rach Koh on Wednesday. Can’t wait.

Glued to the bed

Ahh meeting Cheryl in an hour and have no capabilities to move.

I’ve packed! Although one glove is awol and I can’t be bothered finding it just now. It’s kinda scary how I can just throw everything together into my suitcase without thinking and knowing that I have everything from the number of times I’ve packed to travel. That was a long sentence.

I’m rather wasted.

And I still have a million things to do. Shower, for one before I go out. Do preparations for two. Although I think I can do that in the office on Monday and Tuesday. And meetings to plan, big inspirational speeches to think about… how do people plan for intentional rest?? It keeps coming back to me from various people/books, “Keep your Sabbath!”. Not in the ritualistic sense where I “don’t work and do nothing” and not necessarily on a Sunday either. More a “where is this allocated time that you’re giving yourself to stop working like a hamster on a spinny wheel and hang out with God?”

Heh. At the moment, awol like my glove.

Coffee is love, have I mentioned? I think I’d be happy with someone who proposed to me with coffee beans.

YAY BEX AND CHAR AND LIYING AND DEE ON TUESDAY!

I reeeeeeally should get into the shower and get ready to go out.

Moop.

Protected: “Intern, behave!”

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Thanksgiving

I’m really waiting for Sunday. Sunday is my day, my day with God, my day to reflect and to open doors and to write and to just be. And stop thinking about work and deadlines and ALL THE CRAZY THINGS THAT I HAVE TO DO. MY GOODNESS. Thank GOD for Cindy because otherwise I’d be no where. She’s a Godsent. And thank God for William and for Jose and the team and Mary and Carol. And now this is starting to sound like an Oscar speech.

GOD IS SO GOOD. I just want to soak in His presence, in His Word. To spend time going over things and opening myself up to Him again.

Fukai’s philosophy is to REST in the Lord. There’s something I really want to learn how to do. I told Mary today that’s one of the things that scares me about full time ministry. How do you stop from overworking? Because work has now become a part of the most personal core of my life, how do I separate it? How do I come home and say, stop. Ha, like what God said to the waves in Job, “This is as far as you may come and no further”?

I suppose it’s a process.

Anyhow Fukai came in a couple of days ago and saved me from about an hour of spreadsheets (for which I’m crazily grateful). I asked him about leading a team and his response reminded me of what my instinct should be. Go back to the Word. He got out 1 Timothy 3:2-3 “above reproach, temperate, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome…” and he reminded me that the most effective leaders lead by example. How can you expect someone else to be something if you’re not it yourself?

Then again, that evening Pastor Kay Leong said this, “Discipleship is observing. You watch how your leaders do it and we follow.” He went on to draw a parallel with how Jesus raised Darius’ daughter from the dead. First He cleared out those who were unbelieving and then called in His closest disciples (Peter, James and John). Later in the book of Acts we see Peter do exactly the same thing when he raised Dorcus from the dead. He watched his Master and he modelled his ministry after Him. And sometimes it’s quite amazing how I’ve watched all the people I respect and picked up the way I do certain things from them. Which goes to show how important the people that you hang around are.

One of the things I’m slowly learning is not to please man, but God. SO much easier said than done. Somehow it’s easier when it’s in the big things, the big decisions and we go back to God. But when it’s every day things, whether it’s dealing with our bosses, or friends, or whatever small thing it is, I always tend to see what I can do to make the person think of me in a ‘favourable’ light. Sure it’s Godly to be gracious and all that, but when it starts to compromise my role and heart as God’s servant - then who am I serving?

Had lunch with Mary today and she’s the best. Would elaborate but it’ll take all night. Carol shuffled in at some stage during the morning to say hello. I can always tell it’s her coming towards the door… don’t know how she does it but her shoes always make this distinct sound, like they’re announcing her arrival. She did the pretend-to-be-gruff “Why never come for meeting yesterday??” which of course led to the mandatory RAWR from me, which she patiently sat through and sympathised and came up with a couple more ways to beat it. Sigh, well, thank God for the both of them - at least they’re there, even if I don’t get to work directly with them. Maybe it’s better this way. Anyhow, I’m giving myself till the end of this week to complain all I want, then I’m going to get over it and accept the fact that all this bitching won’t come to anything because it’s not going to change anything. So I might as well make the best of the situation, learn what I can and move on… I won’t be a broken record.

AND so glad I went for Joseph Chean’s Father Heart of God thing. Heard it before in Chinese but it was great hearing it in English. I’m so going to go over his material this weekend, especially in prep for the trip. OH MY GOODNESS I HAVEN’T PREPPED FOR THE TRIP. Lord please multiply my time.

AND AND James passed me a book today after cell, “Anthropological Insights for MIssionaries”.. had a quick squiz through it and it looks like an awesome read. AND AND AND Mary gave me a couple of books to review for her (in her declaration that the internship should be fun and I should get to do the things I love). AAAAAAND yay for Glenn who’s lent me three in one ‘The Laws of Leadership’ by John Maxwell. Who knows when I’ll have the time to read all this but books make me so happy.

AND finally - meeting Joyce for lunch tomorrow =D

Quote of the day

“Well… if it gets really bad, come to my office and I’ll give you a pillow that you can scream into.” - Mary

And such is love.  

Food list for NZ

- Nandos
- Mexi-melt from Denny’s
- Fresh salmon from Sea Mart
- Oysters from Clevedon
- Jester’s steak and cheese pies
- Rachel’s blueberry and white chocolate muffins =D
- Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Shop
- Sausages from the sizzle
- Lasagne from the place Andrew took me but I can’t remember the name of it now
- Inga’s lasagne
- Lynn’s lasagne
- Nestle double blend chocolate
- Lift and Coke
- Inga’s potato salad
- Raspberry twists
- Moro bars
- The cream cheese and chilli Shapes
- Black pepper and lime Shapes
- Louise’s pasta sauce
- Meatballs
- Strawberries and icing sugar (aye Lav.. I still have that tape btw.. the one where you pretty much had your face in the container)
- PIZZA
- Roast beef
- Roast chicken
- My body weight of fresh milk
- That insanely good risotto from that place in Botany, can’t remember the name
- Tip Top ice cream
- Salted popcorn
- LYNN’S PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE
- Ok fine, pretty much everything anything that comes out of Lynn’s/Rachel’s kitchen

I’m SURE there’s a gazillion other things. Only I thought I better put this down first before I forget. Remind me if there’s anything else..

Can’t think of a title because the heat is frying my brain

Random snippet of the day: I have a theory that you can tell a lot about a person’s character by the type of powerpoint slides they do.

IT’S BEN AND JERRY’S FREE CONE DAY! But it’s a blimmin’ sauna outside and I’m too lazy to move. Although what an oxymoron… ice cream’s the best when it’s a blimmin’ sauna outside.

And OMGA I CANNOT believe they threw that story line into B&S. I won’t say what it is because spoilers are mean but SERIOUSLY WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?! Why do all the good shows have to become slightly ridiculous when they’re at their prime? And BEX LIM I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE AWOL NOW WHEN YOU’RE THE ONLY PERSON WHO IS UP TO SPEED AND THEREFORE THE ONLY ONE I CAN RANT TO ABOUT THIS!!

Bah.

I should start taking Nac out again.. the poor thing must be feeling so neglected.

I still maintain the internship should just have started yesterday… it’s not like I haven’t already started working anyway =P

Met up with Carol yesterday and she’s truly a Godsent. I was telling her my apprehensions about interning/leading the summer camp trip and she was so awesome. After listening to me, it was like an outpour of DON’T WORRY’s and a huge list of ways to get around the issues. I suppose 20 years of experience doesn’t count for nothing… it’s very ”wohhh” to think she started doing all this even before I was born. All the time Sometimes I wish there was some way to osmosise their expertise from all of them, it’s like there’s nothing they can’t do… and it’d fully make things a LOT easier.

And then of course I remember it was never about making things easier in the first place: learning is a process of making mistakes and then coming out from that and letting God mould my character etc etc. It’s such an inate thing with me to be concerned with the results and the outcome and not the means of getting there; I should know better by now, ha.

In so many ways, it’s great that I work in the same way that she does - so she understands where I’m coming from even before I’ve really finished my sentence. I’ve always reckoned who she works well with is an indication of who I’ll be alright with as well. Some of it probably has to do with the fact that my first exposure to this kind of work was with her so I’ve inevitably picked up stuff from her. In any case, I reckon it’s so awesome how God puts people together for His work - how He knows what will complement what and how to make thee team for a season of ministry.

One of the things I really want to learn, (Mary’s really good at this), is the timing of when to say something. It’s never the case of having nothing to say but rather having too much to say. To me a great leader knows when to listen, when to hold back things, when to be direct, when to interject and when to give a lesson point. So much of it relies on the Spirit’s prompting and I know it’s about being discerning, not just relying on “instinct”. More often than not, what we say is just to gratify the flesh. How great would it be if our instinct wasn’t to tell someone off or be angry, but to immediately think of what the Spirit is saying?

I guess it’s hard for a reason, when we struggle we learn where our strength comes from.

Was thinking the other day: how do we learn to rely on God for absolutely everything without trivialising Him? At what point, or at what motivation, does it change from being wholly dependent on Him in the way that we ought to belittling the power of God. So much in this in age, especially how most of us are so comfortable in our lives, we pray and ask God for things in our lives (especially during the exam period). There’s nothing wrong with that… but I think it becomes dangerous when that’s the ‘limit’ of God’s power or presence in our lives. Part of the reason why the first Mission trip is such an impact for people is because they come into contact with the locals who rely on God for their very livelihood - for the food and finance to keep them alive, for their health because they can’t afford medicine. God always delivers to them and their understanding and faith of who He is, is SO much more magnificent in comparison to ours. Their faith is so simple and yet so complex at the same time. We see miracles happen overseas but not in our own country… why? It’s the same God that we believe in! We read the same Bible. What’s the difference? How do we allow ourselves to understand Him? Or on the reverse, how much is He allowed to reveal Himself to us?

How do we learn to be wholly dependent on God without trivialising His power and holiness?

TV IS BACK

HOORAY FOR STRIKE BEING OVER AND HOORAY FOR THE PICK UP FROM WHERE WE LEFT OFF AND HOORAY FOR WHAT FEELS LIKE ALL MY BEST FRIENDS HAVE COME BACK TO LIFE AGAIN.

*realises how sad and weepy and dark and twisty that sounds but is too elated to care*

YAY ADDY IS COMING BACK TO GREY’S!!

*jigs with Chloe*

(even if it’s just for one episode)
(but it CAN’T be for just ONE episode right?? I mean Private Practice doesn’t air till like September..)

BUT WHAT WHAT DID SHE DO TO HER HAIR??!

ADDISON MONTGOMERY’S HAIR SHOULD ALWAYS BE RED!!

Derek is such a wet sock.

Too much facial hair on Alex.

But ahh Bailey and her kid is so cute. “Now may I recommend you all go home, you smell, you greasy, you need to bathe and I’m sick of looking at you. And my one year old is sick of looking at you too, ain’t that right bub?”

YAY ADDY IS COMING BACK TO GREY’S!

And BAH, what is up with Robert not being made the Republican candidate. Although they did put him in a brown shirt which I was thrilled to days about =D Seriously don’t like Graham Finch though, Sarah could do so much better.

(Yay Addison!)

Enough said

 

 

I’m studying.. really I am

In a minute it’ll be 9 hours to the FINAL PAPER.

Gracious it’s been a long slog.. oh there you go, it’ll be 9 hours to the final paper as of now.

I don’t think there’s much else to this post except to say that:

 

WHEEEE ELEVEN AND A HALF HOURS TILL IT’S OVERRRRRR.