Day 0

Finally back from a youth camp which is supposed to end on Monday, but I had to leave early because I'm flying off tomorrow and I haven't packed yet >.<

The camp's been such a blast! Even though today's only the 2nd day, it felt like I've been there for a week or so when I was walking towards the gate which I came in from as I left the place. Oh man... I learnt so, so SO MUCH!

As I sit here trying to think of how I can put my thanksgiving across, I realise that I really don't know where and how to begin. There's just so much to say.

Well, I would say that both the people-factor and the God-factor plays a MAJOR role in making the camp such great fun. And YES, I AM STILL EXCITED!! =D

I mainly want to thank God for my LG. Wait, no. The unit. What's a unit, well... a unit is just a couple of cells/LG that are being grouped together. Thank God for these people, really. Meals together was good, sitting in a room just talking about random weird stuffs was good (I just realised, I don't recall gossips being any part of our conversation! So it's possible! :O), 'Mangsay!' (or whichever way it's spelt) was hilarious, BANG! was exciting, mass dance was fun, having people coming up to talk to me when I was sitting alone felt good and well these turned out good!

Just now during altar call, Ps Shirley told us to look for someone to pray for if the Holy Spirit gives us a word, after we got prayed for. I was just sitting there, waiting to hear something from Him... Jonliu was sitting beside me and halfway through, he asked me how was camp and what were my camp objectives, and I shared with him very honestly about how God had been moving and how my camp objectives were being met despite it being a 2 days camp for me only. He shared with me something which he was struggling with and wanted to overcome, and after listening I said, "okay, let's pray for you." It was quite awkward at the start la, probably cos we haven't really prayed with one another before even though we are in the same cell for the past 3 months. But after we got over the awkwardness and started to pray, I would say that's when things are different.

I have once heard that prayer connects people and so we should pray with one another oftenly. Not just 'for', but 'with'. And well, I guess I didn't know what that really meant until today. Things felt different after we prayed. As in, it's not that his struggles took a 180 degrees turn to something he's good in or what, but I felt as though... I don't know how to put this in proper words. To put it simply, it would be that I felt this friendship had changed, for the better. So I guess this is what they meant, because when we pray together, we bring ourselves to God together. Really thank God for this =)

Of course, there is also a God-factor in making the camp SO AWESOME. Last night, halfway through the worship after sermon I started tearing. I have absolutely no idea what triggered it, and I won't say I'm the kind who tears easily especially in front of people?

I started thinking back to how things were like 7 years ago when I began my walk with God, as compared to how it is like right now. Although I haven't lost my faith nor stopped going to church, I know that my spiritual life was spiraling downwards. I could see it. But God has always been faithful. Although my love for Him has changed (not for the better), throughout these 7 years, He never once said He's going to give up on me. And each time I fall, it is always His love that picks me up once again.

I want to rededicate my life and I want to see breakthroughs in my life again.

Today, pride was the topic between God and I. Half the time during worship at the start, I had no idea what was going on with the rest. I had to deal with that. Yes, pride. Then during sermon, it was being brought up by Raphael. And then altar call, it was being brought up again.

I thank God for helping me to see that I'm prideful. Prideful to the extent of placing myself above God unknowingly. I prayed for God to remove it from me and I know He heard my cries, and that's why, twice more He mentioned it. I take that as an acknowledgement from Him, saying that He had heard me. I will do my best and God, He will handle the rest.

During altar call, Leon asked me which area I wanted to pray for and I told him about this pride thing. In his prayers, he had said it right. I knew jolly well what I was asking for when I asked God for humility. It is not easy at all, because this would possibly mean that God will have to break me up and shatter me so that I can be freed from it. I know, I know. It's probably going to be so so so painful. But you know what, I am confident of my Heavenly Father's love for me. Yes, I will go through trials after trials after trials, but I won't be going through it alone. God will be with me. This is going to take a lot of courage, but well, let not the Lord allow me to go through it and be done with it on my own lest I turn back and see how I got over it on my own and be proud. I want to go through these with God's strength, with God's help, with all that I can never do but only God, so that I know that it is not me but God who has done it.

This brings me to the idea of creating this blog. During sermon, one of the questions Raphael asked was "how often do we give thanks?". I started thinking back, and I realised, shucks, I couldn't remember when I last did that. So yes, decided to create this blog and every single day, I will make it a point to thank God for something that He has done for me in the day. I will try my best not to miss any day(s) >.<

Another reason would be that well, after praying that God will take away my pride and seeing that I might be broken, I hope that every single day I will STILL be able to give thanks to God for something amidst this/these trial(s). And I'm actually thinking of sharing this blog url with the others, and if one day I should get too tired and fall away, remind me what it was that I prayed today and please, assure me that God is certainly still in control because He's moulding me.

Yup, so that's the reason why I've decided to set up another blog (again).

And even though I'm going to miss out the next 2 days, I believe that my God knows when I had to leave the camp. What He has in store for me, He has already given me in the 2 days I had in camp. So technically, I'm not missing out on anything because He has already given me what He had prepared for me =)

Oh and talking about that, thank God that the workshops were placed today so that I didn't have to miss out on any of them. The first one was vocals which I learnt quite a lot, and I hope I'll put them into practice! The next one was on contemporary issues so it was on how to decide what is the right thing to do. It actually sounds pretty much like TOK, so philosophy can totally fit Christianity please. If not why do you think there will be philosophers turning to Christ after being unable to find fault with the bible? And even though it's quite TOK, I wasn't tired of it at all. I didn't want to leave, yes, I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE. It was THAAAAT GOOD! I haven't had such a feeling for years, years. Sitting there for 2.5 hours didn't make me tired at all, I wanted to hear more, but sigh, had to leave cos we were supposed to have unit LG. But anyway yes, thank God for the wonderful sessions we had. It was really really good. I guess I won't mind having a full-day workshop like that.

Sorry for the long long post. I've tried to spare the details >.<