M.Y.F Tampin

It's been some time (or maybe the first time - I'm not sure) I've blogged about my Youth Fellowship back in Tampin. Maybe because I've left that phase of life when I've been ministered to there, and have ministered to others there.

It's been close to 5 years in Singapore, and I've had CampNUS (or Campus Group) here. Campus which I learned, grew, and served in. Where I had my needs ministered to, where I had examples to look up to. And Y.F at home shrunk to just become a place I meet up with church friends every time I go home. It has become a place I visit, rather than one which I belong to.

But last weekend when I went back, there were just 5 people around, out of which only two are really regulars. And something pastor said really shook me up a bit. According to my teacher Hwan Lin, pastor had been preaching a series of sermons which ran along the theme of the church being a refuge. And when we were planning out the month's events for Y.F, and lamenting about the outflux of our church's youths from Tampin and from Y.F., I saw the need for me to become a part of this fellowship still wherever I went.

Yes it's true that I no longer really need to be ministered to by this fellowship. But in a way, my ministry is still needed! NOT only because of the people inside the fellowship (who are by the way, almost parched by discouragement), but MAINLY because there is still a youth population in Tampin.

How could I have forgotten (for years), the needs of this population unseen from inside the gates of the church? How could I have not remembered, that these youth too have spiritual needs like mine, and we need to prepare a place for them to meet those needs? How could I just look at our dwindling numbers and think the need is no longer there because the people are no longer around? And how could I belittle God's grace and mercy towards the youth in my hometown that I forget that they need a place to be ready for them when they come to Him?

And there are internal needs. The love for God's word among His youth in the church needs to grow. The love for people outside His kingdom needs to be instilled in their hearts. To serve not only responsibly, but with a Spirit of love. They need guidance and they need examples in us. These needs are neither to be forgotten nor belittled.

I pray that I would be able to support this fellowship again, in prayer and in works. And as God continues to reveal Himself and the works of His Spirit in my life, I pray that I will meet Him in ministering for this fellowship too. Please pray for us and with us.

As The Deer (Some Vague Sharing)

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longs after You

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

I was back diary reading the other day, and remember quite a number of Sundays ago how I was encouraged by this song based on Psalm 42:1 (which is surprisingly not as old as I thought it was, it was composed in 1981).

The lyrics are so short and repetitive but to me back then it held a wealth of meaning.

I was coming out to church that day from night shift and was fighting a series of not so nice thoughts that were hounding my head. I had kept on rationalizing myself to leave those thoughts as I travelled for an hour plus fro work to church. It was a tussle, and I sort of won, but it was the sort of victory soldiers get in a bloody battlefield - even if your side wins, you don't feel happy about it because the whole army has lost many good men and is in a bad state. Battered victory.

But when they sang this song at worship (on top of a nice thing that happened before that that really helped), I recovered. And I realized that how I recovered is in remembering how much strength I could draw from God, and this understanding came through the lyrics. "You alone are my heart's desire", "You alone are my strength, my shield". My heart's desire, my strength, my shield. He protects my desires, He protects my heart against evil.

And all a sudden it didn't hurt anymore. All that tiredness and heaviness was swept away, replaced by a balm of thankfulness, by just understanding who God really is, and what the relationship between us was like.

And I longed to worship Him.

The Next Step

Yesterday my supervisor remarked to my team leader that he is now viewing me as a senior, no longer a junior anymore in the lab. I don't know the exact, detailed implications of that, but I think it means more responsibilities, higher expectations, and less leniency over mistakes.

I've been in work for almost eight months now, and I guess it is high time I got out of the 'still learning and making forgivable mistakes' zone. In fact I was in this zone for a bit too long, which makes me a little too dependent on others. Not that I've been doing things wrongly, making grotesque mistakes or what; but my learning curve and my expectations towards myself has kind of plateaued. I've reached a nice comfort zone, and have more or less tried to stay there.

To be frank, it's nice to be thought of as a junior, and to be treated as one by supervisors and peers (partially because I'm a fresh grad and I err... look young). Expectations are low and easy to surpass. Little encouraging 'daily victories' are easy to achieve. And people are always looking out for you, checking on you, being more tolerant towards you. But yes - this easy way out is not for me. I'll never grow if expectations stay the same, although it would be more comfortable that way.

Yesterday night I did a quick gap analysis on things I know or don't know about my job, and realized that there are quite a number of areas which I am still not familiar with and could improve on further; just that I haven't put in effort to leave tasks that I'm doing fine in and venture into those unfamiliar areas. It's always nice to stick to safe, routine, work and do it quickly and accurately; but if I'm going to be depended on when there is say, only one or two persons in the shift, I need to do better than this.

I'm not really planning to stay in this shift pattern for too many years (hark quotes from doctors on how unhealthy our sleeping pattern is); but I want to stay at least enough to give back to the lab what I've been receiving from it: knowledge, training, encouragement, assurance and much more. I'm really sorry this can't be a long term job, because I've already grown attached to my responsibilities, and I've heard things could be much worse in other places. But now I'm here and at this stage of my life, I need to continue learning and improving.

Nice Weekend

Highlight of the week/month/whatever: Ah Boss proposed! Haha.

Was quite a nicely done affair. He made me get WMWMWM out of the way by meeting her up and shop after work. We told her it was a campus thing held in church building. And Boss even said to her that it was a 'campus agreement' to be formal. Thankfully she never suspected anything though she asked a host of difficult questions, which I answered rather vaguely.

So Boss aired a home made video with loads of friends inside (me not included, sadly), and proposed with flowers and a ring in front of the whole crowd of us - church friends and their mutual friends. :D Quite heartwarming, and while they were in bliss, we were busy discussing the process of the whole thing being pulled off. It took about a month plus to prepare. I must say Boss has quite a good eye for the diamond ring. He did loads of research too.

Have to hand it to WMWMWM for even attempting to think of ways to 'make it difficult' for him despite all this being sprung on to her as a surprise haha. I won't go into details but all I could say is if she knew he was proposing beforehand, Boss will never get the 'yes' as easily as that.

So this is another of my close friends getting engaged (and eventually married), and I'm really happy to witness the proposal. In fact this is the first and only proposal I've ever witnessed. It makes me feel like we're all really grown adults now - planning about money, housing, marriage etc. No kids in my plans though. Still have not changed my mind about that, and don't think I'll ever do.

Another thing is I just got my first ever performance bonus and pay increment! Although it's not really a lot as it has been pro-rated, it's still a significant amount of money. And it means I've advanced somewhat in my job. I'm really thankful for the improvements I've been showing lately, even though they are really small things such as speed in preparation and accuracy/consistency in analysis. It actually shows that I could be okay with hands-on testing (that I've been despairing over the first few months), and could actually achieve quite good results. :D A baby-step for many, but a mile-stone for me.

And finally, today I missed the last bus (didn't know it left so early) to work, and had to cab. However, it so happened that another colleague from the production plant missed it too, so I shared a cab with him. In the end he insisted in paying the full fare for the cab and would not let me pay him. It was both very nice and very embarrassing at the same time, considering it's the first time I've properly conversed with this guy. :S But it shows that there are nice people everywhere and I'm very thankful for their presence :)