Recall. Restore. Renew.

Too tired to post yesterday...

Day3

We went down to find the youth sitting outside chatting with Rev Poon. We went in slightly late for morning devotion so we missed Amos' first sentence. Haha. So morning devotion was about the transitions we go through in life, that we should focus on God and things above instead of worrying about worldly things. For me it was a reminder that we are in this world but not of this world. Then we shared in threes what spoke to us during morning devotion, what we have learned so far. Jonas went with Serene and Jasmine while I did with Ben and Jon. Amos joined us. Then we prayed in a circle, prayed for prayer requests and thanksgivings. Breakfast.

Worship was led by Tim, whoo go high! :D Then we had Sermon 4: Restoring Our Passion and was based on the passage John 21: 15-17. Go read it! Really liked this sermon. :) Sat between Jasmine and small Daniel, beside Jasmine was Danielle. During the sermon Jasmine and Danielle used the chair as a table. Sermon was about rekindling our love for Christ and our passion for Him and that we should strive to love Him agapao - unconditional love instead of our current phileo - love between friends. Find it wonderful, that He accepts who we are, where we are in our love and in life, and is willing to work on it patiently until we can bear fruit. Also learned that if we love Christ, we should love and serve the people of His Church as well since the two go together. The Son of God and His Bride. During the sermon, Danielle mimed to me: Do you love Christ? I paused to consider, and my answer was, and is, yes. Yes I do love Christ. I truly do. Then we had discussion, which went pretty well. :D We shared of times when we lost our passion for God and when we lost our passion to serve Him. It was a reminder to me of something that Sarah Ong my Angel had told me in a letter: that we are called to love the unlovables, hard though it may be. Matthew 22: 37-40! Closed in prayer (thanks for the encouragement Tim), then went for lunch.

Sermon 5: Living Radically for God. It wasn't very applicable to us youth, but proud to say that almost all of us stayed awake. :D Yup so it was about having a threefold commitment. A radical commitment to God, hearing and obeying Him and loving Him from the inner core of our whole being. A radical commitment to God's Word, obeying its doctrines and learning its precepts and inscribing them on our hearts. And of course, a radical commitment to passing on His Word to the next generations, to impress them on their hands and foreheads all the time of the day. Discussion was okay, but I want to pray for Terence, that God will give him strength in the face of persecution and rejection and judgement by others. Went down for Q&A like usual. I asked Serene whether parental love is conditional love and she said yes, we agreed that unconditional love is like an asymptote, you can tend towards it but never touch it. Then we had photo taking again and for individual groups. Then during tea break Jasmine and I went to paste pink envelopes around the main block and the first level of Trendy block, after which we all gathered at Friendly room.

Yep so its basically Hide and Seek girls vs guys. Guys have balloons tied to their legs and have to hide and run around finding the envelopes. After collecting the envelopes, they have to use the clues inside to solve the puzzle. The girls have balloons with 2 bells inside, tied to our wrists. The girls have to run around and pop the guys balloons. Guys whose balloons are popped have to return to the "jail". Haha half of the time I was just standing at the staircase outside the main room waiting for the guys to come. But I kinda got bored, so I went down, only to find Ben with his new balloon tight higher up, so 4 girls chased after him while he hopped away at high speeds. Haha but they got him eventually. I went after Ryan but let him go haha. Then Jonas and I went after Alex in the gym, while Jon and another guy were doing weights inside. Got quite violent, since Alex is quite tall and Jonas had a badge pin. Yup so in the end the girls won because the guys couldn't find all the envelopes in time. Haha and now no one knows what the clues are. Some of us stayed and wrote letters.

Was going to go back already when Jasmine ran up to me and told me to run and find Aunty Sam, it was a first-aid matter. So I ran and found her at one of the tables that were set up for dinner. She told me that Alex had hurt his hand and described to me. Seems that his hand hurts around the joints when he tries to move it, but it's okay when he's not moving it. I described to her what had happened in the gym. Oh I mentioned to her yesterday that I know first-aid too when Gabby got hurt in the eye area. She had sent Alex to shower first because he was all sweaty haha. Aunty Elsie and Uncle Chin Piaw (both are Doctor Lee) were MIA. Alex came down with his hand in an awkward position and it was slightly swollen, seemed like a sprain. Was about to do an elevated arm sling when Aunty Elsie and husband came. Aunty Elsie used the roller bandage to set his hand in position so there wasn't a need for a sling. By then the dinner had started so I rushed up to change. Jonas and I went down together.

Dinner was okay, we sat at the girl's table with Kayla, Kate, Valerie, Abby, Aiyun, Jasmine, Danielle and, yes, my dad. Serene, Debbie and Gabby sat at the guy's table. When the hotel's live band came to our table, my dad asked for the song Nobody by Wondergirls. They stood right behind Jasmine so she started doing all those wave hand actions hahahah. After we had eaten, we did this mime of You Raise Me Up because it was being performed by the band on stage on the other side. Haha Danielle video-ed it! FUNNEHHHH.

After that everyone moved up to the main room for Finale Night: ORPC's Got Talent! Theme of the night was Musicals! Each team is given a biblical scene and a song that goes with the scene. Unity and Victory were combined and Power was on its own since there is an odd number of teams. Jonas and Serene started praying that we'll get a Korean song (Serene added: so that Jonas can dance). Yes so our team got Queen Sheba and King Solomon (1 Kings 10) and the song was.... Nobody! Hahahaha prayers answered! But it was quite a tough scene because there wasn't much happening in the passage. Power got the scene of worshiping the golden calf, bollywood song. Haha oh the other group that got Nobody had the scene Adam and Eve eating the fruit and then being banished out. Uncle Benjamin was Adam and when they were playing the music to let us get an idea at the start, he gave a hilarious preview of trying to hide his... yeah. Gabby was so embarrassed haha. Oh and Uncle Chin Piaw was the Adam's Apple, which is the forbidden fruit! Must say, Laura's grandpa is so cool and looks so young! Haha their team's scene was Samson and Delilah, and her grandpa Wilson was Delilah and he used his shirt as a veil such that he revealed his belly. And he wrapped a towel around as a skirt, but it kinda dropped to reveal his butt (he wore his pants inside) as he was shaking, and quite well too. Haha and he got one of the two Best Dancer Award! Esther got the other for her demon-possessed act.

At the end, we stuck around for a while and everyone had a photography session with my sister haha. Tim hinted at us J1s and at Ben to start getting ready for youth camp because we'll be the main comm. Yayy youth camp! :D Then Abby and I took a photo togetherrrr! And Ben and Abby and I took a Congre Care pic! Yes so we went to shower and then crashed Tim's room again. Tammy, Serene Goh, Felix and Huishan were there too! Felix and Huishan shared how he proposed and Tim shared his too. Haha poor Huishan being blindfolded at the Equinox! Then I went to sit with Danielle at the balcony door and wrote a letter to Abby. Jonas studied, then after that we just played. Haha when Serene Lim called Daniel Goh picked it and pretended to be those autoreply machines. "For English, please press one. Qing yong hua yu, qing an er. Sorry, this is an invalid answer. Sorry, there is no such person." Haha then after Serene said she was looking for Serene Goh's room number, Daniel said "Sorry there's no Leticia Goh here, only have Leticia Wong. Sorry, there's not Leticia Goh, the only maid here is Leticia Wong. " Then he passed it to Jonas, who did her "Good morning Ma'am, good morning sir, my name is Leticia and I am a maid." And her heysho heysho. Haha all of us were silently laughing in the background hahahahaha. Anyway, Danielle, Daniel, Kane and I played Pictionary Cards. Aiyun, Abby, Bell, Ben crowded in the shoes area listening to music. Serene mostly watched us play on the bed with Jasmine sitting on her back watching TV. Jonas and Jonathan watched TV. Debbie and Gabby and Adeline played with iTouchs and then left early. Oh for one moment all the Sec1s crashed as well and there was ZERO space to walk around so they went back to Ryan's room.

Day4

We went to bed at around 3.30. And next morning I woke up when the alarm rang at 8, off-ed it and went back to sleep. Even Jonas the light sleeper didn't wake up. At 9.13 am the phone rang. It was Jasmine, calling us to wake us up, pack up. Later on we heard her knocking on Rei Hrn's door before she came to our door. Thank you so much, Jasmine, and so so sorry! Luckily we caught the adults who were in charge of luggage just as they were leaving for the main room. Ran up to Friendly. Late. :( Tim told us that he was just scolding the Sec1s and 5 mins later we walked in. Sorry. Haha Amos commented that soon we can't stay up late anymore (that we're getting old).

We watched certain scenes from Prince Caspian, the first was Lucy spotting Aslan across the gorge. The second was when she went to find Aslan and the petals formed a nymph's figure. The third one is the battle, when Lucy raced to find Aslan and he came and called the trees and the water into battle. That things never happen the same way twice. Yes so when God doesn't seem to be there, we should seek Him and wait on Him patiently because He will come when we call Him. And then we watched the MV I Refuse by Josh Wilson. Headed back to main room for debrief, then lunch.

I sat with Aiyun, Abby opposite me and Jasmine to my right. Tim went to sit with his parents at the table next to ours. Aiyun commented that Jenny is a lucky girl, which is really true. And Jenny deserves it too. :) Haha for some reason when Serene went back to her seat at the table diagonal from ours she patted my head. And a few minutes later Jonas did the same. Haha aww guys. Then Ben, Serene and Tim came over and we started on the topic of crushes in church. Jasmine and Ben exchanged their crushes. Haha they tried to get it out of me but I couldn't say.

On the bus to the ferry terminal Jasmine, Jonas and I commented on how Ben's crush is his kind of gal. Then at the terminal Abby asked me about mine so I told her heehee.

As we passed through immigrations I talked to Tammy and found that she wasn't as scary as I thought haha. But so cool, Tim + Tam = TimTam! Haha plus one older brother. Sat at the bottom deck with Jonas and Jon and Abby, Ben and Serene in the row in front. Listened to their convo, Abby talked about the guys whom she knew liked her before, Ben showed us his class photo. Jasmine came down so I went up. Stood there for a while, then Aiyun passed me napkin letters so I went down to pass them to Jon and Jonas. Jasmine came to me and dragged me away to tell me that when Ben asked who my crush was, she and Abby were stunned and laughed. :S So Jas and I went up, then after sleeping while standing up Jasmine went down to sleep. Danielle spotted a plane so I caught it! Haha then we caught 9 more planes after that! :D Haha Danielle ate them right out of the sky haha. After a while I went down. Found Jasmine sitting on Serene's lap so I listened in on their convo. Haha I could only hear Jasmine. After a while we reached Spore! Passed through customs and immigrations and went home just as Abby instructed, but I didn't sleep haha.

Overall, I wouldn't say that it was fun and full of games for us youth, but the activities gave us opportunity to really bond with our friends and form new friendships. The fellowship and friends were just AWESOME and I want to thank everyone for the WONDERFUL time we had together. Hope we'll be able to maintain our spiritual high all the way until Dec's youth camp! And most of all, THANK YOU GOD. :D