Touch of God

Hiyee all my fan club, (muahahaha)

Writing a post like this reminds me of a conversation I had with the childhood friend I met at Borongan a few days ago. I saw the amount of journalling she did (2 books for a mission trip!), and told her I was real impressed with her self-discipline. We then came to a conclusion that it's easier to blog than to journal or keep a diary, because at least when you blog you know you're talking to someone. =D

Anyway, it's been a real good few days sitting at the feet of Jesus. Been reading RHB's The Touch of God, catching up with my Acts study, and listening to the Lord. =) I preached on Friday night, and thank God for his presence that invaded the room. (Was ministering in a traditional church this time which did not support the charismatic understanding of the Holy Spirit.) We preached and ministered and the Lord moved, about 5-7 youth gave their lives to the Lord, almost everyone responded to the altar ministry. There were some people whom we were praying for, and it was as if they were a spiritual livewire! I still continue to be amazed and inspired by their receptivity to the Lord and his ministry.

Today my dad preached and I just helped in the worship service. Got a lot of time to talk to the youth of NLCM, the church where I had previously ministered to, and realised that some of them had mailed me and had received no reply! Oh dear!-- felt so so bad. Either their mail was too short or it went into the junk mail. The other possibility, of course, is that I didn't reply 'cos I forgot their names. Nahhhhh. I didn't receive their mails. =P Actually I was a teensy-weensy bit envious that the others got mails from them and I did not (so I thought. :P)

My mail is down! Crap. Can't reply impt emails that I need to.

One thing about overseas trips: crushes happen all the time. Ha! The girls at NLCM kept asking me about "Kuya" James and "Kuya" Nicholas ("Kuya" is the equivalent of "kor kor" as we would call it). I noticed that almost ALL of the girls (I kid you not) mailed James. :D Now, for those of you not very well acquainted, James happens to be the J1 guy who came the last time with me...although short, he's actually a very nice guy (and I must say, adequately good looking and talented too). Hahaha. It doesn't take a genius to know they have something for him. Then there's this girl who I think has something for me. All I can say is, too bad, I'm taken! :P and besides, age gap too wide la. After that Ps Dennis come after me then I know :PpP

Gotta confess that I had some crushes too, once or twice. :P But they remain that, crushes -- products of the fantasy. =) I find real love a lot more interesting. So the crushes will remain that way. -tee hee-

For those of you I've not been mailing, it's 'cos the internet is up, but the yahoo server seems not to be serving us. (oh, the irony.)

me toe hurts.

Hmmm, it's been a real good few days here. =) Learnt from previous experience to go slow on all the fast food and to eat simply...so the past few days has seen me eating more chap chai peng than all the previous months in Singapore combined. =) Still, I'm getting fatter... :(

On Sun nite I got to play badminton with Ps Steven and his friends in the Tacloban Badminton Club. Amazing, huh. There's actually a badminton club there. And the receptionist played alongside with us. Now, I'd have thought that a receptionist? -- probably just someone who works there. Ah no. Far cry from it. She's one of the most well-built women I've seen (well-built i.e. muscular and fit and tall, in other words everything I am SO NOT :D). And yes, we got trashed by her. Ha. I was quite proud of the fact that after losing 3 games I still managed to come back and beat her in 1! Shows I learn fast!

Besides that, lotsa cooking at Ps Steven's place. It's been quite some time since I experienced the more "ministry of helps" kind of mission trip I'm experiencing now. Besides helping regularly to wash dishes (boy, is there LOADS to wash!), yesterday Ps Steven and I cooked curry for ourselves as well as his members. Heh. So we went marketing, chose some chicken and spices and all the rest, and cooked our own curry. It was a bit malu-ating to have to learn how to skin carrots and potatoes, 'cos seemingly like quite cannot make it. But I improved over the 5 potatoes that I skinned. hahahha. And learnt how to make coconut milk. Power man!

Besides that, had lots of opportunity to chit-chat with Ps Steven and discover his attitudes towards ministry, his philosophy on leadership and to see first-hand how he touches base with the people. =) All I can say is "Wow"...I can't see myself doing something like that so naturally right now. But I will learn. =) I remember what the Lord had said last week, "My son, do not ignore the Lord's discipline, or get discouraged when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, even as a father corrects the son ON WHOM HE DOTES." So I treat all of this as discipline la. And I often feel uneasy and sour about this, about not being good at so many things; whether it's housework or being a people magnet. But the unpleasant self-knowledge is useful for me, it means that the Lord is bringing these things up, not just for humility in me, but also so that I can pay some heed to these "lesser" issues.

Will be preaching this Fri to youth svc of abt 50 pple. =) Fear and trembling. Haha. Do intercede for me. Your prayers are so crucial. :)

Me toe now hurts from the badminton game where I put on too small a shoe size to play. Ha. I shall go and rest...ta!

I'm at Tacloban!!

Hi everyone,

Thanks to y’all for your prayers, especially those who came at the unearthly hours of 5+ a.m. to send me off. =) Well I’m safe and sound, basically, but today alone already gives me many things to thank God for. In a nutshell:

1. Reached Manila and was as blur as a sotong. Never been there before, and had to ask people all over how to get to places. Immediate objective: to get to the Phil. Airlines office and get a ticket to Tacloban, which I had not booked.

2. Of course, my not booking the ticket was intentional in the sense that we saw no reason to do a booking since there were so many flights to Tacloban (well, from what we saw on the net). So after collecting my atrocious THREE guitar cases (which made my total baggage pieces a staggering FIVE pieces), and loading them onto TWO atrocious trolleys, I pushed the whole load of rubbish luggage out from the terminal to find for my PAL office.

3. (Oh, by the way, you really should try pushing two FULL trolleys at the same time. To my wuxia-crazy pals who are reading this, you will be interested to know that you can actually develop some gongfu from perpetually saving luggage from falling off the trolleys in random directions. It’s called “Zuo You Hu Bo Zi Shu” (the well-respected “Dual Focus” stunt of the Xiao Long Nu fame, for those more Mandarinly challenged). Or, if you like, you can call it “No Focus” or even “No Use”. Especially when dealing with falling luggage.)

4. So while focusing in a dual manner upon my beloved luggage, upon asking around I realized that the PAL office is in Terminal 2. Now unlike a certain garden City I hail from, there’s no concept of a “Skytrain” in Manila. So, how? Take cab lor. 1 km away ok. Dun pway pway.

5. Now halfway while taking the cab a highly intelligent me saw that beside Terminal 2, there was also a “Domestic Airport”. So we decided to go there to see if we could get the tix instead. Among the three airlines offering flights, 2 of them had totally no space. So PAL was the only one who could give me a “standby” ticket (meaning if no one cancelled on them, suck thumb and stay in Manila a night). And that happens to be a VERY BAD idea for a sotong like me in a galaxy far far away, I mean, in a city far far away.

But 1 thing must really thank God. As I was boarding the cab to finally direct him back to Terminal 2, out came a security guard from the ticketing office to stop us. Apparently I had left my passport at the ticketing office (shock shock horror horror)! Me had taken the ticket, and left the passport! Really thank God siah.

6. So reached Terminal 2 and still was blur as ever. Guess what? God sent one lady who was traveling from Canada to Tacloban to meet me exactly at that time (she had been in the ticketing office and boy, with that kind of fiasco, did she recognize MUAH). So she started nagging at me to keep my passport and to never lose it, it’s so dangerous blah blah blah etc etc etc you should always look at this first blah how could you have done that etc, you know, the kind of encouragement everyone desires. But hey, I’m not complaining. Me almost did it a second time, after she nagged and nagged, and she was the one who this time saved my pouch.

7. I bet you guys who’re reading this are horrified. Haha. Trust me, I’m horrified too. I blame my sleepiness, my 5 extraordinary luggage, and my brain and common sense that decided to take a nap during this trip.

8. Anyway after that God just brought people after people to come help me and guide me around. It’s quite amazing. Something like 5 divine encounters in 1 day. And the thing that takes the cake is that when I reached Tacloban, guess who was waiting for me? Ps Steven. He didn’t receive my attempts to correspond with him, but somehow he approximated that it would be around that time. Praise God.

So anyway, in a large nutshell, I’m fine. =) And I miss you guys. Haha. Take care and feel free to email me. I should be able to read your mails and reply quite…regularly. :P

Love,
Dan

And I'm off!!!

On my way to Philippines, at the airport. =D Update you guys more when I reach!

=))

Cya!