Rain Camp

Dear Lord, I am ever so thankful... for everything that happened since December 1st.. You showed me so much within a short span of 11 days, You helped me to control my feelings a lot better, and my faith has also been strengthened by heaps. Thank You Daddy for loving me so much. Thank You for sending so many nice people who shower me with words of encouragement. Thank You for helping me to look at the bright side of things... The list goes on and on, Lord. Really, I can never thank You enough.

Now, where, and how to start?

I think I'll just put up the Microsoft Word document on the scribing from the Aceh trip up here for download when I'm done with it. It's freaking long.

RAIN camp saw a strength of about 250 campers from kids as young as 11 years old, all the way to, hmm, 30 plus I suppose. As expected, Pastor Glenn was superb.. His preaching made an impact on many of us. He made the Word of God seem fun to read, adding in many bits of funny things for us to go -_-|| over or laugh our hair out ('laugh our heads off' is too common).

What really got me to my senses was how much Christ suffered and went through for a sinner like me. Like us. I've been hearing so much of "Jesus died for you" until I kinda took it for granted. *rush of guilt* But after watching that scene from the Passion of the Christ which was Mel Gibson's interpretation of how Christ was treated before and during crucifixion, I was struck dumb and reminded that this was how the King of kings willingly gave up His life for us. He did not just die like this, he was tortured, so gruesomely... all out of love.

A church camp is never complete without salvations..........
FIONA TAN do I see your hand up? Lol seriously, no regrets getting Fiona and Xi Ying to go for camp! I think God was a lot more real to them. Imagine my joy when Fio said the bible is a cool book, and when XY said she received the gift of tongues! =D =D

It suddenly dawned upon me that the psalm which I thought of on the first day of camp,“For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well“. Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)
was linked to Pastor Glenn's message that very day. He had talked about how there are SO many galaxies in this universe, and how small pluto is.
Even so, "He determines the number of the stars; and calls them each by name." Psalm 147:4 (NIV), something Quek was telling me on the istimewa team's first night at Layeun (He, Guo Sheng and I were at the seaside staring at the starry sky then). This was mentioned by Pst Glenn.
Also, I was just pondering over how the bible says, "Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!" in Luke 12:24... which was later (also) mentioned by the pastor.
Imagine, us, so many of us humans, so much smaller and seemingly, more insignificant than pluto... yet God crafts each and everyone of us so carefully when the nucleus of the ovum and sperm fuses together. Haha, the study of biology and geography have made me appreciate God's works a lot more.
I don't think the entry of these verses into my tiny head was anything like a coincidence. More like God telling me "hey, this is how much I treasure you..."

We need the Lord, but these days there are too many substitutes out there eh?
"Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."
Isaiah 55:2
Likewise... the pleasures of the world are only temporary! It's eternal life after death that really counts. Lol.

Night games on the first day was omg. Haha.
I didn't play the ice-cream game whereby everyone in the group had to lie down and feed each other ice-cream. Cos' I was coughing. I'm STILL coughing actually.
The caterpillar game got my butt scratched by the grass... Mind you, we did it on the muddy field. The 'best' thing was I was wearing FBTs. The one uncle Dong describes as "banana shorts". So you get the picture. I hope I didn't expose too much.
The cobweb game is the one we almost always play at camps. To get every group member across without touching any of the strings. Each hole can only be used once. But we didn't complete it la.. They were carrying me through it and Evan shouted "support her butt!". -.-
Ok there were a lot of stations... and I don't want to describe everything.

Hehe. I slept like a log that night. Stacia told me she slept well.. We're trained already la, after Aceh, sleeping there was like whooooo, shiok.

For session 2 worship on the first day, I thought my cough would kill me and prevent me from singing. But it didn't. I even felt better la haha.

Session 3 worship was another story. During worship practice, I just stopped suddenly cos' all the phlegm was clogging up inside, and my --urgh-- singing would affect the rest of the team.
So yeah I went to sit down on the chair and watch the rest. This time it was so bad I thought, later don't need to sing already la, should have stayed with my camp group instead of leaving early for prac.
During the break I kope-d Fisherman's Friend from Melody, water chestnut from Abigail, lemon barely from Melody again, and then Pearlyn passed me a strepsil from Quek.
[was also during the break that I was described as Quek's "trump card"... which made me think of how the leaders in the worship team (and also out of the team la) never fail to keep on encouraging me]
It was like, prayers were answered! With the help of God and these people's lozenges and "magic drinks", I was alright during the worship itself =D It's a miracle, I was like transformed from a tenor to an alto within an hour! HAHA. Well yea... that shows how good my Daddy is.

I left halfway for my uncle's wedding dinner. He's someone I'm so NOT close to. I think I'm neither close to my aunts nor uncles from my mum's side.
Anyway the dinner was held at some restaurant near the campsite. After the dinner I called Wan Hui and she said they were still at church, and will only leave in 20 to 30 minutes. My dad then drove me all the way back. Along the way, I was actually quite worried that he can't drive back there on time.. But there was a still small voice which told me to trust God and be calm. True enough, the roads were smoother than usual, the traffic lights were mostly green (lol). Yeah then when I reached, everyone was getting up the buses, preparing to leave. Haha, this shows how God is faithful and just that little faith which I clung on to at that time can be magnified. So now I feel that I can trust Him even more.

On Monday, it poured when I was having lunch with Jace, XY and Fio. We wanted to go home. It was a bit difficult for XY and I cos' we had to cross the road. I thought, never mind la, just cross and get wet. However when we walked to the bus stop, ready to cross the road, the rain seemed to stop! It became a VERY slight drizzle so we happily walked across the road. It was only after that that it started to pour again. Another example of how God cares so much for me (us), even the slightest thing like letting us cross the road without getting too wet.

Lord, I'm truly amazed by You!