Church Camp Stories Part III

Many many many things happened during the church camp. We had lots of fun worshiping, taking in great feasts of spiritual food, having anointing encounters with God, shopping, eating, eating and eating. But since this blog is about marriage life, I shall let it stay true to its calling. But I'll just jot down some highlights here.

Spiritual treasures
Ephesian 2:10
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

When God made us, He made us with a purpose. "created in Christ Jesus to do good works" Eph 2:10
He made us as the answer to a problem in this world. And if we do not stand up to the calling each individual of us has, the problem would remain unsolved or God will have to give that special anointing to someone else.

So don't waste our life on things that do not count. If we don't passionately pursue God and have an encounter with Him, how are we to discover the reason why He put us in this world? And because we were made with that purpose in mind, we will always feel unsatisfied until we fulfill our calling. We would chase after many things to find an identity or a purpose in them. Expensive bags, insatiable appetite for clothes, lust, money, career, studies etc but we will never feel satisfied.

I thank God that He gave me the courage and the vision to be a tuition teacher. Till this day, 8 years of being a full-time tuition teacher, I have never regretted my decision to lay down the honours degree and trade the glamour of a promising career at a top audit firm for a life filled with children and teenagers.

I have to admit, there were periods of doubts and fears of whether I could survive as a tutor, whether I could earn enough to have what I want or whether I would "lose" out by not climbing the corporate ladder. There were also seasons of inferiority, of comparing my salary and my status to my peers.

But as I look back, I realise that God has never shortchanged me. I have a beautiful home, (I'll share the pics with you another time), a loving husband (I heard him praying today asking God to teach him how to love me more. Wow!) and two lovable and very smart dogs. In addition to that, I have students who have stayed with us even after graduation, allowing us to minister to them and help them grow in the kingdom of God, and I have many shoes, clothes, and an LCD Samsung TV, not to mention a 'D' colour diamond ring. Though I didn't strive or save, my dream of getting married at a young age of 24 was fulfilled. (technically I haven't passed my birthday on 7 Oct (our wedding day).

Yes Christians are not celibate people who think that the definition of being holy is not to have a soft spot for lovely dresses, bags and diamonds. But rather, don't allow our love for material goods to control our lives. Instead, we realise that the only answer to life and its emptiness is God. Hence, we focus on what God calls us to do and trust that in the midst of us fulfilling His call, He, as a loving God will provide. Yup that's why I wanna share with you what He has blessed us with in this blog. Not to boast of what we have but to boast about how good our God is. And you can have all these blessings and even more if you want =)

The hotel
The church camp was held at Berjaya Times Square in KL. We were allocated a room on the 41st floor with full length windows so we had a fantastic view of the KL skyline with its busy roads. To me, it felt remotely like the view from Equinox on the 71st floor of Raffles Hotel. It was also the most luxurious suite (except maybe our wedding suite) we ever stayed on a holiday. There was a living area, a bedroom area, a small dining area, a dry kitchen and a biiiiigggg bathroom which consists of a separate shower, long bath and bidet with an ajoining toilet.

Bonding at the living area

The bedroom (with my baby sis)

Food
Boxing chicken, Porridge with petan, pork n salted egg and......

Mango Lor (This is so so so good lor. We had this every night for supper. And the name really had the lor in it.)

Shopping
Seriously, the shopping was more tiring than the sermons. So many things to see, so many shoes, bags and clothes to assess.

Cannot tahan already.

I took a quick nap on this couch at the Roxy boutique while the kids were tryin on the clothes. I even dreamt a bit. Later on, the kids told me not only did they manage to take a photo but the shoppers and even the salepeople were staring at me. Maybe they were wondering why I could hold on the my specs though I was so sound asleep.

Some of my best and happiest buys

Specs with prescribed lens $37.67 only!

Stone necklaces
Diamante hairband
Exquistite beaded necklace $6.73

Last but not least,

A chicken magnet to decorate our Samsung fridge :p

A glimpse at our children (Haha spiritual ones)

Portrait of a happy family

Our Children

These are some of our spiritual children, who bring us lots of joy and heartache (sometimes). They complete our family and we can't ask for more. They're loving, appreciative, united, and......pampered. Ok la they were very guai during church camp...went for most if not every sermon (and slept thru most of it too)...but still eager for an encounter with God. One particular girl grew quite alot. Jiesi. From a timid girl who cried during church camp and wanted to go home to one who courageously went for alter call during holy spirit night and stood beside two screaming girls who were being delivered. So proud of you Jiesi! But we're proud of everyone else too! You've done well. I singled Jiesi out cos of the change, but all of you made us equally proud. Joel, Mel, James, Yun...

Beauties...

...and the Beasts...

Another good thing (actually one of the best thing) that happened during the church camp is that we got to spend alot of time with our children and I really felt them growing closer to us and to each other and I really thank God for that. Hope we'll be able to maintain that same degree of trust and close bond with each other...

Sleeping right in the middle of service

Another sleeping beauty

A pic to show u how scary the roller coaster ride was

Some of them went to take the roller coaster. Left us (ok just me. Worrisome women!) in frayed nerves. Was so relieved when we came back and saw all of them in one piece per person and no one getting sick. FIY, I don't even dare take Viking, not even the Singapore kind.

Wiped out

Some of the people went out to da bao this famous duck for Wendy, our cell leader from church and they had drumsticks as leftover. The next day we had cell discussion in her room and Andy Tan said that he was hungry so she gave him the drumstick. there was 2 drums and guess wad? Yap my lao gong attacked one of the drumstick too. And this is what's left after the conquest of the 2 man.

Snacks for thought

Hi I need to run cos very busy today but was just so excited to share with you this quote that I thought was very meaningful. Jay Adams summarises God's high calling for married couples (Eph 5:22-25) in 2 questions.

"Husbands, do you love your wives enough to die for them?

Wives, do you love your husbands enough to live for them?"

I stumbled upon this website long time ago when I was very new to marriage and struggling to adapt and I found it very very useful. It is almost like a post-marriage counselling and even has exercises for us to do together as husband and wife to understand each other better and help each other along in loving each other in the unconditional way God intended us to do. Do visit it when you're free. Hope it blesses you! >_<

http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=2785

Here's some pics to share my day with ya.

A day @ e Zoo with Home Cell and Mel's mum and bro

Cute little white tiger (Camera effects) Actually it's not that little

Quit looking at my butt...I know it's sexy ;P

Ah...Spa on a hot day...

Naughty boy! Pull your ear!!!

Back from Kuala Lumpur

Hi I’m back from church camp! Which explains why I’ve been MIA for so many days. I had a really good time and so many things happened I dunno where to start from. Maybe I’ll break the stories down by category then it’ll help to clear my thoughts.

Wifey business
Remember I was supposed to update you on my quest to be my hubbi’s crown? Well the past few days before the camp I was really struggling a lot. It seemed like the more I tried, the more I seemed to go wrong. everyday kena lecture from hubbi. Not long ones, just those 15-min kind. He kept asking me what’s my problem and I really didn’t know. It’s really weird. I don’t really know where I went wrong but I know I did say something with a “not nice” tone or some words that weren’t very constructive. As the days went by, it worsened and I started feeling like no matter how hard I tried I can’t seem to be doing right.
Then on Sat, the day before church camp we had a 3-hour session with Mike Connell, the camp speaker. He’s the senior pastor of Bay City Outreach Centre, New Zealand. Ok anyway there was a session on prophetic ministry, where people will release words for each other through what the Holy Spirit reveals to them. A lady came to minister to me and when she held my hand, she told me she felt a strong sense of anxiety in me like there was a lot of rushing thoughts in my head. Halfway through praying for me, she sensed a spirit of rejection in me and I burst into tears when she prayed for me.

I was quite shocked by my tears n her revelation. I mean hubbi loves me so much n does so many things for me why on earth would I have this spirit of rejection in me? As I shared with hubbi, initially he felt very sad cos he felt that he must have been a bad husband otherwise y would I feel rejected. Then as we talked about it, he told me that I had felt rejected cos I tried very hard to b a good wife but it all seemed to go wrong. then he explained to me that to b a good wife, I can’t rely on my own methods and ways cos it would b very tiring and if I make a lot of effort but in the end still do things wrongly, I would start to feel very discouraged. He explained to me that to be a good wife doesn’t take effort in the human sense but takes a lot of reliance on God, trusting Him and listening, waiting upon Him and acting upon what He says. He also explained that during this period of discouragement, the spirit of rejection then crept up upon me and unknowingly I had allowed it a gateway into me.

All the revelation and tears did me good…at least I know better what’s going on within me, but yet I still didn’t feel completely healed…like still quite confused as to what to do cos I still sense that the attitude hasn’t really changed somehow.

Den something happened at the camp. I felt God touch me in a deep way, a very quiet kind of way. It was as though finally the perseverance has paid off cos I felt that my faith n trust in Him has gone up to a new level.

When a girl got delivered and was screaming on the floor, the old me would have gotten quite afraid and stayed as far away from her as possible. But that didn’t happen that day at the camp. I felt a certain peace and calmness in me and I just naturally drew near to her and laid hands on her and prayed for her. Even as she continued screaming, I didn’t flinch but instead leaned even nearer to her and started whispering and releasing words into her ear. And know what? She stopped screaming and a blissful smile appeared on her face! Clearly God's hand was at work within both of us!

Many other “smaller” incidents took place that revealed to me that I wasn’t the same me as in the past. Then I realized that I didn’t say anything that upsetted lao gong anymore too! N I finally understood what was wrong. I kept thinking I was close to God cos I did my quiet time regularly but really there wasn’t that very deep communicating kind of relationship with Him. During the church camp, when my faith n my relationship with Him deepened, my relationship and communication with lao gong turned out fine too!

So now I know I really really need to seek Him every day, every minute and trust in Him. It’s easy to have a good relationship with Him at the camp but to maintain it when I come back to Singapore with its many distractions is the difficult part. I pray that the changes I experienced at church camp would be a permanent one, and God will continue to do His work in me, to continue changing and molding me and build my faith in Him to the next level. When we broke camp, Ivy came and told me that God will bring the work that He has started in me to completion. I want to hold on to that and believe that God was using her to speak to me and affirm me. Hope this long story didn’t bore u. ok I need to go. will update on the other aspects and photos another day!

We used to have explosive arguments. Like this cannon. Thank God that is now history. After I learnt how to submit and lao gong learnt how to love =) By the grace of God =))

Food for thought

Proverbs 12:4 An excellent wife is the crown of her husband...[NASB]

Wow...Lao gong shared this with me today. It speaks of what a wife can do for her husband if she excels as a wife. The crown is a symbol of power, authority and glory of a king. It is a distinction and also the most valuable part of a collection e.g. the 1.5 caret diamond was the crown of her jewellery collection. Ok let's not digress. The crown is also defined as the top or highest part of the head.

So can you imagine what an excellent wife does? Wow....I wanna be a crown too! I asked lao gong how to be excellent. He wants me to be close to God. And not be domineering towards him. Then he told me actually he really thank God for me. But I told him I don't cook, I don't do much housework and I fail so many times to submit and he still thinks I'm good???

He replied that actually he thinks housework shouldn't be delegated to woman. Cos it's hard work. He says that in order to be an excellent helper, I have to be a good listener, always ready to encourage, support, listen and remind. Hmm...ok I shall meditate the next few days on how to be a good helper. Let you know whether I improved the next few days. ;D

Dinner

I recieved a blessing from God again last night. Hehe 3 gifts in a row. Ge-bi auntie (translated our neighbour) gave us 2 fishes that uncle caught on Sunday. It was super fresh and she even scaled them, cleaned them and gave us a container with all the ingredients to steam the fishes with. So lao gong has no choice but to cook again today. Haha! The fish was so fresh and sweet lo! Then when we were shopping in the supermarket, we found sotong and crab! so we ended up with a seafood feast and invited our meimei to come for dinner. In the end we were all so full I ended up the only one eating the crab.

After that I felt very funny like a bit high like that. Lao gong says it's cholesterol overdose. Is there such a thing???

The issue of submission

I was just thinking about the little girl issue. I was wondering why is it that I feel happier when I’m in the “little girl” mood. And why lao gong seems particularly sayang towards me when I’m in the mood.

I think it’s because when I’m in the little girl frame of mind, my posture is very ready to submit to the authority of God and my husband. It’s not losing my opinions, my way of thinking or my character. But rather being in a state that is willing to submit, ready to surrender everything, even some viewpoints that I hold very strongly about.

I think that’s a very good frame of mind to be in. When I’m in that frame of mind, I automatically feel loved and radiant. Because I’m very appreciative of everything God and lao gong has given me. And lao gong gets drawn to this radiance and becomes more tender and loving towards me. So it’s like a cycle of blessings that keep overtaking each other.

The problem is my little girl moods are not stable. Sometimes it goes off and I become ugly. When my mouth twists and my eyes turn hard and I give him the “I just sense it and I’m not going to change my mind no matter what you say!” kind of look. It’s true. Everytime I’m in the little girl mood I’m happy. It’s when I feel offense, anger, resentment or bitterness that I don’t feel that joy within me. And that kills the little girl within me.

Ephesians 5: 25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Today I got a scolding from lao gong again cos for a moment when we talked about this particular person, I slipped into ugliness and became that hard person that totally wasn’t reflective of my position as a woman of God. Lao gong says I’ve become much more gentle than in the past. But there’s still a stain in me and he urged me to get rid of the stain. I asked him how and he said by prayer. But he stressed that it also takes effort to resist the urge to give in to emotions and to seek God even in the midst of situations when you feel your emotions rising.

Oh man I feel so excited about the change that’s going to take place in my life if I can really allow God to fully work in me and change me into the beautiful woman of God that radiates the love of Jesus Christ on my face. Haha so excited!!!

Swar-Levi's

Levi's encrusted with blue Swarovski crystals...even a dog'll fall in love with it

Ta-da!!!! This is the “project” I was telling u abt. Which is the thing that almost made me cry. Lao gong painstakingly used a tweezer to stick each crystal onto the pair of jeans.

As I was taking my shower, I was thinking of what I can do for him to show him my appreciation. Then it hit me.

Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord...Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…v28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

The bible says that husbands are to love their wives as much as they love themselves, which means to give their wives everything that they would want for themselves.

But wives are given a different commandment, ie to submit to their husbands in everything. So the best thing I can do for my hubbi is to submit totally to him. To submit totally means to even submit my will to him, not just in actions.

Can we really die to our own mindset, which has been molded over the years by watching our parents as we grow up? Can we really die to our habits, many of which can be distasteful in the sight of our husbands but of which are so instinctive to us? Like our instinct to change our husbands rather than to pray about it, our instincts to criticize and judge rather than give helpful constructive advice? Our instinct to tell him what we don’t like about him rather than encourage him in the things that he is so good at?

It seems a lot to let go, but I want to learn with the help of the Holy Spirit. Only when I totally submit can I be the perfect helper. Lao gong, thank you for loving me even before I submitted to you totally. Thank you for loving God enough to love me the way He wants to love me. You are truly the window of His love for me. Lord, thank you for first loving us even when we rejected you and worshipped other idols made by men. To you be all the glory and praise…amen

Candlelight dinner (without the candlelight)

Today lao gong did 2 things very sweet for me that almost made me cry.

1) He cooked beef steak for me.

2) He's still i n the middle of his proj I'll show u a pic of it later.

The past few days I've been whining abt the beef steak he cooked for me on Valentine's Day so this morning after he came back from gym and gave me my morning kiss, he broke the news that he was going to cook beef steak for me tonight. It was very very good...but...there wasn't any candlelight cos by the time he finished cooking, he was so hungry we just chop chop get down to eating. haha he's not a very romantic guy by nature but I know he's trying. And he tries very hard to make me happy. That in itself is already such a blessing...so it doesn't matter that he falls asleep watching romantic movies with me, that he didn't get down on bended knees to propose to me, that he buys me a stalk of flower rather than a bunch of flowers =)

My fav shoe (besides my wedding shoe)

Isn't this pair of shoes beautiful?! We had run out in between my tuition to go for a Victoria Secrets-cum-Zara sale near Raffles Hotel but the clothes were dated and expensive so we left the place within a short while and went shopping at Raffles City instead. Lao gong noticed that Aldo was having a sale and he knows I like their shoes. I was hesitant to go in cos I didn't want to get another pair of Aldo shoes. I'm the kind who's very happy with a pair of $30 heels but I didn't want to disappoint LG so i went in with him. He spotted this pair of shoes that we saw a few months back. We had bought another pair of heels instead of this pair then cos this was very ex $189 and I was more drawn to the 41/2 inch heels on another pair of shoes. Lao gong turned over the shoe and saw that the price had dropped to $132 and he gave me that look. I felt guilty for even thinking about buying another pair of Aldos but LG says that the pair we bought previously can only be worn at functions cos it's too outrageously high so he wants to buy a pair of Aldo practicals for me. So i tried it on and turned out that it was the last pair and fitted me exactly and LG says he likes it alot. So we came out with this pair of 4 inch red patent heels encrusted with dark red and white crystals on the front. I was still feeling bad about it but LG says that God wanted to bless me with this pair of heels otherwise how can it be so coincidental that
1) this was the pair that caught my fancy everytime we went
2) the last pair left was my size and
3)my size was a very common size which should have been snapped up at the early part of sales.

So i decided to take God's blessing as it is and thank Him (and lao gong) and be happy! =D hehe

Nails, nails and more nails

Black base with pink petals on white petals

How can a married woman not be xin fu when you have your lao gong to do your nails for you? Yes, the cutting, shaping, buffing, polishing, artwork, and final laquer is all painstakingly done by my very own BI!!! Thank you lao gong! You always give me the best of yourself, see even the flowers are duo-toned. Each petal is intricately drawn by him and upon drawing, another colour is drawn ontop of the base petal so that it looks more 3-D. You can only see a clearer view of the duo-tone on the topmost nail. Nice right..hehe

I'm sorry I don't have a better pic of this. Forgot to take a proper pic of this one but it's my fav so i couldn't resist inserting this pic in. =P It's actually maroon base with pink and red flowers .

Metallic green with flowers again

A twist of french mani with greenish gold as the base

This is the latest set of mani and pedis done by lao gong.

There were more designs done by lao gong but it was only recently I started collecting pictures of them. I'll try to update my nail collection to share with ya all k =)

To fish or not to fish

This is hubbi fishing. See how happy he looks. But I hate fishing. Becos it makes me sticky and it’s boring.

So must pray that either I’ll start to love fishing or hubbi will stop wanting to fish. My hubbi’s love for fishing is beyond the ordinary. Every camp or overnight party, he’s the first one to knock out, yet he can stay up the whole night just to fish. Or he can go to sleep and wake up at 3am when the tide comes up just to fish. So fishing is detrimental from my point of view. Cos it takes up alot of hubbi’s attention, focus and time. But God is good. If hubbi fishes too often, He’ll intervene. Like make all the fishes in the long kang die (which is what happened to the river near my place) or lao gong will sprain his neck, or .....

Luke 5:4-6 When he (Jesus) had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.

.....God will simply not send any fish to lao gong.

That's why God keeps saying “Don’t nag.”

Proverbs 19:13, 21:9,21:19, 25:24, 27:15. heh =P

Wedding Sentiments

The girls busy concocting their killer drink for the heng dais...

One of the most excitng segment for the girls...

My grinning husband-to-be

Gangstas in action

Hubbi didn't love me only at the beginning when everything was fresh and exciting. He loved me throughout. Like till now, eight months after marriage, he's still washing the dishes for me (cos my hands will get bubbles if i wash) and mopping the floor for me (cos I say I don't like to do exertive stuff). Washing toilets, wiping dust, cooking and picking up dog poo are all under his charge. The only regular housework he 'allocate' to me is washing his clothes. He got lots and lots of dirty clothes cos he goes to the gym and perspires alot so he keeps changing clothes. But then again, I was given a washing machine and a dryer to assist me =P

May I add that I also had to make quite a few adjustments and change myself to accept many things before things became this way. I struggled lots of times especially during the beginning of our marriage. I don't mean now it's perfect but it's much better. Yap back to the changes.

Initally I couldn't stand the house being dusty and such so I try to keep it spick and span. But I'm quite busy with tuition and I don't like housework so I'll complain that hubbi doesn't help me. Then hubbi said that if I want him to do, I shouldn't dictate when and how he should do it. and I also shouldn't nag bcos it makes him irritated and he feels like he does it not bcos he loves me but bcos i force him to. so i haf to squash my urge everytime I see hair on my carpet, when the toilet bowl is no longer shiny and just leave it to him. He says that if I want to do the housework, I have to be happy doing it. means cannot complain or nag. He says if I 'order' him to do it, it's wrong. Cos I'm not the leader. So I asked him if I want him to do some things for me how should I tell him. So he said must ask like a little girl. Means if he say no I got to just accept it. Even if I get angry also must be angry like a little girl, cannot try to climb over him.

Haha so I really changed alot. From a super domineering person to a submissive wife. Ok not perfect yet but he says I'm much better now. I still fall back into my nature now and then especially when I'm angry. You know when you're angry u just feel like rebelling against whatever God says and do things your way. Haha but after a few trials, I don't find it so hard to obey my husband and God anymore. And I found that they love me even more after I "die" to myself. Like lao gong's 1st reaction when he gets his pay is to bring me shopping. And when he brings me shopping, he really will stay with me and look at girl stuff. When the sole of his sports shoes came off, he kept using different kinds of glue to stick it back, even though it's his essentials. (He wears it almost everyday.) But when I say I'm bored of my shoes, which are not spoiled yet, he goes and buy me a $120 pair of heels the day he got his pay. He never used to be like this. So I know that God and lao gong love me more when I follow the biblical principles of a marriage.

I'm not sayin that the bible is a magic formula that makes marriages work out. But what I'm saying is that God created man and woman and He knows what makes us tick. If I were to follow world view and try to fight my way thru my marriage to have my say, claim authority, and even use change my husband to make him love me more, it'll only result in world marriage standards. Which means the longer you get married, the more likely you'll settle into the cycle of nagging, power struggles, arguments over situations when opinions differ. but if we were to just trust God and do as He says, to submit to our husbands, die to our own ego and allow him to take control, I don't even have to change my husband and he just treats me better.

Off we go running around again...

Isn't this beautiful? Some of my baby sisters n bros (ex-students who still kept in contact with us) did this for us. My sis sneakily downloaded the fotos from my comp and mainly Mel and Yun did it at Mel's house. I had absolutely no idea at all until they presented it to me b4 the wedding procession in the cry room and I cried (pardon the pun) when I saw it. It was really something to receive something so precious on your big day. See the right bottom corner of the poster? There's even a bunch of flowers attached there. It's now sitting in our TV room taking the honor of the place right beside the TV =D