Colours of the North...

Played host to Tim for once. Now that he's shown me around at Lighthouse (of which I joined, but later left, both ways compelled by the Lord) I guess it's just for me to fufil his request to visit D.A.R.E..

After half a week's worth of grade-calculating, quixo-lending, course-atending, whiteboard-drawing, holiday-planning, whiteboard-erasing, re-paddling, subject-comparing, particulars-sorting and Exodus-assisting (Ooo, Exodus! I remembered Genisis to haave had been a failure last year, but Exodus was more or less a great improvement this time round! Good job, Marcus!!!), it was finally the weekends. And what better way to begin it than to continue my catching-up training with my new partner! A good spin with the New Tiger with backman Ting Wei, and I guess we've got ourselves a good paddling.

Then after training, I changed into something comfortable and made my journey to Suntec City, of which I did some window shopping to kill of the extra hour I had to wait for Tim and Samantha with. I was having fun viewing minature models of movie characters when Tim finally called and requested a good meeting point.

I told him to describe where he was ("Is there a map of the world on the floor?" "Yeah, it looks something like it... there's a red pillar in the centre of this place." "Erm, that pillar's gonna change colour, y'know." "Oh... Erm, yeah the place with the big coloury pillar."...), of which I promised to meet him there within 10 minutes (a promise I sheepishly broke when I passed by another replica shop filled with replicas of colonial swords and ball-bearing guns :P).

When I was within the area, I spotted the two of them at the 'red pillar'. I then grinned a little and sneaked quietly behind Tim before suddenly grabbing his shoulders and exclaiming, "Okay, so where do you guys want to eat?" I leaned on the railings of the pillar fountain like what they were doing, from the corner of my eyes noticing Tim staring at me. Then realising I was too soft at the 'so where do you guys want to eat' part, I stood up again and asked properly.

They replied with the casual 'I'm fine with anything' statement, of which I gave them a rough plan of what was available. Getting the same response, I decided to bring them to Subway, which was 6 floors directly under where D.A.R.E. was held.

We ate, and we chat, and we made many laughs. But soon after, we proceeded up to the 6th Floor Overflow room, of which along the way Samantha giggled noticing that Tim and I swivel and wieve our way through the crowds while she was simply walking straight through.

Once upstairs, we met up with my D.A.R.E. group (dg), CIA. I told them I brought some visitors, of which they said they could join them during the service. Shortly, Tim and Samantha noticed the loud music in the background, of which we all creeped towards the Overflow room. After much observation, I turned around and said, "Oh, don't worry; we're not late. It's just the rehersals." They both were slightly shocked but went along with it.

Later on, the crouds were starting to build up so they began a SMS competition while waiting for the service to start. We waited through the contest for another half an hour, of which Samantha met some friends from her school while Tim and I just lazed around at the counter.

Soon enough, the doors of the Overflow room swung open, and the trademark call of "DOORS OPEN!!!" surged through the area. I rallied the other two along and stayed within the current of youths until we were flushed at a good spot near the stage.

Samantha was looking through the instruments from where she was seated, and according to her there was apparently no synthesizer on the stage. Tim was also viewing the instruments, but with a different response. Being a very sensitive listener, he became concerned about the possible noise levels we'd be encountering during the praise and worship segment. So looking around, he asked where the speakers were.

There was one portable speaker a couple or more meters away from us, but that was facing towards the stage. What he needed to be more concerned about were the imbeded speakers on the ceiling. (Hey, these overflow rooms were built to ensure sermons reached every corner of the area: Can't blame them.)

But then again, these kind of ceiling speakers were definitely weaker than those you see in concert, and I doubt they'd be mad enough to raise the volumes up till nosebleed-sonic, so the matter was laughed off.

Within minutes, the service began and we started with singing of songs. Tim noticed that some of the songs weren't usual songs you'd find in worship sessions. I explained to him that the worship ministry in this Church had recently released their latest album, I See Grace, and so some of the songs would be from the album.

After lots of singing and jumping and 'saywhat, saywhat, saywhat-saywhat-saywhat!'s and 'who-OAH-oah's, Pastor Dan came to the stage and gave his little chat before he began his sermon. For today, he was telling us his stories of him at a Hillsong Australia conference which he accompanied Pastor Prince to recently and had just arrived back from.

After that, he was telling us of how he missed us all and that he loves to preach to his homeland. He stated here and there of how proud he was to be in such a Church and that he knew it was God's assigned blessings for us to be here. But soon after, we began on our sermon. The sermon was about the definitions of prase and worship, and also how it differs from definitions modern society creates.

A number of people believe that worship is just to surrender to the Lord any items that you may 'worship' more than you would to Him (time, money, addictions, etc.). But that's actually half of the story. God also gives us back something when we give Him our trust and praises, and these include blessings that are abundant beyond measure! But above all, He gave the very vessel that permit us these blessings: His one and only Son!

It was extremely funny, with the usual dosages of Greek and Hebrew words, hilarious explainations for certain definitions and even some participation from the audience!

After the sermon, there was a final song, followed by a final prayer, followe by the offerings, followed by the announcements, and then we were officially dismissed. The three of us went down to the main floor, where I broke off with them since we had our different routes.

On my way to the bus stop, I was thanking God that everyhting went smoothly and that things went rather well. The fact that I was respectively new to the youth service, although having joined the main service for three years or so, could only mean that it was truely by the grace of God I made it through to help guide Tim and Samantha along the way! Praise the Lord!!!

Well, I'd better rest today now. Just came back from main service, now I feel somewhat tired (Sunday's seems so beautiful for rest!).

Malachi 4:17!!! God bless y'all!!!