Journey mercies

Next week school children have one week holiday for half-term. So last night we had a BBQ special for the youth. And no surprise at seeing a particular individual, who had a knack of appearing only when there's free food.

I found it funny when one of the leaders was recounting to me (I was hidden away half the time in the kitchen preparing things) about how the kids can sometimes seem so ungrateful with a gimmegimmegimme attitude and with no big thankyous.

But what a gift the children have given us as leaders. They've allowed us to learn more about grace, to remember grace that has been given to us and allow us to return it in turn to them.

I asked one of the boys to help me with the tuck shop (we sell sweets to the kids at the end of the evening) and it was incredibly heart-warming to hear him say things like, "Wow! Wait till my mom see me doing this!! I feel so grown up!!"

I think Malaysian churches can be quite good in engaging kids and allowing them to feel ownership of the gospel. But I think there is a lot of real, dangerous and immense danger replicating such a method of engagement by senior church leadership to lay leaders ministering to the congregation as a whole. A proper, healthy and guarded approach both at youth and at congregation as a whole should be had, but if today's trend of engaging people who have no real understanding of the Bible to lead "cell groups", to "worship lead" and "lead Word" continue to move upwards, in another 10 years, where these same people move into more senior leadership the church in Malaysia will be in trouble.

They already are, but do not see it nor understand it. What they see is God's abounding grace, but nor do they see it in full clarity or understand how utterly precious that is.

But I'm in no position to judge them. Malaysia is my Achilles heels. It is not a battle I can say I can wage and triumph. I pray my brothers and sisters there will survive the artillery better than I have.

I had a chat with one of the more spirited girls after the talk. So much potential, but also so much danger in her making mistakes that can waylay the potential. In the past when I've taken a stern teacher-student stance with her, she clamped up and hardened her heart that made me feel i was pouring water over oil. But when I spoke with her yesterday at her level, she had a listening attitude when I told her all the potential I saw in her and the only reason why I pulled her aside to have the chat is because of all the girls, I didn't want her ruining her potential because she has so much.

20 minutes after as she was running about playing with someone else in the church, I suggested that they play outside in the church garden and she responded meekly, "Yes, EW."

I was so pleased that she didn't feel resentful at me for talking to her, and that possibly, possibly, the words of affirmation did rest in her heart!

To have my words of affirmation make some difference in her life will be an immense blessing. I hope that one day, I can in turn return the grace given me 8 years ago, in a corner of A&W drive in.

Usual routine when I get into office, open Exchange mailbox (it's user-friendly, I'll give you that but I still prefer Lotus Notes), open up my MSN, check mail, check what's been going on with the world since I fell asleep and get going with my day.

I went through my routine this morning but all of a sudden I get an MSN message from Uncle Chan, Uncle Ching's best friend. They both joined my ex-company the same time and originally for the same role as well! My then manager liked one of them, my then manager's manager liked the other. So they were both hired and eventually worked out the respective roles.

Knowing what kind of hell they would both get into in trying to acclimatise to the company, processes and culture asap and hit the ground running as fast as they can before the tsunami drowned them, I kept telling my then manager to make sure they get as much help as possible.

But, sure enough, they weren't going to get any special and deferential treatment just like that. No, it is the Blue way of the survival of the fittest.

Having thrown into the deep end head first myself, I helped the two uncles as much as I could to make sure they avoided the mistakes I made when I first joined the team. Much respect to the two of them. I learned the reasons of why they were both liked and hired.

One of my favourite memories of Uncle Ching was when we were seated in different cubicles not far from each other, and most people were away at that time, when I suddenly heard some familiar bleeping sounds.

I immediately stood up and asked loudly over the cubicle wall, "Oi! Uncle! How old are you!? You playing Tamagotchi ah!?"

"Aiyo!!! My son's one lah!!! He's not allowed to bring it to school so I have to take care of it and feed it while he's in school!!!"

And Uncle Chan... always slumping over the desk frowning at the laptop like he's going to die. Although looks like a proper old uncle, he still has that lost-puppy-save-me-look and would always give me the I'm-a-happy-boy look when I figure it's faster and easier for me to do the work for him than to explain how to do it.

Well, anyway, as I said, Uncle Chan messaged me talking crap with me. But Uncle Ching must have been talking with him, because he was asking me to go back to work in the company and that I'll always be his mentor. :)

Well. It took him quite a while, but both of the uncles made me feel good. There have been people who have been annoyed with me constantly trying to 'give advice', but it's nice to know that they both appreciated whatever help I've given them.

While Malaysia had May Day public holiday on Friday, the UK had theirs on the Monday. For some reason, public holidays tend to fall on Mondays though I've never been curious enough to ask why. I decided to visit Doctor Ming at Nottingham, where he's based temporarily before he heads back to Newcastle.

When I arrived in Nottingham on Saturday afternoon, he whisked me off in his Mazda sports car (his habit of claiming of being poor and with no money earned no more sympathy after I saw his car) to Birmingham for a Malaysian lunch. Birmingham is about an hour away.

The next day we went to Peak District, which was also an hour away. It was an interesting drive, to picturesque country side and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was awake.

I can't help it! I've been programmed since young to sleep the moment I am in a car. I like sleeping in cars. You can only see that much of trees for so long.

You can take a girl out of Malaysia, but you can't take Malaysia out of the girl. Especially if she's from KL. We went to Buxton, and the well, countrysides can't really have that much to differ from one another right? Trees are trees. Fields are fields. And it was cold.

In short, nature is nice, but well. Anyway. I did enjoy myself, I really did. But one experience is enough for me thank you!

We arrived a bit too late to do some tree climbing activities that includes high wire walking, flying fox, etc. We ended up taking a cave tour. The guide was pretty good in explaining the cave and the stalagmites and stalactites and stuff. And it really made me feel in awe at the Creator's intricate design of the world. But the Malaysianness of Ming and I was questioning why we paid £7 per person for a 15 minute talk, where walking one end of the cave to the other would have taken 2 minutes.

We then hiked a bit to where there was a stone structure named Solomon's Temple.













We climbed to the top of the tower but couldn't stay up there for too long because the wind was so strong.

On Monday morning, before I took the train home, Ming drove me around Nottingham city centre to make sure I can at least say that I've visited Nottingham!

Labels: Friends, Travels

A few things that has made me happy in the last 7 days:


1. Last Friday night I had dinner with Jess L and family. When I went over, Jess was telling me how she had invited some other people but they couldn't make it in the last minute so she asked her girls who they wanted to invite and they both said me! Yay! And Jess was really sweet, saying she had hoped they would say me. I did mention before my absolute favourite lil' person is Naomi L. Hannah L is a right charmer, but she's too busy in her world of fun to care about me.

As I was listening to Jess and another lady who was also having dinner at the house talk, Hannah burst out all of a sudden asked me accusingly, "Why are you listening to them!?! It's boring adult talk!" Hehe... the last time I was over at their place Hannah deplored to me not to do any boring adult talk.

Everyone in church loves the L family and I'm quite blessed that Naomi and I have a special friendship.


2. Jumping on the trampoline with Naomi and Hannah like a kid and still feel like a kid afterwards. All the working out has helped increase stamina and not a single muscle ached.


3. Uncle Ching from my ex-company MSNed me the other day out of the blue, and asked me if he could ask me some things about work. It was some process-related thing and when it came to processes I was Queen in my ex-team. The Fear of EyeBeeAm was great, forcing me to learn and memorise processes quickly and avoid making mistakes as much as I could.

I was a little surprised I did still remember quite a bit of it! Uncle Ching told me "You're still The Mentor lah!", making me feel happy I could still help a bit. I was also reading my blog archives when I was still with the company and mom was right, the most hardest periods of our lives can actually turn out to be good times.

I still miss Hell.


4. Having no reason but just felt like dancing early in the mornings.

I went into Central London yesterday, which I generally avoid because I hate the trouble to getting there most times. But I needed to get my hair done, and I made an appointment with a Japanese salon.

English hairdressers don't know how to manage fine Asian hair and the first ever English hairdresser I went to gave me a Princess Diana haircut.

-_-

I told him to layer it a little bit more, which then fixed it just a little, and he looked at my hair with surprise and awe shining in his eyes and said, "It does look good, doesn't it?" And I decided that very moment that I was never ever going back there again.

Anyway, I've found out that Japanese salon is actually cheaper and better than English salons, so although they have a reputation to be expensive generally, in London, they are actually a lot more reasonable. The first Japanese hair salon I went to some months back didn't impress me a great deal, but then, I think it was just the individual that did my hair.

This time, I tried a different hair salon, and I was actually a little surprised when I found them, that it was a small and unpretentious salon. B:zar had a warm and friendly even if small and minimal, ambience to it. It was filled with very handsome Japanese men (hehe) and only had 1 female hairdresser amongst the men but I was actually very happy to have the only female hairdresser attend to me.

She was sweet, earnest and hardworking but she had to leave halfway because she had cut her hand before I came, and halfway through, she realised something was not right with it. When she had taken out the plaster, her finger was slightly purplish and the bleeding would not stop, but she still wanted to finish cutting my hair before leaving to the hospital. Her colleague had to order her to leave and finish my hair for me.

Anyway, after getting my hair done, I strolled to a nearby Japanese outlet Beard Papa, that specializes in selling cream puffs!

Because I started watching Zettai Kareshi, which plot centers around cream puffs a bit, I absolutely had to try it!

Yes, lots of Japanese stuff lately. Yes, I thank Snoflek for her influence.






As I was sitting having the cream puffs, suddenly, I just went, "I LOVE my life! I LOVE sitting here having my cream puffs alone! I LOVE being able to stroll along Central London alone!"

In my head of course.

I withdrew quite a bit from the overly social life I've been having the last year and been spending a lot of Me Time; so much that I was feeling a little disconnected and just last week someone said that they hardly saw me around anymore. Shanx2 and Alex who live in front of me and whose house I pass everyday, said yesterday that they wondered if I was still living in the church flat.

I think I go into immediate withdrawal mode when there are things I need to figure out and until I do, I don't like people mixing up my thinking process. And when I made some decisions on Friday, it was as if that withdrawal mode snapped and out I sprung again.

They say if you're never content with what you have in your plate and always looking at what other people have, you'll never be truly content, even if you managed to get what other people have.

I'm truly content with my life in every possible sense and learning to embrace each season in my life and enjoy it fully and not be in a hurry to move on to a different season.

Knowing what it is like to wake up everyday feeling heavy and dull and cross (ie ex-company) and especially dreading the day with the constant thought of "What's going to go wrong today?", the stark difference life is to that now is something that still amazes me each time I think about it.

These days, I wake up each morning thanking the Lord for the brand new day. To wake up each day to joy, to the ability to walk on the streets and smile is a tremendous blessing by itself.

Cup runneth over!

A couple of weeks ago Shanx2, who is a fantastic cook, invited a bunch of us for lunch at the church garden after service.

As she refused all form of help prior to lunch, the rest of us after setting up tables, played with frisbees and enjoyed the lovely summer afternoon.

Labels: Friends

I was having lots of fun at the office today doing manual labour in all its glory. I had to help print off a proposal, so did things like running to the stores to get some stuff, cutting labels, printing things, punching holes into covers, etc.

Then my mom called during my lunch time which I was working through as the proposals were to be finished by today.

Because I was doing something at my desk, I didn't bother to find a more private space to have my conversation with my mom; just kept my tone soft and tried to maintain an accent that was a cross between English and Malaysian. I wanted it to be English enough that people around me wouldn't wonder why I sounded odd, but Malaysian enough that my mom wasn't thinking I was putting on airs.

The conversation was going pleasant enough until I remembered to tell her the outcome of my eye check, which was precipitated from both our concerns that the mole under my left eye seemed to have grown since I came to the UK.

Apparently, it has a cyst-like growth, which they will shave off during a day surgery (not looking forward to it) and use whatever they shaved off as biopsy.

As my mom tried to assure me...



Mom: My gut feel is that it's nothing to be worried about.

Me: *In proper English and well-mannered tone* Yeah, I think so too. I'm not actually worried. Except maybe when I actually sit in front of the doctors on the day.

Mom: Actually maybe the reason why the mole grew was maybe because you put on weight, so make it grow bigger also...

Me: WaaaTtT!!! WHeR GoT SuCh Thing Wannn?!? NooooOoo LARH!!! *Colourful Manglish breaking out in a sudden loud voice*

(I would have thrown my hand in the air if I wasn't holding my mobile in my left hand and a pair of scissors in my right)

Mom: Heh heh heh...



Waaaaat... here I was, hoping that by putting on weight my eyes would grow bigger, but noooo, my mole grew instead.

-_-""

You gotta give my mother credit. Her love for me not to grow into British supersize is strong.