Journey mercies

I joined the Transformation Camps team (a group of East Malaysians organizing camps for East Malaysian youths to minister to them and to build their faith) for the third time last weekend in Ipoh. It was less dramatic than the last two, but still oh so enjoyable because everyone experienced God.

Following these two pastors is hard on the body though. We slept on average 3 hours a night because of their late night suppers and some practices we had.

Things are moving at the speed of lightning, with so many things learnt, too much to do that I wish I could neatly encapsulate all the thoughts whirling in my head and heart. I envy the East Malaysians. They live and share a time when the memories they are creating together in TCamps is so rich it will last them a lifetime. I envy them for being in the midst of a time of strong spiritual revival.

I am somewhat only an "associate member" to them and I am but a witness to their work. I join them on the camps and I clearly am not part of the team of facilitators comprising mainly of university students. It feels even more awkward when a few of them would nod their head respectfully towards me and greet me as, "Sis."

They would have probably called me Aunty if there was not already a group of older women who take on that status and I'm just slightly younger than them. =/

They have a strong team of worship leaders who I am in perpetual awe of every camp I go to. Charismatic, energetic, in tune with one another and with the pastors and also experienced to watch for cues in the spiritual atmosphere and respond quickly when it comes. What a joy to work with a team like that. Pastor P and The Pastor are so in sync with one another that it feels like they preach as one, and every time they preach, I feel completely absorbed with the message.

Their style of preaching makes me feel like they pound continuously at the door of the hearts of the people. And they keep pounding until they sense in the spiritual realm the door is ajar and when it is, they activate the worship team and intercession team to move in to force the door to fling wide open to God.

And when it does, and the Spirit moves to fill the crevices of the hearts, oh how beautiful the Lord evidently becomes! I can already feel a song of praise and worship bubble from deep within my stomach to declare the beautiful glory of Christ!

Lately, my dreams seem to tell me that I'm letting go things more easily and so not getting as anxious as I used to get of mistakes and failures.

I used to have dreams of unfinished assignments or failing exams which would cause a great deal of anxiousness in me. Lately my dreams were facing such kind of situations but devoid of anxiousness, just a very calm face it as it is.

This is a pleasant change that has come about, since it wasn't so long ago that I cringed at The Pastor's encouragement for me to push myself more in the area of maturity even if I make mistakes. I'm sure this change doesn't come from me. I am too far indebted to The Pastor and The Wife for their prayers, patience and holy kick-in-the-butts to come this far and claim credit on my own.

Nowadays, I do get somewhat annoyed with people who beleaguer over a matter with more than 3 sentences.

It's ok to ask once to understand why a situation has occurred but that takes only one sentence. Maybe another sentence or two to clarify. But when they go on to angrily beleaguer over it, "Why didn't you do this instead? Why couldn't you have checked on this instead?" it really raises my hackles.

The situation is as such, just roll with it.

In my problematic ex-job where mistakes were an everyday occurence (not necessarily my own), I found that this strategy was by far the least stressful way of dealing with problems. It was a challenge trying to teach certain individuals this method though because if they had, my stress levels would be much lower than they were.

But The Pastor really is my teacher in many things. Being in Singapore and observing how he lives has been an important highlight to me. He rarely gets ruffled by things as he responds to each conversation, person, reaction, change with a keen alertness to the Holy Spirit's movements. An unexpected good can come out by responding to changes, so he never treats any change negatively, even if it can be an inconvenience.



This I held on to for dear life in some of my most difficult periods. This has made all the difference in my life.