A Busy Week

Hey guys,
I've been wanting to blog about so many various things the past week, as it was completely filled with inspiration at camp through christian speakers, worship, encountering God in the outdoors & many other things. But as much as I wanted to, I was caught up in those many events & haven't had time.

So I'm just going to share some of the experiences this past week.
I don't think I share my personal life very often on here.. so here goes...
>>may be a complete waste of your time - read at your own risk.

Well I have to say that last week was an amazing week for me.
As soon as school ended & the two week break started, I had church camp. It was a very enjoyable experience, being able to hang out with quite a few good friends for a few days, just 'chilling' (there was a room we ended up calling the 'chill room'). We basically just chatted, listened to music, played cards, & had laughs. On top of that, the camp was also heavily themed in 'apologetics', which is basically reasoning about our faith in God. Prior to camp, I actually went to a talk that introduced apologetics to me & made me super interested & passionate, so I was really looking forward to the talks.
The speaker, Glenn Peoples, did an amazing job of equipping us to think deeper about our faith & to use our reasoning within ourselves to reason with others. He went through 'the moral argument', a very brief but good argument to show that Jesus, His death, resurrection & appearances are all legit, & also the problems people encounter when we try to talk to them about faith.
The bible studies at camp were also very fruitful, with lots of discussions among our small groups where we could learn about each other's spiritual experiences & thoughts on various topics. I have to admit for the last session of bible study, I wanted it to go on for a few more hours - I was enjoying it that much!

The journey to camp was also really nice.
I personally really enjoy long journeys, either by myself or with friends. By myself, I can pump the car stereo up & enjoy listening to music for a few hours. Whereas with friends, it's a good time to just chat & continue to grow together as there's nothing else to do in the car.

Right after the four day camp, I went home to a keyboard I had ordered from overseas. This is the first thing I've ever bought from amazon.com, so it was a special moment, knowing that it arrived in just the way I expected.

There are many reasons I wanted to get a keyboard, & after praying for awhile, God allowed it to happen. Firstly, I wanted a way to make music privately at home, as I get pretty nervous knowing, well even thinking, that someone is watching me play. Also, I think it'll encourage/make it easier for me to do some more piano covers as I really enjoy making music & sharing it. Another main reason is that it'll allow me to have an instrument where I can take to places & play, such as at church, or even while visiting rest homes with my small group. So those are a few of the reasons why I brought this nice instrument.

So right after camp, after playing around with my keyboard briefly, I decided to continue my day with another event. Glen Peoples, the guest speaker at our camp was also speaking at another place tonight & it was an open event, so I was like "why not"? So that night, I went to the talk with a really good friend & also my small group mentor, having no expectations whatsoever, but only to be intellectually challenged.
The talk was on 'New Atheists', something I knew nothing about. As I started listening to it, I have to admit I didn't think I'd pick anything up from it, but as the talk progressed, it was really great! In summary, he was informing us on how new atheists think & what the movement is like. They're basically a bunch of people that are pretty passionate about attacking the Christian faith, with little preparation & research into it, but with more heat in their arguments. One main thing I picked up from this showed that God allowing this to happen, Christians being pinpointed like this, really gave us a chance to evangelize & reason more to the world.
Afterwards, I had quite a nice discussion session where I was able to have time to slowly digest the talk & to also continue to reflect on my faith & how it was driving my life.

So I think after all that I really deserved a break.
That's exactly what happened the next day. A full day's break.

The day after, the Saturday, I was disappointed there was no small groups, but the leaders do deserve a break from camp. I did end up going to a friend's house for a guitar lesson though. It was fun, as it always is.

I also had lots of duties at church to prepare for on Sunday.. & I basically left it all to Saturday night, which is extremely bad. I ended up stressing quite a bit about everything, questioning the opportunities God's given me to serve Him, even doubting some of them. But amazingly, God pulled me through, as He always does, I was able to get everything done.

Sunday.
I was only expecting a busy morning at church, then chilling for the rest of the day, but that didn't happen.

The message that morning was really good. It was about God as "El Shaddai".
Some main things I picked up.
- God helps those who are helpless. If we continuously try to regain control of our lives after losing it, the cycle will continue. But once we let go & become helpless, God will always be there to help.
- God's timing is perfect. We're all about wanting things quicker, more efficiently. But as technology advances & allows us to get things faster, we'll become more accustomed to speed & less on God's perfect timing, which requires us to wait alot of the time. It was a great warning to me.

Church was pretty busy as usual, having to look after the AV during service, then  having to help out with the children's worship & then teach sunday school. I was pretty amazed at how a word find almost filled up the whole lesson, & it was only around 10 words. I was grateful to God for that, as alot of the time during lessons, I end up running out of things to do with the kids.

So after church, alot of my good friends were going to watch Iron Man 3, which I had to turn down as my parents said they'd wanted to watch it with me another day. But 'somehow'.. I managed to convince them to join me & my friends... So I had an awesome time hanging out with friends after church, watching a 'decent movie' (my expectations for it was extremely high).
Then after the movie, we all went to attend a farewell event for our senior pastor, as he has to leave to Hong Kong soon. Afterwards, there was a dinner, which my parents weren't planning to stay for, but all my friends were staying for.
I actually did something I consider one of the craziest things I've done in awhile to convince my parents to attend the dinner as well. We were in the car discussing what to have for dinner & as I suggested that we could stay, they said it'd be impolite as everyone was asked to bring a dish. But as I slowly got to a point of saying how it wouldn't matter too much, I just opened the door to the car, & ran out with the car keys.. leaving them no choice but to stay... They didn't seem to have any hard feelings about that afterwards so I'm glad about that. But I do have to say I feel a bit sorry about pushing them around for the whole day~

Well that's my busy week which left me no time to blog until now..
If you got up to here, I have to say I'm amazed.

Anyways,
Until next time,

Godbless (:

I've been loving The After's new album "Life Is Beautiful" lately.
Definitely worth a listen to!

Broken Hallelujah - The Afters

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