Wedding MC

Tonight I had the absolute privelege of being the MC for a good friend's wedding reception. Not having done any MCing before, I was rather stressed out. Especially coz I wasn't really prepared. I didn't have my script written out, nor any toast, no jokes, nothing. All I had was the program and a set of wedding /marriage quotes that I had downloaded. I totally felt that I didn't have enough material to last the whole 45 mins. The groom gave me some good advice. "It takes only 2 seconds, after that it will be plain sailing."

The program was supposed to start at 1915. Dinner to commence at 2000. Taking into account IST (Indian Standard Time), we started on time at 1945ish. Since we were already late, I didn't have time to do any talking. Each time all I did was give a quote, share a piece of information about the bride and groom and the invite the next speaker.

After the B&G finished their speech, I held them back for a sabo session. Basically we asked them a set of questions and wanted to know if their answers matched. If they didn't, he had to lose something he was wearing. It was so terrible that he only got 4 out of 14 questions wrong!

At the end of the day, everybody was like "Fantastic job, man!", "Well done!"

Self revelation point - I always want to talk too much!

PS - the groom was wrong! It took 5 seconds !

Blackout

How exciting! Last night, while watching "Meet My Folks", we had a brown out! The lights went off and the fan powered down. After about 3 seconds, it all came back.

Not 5 minutes later, we had a full blown blackout. It was really interesting to see the neighbours all start coming out of their houses in their sleep attire to find that it was not only their own place.

I msged a few people and found out that even Yew Tee had a blackout. So FUN!!!

I took a cold shower and then went to the shop downstairs to get some candles. I realised that we had taken the availability of power for granted that we didn't have any candles or torchlights around. The shopkeeper had already moved his candle supply to the front of the shop.

I came back, lit a candle, took up my guitar and played softly. So romantic! So alone. )c:

The power came back within 30 mins and we all went back to our usual lives and I got to catch Boston Public!

CITYkids @ Sentosa

Today, all the teachers and children that could remember and recite the whole Tabernacle lesson, we went to Sentosa. What a fantastic day it was.

We all met at my container as the South Transept Hall was being used for the Good Friday service overflow. As the children came, some of the children and a couple of the teachers took their test.

Joel and Peirce tested Lydia while Jonathan was tested by Joel (I think). They both passed but it must have been really stressful to be tested by the kids. As for the kids, Faith Chew and Jie Xun were tested and both passed. So our final tally of "Tabernacle Qualified" people was 10 adults and 19 children. I think that this is amazing! Included to this group were the accompanying adults and the parents. It was a large group of about 37 people.

The plan was to get to Sentosa and get onto the monorail ASAP so that we could make the 11 am dolphin show. Unfortunately, we were late and missed it. So we bought our tickets anyway and decided to be back for the 3:30 show.

We all moved to the beach train stop and waited for almost 30 mins before the train came. Thankfully the train was empty and all of us were able to troop into it. The time spent waiting was a good time of just playing and getting to know the children individually.

The beach train was a long ride all the way to the other end of the beach. We were all happily waving at all the passers-by and then commenting on their lack of response. The big boys started this C-O-C-O-N-U-T song. It was all rather funny.

At the other end, we met the guy bringing the food and we all sat down in a copse of trees and ate. We used the solid cement dustbins as a platform to place the drinks, and the food was placed on the floor a-la buffet. Quite an experience. The after lunch desert was a short trip to the beach.

Next stop was the Underwater world. I must say that I was again awed by the diversity of God's creation. The sheer size of the fish was amazing.

We all trooped out of Underwater world, boarded the red line bus and dashed to the dolphin lagoon. We barely made the show. The show wasn't half bad! It was new to me to see pink dolphins. I always thought it was a drink!

After the show, we were all treated to an ice cream each. We all ate our ice creams as we walked along the beach toward the Palawan Beach monorail. There was a monkey show there but we JUST missed it. Seeing the size of our group and the number of children with us, one of the trainers very kindly did a few tricks just for us. He even gave us some time to take photos with the monkey. Her name was Sakura.

The group then split up and made our own ways to the Ferry terminal. Many others and I decided to walk. I picked up Joey and carried her on my shoulders and we walked. We had a chance to talk a bit and that was really fun. Our group was the first at the ferry terminal.

While waiting for the rest we were all chatting and making noise. Suddenly, Joey rapped out the words to "The Lord’s my shepherd". She is really good and she is only in P1 too. What potential. I can't wait for her to start serving in the worship ministry.

When all the others arrived, we had dinner at burger king. Getting the orders and delivering was a challenge. 14 Mushrooms, 3 chicken sandwiches, 6 fish sandwiches and 2 whoppers, 6 fries and 5 rings!

After dinner, we all took a walk to the sky tower. I got Joey on my shoulders again but this time was hard as it was uphill. The view from the sky tower was amazing! We could see into Singapore and all the way out to the horizon on the other side. Fantastic. A little later and we may have caught the sunset. That would have been great.

After the breathtaking view, we all trooped back down to the musical fountain and were treated to a beautiful display of lights, lasers and water. There was even fireballs being spit out of the water. Two kids and myself were sitting on the front row and we could REALLY feel the heat from the fire.

We slowly made our way through the oozing crowd and arrived at our final meeting point of the day, The Visitors’ Arrival Centre. We closed in prayer, assigned the people to the cars and we made our way home. Me, being the van driver, got the largest group. I drove all the way to Pasir Ris and then ended up at Bedok, where some of my cell members were.

A really exciting and tiring day, but being me, tired was no barrier.

Where Are We Going?

What would be the greatest disservice that man can do for his prospective mate?

Some may say being unfaithful or yet, being untruthful. I think the greatest disservice that a man can do for his mate (for that matter, himself) is to not know himself.

Who does God say I am? Who do I say I am? What is God's vision for me? What are my ambitions? Without having first sought the answers for these fundamental questions how can I be all that I am to be ?

The man's role in the relationship is to captain the ship. To steer the ship and to set its course, the captain must first know where the ship is supposed to go. How do you plot a course to nowhere? An important consideration would be, "Who owns the ship?" Where the ship is to go is determined by the owner of the ship. If I own the ship, where do I want it to go? If I don't own the ship, where does the owner want this ship to go? As the captain, I should want to go where the ship's owner wants it to go. If I keep steering the ship in a different direction than that set by the owner, I won't be the captain of this ship for too long. In both the above situations, as captain, I still need to know where the ship is going. So who owns this ship?

As a Christian, God owns my ship. He bought it with His own blood. So, where does He want it to go? Am I now taking it there? There will come a time that the captain may take on crew, starting with the captain's mate. Hopefully, the mate already knows where she wants to go and then all she needs to do is to find out where the ship is going. If it is going her way, then she can sign on. But how will she know if the captain doesn't know himself? How does he tell her what he doesn't yet know?