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God is good!! =) I really want to thank God for this retreat for it was such a wonderful and blessed time with one another in this big family! I believed God had planned this retreat to be so divine for us in this year of Sabbath for we had so much rest in Him, dwelling in intimacy with our Father and we had so much fun just sharing our walk and edifying one another as a spiritual family through the time spent together. Like what Pastor Khong has mentioned at the start of this year, this year of Sabbath is a time to remember and rely upon the Lord, delighting in intimacy with Him and it is also a time to restore and rebuild relationships in this family, demonstrating inter-dependence among us, and I believed all these were just so evident in this retreat itself. Even though there wasn’t much activities planned for us, God has led us to fellowship with one another deeper as a family during our cell group time and during the sharing session we had with our leaders and Pastor Roland himself. And God too, has drawn us deeper into His presence and into His dwelling place in our 1 hour of praying and crying out to Him! And I definitely have to agree with Pastor Roland who has shared that the quantity and quality of the fruit we bear has a direct co-relation to our degree of growing in intimacy with Christ! And not to forget all the wonderful sessions that God has used to speak to us. ABIDE in Jesus Christ and Marching as ONE Army! =) Thank you Lord!!

Written By Jia Jin (Jerome’s G12 Group)

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In this retreat, God used people to speak to me. I felt very assuring and it helped me take a closer step to God. I not only drew closer to God, but also the family of God. God is good and I have been very blessed throughout the whole camp. I thank God for his unfailing love and the spiritual family that he has placed me in.

Written By Charissa (Samantha’s G12 Group)                                              

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I went to the camp with lots of stuff in my mind. Through experience, whenever there is lots of stuff in my mind, I know the Lord is going to speak. 

Neither storm nor earth-shakings were experienced as our dear pastors brought us through their teachings (screams maybe as we were in our rooms and showers. Lizards, droppings of all kinds, the super cold water etc…). 

As I sat through their teachings and sharing, I realized they were sharing their real life experiences with us (Pastor’s standard is very high. He still carried on his G12 meeting on Wednesday despite his dad’s condition). 

Battle is real and persecution we will face. What is our response to them? Our response to the battle and persecution is critical. Taking Pastor’s dad as an example. Our natural response should be to postpone the G12 meeting or let the 12 run the meeting. Yet, Pastor chose to lead the meeting and ask the group to pray (Wow, pastor. You are really one kind).                                                                       

The result… Our Faith is strengthened.

The situation looked more like a threat from the evil one. I am not suggesting that we should leave our earthly responsibilities or carrying out our responsibilities blindly (Pastor’s dad situation and carrying out the G12 meeting are our earthly responsibilities). 

Our response should be one with our Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Recognizing the flaming arrows and respond appropriately. (This kind of response is not easy to acquire. It may take me a lifetime to learn). My heart has been convicted a number of times by the truth through the teachings. 

The more we want to advance His Kingdom, the evil one will also do more to stop us. With the desire to please Him with the works of our hands, we will face persecution of all kinds. Others may see us as crazy, weirdoes or even as illogical; the convicting truth that grips our hearts shall propel us to stand firm. 

It is no easy feat. Yet His love shall be our assurance. Nothing physical has changed. =) My heart has. How about yours? 

Written By Estee (Cynthia’s G12 Group)

30/Nov/2007 – TC Chapel (8:00PM)
7/Dec/2007 – Blk 162, Room 4 (Time TBA)
14/Dec/2007 – Sabbath Experience (Time and Venue TBA)

Gathering at 30 minutes, after seven pm

Of hearts of siblings, in different seasons;

Some arrived at Spring, Some are at Summer

Yet, mine remain, cold as Winter

The guitar sounds, the moment for worship

An invite of Holy Spirit, to meet our felt needs;

“Fill us, Your lambs and change our lives!”

This is the cry, the bellow of our hearts

Yet, the piercing truth came, when few modest hands rose

Those who did not, were hoping to know:

More glorious testimonies, spiritual than one’s own.

Did not the Holy Spirit, draw everyone near?

Or have we not drawn ourselves close?

Perhaps worldly concerns, brought uncompassion

The fear of man leaves, Hope remission

Our distant hearts, have labels of Self-righteousness

Un-Samaritan attitude is a strong Self- consciousness

Maybe we are, like ugly ducklings … who haven’t found out

That in reality we are, beautiful swans inside out

Therefore, so much more can we, know of the Lord

By having a broken spirit, and carrying a contrite heart

Call on the power of God, every day and night

That He will, most loving be by our side

So let’s take up a Bold heart and be Blessing hands,

P.L.A.N in brotherly harmony, just like in John Thirteen, Thirty Four and Thirty Five

I am so glad, so thanks be to God!

For this evening began, with ME and God

But now has become, me and GOD

Written by Kelvin Chan (Derrick Hoy’s Tribe)

The 3 cell groups under Sharon, Xiangru and Sarah came together for TGIF event on 7 April. Let’s hear what the planning committee has to share!

“It was an enriching and fun experience to be part of the planning committee. A big “Thank You” to the leaders who have taught me alot, heartfelt gratitude to the committee for giving their best in serving, praise and glory to God who guided us through, provided for us, blessed the people, united our hearts and is in control of everything.” 
- Huihui (Xiangru’s tribe) 

“I was reminded of 1 Corinthians 12 even as I write this. The planning committee for this year is a brand new combination and I thank God for how each of our strengths complement one another. Some were good in organizing, some in administrative things, some in designing, and some in leading the crowd. One’s weakness was complemented by another’s strength. Indeed, we belong to One body, and no one part is dispensable. And TGIF didn’t just involve our ministry people, but also some of our mums (I mean biological ones) as well! I really thank God for mums who voluntarily helped to prepare food for us. The salad, the nuggets, the bee hoon and curry. All were prepared by mums early in the morning! It was such a great blessing from God!” 
- Huimin (Xiangru’s tribe)

“This year’s TGIF had been different and I felt refreshed planning it. It taught me that things are always more stimulating when done differently. Then again, I also recognized that no matter how lavish and remarkable an event may be, when the spirit of God doesn’t move, it really is just a passing event. Thus, I thank God that despite the numbers, He has touched the hearts of those who came. TGIF isn’t just an annual event, but truly life-transforming. I’m also privileged to be able to serve God and be in the planning committee. It’s a joy seeing the crazy people from PL ministry come together, I think we really complement each other ”
- Wina (Sarah’s tribe)

“I want to Thank God for this TGIF event. It’s my first time serving in the committee. I was given the choice if I wanted to serve in the committee 2 weeks before the event. I just accepted it as I didn’t know how to reject, I knew I won’t be able to cope with the commitments I have. I felt that the wall of secure I had was breaking, I felt very threatened in the things I thought was OKAY. As much as I didn’t want to go on serving in the committee, I went on with it.I remembered the first meeting we had, the word releases was Free. I was thinking what is this in relation to me. I want to be set free with the things I’m holding on to, but the other part of me didn’t want to let go. During the very first meeting, I had this mentality that God won’t use me, because my heart was not aligned to the unsaved people, I was thinking about the things I was going through.Yes, this year’s programme is very different from the previous years, but I’m not abit excited. On the TGIF day itself, I wasn’t really around in Daniel Hall participating in the games and whatsoever. I was around when they transitted form games to the worship. It was the only thing that I’m looking forward to. There were flashcard testimonies. I’ve seen it for so many times, New Year Bash, G12 Conference etc, but it still touches me.The flashcard testimonies brought back my Faith to believe in Him again. Looking at these lives that have been changed by God, the breakthroughs that they have experienced, He reminded me that He can do it in my life too. He will give me the strength to go through what I think I cannot and will be with me. It is reaffirmed by the breakthrough(s) I had experienced in my life, the things that cannot be done with my strength alone, I went through it. (:I reclaim back the verse, “I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me” 

- Weiwen (Sharon’s tribe)

As we set off to Muar Prayer House for our LKKD (Leong Keng, Korine & Doris) retreat, I prayed that God would reveal more of Himself to us as we seek Him together as a cell group over the weekend and as faithful as always, He did.  

During one of our worship sessions, God touched me profoundly with His presence. As we were singing the song, “Through It All”, God spoke to me that He is always in my life and He sees me through all the seasons of my life. Even in the season where I had been disobedient, He had lovingly watched me from afar, knowing that I would somehow return to Him someday.  

Over the weekend, He continued to reveal the love that He has for each and every one of us. However the full extent of it was revealed through our leaders in one of our worship sessions when they washed our feet, just like Jesus who washed his disciples’ feet 2000 years ago. At that moment I grasped the depth of love that our leaders had for us and I realized that the relationship between us was not just a leader and a cell member but father and son, mother and daughter.  

Thank God for His presence in our retreat and for our leaders, LKKD who have painstakingly planned it just for us. And most of all, I thank them for accepting us as flawed individuals but at the same, loving us the way they would love their own children and praying for us that we will become more and more like Christ each day.

Written by: Michelle (Korine’s Tribe)

We held the planning session on Friday night. For a 2-hour programme, it was mainly games and Breaking the Barrier. For those who don’t know, Breaking the Barrier (BTB) is a sticker book which is used to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with children below the age of 12. Strange, we thought of many games and even thought of going down. But with the 2-hour constraint, we decided to play the games in the house.

I was supposed to go through BTB with my cell leader on Sunday. Turns out that there was a salvation at Barnabas club so I managed to run through it, and in Mandarin! Well, we went through BTB. I’m surprised to note that practically the entire cell had not even seen BTB. Strange huh. But it’s the same as the John 3:16 sharing for adults and teens, except that it’s in a sticker format instead of drawing lines, circles, and arrows. While sharing with my cell leader, I observed something interesting. I have been doing BTB for the last 10 years. No, I’m not that old, but I did it even as a child. I used to wear the sash at Come Celebrate Christmas and share BTB with children. If my memory serves me well, I started sharing BTB at the age of 12.

It’s interesting to note that, at that time when I shared, I never had any difficulty. I was always confident and never had to think about, “How do I explain life forever?” or “How do I explain sin and death forever?” Yet, while we were discussing BTB at Expo, we had to think through questions like these. And I concluded, as children, we are indeed much simpler. Actually, come to think of it, children do know when they do something wrong. It’s not too difficult to explain sin and get them to understand it. I guess, as adults, we do look too much into details. That is the beauty of the child-like faith. Simple.

My cell leader was worried that they may not understand and I told her that BTB can be understood by children from 5 years old. Personally, even when I speak to the parents of the children we manage at Barnabas club, I realize that, as adults, we tend to wonder if the child really knows what he/she is doing and we doubt their faith. Thinking about that makes me sad. Even for the Lord’s Supper, as long as they are aware of the significance of the elements, I don’t see why they cannot participate in it. Even I myself sometimes question the child but I remember this, “The Holy Spirit in an adult is the same size as the Holy Spirit in a child.” Never ever underestimate children. They are more powerful than we can ever imagine. Jesus, Himself said, “Let the little children come to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” I truly believe that. Alright, back to the party.

On Christmas day, we got there at 12pm to prepare. Mainly blowing the balloons and packing the party packs for them.

The children are from my cell leader’s tuition group and they’re aged between 7-12. This is the best age to do BTB! Golly! And they’re all chinese speaking. Hmm, sharing BTB in Mandarin is a huge challenge for me. Ah well, cell leader doing it, so as long as she knows, that’ll do.

They began streaming out of the room at about 1.45pm and they starred at this bunch of adults sitting in the living room amongst balloons and gift packs. We had lunch before we started the games. Usually, I take this time to sort of mingle with the children and play/talk to them to get them comfortable with me.

Getting me to lead the ice breakers is not a problem, but when it comes to doing it in Mandarin, sheesh, it is quite a challenge, even if to 10 year old children. I did Simon Says in English and I had no idea they could not differentiate left and right yet. It was quite funny, but I suspect that they did not really understand the game. The next game we played was Pass the Fish. Music plays, pass the fish; music stops, person holding fish must do something. This was really funny because the boys were very sporting. He insisted on doing a 黃飛鴻 stance.

We continued to play Blow Wind Blow in Mandarin. 大風吹 was also quite challenging for me. It’s a tongue twister! The children enjoyed this game the most because they were already familiar with it. After that, we played the last game of Squirrel & Hunter. No photos of the games because I was also the photographer! So I couldn’t possibly lead the game and be the photographer at the same time. After a water break, we gathered to hear the Christmas story before launching into BTB.

The story is a simple one but I think it was too short so it was kinda abrupt. Basically, it’s the story of Joseph and Mary not being able to find a place to sleep for the night and they landed in the stables with the horses. Mary gave birth to Jesus that night and the three wise men followed the star. Upon finding Jesus, they worshipped Him and gave Him gold, incense, and myrrh. It ended to a chorus of Hark the Herald by the group of “angels”. After this, we gave out the BTB sticker books to the children.

2 leaders attached to 3 children and as my cell leader started introducing God, we facilitated the session. All the children were very attentive.

The time came to make their decision with the gold feet. As each leader explained to the child, the children were left to decide their direction. BTB wrapped up with the Sinner’s Prayer. Everyone prayed out loud together and they all personalized John 3:16. It’s really cool to get the children to read the verse with their names in it.

Cell leader’s husband sang a song talking about their new friend, Jesus and we took some group photos.

100% salvation for the children. I believe we did BTB with 8 children. So hallelujah for the new 8 precious children that have entered the kingdom of heaven! With all my heart, I truly believe that children are fully conscious and aware of what they are doing when they pray and ask Jesus into their heart. Never doubt their simple faith; you might even learn something from them if you stick around them. I have never stopped learning from children and they have always imparted great joy and faith in my heart.

Writers of this entry
Camy & Kristy (Cynthia’s Tribe)

First Posted on http://camy.livejournal.com/437933.html

As I sat through one of the sessions on past hurts, I find myself couldn’t relate much. So I was quite relaxed during ministry time until my brother Shijun turned to pray for me. Thanks bro!

He was praying for my relationship with my mum. When I heard that, it was like the Holy Spirit telling me “hey son, you forgot about this!” Then I remembered about a month ago, when my grandma was supposed to go for her baptism, my mum and other relatives were persuading against her going. My mum even went to the church that day just to make sure my grandma wasn’t there. Eventually my grandma didn’t get baptized.

When I heard all this that has happened I was very hurt and disappointed with my mum. Why out of so many people, it has to be my mum? It hurts to see your loved ones stopping or hindering others from obeying the Lord. For the next 2 weeks after the incident, I even found it hard to talk to my mum.

Thank God for His grace. I found that it was easier to forgive my mum for the hurts and disappointment, maybe because it is still a “fresh hurt”. I was very thankful that the Holy Spirit reminded me of this incident at this point of time. If not, I would have to keep this feeling to myself. I have also learnt that keeping past hurts and disappointment is like not brushing your teeth for a very long period of time. Then you will find tartar forming on your teeth. (tartar. Dentistry. A hard, yellowish to brownish-black deposit on teeth formed largely through the mineralization of dead bacteria in dental plaques by the calcium salts in salivary secretions and sub gingival transudates.)  And when you want the dentist to clean up all those long accumulated tartar, it’s going to hurt us even more! So brush your teeth daily. Go to the Lord daily and give Him all your pains and hurts.

As I prayed for my mum, I began to believe that she will be saved and her life will be turned around like how Jesus turned the life of Apostle Paul around for His glory. 

As always, whenever I go for encounter or SWW, I would be thinking to myself what will “come out of me”. Don’t know whether is there any “unclean stuff” in me that will come out. But God gave me a new understanding regarding going of encounter and SWW. I began to understand it’s not about what will “come out” of me but is what will “come into” me. At the end of the day, do we allow the Holy Spirit to come into our life and transform us? Do we allow the love of God to come into our heart so that we can love the people who had once hurt us? And do we allow the Lordship of Jesus to come into our life and truly declare that JESUS is LORD?

 Written by: Yiliang (Leong Keng’s Tribe)

The Rough It Out (RIO) camp was held on 26-27 Aug at Pulau Ubin. There were approximately 70 people there including all the seniors and officers. It was a camp that was held to prepare those going for the overseas trips as well as to give them all a chance to experience a different kind of lifestyle.

This camp was different from the previous one coz the campers were going to be fasting for 24hrs! No Food!!! All the campers were determined to last the distance and at the same time go thru all the program and games. The first challenge was that they had to make paper stars to earn credits to 'buy' items so as to build a shelter for their teams. They would be sleeping in those shelters so it is very important for them to have enough materials to make a proper shelter! So they were all busy making the stars and bidding for the materials. Next up were games where they had to complete including one that required them to walk around Pulau Ubin.

The highlight of the camp was the Gala night where each team had to come out with a commercial to promote the up coming overseas trip. It was such a hilarious time! I must say that the SP Primers are a really talented bunch! They came out with super creative ideas!!

God really blessed SP Primers with many fruits. The turn out this yr was the largest yet and the Lord is really beginning to bring fruits to us! Just in the past 2 weeks or so there are already 4 salvations! And there will be more!!! AMEN!!!!  

The PL Ministry had an amazing race on last Saturday, 19^th August.

Thanks to the 3 beautiful ladies, Huimin, Baoling and Amanda, who had so ingeniously planned the whole race, PL ministry had a splendid wild time together! Though the attendance was somewhat disappointing, PL-lites being a bunch of zealous and dynamic people, spiced up the whole event with our perpetual vivaciousness.

The time spent with fellow PL girls was truly memorable, particularly the times when we paraded the distinct traits of PL-lites. The journey just started and we already made our mark on the bus! 2 teams were on bus 197 talking and laughing at the top of their blaring voices. Our shrill laughter broke the dead silence on the bus, inadvertently drawing the faces of many. Alright, I felt slightly apologetic about it… but hey! Where can you find such hilarity on the bus?

Anyway, we were so engrossed that we missed our stop and had to walk a great deal. That does deter us, not even the sudden shower along the way. This is the first time I have worked together with girls from the other 2 cell groups of PL ministry, though having seen them so frequently in church. I took the chance to converse with every member in the team and learnt more about them personally. Due to our chirpy nature, we could yak about anything under the sun. I thank God for having coloured PL ministry with such diversities.

My team went to 3 stations altogether, CBD, Chinatown and Orchard. The tasks set were especially nifty in tying the team together, involving the crimes of Oreo cookies, eating, to jogging! Eating was a breeze of course, to PL girls who regard food as sacred. Also, being a team leader, I was glad of being spared the embarrassment of jogging in front of runners on treadmills, instead gleefully took a video of the team’s embarrassing moment. It is normally such gawky acts that truly remain etched in your mind, and I come to treasure the friendships I have made.

Subsequently, we made our way back to East Coast Park for the final showdown. Each team had to send one representative to be dressed up using the materials provided and I willingly subjected myself to the unruly ingenuity of my team. At last, the three gorgeous mascots were out! – Kia Hwee the Brinjal, Wina the Red Indian, Darie the Sakura. We had some enjoyable time introducing the three mascots before moving on to the next life threatening activity- waterBOMB! I meant it life threatening for the 3 mascots as we were the targets! You can’t imagine how nutty, riotous and feisty PL-lites get in such turbulent game. When the game ended, everyone was in a mess, with the 3 mascots in the worst state, having dyes all over us due to the coloured papers used to dress us, and the place seemingly ravaged by war.

On the whole, we had a hysterically fun time. I believe the amazing race ended with its objectives met. The 3 cell groups of PL ministry had some brilliant bonding time and the new ones habituated to the family. Nevertheless, ultimate credit be to our loving Father in heaven who constantly watched over us, seeing through the success of this event and having fun with us too.

Written by Wina (Sarah’s tribe)

Indeed, it was a camp of going Back to Basics, not only find out who am I to Him but also, who is Jesus to me and how am I living for Him. Although I wasn’t there on Fri night, after Candy shared with me Fri night session, I do know that Jesus sees me as a unique individual, not just another number to His creation.

So Who is Jesus to me? He is my Saviour, who has died on the cross for me so that I can be reconciled with Him for eternity and be saved from the fires of burning hell. He is the Lord of my life, someone who gives me freedom to choose, but also be my guide in decision-making and allow Him to reign in me. He is my Father, not only expecting obedience from me, but would also want to know my heart’s desires, for He provides me with what I need and not what I want. He is my friend, whom I can always count on to be there for me. That is who Jesus to me.

Written by: Hwei San (Evelyn’s Tribe)

A lot of feelings welled up during the Structured Experience. As I went through those activities, I allowed hatred and anger to get the better of me. I just could not understand why we were made to go through this kind of physical ‘torture’ when Christ willingly gave up His dear life to set us free. No doubt, these were challenging questions but God opened my mind to understand. He showed me that when Christ was crucified, He did not complain and on the contrary, He beseeched God to forgive the Jews. Upon hearing this, my frustration dissipated and I finally understood why we had to go through this. It’s a short activity of faith, which allowed me the privilege to catch a glimpse the heart of Jesus for His people.

Written by: Rachel Foo (Candy’s Tribe)

After the ‘torture’, Danny and Evelyn started explaining to us that they wanted us to experience what Jesus felt when He was on the cross, all the torture and the pain He bore for us. Never once did He complain. I came to realize that what I went through that day was nothing compared to His and that it was a test of Faith. Well, I was thankful that I did not give up and was proud of myself. After that, my whole body was aching, however I felt that it was very meaningful and that I learnt and understand more about the love that God gave us.

Written by: Renette Foo (Candy’s Tribe)

In this retreat, we were challenged to give a blank cheque to the Lord. If Jesus is indeed Lord, what would it mean to us? As I pondered on what mattered to me, the Lord impressed upon my heart my mum and my studies. I cried out to the Lord because she gave birth to me and provided everything, how can I give her up? It was then that I realized how precious my mum was to me.

Next was my studies. At that weekend, I received news that my course in NYP would reduce the cohort from 280+ to just 150, so that all graduates would be able to get a suitable job upon completion of their dip. I might be kicked out of my course! It was a real fear and I hesitated to give that up, because that would mean I couldn’t provide for myself in the future. I then remembered that He said He would provide. The Lord always has a better plan in mind. With that, I signed my cheque and went to Eve for prayer. She said that the Lord sees every tear I cry as worship unto Him. He stores all my tears in a bottle and appreciates and cherishes all the struggles I’ve made for Him. I’m so glad that the Lord remembers and that he cares so much for me. 

Written by: Lisa Tan (Candy’s Tribe)

If Jesus is Lord, lets worship Him in one accord!!