Ever since I came back from the mission trip, didn't have time to blog about it man...Haha. Let me try to recall...
It was Friday morning...my dad woke me up at 7.30am++ to wash up, have breakfast and leave for the airport. OH we're leaving for Philippines! The adrenaline rush pushed me out of bed to my toilet...haha!
I shall spare you the flight details...how many clouds we saw, how much saliva I drooled on the plane and all...HAHAHA!
Upon arrival in Tacloban, our hosts garlanded us with seashells! :D
Check out our seashell garland :D
We then hopped onto their pick up and made our way to our hotel :D Ps Dennis and his wife, Daisy, his son, Daniel and their nephew Vincent was there to receive us :D
Ps Daniel was formerly from my church, Bethel Assembly of God when God called him to Philippines...the confirmation of his call was really thrilling...I shall expound on it later.
"And what about his nephew Vincent?" you might inquisitively enquire. My first guess was he was on a mission trip too. Wrong. He didn't like his course in ITE so he dropped out and changed course. His next course starts in like half a year's time? So, meanwhile, he spent the time with Ps Dennis and Daisy to do mission work.
Cool eh?
So yup, we reached the hotel room :D
His I-touch never leaves him
We then headed for dinner at a restaurant. The food was good, especially the drinks & dessert. Their coconut & mango shake..and their dessert...I totally forgot its name...It's a really sweet, sticky, caramel-ish kinda pudding. It's round, taking the shape of an inverted bowl and yellow in colour. What do you call that? Haha.
After makan, we went to a provision shop selling all the standard stuffs that any provision shop in Singapore would sell...just that it's cheaper...LOLS.
We bought lotsa sweets from there...The sweets were really cheap so we bought tons of it. If you're thinking we're planning to get diabetes on this trip, you're wrong. We bought that heap of sweets for the children's programme tomorrow morning!
The church that was hosting the children's programme tomorrow morning is "The Rock International". This church actually belongs to Uncle Richard Tng, an ex-Bethelite as well, also a good friend of my dad. We stayed in his house when we were holidaying in Australia. :D
And yes, they're Singaporeans staying in Australia. They 'bought' over this outlet from Ps Dennis. The Rock church was previously owned by Ps Dennis. He was the one who planted this outlet and toiled to see it mature to what it is today...only to give it away.
Such exhibition of kingdom-mindedness really inspires me. If I were the one, I'd probably only rent the space out to them and keep my leaders. Haha! Who in the right frame of mind would give up what they've worked so hard for to another person in the same vocation? It's like you painstakingly set up the company IKEA and when Courts wants you to give your establishment to them, you agree. Crazy!
Thankfully, that's not how the kingdom of God works. It's not competitive. Competitive in the sense where we fight for the souls and compare who has done more works for God and all...Once we reach that stage, we're no longer serving God but we're serving our ego, our pride in the ability to "bring more people to Christ". Soon what we'll be doing is trying to get people into this "company" and forget that Christianity is all about loving people to Christ and not fighting with other Christians for more people.
Respecto man Ps Dennis! You know the theory and you exercise it. Now I'm not saying that anyone who asks to take over your church you just give also la...There's a thin line between stupid decisions and mature decisions.
The church's banner :D
The kid's programme commenced. It was actually an early Christmas celebration. We weren't informed...Haha.
All we knew is that we needed to share Bible stories with them and give them food. The food is prepared by the leaders there already so all we have to do is to help them distribute it orderly.
The kids posing for my camera shoot :D
Mark giving a girl sweets for answering the question correctly.
After we both shared our Bible stories, the feeding programme commenced. We then organised the kids and gave them food :D
Me posing with the food...haha
Mark wayanging...hahaha!
The only authentic food-giver...HAHAHA! LOLS!
The cutest girl! :D
Ok all these pictures were taken by Vincent, Ps Dennis' nephew...Haha.
"Goliath" HAHA!
His nickname is self-explanatory...HAHAHA! I was sharing the Bible story of David & Goliath. When I asked for 2 volunteers, 1 to be David and the other to be Goliath, straight away the whole assembly pointed and voted him to be Goliath!! HAHAHAHA!
He was really cute. The biggest size amongst all of them, he sure stood out from the crowd...involuntarily...HAHA!
Kenn & myself :D
This is Kenn. Kenn is an exceptional leader man. He's super enthu and engaging and he knows how to get the kids' attention, coordinate and translate whatever we're saying.
He gets the job done well and while doing it, lubricates the friction that is sometimes generated when getting things done.
He's my favourite boy of the whole trip man...HAHA! You'll know more later...LOLS!
Kenn & Mark :)
Another super cute girl :D
Surprise performance!
This is the worst part. They suddenly called on us to perform Christmas songs for the kids!! Whoa...we totally weren't prepared. So we basically just went up and sang a few standard Christmas songs like Felix Navidad and all...HAHA!
Thank God the kids were really responsive. The moment we sang the first 2 words "Felix Navidad", the whole group of them were up in song and dance already! Hahaha! They were the song leaders man...LOLS!
After the children's feeding programme was the house visitation...We would walk to different houses and give them rice :D Haha.
However, the walk to the different houses ain't easy man...Their houses are like kampongs...floating on top of water...so there are like wooden logs joining all of them...and we had to walk and balance properly if not we wouldn't make it to the house...but into their pool of waste!!! HU LEE YA!!
Daniel navigating his way through effortlessly...haha.
First house...my dad passed her the sack of rice :D
Their dining table.
This is what's below all the houses...UBER smelly, brown, murky, sticky & oily waste water...I know it looks like solid ground, but it's not! It's all the rubbish floating on top of the water! DUA LAO SAI!!
Keana, some girl, myself & Mark :D
On the way to the 2nd house... :D
Look at the 2 angels radiant with God's glory...HAHA!
This house has a TV and lotsa cutesy toys! :) haha.
We only went to 2 houses...We were supposed to go to 6, if I remember correctly..if not, it's 8. Haha! But due to time constraint (we had a guitar workshop in an hour thirty minutes time) we cut at 2 houses. Haha.
Posing in the jeepney :D
Our lunch was at some chinese wannabe zi char stall...HAHA! It was.....nothing compared to Singapore's zi char...I don't think any country can beat Singapore's zi char la huh...I think Singapore's food is still the best. HAHA! Won't sian one...
So we took a picture at the zi char restaurant and the thing is, we're all in our uniforms on that day! Ps Dennis & family were in their HSOM (Harvest School of Ministry) polo-T and we were in our TYLI (Touching Young Lives International) polo-T. :D haha.
From left Vincent, Ps Dennis, Daniel, Aunty Daisy, Uncle Chris, Daddy, Mark & Myself :)
We then headed to LJOR (Lord Jesus our Redeemer) church to conduct our guitar workshop :)
The sad thing about the workshop is, we didn't take any photos there! But of course, people took pictures of us :D One of them, called King, even videoed us down...LOLS! Haha. One of the super nice pictures we took at the workshop is stuck in Vincent's I-phone...haha.
After the workshop was free and easy all the way. :D We then practiced the songs we were gonna present in the hotel room and got ready to tidur :D
The next day, our first stop was LJOR! All of us went there. 30mins later we (Mark, Myself & My Dad) left for Tacloban Christian Church (TCC), leaving Uncle Chris Wong at TCC to finish up his preaching session.
At TCC, we presented the song "Hosanna" :D Here's a picture of us presenting it :D
Mark & Myself :)
After the awesome presentation (mainly because of my playing...HAHAHA! :P Jk :D) my Dad preached about the End Times...
The unique thing about TCC is that there are a lot of chinese attending that church and there's also an American missionary attending that church! Haha. Fancy a missionary who planted his own church attending another. Haha. Nothing wrong la...but kinda weird right? You got your own restaurant still go other people's restaurant to eat...haha.
The people there are more educated and intellectual...bearing a bit of resemblance to Singapore churches. And the people there are also really friendly and cordial. So it really reflects a bit of what Singapore churches are like.
The interesting about this church is, the Senior Pastor of the church is some 70 year old uncle that wears a super big pair of squarish, reflective spectacles. That combined with his oblong face and old-school side-parted white hair makes you think that he is some old, legalistic, Chinese catholic priest. Haha.
And yes, he's a Chinese uncle from Taiwan. He speaks really good hokkien, so my dad converses with him in Hokkien.
The thing about this senior pastor is...Half of his congregation is made up of youths! Amazing. Haha. The other half the Chinese families and Filipino young adults.
So who says old men can't lead young people? Haha. Here's a picture of us with some of their youths. :D
Mark, King (the guy holding Mark's right shoulder) and myself...I don't know the rest...Haha!
If you're wondering why out of all people I only know King's name? Then let me tell you...He's a really good acoustic/electric guitarist. His guitar basics (strumming, plucking, picking, etc...) are there, he has sufficient knowledge of licks to employ them nicely without sounding to repetitive and noobish, he usage of colour chords are appropriate. Haha.
He's one of the guys in the guitar workshop that everyone volunteered when I asked a pro to demo...haha...And after that, I owned the pro...HAHA! Just kidding! LOLS!
But yeah, King is a cool guitarist.
After that service we went to some posh country club for lunch! :) Whoo hoo! :D Haha...The place had a nice golf club and swimming pools and all...We, however, hanged out mainly at the dining area...duh...haha.
Here's a few pictures of us :D
From left, Mark, Vincent, myself, Ps Dennis, The youth pastor of LJOR (forgot her name!! LOLS), Bench Francisco...the rest of the unnamed, as usual, I don't know. Haha!
After we finished eating, we were still sitting around chatting and watching the houseflies fly around our food and cutlery...Then, a housefly flew and landed on the interior of a cup (the transparent one shown above)...followed by another!
I couldn't resist man...I immediately capped the cup and trapped the 2 flies inside! HAHAHA! I then started shaking the water onto them and we slowly watched them drown...hahaha.
Ok, only one of them drowned because he was stuck underwater...HAHA! The other was half submerged and frantically kicking, trying to swim out and fly out...but to no avail.
We then poured the wet fly out onto the table...It still couldn't fly because its wings are wet. And from there it slowly dried until it could fly away...I think...Because after a while, we were no longer fascinated with the fly. LOLS!
I was initially hesitating to make that move of trapping the fly...because it's rude and it'll spoil my image and all...but...Being myself is primary. HAHA! LOLS!
Jonah, myself, Mark & Bench Francisco
All of us! :) Find us! :D haha.
Bench is a really nice guy...He's 23 years old and going to be a pastor! I don't know why but he really resembles my Bethel church friend, Raymond Choo...LOLS.
Bench is super jovial, smiley, and cracks jokes and pokes fun at people readily. Just like raymond. HAHA! He's also as tall as raymond and he loves to act...he cracks jokes and acts along with it...JUST LIKE RAYMOND! HAHA! I think he's Raymond's long lost Philippino brother...HAHA!
Jonah is a more serious compatriot of Bench. He is a good musician, a keyboardist and a guitarist. During the guitar workshop, we had a little worship session. The worship leader was singing in the key of G major. However, the band ended the song on a C chord...Upon hearing the C chord, the worship leader began to sing the song again gently, but this time, in the disastrous key of C!
So the guitarist and bassist tried to accompany her but to no avail. Jonah then came to the rescue...with his strings sound on the synthesizer, he played the song in the key she was singing...the Key of C. Haha.
From that experience, I can say that Jonah is a good musician as he can hear the key out. It's a basic expectation of every musician actually, but most musicians don't have this capability.
So yeah, that's Jonah. He's more shy, soft spoken and serious. He also has braces on!! HAHA! So yeah...
After that sumptuous lunch, we headed down to our favourite church...The Rock Church! :)
There we saw the same few children feeding programme leaders and this time saw more youths there. Their church is super lively and supportive man! They will cheer and laugh heartily and of course authentically at your jokes and expressions and all...They're an awesome bunch! :D
Once again, Kenn the awesome kid's leader, Charisse the chinese looking girl at our guitar workshop, Keana, one of our interpreters at the children's programme and Mary Fairly, another superb kid's leader were at the service.
There I found out that Kenn also serves as a guitarist in his church service and Charisse is a worship leader. The rest were all leaders :)
Seeing their raw passion, simple faith and open hearts really melted my heart. They all, especially Kenn, reflected my younger days. I wish I still had the same zeal man. Much of it is eroded...but the framework & fire is still there :) Haha.
There we led the song "I could sing of your love forever" by Delirious? And because we were so good...AhemsS...They all requested for another song...haha! So we did the song "Hosanna" :D
Here's a picture of Mark & I performing once more :)
Myself singing with the guitar & Mark on the "beatbox" according to the Philippinos..haha. What do you call that?
After our performance, we all took turns to share our testimony...Uncle Chris shared his first, followed by Mark and myself :)
After the service they served drinks and food and all...and they went around talking to you, getting to know you and simply, loving you. This was a really cosy church. And it's not held in a church building...The service is held on the top floor of a coffee house! Haha! So to get to the "auditorium" you had to climb up 3 levels, past the public coffee house and up to the "attic".
The place is too nice to be an attic la...So it's more like the top floor. Haha.
While fellowshipping, we also snapped pictures :D
Kenn!! :) Myself, Charisse, Eugene, Mark & my dad :D
All of us! :D
me, Mary Fairly, Don't know who, Keana & Mark :D
Me & Kenn! :)
Other than being a great leader, he's also a guitarist and he's really cute :D Cute as in he looks like a cutesy teddy bear...haha! Not the girl-describes-a-handsome-guy kinda cute...haha! But yeah, he's handsome la. Haha.
Oh, and during the altar call, after falling on knees and praying intensely for like 10minutes, he then got up and went to pray for his friend weeping in God's presence beside him...Eugene. I went over to pray for Eugene and when I wanted to pray for Kenn, he prayed for me 1st! LOLS!
So yeah, I really love him! :) I pray that his heart will stay ever soft before God that God may use him mightily man. Haha.
Me, Charisse, Mark's other half & Mark :D HAHAHA! The "other half" part's a joke. LOLS!
Oh and Charisse is the worship leader for that day. She's a great worship leader...Can see her desire to lead the people into a great time of praise and worship. However, when she sings, she looks real constipated and stressed out...Her facial expression doesn't really inspire worship...HAHA!
As a worship leader when you sing, you must learn to smile. If your countenance projects a very stressed out, rubbed out feeling, it'll also make people feel the same way. Haha. We didn't feedback this to her la...If I go back again, I definitely would. Haha. Anyway, she's a really cool girl :)
After the service at "The Rock" church...we went to New Life Christian Church.
The first impression of the church is...WHOAAW. It was a very professional church.
Before you reach the entrance of the church, there are like 4-5 ushers outside smiling brightly and warmly greeting you "Welcome to NLCC!" with a firm handshake...That leaves quite an impression.
Upon entering the doors and feeling the wave of aircon hit you, another group of ushers would be there cordially welcoming you in.
The pastors there speak really, really well. Good english, good phrasing, good usage of imagery and analogies. This isn't the ordinary Philippine church where the pastors speak a lot of their dialect, waray, to communicate with the congregation.
The members there also dress better, much more atas than the ordinary filippino church.
Their senior pastor is a cool young pastor that rides a bike. Donning a blazer over his fashionable formal black shirt with fitting jeans and formal shoes, he projects a really cool and hip image. Haha. He also speaks really well and he's really supportive too...He was shouting "Amen" and raising his hands in agreement throughout my dad's sermon.
His worship was also really free, jumping around, gesticulating and lifting his hands up high and all.
Here's the best part, while most of the congregation took out their Bibles to flip to the scripture verse, Ps Gershon (the senior pastor of NLCC) whooped out his I-PAD!! And he then tapped his "Bible" application and read from there.
Now that's advanced. Even my family doesn't own a I-pad! Ok, not until last week. Haha! My dad bought one.
Their worship team was also really good. Their band was awesome man. Their music quality was good, band was tight, singer was good too. The sound they produced really sounded like the CDs...And the interesting part of the songs that they led is...Their songs are mainly from "New Life Worship" church. Haha.
Talk about same name and copyright infringement. HAHA! They have no affiliation apart from the fact that both churches are under the same family of Jesus Christ. Haha.
Seeing the quality of their music, we were pretty apprehensive about doing our song presentation there...HAHA! Nevertheless, we led our hearts out :) Here's the last picture (I think) of us leading... :D
Mark & Myself leading in New Life Christian Church
After the leading, we once again took turns to share our testimonies. This time, Mark shared 1st, Uncle Chris later and myself last...before my dad preached.
Daddy & myself...My dad introducing me before I shared my testimony :D
Me! Passionately sharing my testimony! :) Haha.
After the sermon, we had a lil' altar call and before we went forward to pray for those at the altar, Mark asked me to pray for him. To pray that this initial spark will keep his faith going once again. That came as quite a surprise as I saw Mark as an equal. So, I was stunned for a while before I prayed over his life. Haha.
After the whole service...as usual, we took a group picture :)
Find us! :)
After the picture taking session, we chatted with the church's musicians and members and one of them was super interested in Mark's drumming skills...So in his arrogance, he decided to give a demo...HAHAHA! Jk la...I was the one who suggested he give a demo. LOLS.
Here's the video of it!
Mark's "hand clasped together and head bow" gesture was really...erm...tak perlu ah...HAHA! My Malay vocab has increased greatly thanks to Mark man...Throughout the trip, he has taught me many Malay words...HAHA! LOLS. And tak perlu means "not necessary" But yeah, we had a great time there :D
NLCC really resembled the churches back in Singapore...It was like Heart of God church. Good ushers, good music, good preaching and all...And the people there are more atas compared to the other neighbourhood churches. So yeah...It was still really cool though :)
The next day's morning & afternoon was spent eating and touring Tacloban :)
This picture serves to show how cold our hotel room is...The camera lenses were fogged out..INTERNALLY. So I couldn't wipe the condensation off. Haha.
We went to the longest bridge in Asia or something like that...It was built by the Japanese when they invaded Philippines...
Daddy, Myself, Mark & Uncle Chris Wong :)
All of us + Vincent :D
F5. HAHA! Whatever...LOLS.
If you noticed from our pictures at the longest bridge, our hair was all over and our eyes were hardly open. The wind there was AWESOME! It was so strong and cold that we could hardly open our eyes because the wind was hitting our eyelashes so hard! Haha!
Anyway, we were there for only like 15minutes before we left to have our lunch.
This lunch was my dad's friend's treat. He brought us to yet another super posh country-club like restaurant. The food was AWESOME. This was the best meal man...
Scallops! :)
On the left is the dory fish with some special white sauce! WHOOO...The middle is the pork knuckle soup! SLURPS!
And their lime drink was SUPERBLY REFRESHING! It wasn't just lime...it was served with a combination of other vegetables like......lemongrass? I don't know what the other fruits or veges were...But the drink was super refreshing. The quality of the drink's sweetness and sourness was just right and heavenly.
Surrounding this beautiful restaurant is an even more beautiful landscape :D
Standing amongst a pond of don't know what plants...I'm standing on a rock IN A POND btw...haha...If you thought that was solid ground, think again. LOLS!
Me, Mark & Vincent @ a well :D A fake one...haha.
Mark & I at a landing? Haha. What do you call this? A gazebo? A gazebo in the middle of a pond :D haha.
The 2 geese
Here's an interesting fact I learnt about the geese...When I walked near it, the guy will act fierce and shove his head forward and walk toward you in a very fierce, wanna-fight manner...I was scared at first because if it used its beak to peck my bird...I wouldn't be celebrating Father's Day man...HAHA!
However, I decided to act tough back. When the guy goose walked toward me in a fierce manner, I did the same...walking faster toward it, aggressively...The geese then relented and backed off...haha! I did it a few more times and it fled into the water...HAHA!
I learnt that geese are act-tough animals...haha!
Before leaving, we took a group photo :D
Mark, me,my dad, his friend, my dad's friend's wife, Aunty Daisy, Ps Dennis, Uncle Chris Wong & Vincent :D
That was really an awesome meal man...What makes it more awesome is that the bill is footed by your friends whom you first treated a meal back here in Singapore! haha. So cool to bless one another...haha
After that we went back to our hotel room, bathed, changed & slept. LOLS. We slept late every night...thus the ability to sleep anytime in the afternoon...LOLS.
Finally, our last stop in the whole trip! :) The Harvest School of Ministry (HSOM) Bible School Graduation! :)
There were 5 bible school graduates if I remember correctly...I shall let the pictures do the talking...
My dad preaching at the Bible School Graduation
Certification of appreciation for my dad :D
Me & Bench Francisco :D
If you recognize him, he is the enthusiastic, bubbly, funny guy that resembles Raymond that I was talking about. haha.
The guy in between me & Mark is the graduate :D
Me & Jonah :)
The LJOR youth pastor
Mark, Ps Leo & myself :D All in checkered shirts! LOLS! :)
Ps Dennis' son, Daniel, Ps Leo & Venus' daughter, Darla (the small girl), Mark & myself...I don't know who the big girl is...LOLS!
Mark, Me, Mary Fairly & a fellow believer in Christ...HAHA! Btw, the guy in our background is also one of the Bible school graduates...haha.
Yup, oh...I missed the part where Mark & I presented 2 songs "From the Inside Out" and "For this Cause" haha...After that, My dad went up to preach.
All in all, this trip was pretty fruitful...
It opened my eyes to see once again what God is doing outside the complacent four walls of Singapore's version of Christianity.
I think this trip was the slackest mission trip I've ever been to though...haha. Citing the fact that we had so little preparations. Only a week before then did we start fasting, praying & really planning. The weeks before that were spent intermittently planning the schedule, getting the songs and all...
Compared to my first 3 month STEP team mission trip programme, this was nothing. Haha. Compared to my 2 other mission trips to Philippines where we really spent time praying and interceding, writing sermons and really gearing up, this was nothing.
Haha...partly cos we didn't have much window to preach thus I didn't really write any sermon. Haha.
But overall, I think this trip is good reminder that hey, somehow, God is still out there doing something that sometimes we don't see.
Want to thank God for this trip that gave me a little push forward in my journey in this profound faith.
All praise & glory to God! :) Amen! :D
Wow...what a holy ending man...Haha! But yeah. Hallelujah! :)
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