The Big day arrives!

This photo was taken a year ago at Joseph’s confirmation and he had just proposed to Janice …

ONE YEAR LATER …

The day has come for them to get married!!!!

The anxious groom awaits his bride to be. The service started half an hour late because Jo’s parents were not there yet.

After an eventful morning, the bride finally reaches the altar safely.

They exchange vows.

Jo lifts Jan’s veil to “greet the bride” (courtesy of Rev Ng). Too bad my camera lags so bad we didn’t get the kissing part.

During the service, the couple thanked their parents. Jo especially thanked Jan’s parents for trusting him with her.

After the thanksgiving, Jo launches into his special item for Jan. We’ve been practicing this for weeks now! There was once where we gals were just talking about the wedding and Jan joked that she hoped Jo wouldn’t sing cos he sounds like a chicken being slaughtered. I nearly bit off my tongue to stop from spilling the beans about the special item. But as you can see, at this moment, Jan’s lost in Jo’s serenading. And no, he does not sound like a chicken.

And here are the rest of us extras.

They joyfully march out to a new life together.

Denise (right) and I were the privileged emcees for the day, ShuQing (left) was the Chinese emcee for the lunch banquet, and Val (bottom) was our pianist for the special item.

Angels we have heard on high! The gals from YA.

Huilin and Hanchuan … Indeed, they are “reserved” for each other. Hopefully they’ll be next in line? Hanchuan, better buck up now!

The Meritus Mandarin has this really cool banquet hall on the 35th floor. When you first step into it, you feel like you’re in some Victorian English cross Indian palace place. The place is terraced and so no matter where you sit, you can see the stage. It’s a private area built for about 20 tables maximum (we had 16 and it was somewhat of a sqeeze already) with its own bar area.

A final group photo with the bride and groom at the lunch banquet.

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edit@ 26/10, 1330: Finished this post. Day of reckoning over. Nodded at the appropriate times but only filtered in stuff I needed to hear – like I’m still in that ministry I was telling you about. Everything else slid into Ruth’s WasteLand of Unnecessary Thoughts.

edit @ 25/10, 1638: day of reckoning tomorrow. boss is busy today.

Boss is back. He’s sitting in his room and I’m outside just waiting to be summoned. He knows I’ve finally made my appearance on the 7th floor. Today’s supposed to be my day of reckoning but other than the wind and rain lashing outside, the office is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

So I’m so bored that I had to do this :

7 things that scare me:

1. Sudden movement
2. Having nothing to do
3. Cockroaches
4. The possibility of making a wrong decision
5. Injections
6. Losing somebody I love (physically, emotionally, spiritually)
7. Not meeting up to expectations

7 things I like the most:

1. Working together with people towards the same goal
2. Being free/independent
3. Loving someone and being loved in return (cliched, I know, but hey, don’t YOU want it too?)
4. Entertaining friends at home
5. Exploring new places, taking up new challenges
6. Handwritten letters & thought-full gifts
7. Creating stuff

7 random facts about me:

1. My chinese name (裔仪) sounds like “friendship”. The first (裔) represents my “rank” in the family hierarchy, the second (仪) was chosen by my paternal grandmother.
2. I had dog-phobia for 14 years.
3. I used to do ballet
4. After falling into a drain when I was 5, I never learnt how to ride a bicycle until I was 18.
5. I quit JC halfway through the first 3 months to become a teaching assistant, barista and babysitter – all at the same time.
6. My third toe on both feet are longer than the second one, therefore I look funny wearing open toe heels but I like them (shoes) anyway!
7. I worked 2 weeks at the Regent Hotel – in a laundry that stank of fried chicken and a bakery that was too cold.

7 things I plan to do before I die:

1. Have my family and friends all with me
2. See my ‘Group of 6′ receive Christ and their lives changed
3. Write a book
4. Get married, have children, and stick with it!
5. Teach
6. Take care of my own organic farm
7. Live

7 things I can do:

1. Change plans at the last moment
2. Live like a pig for 1 month and spend 12 hours cleaning up in one day
3. Make a mean Basil Minty Raisin Peanut Salad bathed in extra virgin olive oil
4. Be very frank
5. Talk on the phone, fold the clothes and do office work at the same time
6. Eat meals alone and not feel funny
7. Do silly things like this questionnaire in the middle of a super busy period at work

7 things I can’t do:

1. Read musical notes (even though I can play the piano)
2. Function properly before 11am and between 2pm-4pm
3. Situps
4. Cook Chinese food
5. Bear departures (physically, emotionally, spiritually)
6. Without friends and family
7. Simple accounts

Yah, I’m bored. The original list had more questions but I scraped some of them off like “7 Celebrity Crushes” and “7 Important things in my room”. Like, duh?

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To my dearest Amanda …

Miss you like crazy !!! Hoped that you could come back for PanCake Day, but doesn’t matter, maybe I’ll get to fly down to Perth after doing my enrolment stuff, then we’ll have PCD together! Gam Ba Tei! When things get tough with school, remember that things could only get better. And you’ve got a friend at least (a million miles away ) thinking of you and thanking you that you’re my friend.

Thank you too for your encouragement.

God bless,
roofie

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I attended the 1115 service yesterday and though it wasn’t the first time I’ve been there, the feeling was totally different. I remember how the kids used to complain about the traditional service because of the liturgies to recite, the boring long hymns to sing, the doddy old preachers who rambled on for hours ..

Perhaps because of how edgy I’d been feeling the past few days, I had to take myself out of my situation and put it into concentrating on the service, which was very very good.

I began to feel the meaning of all the liturgies we sung, and actually singing it so slowly prepared us to come into the presence of God. Instead of feeling like 110MPH/hr, we could actually WALK into God’s presence.

I now realise why tradition so important. It isn’t the rituals that matter, but the “heart-set” it introduces you into. The early fathers of the church knew how Man was so prone to rushing into God’s presence, and as a form of “spiritual brakes”, they formulated things like liturgies and service orders.

As I listened to the words, and read them myself, they were so rich in meaning, so full of wisdom. Though the hymns were none that I’ve never sung before, you could feel the faith of spiritual ancestors who went through so much before penning down a single word.

When the time flowed into Holy Communion, I looked around at my friends who with me, some of them looked so eager to partake of Holy Communion but could not because they weren’t baptised yet. Imagine my shock and awe, for I was brought up in an environment that everyone, even the kids, could take Holy Communion. To see that such a ritual was so highly sought after by people my own age was awakening. I’ve taken it for granted.

The preacher was a dynamic pastor who preached on a topic I truly needed to hear: Faith.

I still freaked out quite a bit last night, but as I woke up to a new morning today, I have lots to thank God for. He is the one who opens and shuts doors, He is the one who keeps me alive second by second. He is the one who exalts me, the one who accompanies me even through the hardest times.

Why do I find it so hard to believe then?
I’d forgotten to thank Him

So no matter what happens this week, I shan’t complain anymore, but praise Him I shall.

Freak out I shall not, but quietly trust and obey His leading.

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Mundane post coming right up …

I had a very interesting week. I wake up at 630 and then the rest of the day is a blur. Before I know it, I’m done with my lunch and then its back to recording, and then when I raise my head to look at the clock: 445pm.

Like helloooo?? Where did time go?

I can’t believe I’ve got over a month more before I resign but by the looks of it … It may be an official date, but I’ll be back to finish my work. I don’t think I can finish 74 programs in 20 days. *faints*

My middle boss called me into his office yesterday. I might have to prepare another resignation letter, this time not to my company but to another ministry I’ve been committed to. Apparently, since I’m leaving, I have to concentrate on handing over first … I’m not too sure how the other side’s going to take it, so I’m taking these few days to prepare as many documents they can use if it really turns out that I need to pull out. The big boss is in Beijing till Tuesday so when he gets back, they’ll be talking about whether I need to hand in that letter.

Am I mad about it, somebody asked. Well, I was, VERY, I reacted very strongly when my boss mentioned it for the first time, but now, if he really puts that into action, it won’t be that bad a thing because I didn’t expect the number of things I’d have to do to just handover. Plus, that other commitment is a few times bigger in scale than last year … I don’t know if I can handle both sides without shortchanging one.

So I asked God why … In the midst of this chaos, I was expecting to feel panic or fear or something … oddly enough, I feel peace, like everything’s going to work out.

I’ve learnt more about human intricacies in these few weeks than the last 2.5 years that I’ve been in here. Though I haven’t gone to school yet, it seems that the time spent here was like an extended course on human psychology.

Yes, I’m beginning to ramble on already … Well, if there’s anything to look forward to, there are the pancakes. Many thanks to those who bore the brunt of my madness in the middle of the week. There MIGHT be more to come … but just shut me up with the pancakes.

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Wassup with the stack of golden delicious pancakes and the countdown to PanCakeDay?

Well, pancakes to me have always been associated with fun, lazy Saturday mornings, tons of sweet maple syrup and butter, and pyjamas.

I’m counting down the time when I can laze around on a cool, crisp Saturday morning with a bunch of friends all in our pjs and just act like kids all over again.

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“The best thing to do is find one person in your life and try to love them unconditionally. If you’ve accomplished that, you’ve accomplished a lot.”
~ Madonna

Although I still don’t agree with Madonna’s practices, I gotta say, she’s got it right this time with this rather insightful quote about love.

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Someone’s drilling upstairs. It’s been a long time since I heard the sound of the drill. I thought they were supposed to stop after 7pm?

My attention span is growing terribly short. I can’t seem to stick around to focus on anything for an extended period of time. Perhaps that’s why this blog entry is so short.

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This is what I called a “right-o” moment.

Today’s the 16th birthday of the 930am service so we had this celebration lunch thingy at Furama Hotel. Traditionally, you always get interval games to liven things up and get people moving. This time, we had a card castle building competition and these ladies had actually built a pretty tall tower.

As I admired their castle, I thought what a cool idea it would be to get it on camera. Don’t underestimate the banquet captain when he closes the door nearly one metre behind their table. I was all ready to snap when the next thing I knew, women were screeching and squealing and cards were flying everywhere! I instinctively pressed the snap button and those cards were frozen in motion!

Moral of the story: Don’t sit near the door, don’t build card castles that don’t last.

Happy birthday SAC 930. We’re moving soon!

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Val, Caleb and Joseph (black tee) are feverishly brushing up their vocal skills to serenade Jo’s bride on their wedding day in exactly 2 weeks time.

They, along with a choir made up of colleagues and friends, have been practicing for nearly 6 weeks now. I just joined in today. Sang until I quite lost my voice but we were so into the mood that Jo, Val and I carried on singing “How Great is our God” after everyone left.

Go to this link to hear a rather noisy rendition of Guy Sebastian’s “Angels brought me here” – You can hear the whole gaggle of girls in the background giggling as Joseph does his solo. It’s so romantic you can literally feel your hair stand. By the way, keep this a secret cos Janice (Jo’s bride) doesn’t know about this song … wooo hoo!

Ooooh, I love weddings!