My dearest girl ... I'm really. Terribly - well, not only sorry. Cos being only sorry is a negative thing. But I'm definitely going to change, with God's help. Be transformed.

Well, we still have one more year (plus more later after that!) to work on this.. haha.

And like I said - I'm really glad for the truth. It might hurt, but you know - only the truth can set us free. =) And so, I thank you for the truth. You might think it's trivial, but to me it means a whole lot.

I had the privilege and honour to serve God today by backing our dear Mr Kwang up on vocals.

Hehe, technically, everything could have been great - if not for the fact that during the first song, Darryl, Tim Ng and I just stared at one another speechlessly (of course lah, how to hurry one another into the mike?). None of us came in when we were supposed to. Darryl stared at me hard, I stared back at him and frowned, and then he just closed his eyes. Bummer, I thought.

Oh wells. When I brought it up to him later on, Darryl mentioned something that is so absolutely right - he said that he'd just closed his eyes, to concentrate on worshiping God. And that there was no point in fretting.

Absolutely - right. Makes one wonder once over again, where the real point in worship is - it's all about You, Lord, and not about us. For if there is no God, there would be no worship.

So I'll make it my prayer that God increases my passion for worshiping Him and Him only - nothing else matters, nothing else should matter - and at the same time, include the familiar prayer - for Him to increase, and for me to decrease.

Nightmare..

Yea, I don't know why, but I seem to have more dreams than the average person - like, once almost every night. And nightmares feature a lot in my dreamworld.

I was napping just now in the afternoon when I had a nightmare. I dreamt that not only had I lost my sight, my hearing, and my voice - but that someone very important to me had rejected who I was, what I stood for. Gosh. Didn't wake up in tears (that is reserved for those dead-in-the-night-kinda-nightmares) but when I woke up, there was a great, searing sense of loss in my heart.

I wanted to mourn. So badly. Even though it was imaginery.

Then I remembered - what I had decided to do this morning. To give it up, to surrender this huge chunk of my life (well, entire life, but I meant the huge chunk that had remained unsurrendered) to someone who would know best, much better than I - God. And I remember I told Him - "Break me, make me anguish, the pain might be searing - but please, just help me along the way."

So. Yup. This afternoon's nightmare was, I can say, maybe just a prelude to how I might feel when things get going, as God wants them to get going. Goodie. I feel like a masochist, but all I can say is - Help me, O Lord; Let me depend fully on You. I will fix my eyes not on things of the world, but solely on You.

~~~

Argh. But I can't deny there's going to be a living nightmare in store for me next Monday, when the guy I report to at work, BL (ha, I refuse to say boss, cos no one's boss of my life except God) wants me to... *gulp*... scold the workers. Not the office workers, but rather those who come in fresh from the fields....!!!!

I mean. I don't even talk to them, except those few Uncles and Sukumar (who da Bandit persists in mislabelling SAkumar Infuriatin', ha.)!!! And now I have to - specifically single out people, and talk about them - fiercely and strictly - in front of their fellow countrymen??? I don't really know what I'm uncomfy about - certainly not attention per se. But maybe it's just attention from a whole bunch of unfamiliar male eyes. Yikeees!

I seriously hope BL forgets about it.

Whatever you do, do it with respect to the other party.

Try to do it with a smile. At the very least, do it with a please and a thank you. And please, please, please - don't yell. It doesn't bring out your good side.

Little Johnny and little Chan at work don't seem to have learnt their manners at their mothers' laps yet. =(

I'm so so so saddened and angered at how they treat VL like DIRT.

When I got home yesterday from sending some people off at the airport, my whole mind was - full of guilt.

I'm sorry I behaved the way I did, in the evening. Not at the airport, but beforehand. Yup.. looking back, I really was too selfish and self centred. Not even giving others a chance.

Yup, I'm not apologising to them, cos I reckon only one of the entire team reads the blog. (hehe, and I talked enough to him.) The person that I sinned most against was God.

It cut me, really deep, to the quick. Didn't feel very good. Why O WHY am I such a horrible person?

But luckily I was dead tired and drifted off to sleep like a log...

Man, I'm angry with the way VL and the other office boy, MH, are treated.

People talk to them without prefixing their requests with a please, or even their names. Gosh. It's just "Hand me the ...." or "Go and fetch the..."

Of course, no one dares to touch me, the office gal. Muahahaha. If they dared to speak to me like that, I would - uhm - I would.. okie, fine, submit. But not without givin' 'em a big eyed innocent teary glance out of puppy dog eyes.

But still.

I'm angry on their behalf! I think it's cos they're foreigners and not Singaporeans who earn more than $1000 a month!

Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, und gib mir einen neuen, beständigen Geist....



Die Opfer, die Gott gefallen, sind ein geängsteter Geist, ein geängstetes, zerschlagenes Herz wirst Du, Gott, nicht verachten.

Haha, da Bandit and I are smart.

We bought some Timtam choccy biscuits into the office, and passed 'em to VL. For safe-keeping. Cos we know how strict he can get, and how he won't give in to our after-meals-chocolate-biscuit cravings - at least, not until we've given him the puppy dog eyes and please please pretty please at least three times.

But of course, we're smarter. Cos we gave him one pack for safe-keeping, and another pack we kept stashed away in da Bandit's drawer itself. Heh-heh.

But today, when I was munchin' on one biscuit from our stash and offering another one to VL, I got a mini lecture from him. See? See how strict he is.

VL: See la, buy already, dangerous ah. (Yes, he speaks the most fluent Singlish.)
KL: *sheepishly*... uhm...

Later...

VL: Why don't you buy the sour ones? (He means sour plums)
KL: Well..I need both...sweet and sours...
VL: Yea, but must cut down on sugars, you know...
KL: *tunes out*

Hahaha. He's funny. Talking about the pot calling the kettle black! He gulps down, like, 6 or 7 coffees a day!

Anyways, VL's an office boy who does stuff like answering phones (Alex-neh! The phone!), filing stuff, entering data, and buying the coffee. I think he's glad there's someone in the office hierarchy even lower down than him, i.e. da Beagle.

Thanks to the two I talked to yesterday.

Helped me re-adjust my focus, once again. Still. I sometimes really wonder when the joy will come back again.

Yup. But I must not be so emotionally-motivated. *laugh*






I'll really miss both of you guys, come to think of it.

In which I admit two interesting things...

So.

Other than hard-to-charm and grumpy ole uncles on the island, there are, of course, young men. And I am "in charge" of the time sheets and daily attendance of, uhm, at least 30 of these young men. Heh-heh.

These young men are mostly construction workers - yes, those who wake up at the unearthly hour of 5am each day so they can reach the island at 7, go on site and work and sweat all day, and then have to wait in a queue til all the Shell employees and the ladies on the island get onto the ferry, and then only are entitled to get onto the crowded ferry, just so they can go home and sleep at 9pm so they can get up at 5am the next day again.. okie, you get the picture.

There are two things to admit here.

Firstly - that up til last week, when I started working on Bukom island, I never really thought of these workers as people. Yes, they were people, all right, living human beings, blah blah blah.. but to me, sadly, they were just not individuals. Mostly when I saw them, if I saw 'em at all, they were the "illegal ones who live next door and cook curry" (yesh, trust me, there have been instances whereby the police had to come and arrest some illegal workers living in our vicinity..hoho. Made for a night of above-average excitement.), or those masses of.. uhm.. tan colours, who congregate in Little India or Farrer Park and walk hand in hand on Sundays.. or at the very most, those who pass by our cars, sitted on the backs of trucks and looking woodenly at the city called Singapore...

Well. I'm so glad I got this chance to work on the island and interact with some of these workers. Now they're no longer "those people" - they have names - and believe me, some of those names return to haunt me at night in my nightmares. I'm not kidding - yesterday, I had some nightmare about missing out the name of Ramalingan (who is a real person) on the daily attendance sheet. They have genuine smiles and grins which they flash shyly at me, when I greet them. They take coffee breaks and catch the chicken pox, just like I did. They are real human beings - with all the bad handwriting, spelling mistakes, chilli-eatin' tendencies, and desires to take naps during lunch hours, that I possess.

I've been interacting more and more with more of them, and each and every day I catch myself wondering - just how many of them are Christians? Or have even heard of Christ? It just brings to my mind the urgency and actual purpose of evangelism - which isn't to propel oneself into a "superior" position and loftily proclaim that no one else is as exalted unless he/she/it believes in God - it's really, actually, just to tell the world, tell those who too are humans and suffer and have weaknesses that Christians too are weak - but that we have the best news in the world.

Still. I wonder if I have the courage to evangelise to any one of the workers. Hmm.. I could try Sukumar, maybe.

Oh, right. The next thing to admit is - hmm. I catch myself having teeny weeny crushes on the workers. Hehe. And out of them, I've isolated two nice and cute ones. Sukumar is this young-looking, cute, short Bangladeshi with curly hair and big sparkling black eyes, and a ready smile. He is friendly and looks like he likes to tease.

The other - now. Hehe... He is Chinai, from Myanmar. He's tall, thin, has long flowing hair that he ties back into a ponytail when he plays soccer (yesh, mm, da Bandit has a video clip of him playing soccer! Hiakz. AND he was the striker. AND the best player from his side.), and a gentle, sensitive demeanor. And best of all, he has this mystery about him. My oh my. Makes my sister and I kinda wonder what just lies behind that strong and silent facade. Like she msn-ed me today during work, in the office (yesh, that is our main mode of communication in the office, other than shouting "HEY you idiot" across cubicles) - He looks like he has got a past. A mysterious past. Yummy. Just kinda is fun to conjure up a family torn by war, a lover who betrayed him, and all kinds of things that might have made up his mysterious past. Wait. Maybe Chinai was/still is a peace fighter under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, and his erstwhile capture and torture in jail by the Burmese military dictatorship left him weathered and weary; crushed, but not beaten. Heh.

He doesn't work at the site; instead, cos of some injury (poooooor thing!!!), he gets to carry out the manly, masculine job of... uhm.. cleaning out the office every morning. We don't see him at all in the afternoon, so we sorta suspect he takes the time off to nap. But in anycase, Chinai has it easy.

Man. I wanna be on the road the Mandalay. *laughs*

All righty. But these are just teeny weeny crushes, mind you. I am not about to go all gaga over them, "Mmkay" <---- as my sister says. SOOoooO. Nobody "soooo" me, please. Haha.







Oh wait. My dad just came into my room and told me this totally funny little episode about this afternoon. Which makes me admire this Indian dude in our office even more. Said Indian dude's name is VL, but da Bandit has managed to confuse herself and, for the past three months ever since he joined the company, call him by the entirely different moniker of VJ. All the time. She managed to confuse me too. It wasn't until yesterday (YES!) when we both realised, through different means, that his name was VL. He's always answered, though, to the wrong label, sometimes with a smile, sometimes not.. but we wonder why. Another thing he answers to is the infuriatingly patronising moniker of ah neh. I really think his patience is limitless.

Today's episode showed me how much smarts he has. Da Bandit and I had gone to the canteen for a quickie teabreak. The phone proceeded to ring for da Bandit.

VL: (with a polite and smiley voice) Hello, good afternoon.
Voice on phone: Hi, Xinning please.
VL: Oh.. Xinning is in the meeting room.
Voice: Oh.. then, Kailuo please.
VL: Uh...Kailuo is also in the meeting room.
Voice: OH! Well, could I leave a message? This is their father -
VL: OH! Well, they're actually in the canteen...

Ha! VL is sooo funny and cute. And cooperative, as my dad says. *smirks*

Work's been tiring. I really don't know why, but I keep feeling so darn tired and even exhausted, most days. GAH.

Plus, I do miss my friends.

But I have to admit, there is this certain anti-social tendency within me right now, at this point in time. It doesn't have to do with any of you - it's all my own feelings, and I still don't really know why sometimes I feel like that. But yup.. I do miss you guys, especially when I think of the fun, the laughter, the times we chatted and cried, the times we spent studying or not-studying, the songs, the running around, the guitar-playing, the conversations we have on the way home, all the things that God impressed upon our hearts that we shared..sometimes readily, sometimes not.. and really, I miss you all. Alot. Love you guys. =)

But on the plus side! It's totally been great spending time with da Bandit, seeing where she hangs out during work, travellin' with her, talking to her about this and that.. nope, tis isn't that I learnt a "new dimension of her" or some other cliche.. after all, what new information could you learn about someone you've spent almost your whole life with? It's more like old information has been presented to me, in a new way.. and it seems like we're learning something new about how one another functions, each and every day.. goodie. I love spending time with her, most of the time. Heh.

I think God has also been impressing something upon my heart, and actually I'm pretty awed by it. Although I don't seem so. (I'm a cool gal, haha.) The thing now, more than giving thanks to Him for showing me this - is really also, just to ask to be transformed. Instead of sticking to my old sinful ways. Most of it is private - but I really have to say that three verses have been speaking to me these few days.

John 13:34 - "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another."

Sadly, love for others is something I find - SORELY LACKING - in me! GAHHH. I think that's one of my biggest struggles - to love others. Especially those who are unloved by the world, and whom I find ultra irritating. And believe me, I do find a WHOLE lot of things irritating. I try, really I do. But I can't do it on human strength alone.

But - I have faith that God wouldn't throw something at us that His strength couldn't bring us through. So there. One day I WILL love all human kind, because God says to. And He will help me.


Luke 9:62 - "But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

Yup. I saw this on a friend's blog, and it really spoke to me, then and the next few days when it kept coming back to me. Maybe in the form of a word written by man, maybe from other verses - but essentially, I do know one thing - that God is telling me that, unless I am willing to give up everything in my previous life, to give up everything and just follow Him, I am not fit to be His disciple.

Sigh. This brings much for me to reflect upon. When will I ever do that - to be able to walk on the stormy waves with Jesus, and not look back?


And finally - James 2:24 - "You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone."

Many might pounce on this and call it heretic; afterall, isn't it a widely-accepted doctrine that just by believing in Christ, we are saved? We need only believe in Christ, that He is our Lord and Saviour - isn't that true?

Yes, it is - but then again, the verb believe carried with it the meaning of to obey too, as first used in Greek in the New Testament. And thus, to have faith means really, to obey Christ and trust that He is not only our Saviour, who carries us to Salvation, but also our Lord - the Lord of our lives, whom we shall obey! To obey Christ is to do what He calls us to do - and the first, and most important of what He tells us to do, is to love one another.

Only when we love one another can our works truly be for the needs of others and not for ourselves; and only when we truly love God can we claim to love others before self. Sigh. Tough. But - hey - don't lose heart! IT IS DO-ABLE, with God's Help!!!!!!

Important lessons to learn and to reflect on.