Sabbath Sunday

Had a really really good day today, albeit really tiring. Today Berno was leading worship, and I was half doing back-up with Serene, and half teaching YingYing how to do the powerpoint for the whole worship. After that had lunch with the cell at this non-aircon place (SUPER HOT!!!!!), where the food actually turned out to be not bad. Then I received word that Ruth waited all morning for her turn in the judo competition, only to face the previous gold-medalist and thus straight away get knocked out. Hehz... poor Ruthie.

After that I had vocal training, then went down to Zhang Mu Shi's place for BS. We talked a lot about the difference between perosnal worship and corporate worship, and we were using the passage abt the Samaritan woman drawing water from the well. It was actually really really cool.

The typical assumption has always been that the woman posed the question of where is the proper place to worship as a distraction from Jesus' declaration that she has had 5 husbands, and she's now still living in sin with a man who isn't her husband. But Henry quoted Vaughan Roberts (I'm starting to like him more and more man...) that perhaps its time to give the woman more credit. Because if we don't take up that assumption, then the woman's question is a very genuine one, where she's actually asking Jesus what is the real way of worshipping God, so that she can finally repent of her sins and get right with God. The implications of how we read the verses after that are actually really quite different therefore. No longer does Jesus' reply become a rebuke of the Samaritans' worship being an ignorant one. Instead, He seems more to be drawing to the conclusion that whether the Samaritans don't know the God they serve, or whether the Jews actually know Yahweh, the question isn't about whether they should worship on a mountain or in Jerusalem. He again circles back to His first declaration that He is the source of living water. He tells the Samaritan woman that it isn't about worshipping in Jerusalem or on the mountains, but its about worshipping Jesus. Its about her spirit of repentance, not about the form and substance of her 'acts' of worship.

Never did think the passage could have so much to discuss about, but we really did have a lot to talk about, and could easily have carried on for hours more. And I'm not talking splitting hairs, although at times we almost ventured there. But on the whole we actually had a really meaningful and engaged conversation.

After that Henry, Bernice and I stayed back to discuss the Mission Statement of the Levite Ministry. And since we were meeting opposite her house, Serene later joined us. We had a lot of fun coming up with the statement, as well as finalising the whole plan to present this coming saturday at the core grp meeting. After that I took a walk around her neighbourhood with Serene, talking about He Ping Tuanqi, about her cell and my cell, and how its sometimes so hard to move on, out of a sense of obligation to friends, to past memories of the cell, and just basically the inevitable feeling that it feels like ditching something when the going gets tough, no matter whatever the intentions mght have otherwise been. but I think on the whole I'm really very proud of He Ping Tuanqi.

After having weathered so much "wind wind rain rain", we've still managed to remain a community that bothers to keep in touch. Somehow growing up has meant that all of us begin moving into different directions, whether it be just different careers, different ministries, different churches or even different countries. Yet we somehow have still bothered to keep each other in the loop about our lives, and made the effort to meet up whenever we can. Weiqi as the cell leader represents something of the third or fourth generation of leaders we've managed to produce, and Jingliang looks to be the fifth generation, although that's a little 'play cheat' since we never did really nurture him. Instead, he kindda literally fell into our laps. But I guess sometimes in ministries, when we get ourselves a lucky break, we just take what we can get and thank God for it. Grins.

Called Weimin after that. Dunno what made me do it, since I usually just sms. But I'm glad I did. She was all upset over Ham again. Sigh. And this time it seems he was actually taking issues with her over me. Sigh. Sometimes I wonder if its really just that I need to be more sensitive, and that its really my fault for not having kept my distance. Or if actually it was really just an unfortunate confluence of events. Sigh. Mebbe if I just really became like my sister... staying clear of everyone's affairs and only minding her own business... mebbe she was right in doing that. After all, I only seem to make things worse by trying.

But it really sucks that the two of them shd be in such a state. I could totally empathize with them BOTH. I mean, on hindsight, its not difficult to see how I wasn't able to be the kind of person that Grace wanted me to be, and how much that hurt her. Yet having been in the same position as Ham before, I also could empathize very well with the sort of frustrations he had. I guess it just sucks seeing people you really care about being in such pain. Guess I can only pray for them both now.

And speaking of Grace, I've REALLY had it with that woman. All I did was message her to call me back, since I wanted to just double confirm if she had indeed returned M-A some dresses she borrowed for her prom some years back. A simple request. She actually (I found this out later) asked Syl and Weimin if they knew what it was about, and since no one knew, she didn't bother to even return the call. BLOODY HELL. To think even my neighbour extends a greater courtesy to me. He would call if I left him a note to call me.

So that's that with the woman. I'm (finally, and about time too) deleting her number off my handphone, and I'm done with her already. For her own sake I honestly pray she still has friends when she hits 30.

Well, to end off the blog on an even suckier note, Chelsea came back from 1-0 down to win the League Cup 3-2 in extra-time over Liverpool.

S-H-I-T.