The Cost

I had a meeting with 2 young men yesterday. After the meeting, they began to ask me about YWAM and what life without a salary is like. As I shared my experiences of God's everyday faithfulness and jaw-dropping miracles,  I said this to them: "When I heard it from others' mouths, I thought it was so great.... but when it started happening to me and became my own experience, it's different - it's 100 times more amazing and life-changing."

After that I went home and reflected on that conversation. It reminded me of the cost I had to pay to live such a wonderful life that people 'envy'. The privilege of experiencing a life of faith and zero finances is great and something not-so-common in society, but it's not that I'm part of a privileged chosen group to have had that experience. There was a cost involved.

And this morning it reassured me as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, that I've had such an amazing life with God, and it's because the major downs, pain, laying down rights and jealousy, walking the narrow path, etc, paid the price for a life in the middle of God's will..... I may have sacrificed a marriage relationship, fashion and beauty, a nice house and loads of money to live the life I like, but there's a life and walk with God that money cannot buy and that you need to pay the price for.

And when I saw their faces yesterday, how they were so in awe and envious of the life experiences I had, I knew that price was worth paying.

Unbelief

Are you dwelling in unbelief?

How hard it can be for some of us to say this in confidence and faith:

"All things work together for the good of those who love Him, who've been called according to His purpose."

Do we really believe this truth: 

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

2008 and 2009 were not a walk in the park for me. I received bumps, cuts, grazes and well, SOME gaping wounds as I started Ethnos. Those times were dark times, disappointments in relationships abounded, and there were enough negative experiences to make me doubt the Word of the Lord upon my life, my friends, this ministry, and the future.

But recently, I discovered a profound truth. 

Pain leads to Unbelief. And Unbelief made me doubt that God would never shortchange me. It made me doubt His promises and Words. I couldn't take God seriously sometimes, and confronted Him about His lack of fulfillment.

Then I confronted myself: Can I believe that  "All things work together for the good of those who love Him, who've been called according to His purpose?"

I think that's the only way - to believe that. 

[ All scriptures from Romans 8. ]

Lost Generation

Fashion

I like fashion.

Every since the day I joined the Facebook group, "Just Because I Like Fashion Doesn't Make Me Less Intellectual", I've admitted that I AM into fashion.

I love Project Runway, Instyle, Vogue, The Sartorialist, Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen and Australian indie labels. When I watched fashion documentary The September Issue, one fashionista's lament that "There's a famine of beauty in this place" became my pet phrase. It encompassed pretty much how I feel about my surroundings. I love being in creative environments that are original, organic and push the envelope. I'm sick of seeing the same things day in day out. Tired decor, cliches and cookie-cutter takes on design bore me. And when it comes to the way I dress, I feel like I'm sometimes out of my world.... Many days, I wanna wear a fedora, bright leggings, deconstructed sillhouettes, bohemian maxi dresses, quirky vintage, or exude punk-rock fierceness without eliciting ignorant comments like, "She dresses like an auntie" (re: my vintage dress) or "Are you an aerobics instructor?" (re: coral leggings with white oxfords). There are many reasons why I dress the way I do.... to reflect my tastes, moods and philosophies. To be different from everyone else. To look nice and pretty. To place myself where the world is at.

I love Beauty and want to see it around me. Every time I see a famine of beauty, I feel that I need to do something about it (yes, the activist in me again).

So when I chanced upon Christians doing something about fashion, it rocked my world. Like, finally, someone who understands! Hope In The City is a Christian-run runway show that parks itself alongside LA Fashion Week, with a purpose that those doing or seeing the show may encounter the Living God.

I wish that social enterprises, instead of empowering women to sew those all-too-common cloth bags, would empower them to create fashion with their ethnic touch and re-interpretations of traditional cultural dresses for modern day. Tasteful designs, that cater to modern lifestyle. I'm so into sarees and kebayas! Those textiles and textures! A post on mentoring and fashion.

OK, I have an early morning tomorrow and haven't thought about what to wear yet. Time to scoot.

Karen Carpenter - The Drummer

True talent...... it makes me cry though, 'cause she was dead from anorexia at age 32.

Team Japan 2010

We are currently recruiting for Team Japan in July-August 2010.....


Team 1:
Specific skills required (one or more):
Translating Japanese & English
Teaching on Relationships to Youth
Youth Worship Ministry
Sports/Games organising, Craft-making
Children's Ministry: Bible story-telling, activities

Team 2:
Intercessory Prayer & Worship
Street Evangelism
Creative Arts

Interested? Please write in to regina@ywam.org.sg and tell me more about yourself and why you'd like to serve in Japan.

Funnies 2

Looks like an ordinary t-shirt, eh?

Check out the close-up:

Isn't it quirky-cool?!

That's a mini amplifier in her hands!

Credits: Kyoung Dan and her t-shirt

Funnies

"the artist is as important as the art he produces."

Everything Is Spiritual

This line popped up in my head while in Shangri-la, at our foreign team meeting.

The spiritual climate was rich and we really felt God moving among us all. I saw changes in different ones, growth and God birthing things in their hearts. Funny though, when someone shared about an area of dryness or family not turning to God, a particular line reiterated strongly in my head: "EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL."

For example, when we don't start off with prayer and worship, it's not about us lacking spirituality or the absence of the spiritual. It's about what spirit is perpetrated here. The act of not being spiritual is, in itself, spiritual. What we're doing is continuing a dry spiritual climate and not enthroning God to lead us -  a spirit of self-sufficiency and lack of intimacy with God.

You not doing your QT is spiritual.

So, it's a matter of discerning what spirit you're engaging in your life, or ministry. A Godly spirit, or an ungodly one? A spirit that gives God the focus and glory, or that gives your flesh or the enemy first place?

Discern and be very careful, guys......

Things That Make me Go "Hee!"

How to make it here.

God, You Chose Me. And That Blows My Mind.

One fine winter's day on the recent trip, I was preparing myself for teaching. To do that, I decided to read the ubiquitous Bob Sorge's Exploring Worship to infuse myself with the aroma of a worship-centric spirit, so I would give out that aura during my teaching. (Yes, foolish as it may seem, I try anything to be effective in my ministry ;p)

I came to a section on "Qualifications of A Worship Leader". Sounds mighty meritocratic huh? And then there was this shortest paragraph that in all of 2 sentences merely said,
"The second requirement, which goes hand in hand with the first, is a deep and a proven spiritual walk. We do not need spiritual novices leading our worship services."

I don't know what happened, but within a nanosecond of reading that, I was in tears.

It was a revelation of how far I've come with God, from being the least likely candidate/feeling totally like the last guy in spiritual standing among my peers in church..... and a deep humility that God chose me. Why me, and how much of what I do is me, are unfathomable questions.

The affirmation that I am no longer a spiritual novice, and have a deep and proven spiritual walk, is something I had not fully grasped until this moment.

I'm humbled that God chose me to do this. Terribly, utterly humbled.