Jurong Youth Ministry

On the Saturday of 8th November, Jurong youth made their way to West Coast park to play some games with required more space. We started off with songs led by Christon and Joash (who organised the entire outing including games).

The first game we played was Last Train Standing, which included the leaders of 5 trains of people playing rock paper sciccors, the group that lost surrendering the last people in their train to the winning team. In the end, there was one long train of people. This hilights Romans 12:5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ.

The second game we played required us to split into groups of 3, and each group was labeled with a character in the bible. Other groups then acted out the character so the former would be able to guess. On top of being fun, this also helped us all to understand and learn more about the characters and their roles in the bible.

Finally, we played the old favourite eagle catch the chicks (lao ying zhua xiao ji?) with 3 groups. It represents God wanting us to give up our material possessions, but we being stubborn don’t.

Overall, it was aenjoyable and helped us learn alot more from the bible (:

Found it on Brian’s blog. Thanks Brian & Mandy!

Yearly we celebrate Parents’ Day which falls on Mothers’ Day (just so dad’s don’t feel left out ha) This year for Parents’ Day, the youth and young adults worked hard to organize church worship service and prepared lunch for our dear parents… or at least we tried too!

On Sabbath, after the worship service and lunch we had a special “Parents Children Dialog” where both parties had a chance to voice their views on “FREEDOM! vs. CONTROL”.

I say its not easy being a parent neither is it easy being a kid. As kids, we need to earn our parent’s trust by acting responsibly. And as parents they too need to earn their kids trust being approachable, loving and accepting. Neither sides always get it right but whatever it is we want to thank our parents’ for all the love they have showered on us!

I took great pride in the Design Ministry. In fact like an over-protective mum, Design Ministry is like my baby and I’m willing to pump in a big portion of my time and energy to run it.

However, I was reminded by a friend 4 months ago that all ministries belong to God and that I’m not indispensable. With that reminder, I decided to let God took charge of this year Christmas decor. It started with this ‘Web’ idea that Lionel came up with as we brainstorm the decor for the sanctuary. I remembered sitting in sanctuary for hours that evening picturing the ‘Web’ idea and refining the idea with Lionel. Lionel’s summaries it, there’s only 2 outcome, either the ‘Web’ look like crap or people will be blown away by it. I told the team to give me time to work out the feasibility of the idea and went home to pray about it.

We didn’t have any budget this year for the decor and I requested the church for $150 to carry out the ‘Web’ idea after much calculation. It was up to God to decide then and I received the approval from Pastor in a couple of hours. I prayed further for manpower to create the ‘Web’ idea and the youth kept coming, offering their talents, time and help in the last few weeks!

24 hours before the Christmas Eve service, Pastor called and asked whether is it possible to decorate the tent with balloons to create a festive mood. He summaries it, if it’s possible, do it else forget about it. I prayed about it almost immediately after Pastor and I ended the conversation. I figured 80 balloons will be enough for the tent and asked God to decide, if He provides me with just 7 youth so including me, each of us have to blow 10 balloons and hang them, I will do it. I smsed 15 youth and within an hour, I have 7 youth who said yes. On the day itself, I actually had 9 youth helping me to do the balloons decor!

There’s this appreciation dinner that I want to throw for my core Design team of 8 (including me) in Jan 08. The final decision was dinner at Sizzler and it’s going to cost me a bit so I prayed that God will provide. I was grateful when Peng Kong offered to split the cost with me and dumbfound when Pastor came to me a few days ago and told me, he really want to affirm the Design team for our hard work and told me to bring them out for dinner! I told him about my planned Sizzler treat and he declared that he will join in and will pay for the dinner!

I’m dispensable and Design Ministry belongs to God. J

It’s been amazing working with my core team (Lionel, Andrew, Peng Kong, Christon, Marcus, Jared and Clara). I’ve been touched by their talents and commitment. Thank you very much! I also want to appreciate all the youth in JYM who have helped out in 1 way or another. Thank you everyone! Most importantly, thank God for allowing me to be in charge of this year Christmas decor and for providing me so much to complete the decor.

I lost count of the number of compliments I received for the ‘Web’ idea! It’s definitely an idea that blown people away.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone.