Disneyland

Disneyland, Ayer Tawar.

Renjie's hometown is way ahead of Melaka! We've got a lot of fancy tourism stuff and people lining up for miles just to eat chicken rice that has been balled into um.. rice balls but we didn't even think of making a Disneyland for our kids! Please, Ali Rustam, if you're reading this.

I know that as our CM you are so in touch with the grassroots and therefore you will read the blog of a this patriotic young Malaccan boy right. Blimey, I can even remember how to sing the state song!

But seriously, everybody loves Disney. What's there not to love? You have a fantasy world where there are no mosquitos, AIDs and where your 50 foot long silky blonde hair doesn't get dirty after dragging it through a tunnel (underneath a bar, and you know what goes into the the sewage system under bars, even in the real world where we drink less).

Besides the wonderful setting that elimnates/ignores lots of the trivial but annoying stuff we have here on Earth, you have the story. Oh, the story the story the story. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. They fall in love. They face some bad guys and go on an adventure and win and it's awesome. That's the magic word: Adventure.

Now what really catches me is not so much the boy meets girl part (hehe) but the fact that the story is all about adventure. Isn't that nice? Travelling unknown lands, fighting monsters, making friends with exotic creatures, living in a castle, etc.

Instead, I sit here grappling with different things - concerns about the country (Merlimau and Kerdau - disappointing), those assignments, these presentations, that FYP, tests, this thing that thing those things.

But unlike Disney productions, my real life is... well.. real. And I can smell an adventure on the horizon. It's just that everything's fast-forwarded in the movies and my life isn't going to be crammed into a 2 hour show.

Come to meeee, adventure!!

Pippin is looking away into the horizon

How I fell in love

Some people describe life as a journey.

In many ways they are right, but I do think that at some points the analogy breaks down. For one thing, it is certainly not exactly a continuous journey like in the picture above.

For some reason we can backtrack some parts we've walked earlier, and for some reason, we HAVE to! Here is where the paradox lies, that sometimes in backtracking a little, we progress further in the journey of life.

In my life, there are some parts I know I should never go back to. Those rocky parts of the road where I was childish, selfish, stupid, arrogant, a liar... you name it. The memory endures, of course, and by doing so always makes me aware of the grace that God has granted me - that He would choose someone who had walked such paths. I would be lying unless I said that those traces of those elements in themselves also endure, though I'd like to think that every day I've been casting them away as I empty myself of myself and try to fill it with Christ.

But the particular stretch of road that I need to find again is simply this: How I fell in love with Him in the first place. It is that crucial intersection that has originally brought me to the path I'm currently walking. Being a person constantly doing things, I need to remember why I'm doing these things in the first place.

Today I went to Sunday school to help out. It's been 2-3 months since I've officially "retired" as a Sunday school helper/teacher at Kampar Gospel Hall. I retired after trying to serve for more than a year and yet feeling unsuited for the ministry, due to my limited linguistic capabilities. That was also the time when I was giving my all for the Christian Fellowship.

I think my decision still stands: God has given me sturdy convictions about the Christian Fellowship and without any shame I say that the passion I have shown to this date speaks for itself. At the same time, my Cantonese or Mandarin still hasn't been getting to the level required of a Sunday school teacher here in Kampar.

But something remarkable happened today in Sunday School.

It was nice talking to all the kids again, and talking to the parents. Even Sau Yee, the girl who calls me "Zirafah" seems to have grown taller. Being exceptionally tall for a standard 2 girl, I wonder if she herself will be a giraffe one day.

I didn't do anything important. Uncle Samson played the guitar. I basically did sai kang: move stuff, clean stuff, help one kid remove his sticky lollipop wrapper.. and of course simply be their friend. Since I haven't been to Sunday School in a while, some of them missed me.

And yeah, I missed them too.

Oh, I said something remarkable happened right? Ok la maybe it's not that remarkable, but in a weird way, it is to me.

Sunday School was how I began "serving God" here in Kampar. It was different for me because I've been awkward everywhere I've been up till the point when I arrived here, but here it was like starting afresh, and I started by working with the children. Until I came to Kampar, I was far from an exemplary Christian, and had no real concept of serving God in my life.

Yet here I am, with a heart to serve. Not that I am worthy, or not that I deserve anything, but simply because I have been chosen.

And it all started there, with those little kids up on the cemented upper floor of the church building. I tell you ah, I really love them so much.

And in remembering that again, somehow I've moved another step ahead.