13 February, 2006
Fuzzy-duck! Ducky-fuzz!
Wow, it feels like its been ages since I last updated this blog. This is not because I’ve been neglecting my cell reports but we haven’t had cell for a couple of weeks because of Missions Emphsis Week, Chinese New Year, and so on.
So last Friday, we had our second cell of the year! CNY Bash!!! We had a time of catching up, games, worship and especially…food!
Attendance: Kah Fai, Yen, Kristin, Michelle, Mei, Yimi, Emily, Roger, Sunita (for the first part).
Ice breaker: Yen (Huh? What? Fuzzy Duck!!! hahaha!!)
Worship: Kah Fai, Roger
Food: Everyone!!!
After a long and stressful week, the way cell flowed last week was the perfect tonic. Just a group of good friends relaxing with each other and enjoying fellowship together.
First, we caught up about our CNY holidays, where most of us (if not all!) went back to our hometowns and visited relatives. And then, we compared our ang pow collections. haha!!!
Then Yen facilitated a fun game, which had everyone very puzzled as to how to play it…Huh? What? What’s that? haha. So in the midst of all the confusion, we used the same game principles to play Fuzzy Duck! It was hilarious, especially Kristin’s inadvertant contribution. Duzzy…LOL!
Then, by overwhelming consensus, we decided to go straight to the food. Yummy, yummy! I wish we had taken pictures…or did we? Well, if we did, the pictures will be put up soon. First, we all got our chopsticks and tossing the ‘yee sang’ that Yimi brought. Some wished for new jobs and more money…Some wished to be married soon…Some wished to find a gorgeous man to start dating…Some even wished to lose the weight they had gained throughout CNY! We then proceeded to dig in to the delicious food of fried rice, hokkien mee, singapore mee hoon, ‘ba kua’ all the way from Muar (thanks Mei!), forgot what else we had but I just remember we had a lot of leftovers. hahahaha!
With our stomachs full and our appetite more than sated, we slowly ambled down to the living room again due to the extra weight and the consequent sleepiness. But this all changed when we started worship! =) Everyone was so excited as, once again, we sang the CNY song for the millionth time (we do it every year)! If Yat Hwa got royalties for the church using his words for the song, he’d be rich! But everyone still loves to hear it and sing it every year (don’t cha! don’t cha!).
OK, jokes aside…I loved worship on Friday. It didn’t go on for that long and maybe I should have let it go on for longer but the time that we spent focusing God was amazing. His presence was there. And right now, I’ll just have to speak from my own experience and wait for all your feedback on it, but it was great to feel the peace of God and just praise and worship Him, especially after a crummy week. We need to do more of this! Yeah!
I had an activity planned for the night but I decided to let worship go on for longer and cancelled the activity. After all the gambling, drinking, and whatever else we had been exposed to for the last two weeks because of the culture of CNY, we needed to start the Chinese new year right, we needed to spend time in His presence to be refreshed and renewed by Him. And so we did.
Its going to be tough and difficult year.
Its going to be a great and awesome year.
I don’t know why I get these two impressions about the year ahead…Isaiah 61:2.
This is the year of the favour of our God. This is the day of the vengeance of our God.
14 January, 2006
2006, Year of Increase!
Well, we had the first cell of the year yesterday!!! I remember our first cell of 2005 where we only had four people so it was encouraging that there were eight of us to gear up the year together.
Attendance: Kah Fai, Yen, Yuya, Kristin, Christine, Michelle, Roger, Sunita.
Ice breaker: Yen (but changed to catching up!), Worship: Kah Fai, Word: Roger
As the first cell of the year, the leaders were told to go back and pray about the cell vision for 2006! I have to tell you that I was scared about this. I was scared that I didn’t pray enough during the week. I was scared that I would not share an accurate vision. But in the end, God gave me something specific for the cell group and it flowed along with what God impressed on Yen and Kah Fai as well when they prayed about it.
The main bible verse that the cell will be gearing up the year with is found in 1 Samuel 22:5, when the prophet Gad told David to leave the stronghold and return to the land of Judah. To us, the main message was to step out of our comfort zones, to step away from what was comfortable and familiar, and to avail ourselves to the things of God whether it may be challenging, unfamiliar and uncertain.
Another verse that was shared is found in Luke 13:7, 8 and 9, when Jesus tells the parable of an owner who had a fig tree that didn’t bear fruit for three years and wanted to cut it down and cast it into the fire. This went along with the vision of stepping out of our comfort zones because it isn’t a pleasant verse to apply to our lives. If our lives and our cell are not bearing fruit, there are some serious implications. We need to start doing the things that we are called and commissioned to do and not merely going through the routines and keeping up appearances.
Finally the last verse that we applied was Mark 8:38, where Jesus said for us not to be ashamed of Him and His words. We discussed that it was often easy for us to profess ourselves as Christians and therefore fulfill the first part of not being ashamed of Jesus. However, many times we find His words to be too difficult to follow; to take up our cross daily, to become living sacrifices, to be persecuted for His name’s sake, to share the Gospel to those around us. Thus, we do not and cannot fulfill the second part of not being ashamed of His words until we stand up and be counted in taking ownership of the words He speaks.
What an awesome way of starting out the first cell of the year, seeking His face and His direction for us for 2006! We also discussed our salvations target and projected multiplication date, which was agreed upon as seven souls to target and a projected date of December 2006 to multiply!
We know that we have a challenging but extremely exciting year ahead of us! But we also know that we can stand together and support each other through whatever difficulties we face. I thank God for this awesome, food-lovin’ bunch of friends!
Let’s see what this year holds for us!
~Roger~
