patch of grass.

we are in!

look! i can still remember how to get in!

this is the annual post, it seems.
or it could not be- perhaps we could tulmounteously try again?

anyhow, i came in because i talked about our team yesterday. and reread manyx2 of our posts today. i realised what a special team we were, when trying to share about us at grinning gecko. and the posts here are quite remarkable, on top of what we already are./were?

i don't hide that we have changed in the past year; i think the past year was incredibly, personally, overwhemling on team level and it will take even more time before a new balance (of sorts) is assembled.

but i just wanted you guys to know that i still love you all a lot. not that yous don't also know it, so this is just extra to publicly re.affirm it. and that this love goes both ways, if the past four years are anything to go by. remember the night by the courtyard when the ice was practically, tangibly broken?
i could go on, but that'd take (42 + 7 + 1) posts + xxyz to tell and we've already done that mostly.

may every team's byword be Love.

because we wondered about salvation

Salvation then, is not "going to heaven", but "being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth". But as soon as we put it like this we realise that the New Testament is full of hints, indications, and downright assertions that this salvation isn't just something we have to wait for in the long-distance future. We can enjoy it here and now (always partially, of course, since we all still have to die), genuinely anticipating in the present what is to come in the future. "we were saved," says Paul in Romans 8:24, "in hope". The verb "we were saved" indicates a past action, something that has already taken place, referring obviously to the complex of faith and baptism of which Paul has been speaking n the letter so far. But this remains "in hope" because we still look farward to the ultimate future salvation of which he speaks in (for instance) Romans 5:9, 10.

This explains at a stroke the otherwise puzzling fact that the New Testament often refers to salvation and being saved in terms of bodily events within the present world. "Come and save my daughter," begs Jairus; as Jesus is on his way to do so, the woman with the issue of blood thinks to herself, "If I can only touch his clothes I will be saved"; "Daughter," says Jesus to her after her healing, "your faith has saved you." Matthew, telling the same story, abbreviates it drastically, but at this point he adds an extra note: "And the woman was saved from that moment on." It is fascinating to see how passages like this- and there are many of them- are often juxtaposed with others that speak of salvation in larger terms, seeming to go beyond present physical healing or rescue. This juxtaposition makes some Christians nervous (surely, they think, salvation ought to be a spiritual matter!), but it doesn't seem to have troubled the early church at all. For the first Christians, the ultimate salvation was all about God's new world, and the point of what Jesus and the apostles were doing when they were healing people or being rescued from shipwreck or whatever was that this was a proper anticipation of that ultimate salvation, that healing transformation of space, time, and matter. The future rescue that God had planned and promised was starting to come true in the present. We are saved not as souls but as wholes.

(All sorts of things follow from this. We might notice, for instance, that theories of atonement, of the meaning of the cross, are not simply a set of alternative answers to te same question. They give the answers they give because of the question they ask. If the question is, How can I get to heaven despite the sin because of which I deserve to be punished? the answer may well be, Because Jesus has been punished in your place. But if the question is, How can God's plan to rescue and renew the entire world go ahead despite the corruption and decay that have come about because of human rebellion? the answer may well be, Because on the cross Jesus defeated the powers of evil, which have enslaved rebel humans and so ensured continuing corruption. Please note, these and other possible quesitons and answers are not mutually exclusive. My point is that reframing the question will mean rethinking the various answers we might give and the relationship between them. This is a large topic for another occasion.)

But as soon as we grasp this- and I appreciate it takes quite a bit of latching onto for people who have spent their whole lives thinking the other way- we see that if salation is that sort of thing, it can't be confined to human beings. When human beings are saved, in the past as a single coming-to-faith event, in the present through acts of healing and rescue, including answes to the prayer "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," and in the future when they are finally raised from the dead, this is always so that they can be genuine human beings in a fuller sense than they otherwise would have been. And genuine human beings, from Genesis 1 onward, are given the mandate of looking after creation, of bringing order to God's world, of establishing and maintaining communitites. To suppose that we are saved, as it were, for our own private benefit, for the restoration of our own relationship with God (vital though that is!), and for our eventual homecoming and peace in heaven (misleading though that is!), is like a boy being given a baseball bat as a present and insisting that since it belongs to him, he must always and only play with it in private. But of course you can only do what you're meant to do with a baseball bat when you're playing with other people. And salvation only does what it's meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realise that they are saved not as souls but as whole and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them.

The point is this. When God saves people in this life, by working through his Spirit to bring them to faith and by leading them to follow Jesus in discipleship, prayer, holiness, hope, and love, such people are designed- and it isn't too strong a word- to be a sign and foretaste of what God wants to do for the entire cosmos. What's more, such people are not just to be a sign and foretaste of that ultimate salvation; they are to be part of the means by which God makes this happen in both the present and the future. This is what Paul insists on when he says that the whole creation is waiting with eager longing not just for its own redemption, its liberation from corruiption and decay, but for God's children to be revealed: in other words, for the unveiling of those redeemed humans through those stewardship creation will at last be brought back into that wise order for which it was made. And since Paul makes it quite clear that those who believe in Jesus Christ, who are incorportated into hiim through baptism, are already God's children, are already themselves saved, this stewardship cannot be something to be postponed for the ultimate future. It must begin here and now.

In other words, to sum up where we've got so far- the work of salvation, in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely souls; (2) about the present, not simply the future, and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us. If we can get this straight, we will rediscover the historic basis for the full-orbed mission of the church. To pursue this further, we need to look at the larger picture within which all this makes sense: the kingdom of God.

Surprised by Hope. Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.

N. T. Wright.

P.S All bolded emphasis was mine, other stylistics the author's.

response 1

if i may be a wise person for a day, this would be what i would say.

Man denies himself, that he might be taken closer his Self.

Self being the likeness and the image of God, and a more whole representation of the loves, pleasures and individuality of a person. Besides, the vitality of a fellowship with God through Jesus Christ necessitates our abiding in Him and the denial of the selves that mar the Self. Denying oneself so that one can be closer to the Self, brings a person closer to bearing the image of God and advancing the authority of the Kingdom.

That being said, i think the denying of self comes in accordance with the gifts and pleasures that God has given to us. I really don't think God would call us to deny the very things He gave us to live life in abundance. The measure might be the extent to which these pleasures distract us from discovering and living more like the Self (the unfinished work of God that we all are).

whilst rach is pondering such cheem things in the southern hemisphere, i am being confronted with north american superiority and cultural disparities. for more insight, read tschustoday.blogspot.com and please offer responses.

jubilee and the kingdom

dear teammates,

you have been on my mind for the past few days now. i've never been so far from all of you, not since we first came together. new zealand, singapore, canada x 2 but still so far apart. it messes my mind somewhat to realise we're so far away from each other.

just so you guys know, i'm living in karori, a suburb in wellington. i've been attending karori baptist church, and recently started using their group discussion material as my qt guide. it's titled '50 days of jubilee'. since then, i've been brought back to daily reflections on the kingdom and i have questions i don't know how to answer. i want you guys with me.

i've been having problems reconciling Self, and the denial of Self. the following question is clumsy, but it's the best phrasing i have-
if God made us as individual souls, why should we deny our Selves?

if God made me, gifted me and knows that i take pleasure in certain things, why do i have to deny them?
As an example: dancing.
I know the arguments against clubbing (and I do believe them; I’ve seen and experienced them), but. For all that, for all the burnt fingers and bitten times there’s this part of me that still thinks it’s okay (as far as okay connotes vagueness and gray truth) to be slinking to beats, with bodies all around. Compelling rhythm affects the body, and the body just wants to fit into the music.
Why is it wrong, what went wrong, what is wrong with the night life in the perspective of God's kingdom?
If God made me, and i enjoy dancing to music, why should i deny that?
Yet sometimes there are consequences. and these can be so insidious, and so lasting, sometimes. And that’s the way it is about sin, isn’t it. Somewhere along the way perfectly sound reasons get twisted, and I don’t know where it happened in the dark alley. Is something alright, as long as we had fun and nothing drastic happened, just a piss or two at cars and half-remembered contortions and so much laughter, at a drunken night on a drunken playground.
how do i resolve this?

Secondly (and finally, and linkedly), a question from the book:
If fellowship with God through Jesus Christ is vital, then how do we indwell that fellowship and how does our abiding in Jesus relate to our bearing the image of God and advancing Jubilee?

That question took me so long to answer. And even then, I have more questions than an answer. I don't know, but this is what i have:
1) By remembering our relative positions?
2) through thawking away at the securely seated dirt.
we start to want His wants more. (when will i get there.)
3) God's grace for me and He's done it all.
(then why do i feel so obliged? have i spent too long away?)

heartache

i miss the philippines too.

pea was telling me about jino + the rest at care channels, and suddenly i was-
need to see jino, must find out how arvin is doing, and spend time with the people of cc. like mushi.

den, your reminsicing of that part of our trip was really powerful. just that, we bathed in cold water because we were brave (and did not ahemboilwaterahem). and all the throwing rachel around- i might win now though! and, i simply must add miss pearlyn chen's using of MY SLIPPER to kill a cockroach.

den, you serious about going back? cannot joke you know..

Change...

I'm glad we met once again, to mark the 1st anniversary of our trip...

Yes, it's been a year since we spent a memorable experience at Philippines...

We have grown...
We have matured...
We have learnt...
We have suffered...

we have changed.

Thou we are the same Pea/Eugene/Rach/Den den, so many things have become different...
Haha, change really seems like the only constant...

But I'm comforted to know that we have another constant...

GOD!!!!

Memories and Baguio

dear team,

I dont know if you guys realised it, but 2 days back, on the 2nd of June, Friendster sent an alert saying that "Mark Louie's birthday is today!".... That only hit me today... somehow... I remember that we bought M.Louie a box of donuts from dunkin donuts, cost us abt 120 pesos if im nt wrong... and we ate the donuts in the living room of Cambridge. Thereafter, we spoke to Jhay-ar for quite some time and learnt about his sad past.

This morning, a sense of nostalgia overwhelmed me as i was speaking to Eug. And we remembered that we this (the early part of June) was about the time that he first joined us, and how we left for Baguio soon after... where the large part of our memories as a true team of 4 began... Baguio and Olongapo. I remember vividly the cockcroach brave eugene killed with his bare hands not too long after he arrived. I remember 4 of us and K.Randy at the interchange waiting to board the bus to baguio (2000 Pesos per person!) and i remember seeing rach reading Screwtape letters (her belated bday gift from me.) and Eug writing non-stop all the way to Baguio and how we talked about r/s issues. I rem Ate Chat, that petite but powerful lady who was such a delight to be with, picking us up the afternoon we arrived. And and... i rem that lovely sunset which is still the best i've ever seen, beaming brightly and proudly at our balcony...=)) The photos we took. They are precious to me. And those two dumb girls from my team who bathed in cold water (hohoho). And the wrestlign matches that we watched so i could learn some powerful finishing moves n practise them on rach! While we went through some tough moments in Baguio. In the end, we came through as a team. I am proud of us.

I miss the Philippines. truly. It is time to consider a visit back again...=)

With Love,
Den

twenty-one.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL-CARROT!
here are your photos :)
and now, a note for you.
you stand at a threshold, with 21 years behind you and as many more ahead that God has planned for you. You might be uncertain, and certainly the past looks more solid. But look, God has lit a pathway for you to walk on. It's narrow, its long, and difficult to walk on. But ahead lies Him revealed in all His glory.
Happy birthday Rach, keep walking towards Him.
-pea.

awesome. i claim first post of the new year.

I read through just about every post we wrote. Tangible shifts, changes in tone, in mood, in frames of minds. We have come from a long time ago.

Remember the days when we were wild and chock full of loud laughter? Where every joke was hilarious, and we couldn't get enough of categorising each statement into Medfac, or science, or Arts. And the arts people could never get a joke wrong. Maybe the fact that we were also the girls had something to do with it.

Remember the camp? Incredibly good memories, incredibly deep ones. The ice was first broken there, we first defined how we saw each other. The repressed onion buried under cement, the cat + girl with both extremes in her + person with many layers, the final of which is a bomb. The singing of christmas carols under the lovely building, the talks and sharings under the long corridors. Do you remember? The night of dancing on the hotel bed. haha. The attempt to cross the river with each other on our backs, pea and I screaming while we desperately hold pinkys while sliding off the guys, denden's heroic boom of LET'S GO PEOPLE. ayy. Some things are worth revisiting.

Remember the fights we happily entered in the philippines itself? Flinging ourselves on denden, jumping away because we knew that if he grabbed our hands we would be helpless and our punishment would be a very painful, red waist. We did a post on it, by the way. It's the only one we wrote while in the philippines, if I got it right. That was the height of our team's abandonment of restraints- agreed? We were like children, trusting each other and loving one another. Even in pain.

Because we cried so much in that house. Seeing arvin's home, seeing ate lennie... Sometimes I didn't understand why I could not stop the tears. One of the girls at bahay na pagasha asked me too. Why do you cry for us? (when you are not from here, that was the implied question.) I couldn't answer. But do you know, when I was in thailand, I learnt a verse: 1st corinthians 12:26-

26: And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

If there's something I learnt with jarring reality, this would be it. The body of Christ can, and Does feel for each other. Beyond geographical barriers. Or socio-economic backgrounds. Or even.. having a history together. We only knew arvin for a few days, and ate lennie barely hours, but we went on our knees to God all the same.





I look forward to wednesday. We are too special to be just friends.
God made us team mates, to bat for His side.

the end.

hey. mann it's been too long.
come to the end of the year and i find myself not knowing what to say.
we need to find a date to meet up, and catch up on one another.
we need to resume 19th prayer.

It's been a long time...

I forgot the user id...

I forgot the password...

That shows how long I've been away...

I stared at the screen, almost blankly....closed my eyes for a short while...they seem to come back...

The scenes...the photos...the laughters...the joy of being with friends, not just any friend, but 3 very special friends...the tune to our favorite song...

I remember the user id, I remember the password...

But more importantly, I remember the words of Pea as we left the Philippines "Let's not just leave with emotions, but with concrete lessons".... ....

Dear friends, it's indeed been a very long time we have met (other than Rachel's sms and Dennis call in the middle of my night call)...I've been well, been thru different phases of my course that has indeed left me thinking bout many matters of life, bout being a doc...the expectations and fears...It's been very tiring, the work and the struggles...but God's grace is indeed sufficient and His mercies beyond imagination...

Through these period of time, the Lord has challenged much of my fundimentals as a Christian, many assumptions I never wanted to face...situtations force me to face them...Haha, it's almost like the repercussions of MEET, the aftermath of that faith shaking experience...I won't say it's exactly enjoyable, but it has left me seeing the world in a different light...prayerful, in the eyes of Jesus Christ...

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. - Rom 8:28-30

Going thru such struggles almost seems like walking thru the Spiritual valley...there are times I wonder if I was a Christian. There were times I held onto a thin line of pure believe that I'm a son of God...Going thru such struggles, I wonder how can I share God's love with others, how can lead other bro n sis...I find ways to "get back the feeling", read the Bible more, pray more, listen to more Christian songs...but sth was still missing...my soul feels empty...

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." - Mark 6:31

The emptiness that only God can fill...He has left it empty for Himself...there was nothing I could do by my own strength, but only thru Him and in Him can I find the strength to carry on. In extreme shag-ness, i knelt in church, in the stillness of the service, I found myself calling out "Father, I am so useless, can't do anything...save me Lord, for I am Yours"....A cry of desperation, a cry for hope, and I could feel His presence, His Joy and His Comfort...He is my comforter and strength!!!! Praise His name!!!

I'm still on the journey of learning to humble myself, a journey began long ago, intensified in MEET...a journey I found myself crumbling before the throne of the Almighty...

Dear frenz on this jouurney with me, I thank you for your many encouragements and reminder of who I am, of who God is...I pray that this Christmas, you too would receive the special gift God has prepared for us, His Salvation and His Love...May the Love, Joy and Peace of our Lord be with you and your families.

Take care and God Bless

In Christ, Eugene

restrain me

Somewhere on facebook is a certain wall post which reads, "... are you staying a little longer to get pictures?i m thinking of staying till the 22nd or 23rd and going tothe slums/squatter like places to get a few shots;it'll be really interesting!"

and it's a furious trembling inside.

So you're going to the philippines to participate in their ultimate frisbee tournament. But "the slums/ squatter like places" are .not. bits of tin and wood tacked together for you to take pictures of.
These sites of depravation and poverty are .not. your camera's playground to whore out.
These spaces where mothers and fathers despair of earning even a pittance are .not. for your whim and fancy to "get a few shots"
to upload into your flicker account to show off your photography skills.

They are not. exotic lesser humans whose homes you can vouyuer. snoop around with the 18-200 VR you borrowed. Their lives are not for you to romanticise into blank-and-white stills or monochromes.

They don't choose to live in a slum. They don't decide that the best they can afford will be corragated iron situation beside a river of filth. They aren't living in rickety structures that might collapse soon for want of a few pesos for you with the 18-200 VR. No, not you.

These are homes of pain borne out of man's corruption and they are real. They suffer because of corpulent, abhorrent government officials who siphon money. These are actual families and they are real. Mothers who borrow desperately to make ends meet, fathers who drink and gamble, wide-eyed children in rags- Because of man's evil and not placed there for you to take artistic photos.

Are you going to change their lives?
Are you taking "a few shots" to champion their cause?
Are you doing this because you plan to make a difference?

"i m thinking of staying till the 22nd or 23rd and going tothe slums/squatter like places to get a few shots;it'll be really interesting!"

uhh

it wasn't rachel who washed her hair with facial soap, by the way.

yay.

yay. i like seeing everybody again :)

i am thinking all that has been heard the past three nights is much worth thinking about.
i begin to wonder about communism.

anyhow. i so smart i tried to wash my hair with facial soap. things the muddled brain does.

decidedly happy.

hello. shieng say nobody writes anymore.

today i realised how we need to thank God, for Him in life. if we really think abt it, He has guarded our paths and there is really nothing that lies outside His giving to us.

yea, so thank God for reminders of Him. it is a challenge to keep getting closer to Him and the mission field, and time is catching up on us so fast. soon we need to think about yet another step.

anyhow. its gonna be the 19th again. and the next ft is next next tuesday the 16th i think. so we can either meet then or set another date.

ta.

only because

the atl ordered a post out of me. I know it's neither an intellectual post nor missionary focussed nor even related to the team; it's just a rambling of sorts. Really. anyway it's past midnight I want to sleep.

___________________
on wednesday

I'm sitting in el class [the better one, at least] and without warning my mind suddenly transmits a different vision- and just as abruptly back to the present again. I was a little dazed- as dazed as one can be while feeling sleepy and not/concentrating at the same time. Then for some reason the place my memory plonked me into for the timebreath of a second became important, and I rewound the reel. to realise that my brain had brought me back to a surroundings of whitewashed houses with the afternoon sun upon their walls. I know the memory. I was in the philippines, and we had just come down from the mountains. We had crossed a dammed river to get to those houses [there was a dam on the river- nothing else], so that our sandals were soaked and I was exhilarated at the mini adventure we'd just gone through.

These days then I think back on the philippines it seems my memories are somewhat sepia singed, a sense of an exotic adventure. Walking along slums along streets hitching rides bouncing on the jeepneys unique to that land. Has my reality been lost.

Another note- more to keep myself awake than anything. Last night when a dear friend said "thanks for missing me" I knew exactly what he meants. You're precious to me and I to you, but it takes a certain effort to step out and say it. for me anyway. Most times I'd rather send mental emails to someone I miss and want to be with, useless because mental telepathy works only when God does it. Still, I'd rather do that because I find it hard to make myself vulnerable.

TO OUR BELOVED TL...

Grey.

Creation.

But most times, we see creation and mission through tinted lenses.

How do we come under God's scrutiny and refinement,
so we see things in its pristine form?

Then run.


And finish the race for His glory.

Mission exists because our God is a missionary God who sends His people to be a blessing to all mankind.

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

Luke 10:21-22

Christ had a profound sense of mission grounded in the assurance of a relationship with God as loving Father, and such assurance comes with joy from the Holy Spirit.

Us?

Dear all who are reading this,

As of 1 Aug 2007, 2 of our brothers serving the Lord in Afghanistan have been brutally murdered by their Taliban captives.

Please join in in prayer for the rest of the survivors, that our Lord would protect them, comfort them and rescue them from the hands of the captives. Pray for the negotiators to have wisdom in speaking, that they might come to a quick agreement. Pray for the families of our Koreans brothers and sisters, that in this time of devestation, they would put their trust in the Lord. May the Lord send forth His comfort and peace to the families, especially of the 2 brothers.

Pray for the Taliban that the Lord will touch their hearts and send forth salvation amongst them. May the Spirit change their hearts, fill them with the love of God and convict them of their sins. May our brothers and sisters shine for the Lord even in the looming darkness, to show the love of our Lord. I am so reminded of Paul, how he could still praise the Lord and testify His love despite being in chains...

Father, in your time, by your way, rescue our brothers and sisters from the peril, comfort them in this time of devestation, encourage their faith in you, knowing that You would never leave them nor forsake them. We also ask You save the lost Taliban fighters from the darkness, to see the love of our brothers and sisters and know that You are the God of Love. In Christ's most precious name. Amen