Ernest & Carmen

Alright, no response from you slackers! Either that, or I've lost my small group of readers due to lack of updates.

Ok, my own reflections on the past year (in random order as I remember them):

Highlights

• Going overseas for the very first time in 14 years and seeing my parents and relatives and revisiting childhood memoirs.
  
• Going to Beijing and seeing some of the cultural heritage on display there.
  
• Being part of RICE and evangelising to 400+ youths from all over Sydney.
  
• Organising EYF's first ever Dialogue Dinner and having 50+ people turn up!
  
• Learning about the OT from great lecturers at SMBC and surviving all the assessments and exams.
  
• Bringing 2 people from my church to Club 5 with me to consider full time paid ministry.
  
• Going to KYLC for the very first time!
  
• Saltlight Productions "This Way Up" Album launch.
  
• Going to Preaching Conference and learning from some of the greatest preachers of our time.
  
• Church camp up at Apollo Resort with our very own camp T-shirt.
  
• Deciding and being accepted into SMBC for next year.
  
• Having lots of my good friends getting married!
  
• Joining a Street Evangelism team with Ecom.

Whoa, this list is much longer than I expected. There is indeed much to be thankful to God for! I shall be a brief with my other lists.

Lowlights

• Leaving work behind, particularly the friendships I've built over the years.
  
• Talking to my parents about Christianity and seeing them in remain in their stubborn and stiff-necked ways in rejecting the gospel.
  
• Being critised and/or unappreciated in my ministries.
  
• Feeling like a one-man-band sometimes in trying to motivate people to be like-minded in how we serve at church.
  
• Sometimes seeing little or no fruits in my ministries.
  
• Seeing those who were at church at the beginning of the year but are now no longer attending anymore.
  
• Anticipating leaving the fellas at Brightside/Wongside/Whiteside.
  
• Not being disciplined with my QTs and prayers at times.
  
• Ungodly actions and attitudes which I made no effort to keep in check.

A lot of the times, these lowlights have become times where God has challenged and taught me things, such as...

Lessons learnt/reminded of

• I am human. I need rest.
  
• Resting is good. It's ok not to be working 24/7.
  
• Holidays are fun! (seeing a theme here?)
  
• God is sovereign and is able to use my strengths and weaknesses to achieve His purposes. So even when I stuff up there is no need to despair.
  
• God is faithful and will look after me in the midst of troubles and hardships. I may not understand why, but I only need to trust Him and see what He is teaching me in this time.
  
• Even though I have been a Christian for many years, I still need to humble myself before God and sit under the teaching of His Word. There are still areas of godliness I need to be disciplined in.
  
• I need to stop judging people so harshly and have more realistic expectations of them.
  
• I am the visionary type when it comes to ministry (ie one who likes to plan and strategise) but I need to work on how to impart my visions to my leaders.
  
• I write terrible essays!
  
• I can be impatient at times and easily frustrated.
  
• I don't like bitter melons (yet).
  
• I don't like being dependent on people but need to learn humility in being served by others.
  
• God is faaaaar more patient with me and is slowly molding me into Christ's likeness.

<< Praise God for 2003 and the many, many things that have happened and the things I've learnt. Pray for 2004 that I won't forget these lessons and will continue to press on! >>

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. I was able to have a good, quiet, restful, day today just chilling out at home.

Some people (*ahem* you know who you are) have complained that I haven't been writing on my blog. Sorry!!! I've been busy trying to write up my newsletter and get it sent by Christmas. Hopefully you've all got it already - if not, let me know and I'll send it again (there were a few that bounced cuz the account was full).

Only another week of work left to go before I leave the secular workforce. Feeling a mixture of bittersweet. Definitely excited to be starting college soon and leaving my boring job behind, but at the same time, knowing that I'll miss the few friends that I've made while I've been there.

In the past 2.5 years I've been working there, there hasn't been a lot of meaningful relationships...maybe 3-4. Don't know if that comes as a surprise or not. But I find it quite hard because people relate by gossiping, and since I try to stay away from all that, I often get left out in all the conversations and I don't get invited out to lunch and weekend stuff as much. And sometimes their worldly value system is so overwhelming it kinda grosses me out.

You might say that's a good opportunity for evangelism, and that's true to an extent. But it's usually just a few comments in a normal conversation in front of everyone. And whenever I've tried to speak up about it, it either sounds like I'm being self-righteous or I'm taking things too seriously. Is it just that I'm saying things in all the wrong ways? I don't know...but workplace evangelism is quite hard. So for those of you out there who are struggling with it - don't despair, you're not the only one finding it hard. I'm certain that God is at work nevertheless.

<< Thank God for the relationships I've built at work and for the conversations about Christianity. Pray that God will provide other Christians in the lives of these people that one day they too will come to know Christ as their Lord and Saviour. >>

I was having lunch with some of the guys from church today, and we started talking about the past year - highlights, lowlights, what God has been teaching them - and things to work on in the coming year. I'd like to share some of my own reflections on the past year. But I'll save that for my next post.

But in the meantime, I'd like to hear from you guys! Please leave a comment and share with me what God has been doing in your life this past year!

I'm back!

Wow, it was a great holiday and I had a fabulous time!! Shopping in HK and sight seeing in Beijing. Took lots and lots of photos. I'll put them up eventually and say more about them then. At the moment just glad to be back home.

But there's no time to readjust to the Australian lifestyle. It was straight back to work on Monday (with piles of stuff waiting for me when I got in), and lots of ministry stuff to follow up on. I've booked out most of my lunch and dinner appointments this week already! There's plenty of people to catch up with, but here's a few of the tasks I need to get stuck into:

• Write my 4th quarter newsletter.
  
• Raise more funds for the next 3 years.
  
• Prepare 2 sermons on Phil 3.
  
• Finish children's talk for Cowra Mission.
  
• Organise KYLC & KYC.
  
• Prepare for church ministries for next year.
  
• Holiday program for TG.
  
• Upload photos from holidays (as well as a backlog of wedding photos from the last few months).

All this before the end of the year!

<< Thank God for the great holiday and for safety in our travels. Pray that I can be diligent and focussed now as I pick up all my tasks and ministries and prepare for the new year ahead. >>