A magical day

2004-05-13 10:11 p.m.

This entry is more than a week late—well, most of my entries are late but who can blame me? Anyway, let’s just say the word “retreat” is usually associated with failure or despair, but in this case it will be associated with joy and renewal, renewal to carry on in life. So let’s begin.

May the First 1330 hours or so: The church retreat actually began on the Friday before, but for reasons that are too insignificant to mention I decided to join the gang (the small group) the day after. Changi Village Chalets was the venue a place not on my radar screen. So I’ve never been to a chalet before, sue me. (Actually I’ve been to proper chalets overseas so hah.). Changi Village itself was nowhere near the rustic environment that I expect it to be. (I think they meant it to be a copy of Holland Village but it’s a poor copy.) After a few frantic phone calls to Dean and Gabriel (they were cycling in Ubin in the morning) I found the boys clustered in a room around the size of a three room HDB flat. Well, another unexpected surprise. Still, I had no qualms about it. It was rest time for them, and the badly need it with rings around their eyes and some half asleep. Even so, warm greetings wear exchanged. Dean even bothered to show me around and we found the others in the flat (or do you call it a unit) next door. (Matt, Dean, Lincoln, Colin, Nigel and Neil—I think were in my unit.) Rest time soon became afternoon nap time, at least for our side. The dead side and the alive side Dean commented just before sleep overtook everyone on my side including me. The bed looked inviting, but with three lethargic figures snoring away on it, the next option was the floor with my trusty sleeping bag.

1500 hours: The dead party was dragged alive and we all trudged over to the other room. Immediately, Lincoln Mah fell asleep again. You can’t blame him not when they fell asleep at two plus the previous night. Leading the afternoon devotion was Gabriel and it was about discipleship. The task, to compose a song or draw pictures or come up with something fanciful that depicted what you are like as a disciple. Wow, my first major biblical assignment ever since I joined LWMC. Work was to be done in at least pairs or groups, not so much for discussion but to make sure “you guys don’t fall asleep again” as Elaine aptly put it. I found my self paired up with Nigel, one of the quieter members of the small group. The task seemed confusing to the mind of one focusing on nothing but army work through out the week, and I thought it would be good to have another guiding hand like him.

The verses were taken from First Corinthians and Psalm 23. They were respectively, Chapter 9 verses 19-23, and Chapter 10 verses 31 to Chapter 11 verse 1 and Chapter 15 verse 38. Everything actually stemmed from this verse “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.” In layman’s terms, it’s the guidelines to be a follower of Christ. Nigel and I spent like fifteen minutes deciphering the verses. Halfway through, I got too bored and started doodling on the sheet—after all that was one of the options. For “deny himself” I drew a fat stick man and wrote the names of different ethnic groups in it. (See the 1Cor. 9:19-23). For “taking up his cross” I drew a stick man (I’m that bad at sketches) building a house—The House of the lord. For the last, “follow me” I drew a valley with a road leading through it and light. Not bad I thought, I think I getting the hand of it. Nigel just wrote some sentences but you have to excuse him, for the task was confusing.

1545: Everyone trudged back to the main room and about half the group assumed sleeping positions. Somehow or the other, the discussion was delayed by 20 minutes or so due to some story telling and singing. The story telling came from the most jovial and out spoken member of the group, Paul Leong, whom through Lincoln’s persuading revealed to us some of his moments in Temasek Hall, ACS Boarding School and Jurong point. For his privacy, I won’t mention the incidents here but it generated the longest laughter I’ve ever knew. Then came a couple of songs including “Edelweiss” where Dean assumed I knew the hand actions. Lincoln started off with his story of lambs and relating the lamb to disciples. Comments followed and though I can’t remember the whole story it somehow came to jokes on “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and “silence of the lambs.” Next up was Paul and he told a simple analogy of the growth of a seed and relating it to God’s creation and guidance. “The story is perfect for those Kindergarten plays, and in the end you can have the children dress in different coloured flowers and smile!” quipped Paul after his tale. Giggles followed, mainly from the girls. As for Eunice, it took a while to persuade her to sing the song she composed in neat print on her sheet. A melodious tune filled the air and it was a marvelous attempt, in the views of one not so musically inclined. Next came a long poem from Elaine regarding a ship and its passenger. I can’t remember how she related it to discipleship. AS you would have expected, Paul suddenly burst out singing the song ”Titanic”. (Click on the link to view the exact lyrics.) Eunice joined him in the chorus and the scene became oh so comical. The rest of the session was wrapped up with Dean and a few others sharing their thoughts. Quite unlike the studious and serious devotion I pictured where each member focused solely on the bible verses at hand. I felt more than just at home with these guys; it was a naturally closeness that I never felt before.

1800 to 1730 hours or so: Dinner, which I thought was going to be a barbeque, was at Tampines Central. Passing by the various shops and grounds, Changi Village was like any other HDB neighbourhood. That was hardly on my mind as we alighted from the bus and plunged into a place crowded with commuters taking advantage of the May Day holiday cum weekend. Luckily, there was just enough place in the jammed packed food court for us. Most of us consumed huge portions of western set meals while Gabriel attacked both a main dish and a desert. Blame it on NS food I guess. A one hour or so grace period was given and we broke up into groups hunting for only one thing: desert. I tagged along with Eunice, Alvin, Colin, Justina and Matt but my mind wasn’t desert. Actually my stomach just didn’t feel it was the right time for desert. Plunging deeper into the complex we stopped at a U2 shop where the girls discovered nice shirts for some of the guys. That short stop made me remember that my last shopping trip out with friends was a long, long time ago. Desert was really just sitting down at Coffee Bean, sharing Justina’s Ice Mocha (I think it was Iced Mocha) and observing the surroundings. Strung between two HDB flats was a low hanging wire and we formulated many wild and stupid theories on how it got there including that of a ninja escaping.

2000 hours till 0030: Free and easy on the itinerary equaled to games time. Some opted to listen to Colin Ng strumming his guitar while around eight of us hit the scrabble board. I was paired with Dean and I soon learnt that he was the master of the scrabble board. He managed to form two letter words that no one heard of and run words parallel to each other, tripling our points. We won in the end, not through placing long words, but with placing short words in strategic places. Oh yes, half way through Eunice came in, smelling of apples—in came from her shampoo. The bed was too small to hold even four of us and I found myself wedged between Dean and Eunice—my head sticking out near their legs. Ouch. To digress a bit, let me tell you a bit about Eunice. When ever she wants to divulge something important or she’s in the midst of a discussion, she’ll get really excited and speak rapidly. However, there is a gentle side to her, a soft demure characteristic which seems to complement her amicable nature towards anyone. To sum things up, she has the voice of Louisa and the nature of Debbie. (Well, only my NJ mates would be able to comprehend this.)

Anyway, the next game was Cranium, a game totally alien to me. “A mixture of Sherades, Taboo, Trivial Pursuit and all the entire mind testing games” Dean told me. Rules and regulations were explained and joining Gabriel and Eunice, we plunged into the game. Initially, it did seem more like Trivia pursuit with general knowledge questions thrown at everyone, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The different acts players had to put on included humming the tune of a song, drawing with your eyes open/eyes closed, create the shape of a landmark or something unheard of. My favourite was the humming of songs for it seemed like almost every card we picked contained an oldie that I knew. “We” meant not only my team, but those of other members as well. Allan was stumped over a few songs which I knew. “Wild Thing” was one of them, and I burst out into a horrible but still passable rendition of it. So I’m not born to be a singer, but at least I knew my music. The other song was “Let’s get Physical” by Oliver Newton John, but that was a tough one I must say. Oh yes, there was one section where one had to describe this famous person with out mentioning others related to him/her. (Or something like that.). One of the people Dean got was “Tom Jones”, and he was stuck with only one description of that singer. Let’s just say it’s something women did while he had his concert in Australia. In the end his team couldn’t guess answer, and protests came from the others, shouting why didn’t you sing his songs. Almost immediately, Lincoln, me and someone else burst out into a rendition of “It’s not unusual you ought to be loved by anyone.” At the same time I was thinking, hey I never knew there were others who knew such old songs.

My tactics thus switch to selecting the green cards which would ask us to act or hum out tunes. Once or twice our team got the red cards which contained the general knowledge questions. Even with what we knew, some questions like do you suck out the venom from a snake stumped us. So the game continued passed midnight, with Figs, the Statue of Liberty, Bill Clinton, Rick Martin and a song by Queen coming up. Oh yes, another one that Allan was stumped on was “Mary Poppins”. Shucks, they should have given that to me man. Anyway, he passed it to Matt and fellow team mate Nigel got it straight away. Congratulations Nigel, or am I underestimating this group? They seem to know a wide range of stuff, much more that other individuals I know who only focused on current stuff. Oh yes, another card given to me asked me to hum the tune of “Summer Holiday.” For the uniformed, it’s one of Cliff Richard’s famous songs. Would my group be able to guess it? Gabriel got it within two seconds of my humming. Bravo. I was amazed. Around 0015, the lights went out due to Paul’s attempt to boil some water. Took that chance to a breather for while. I just the early morning air, the stillness of the surroundings which is broken once in a while with the screeching of a car or the creaking of crickets. Returning back to the game, I couldn’t get the tune that Gabriel was humming, which turned out to be Stayin’ Alive”. Darn, how could I have missed that. Slumber came at 0030 and for some later.

I’ll end here. The rest of the retreat, waking up, returning to Church and settings up the Communions tables, well, I just can’t feel the need to state them here. It was a brief stay over with people I just got to know this year. I expected nothing special at all, be what I got were moments that would last forever in my mind. The jokes, the laughter, the tears and the instant camaraderie that came about through the various activities, who would wish for more? The group, while differing in age, finds joy and humour at almost every corner, similarities in the area of old and new facts and of course, through loving God. It’s not a dream come true, it’s just a rare gift that pops by along you’re way. It’s treasure that has no map leading to it. An ineffable world you don’t get everyday.

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