What an awesome, blessed week!

*LISTENING TO:*
Song: A Better Way
Artist: Downhere
Album: Wide-Eyed and Mystified
Quote: "...Your sacrifice has spoken, You gave everything, and "I love you" could not be said a better way..."
* * *

Wow, what a great week. Chalk full of activities and oftentimes exhausting, but loads of fun and lotsa time spent with fellowship friends... and lotsa time spent cooking as well! My parents spent the week in Prague so I had the house all to myself. Gave me the chance to taste what it'd be like living alone as well as try out new recipes I've been wanted to cook up while also having lotsa company over. Good times... good times... Here's the recap:

Last Thursday & Friday:
Thursday night, went to a BBQ at Sol's place to welcome Sonja back from her China missions trip. Nice backyard they have, with lots of open space for sports and a campfire.


BBQ @ Sol's Place 

Did last-minute packing for the H2O Summer Retreat on Friday morning before having a pleasant lunch with Serena at Pho Maxim. Then headed back to Kanata to meet up with Vanny, Chung, Jon (Lam), and Jean to do grocery shopping for the retreat in the afternoon. After loading up the trunk with tons of groceries, we headed to Summerhays to meet up with the rest of the fellowship for wing night! Woohoo! Gotta love wings... soooo good. Big turnout for wing night, and it was great hearing that out-of-towners like Pam and Denise would be making it to the retreat. After dinner, headed to Karen's house to meet up with the rest of the people going to retreat before carpooling everyone to the house in White Lake where we'd be spending our retreat for 2 nights and 3 days. By the time we got the house, it was dark, but that didn't stop us from having some fun. After scoping out the house and doing having some good 1-on-1 sharing & prayer time with Jon (Soo), a few of us played cards (Blackball, woohoo!), a few of us played ping pong, and the rest went outside to look at, what was apparently, a beautiful night sky, full of stars and even shooting stars!


Car ride to the retreat (taken by Bonnie) 

Last Saturday & Sunday:
Wow, how God blessed us with great weather... weather forecast predicted rain all Saturday but what we got was a beautiful sunny day! The retreat turned out to be nothing short of awesome. We had great food all 'round, some awesome sharing time (I got the privilege to share & pray with Jon Lam and Jeff in small group discussion), and the videos were quite effective at challenging all of us to devote our lives to God's Story as opposed to our own. We did the campfire thing, the late night cards thing, the outdoor worship thing, the indoor worship thing (with... wait for it... Chung!)... even did the farm thing, heheh. As usual, whenever I go to any retreat, I try to find a little time alone to be with God and just connect with him, with guitar in hand. I was able to do that Saturday morning, just finding a spot on a picnic table to sit down in the backyard and just pray and sing... twas joined later by Vanny and Karen before heading off to lunch, it was great. From start to finish, it was a joy to plan and execute the retreat with the whole committee and, by God's blessing, we all pulled together to make it happen. Good times, praise God! Sunday evening, after driving back to Kanata, several of us got together at Jack Astor's for dinner (Lone Star was too busy) to kinda say farewell to Pam and Denise. Looking forward to seeing them again soon.


The morning after... 

Steph getting friendly with the farm animals 

Frank with his baby... and Pam with...err... hers? ;) 

Goat: "...OMG, it's superstar Chung!! Must swarm him!" 

Outdoor worship... 

Monday:
Had a driving lesson in the morning to refresh for my full G driving test coming up. Picked up Jon (Lam) in the afternoon so he could get an early start on gaming at my place, heheh. I decide to hold an impromptu Counterstrike LAN party at my place, just to hang with the fellowship guys some more and get to know a few of 'em better, something that was sparked at retreat. We had quite a good turnout... 8 guys, 8 computers, a bucket of KFC, and thousands of virtual bullets... heheh, what's not to like? Heheh, fun times... and kinda nostalgic as it brings me back to old high school days. Jon decided to stay overnight, which was totally cool with me since the house would be empty anyways. Heheh, looks like I got him hooked on Call of Duty 2 as he was playing it till late... but it was good just seeing him have a good time and enjoying himself thoroughly. We also had some good sharing time at night, just sharing about serving the church and worship team and just both of our passions for serving in that ministry (Jon is really dedicated to running A/V). I was really glad we had that opportunity.


Boys with toys 

Tuesday:
Did some chores in the morning and then went grocery shopping in the afternoon to prep for the BBQ/Pot-luck dinner I was holding at my place for the China missions team. Bonnie came early to help out in food prep and Jon was still around so the food preparation was actually quite efficient. After finishing food prep early, it was nice and chillaxing to just chat and listen to music with Bonnie a bit while Jon was blasting away at Nazis in the background, heheh. Originally thinking it was only going to be dinner for 6, I was a little surprised when Pastor Cal informed me his whole family would be joining us. Heheh, so yes, I was being a little ambitious in BBQ'ing for and handling 12 people (including 4 kids) on my own... but what the heck, I enjoy hosting and I enjoy grilling. :) I BBQ'd up some ribs (asian-style, my first time trying that), some chicken legs (still too frozen, doh :P), chicken wings, and some cajun shrimp skewers (my own experimental recipe, which turned out really really well!). Karen brought some yummy red thai curry and others brought food too so it actually turned out to be quite a feast! It was nice for everyone to catch up on their China missions trip experiences and remember our time there.

Wednesday:
Jon decided to stay the night again, heheh... so glad he's having a blast. We did some of our own respective work and played some games in the afternoon, this time C&C Generals. Steph, Karen, and Andrew popped by for dinner later in the afternoon. On tonight's menu: Shrimp Linguine in a White Wine Tomato Sauce. I thought it turned out quite well. :) We all headed to prayer meeting at CCCO afterwards. Oh yeah, also had a committee meeting to elect the new committee for the next term. Turns out, I was unanimously elected as co-chair for the upcoming term and I will be paired up with Steph. Although it's sad to see committee members Karen and Vanny not be part of the team next term, I'm really excited about this new leadership team and I anticipate we'll all be working quite well together. I think our new roles will also stretch many of us and give us new unexplored responsibilities in the committee. Yay for H2O Fellowship! Many of us have been around when the fellowship was first formed and it's been cool to be a part of it through the struggles as well as through the good times. I'm excited at what the upcoming term will bring. :)


H2O committee 2005-2006... what a great bunch. 

Thursday:
Ahhhh... first day to myself all week. Heheh. To contrast the busy week so far, I took it easy... caught a couple of episodes of 24, listened to some music, and took some time to do some songwriting (something I haven't touched in a while). Also got the chance to think about where God is calling me to be in terms of a church location. With my new role as co-chair at H2O Fellowship, I'm definitely drawn to my peers at CCCO and I know that with the departure of two of their main worship leaders (Karen and Pastor Cal) and the general inexperience of their worship teams, I could do some good there and help out by leading and mentoring. Not to mention, I could try to explore the new doors God opened for me in ministry by exploring youth ministry there. And yet, I'm as confused as ever because apparently, Jason (the new Celebration Church pastor) is strongly considering me to take up a co-worship coordinator position at Celebration... for which, I believe, I should become a member there first. So yeah, slight dilemma, slightly torn... much prayer needed.

Friday:
Had my driving test in the morning... woohoo, full G driving license, check! :) Afterwards, popped by Steph's place since we'll be getting together with Jean to prepare for the evening's SPF night at fellowship. Had lunch with Steph (mmm...shawarma... mmm... garlic... hahaha, Garlic King! aiyiyiyiy! ;) and we stopped by a coffee shop for gelato and my daily caffeine fill before heading to Jean and Jon's place, where it was a pleasure prepping for SPF, listening to music, and just messing around (stupid stuffed frog...grr... stop stealing all the pillows, Steph! :P). Had Pho for dinner with fellowship peeps before heading to fellowship. SPF went really well (heheh, even despite our sore guitar fingers)... good worship and prayer... yay, team! Oh, and Sam was back in town, so that was a very welcome sight. We all went out for bubble tea afterwards to cap off the evening.

Saturday:
Saturday, with my parents back at home, it was a nice morning just catching up with them and hearing them share about their experiences in Prague, over breakfast. Afternoon, went to play b-ball with the Celebration crew, bringing Sam and Vanny along with me... heheh, got banged up a bit, but it was all in good fun. :) Heheh, being the smallest guy on the court all the time, the laws of physics aren't exactly on my side, heheh. :P Thank goodness my outside shot is starting to connect a bit... that's been missing all summer. Evening was spent hanging out with the two guys... too bad Andrew couldn't join us.

Sunday:
Sunday morning, popped by CCCO in the morning for their combined service. Pastor Cal had asked the China missions team to help him sing a Mandarin song that tied in to his message. It was the same song that the Evergreen team sang to us at the end of the final presentation in the village. Yeech... Mandarin... hope I didn't butcher the song too much. Haha. Had lunch with Sam then took a nap before heading off to Orleans to pick up Steph & Ben on the way to Frank's for some major jammage. Frank just got a new set of electric drums... and that opened up a whole new world of possibilities! haha. Man, I had a blast... missed playing in a band setting and missed playing electric guitar... and even though it was just the 4 of us, we had a great time jamming and worshipping. Oh, and as a pleasant surprise to me, we even tried a live version of a new worship song I wrote, and, with the help of everyone there, I thought it turned out quite well! Eeeech, I sooo prefer a live band over my dinky keyboard and drum loops... :P I was so pleased afterwards since it's a great feeling to have something you write come to life and actually sound decent! Heheh. What a great way to end a great week! :)