Time to fly

WOW-Bintan, INDONESIA 2007 DAY 1 (24/507)

I started the day with 4 hours of sleep from the night before. Somehow, I felt really energised, super energised to be exact. Haha, maybe it was just the excitement of WOW that hyped me up. The ferry ride, which took about 1h 40 mins was clustered with gossipping, surprises and a lot of laughter and emoing. When the boat's engines just started, a man made a big fuss about changing seats with yuen hao and that led to a heated argument between him and (ironically) the boat authorities. It was really uncalled for and surprising in the sense that they bothered to make a huge mountain out of such a mole hill for us. Oh well, it was definitely a memorable start to the trip.

we had lunch near the orphanage. The food was really not bad, all spicy and in small plates of small portions, a lot of varieties. I managed to eat quite a bit. It is worth mentioning that our permanent bus for the trip is at the state of beyond redemption. It had no air-con, lousy cuisioned very small seats, a blocked ventilator and ants crwaling on the bus floor. Oh well, we didnt expect luxury. What made our day was definitely the warm welcome we received from the kids at the orphanage. Dressed in neat yellow traditional indonesian costumes, they lined up along the tiny pathway playing drums, singing and clapping when the bus arrived. They looked so happy to see us, faces of anticipation and excitement crammed againsts each other to get a better look of us. That really touched my heart. That's not all they prepared though. They performed about 5 items , each lasting 5-7 mins of dance and songs for us. They were good. A permanent smile was greased on my lips as i watched all of them performing with such enthusiasm and joy. It was just very heart-warming. They had so little to offer in physical materials but so much more in friendship and hospitality. So much that it made all of us feel really embarrassed cos we didnt prepare anything. However, thanks to the aplenty musical talents in our class, we put up a really impromptu show, starring matthew ge and the guitar, lucy with juggling, myself, junen and edmund with a song(accompagnied by Bert and Ian)

All in all it went well until we inspected the rooms we are about to paint and find out it was really in a very bad condition. I expected them to be in a dismal state but i didnt expect this appalling conditions. It made me feel very blessed and at the same time, there was a tremendous sense of sympathy for these kids. I was determined to shape up their rooms.

Dinner was, well, not too bad except it was a bit too little and in the end, all of us ended up eating cup noodles as supper. There was prayer meeting, It was really not bad, Worship was not exactly revival material but it was good enough to convict my heart that our class was committed, had strong christians and are going to be a good bunch to work with. The prayers were sincere, or at least sounded sincere to me. I felt good all in all. We stayed there a while to watch the result of american idol. It was obvious that Jordan would win though. A well-deserved win.

It would be such an injustice not to mention that the girls played an impressive number of rounds of bridge and taiti. I was ultimate ownage hahaha =PP Jeanette and I formed a strong Bolsheviks alliance that led to ultra ultimate ownage hehehe. We made lots of noise and had tonnes of fun =D Cards playing continued into the night, accompagnied by music from 3 different MP3 players, out of which, mine was found to be the most appropriate =))

okie..isnt this a bit too lonng???yeah...Day 2 will be shorter =))


DAY 2 (25/5)

I'm going to skip all the litle details cos i'm already behind in my reflections and i still have my QT to do.

We went to the orphanage in the morning. It was really quite chaotic. First, we were told that they could not find the paint brushes and rollers. There was a frenzy of activties going as people did not know what they had to do. In the end, after much negotiating, discussion and calls for manpower, we managed to get started with scrubbing the walls of the different rooms as well as toilets. There were really an underutilisation of factos of production cos there were too many people slacking and few people slugging it out. One of them was me. There was paint everywhere on my body, from head to toe, literally.

We had lunch at the orphanage which was quite unexpected cos we didn't know it was in their budget to provide lunch for us. Anyway, lunch was not bad at all, especially the cold orange cordial..oh man it had never tasted so good before.Then we headed to Loola, another resort/chalet on the sea for activities. It really compensated for all the frustration of the first hald of the day. We did obstacle course, in which i was quite proud of myself for almost completing it. At least i conquered my fear of height. However, the obstacle course really strained my arm muscles and by the time we reached the rock climbing wall my arm muscles really refused to bug. I went up half way and had to come down. The only girl in our grp who managed to reach the top was jeanette =D No surprise eh? =P Then, we reached the highlight of the day, flying fox. I was quite scared at first but after a few girls went(alyssha, jeanette and lee min respectively) i was encouraged enough and went ahead with it. I screamed a little at the beginning but in the end, it was really enjoyable haha. I wanted to do it again! =)) Well, when everybody had tried, we headed back to Acro resort in the same old tattered but faithful bus. i shall end it here for the day. Too tired, and too much more to write if i let my emotions take over. I just want to say this, I missed him quite terribly the first night. but its really getting better. distance really makes the hearts grow fonder.i secretly hope, somehow, some way, hes thinking of me too...

This verse spoke to me very strongly about our class and even LDC as I did my QT. since i'm backlogging, i might as well tell you they really did came true(as in the conviction and warning from God were very real) during the ad party of LDC. God is speaking ever so strongly to me like He had never done so before...

"in the same way, faith, if not accompagnied by actions, is dead"-James 2:17


DAY 3 (26/5)

The day started with CIP work at the orphanage again. Today was less messy because people now know more or less their jobs. Wewanted to paint deisgns onto the bigger walls we had whitewashed, so Tsar Nicholas and John Wong and Edmund went to draw and outline the designs. They painted a world map. The Tsar's great architectural skill is to be deeply admired by his fellow comrades for it was quite a masterpiece =) They settled on painting 2 colours, original white and blue fading out to white(John's artistic direction). When it was almost complete (by quite a number of us) it was quite a sight to behold. Everybody seemed happy with it though we didnt have time to finish the effects. Some others (sports grp) went with the kids to the football field to play frisbee and soccer. I think almost every factor of productioni was utilised. However, the time we could at the orphanage was really short. It was just 2 hours and we had to leave in a hurry, abandoning the paint and stuff on the floor without clearing them...We also had just reached the optimum rate when we had to stop. Lunch was at a restaurant next to a shopping mall. Oh yes, 26/5 which meant that the 2 other members of the class would join us during lunch. The day before, i accidentally slipped talkin about Ryan and jeanette when Jeanette was behind me. She almost strangled me to death =P The only feasible/sensible deal was that she could tease me about Gareth for the next few days, to which she agreed at the great amusement of the girls. Therefore, today was supposedly major suaning day for me. I didn't turn out that bad but I think the entire class is now in on it =S Haha I really didn't mind it so much since it's not true anyway. I just kind of think it's not too nice to Gareth since it MIGHT be true for him.

Well ,after their failed attempt to put me and gareth together in the bus, and after a long ride in a bus with supposed air-con that was not working and hence an oven, we reached Loola with all our luggage and stuff. The girls get to pick our chalet first. Since we had 8, we must take the biggest chalet which was unfortunately located next to the teachers' chalet. Oh well, what to do...Anyway, that disappointing first option was completely forgotten when we saw the beauty of the entire structure of the chalets. They are all supported by wooden posts in the sea, linked up by wooden pathways of wooden planks. It was really quite awesome, since it was my first time experiencing this. We were given about 45 mins to settle in. After having decided our sleeping arrangement, we played some stupid "logic" games which have no logics at all and of cuz CARDS =)) Hehehe... The better part of the siesta though was just to sit there, to enjoy the cool sea breeze and admire God's creation of this so ever-amazing earth. More of that soon =)

The activity for the afternoon was just kayaking/canoeing. So