First week in NUS

Have been attending lots of welcome tea... attended the NUS Navigators, Chinese Varsity Christian Fellowship, and finally the Campus Crusade for Christ (They are all Christian groups). Have been thinking about signing up for golf and Red Cross as well, but know that I will have too much on my hands... what will having driving lessons now and learning how to play the guitar... And I've decided that, in NUS, I will be a Christian first and a student second.

Haivng just come back from the Campus Crusade Vision tea... I have decided to join them... I feel God's presence so strongly among them!

At the end of the session, I joined them for Thanksgiving, when they gave thanks to God for helping them conquered all the problems which cropped up in the process of organising this event. They thanked God for using them... They thanked each other for a job well done. They thanked each other who served. They thanked each other for giving support...

Wow... This is the first time I see a committee thanking God, thanking one another... Having been on so many committees myself, I have never seen anything like this... Amazing...

More to come... it's getting late... need to prepare for tm's lesson...

The Parable of the Pencil

The Pencil Maker took the pencil aside, just before putting him into the box. There are 5 things you need to know, he told the pencil, before I send you out into the world. Always remember them and you will become the best pencil you can be.

One: You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow yourself to be held in Someone's hand.

Two: You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, but you'll need it to become a better pencil.

Three: You will be able to correct mistakes you will make.

Four: The most important part of you will always be what's inside.

And Five: On every surface you are used on, you must leave your mark.No matter what the condition, you must continue to write.

The pencil understood and promised to remember, and went into the box with purpose in its heart. Now replacing the place of the pencil with you; always remember them and you will become the best person you can be.We were only told this snippet of the story at OBS, but the story goes on. Read on at http://lilbaker.tripod.com/christian/pencil.htmlI never knew this was a Christian parable, and when I heard it first, I never knew the 'someone' in the first lesson was not just someone, but a capitalized 'Someone', and I guess it makes more sense now, though it did make sense to me even when I thought it was 'someone', in the sense that we should never try to do everything on our own and let ourselves be guided by people wiser/more capable than us at times. Not to be headstrong and insist on doing everything by ourselves.

"Lifted from Andrew Chong's blog."