Prepping cell for a time of testimonies, got me reading some of my old ones, and I'm so inspired by how real God is, and how on fire I was back then, and all the crazy things that were happening. I believe there is a spiritual releasing that happens when you go back there, the gifts and power and anointing that was there, so yeah (:
A huge reason why we should do testimonies. On its own. Hahhahaa. And encourages me to do this next one that is nagging me. Ugh. Well. I'd better post this! WARNING. REALLY REALLY LONG.
SEPTEMBER 08
In the month of September, God has been using my love for a couple of really really close friends in SAJC, Charlene and Charmaine, to lead me to commit to praying for them frequently for their promos, and using that time of prayer to lead me into pray for other people and other things as well, like other people’s studies, and for my relationship with my family to improve. It was quite cool because at first all I prayed for was for the ability and love to pray more, and after a while prayer just came easily and I was doing it without thinking about it much, but as I look back now I can see the direct result of that first prayer, that God really DID lead me into praying more(:
OCTOBER 08
I’ve been reading this book, or starting to read this book that Yisin lent me, If You Want To Walk On Water You Have To Get Out Of The Boat, by John Ortberg. It’s a book about stepping out in faith out against fear, out of your comfort zone, and it’s a book that I’m going through really slowly, it urges you to pray a lot and do a lot of soul-searching, asking God and yourself what are your deepest fears, what makes you feel safe outside of God, identifying your boat and inspiring you to step out of it, showing you the importance of stepping out, that if you step out, every time you do, it gets easier to step out the next time in obedience to God’s voice, because you’ve learnt to trust Him. And if you don’t step out, the chances of you stepping out the next time are even less. I’ve only gone through 5 chapters, and not all of them thoroughly, and already its made such an impact on me. Because one of the biggest things I struggle with all the time is fear. Fear of something going wrong. Fear of getting hurt. Fear that people will judge me, will think I’m desperate for attention, so I don’t say hi to people that I want to say hi to. Fear of a lot of things. And I resolve that as I go to a whole week of camps in my last week of school, I’m going to step out against fear in faith. I don’t know for what, but I will.
SATURDAY 4/10/08
Sherry, 14, from Crescent Girls Sec School, told me that God wanted me to be His Voice. I wasn’t overly surprised, because it tied in with my calling by God that He has confirmed at least twice already.
SUNDAY 5/10/08
I went for dinner with my family! In the weeks since God told me to go back and attend family church on Sunday, my relationship with them has been slowly improving, and today at dinner I was able to have a discussion with my father about the Charismatic Movement, and what I believe in! Like, a comprehensive argument, and although there was no real conclusion to that argument, it was a big thing for me because in the past two years I have not been able to talk to my father AT ALL, let alone stand up for what I believe in. And I was grateful, and able to see that this was a result of prayer, prayer that God has been leading me more and more to do. When Sharyl shared her own breakthroughs with her family lately, and how it was a result of prayer, I was still actually quite sceptical, not seeing how God could do His work in my own family. But now I am so amazed (:
When I got home so awed, and amazed, I blogged about it, and called people to read it, because its such a cool thing! Haha. In response to that, Sherry sent me a message telling me that God said: “Pray continuously, and receive in joy and gladness what God has in store for you”. Which was cool in itself, because it was an encouragement to keep on pressing, and keep on prayer, and revel in the power of frequency of prayer and God’s goodness, which He had just shown me.
Two hours later though, at 1 AM, Joanna, 19, from LSCT in Ngee Ann, sent me the verse 1 Thess 5: 16-18 : “ Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” And I was overawed, when I read the Bible to find it! I mean, it was almost exactly the same thing that Sherry had sent me two hours ago, and these two people definitely don’t know each other, let alone what each other had said! So I definitely can’t ignore that verse right, with God hammering it so closely in my face. He definitely has an intent for me in that verse (:
However, I was notified by the EXCO of the Ngee Ann Student Union, which I’m supposed to be a part of but resigned because God told me to, that I have to go for a compulsory leadership training camp for the EXCO in school from Friday to Sunday, and if I don’t go, I have to pay 850 dollars! And I didn’t really want to go, because the situation was rather awkward between me and the remaining EXCO (because I quit), and with already having to go to two different camps from Monday till Thursday, I wanted to stay home sometime this week, school starting the very next week and I had to go to church anyway on Saturday and Sunday. So many other things I could do with the time, for God, or for other people! Yeah. But in light of what God has been showing me recently with the power of prayer and the verse He just gave me, I wasn’t overly discouraged, and committed the whole thing to prayer, asking others to pray for me as well, but understanding that if I did have to go to the camp in order to not pay the 850 dollars, He wanted me there for a reason. Yeah. So it was relatively okay (:
MONDAY 6/10/08
Lugged myself to Campus Crusade Camp, which would have lasted for 4 days from Monday to Thursday at Changi Fairy Point, in the bungalow chalets by the sea. I couldn’t go for the whole camp though, I had another compulsory Student Leader Prep Camp organized by the NP Ambassadors (who are the outreach arm of the school) for Red Camp 5 (which is the outreach 3 day camp for 3000 Sec 4 students) on Wednesday to Thursday, so my plan was to leave on Wednesday morning after morning prayer(:
Camp was amazing! We entered into a time of praying and asking God what He brought us individually here for, and I realized very quickly that this was the reason why He had impressed upon me the very 1 Thess 5: 16-18. That He wanted me to use this camp to continue to cultivate a habit of continual prayer and worship without fear, taking advantage of the lifestyle of worship that would be at such a camp, and as I was being open and unafraid to express my love to Him at camp, that this would encourage and help other people at the camp in turn to open up and worship Him openly without fear, and be blessed because of it, you know? So that was amazing.
On the first night, during worship before the message, I was worshipping in joy, due to all the good things He had been blessing me with over the past few days, but something was a bit off. I wasn’t feeling desperate. Because God had yeah, been so real to me over the past few days, it was like I was getting “used” to having Him around? And this was not good. Haha. I didn’t want to grow complacent. So I started asking God for trials, for risks, for the wilderness, so I’d be able to cling onto Him desperately and not grow complacent. And He said, “You want trials? Keann? You want the wilderness? Then step out and take them! The trials are right in front of you, stepping out and evangelising to the next person you see on the street, that’s a trial! And there’re so many of them! If you want to walk on water, then step out of the boat!”
And I was like “ :o”. Remember the book I was reading? It tied in totally in that! Which was crazy (: Haha. Yeah.
The message was given by a speaker, Elaine. And her message spoke so much to me, in so many areas, and I was really quite overcome. The message was about trust. And trusting God. To believe even if you’re scared. Because trust does not mean lack of fear, fear is always going to be there, but the difference is stepping out against it anyway! And then she started talking about this course that she did called SWAA, and her testimony during the Treasure Hunt Activity. And yeah, the four of us from COOS there, Sharyl, Cerise, Alison and I, kinda spazzed out. Haha. So cool. She started talking about how when you trust God and step out, you discover a little bit more that God CAN be trusted! And a little more, and a little more, and you have more power to step out the next time! I was kinda spazzing out at this point, because everything she was saying matched up EXACTLY with the book I I had in my bag right there, that I had been reading slowly over the past few days. It was a very scary thing. But so cool. Haha. She started talking about Abraham, and the story of Isaac. How even when God asked Abraham to offer his son as a flesh sacrifice, Abraham remembered the promise that God made to him about his destiny and the destiny of his son, that he would become the father of Israel, and he had faith that God would bring Isaac back. And she was telling us that if God has promised us a destiny, don’t ever lose faith in it, He’s going to bring us there somehow! And of course this whole time, I am greatly encouraged, and thinking about Sherry telling me just a few days before, “God wants you to be His Voice”.
Altar Call was crazy. There were three altar calls that night, and I went up for the third one, which was for those who have been touched by God about a destiny for them in Him. Full-time or otherwise. And the cool thing that happened was, I met this guy standing next to me, and instead of waiting for prayer, we ended up talking, and sharing our callings, and praying for one another! And then we were led to run around and pray for other people, with the love overflowing out of us through God’s love for us. And all around the room, this was happening. People designated to pray for others were getting prayed for, words of encouragement being spoken, people crying, God moving, and it was crazy. And eventually I was prayed for as well, by this guy, Dillan, who sensed that my relationship with my earthly father was kinda rocky even though I never told him that, and overall it was a very cool night (:
There was this girl there, Joyce, who wasn’t part of the Campus Crusade camp, but was a cell member of the speaker’s, Elaine, cell. And I knew her because we worked before very closely for Freshmen Orientation Camp for Ngee Ann Student Union, the Union that I was resigning from. And it was amazingly cool because I was able to share with her everything, how God led me to quit that organization, and my fears and struggles that the other EXCO really don’t like me now, and my problem regarding the 850 dollars camp on Friday. And she could understand because like me, she knew all those people personally as well, they were people we had both worked with closely, individually. And we prayed, prayed for me and my problem with the camp, and we prayed for the Student Union, which is a place very far from God right now.
TUESDAY 7/10/08
Tuesday was awesome. During the group sharing sessions, before it came to my turn, God impressed on me that He wanted me to declare publicly that I had a problem, a severe one, struggling with pornography since Sec 2. Now this is something that even Keenan, who I tell almost everything to, doesn’t know about me. And I had been struggling, trying to deal with it on my own strength, and a couple of people knew about my problem, but its not the same as declaring it publicly. You know? And I did feel fear. A lot of it. My heart was thumping, my fingers were trembling, but in light of everything that had been happening over the past few days, through the book I was reading, through Elaine’s message the previous night, I was prepared for that fear, and prepared to step out into the light no matter what. As I tell this now, this is the 8th time since then I have been able to declare of my struggle with pornography, and each time it gets a little easier. The 2nd time was hard, the 3rd time a little less hard, and so on! Like the book and Elaine said, it gets a little easier every time! Trusting God! And I am being set free, and up till this date I have not sinned in that way yet, even though I have been tempted, and I’m going to seek an accountability group and everything, learning that this is something I am going to keep fighting and fighting until the day I die, being male, but gosh am I going to keep fighting. And keep declaring. Haha.
And what was cool was that as I shared, the guy next to me managed to share about his own struggles with porn as well, and another guy, and how he managed to stay free of it up till now with an accountability group and everything, and we were all greatly encouraged. The girls too. So if you go back and look at my second expectation for camp, which was let God shine through me stepping out in faith and worship and prayer and encourage other people to come closer to God as well, that was fulfilled greatly that day, and I am glad (:
Before the service, suddenly I was overcome by this urge to call my friend, Josh Simon, to get him to come to the camp and be blessed by God. Because I really worry about his spiritual walk a lot, he is a person that has so much potential and so many gifts given to him by God, but those same gifts and talents, in music and dance and everything, also can leave him very distracted by the secular world, and I called him and asked him to come down, on impulse, knowing full well I was asking the impossible. He stayed at Bukit Panjang, the camp was at Changi, it was already 7pm. But God can do anything, and after Josh said he would think about it, I put down the phone and started praying. I asked Sharyl to pray. I asked other people in the camp who knew him to pray. And the the service started.
Worship was awesome, as always. As I stood there worshipping God, I was telling God that I really didn’t want to leave the next morning to go to that other camp. That I wanted to stay, to stay in a place where so many people, including me, are learning and growing and being healed and being blessed, and God’s Presence is clearly here and I want to stay and worship Him, and if He wanted me to stay and sacrifice the other camp, I would gladly do so. But then God said, go. He told me that even as yes he wanted to grow and teach and restore all these other people at camp, specifically He wanted me to go do His work now, out on the frontline, that I had been restored enough, for now. That He wanted me to bring the spirit of worship that I had been learning from this camp to the other camp, and take the camp for God. So that was cool. Haha. Then I realised, that it really was okay for me to go for the other camp, for when I signed up to be a Student Leader for Red Camp, I didn’t make the mistake I made when I ran for office at Student Union, and I asked God first! And he said yes back then! Which shows that He had already taken all this into account already(:
And by and by, after the message ended, Josh called me and told me that he was on his way, and at Tampines. And I praised God. Haha. Prayer does work! Praying continually! 1 Thess 5:16-18!
And so I left the camp the next morning after morning prayer on the jetty by the sea as the sun was rising, where me and another friend, Melodie, prayed that as I left the camp, that I really would bring the spirit of worship over to the other camp, that doors would be opened for me and that it would be an effective time, even as I left in faith.
WEDNESDAY 8/10/08
Student Leader/ Red Camp camp was a blast. Megafun, as always. But even in all that fun, God helped me to remember my purpose for coming for this camp, my purpose for coming here, and He also helped me to pray for all those people back at Campus Crusade camp at Changi, all the people in my group, and especially Josh Simon. Yeah. At night, I pulled a few people together, close friends, and asked them if we could meet for prayer at 12.30am! And they said yes! So the result of that was, me, Adin from City Harvest, Priscilla from Hinghwa Methodist Church, and Joyce and Yongjin from Coos met to pray and take this school for God. And the cool thing was that even though I’ve never led Word before EVER in cell, God just led me to use the verse 1 Thess 5:16-18 to prepare for the session, and he helped me plan on how to do everything, and it was a really good time of sharing and prayer, sitting at the void deck praying in plain sight, not hiding, even as everyone else is having fun playing away upstairs in the apartments of our sleeping area. And I was so grateful for everyone who came down(: What actually happened, was that after we went through the prayer points derived from the verse 1 Thess 5: 16-18, God led us in a time of praying for friends, backslided Christians in this camp, for Adin, a boy in his cell group that was going to go to the Boy’s Home, and people in this camp that we loved so, so much, were such wonderful people but were not Christians, and it broke our hearts to think that they were not going to go to heaven with us ):
So yeah, it was awesome.
THURSDAY 9/10/08
Camp ended today. It was crazily amazing fun. And what happened was that our group tribe, Apaches, had dinner together and went to the playground to chill. People had to go home though, and soon at 9pm-ish there were only 3 of us left, me, this girl called Faith, and this girl called Ning.
And we were talking, and suddenly Ning started breaking down and telling us about how she had no sense of purpose, she didn’t know what she was doing in this school, that she came to Poly only because she didn’t want her friends to see her as a failure after quitting JC, and she couldn’t understand why she was doing well when she clearly didn’t deserve it, and people who were so motivated in her course weren’t doing as well as her. She started sharing that that the reason why she left JC was because she wasn’t in school 80% of the time, she was always sick and as a result didn’t know what was going on in school, and then she told us that the reason why she was always in the hospital was that she kept trying to kill herself, over and over again. And they admitted her to psychiatric wards, and tried to cure her by means of this electroshock therapy, where they pass an electric current through your brain and its supposed to refire your brain cells or something. At this point, she said she was hallucinating, that she could see weird things and she felt like earthworms were eating her ears? Things like that. And she went for the treatments monthly, the doctors didn’t even know how it worked, only that it worked, but the problems kept coming back. And her memory was damaged because of the treatments. She told us that she could remember who her classmates were, and what her class was, but she couldn’t remember experiences with them, nor what she used to value. And I was listening to all of this, I could not NOT share the gospel, you know? It was like God was lining up ducks for me to shoot at at a fair and there’s this huge voice foghorning inside my brain going “THIS IS REAL, THIS IS WHAT YOU’VE BEEN PRAYING FOR, THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK YOU HAVE TO DO FOR ME, TAKE IT.”
And so I did(: I didn’t even know Faith was a Christian, but I couldn’t let this pass, you know? And this was the first time ever I’ve ever shared the gospel. I don’t think I did it awesomely well, I was worried so much that I was saying the wrong thing, and I think it was a very messy sharing, but I guess I believe that everything I said, and the way I said it, were the words that God put in my mouth for Ning to hear, and I’m going to believe in faith that seed has been sown, and I’m really praying she will come under God’s protection, for I believe that all the things she shared that she is going through really are spiritual attacks, you know? Yeah. The sharing took from 9pm to 12am, and I had to take a cab home, but seriously now. Treasures in heaven vs treasures on earth. This is so much more pressing. Haha. You know like a guy who reads comics and watches superhero movies all his life, and suddenly discovers he does have powers, he CAN fly, and suddenly he’s fighting for his life and getting into something way bigger than he is? And he doesn’t really know what he’s doing? That’s what it felt like. Haha. But I’m glad I did it (: Ning hasn’t accepted the gospel yet, but we are praying (:
It doesn’t end yet. After we sent Ning home in a cab, Faith and I were talking, and we prayed a little more, for her and for Ambassadors, and then I took a cab home myself. And I switched on my phone, which I had turned off because of camp, and suddenly in the cab all these messages started flooding in, words of love and encouragement and prayer from the people in my group from Campus Crusade camp! Like, my phone was beeping again and again and again and going off like crazy and I was so overcome? It was like after putting myself out there for God, and sharing the gospel in a very emotionally draining way, God was like giving me nourishment, giving me food, welcoming me back, saying “Good job, Keann, here is your reward.”
And I was so overcome, and everything was happening so fast. It keeps getting better. As I held my phone, I had this need to call as many people as I could, to pray for Ning’s salvation and protection. But I realised that the first thing I must do, is to call my mom and tell her I’m okay and that I’m coming home now, because the camp was supposed to end at 6pm, and my phone is off and its 12 am, and she must be worried sick, and I have to apologise and explain to her that I was sharing the gospel. Yeah. And then I get off the phone with my mom, and I realise that I don’t have enough money to pay for the taxi that I’m sitting in ._.
But in light of everything, I can’t not pray, right? Haha. And so I prayed and asked God to handle it for me, and then I asked the taxi driver, and HE OFFERED TO TAKE ME HOME FOR FREE (:
So cool! Haha. The coolest bit was, he said it was okay because I was a good boy, that I had a family, and he wouldn’t do it for a bad boy but I’m a good boy. And I realised that he overheard my conversation with my mom, and I realised that actually before I even prayed, God had already handled the situation for me by making me realise the most important thing is to honour my parents, considering that not so long ago I really wouldn’t care at all whether I stayed out late or whether my parents were worrying and I wouldn’t tell them anything. So it was totally awesome (:
And yeah. Haha. Its been crazy. I mean, coming back to the verse 1 Thess 5:16-18, all that God has been teaching me through it, to pray continually, and to be obedient to God, and to step out in faith against fear, so much has been happening! From being restored myself and set free from the prison of pornography, and being sent to do his work, leading “Word” and prayer for the first time, and then going to the very front line of the front lines to do battle with the gospel! Its been a mad mad week and it all started through prayer, and the frequency of prayer (:
And you know, the icing on the cake? Josh Simon, the guy we were praying for? By all accounts, on the last day, the day I wasn’t there, he really bonded with the people there, and was really impacted by the camp and by God! So that’s amazingly cool. And another thing? Remember that 850 dollar Student Union Camp? I called the President of the EXCO after all of this had happened, on Thursday night, and he told me I didn’t have to go or pay 850 dollars!!! My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus! Yay (:
Its really been an amazing time, every single thing that God has been leading me to pray for this week has come to pass. He’s met every single need I’ve had, everything, and really its all through the power of prayer! So prayer does work! Pray and pray and pray! 1 Thess 5: 16-18! (: And as school starts next week, I’m going to try this thing where the Christians in my class get together everyday we see each other before class to pray. I don’t really know how its going to go. And its definitely going to be scary. But I will pray for it, and persevere, and I can’t wait to see what will happen. God has been so good to me (:
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