~light of the world~

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Today's the last Sunday of the year, and also the last Sunday that our pastor will be preaching at our service as our pastor in charge for this term.

But I wasn't able to listen to his sermon (on the end times, no less!) because I had to go and teach Pri Sunday School, in which something nice happened. I was supposed to give out the Christmas presents to them, and I could choose in which order to let the students pick out the ones they wanted - in accordance to good behaviour. There was also one special present for the best student, in terms of attendance, behaviour, character.

So I laid out all the presents on the table and let them say which ones they wanted. There was a surplus and some repeated presents, so there wouldn't really have been a problem, except that two kids wanted the same one of which there was only one.

Because one of them was really better behaved than the other, I let her pick it first, but I asked the other kid whether he'd be the more magnanimous one and let her have it, and he agreed reluctantly. I'm pretty proud of him for doing so, and I gave him the special present.

As for the annual dinner, I was supposed to be the co-MC (like interpreting the Chinese to English) and was pretty stressed about it, but in the end I felt rather superfluous, because the other MC would read out the whole English thing, and then there'd be clapping/standing/praying etc, rendering my translating unnecessary.

I seriously think like 90% of the church understands Chinese anyway! And the 10% who don't normally understand the dialects instead of English. But it was good being there, because the youths had all been positioned far away back at the minichapel, where the noise wouldn't disturb the adults, and they had no idea about anything going on the social hall!

So at least I got to see the welcoming and farewell-ing and praying and singing! The pianist is pro! And bilingual pastors even more so! Rev Chai was right when he said we're such a blessed church to have the most pastors in the CAC, despite the mass swap-around we're having next year.

The minichapel with the youths presented a rather rowdy and chaotic situation, with more people out of seats than in at some points, a lot of yelling and cheering and walking around and taking of photos. Even the children of pastors left their prestigious seats at the stage and went to the back where we were!

I'm grateful for the sane people at my table (even Melissa and her photo-snapping frenzy). Though I think we wasted a lot of food, since Yue, Jodie, Serene and Andrea were MIA for a few dishes.

I also think the CJ people were rather high because they're having their camp now. Looking back at it, one year ago I probably wouldn't have been able to name more than a handful of them (also those from MM), and now I recognise and greet many more. It's great to have a combined youth!

Labels: church

xuan blogged at 10:33 PM

May your light shine...
in the darkness...