Thank God it's Footwear

I think it's supposed to be some rite of passage for one to hate their first job and complain about it incessantly, but I just haven't had the opportunity to do either. It's actually been going well, and it's gotten exponentially better in the past week, especially in terms of relationships. Of course, with the month-end reports coming up in the next couple of weeks, I might eat my words, but in the meantime, I couldn't ask for more.

I woke up with a massive cramp in my left calf on Thursday morning though, and the nagging pain still persists. I blame this on the irresistibly pretty heelies that I wear to work. That's about it, and I think if all I have to complain about is footwear, then I know I have a lot to thank God for.

***

Perhaps what I love most about working is that I can really leave it all at the office at the end of the day -- no homework, no projects, no exams. And because of the location of my workplace, where we have to catch the company bus out promptly at 5:30 pm, there is practically no culture of overtime work, so I have enjoyed the after-work dinners and fellowship with friends and family, and the freedom at which to attend prayer meetings without worrying about undone work (which was admittedly a huge concern when I was schooling).

It's a nice habit that I've gotten into these past weeks, and one I hope to keep up. It's one thing to meet up as a group, and quite another to have intimate one-on-one conversations; well, some more intimate than others, but it's always a very different direction of communication over one in a group setting.

***

It's different, being back home. It's a different life -- in some ways easier, in other ways painfully more difficult.

Offering

I've been trying to transpose my Kazakhstan journal to cyberspace, but I just couldn't find the time to do it before tonight. But even as I read through the little handwritten notes and entries, I can't seem to be able to weave the words around these stories to tell them the way they deserve to be told.

I can't remember where it starts and where it ends, but I remember that afternoon that we played ball with the village children -- we call it "Monkey," they call it "Potatoes" -- and as we turned to leave, two young girls ran up to us and gave us each a candy bar. I remember that in that moment, I came to a completely new understanding of the parable of the two copper coins; for the first time, I felt just a tiny bit of what God feels when we offer what little we have to Him -- and that was enough to utterly overwhelm me.

I turned to Meizhen, and I saw her eyes start to water as well.

"This moment makes the whole trip worthwhile, doesn't it?" I choked out. I couldn't stop smiling, and she nodded furiously, still unable to speak.

It was like that every single day that we were there; just when we thought it couldn't get any better, it always would, and the words just seem so inadequate, no matter how hard I try.

I know how silly it seems when I say that I struggle to get back into what has been my natural habitat for more than 23 years, but I do -- I am struggling. I don't know for sure yet the reason for this resistance, but I hope that when I eventually find out why, I will have the strength to obey and move wherever God leads.

***

All that I am, all that I have
I lay them down before You, O Lord
All my regrets, all my acclaim
The joy and the pain, I'm making them Yours

Things in the past, things yet unseen
Wishes and dreams that are yet to come true
All of my hopes, all of my plans
My heart and my hands are lifted to You

Lord, I offer my life to You
Everything I've been through
Use it for Your glory
Lord, I offer my days to You
Lifting my praise to You
As a pleasing sacrifice
Lord, I offer You my life

What can we give that You have not given
What do we have that is not already Yours
All we possess are these lives we're living
And that's what we give to You, Lord

-- "I Offer My Life" by Claire Cloninger and Don Moen

Story of my life

Perhaps it's because I don't fly that often at all, but the rare view from the top is truly quite a sight to behold. On both flights out -- from Singapore to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Tashkent -- I was assigned window seats, and from the climbing skyscrapers, to the endless expense of green padi fields, and finally to the soft, glowing lights as we landed in Uzbekistan at midnight -- I was absolutely taken.

It made me wonder how it would've been, if I had been born at a different time, in a different place. Perhaps the only thing that I can be absolutely certain of is that I would still have been wholeheartedly pursued by God. Because He's told me that He would go to the ends of the earth to bring me to Himself -- He told me this when He sent His Son all the way from heaven; there is no where that I could go that would be too far for Him to find me.

Someone once said that no matter how far we run away from God, it only takes one step to go back to Him. That has been the story of my life.

***

I couldn't find the words then, but Deborah put it perfectly when she said how much sadness she felt in this place -- a sense that this was a region crying out for healing.

That first night, as I looked out of the plane's window onto the scattered lights, it looked like candles that were lit in mourning; abused and lost, and in need of love.

***

Meanwhile, it's been a new week for me, with a new job. I'm incredibly thankful that it has gone as well as it has.

After work on Monday, I met up with the team that went on the trip, and someone asked how Day One went; if I was nervous or scared, if I got any major jitters. The fact that I wasn't and didn't surprised even myself, but I suppose I've always been the one to look at the big picture -- after crossing the treacherous border of Central Asia and meandering through the crazy Kazakhstani traffic, I just couldn't imagine any worst case scenarios at work that would beat those.

I'm still getting a feel of things, but already feeling quite at home in my cubicle, which incidentally is quite a spacious one because I apparently inherited it from an assistant manager. How long do you wait before putting photos up? :)

A thousand reasons why I should give up

Sometimes I wonder what lies ahead
How long till my hunger is fed
They say it's hard to make it in this part of town
So many people on this merry-go-round

Some folks try astrology
Some turn to crystal balls
To find an answer
To get through it all
I just fall on my knees and I try to pray
In the silence I can hear Him say

The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign
Everything in its time

I often feel like I'm two steps behind
Somebody must have moved that finish line
There are a thousand reasons
Why I should give up
But I'm stubborn in the things I believe

'Cause maybe there's another plan
One I still can't see
A little surprise, like your love in my life
Funny how time changes how we see

-- "Everything in its Time" by Corrinne May

I'm not satisfied

I say on Sunday how much I want revival
But then on Monday, I can't even find my Bible
Where's the power
The power of the cross in my life

I'm sick of playing the game of religion
I'm tired of losing my reason for living
Where's the power
The power of the cross in my life

I'm not content just to walk through my life, giving in
To the lies, walking in compromises now
We cry out as a generation that was lost
But now is found in the power of the cross

We believe in You
We believe in the power of Your Word that is true
We believe in You
So we lay down our cause
That our cross might be found in You

I'm not satisfied doing it my own way
I'm not satisfied to do church and walk away
I'm not satisfied there's no love in my life but You
I'm not satisfied living in yesterday's hour
I'm not satisfied to have the form but not the power
I'm not satisfied, Lord I am crucified in You

So we lay down our cause
That our cross might be found in You

-- "Believe" by Hillsong

Home

I'm home.

***

Too many things have happened these past couple of weeks, and words are simply not enough to tell the stories. You had to be there.

I told my sister, when I visited her in Perth, that the one feeling I had the entire time I was there was the constant awareness that I was an outsider. So the most surprising thing I felt when we landed was that of being at home.

Perth is in many ways similar to Singapore -- the big city, the labyrinth of well-paved roads -- but in the unfamiliar culture, living conditions, and language, I felt -- for the first time in my life -- more home than home. To literally reach out the window for grapes, apples, pears, apricots; to lie beneath the blanket of twinkling stars -- it was an indescribable comfort. Which is not to say it was a walk in the park at all; we worked hard the entire time we were there, and hardly had any time off.

If you know me, you'll know that I'm not a morning person at all. I typically don't have breakfast, because by the time I manage to wake up, I'm already late for school or whichever appointment I have planned. Perhaps a huge testament to the kind of joy that I felt there was that I sprung out of bed every single morning before my alarm clock rang -- just too happy to wake up and start a new day.

***

I didn't want to leave, and while part of it has to do with what I've mentioned -- how much I loved the place -- it has more to do with the people that I fell in love with and gave my heart to.

To build relationships with the teenagers in the homes, and the patients in the drug rehab centres, and then to leave them so quickly -- it's too cruel, and it breaks my heart. I don't know if I can do this short-term missions thing, and I don't want to scare my parents, but the only way I can continue this wonderful thing that God has shown me, is to devote my whole life to it.

It's something that I'm still praying about.

***

Before we left Kazakhstan on Sunday afternoon, we said our goodbyes and gave each other farewell hugs and handshakes. It's the first time I've been in a group where I've been the youngest, and I've been unspeakably blessed, encouraged, and inspired, by the people I've met and worked with on this trip. I had so much on my mind then -- too much to think about -- that I didn't even have time to take in the finality of leaving. I took one last look at the green gate that housed my new home, took a deep breath, and got into the taxi.

It was only after we had crossed the treacherous border, and finally moved into Uzbekistan, with Kazakhstan behind us, that the magnitude of what the last two weeks had done for me finally hit -- and the tears started to flow.

***

I'm home.

I'm home, but why does it feel like I've left Home behind?