Finished my last paper on the 9th November and flew off to Bangkok that evening. It was a wonderful feeling to be on an aeroplane again. I couldn't even remember the last time I was on a plane. Maybe P4? Not sure also. But it was awesome. Found it very amusing how aeroplanes work.
Anyway, it was a smooth two and a half hour journey from Terminal 1 to the new Suvarnabhum Airport. The airport is huge. When we came out from the airport, I was pleasantly surprised to see the weather. It was not as warm and dusty as I heard it to be.
800 Baht cab fare. When we reached Samran Place to meet up with shirls, daniel and veron, we just left the cab in a hurry, forgetting we left our luggage in the boot. Thank God for that kind taxi driver who called us back to collect our luggage. Can't believe how careless we were. Maybe it's just excitement, then forget everything else liao. We met up with Ps Lawrence and Dr Pat who were staying at Asia Hotel, the hotel one street away, for supper. Ps Lawrence asked us how much we paid for the cab fare (shirls now chuckling away cheekily...) . He asked, 200 Baht?, then 400 Baht?! then, 600 BAHT?!?!?!?!?! At this, I knew we were tok-ed like mad. Anyway, my consolation at the very least is that we sat in a very comfy Nissan Cefiro for the 1hr ride. Lesson learnt!
We managed to get quite a good sleep cos the rehearsal for Power of Praise 4 was in the afternoon the next day at Huamark Indoor Stadium. I was looking forward to meeting a few friends. Ps Golf, Ps Tim, Ps Kahn, Ps Foye, Niyom and his worship team. Upon arrival, we were hosted by Ps Prayuth, Chin and Simon. When I first saw Simon, I thought to myself, hmm this guy looks really familiar. Then I remembered. I met him many yrs ago at KAPT when he visited our worship team in sunday service. I was still serving in adults group then. It was good to see him still around and serving God faithfully and powerfully. It made me want to hang in there and continue to add to the worship team in Hope Singapore. We got to meet and talk to many musicians and singers. O man they really have a large pool of talent. So many bands, so many musicians involved. Many of them were pursuing a degree in music. Their orchestra was impressive. Got small boys and gals playing violin one. O they play well too by the way. Really exciting.
Sound check. We were talking among ourselves when suddenly this sax player did soundcheck for his instrument. Wa, all our heads turned. Speechless. He played "Forever In Love" by Kenny G. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice. I wish I was their soundman hahahaha. O anyway, the soundman they hired was the best soundman in thailand, according to their stage manager. During evaluation together with the contractors and vendors, could see the Hope Bangkok people really had great relationship with even the external contractors. Could see the soundman enjoy working with them. Veron asked one of the keyboardists, is the sound guy from Hope, the keyboardist replied no, he's not, but after Power of Praise 4, he will be! Amen to that!
After sound check we had the opportunity to lunch with Ps Prayuth, Chin and Simon. It was a Q&A session. Ps Prayuth and team really cleared up a lot of thoughts that have been floating around in my mind for a long long time. CHOP CHOP CHOP
POP 4. Bumped into Ps Foye at entrance. Seems to have put on weight. I think he was busy so no time to chat, only got to shake hands with him. Anyway, POP was a blast. Simon's pnw leading was so powerful and dynamic. I really admire him. Such a confident, loving, fun-loving, humble, normal-guy kinda leader. Normal-guy leaders like him never fail to inspire me. I love being around these people. First worship song, tear like nothing, all of us. haha it was so bad that I dun wanna open my eyes to sing the english lyrics for a while and just soak in the presence of God, otherwise flooded liao. Wat a touching song. One question that kept coming to me during that time was, How? How could I forget His mercy? How could I not love You Lord? How can I not give my life to You? All of us talked about that song after the concert. Hope we can use it for christmas! I just pray that You will give whoever translates it wisdom!
At night, we went to Suan Lum to shop. Got some gifts for certain people. Was quite a nice place to shop compared to Chatuchak. I reach the entrance I dun feel like shopping liao. Anyway, the next afternoon, Dan, Ron and Shuz went to shop at Chatuchak, Shirls, Ethan and I chose to go to Siam Paragon to slack. Took some amusing photos then went to Starbux to sit down and talk. It was a great talk. Talk talk talk talk talk. It was an unexpectedly fruitful sharing as we learnt abt each other's highest highs and lowest lows in our spiritual life. Shirls' one was quite interesting. Highest high and lowest low happened at the same time. Shirls is another normal-guy kinda leader I really look up to (normal-gal I meant). Although technically speaking she looks up to me cos i'm taller :P
One of the nights, I can't rem which one already (STM), we celebrated Daniel's birthday. Wa it was so fun lor! Can b my highest high liao. hahahaha! We joked that that night was probably Dan's lowest low. It was his birthday bash. Literally. We ambushed him and he actually thought he got the better of us by tricking us. We bashed him up anyway. The gals whacked him with pillows, ethan sat on him, i took his belt to tie his legs at his ankles upon shirls' command and shirls proceeded to pull his leg hair while i held his legs down with the belt. So fun! We affirmed him next. I'm glad to have him as a buddy.
Many other things happened. Got to meet Ps Tim on the 2nd last day. Met Ps Golf, Niyom and a few others. One thing i'd like to remember here was my time alone and away from the hope singaporeans for one evening and a morning. I had to extend my hotel stay another night cos my flight was on 13th. Had trouble extending. Called Ps Golf. He hooked me up with Niyom who in turn got Brother Noom, his sheep to get me a place to sleep and to take care of me. He could not do it himself cos he had to fly off early the next morning and a wake to visit that night. They were really warm. Dion kept telling Noom, Take good care of him!! It felt like family though i've only known these people for a short while. I love Hope family. 5 people brought me to the place i was to sleep at that night. Noom, Chuzpa, Ople, Waew and Toy. We reached Lat Phrao abt one hr later. It was Niyom's studio. Horizon studio. Was a nice place. Got drums! Anyway, they paid for the cab fare and my dinner. After dinner, the gals went back to the studio to cut vegetables. I asked wat's this for? Why at this hour? Chuzpa replied this is for the church building fund. Chuzpa and Waew have been cooking and selling food on the street right outside the studio everyday for church building fund. They'd do so from 7am till 9am then at 930 they have a worship together then they start working at the studio. I was so touched by their heart for God. I served together with them, cutting the vegetables together that night and made it a point to serve together with them in the morning too. I knew it would be a learning experience and was right. I beat the eggs and chuzpa would fry the eggs. Waew helped to pack the rice. It was awesome. Their heart for God was so simple. There was faith and sincerest joy in serving the Lord. I was so happy to serve God together with them. LOVE IT!
Noom sent me to Klong Toei train station to take a cab to the airport. On the plane I was super tired but couldn't sleep cos my mind was so filled with the experiences in Bangkok. I want to serve You and know You more. Obstacles are still there, help me to have an objective mindset and take one step at a time. I want to serve You with joy. San Sen Prachau!
Anyway, it was a smooth two and a half hour journey from Terminal 1 to the new Suvarnabhum Airport. The airport is huge. When we came out from the airport, I was pleasantly surprised to see the weather. It was not as warm and dusty as I heard it to be.
800 Baht cab fare. When we reached Samran Place to meet up with shirls, daniel and veron, we just left the cab in a hurry, forgetting we left our luggage in the boot. Thank God for that kind taxi driver who called us back to collect our luggage. Can't believe how careless we were. Maybe it's just excitement, then forget everything else liao. We met up with Ps Lawrence and Dr Pat who were staying at Asia Hotel, the hotel one street away, for supper. Ps Lawrence asked us how much we paid for the cab fare (shirls now chuckling away cheekily...) . He asked, 200 Baht?, then 400 Baht?! then, 600 BAHT?!?!?!?!?! At this, I knew we were tok-ed like mad. Anyway, my consolation at the very least is that we sat in a very comfy Nissan Cefiro for the 1hr ride. Lesson learnt!
We managed to get quite a good sleep cos the rehearsal for Power of Praise 4 was in the afternoon the next day at Huamark Indoor Stadium. I was looking forward to meeting a few friends. Ps Golf, Ps Tim, Ps Kahn, Ps Foye, Niyom and his worship team. Upon arrival, we were hosted by Ps Prayuth, Chin and Simon. When I first saw Simon, I thought to myself, hmm this guy looks really familiar. Then I remembered. I met him many yrs ago at KAPT when he visited our worship team in sunday service. I was still serving in adults group then. It was good to see him still around and serving God faithfully and powerfully. It made me want to hang in there and continue to add to the worship team in Hope Singapore. We got to meet and talk to many musicians and singers. O man they really have a large pool of talent. So many bands, so many musicians involved. Many of them were pursuing a degree in music. Their orchestra was impressive. Got small boys and gals playing violin one. O they play well too by the way. Really exciting.
Sound check. We were talking among ourselves when suddenly this sax player did soundcheck for his instrument. Wa, all our heads turned. Speechless. He played "Forever In Love" by Kenny G. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice. I wish I was their soundman hahahaha. O anyway, the soundman they hired was the best soundman in thailand, according to their stage manager. During evaluation together with the contractors and vendors, could see the Hope Bangkok people really had great relationship with even the external contractors. Could see the soundman enjoy working with them. Veron asked one of the keyboardists, is the sound guy from Hope, the keyboardist replied no, he's not, but after Power of Praise 4, he will be! Amen to that!
After sound check we had the opportunity to lunch with Ps Prayuth, Chin and Simon. It was a Q&A session. Ps Prayuth and team really cleared up a lot of thoughts that have been floating around in my mind for a long long time. CHOP CHOP CHOP
POP 4. Bumped into Ps Foye at entrance. Seems to have put on weight. I think he was busy so no time to chat, only got to shake hands with him. Anyway, POP was a blast. Simon's pnw leading was so powerful and dynamic. I really admire him. Such a confident, loving, fun-loving, humble, normal-guy kinda leader. Normal-guy leaders like him never fail to inspire me. I love being around these people. First worship song, tear like nothing, all of us. haha it was so bad that I dun wanna open my eyes to sing the english lyrics for a while and just soak in the presence of God, otherwise flooded liao. Wat a touching song. One question that kept coming to me during that time was, How? How could I forget His mercy? How could I not love You Lord? How can I not give my life to You? All of us talked about that song after the concert. Hope we can use it for christmas! I just pray that You will give whoever translates it wisdom!
At night, we went to Suan Lum to shop. Got some gifts for certain people. Was quite a nice place to shop compared to Chatuchak. I reach the entrance I dun feel like shopping liao. Anyway, the next afternoon, Dan, Ron and Shuz went to shop at Chatuchak, Shirls, Ethan and I chose to go to Siam Paragon to slack. Took some amusing photos then went to Starbux to sit down and talk. It was a great talk. Talk talk talk talk talk. It was an unexpectedly fruitful sharing as we learnt abt each other's highest highs and lowest lows in our spiritual life. Shirls' one was quite interesting. Highest high and lowest low happened at the same time. Shirls is another normal-guy kinda leader I really look up to (normal-gal I meant). Although technically speaking she looks up to me cos i'm taller :P
One of the nights, I can't rem which one already (STM), we celebrated Daniel's birthday. Wa it was so fun lor! Can b my highest high liao. hahahaha! We joked that that night was probably Dan's lowest low. It was his birthday bash. Literally. We ambushed him and he actually thought he got the better of us by tricking us. We bashed him up anyway. The gals whacked him with pillows, ethan sat on him, i took his belt to tie his legs at his ankles upon shirls' command and shirls proceeded to pull his leg hair while i held his legs down with the belt. So fun! We affirmed him next. I'm glad to have him as a buddy.
Many other things happened. Got to meet Ps Tim on the 2nd last day. Met Ps Golf, Niyom and a few others. One thing i'd like to remember here was my time alone and away from the hope singaporeans for one evening and a morning. I had to extend my hotel stay another night cos my flight was on 13th. Had trouble extending. Called Ps Golf. He hooked me up with Niyom who in turn got Brother Noom, his sheep to get me a place to sleep and to take care of me. He could not do it himself cos he had to fly off early the next morning and a wake to visit that night. They were really warm. Dion kept telling Noom, Take good care of him!! It felt like family though i've only known these people for a short while. I love Hope family. 5 people brought me to the place i was to sleep at that night. Noom, Chuzpa, Ople, Waew and Toy. We reached Lat Phrao abt one hr later. It was Niyom's studio. Horizon studio. Was a nice place. Got drums! Anyway, they paid for the cab fare and my dinner. After dinner, the gals went back to the studio to cut vegetables. I asked wat's this for? Why at this hour? Chuzpa replied this is for the church building fund. Chuzpa and Waew have been cooking and selling food on the street right outside the studio everyday for church building fund. They'd do so from 7am till 9am then at 930 they have a worship together then they start working at the studio. I was so touched by their heart for God. I served together with them, cutting the vegetables together that night and made it a point to serve together with them in the morning too. I knew it would be a learning experience and was right. I beat the eggs and chuzpa would fry the eggs. Waew helped to pack the rice. It was awesome. Their heart for God was so simple. There was faith and sincerest joy in serving the Lord. I was so happy to serve God together with them. LOVE IT!
Noom sent me to Klong Toei train station to take a cab to the airport. On the plane I was super tired but couldn't sleep cos my mind was so filled with the experiences in Bangkok. I want to serve You and know You more. Obstacles are still there, help me to have an objective mindset and take one step at a time. I want to serve You with joy. San Sen Prachau!
