Leonard's Enroute

ENROUTE Vol. 1


After a short hiatus, we’re glad to announce a new season of ‘Overseas Education.’ This time with a new Blogged version!

Back by no demand, although a big smile to all you out there who have come up to us to express appreciation for the previous installments. What turned out to be a way to past our time in Sydney had actually helped a number of people – which can only be described as nothing less than God’s own work.

For obvious reasons, ‘Overseas Education’ will be renamed. From now on these bite-size emailed musings will be called ‘En Route – Conversations on the Way.’

For those of you who are new to this- ever so often Cassilda and I will email out a series of short random lessons we have learnt from trying to walk the God-ward life. We hope these musings will encourage, edify and entertain you as we walk the God-ward path together.

If for some reason, this never reaches your email, you can find it online on this blog.

cheers!



Recently I realized…

1. that 7 days without prayer makes one weak.




2. that you have a great YISS team when one of your team mates volunteers to let you pour a whole bottle of cooking oil all over him, in front of 120 people, just so you could prove a point.

Heard after being oiled, “ Now I know how a fried chicken feels like”




3. That we all hear voices in our head. You know, the ones that go, ‘hey, give up… I am such a fake… I’m a hypocrite… I am just born without … not like so and so…I just could never….why can’t I just…’?

Yup, the very ones that make us snowball into a depression? I have come to realize that there is no truth in those voices. I need to recognize these ‘self-commentaries’ for the mind tricks they are. They have nothing to do with our real dignity. How I view myself at any given moment may have very little to do with who I really am.




3. that people help people they like.

I’ll remember that the next time I come across a grumpy coffee-shop uncle, church receptionist or customs officer.




4. That at a retreat held at a certain catholic junior college (we won’t mention names to protect the identity of the alleged institution), someone asked his discussion leader, ‘what substance is God made of?’ Well, that’s an interesting question. First of all, if God was actually made of something, than who made God out of that something? You can’t create a creator because that would make you the Creator and the creator you made will not be the creator and would be a creation which means that the ‘creator’ would not be the Creator in the first place.

Oh, and the bible says that ‘God is Spirit.’




5. that I still don’t know why we gave out toy soldiers at the recent YISS.

Maybe its so that we can use them to scare away the mosquitoes. Yup, that’s should be it.




6. That the heart of God is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small. A cup of cold water is enough to put tears in the eyes of God. Like a proud mother who is thrilled to receive a bouquet of wilted dandelions from her child, so God celebrates our feeble expressions of gratitude






7. That you are really really messed up when you get a birthday SMS from your mum and you find yourself thinking, ‘A. How she know?’





8. That I am learning to define myself radically as one totally loved by God. Right now. As-I –am. Not to be left like this, certainly, but just as certainly never to be loved, valued, cherished any more or less than this very moment because God’s love does not depend on me…or you. So please, please, please stop running away when you mess up, and run into the arms of the one who totally loves you as you are right now.





9. that if Mary and Joseph of bible fame never got pass their relationship crisis or if Joseph convinced Mary go for an abortion, this world would have been a very different place.

This Christmas, if there are anything worth fighting for in this world, it is these -

An Unborn Child or a Marriage.





10. that we are called not only to believe but also to belong. It is in the context of community that we discover our purpose in life. We cannot discover who we truly are in isolation. We were formed for a Family, Created for community and Fashion for fellowship.





12. that you have never tested God’s resources until you have attempted the impossible.




13. that if 80 out of all the delegates coming for next year’s YISS came from 1 single parish, their impact upon returning will be nothing less than catastrophic to the status quo.

If 5 came from 1 parish, that’s okay. Even if 10 came, it will still be relatively okay. But 80? What will happen if 80 Spirit-filled young people descended on 1 single parish?

Woah.




14. That youth ministry could save the world.