ring ring ring banana-phone

I really think that phones nowadays are designed to die every two years. Just as my current ol' faithful flippy phone, started frustrating me with it's short battery life and I was starting to get a bit forlorn about the scratches it had accumulated in the past 23 months - I received a letter today from 3 who told me I was eligible now for an earlybird upgrade!

I was quite excited as just today at lunchtime I went to the 3 store in the city to check out how long I had left on my contract (they told me one month) and what potential phones could be my next ol faithful for the coming 24 months. So the timing of this little letter could not have come at a better time.

I have my eyes set on the LG Shine phone...

Phone-wise it is pretty standard, but the cool feature is that the screen is a mirror when the phone is idle. It is the ultimate girl's phone - sleek, multi-functional (need for mirror is eliminated and subsequently, the load of the hefty handbag is lightened) and appealing to the vanity within! hahaha! But it is pretty cool I reckon.

My plan (after discussing at length with Juls - ex-3-saleslady-extraordinaire) is to go to a dealer and ask for a deal (like a free car charger) and then go back to a 3 store and see if they can better it. My onl problem is that I am a big old sucker when it comes to buying stuff. I will walk in to a store and as soon as the salesman/woman says the price - I will reply promptly - 'do you have eftpos?'. I don't think about asking for extras or about bargaining - in short, I am every salesman/woman's dream consumer.

For example, when I joined 3 for the first time I pretty much just signed up - I thought it was good enough that they gave me a choice of colours! I found out later (from Juls again) that I could have scammed a whole lot of stuff from them if I had just asked! Maybe I am just too impulsive or too 'pai seh' to ask for the little extras. The fear of man has the better of me once again - we'll see how I go with the phone thing eh?

regeneration retreat - brookleigh

On this past Sunday afternoon history was made - the very first Regeneration Retreat was held in the Brookleigh Estate in Swan Valley. It was a beautiful location and was the perfect setting for weary young working adults to quieten their noisy souls.

We watched three messages from the series by Jim Berg, Quieting a Noisy Soul, which everyone found to be a real blessing. We learnt about what noise in our soul looks like (thoughts, worries and cares) as well as sources of noise in our lives and how knowing that God always loves us (always) will help us remove noise in our lives. For a 24-hour long retreat, it was a lot to take in and no doubt we were definitely challenged by the messages and the discussion that followed.

What was awesome as well was that for the first time, Regeneration spent time together as a fellowship group in true Christian fellowship - sharing our experiences, struggles, laughs, and an abundance of snacks!! (27 young working adults were given $10 each to buy something to share with the rest of the group, and the 'young' in us truly prevailed as we hit IGA like children in a candy store and proceeded to buy approximately $270 worth of junk food! Check out the photo of the stockpile of snacks). We of course spent the night chatting into the wee hours of the morning (this might have been a result of all the calories keeping us 'energised'), crashed into our beds and then woke up wishing we went to bed a few hours earlier!

It was an awesome retreat - and hopefully the first of many more to come! Check out the piccies below... More photos (better quality photography too) on David's flickr site.

got junk?

our youngest regen member

Stewart's at Brookleigh Dinner
reserved for regen


jennifer's scary baby
sunset
sunrise
sheepies
shutterbug
John getting ready to feed the addicts
reflection by the river

retreat

post coming soon!

Stralya Day

On Australia Day, we had a 10am start as the Evangelism Committee met to have a meeting before the briefing for the Outreach later on that day. We prepared some food and spent the morning planning and praying. It was a good time of fellowship and though I didn't get much sleep the night before, I thank God that I still got up in the morning with high spirits and enough energy to last through the day.

Groups were divided randomly, allocated an area (City, South Perth and King's Park)for giving out the tracts, and were asked to come up with a memory verse for their group (each group had to include a keyword: South Perth = river, City = city, Kings Park = mountain). Our group got South Perth and though I really wanted to go to King's Park, South Perth ended up being alright in the end. We then broke off for lunch - mee hoon, all-you-can-drink Yeos and the fruit salad to end all fruit salads! After we had had our fill, we presented our plans to the other groups, spent some time in prayer and then went into the battlefield.

It was hot - but not as hot as last year (thank God). Our group used Juanita's apartment as our base (we had a fridge, fans and a toilet) which was great as it was pretty tiring trying to cover the sparsely populated, yet deep and wide (like the song!) area of the South Perth foreshore. In the end, we did OK - our only problem was that we didn't really plan out our timing through the day very well - and we ended up having quite a lot of leftovers (whereas the other groups actually ran out!). In our defence however, our area was, like I said before, HUGE with less people than usual (I think this has to do with everyone deciding to go on the new train line from Mandurah (which only stops in the city itself and not South Perth) to 'beat the traffic' - but it turns out that they ended up getting squished into the trains (Tokyo style) on the way home instead) and people seemed to come quite late to South Perth - at around 8ish they were still walking in).

On top of all the fun that we had, there were a few highlights...
- glowsticks were a hit (once again) - parents were really grateful (especially one lady who I suggested that she could use the glowstick to calm down her tanty-throwing toddler).

- people liked the quiz! Comments included: 'is this free?'; 'can I have one too?'; 'where were you three hours ago??'; 'oh great! we'll do this right now'; 'thanks! *and then to their friends* this is cool, I got one last year'; 'thanks! *and then after me telling them that it had a gospel message in it saying to their friends:* you guys should do this!'; 'Is this the Citizenship test?' to which I replied 'no, but it will help you study for it' and then they had a good laugh.

- walking past people who were doing the quiz - 'this is awesome guys! OK question 5, what animal shares the coat of arms with the kangaroo? The emu!! It's the emu!! That's definitely right, right??'... and.. 'I like aeroplane jelly! aeroplane jelly for meeee!'... and... 'OK, you won't get this one...'

- I tracted the Channel Ten reporter (it was nearly 5pm and I think he was getting ready to do a live cross).

- Yew Jin tracted a cop!

- getting awesome parking!

- HOT meehoon for dinner (courtesy of Juanita's microwave!)

AND.. after the outreach, we receive this today on the ichoselife blog:

To whom it may concern, I just wanted to encourage all those who were behind the Quiz handed out on Australia Day. We were present along with about 15 other youth from our church (Girrawheen Baptist). We just thought it was such a simple but effective way to spread the good news! Well done! :-)

lowlights:

- the fireworks! hahaha! It's true though, they were pretty average - and the music was dumb too (Vanessa Amarosi? Absolutely everybody hates that song!) - no Chinese music either (come on guys, play greek, scottish, watever else and no asian/african music??!? where's the love?)

pictures:

big weekend

This weekend was crazy. So much happened and at the end of it all I am feeling - well, quite nackered really. But it was worth it.

FRIDAY
4:30pm - drinks at work (pigged out on LLB and cheese and crackers)
5:00pm - met with Juls for a quick speed shop before Regen
6:30pm - Prep'd for chairing with Juls
7:30pm - Combined Meeting - Regen and Y180 - 'Fear of Man' message by Bro Pete
11:00pm-ish - Bubble Tea @ Utopia

SATURDAY
9:15am - off to Garbo for Adrian's free coffee
9:45am - Evangelism Meeting to plan for Aussie Day & prep food
11:00am - troops arrive for briefing
12:30pm - lunch
1:00pm - presentation of plans and prayer
3:30pm-ish - off to South Perth for tracting
9:00pm - tracting ends and fireworks begin
11:00pm-ish - packing for retreat at home and prepping for Sunday School
1:30/2am-ish - sleep

SUNDAY
9:45am - church & Sunday School
1:00pm - leave for IGA shopping trip
2:30pm-ish - Regen Retreat begins at Brookleigh Estate
6:30pm - dinner @ Stewart's restaurant

MONDAY
2:00am - sleep
7:00am - wake up (!) and continue with Retreat
11:30am - leave Brookleigh
12:00pm-ish - reflection @ Old Church
1:30pm - lunch @ Rose & Crown
3:30pm - Bubble Tea @ Utopia Northbridge

Phew - it was absolutely chockers! I slept on Sunday night at about 8:30am and didn't wake up until this morning. I will post more on Aussie Day and Regen Retreat!

loooooooong way to go...

Have you ever started on a journey, looked up, and had that sudden feeling of - 'man, I got a LOOOOOONG way to go!'? That's kinda what I did today when I opened up Bible Gateway on the Internet to read Isaiah chapter 10. It's not that I didn't know that Isaiah had 66 chapters in it - it's just that when each chapter number is spread out in such a loooooong line, that it looks a little intimidating (OK Psalms had a way longer line, but so many of the chapters in Psalms are only a few lines long!).

But despite all of this, I am glad that I am still going pretty well with my reading - and like the title of my beloved blog, it's all about taking small steps. So chapter by chapter I will get through Isaiah - and before you know it, I will see you on the other end!

current reading

After a long hiatus in my reading, I have donned the glasses once again and have started reading more. I have even started trying to have a good go at the Old Testament once again - I stopped for a while and kinda made excuses - like I am reading a book that is going through a book in the Bible, so that counts right?

I shared this with Chooks at Prayer Meeting and she was like You sure you're not making excuses? I wasn't convinced until later when she was praying she prayed something like If it is Your will that Rowas reads Your Word more, I pray that You will help her...

OK, I get it. Hehe thanks for the nudge eh.

So I went home and read Habakkuk and finished reading Daniel. I didn't really get the last few chapters of Daniel - it was kinda like Revelation but more cryptic. But I got through it and I can kinda see the parallels with ol Revelation - so it was pretty interesting in the end.

What I liked about the book of Daniel were the narratives that Daniel had written. I found them quite easy to read, because Daniel's life was pretty interesting! The whole thing about Nebuchadnezzar turning into a cow amazed me. I never knew that in the Bible it actually said that he got hairy too! That would have been a sight to see!! And the fact that Danny boy could read dreams too? That is just COOL! I wonder if this ever happened to him...

Anyways, it is great to get back into the Word once again. My challenge now is to read the major prophets starting with Isaiah, then Jeremiah, then Ezekiel.

Other reads include...

Hand Me Another Brick - by Chuck Swindoll, and
Prayer - by Philip Yancey

Lord, I pray that you will help me keep reading Your Word and that You will keep revealing more of Who You are as well as who You want me to be too.