(Yah, it looks like we're having a sale... but no lah, it's just the putting up of the sign that says "FREEDOM". 'cos the theme is about freedom... and it falls on Cambodia's Independence Day some more!)

Just to jot down some thanksgiving for the outreach service today. In one word: "AWESOME!"

=) It was such a wonderful experience listening to familiar songs being sung and danced by the Cambodian youth... they even have this Christian youth band called "7*" (which is pronounced as 7 stars...)

We worked together with Timothy's team. Haha... they were mostly in charge of the overall running of the event, while we just came and supported. (Serene our facilitator joked that they're the heavyweights, while we're the lightweights and she's the featherweight. LOL) They've written about the event, so can read more here!

Anyway, I helped to do the MM for our team's item: Spencer was the lead rapper, Marcus the choreographer, Yufen and Esther the backup dancers together with the Cambodian sistas. =) Spencer really poured his 110%... so much that he was totally exhausted by the end of the item! Thankful he didn't plop face-down right after the song... we really are very encouraged by his perseverance!

Spiritual warfare was in force as usual... while we were doing a short prayer walk yesterday before the actual event, the team sensed a strong sense of spiritual resistance in the place. So we prayed against it. And wow! really got very interesting and mysterious disruptions happening one after another, all within a very short period of time today!

For starters, Marcus and Serene suddenly fell sick today with a stomach bug/flu. And the viral attacks didn't just stay in the physical realms. A powerpoint file that Mesa, our translator, passed to me to compile for the lyrics for our item was infected with a virus too! And the file was totally unreadable. Pengz. It was only a few hours before the actual event. Man, it was super-stressful.

So I skipped my lunch-time to do a manual screen capture, copying and pasting the Khmer words from an older file into the powerpoint. At least we had a working Word doc to fall back on... but as long as we still had a fighting chance, no way we were going to use a really lame-looking Word document in an OUTREACH service for YOUTHS. We really want to give Jesus our very best... and the visitors who all come not to feel 'cheated' by lousy quality MM. Souls are at stake here!

But even after successfully accomplishing that tedious task, another challenge lay ahead. We found out at the last minute that we needed additional extension cords to position the projector for the MM and laptops. Precious minutes marched past as we frantically swapped cables, plugs and extremely loose power sockets in and out... jerry-rigging wires left and right, while trying not to get electrocuted in the process. It really was a case of solving an IQ problem: how do you achieve max cable length with only a limited no. of electrical sockets and power adaptors? I was feeling increasingly anxious, because the visitors were streaming in already. But I prayed, and really thank God that somehow, a very practical solution to the problem came into my mind after praying. Implemented it, and everything was solved! Thank God for Weiling too! She was there too, together with Guanrui and another sister, trying to solve the extension problem - and staying sweetly calm, totally not an easy thing to do in an extremely stressful situation.

So relieved when we finally solved the problem. This is what our power supplies looked like when we finally solved the maths problem:

But the battle wasn't over yet.

Halfway through the MM... the projector's power supply suddenly cut off. But God kept the whole show running smoothly. Found out that someone had tripped over the wire.

And the most dramatic one was when Guanrui took over to show the bridge diagram pictures for the purpose of illustrating the gospel. Apparently, the projector started blinking on and off... Calyn said there were even sparks! Gosh. But once again, nothing is too difficult for God. Somehow Guanrui managed to fix the issue and everyone got the chance to see the gospel diagrams and the Passion of The Christ video. 5 or 6 youths responded to the gospel that day! Praise the Lord indeed! Once again, Jesus Christ wins the day!

Personally, it was really heartening to see how God can use every life experience / talents / skills we have, especially when it's for the purpose of sharing the good news. Spencer told me that he had always harboured the dream of rapping Carman's "Who's In The House" (one of the totally coolest Christian music videos you've ever heard BTW) ever since he became a Christian... and now, after all these years, on his first missions trip, he got the chance to do it before a live audience!

And I got the chance to use my MM skills to help out in the evax service... plus storytelling to a different culture...

And Guanrui's drawing skills were so beautifully put to use...

And Calyn wrote a great skit script... and acted so nicely...

And Marcus led a cross-cultural choreograph successfully even tho it was his first time...

And Yufen's relational skills...

And Timothy's gambling addiction before he became a Christian... now powerfully used by the Lord to impact an entire new generation from another land!

Wow. Looking at the tapestry of what God is doing, it is so amazing! amazing! amazing! =D That God can use anything and everything, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant in the eyes of the world... even those talents, giftings and experiences that we belittle or are even ashamed of...

=)

God is SO REAL! i really saw God work in our lives! He just is so GOOD! =)

And once again, God has reminded us again that in all these missions activities... what is most important is not the no. of things we do or even the greatness of these tasks. But what truly matters is that we have seen God at work... and joined Him in His work. He's gone before us and is with us.

ok, have to rest now for the final battle tomorrow. Need to go through all the stuff for the children's service tomorrow. Details... I don't like details. :P God, have mercy on me... really... need Your help to fine-tune the checklist and planning. Feel very stretched and even emo. But not my will, but Yours be done.

In Jesus' name, amen!