Friends From Every Era

It's going to be the last CG with my current CG in a couple of hours more. From next week onwards, I'll be moving over to HopeKids ministry CG, under the wonderful leadership of Hong Teck. I'm looking forward to it, yes, and it's such an honour to be part of this zingy and zany team, but oh, I ... I am going to miss my old CG.

To be honest, I even felt tearful a few times thinking about having to say goodbye. But I'm actually really happy that I'm a bit sad to move on - because it showed me that I've grown to love my caregroup brothers and sisters from the heart with affection and tenderness.

*pause* And I think that is how God would have me be - to leave with love.

Yet Peter reminded me about the show 'Highlander'. It's a serial drama about an immortal from medivael Scotland (hence the name) who lived through the ages, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightement, to WWI and WWII and all the way up to modern times. He made friends from every era, and as each generation grew old and died, he still lived on. But he made new friends from each new era as it came.

So I guess it's going to be a good goodbye here. At least I'll still be in the second service.

But yes, I'm excited about fulfilling God's call for my life - oh, the depths of God's grace and the wonder of His calling! In a way, it's just a very small taste of being a missionary a century or two ago - preparing to say goodbye to all your loved ones, knowing full well that you'd probably never see them again in your lifetime. But as you wiped the tears from your eyes and turned to face the new horizon and the rising sun, you saw new faces and new friends... a new generation of souls to love and disciple.

And it's so rewarding when you see those who you took care of in children's ministry move on to youth ministry. As they mature, and become the next leaders in church, they remember you as one of those who blessed them and took care of them. Honestly, I can't really think of very many rewards that are sweeter than this.

The best days of my life are just about to begin. And the best will yet become even better, because we will go from glory to glory, strength to strength, till we meet again in the Golden City, the New Jerusalem, the City of the Living God.

"Those who love God never meet for the last time." - Eric Liddell's mum