KAI’S 2 YEAR PLAN

Okay here’s my 2 year plan. I guess 2 year means roughly from 2008 June to 2010 June right. Haha alright here goes:

I have divided it into 5 main aspects of my life:
1. Spiritual
2. Physical
3. Financial
4. Skills
5. Outreach

Just a few recent upcoming events happening in my life provided God doesn’t rapture me tomorrow or something:
1. Flying off to China from 30^th May to 8^th June, Fri to Sun
2. Youth Camp 9^th to 12^th June
3. Enlisting on 16^th June, Mon

I guess by listing down all these stuffs gives me a rough estimation of the amount of time I have in the upcoming months.

Time includes:
Work time (NS, tuition, teach guitar), family time, caregroup time, service time, ministry time, shepherding time, and other miscellaneous time.

Tentatively,
Work time:
-NS 0800 to 1700 every weekday
-Tuition Mon, Tue and Thur 1900 and Sun 0900, 1.5 hours each
-Teach guitar Wed 1830 to 2030

Family time:
-Fri (provided no svc prac), Sunday dinners

Okay the rest is unconfirmed.

I guess the main point is how I can work on the 5 main aspects of my life, where to start and what I wanna achieve at the end of 2 years. So let’s get the ball rolling shall we??

1. Spiritual – When I work in SAFTI MI in Jurong West which is like super far, I’ll definitely have amazing lengths of traveling time. Reading would be a great option when I’m on the train or bus provided that God provides me with a seat. I’m aiming to finish 1 book every 2 weeks so a lil’ math would work out 2 books in a month. I believe by reading, God will add a lot of insights and wisdom into my spiritual life.

I wanna learn more in the areas of leadership, worship, and relationship with God and people. The main opportunities to learn would be in cgs and after-svc fellowships, so I’ll make effort to allocate time for all of them. I also wanna grow in loving people more. I’m a natural critic, I tend to be quite judgmental at times. I think by loving people more I can learn to look at people in God’s perspective coz God loves all of us. Yeah man!

So the question is how can I learn to love people more, I believe one practical point would be a stronger prayer life. I’m gonna come up with a prayer list so as to pray for specific people on a regular basis. I think it’s only when we pray for others, we’ll grow to love them more. This is a personal one that I’m gonna commit to. I believe that this prayer list will kick start a new level of prayer life.

Another very important thing is that I need to start hunting for volunteer guitarists to disciple. Hmm I aim to find at least 1 by July this year and disciple 4 to become full time guitarists before I go uni.

I also wanna have a taste of missions within these 2 years coz I’ve never had any before. So I’ll take leave to go for one mission trip probably nearing the end of this year or something. I strongly believe that I can learn a lot from missions so I really hope I can go for one.

2. Physical – Okay this part is quite sensitive. My weighing machine currently says that I’m 75 kg. Gotta do something abt it man. I’m hoping to lose 10 kg by the end of this year. I think it’s really damn hard but in the name of Jesus I’m gonna do it! Haha probably night jogs and weekend morning gym and basketball sessions. At least 3 times of exercise per week. And NO FASTFOOD!

3. Financial – My pay after I enlist would be $400 per month I think. With an additional $380 from tuition, and around $120 per month from teaching guitar. Altogether I’ll earn around $900 per month. My expenses would mainly include meals, transport, clothes and guitar stuffs in these 2 years coz I have nothing but a chao slack and yet time consuming army life. I hope to save around $400 a month. So by the end of 2 years I’ll have about $9600. I spend a lot on food and have a very bad cabbing habit. This will help control my spending so as to save up for future mission trips, blessing other people (bdays etc.), books, CDs, guitar lessons and I can also buy a laptop for myself at the end of the 2 years after I enter uni.

4. Skills – GUITAR! Haha I’m gonna learn guitar from this guy called Daniel Chai I hope. I think it’ll be around $50 per hour. I have no idea what he’s gonna teach me but I’m sure that I’ll improve a lot if I really get to learn from him. I hope to learn better improvisation skills on guitar like solo-ing ideas and develop an arsenal of licks. So that in free worship, the Holy Spirit can use whatever I know to move better through the vast range of ideas that I have. Another thing is driving, for traveling convenience, I’ll start learning right after I enlist. Probably taking night or weekend lessons.

5. Outreach – I know in pastoral, this could easily mean a school I wanna win for Jesus, hitting a specific goal by a specific time. But as a PES E army boy, this could get quite uncertain. Seriously I have no idea what to expect when I’m gonna be a clerk for the next 2 years in SAFTI MI. But I really pray that God will let me meet people during my NS life to sow on. I wanna bring at least 3 people to know Christ by the end of my army life. My ex CL said before that if you wanna bring 1 person to church, you gotta have 10 responsive contacts to secure 1 visitor on that Sat svc. So that means mine would be 30 contacts in 2 years. I seriously don’t know how this is gonna work out but I really pray that God will use my life to bring hope to the PES E people. Haha yeah man! Probably meet another guy that loves to play guitar also.

Another outreach goal is my family’s conversion by the end of 2 years. This sounds quite impossible especially for my dad. But I’m gonna take one step at a time. Firstly my mom is already very receptive towards Jesus. My relationship with my brother grew a lot better recently. I hope to bring my mother and brother to church on a regular basis by the end of this year. And I also pray for opportunities for me to speak to my dad and talk about my church life. This would definitely be a stepping stone for my dad to come closer to know who God is and what my church is doing. Hopefully he comes for this year’s Christmas and his opinion of church and Christians will change. Therefore this upcoming overseas trip on 30^th May is very important as it’s a rare time that we can live together and spend everyday together. Hopefully I will have opportunities to share Christ to my relatives as well in this trip.

Meaning of Worship

About half an hour ago I was in the toilet and I was asking God what I should do after that. Then a couple of ideas came to my head like watching a movie, play guitar, talk to some random ppl online. Okay then God replied, 'Why don't you worship me?' Haha I was like, 'err God I meant ENTERTAINMENT. Worship is not exactly very ENTERTAINING. And plus I'm not in the mood to worship and play guitar right now. And I'm having sorethroat so I can't sing. And my poor nail on my right hand index finger just cracked and I just cut it short yesterday so I can't pluck properly.' Then I realised that was just a whole lot of excuses. Amazing how I can actually think of so many. Haha so I got out of the toilet, picked up my guitar and entered my comfortable air-conned room.

I said, 'Okay God. I'm gonna play in the key of D now alright. That sounds pretty good.' So there I went enjoying my plucking in D. But a few chords later God kinda dragged me to the G key. I was like 'eh wahlao G is so boring man.' But somehow God told me not to change key or stop playing. So I went on plucking and plucking. Just plucking. Then a miracle happened. Okay there wasn't any lightning or thunder or fire shooting down from the sky on the tree outside my window. I just felt very very peaceful. I'm not even playing what I'm playing, in fact I believe God was the one playing. I didn't sing probably because God knew how bad I would sound with my sorethroat. I was just enjoying God's presence in the room and praising Him in my heart.

The thing is, after the worship ended, I just can't recall what I played. But I knew it was kinda like a hybrid of bass notes and melody at the high notes and it sounded super nice and I really loved it. I tried to figure them out but I just can't get the exact same thing. Then at that point of time, God spoke to me, saying, 'Hey kid. That's the meaning of worship. It's when you let me take control. I can do what you can't.' I was like, 'Woh-ho-ho. Now THAT IS damn cool man.' Hahaha and He impressed upon my heart that what He did on my guitar just then was just a small spark compared to the measure of how much He can do through me.

At that moment I really believed that with God in control of worship, we can definitely bring it to the next level - something way beyond what we can do. For some of you it may be something 'duh' maybe coz you've heard it alot of times or whatever. But for me it served as a really good reminder in which to what extent am I actually allowing God to take over my life right now. Yeah man thank God and I feel really prepared for service tmr!

YEAHH! I FEEL AS STRONG AS SAMSON NOW THOUGH I JUST HAD A HAIRCUT TODAY! WHEE!!