😊 YAYP Retreat 2018

I signed up Grace YAYP (Young Adults Young Professional) Retreat 2018 which was held on 3rd to 5th august. Before signing up for it, I was contemplating whether to go for this or my NUS Orientation Week which would be held on 2nd to 4th august. Both events clashed, I was leaning towards more of O Week then I realised all my church friends who were going to faculty of Engineering in NUS were all going for this retreat. In addition, I was already going for Engin Camp 2018 which should suffice. This was my first YAYP retreat, I did attend two youth retreats and 1 main retreat before, but I could not make it for the YAYP retreat during my 1st year because I just enlisted and was unsure about my schedule. There was no YAYP retreat for my 2nd year so I just went for the main retreat. I really wanted to experience one YAYP retreat and was glad I managed to went for one after 2 and a half year of being in YAYP.

Before retreat begin, I prayed and seek God for signs and confirmations pertaining to a specific and personal issue and for God to speak to me about it during retreat. I decided to take the night bus because I recently brought a friend to church and she cant make it for the day bus. In this retreat, it was a 2 person bunking and I bunked with Jason Kwok, one of my close church friend.

Before I go into the details of what happened in retreat and how I experienced God and what I learned, I got to give you guys some contextual clues of the people I attended retreat with and how God can connect different unique individuals together. How I know Jason Kwok was by my close friend Edwin who introduced Jason to me back then when I was in the youth service. When I moved up to YAYP Service, me and Jason were both in the same mother cell and we always went dinner together after service. Even after our mother cell split and the two of us were in different cell, both of us still became quite close as we always hang out with each other after service. Other than me, 3 people from my cell group also attended the retreat. God recently restored one of my old friendship with one my ex-colleagues in IRAS and I recently brought her to church. Coincidentally, one of my cellmates was also looking for a female partner to room with as she did not know who else to room with. I can really see that God has placed much divine appointments in my life and God have use me to connect people around me with each other.

A day before retreat, I had a sore throat and my throat was feeling very hot even though my back, head and armpit was not feeling hot. I use a thermal thermometer to double confirm it and realised that I might have a mild fever or a throat infection. I decided to pray against it and rest well for the night while drinking lots of water. I got to thank God that He answered my prayer, even though I still had a sore throat and a bit of flu, my fever was totally gone.

The second day is where the main bulk of retreat took place for me. The R and R ( Relax and Recreation) was held on the second day (thank God). At first I was quite sad because this means I have to settle my lunch outside and this means higher costs. However it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Sean, one my cellmates, suggested a seafood restaurant to eat at. We took a 15 minutes grab ride to that place. I really enjoyed the food a lot as it was long since I ate crab and it was my first time trying out the XO Prawn Soup. It was one of the seafood meal I ever had.

Guess how much this cost per person? : 50 RM ONLY !!!

Moving on, some interesting things took place as well. When we were heading to back to the shopping mall, we got stranded halfway on the highway as the car wheels got punctured by one of the tyre. Luckily, we managed to walk to one of the nearby buildings which was around a 10 min walk and we managed to call another grab to come fetch us up in a short period of time. We did not shop much in the shopping center, but I had my first Thai upper body massage. I did it with the same room as Jason. At first, both of us screamed as it was both painful and ticklish at the same time. After a while, I got used to it because I did Thai foot massage frequently and I got used to the level of pain. However, Jason did not. He kept screaming in a high pitch voice throughout the whole massage. I kept laughing as it was too funny and other people who were quite a distance away from us heard it too. I remembered the Thai masseur scolded Jason in English and Thai, asking to why small thing cry and ask him to not cry to his mother and father after that.

At night, we stayed up till 4 am to play blackjack and spyfall. Jason, being Jason, drank his strong beer and got high/drunk during all the games. During one of the spyfall games. the location was 'Polar Station'. Jason, being the spy, gave it away in his drunkenness. When it was my turn to give a description of the place, I said Demi Lovato. She was the singer who sang "Let it go" in Frozen, which "Frozen" resonates well with 'Polar Station'. When I asked Jason if he knew which song that Demi Lovato sang, Jason in his drunkenness said "Hillsong". When asked why he said it, he just said he thought I was speaking in tongues. Everyone just broke into laughter. This was one of the most joke and hilarious stuff in retreat.

Lets get on to the more serious stuff in this blog. The main theme for this retreat was the five-fold ministry. God has given us one or more than that five fold ministry gifts in each and every one of us. Some of us displayed these gifting in our everyday secular life, but this is not God had wanted for us. Ephesians 4:11-12 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, and for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Notice in verse 12 Paul uses "for the work of ministry". God did not just gave us these 5 fold ministry gifts to be just used in secular settings, He gave us these gifts so that we can use it to serve Him in church and glorify His Kingdom with it. In our lives, our callings in the five fold ministry can change overtime as God can be calling us into different office as we transit into different seasons in our lives. Some of us might have several inclinations towards more than one officer, generally God has called each and every Christians towards one office.

To me, when I took the five fold ministry test, I found it to be very accurate. I scored the highest for Prophet. It was probably because that many times God used dreams and visions and even songs to speak to me and I am also quite sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I also scored quite high for Apostle, which I did not see it at first but when I reflected on my life, I realised that God have constantly use me to start new things, form new connections and also I have been leaning towards techno entrepreneurship recently for my studies in NUS. I also felt several inclinations towards evangelist, as I have been trying to reach out actively and evangelise to most of my non-christian friends after I rededicated my life back to God upon joining Grace. I also felt God recently increasing me in the gift of teacher, as I started becoming a part time tutor and cell leader recently, in which both I have to teach others.

However, even though everyone might be different as they have different giftings and callings in their lives, everyone is important and no one is more important than the other. We all still worship the same and one God, which is our Lord Jesus Christ and we all belong the one and same single church under Him. Ephesians 4:13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

On the last day of retreat, during worship in service, the song "YOU" by Hillsong was played. I started to felt the tangible presence of God and started to cry. I heard God speaking to me, that everything will be alright, I do not have to worry about anything as He will set my path and to stand firm in His word. God asked me to focus on Him first and everything else will fall in place, especially the personal issue and confirmation which I kept seeking the Lord about on. I was then having a very bad sore throat at the point in time, I almost had no voice left but I still wanted to sang my heart out and worship God because He is my Lord. When the third song, "Build my life" by Housefires came in, during the bridge, God asked me to not sing and just listen to the song verse while saturating in His Presence. As I heard the song verse, "I will build my life upon your love, it is a strong foundation. I will put my trust in you and I will not be shaken", I started to cry even more. The meaning of this verse should be self explanatory to you guys. To sum it up, God just wanted me to stop worrying about my future (relationship, academics, careers) etc and God wanted me to trust in Him and seek Him first and everything else will start to fall in place. The fourth song became a confirmation, as the song title was "Jesus be the center". God wanted me to put Him at the center of my life and not thinking and worrying about other things in life.

At the end of the sermon, the Pastor gave an altar call. I just went up as I was already serving in church as a cell leader and I wanted to serve God more and also wanted to be part of YAYP growth. As I found my spot and knelled down, I instantly felt the strong presence of the Holy Spirit falling upon me and I kept crying and crying during the whole altar call. At first, I did not know why all these supernatural stuffs happened, but as I reflected on it, I realised the Holy Spirit was doing a work in my heart to my response in wanting to serve God more. Also, this altar call was aligned with my VCF (Varsity Christian Fellowship) Camp in NUS that I had one month ago, as I caught the fire and wanted to serve God more actively in that camp.

The next day after retreat, as I was just reading the bible on my bed, I saw a vision of a picture of a foot stepping on clear waters. I felt that this vision was aligned to the season in my life which is about to come very soon ahead, which is my NUS campus life. I am very worried whether I can cope well in my studies, especially I am very keen in doing a double major, my possible career pathways and also whether I would get into SEP (Student Exchange Programme) or NOC (NUS Overseas College). God is telling me to not to worry and to step out and step on the water in this new season ahead of my life.

I learned a lot personally from God during this short 2 days retreat. To the people who are reading this blog right now, my story might be one of a kind and your personal spiritual encounter with God will not be exactly with mine. However, God still wants to speak to you and and is still reaching out to your heart day after day. God has given each and every of you many and different gifts. How would you use it and will you use it to serve God in the body of Christ?