Diatribe Of A Mad Bassist

I’m back.. finally. Been either too busy or too lazy (mostly lazy) to post regularly.. oh well..

Well, I’ve just changed to a new Cell Group.. will join them tonight finally. And other than that, nothing much really happened for the past month or so.

I led a team of 7 other SOT students up to Sitiawan which is a town in Perak in Malaysia

Funny thing about this trip were the challenges we faced from even before we went to the trip.

The initial plan was for 3 of us, including myself, to preach at 3 different meetings that we were gonna serve in when we were there. But on the day before we left, after calling the pastor of the church there (IDD CALLS!!) we found out he only required us to do a drama for the Sunday Service. So the team stayed back in church till almost 11 to come up with a drama script for the service.

The most happening thing then was that at that time, we found that we couldn’t buy any tickets in Singapore! Yes, don’t try to get tickets to places not commonly visited at the last minute. But this whole trip was pretty last minute anyway so it wasn’t really our fault. Anyway, we managed to get some help from Dev, one of our SOT students who is from JB. He got his guys back home to help us get tickets and the plan was for some of us to go in to JB with him earlier on Friday as they had CG on Fri so they can’t pass us the tickets at night. So I planned for me, Tze-En and Stacy to go in with him after school and the rest of the group will take a bus to Larkin (which was where we were supposed to take the bus to Sitiawan) as it’s more straight forward than to go in and later hang around and take a cab to Larkin. (Have I lost you yet? And if you are wondering about the names, just know that they are the ppl who went with me ok?)

Friday - I was down with a terrible sore eye. Called Lifen and told her I really needed to see a doctor and couldnt make it to school but I’m still gonna go for the trip no matter what. Amazingly, I was healed by the time I reached church in the afteroon. But Dev couldn’t be contacted some how. Found out that he had to take urgent leave and was not in school! In the end, managed to find his Malaysian number and after more IDD calls, arranged with someone over there to pass us the tickets at around 6 plus to 7pm. Our bus was scheduled to be at 9.30pm.

So the 3 of us plus Agnes, the ZS who was to evaluate our mission team (yes there will be marks given to our SOT final score) went into City Square which was one of the only places that I knew how to go in JB at around 6pm. We ate, we waited, and waited and waited. Called and called. The guy was gonna be late. It was delayed to 8pm, then 8.30 then 9pm they told us to go straight to Larkin as there was a jam on their side. After meeting up with the rest of the group, we were waiting anxiously and more IDD calls followed (I hate to see my mom’s face when the bill comes) and at 9.30 the guy finally came. We literally flew to the bus and then we realised the air-con of the bus was spoilt and they had to change a bus for us. Turns out the replacement bus they had was packed and the seats were spoilt. The seats just reclines by itself when u lean ur weight on it. Add that to a reckeless driver for the 9 hour journey and you have the perfect sleepless night.

Sat- We finally reached Sitiawan but our “tribulations” didn’t stop there. The ZS with us, Agnes fell when she got off the bus and hurt her knee pretty badly. She was basically limping for the rest of the trip. When we got to the home they put us in, thinking we could get a little rest, the power tripped 6 times within the first half hour. It doesn’t normally happen. And later when we went to the church, the power tripped there too and one of the fuse in the mains even blew.

But I guess because we prayed before we went, we were stirred but not shaken by the funny things that happened. Anyway, we ministered in their high school outreach. Thank God that we had a full band there so Tze-En, Chikara, Gladys and myself played for the praise and worship. Chikara played a 3 minute solo as well. Later we again played for the praise and worship for their children’s church.

Sun- We did the drama as we prepared. I guess it went quite well. Anyway, the people there were very happy to see us and even treated us like stars. Haha, they asked for our autographs, which honestly, was a weird feeling for me.

Anyway, just to cut my already long story shorter, we finally ended our trip with another 9 hour bumpy ride back home.

This is my first mission trip this year and I intend to go for more. Somehow I really feel that your life changes when you go for mission trips. This one was really exciting seeing all the “tribulations” we faced. Haha. Ok.. here are the pictures.

This is the team with some of the students outside Nan Hwa High School after the outreach.

Taken after the sunday service with some of the church members.

Yes, there was still time for us to goof around. That’s Chikara that I’m carrying by the way..