Mission Trip 2 - Batam Emerge!
Posted in Blog on August 21st, 2007 by MervynAh yes. Finally back to blogging yet again. Been a tiring and testing few weeks but well, all I can say is that God is really really good. Do continue to keep me in prayers though.
Anyway Batam Emerge finally came. To be honest, I went with a really heavy heart. But I shan’t talk about that. But what matters was that during the first worship song of the first session, God really spoke to me. I felt a sense of restoration to where I am in Him in this ministry. I was reminded of my dream to travel the world to minister with my bass and He reminded me that this was exactly what He had put in me and that this was but just a start. Then it struck me that this was the first mission trip that I’m going purely as a musician.
Felt really different also; the musos and BVs were in a way given “special” treatment. Like we had special transport arrangement to send us back to the hotel to change up in between each session or practice. We were in different clothes in each of the 3 sessions.
It was a very different culture that we saw there, how different their musicians work and function. As big as the church was (it’s Batam’s largest church), they were still pretty conservative in many ways. I guess when we went over with our kind of dressing and praise and worship, it was an eye opening experience for them.
Anyway I got to share a room with Taka and Chikara. Our room had a balcony that overlooked the entire city of Batam. Our hotel was on top of a hill and hence these two emo shots of our two dear Japanese friends.
Taka and his semi-Ah Beng pose..
Next up, Chikara!
Anyway, the 3 sessions we really good. Bobby preached really well despite him being sick. Talk about which, I was again hit by a case of sore eyes on the very day I’m to set off. In fact, up to the practice right before session 1, my eyes still hurt and teared every time the stage lights shone on me. But really by God’s grace, when the first session started, I was completely healed. Thank God for that.
We had to use their drummer as our own SOT drummer couldn’t make it. It was a challenge trying to communicate with him as he spoke very little English. But thank God that I learnt Bahasa as a third language when I was 13. Somehow now I’m beginning to see why I got into the Malay class instead of French, German or Japanese.
But I guess the entire team really did very well, from the singers to every one of the musos we really gave our all and I felt we rose up to the occassion despite the little practice we had. Not to forget the ushers and all the other technical workers and planners. This is a real breakthrough for us as the entire event was run by the SOT students.
Anyway here’s a shot that we took of all the musos and BVs, including our counterparts from Batam.
The guy below me is Pastor Budi, the music pastor there. Real nice guy. And not forgetting our two divas (Front row, 3rd and 4th from left respectively) Sherlyn and Sandy. They had really powerful vocals. Haha.
Anyway, there’s a video done up by one of the SOT students of the highlights of Batam Emerge somewhere on youtube. I didn’t ask for permission to put up the video here so you can just go there and see for yourself. Check out my bass! Haha, I hung a bandana on it. Yes, trying to act like the Violinist from Benny Hinn.
Oh yes, there is finally a group photo of my dear Team 17 with me in it. Haha. So here it is.. SOT Team 17! (Not complete though.)
Yup, this was taken during our long wait for our ferry back home early on Sun morning.
Till the next post then.
