Pins and Camels. (Long Post)

The wedding last weekend was really nice. It was very up-to-date with technology. Gosh, the video presentations they had were amazing! And aside from me wanting to puke and explode out my rear-end simultaneously, it was a beautiful ceremony, and I am still honored to have played a part in the reception; even though I screwed up on the MC'ing in a couple of places. But! Congrats, Jason and Angela!

As a bonus, God taught me a lot that weekend. Actually... no, He only revealed two things to me, but one of them was significant enough to cut my distorted perspective.

The first and less important thing I realized was, I am in no way shape or form ready to be a husband. Nor... do I want to be! Listening to Jason and Ange's testimonies of their relationship, and hearing how Jason was able to encourage and challenge Ange to grow, I really felt inadequate. Thinking back on the only meaningful relationship I ever had, I don't think I ever did much of that. In fact, going into a relationship with a false sense of romanticism, I was more shocked and disturbed by discovering faults in me I never knew I had. I mean, I never knew I could be so angry. I never knew I could be so selfish. And ultimately, I never knew I could be so ungodly.

Of course, this has been what I've been reflecting on the last 2 years, and is one reason why I avoid diving into a relationship now (despite all my crushes). Because, I don't like being that person. Nor do I want to be that person.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, one speaker said something insightful. That your partner should be a mirror, and instead of trying to change the faults of the other, you should take advantage of discovering your own shortcomings and changing yourself for the better.

Something like that. I should've took notes.

Still, I'm not ready for a relationship ha! Too many guitars to look forward to. (No joke).

The second point had a far greater impact on my way of thought. You see, for the last year or so, I've been becoming pretty depressed over my church. And it didn't take long before I saw all Chinese churches the same way. That we suck crap at reaching out. That we don't even evangelize. That we're always too comfortable with our status quo. I mean, take Chinese Winter Con for example: Why the constant need to hold it at such high-resort hotels? I find it almost distasteful. (and yet, it was at Winter Con where I was first challenged to really see God for who He is; but don't tell anyone).

So at the wedding, I was talking to people, and I discovered that Jason and his brother, only became Christians after High School! In fact, I began investigating around, asking people for their testimonies and such, and I realized that there were quite a number of folks (all of them being Chinese... because... it was a Chinese Wedding), never even would have considered stepping into a Church when they were younger, but were now full fledged Christians. And that in itself was enough proof and testimony that God was using the Chinese Church Community to do something right.

And in that moment, I was totally humbled and ashamed for my self-righteousness. Seriously, how do I get so high and mighty all the time? But to all those who shared with me that night, thank you :)

To reinforce this point, God had Ivan do a short skit for Children’s Message the next morning at church. I forget exactly what his skit was, but the implication behind it was: Everybody witnesses in different ways.

So really, who am I to judge? Speck! Speck! Logs!! Pink eye!

My grandfather passed away. My most beloved Uncle called me up about 50 minutes ago to let me know. He died last week on June 26, and will be cremated tomorrow. I'm pretty sad about it, because I never got to know my grandpa. I don't know if I blogged about this, but my other grandfather on my dad's side passed away earlier this year. I was pretty choked over that as well, but I had the chance to visit him during the previous Christmas.

My mom's dad however, I've only met him twice. Once, a little over 20 years ago, and my only conscious memory of that visit was a tank with turtles. And a Chinese red rug. And yellow drapes.

The second time, I was about 4-5 years of age. Before I went to Pre-School anyway, he came to Canada. I remember he bought me this plastic toy knife from Chinatown. It was completely transparent, with the blade being this nice ocean blue, and the hilt was a vibrant florescent urine yellow. The cool thing about it was the blade would retract into the hilt whenever you stabbed something. Haha, on the day that I got it, I stabbed my sister just below the eye, and uh... somehow, the blade locked and didn't retract. That wasn't supposed to happen. I guess I can kind of understand why she didn't like me so much back then. I wonder if she remembers that incident?... I'll have to call her up sometime.

I also remember him eating a lot of rice. And he would show me his muscles, and credit it to all the rice he ate. And that's when I accepted plain white rice as good food.

And those are my only memories of him. My mom and dad's side of the families never got along well, and after mom passed away, they only worsened; to the point that Irene and I were forbidden to have any contact with anyone from my mom's side. And I was really close to my mom's youngest brother, and his two kids. Though they were all the way in Singapore, they're the most down to earth cousins I have on both sides. Even still, I didn't worry too much about my grandpa (mom's side), because he always seemed so healthy and young at heart.

Oh yeah, he loved to travel, and on his visit here in Canada, he gave me two books filled with stamps that he collected. I still have them.

But yeah, just one more person I took for granted.

I'm sad that he's gone.