The Third Musketeer...

There's a lot to pick up in this retreat .. actually in fact if you set aside time for God, He will definitely show you what You need to know. =)

but some key points from each sermon....

- We fight each other cos we think we're more than something that we are... Angry because our gentleness is not there anymore.. (well.. this rly applies to me :p ) what prison are you in, are you complaining abt your prison or can ppl feel your gentleness?

-Our sense of worth comes from Jesus who died for Us, we experience belongness thru the Father who adopt us and our sense of competence is found in the H.S who enables us to accomplish worthy things

- (from david bringing back arch of god twice) : Do you rely on your brillance or do you reply on presence of God?

- Some key questions Sam Farina asked us to check ourselves: when God thinks about you, what do you think His expression is?; How are you cultivating God's Friendship? ; what's the last thing You learned about God in Your times 2gether?

- If you want a heart after God, you must be prepared to repair the damage (like david giving back to mephiboseth) .. this point 2 parts from Sam, 1) to restore the damage and forgive those we have caused damage to and 2) need to forgive ourselves to move forward

- If You bury something alive , it'll keep coming back to the surface , you got to empty it. (point about how it's not enough to forget about past when it's not completely healed)

- When you do good to others & others still do bad to you, you got to still be good to them.. (now this is hard!)

- And the part that's stuck with everyone... embrace irritation cos your pearl will get bigger hhhahaha

Okay Serious notes aside, HERE ARE THE PICS!



Our rooms.. where we had our "last supper " of room service hehe BEFORe Its messed up.



the few moments when candy is not self consciously posing for camera hehhehe. boy does she look melancholicly pensive! hehee



Us on the first day excitedly taking the view behind =)




artistic shot.. now u can see us 3 in 1.. spot Grace's leg! hehe

this is smack at the lobby nicey nice :D

this is the ride there ! those below are the ride back hehhe. sheepish kawaii look from candy behind and yvonne fitting into the camera hehe

Just realised we didnt take a single photo of the food which is pretty good... but i think all we do is eat and sit eat and sit hahaha

now it's my turn to really get some sleep, almost 1 am!

Alice

Retreat 2009 at the Palace - The Saga Continues

Yup yup... it brought back many memories of my last retreat at the same place more than 10 years ago! Boy are we getting old... and yes, i survived 4 nights with my beloved roomie! Pebbles didn't karate chop me this time (she did that back in 1999 i think)... haha... Go Pebbles!

The 4 sluggers... for some reason (prob due to age), we were always dragging out feet...

Move over guys... horses are just much more attractive... =P

Pebbles trying very hard to pose for a Nescafe shot... I had 3 coffee drinkers with me loh! And poor Grace had gastrits coz' she had too much coffee! *strokes finger* nyek nyek nyek... =)

Alice looking forlornly at Grace's 5th plate of scrambled eggs and toast...

At the exotic fruit hideout where Grace fluttered her eyelids to get a free apple... while Pebbles and Alice had to pay RM10 for their fruit juice...


Oh yeah! We beat the youths to A&W! Indeed the first shall be the last and the last shall be the first... buahahaha! And Pebbles had her first taste of FRIED CHICKEN!

Guess who's the boss? No wonder Ben calls her "dai-kor-dai"... =)

Photo taken in the coach on the way home... and nope, the 2 pretty ladies behind the prettier ladies are not praying, neither are they meditating nor pondering over what was taught at the retreat... they were... (see below) :

Well, all in all... it was a great experience =) Just to share a couple of things I've learnt : (i) The battle belongs to the Lord! Sometimes we get so caught up trying to fight our own battles, using our own strength that we forget that it's ultimately the Lord's battle that we're fighting for... the Lord will grant us victory if only we obey (2 Chron 20:15-17 - fav verse for the retreat!); (ii) Irritants of all kinds will only make you a bigger pearl (think of the long long long wait we had at the hotel lobby for a taxi); and (iii) the responses of David, Mehibosheth and Shimei - how we should respond positively... it was interesting as I've never read them in that light before.

Okie doks, that's all for now... it's way past my bedtime... haha...have a blessed week ahead! =)

~ yVoNnE

Retreat 2009 at the Palace

Hi guys, it was a wonderful retreat...incidentally it was the first retreat that I went as an 'adult', meaning it had always been with the youth or young adult etc. So it was quite nice; no pressure to conform to 'cool' and 'happening' pack behavoir I had always been plagued by in my growing up years. Ha now you know my teenage angst.

Hehe but the company was nice. Good bonding we had. We (or I) didn't take many pictures. Here are some pictures of our recreation, courtesy of Samsung Pixon. All blurness and fault are my own =)

Grace and Vonne Vonne at the service. Looking great with minimal sleep eh.

This was taken during the final service on Friday morning. Sam 'I-hate-being-bald' Farina was concluding his series on Soloman, and if I'm not wrong, talking briefly about Ecclesiastes. This idea was quite cool-he placed three boards at the front of the hall, and invited people to come forward freely to pen down their greatest take-away from the Retreat as he preached. So here's a picture of someone doing that during the sermon, and the people kept coming, in drips and draps, but nevertheless, filling up the space. What I wrote was, 'That it is important to build up a strong core, and to surrender fully to God'.

This was the view from our room. Bro Jeffrey (for those old-timers who remember, he was our sunday school teacher from sec 1 who scolded some of us for drinking Shandy. Yvonne remembered she was scolded as well thought she didn't partake of it! hehhe. Jeffrey said he is glad that we remember at least that little bit of what he said to us) was kind enough to arrange for the four ponies side-by-side rooms, with a great view of the lake and the endless green lawn (which you can't see here). Incidentally, it was on that very same lawn that kung-fu Alice gave me the stretch of my life after our great-but-dangerous jog around the hotel's gold course. Notice the haze.

This is a funny picture. Yvonne is showing off one of her many cartoon collectibles tee shirts. Amazing. Should have taken a picture of the one with the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip at the back. Yeap, so we were actually oogling at her body (covered by comic strips). This tee shirt says 'Striped/stuffed/stupid', and I thought it was hilarious and wanted to take a picture of it. When Vonne started posing, I asked a calamitous but honest question..'should I include yo face in the picture??' Of course I kena lah. But yeah, no offense, I really am dense and silly sometimes. Bleah.

Wah, Alice should charge Milo for doing advertisement for them. On our final night, we wanted to go 'wild'..by ordering room service. Heh. I was so convinced Alice would order a glass of rum or something, when, to my intense amusement and surprise, she pointed with one long manicured nail, to the word "MILO" on the menu. It's like Alice in Wonderland looking at the magic cake which says 'EAT ME'. Talk about growing (old). The milo came in a pot. She was oversome with joy. Nice and natural shot with sex appeal. The perfect advert. hehehhe

Us in the same room opposite the Milo-high person enjoying room service as well. We were posing with Seafood Tom Yum soup, which I ate on the first night when we went to the restaurant after service. It was so good, I gotta eat it again before I go, and Vonne was convicted as well.

And introducing..Dr Fish. On our first free day, we went to Mid-Valley. Hey! We waited over one hour AT THE HOTEL for the cab ok!!!!!! And to think that the sermon for that morning was to embrace your irritations because they make pearls out of you. Our pearls were all very huge by the time one hour was up. So this is Kenko, which exists in Singapore as well. Good bargain. 90 RM for 1 1/2 hour worth of treatment. It includes painful foot reflexology, shoulder massage, and Dr Fish. It's really interesting. They have 3 sizes of fish-small, medium and large. We went from small straight to large (or in Vonne's case..quickly back to small). The small were normal..ticklish and all..we burst into uncontrollable giggles when we placed our feet in there, dispelling the therapeutic calmness of the area with our sharp peals of geese-like giggles. That was the first picture. People actually stopped to take pictures k..cos the tank is part of the shop setting for passers-by. We next went to the 'big' fish..and they are really big. Can eat man. So many of them menacingly waiting for our toes. You can feel and see their teeth. But it was quite interesting. One fish even tore the scab off my foot. You can't really see clearly, but it's the second picture. An experience man.

Partner and I at Kenko with our feet skin being decimated. Hey Vonne's feet is so clean no fish were eating off her k. But she kept kicking them away also. I illustrated her actions with the analogy of someone taking away your plate when you're eating.

Alice and Gracie at Kenko.