Die Hard, Live Free.

hey there. haven't been updating this blog lately. no worries. here i am again.

just came back from Youth Camp yesterday. IT WAS SO FUN!

the first day was funny. woke up at 6.30. packed up all the last minute stuff. left the house for church. i felt so excited and scared at the same time. got there. saw jesh and talked to him. and the journey to Fraser's Hill took THREE HOURS. all of us were busy sleeping, talking, playing on the bus. i talked to Jesh. he's really one of those guys you gotta love. as in. friend wise. he's the most awesome guy friend. he knows exactly what i go through and its one thing that makes me smile most. and when we got to the Pines Resort, i saw three tall guys and this happened.

Jesh/Me
look. good looking foreigners.
them?
yeah. why?
*pulled me towards them*
oi
joyce, this is justin. our CAMP SPEAKER.
justin, this is joyce. a good friend.
ohhhh. haha.

and then when i told all my girl friends. all of them were like. *GASP* YOU'RE LYING?!?!
hahahahaaha. it was hilarious. cause no one thought at all he was our camp speaker. we all thought he was someone's friend or something. ahahahahahah.

Justin Wong. Youth Pastor of Chinese Baptist Church in Houston Texas. PJ Woo and Keith Chan. his good friends. absolutely hilarious la the three of them. their so spontaneous and crazy.

after lunch, we had a short briefing and then ice breakers. Ice breakers were hilarious. ahaha. made a couple of new friends. then we had to know what our punishments were. ahah. it was the YMCA dance. so funny cause my cousin Su-Anne looked so enthusiastic doing it. and the rest of the committee weren't. after that, we found out our teams. my team consisted of Jonathan Ng, team leader, Lauren Chia, assistant, Kevin Thomas, old man, Mark Tan, younger old man, Jeshua, Me, Joshua, Janice, Nicholas Lim, Nicholas Hoo, Claudia. we call both nicholas' by calling them Nicholas square. you know math when you have two of something you square it. yeah that square. ahahahaha. their always together so it fits em perfectly. then there's claudia who is the most bubbly, cute and friendly person ever. janice is in form six which is pretty hard to guess since she's so petite. she's very quiet and a chinese ed by the accent. she's really funny too when she talks. joshua is another quiet dude. super quiet. ahaha. the only time we started realising he was there was skit night. when we were rehearsing and he laughed out loud. ahahhahaha. jonathan's a great leader. he prioritises and makes good decisions and he's a nice guy. lauren's funny and very smart too. ahahah.

after we all made friends, we went to our designated rooms. i shared an apartment with Amanda Shiew, Adrienne Lim, Joanne Leong, Raelene Tan, Charis Wong, Euodia Ong, Melanie Lim and me. most rooms had nine but then girls were comparatively lesser this year so we got a lesser amount of people in the room. haha. but it was still very fun. me euodia mel and charis all stayed in one room. we pushed the two single beds together and slept together. haha.

the first session was intense. justin the speaker. he spoke on how us as christians often persieve the thought of: as long as i believe in Him, whatever i do wrong, he'll forgive us and we'll go to heaven. WRONG. in Romans 1:18-32, it says. that even if we believe and when we sin, the wrath of God builds and we will be thrown into Hell. so no matter what we do, how great of a Christian we are, we will go to Hell. because we are Sinners. WE ARE SINNERS. when the session ended, we were all a bit. overwhelmed. thats the word. because most of us thought as long as we have faith in him and trust in him we'll go to heaven. no. we dont. and he said he'll give us the good news the next day. we thought there wasnt good news. haha.

the second day, we had Treasure hunt. It was AWESOME. ahahaha. only cause we were first to finish. we didnt win. we got second but we were first to finish. ahah. our team practically ran from start to finish. ahahaha. our group. well most of our group were really motivated to win. we ran and ran and ran. and it felt really great running. going up the hill and down the hill. ahah. into the forest and running back out. haha. the leeches were everywhere but thankfully, i didnt get any. ahaha. and then we had little time for ourselves to rest and then it was skit night. we had pj on our team but he didnt help out in skit. our skit won second place! haha. surprisingly enough, hann's didnt. i mean. its like a thing for hann to always win skit. haha. but his team did win the Treasure Hunt. the funny thing is that they came in last. So i guess the saying: slow and steady wins the race does explain his winning. ahaha. the next session, justin explained that in order for us to go to heaven not only do we have to be a good Christian, we have to be a disciple of God. that is to follow the scripture always, listen to His voice, and do things according to His will. and most of us do the church thing. we are good in church, obedient, nice to everyone in church and we spend every sunday in church. but once we're outta there, we're different people. it has to be constant. we have to be constant. not different just cause we're in church.

the third day, we had prayer walk which was very calming. we prayed for multiple things. we prayed for World Hunger, every six minutes a child dies of hunger, thats how sad it is; missionaries, to places where the Gospel is banned from being spread and how we can help and how we should spread the Gospel even at our own country; other faiths, meaning other religions; Child Abuse, Child Labour, the Sins that chain us to Satan, and friends and family that are non believers. we prayed and prayed until it started to pour then we went to shower and had dinner. its amazing how when we're there. it seems we're able to jam pack our life with so many activities that teach us how our actions have consequences and how our life in Malaysia is so easy while others are struggling and the rest of the world is crying in pain. and how our mistakes can be forgiven once we confess, ask for forgiveness and repent from our sins. that night, i cried. that night, i felt a pounding in my heart. that night i knew, all the sins i had done. the mistakes. the lies and the traps i had set out. all of it had to be confessed to the Lord. i knew. i cried and cried because i knew. its what He would have wanted me to do. i knew this year i had done many wrong doings. i confessed and prayed for forgiveness. i even apologized to people in church for what i had done wrong. mistreated them even though it wasnt their fault. i thought of my gma. how i used to take her for granted. used to think how she would always be there for me. she would always smile at me, laugh at my chinese and make fun of how fat i am and how she would always pinch my arms and call me chubby. haha. i cried thinking. if i havent had lost her, if she were still here, if she was well. she isn't here. she's with Jesus now. she's happy and healthy with Him and i should be happy. i should learn to move on. but its hard. she was my motivation to study. and now she's my motivation to be a Doctor more than ever. i wanna make her feel proud of me. i wanna let her know that when i become a doctor. all her letters to me and her advice wasn't for nothing. it was for something. i'm worth something. i wasnt a mistake.

the last day, everyone was a bit reluctant to leave. we had all grown so used to each other. so used to having wake up with a bunch of your friends. seeing em all so happy and loud and crazy. but everythings ends in the end. we took pics with alot of people and on the bus down, we were perhaps the only bus to not have anyone throw up. ahaha. we played alot of empire and cho dai di. i didnt play cho dai di. i watched. i might play one day. from all the advice and rules from rick, charis and julian. perhaps. ahahaha. and it was funny cause when the bus arrived in church, everyone ran down from the bus. and i was slow and all with jesh and a few other guys. and joshua, joseph's brother noticed that joseph left his iTouch in the netting area of the seat. ahahahaha. i took it and we told joseph that he might have left his iTouch in the bus. he ran up and halfway there i shouted: hey joseph, does your iTouch look like this? . he was like oh son of a gun. ahahahahahaha. his australian accent is funny.

anyhow, i realize i need to change. not only for myself. but also to be a better person with others and God. i need to learn to be a more serious person in church in school at home. it cant be all play no work. next year, it will be like that. i promise you. i will be better. stronger. smarter.

love,
joyce