Choir.Musicians retreat was a blast! I enjoyed myself a lot and it was really a time of spiritual refreshing. God moved during our retreat and I believe many hearts were touched and lives tranformed during the retreat. By the grace of God I was able to complete most of my revision before the retreat and by God's grace I was able to come back a day earlier so that I can have the whole of friday to revise my work one more. I'm thankful for wei ting and her father for driving both of us to the retreat and back from the retreat for lots of travelling time was saved for me. God really empowered me during the retreat especially during the praise and worship. He put words into my mouth and used me in ways that surprise me till now. What surprised me is the boldness and courage that I had as I led worship. I'm really blessed and ministered even as I lead as hearts were open and everyone freely worshipped Him in spirit and in truth. The power and presence of God can be strongly felt.

I was also blessed by this particular game that we played. We were told to get up at 3am on thursday morning to bring only our bibles downstairs. Reaching the living room we were told that we were in a communist country and we had to find the sanctuary of light(church). Given to everyone of us was an envelope containing 5 pieces of paper with 5 different words: Ministry, cellgroup, leadership, friends, family. These are supposed to be the 5 components of our christian life. After the briefing we were asked to leave the house and to find the church. We were warned not to talk to anyone. I didn't know what was going on actually, no one knows for the matter. We walked and walked, some of us(myself included) talked to some people. During the game, some were caught by the "communists" and they were forced to surrender their bible or any of the 5 components of our lives. I didn't know that until the game ended and we had our de-briefing. I wasn't caught. In fact I ran and ran together with charity, valerie, dewey, shaun and yanda. It was really scary for me. Though I know this was just a game but come to think of it if you're really in a communist country you'll be living in constant fear, fear that you might be caught and tortured. That is why in a communist country, christians don't really meet up and fellowship for they can never be sure whether the person next to you is a communist spy or not.Even if they do meet up, it wouldn't be like in a upright building like what we have here but rather they'll meet in underground tunnels or any dark places. When they do meet, they cannot even sing out loud or share the Word out lour, all have to be done in whispers. That's really sad but nevertheless true. I've come to realise how lucky and blessed we are to be in Singapore that we can worship God freely without discrimination or persecution. Going back to the torture part, the games committee had some "tortures" under their sleeves like splashing water, prickly powder, shouting at them, etc. Again during the de-brief as I heard of how some of us remained firm in faith despite being tortured and all, I was so touched and I wonder whether I'll pass such a test should it befall on me. I felt so small and weak all of a sudden. It was then that I made a resolution to myself, that is to really spend more time with God and to cultivate a steady and close relationship with God so that I'm solid sure of my walk with Him and my faith.

All in all, it was really a great retreat. This was even better than the previous year! Looking forward to the next!