Darren's Birthweek!!! Part 2

20 Sep
Hmmm, what happened this day.... oh I think it's Meiyi's birthday or is it Alina's? Meiyi is on 19 Sep and Alina on 20 Sep! My two RJC 2SO3C classmates, who are currently medical officers.
But I believed I slept through this day.... oh and in the afternoon I started calling up the new recruits to get their details eg home no., email, msn accounts, sch, eca, which day they would be coming... Oh and there was a pleasant surprise... Cuz I had invited the new recruits to come on 23 Oct... 3 girls - Denise, Stacy and Brenda asked if they could come the following Sat 25 Sep! How enthusiastic! Now Denise is a tennis player at TKGS, Stacy is an alto in her choir at Kuo Chuan Presbyterian, and Brenda in softball at TKGS... Brenda incidentally is Daryl Loh's sister... Daryl was a naval officer trainee who was killed in a naval training accident 3 years ago... and g2 also sang for his funeral....

21 Sep
Played tennis!!! the whole morning! Yizhi, Mong, Wolah, Bala, YY, Irene, Linxin and Hanying all played too at the NUS courts.... After lunch, thanks to peer pressure, we all went to the med library to study!!! urgh..... well I continued with my dialing up haha
I returned to the east in the evening to join Dawn, Benson, Yee-min, Nat and Angie to discuss the new young working adults group that we're spearheading for the church..... we had dessert at Haagen Daz ice-cream and I had a whooping Banana Split. That meeting was fruitful and we set 09 Oct Sat as our 1st session; and we'll be going around to invite our fellow young adults to come for this meal and session.

22 Sep
Cannot remember much of this day except for the parish team meeting at night haha.... this amazing parish team has been meeting every week since July... to plan for the parish assembly and for the PPC.... I believe it was in April or May that Fr Pat 1st informed us about the new parish assembly & PPC; the new way of things.... and how time flies when you're doing things and planning stuff..... the church's assembly will be on 26 Sep... and over the last few weeks we had been finalising things like the venue, logistics, nominees, grp reps, attendees, notes; and most notably we had been compiling reports and recommendations from our various ministries since June.... my that was mind-boggling... 12 parish team members, 40 grp reps, 9 nominees, 300 participants, 34 sharing groups haha i love keeping count...
Anywayz, the meeting went well and ended surprising early at 9.30pm... we went down to Fr's kitchen where I was given a surprise birthday celebration! Thank you Colin!!! We sat together, priests and laypple, eating the cake, mooncakes, all sorts of kueh, and we planned our "burn-out" party aka post PA celebrations...LOL... adults have just a great sense of humour as we young adults haha...

19 Sep - 25 Sep = Darren's birthweek holiday!!! Haha, special thanks go to NUS Medical Faculty for giving us year 5s a one week break in honour of my birthday LOL

Let's talk abt an amazing week day by day!

19 Sep (Sun)
This was the single most hectic Sunday of my life.... Brownie selling for Camp and GII Recruitment! Fresh from the single most successful recruitment exercise on Sat's Con3 class where we got 10 out of 15 confirmands.... the GII pack converged in church at the wee hours of the morning to help sell brownies... Shannon, Samantha, Darren S, Edmond, Justin, Marcus, June, Nicole, Darryl, Jeremy Oh, Jeremy Chia, Jonathan Chia, Anthony Lee, Gerard, & Adrian Lim in all I think.... we didnt sell much after 7.15am mass cuz the brownies were still locked up!!! the person IC came late... but this amazing lady gave us $50 for one brownie and said to ask her for more money if we needed.

We all headed for an idyllic breakfast at Jago and came back for the 2 morning confirmation classes... this time round more of us shared about our experience in GII... and I was so proud of Jeremy Oh for his sharing.... so earnest and close to heart! Watching the power point photo montage of g2 activities and listening to the young ones describe them really touched me and affirmed the work God has entrusted to us as a choir - to nurture and develop the beautiful talents of youth, to provide an avenue for them to make mistakes, to try again and to shine.... We garnered another 8 confirmands (out of a possible 60-80) so though not as succesful as Sat's, a total of 18 (out of a 100plus) is not bad at all! Amen!

On the brownie selling front, we raised $2100 from the love offerings from our dear parishioners.. from 3 masses alone! Shireen also put up a beautiful poster of the "ingredients" to making a good brownie... which I will put up soon...

We ended the morning watching last year's choir anniversary video and footage of this year's June Camp skits... absolutely hilarious! Should have everyone watching the "Ah Niu MTV" with full attention... I had to leave them for pageant practice and hoped the day was as amazing for me as it was for them!

We had our christmas pageant briefing today in the AVA room.

The committee of Marilyn, Michelle, Noel and myself first gathered at 12.30pm to prepare ourselves and the room for the rest of the pageant cast and crew to arrive.

The purpose of this first session was for us to get to know each other better. The schedule from now till christmas eve was also given out, much to the gasps and bewildered looks of everyone. We'll be meeting together every sunday for the next 18 weeks or so, to learn our songs, for drama workshops, for rehearsals, for spiritual input.

In all, those present (though not the full strength) were Marilyn, Noel, Michelle, Marissa, Sandrine, Michael, Gregory, Elizabeth aka Daughter, June aka Mother, Anthony aka Son, Dominic aka Father, and myself. We were laughing at Anthony and Dominic cuz the son is 6 years older than the father LOL... Think the others in the crew and chorus are Genevieve (brains behind the pageant!) Ferdinand, Joanna, Michaela, Desri, Daf, Marcus, Duane, Gerard and friend; and Raymond... Dawn will be involved in planning the workshops and input =) so although there are so many g2 peeps involved, there's also a good representation from the rest of the youth but could be better, probably next time.

After the short session, Anthony, Greg, Dominic and I went to Parkway for lunch. Pasta Mania! Ocean baked pasta! It was not bad, but we were on the outside balcony so there wasn't much air-con to enjoy.... Studied in church, collected my racket and proceeded to The Pines aka old pinetree club to play a 2 1/2 hr long game with Toon. I won 6-4, 6-2, 6-1.... the first set was the most tiring and the closest.... Toon just needs to be more consistent and finish off his points better...

After staying in town (BK) to study abit, went at 1130pm to Khian Hao's place to pass the laptops to him. Interestingly, he went for mass after all, with his friend, at Sacred Heart Church. We talked about RCIA and the churches near his house; he also mentioned that Chai Nam was going to SFX with his girlfren; I later heard from the Chai Nam that with his ex he used to go to a presbyterian church; but would be going to SFX soon. We agreed to go for mass together sometime at SFX, together with Khian Hao.... so ya, God works in beautiful ways... esp since I'm in this evangelisation phase... Brian, HA, Khian Hao, now Chai Nam; and gotta check on Bryan Wang haha....

To-do list: as of 10 Sep 04 (Fri)

1. Youth Camp minutes - done!
2. Vet Colin's Parish Council minutes - done!
3. Vet Adrian's g2com minutes - where is it Adrian!?
4. Contact Con2 & Con3 catechists about recruitment - done!
5. Set-up g2basses and g2recruit yahoogroups - done!
6. Update g2 website with impt dates; and updates on youth camp, g2 anniv, camp fundraising, cookie baking, parish assembly, recruitment programme - not yet!
7. Speak to duane and jeremy chia - soon!
8. Ethics case write-up - where are my case notes!?
9. Liturgical planning for Oct, Nov & Dec - feastdays, advent and christmas! (with Jas, Jon & Noel)
10. Find out who's the celebrant for g2 anniv
11. Bug Ferdi for the videos of fun camp 04
12. Birthday cards/presents for Darryl, Isabelle, Khian Hao, Jeremy Oh, Dominic
13. Dominic's laptops to be passed to Khian Hao - done!
14. Remind Khian Hao and HA abt mass this weekend
15. Remind Brian See abt high mass
16. Send materials to Nicholas
17. Where is the Choral Praise book!? - Noel
18. Roster for Universal Prayer leaders - for Desri, Ally, Mel and me
19. Alastair to lead the Gloria - soon!
20. Speak to Cheryl abt Cherie and gang; and abt Christmas Pageant - done!
21. Discuss with Samantha, Marcus and Justin strategies to recruit their batch - done!
22. Parish Assembly - to encourage all Genesians to go; to encourage all I know to go - done!
23. Cookie baking and selling to raise funds for camp 2004 - roster g2 pple and camp com pple - doing!
24. Paediatrics Revision plan
25. Surgery Revision plan
26. Medicine Revision plan
27. October meeting with East District Liturgical Heads
28. Christmas Pageant meeting on 12 Sep in Church - done!
29. Anniversary photo/video montage - done!

Jonathan's confirmation 

the holy family

I'm in ward 53A now waiting for the HO on call... and I'm wondering what I should hope for tonight... lotsa patients coming in with a variety of problems or a relatively dry call... which would be good for the poor tired HO, and which would mean an early trip home for me.

Back to some updates...
The Parish Pastoral Council discernment seminar went well, about 300 pple attended with a large contingent of 60 elders! GII was represented by a small group of 6. Elections went pretty smoothly save for a number of small groups who did not have enough members present to do a proper election... imagine 2 lectors present to elect 2 representatives! LOL.... June was elected by the GII grp, and she was relieved to hear that I would be in the PPC too.

Prior to the seminar, I was already in church at 5pm to recce the seating arrangements (last minuter!) and I quickly drew up a seating plan and blew it up to A2 size to be placed at the main church entrance. Frantic photocopying and serialising the voting slips continued thru evening mass, and after dragging a whiteboard down from the choir room and ushering people to their designated seats, the seminar began late at 7.40pm.

Throughout the sessions, I could sense that the 300 or so people were open and receptive to the inputs; and they wanted to contribute. It was a pity that certain groups which have lotsa members didnt turn up... St Anne's had 1 person, St David's had 2 persons, Lectors had 2, Wardens 6, EMs 5!!! Well during the nomination and election process, we invited them aside and gave them instructions on what to do with their grps and when to elect by.... cuz Parish Assembly is coming up! 26 Sep 04!

Back to the bookS

Something big is happening this evening, in church....

400 or so Holy Fam-ers, or roughly half of those actively involved in church groups, will converge for a parish pastoral council discernment seminar in the main church hall.

During this 2 hr session, they will firm up their understanding of the PPC; and at the end, each of the 40+ groups will elect one of their own to the PPC, to represent the interests and concerns of their groups, and more importantly, of the entire parish.

As asst secretary, I will be handling the seating arrangement, the voting and election slips, and other logistical requirements... hehe.. slack rite? Well, guess these pale in comparison to the talks and sharings undertaken by the Fathers, Colin, Jenann and James. But I find great joy no matter what, in serving in a simple way. Not to mention the weight of other things to balance eg hospital work, studying, g2, youth camp planning, christmas pageant..... so God's giving me what I can handle, and do well in... for now...

Will be praying for a good attendance this evening, hopefully 800 come!? And also for open minds and willing hearts to come forth to serve the parish community.

Maybe I'll take some photos too.