Saturday, May 05, 2007
Life is a disease? An Interesting Conversation
*cracks knuckles* I thought I said goodbye to my blog forever, but I guess I really do want to post in here every once in a while. In fact I can't really remember why I said goodbye in the first place. It's such a nice place to be, this little world where you just pen - ok type - yours thoughts and ramblings.
So here I am once more, and this time I'm typing in paragraphs like a good student should. =) Anyway, this post is to log about the happenings in the school that I'm serving in. It's been a most interesting journey, and I must say much has been learned in my time here. I feel good standing where I am now, and it's really by the grace of God.. I've learned much about worship leading in my quiet little role as a worship leader of sorts in my prayer meetings with the mentors, I've learned much about waiting for inspiration to use media to reach out to students, and what fascinates me the most is the opportunities I get to disciple new Christians as well as to seek out seekers and make friends with them. Every day I end the day feeling a sense of fulfillment I can't really explain.
And then there's relationships! Godly ones, crazy ones, godsends, He's just leading me to build relationships with all sorts of people. I have a mentor who pours out his life into me and shares with me and guides me in my ministry as well as personal life, I have a long time buddy - the one I spend time with religiously every week, who shares a special bond with me that's hard to describe, I have a counselor who commits to seeing me through my family issues and working through the inner healing process with me, a peer accountability partner to help keep me in check in my walk with God, a cell group whom I'm getting more and more attached to, I mean where's all this coming from?? Blessings, blessings, blessings! From the Father of Lights who gives good gifts to His children.
Of course I'm not just receiving.. I like to think of it as a channel.. I receive freely so I can give freely.. I'm given the opportunity to pour my life into three disciples, and every meeting with them leaves me feeling excited for them. I mean now it's just new life kit. There's gonna be more equipping along the way and I really pray they keep growing in Christ. By the grace of God I'm also gonna start a guitar course next week with two students. Interesting catch is I will evangelize to them at the end of the course. =) Thank God for His providence. Then there's two seekers I really hope to lead them into the truth about things.. One of them loves playing pool.. Perhaps I can start from there..
The other one, he deserves a whole paragraph just dedicated to him.. Quite a fellow, this guy is.. First learned about him when he was having a talk with another of the mentors. Thought he was quite a character then already.. Speaks with an English accent and when you ask him he tells you his parents are both Singaporeans.. Doesn't it sound familiar? Haha.. Really brilliant fellow and when I met him today he was busy solving a problem for another student who didn't know how to prove that the square root of 2 is irrational. I thought I was seeing a resurrected Einstein or something. So anyway we were about to go our separate ways and I was commenting that this guy was really something and this other student of mine commented that I should hear his theory about life; to him life is a disease. I laughed it off making a smart remark that it sounds like something out of the Matrix, but he kept at it and maintained that life's a disease, going after me when I had made a move. I don't know why but I somehow had a loose tongue so we had a most interesting conversation that goes like this:
Me: No, life is not a disease.
Student: It is a disease, and an incurable one at that.
Me: Death is the disease.
He is taken aback at the sense that made.
Student: How is death a disease? It's just death.
Me: We're dying every day. But there is a cure.
Student: What's the cure?
Me: (beaming) Jesus Christ.
You must think I'm crazy here but you have to know this fella is a church goer with devoted Christian parents. He just refuses to believe.
Student: How is Jesus Christ the cure for death?
Me: He conquered death when He died on the cross.
Student: How can you conquer death by dying? When I die I'm dead. That's it.
Me: (beaming again) He resurrected Himself.
Student: How do you know he resurrected himself? You know the Bible can't be trusted cause it contradicts itself.
Me: How does it contradict itself?
Student: Well the gospels contradict themselves.
Me: They don't, they just are written in different views for different audiences.
Student: Well they give contradicting accounts of who found the tomb empty.
Me: What's the contradiction?
Student: Well (his favorite phrase) one says it was Mary who found it and another says... some shepherd or soldier I can't remember.
Me: Well, it's just a different chronology of events.
Student: (stumped) Well what are you some kind of pastor or teacher?
Me: I'm a Mentor, and we do a bit of what we call apologetics.. I gotta run but if you're interested we could talk some more next time.
Let me stop here. There's a bit more but well you get the drift. I hardly know what I was doing but on looking back it caught his attention! Soon I bumped into him again and this time I offered to do a study on the book "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel with him. He seemed interested enough. God knows what kind of grave I dug myself into. But I'm excited for obvious reasons. This fella's not gonna stand against the truth if he's trying to refute it! And man one can only imagine what happens when he utterly convinced of a God who cares and loves him.
Check back soon.
Mantou at 12:05 AM