Recall

When thinking back on my earlier Christian years, there was this one person that I had almost forgot what he had done, and that I did not appreciate that much then. No, not that we were not on good terms, its just that I didn't feel particularly thankful.. And this person is none other than.. Drumroll... My first cell leader, cell leader of Tsikenu, Daniel Yan!

If not for him, my TAG would probably never had started off. I remember there was this sheet of paper that he used to have, that would let the cell members tick which day they did tag in the previous week. And we would set targets. The very first time I saw this, Daniel asked for my target. And I was a little stunned, since I had never done consistent tag. And back then, opposition was still quite strong. But everyone had at least 1 on it. If I am not wrong, Joy had 4 or 5 days as her target. Daniel had 7. And he ticked everyday for himself for the preceeding week. There was someone (I think it was Victoria) who set (his/her) target as 1, but (he/her) was younger than me, so I decided that I would set it as 2.

And that was the start of my tagging experience. That first week, I managed to cover both days. So I felt quite happy and ready to tick the next week. Unfortunately, for some reason, we didn't do the ticking exercise. In fact, very rarely did I see that piece of paper again. But I continued to do it week after week. Sometimes, I would miss some days.. In fact, after that, quite often I missed the goal set. After a while, my tags got steadier...

After that, the thing that spurred me on even more was David's year of Old Testament. Like my peers, having grown up in children church (it wasn't called Solid Rock until I think the last year of my stay; was it Shalom who came up with that name?) I knew a fair bit of Bible stories. But it was never as coherent as when the 12+4 sequence was properly linked and presented.. And we were supposed to read certain books of the Bible before every session. So I did. Fine, I fell asleep sometimes while reading them. But I tried. Fine, it wasn't very deep reading. But it was in a way, one of my earlier Bible study (the earliest was Romans by Pastor Mark if my order is not wrong). Tsikenu studied the book of Nehemiah. I was tasked with the 9th Chapter. It was a brief summery of the Old Testament. So I did it. But I got scared off presenting, so I didn't attend the presentation (whoops, Joy, now you know=p). Which was a pity since I never got to see this work completed. But it was a proper study. After the 12+4 though, we did the prophets (and the presentations spilled over to the next year I think). The prophets were a mystery to me though.. Could not understand them very well.. Even after the presentations, I was still as mystified (now is not that much better actually, I can't make coherent sense of everything. Haven't got the big picture yet). Probably didn't help that around that period of time, I missed quite a few of the presentation of the prophets... Come to think of it, I wonder how the one who was tasked with Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel managed to do theirs.

Thats for the study side. Interestingly, I think my "knowing deeper" part came way before my fellowship part.. The the earlier days, my limited contact was probably with my batch people and even then, quite limitedly so. Kiam Nan was still around then, but he is at least as quiet as myself! We were together not so much because of communication but because of silence. But Marilyn reached out (and got an award for being the most approachable (or is it most friendly?) for that =p) by asking me along when they are going for meals.. It was not until after some time in Sett that I, well, started taking note of other people.

Welcome to my earlier years. One post won't do justice to everything that happened, but here is a portion of it ;)