An overdue update - work, cell, Taboo and so on...

Hey, it's been absolutely ages since my last post. Markets have gone absolutely bonkers over the last month, and with impeccable timing, I have transferred from my fly-on-the-wall post to the new slugging-it-out-in-the-trenches post. Horrible amount of things to chase down, especially with the transition at first, but this can only be good for cranking up the learning curve!

Enough said about work, there's certainly enough press ink already and I don't need to add to that. Lots of things going on outside strictly work matters as well. The office prayer group has put together an event for the children of Life Community Services. It will be on 8 Nov 08, we'll bring the kids on a duck tour, then back to the office for a KFC lunch with entertainment courtesy of Chicky (old fogies that we are, we kept asking for Col Sanders and didn't understand who in the world Chicky was).

Even managed to get the office premises open for a prayer team to come down to pray for the financial industry as a whole. I'm thrilled to have the chance to play a small part in opening an avenue for God to work in the marketplace, whether through my work directly, through the office prayer group or generally in making contacts for God's people to come in and do His work. As many have observed, God is God not only within the 4 walls of the church. He is God over everything, the workplace absolutely included.

As for church itself, the new cell group is now a couple of months old now, and I think we're on a decent footing. Happily, we had our first full attendance meeting last week, and I can really see the cell starting to have an impact on the lives of the members, as we "spur each other on to good deeds". I trust that God will mould us all into the godly husbands, fathers, sons and workers that He has prepared us to be.

God has even continued to work for the good of ex-cell members - I accidentally called someone who has dropped out of church. He called back and asked why I called, and I said I didn't, then I realised I must have called when I was fiddling with my phone (possibly in a boring meeting haha!). Anyway, will be meeting up for lunch on Deepavali and I truly believe this is a God-appointed meeting, and I have told my friend as much...

Will try to enjoy the long weekend, cross fingers that the Indian market doesn't see TOO much excitement on Monday (for some reason their Deepavali is on Tuesday). Was just playing Taboo with the Natalie, and I am much impressed that she knows words like "vine", "reservoir" and so on. It's quite funny sometimes though.

Nat: uh... something that people celebrate all over the world.
Me (thinking this is easy): New Year!
Nat: No.
Me: Christmas!
Nat: No.
Me: Uh... National Day?
Nat: NO!
Me: Birthday?
Nat: NNOO!!
Me: ... I give up.
Nat: Racial Harmony Day!
Me: ??!!!

In a warped kind of way, you can understand why she'd think this was celebrated all over the world, when in truth, it's probably only in we-have-a-campaign-for-everything Singapore that we celebrate it.

Have a nice long weekend everyone :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bullying? Stand up!

Image
When I was a kid, I remember being bullied a fair bit.  I was small for my age, bespectacled, shy.    The teachers didn't help by putting a target on my back by making me Vice Head Prefect.  I would get my stuff just taken away from me by bigger kids, dragged out into the field to be tickled until I collapsed (much less fun than it sounds), and pushed into the storm drains.  Not all the kids were full-blown bullies of course.  But I remember some of them standing by, and politely holding my spectacles (so they wouldn't be broken) while the bullies did their work on me. Most of this stopped when I got to secondary school, where a much larger proportion of my fellow students were now just as nerdy!  And of course I grew up too.  I don't really look back on those days with any kind of animosity, because I think it never occurred to me that it was unusual.  But I do think my experience made me a bit more sympathetic about people around me who...
Read more

Life as a pie chart

Image
Someone told me recently about a "life exercise" in which one compiles all the stuff that makes up your life, and puts it in a pie chart.  So let's say for me, something like this. The idea is to visually demonstrate to myself that, in the event I lose one of these things, then I can see that, hey life is not so bad, that wasn't such a big deal.  Say for example, if I suffered a blown ACL, and couldn't run or play basketball any more, like this: At first blush - I'd say, hey, I still have my wife, children, parents, career, church life - so, chin up, things are not so bad.  Pretty good life visualisation tool to bring some optimism back into play! ... But what if, a month later, something happens at work, and boom, career gets sidetracked, I lose my job, or get put in cold storage somewhere, like this: Oops, now only half my life is left!  With only half of life's meaning left to me, what do I do? And what if something happens to...
Read more

Family AND Team

Image
I heard an interesting viewpoint this weekend. A family is not inherently a team. Hmm.  Sometimes at work, often in church, and most of the time at home, you hear people say to each other that we are family. And often, we really are. We care for each other above and beyond transactional matters.  It matters to me when my colleagues and cell group members (and of course my actual family members) go through illnesses or family issues or work challenges. I root for their success at presentations and projects and relationships. I care about what they care about, even if it has little direct impact on my own life. In a way, a family is sort of an amalgam of people who support each other in pursuit of each member's personal goals. For example, as a father, I support my children in their academic, career and ministry goals. But where they go to school, the grades they get, and the careers and ministries they build - they're really their goals, not mine.  Ditto for my role as a c...
Read more