International Student Ministry Conference

The very first International Student Ministry (ISM) Conference in Malaysia (some said Southeast Asia, some said Asia) was held in First Baptist Church, PJ last Saturday (4th April). The theme is "Re-entry into One's Home Country" thus we call it Home Again, it's a whole day conference from 8.30 a.m til 9.30 p.m. Our Nilai Sunday Service are given the previlledge to handle the worship session of the conference.

I went to Nilai on Friday night for the final practice session. It's the first time we practice so many songs together in one go, but since they're all famous worships and praises, it's still OK for me. Besides, most of the songs are guitar driven songs (which is so not my style, but I get used to it already).

We're gonna have students holding flags of varies country and march onto the stage as opening. Luckily we managed to borrow some countries' flags, but we need to do some sewing (seal the upper hole so that we can attached the flag onto a bar without falling apart). Of course, it's my first time sewing ^_^.

Woke up early the next morning and here we are at First Baptist Church after 45 minutes of driving. We practiced for one round and started with the opening, my flag is Korea! A lot of people actually says I look like a Korean, and my full name does sound like Korean name ^_^.

Then, finally it's the worship session. We played four songs for the morning session and keep the rest for the night session (just in case). One of the reason I really want to join this ISM conference is being able to worship by using their elec piano. I want to experience different worship environment and also it's better for me to start drilling on harder keyboards (overall, I want to improve).

Each participant of the conference can choose 2 topics from the below 12 topics. Each topics are lead by experienced and friendly speakers from all over the world, so it is expected that we learn at least something new. Met Heon in the conference, we attended the same topics, great to have some fellowship with him again.

1. The insider movement & related minitries.
2. Appreciating christian characters & growth.
3. Assurances of salvation.
4. Cross-cultural challenges & adjustments.
5. Time to God Home.
6. Mentoring to maturity.
7. Being a christian in the marketplace.
8. Holistic approach to christian life.
9. Pitfalls of life away from home.
10. Transition and balance between career and ministry.
11. Who is christian?

I also helped to promote our ISM T-shirt which is just RM18 during the lunch session. Robert is the one who handle the cash transition (I'm not gonna do that ^_^), and he seems like quite busy *he didn't have his lunch I think*.

There's a bus to Sunway Pyramid after lunch, and we'll get back to First Baptist Church before the night session started. Anyway, I'm gonna stay at Sunway Pyramid since I'm attending the University of Nottingham's Annual Dinner later at night in Sunway Hotel. Shoped around with Colin in the mall, and after they went back, I decided to have a hair cut *the main reason is I need someone to set my hair*.

Before haircut:

Acutally, making the choice of going for the night session to join the worship team or going to the annual dinner had been bothering me for the last 7 days. I tried to sell my ticket to annual dinner but it doesn't work out. Cheryl said it's OK and Jonathan can take my place as the pianist. It really makes me felt uncomfortable leaving the team but they didn't make it for the worship session at night because they wanted to end early. Haha, so God did planned everything nicely for me ^_^.

Lamentations 2:19, "Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to The LORD. Lift up your hands to Him in prayer." Thanks God for realizing my prayers during my hard times. I pray for Shaun that has just started his working life, let Your love be with him so that he can overcome walls and obstacles in his career. Robert seems to do good in his job, thank you LORD for being faithful to our prayers, pray that everything he does will be for Your glory. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.