Addicted to Retreats

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Suburban Changi (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changi_Village)

Addicted to Retreats
I attended my first ever retreat just the last 3 days and I really started to get addicted to it. I kinda like the idea of being able to:

• dress down on a work day,
  
• make my way to and experience suburban Changi Village in the morning,
  
• make friends with like-minded people,
  
• have the opportunity to learn new things from others, and
  
• also to really slow down away from work; tend to be able to see things from different persepctives and things are just, well, clearer

Throughout this 3 days, I also come to realise that despite just being in volunteer programme manager for relatively a short period of time and being the "rookie", to my surprise, I seem to have a bit of experience to share as well, particularly in the areas of establishing systems and structures, volunteer placements in a multi-service setting and maybe branding and marketing of the volunteer programme. I especially love the support circle concept where all the participants were organised into groups of 4 people to share experiences with one another; it is really empowering to know that you are not the only one facing similar problems at work and also interesting to learn how others structure their volunteer programme.

And oh, my passion for training just surfaced again... kinda get the "itch" to wanna do training again, after all, it has been some time since I last trained. Might just go back into training line in future if I have the know-how and knowledge to share, but for now, I still relatively enjoy what I do.

Getting all Paranoid
The hotel was wonderful and so was its surroundings. I loved the room. This also gotta be one of the most unique rooms I have stayed in; it have a almost full length window just next to the bathtub, overlooking the two beds in the room so basically your roommate can see you shower if you did not pull the blinds down. Hmm... maybe it is meant to be a "pro-family" room :)

Kinda regretted opting to stay alone without a room mate. Heard ghost stories from some people who stayed there. My colleague also told me to avoid staying on the second storey because it was there that she saw a black apparition looking at her son one night and soon after her son woke up shouting. So, was kinda relieved when I was handed the keys to my first room and realised the room was on the third floor. But then I realised it had a queen size bed. Since I will be having a friend over, I requested to change to a room with 2 single beds. Guess what, I was given a room on the second floor!

Anyway, I did all I can to make sure my stay there was uneventful. Did what others told me: knock on the door before entering, leaving my shoes in disarray. I even brought my bible along and also played worship songs from my laptop. My colleague also lent me a bottle of holy water just in case :) The first night wasn't so bad since I had my friend and his "wife-to-be"'s company. But the second night, I was alone. So I visited another course-mate's room and we chatted till late until we were all tired and I just konked out back in my room.

To Blog or Not to Blog
At the start of the retreat, we were supposed to introduce ourselves and share what we enjoyed doing. So I shared about my interest in blogging and how I also sometimes blog about volunteer management. But little would I have expected that a couple of course mates asked me for the blog address. I mean, I would not have imagined people wanting to read my rants and two cents' worth on stuff so must say I was caught rather unprepared when they asked for my blog "addy". And so I gave... I mean, what I blogged might not be of great value but then it is still my life and my "chronicles" of the world I live in, so didn't really mind sharing. Also, I did think about how I am going to blog but then decided that I will not maintain a facade and just be myself. After all, this blog is written not "for show" but more as a unadulterted "chronicle" of my life. I guess the thing about blogging is that one may easily fall into the trap of blogging for the sake of satisfying others or maintaining a certain persona. Let's hope I don't go that way. (Picture "Sequined Mask" by torli )

I really enjoyed myself at the retreat and cannot really wait for the next one next year... learnt a lot from the trainer as well and little would I have expected the very person who have contributed to my "splitting headache" a few days ago also presented me with insights on how to "failure-proof" myself and recover from setbacks... how ironic? If fact, on the first day, he greeted me warmly, which was a stark difference from a few days ago :)

I know it has been sometime since I blogged, have been real occupied at work and also with exernal committments, so sometimes can be daunting coming in to blog (since it requires brain juices to blog). :) Will be continuing to blog about some of the ingsights from the retreat in the next few days.

Splitting Headache for Two Days

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I had a horrendous day yesterday and the effect seem to have stayed with me till today; I am still feeling very lethargic, have this splitting headache and have totally no mood to work. I was all psyched-up for a in-house training I was coordinating for yesterday but everything just turned out horrible and now I just feel so so horrible about myself.

Firstly, to start off, I was supposed to have a volunteer come to help me with the operations , behind the scenes work for the training yesterday. However, she was unwell and so I had to take over the operations for the rest of the day (which meant I cannot participate in the workshop since I had to run around to make sure things ran well). Then as the training went on, some participants started to sense that the training wasn't as what they had expected and sought clarification from the trainer. I wasn't in the room when this happened because I was outside handling another crisis; the caterer was late and I was panicking since it would be lunch time soon.

When the food eventually came and I had time to check in with the trainer, I can sense that he was rather unhappy. We eventually found out that he had a different interpretation of what is to be covered in the workshop from me and I could sense him, on one hand, being nervous as I can see his hands shivering (maybe he was really thinking how he should proceed with the workshop) but on the other hand, I sensed his, in my opinion, unfriendliness and hostility. He kept telling me that he followed my brief emailed to him. There were awkward moments and it did not help that both of us are rather quiet people, so I offered him lunch and went out to check on the lunch. My mind was in a total blank now and I was so emotionally and psychologically drained from all that happened. I didn't even have the mood to eat. The "hostility" somewhat continue till the end of the day and twice, he seemed inpatient and asked me what is my decision on what he needs to cover.

After all these, I really don't have good vibes about this trainer. True enough he is a well-known trainer but he is just so unfriendly. I was not impressed by his training as well and did not learn much from him. In a way, I have also learnt a lot from him, thanks to all the things that went wrong. I learnt how important it is to:

• ensure that both the trainer and the organisation which has engaged the trainer's service have the same idea of the objectives of the course,
  
• for the trainer to check the expectations of the trainees at the beginning (but I did not see this happening)
• for the trainer to constantly keep track of group dynamics and ensure rotation of group members so everyone will have a chance to work with everyone and gain from insights of others. In the training yesterday, I saw how people from the management tend to stick together and I also saw some negative group dynamics affecting group discussions (but yet nothing was done about it, despite it happening literally in front of the trainer)
  
• start with a ice-breaker to maybe put people into their initial teams and break the ice (didn't really help when the trainer was this tall, big size guy with a coat on)
  
• use experential activities to drive a point across and not just do lectures all the time

I am no experienced trainer but based on my limited training experience and observing other trainers, these become rather apparent. It would also be good if the trainer could also take the opportunity to mingle with the participants but yet again, I do not see this happening. I was really disappointed with the trainer and more so myself... somehow I kept blaming myself for having organised a horrible workshop and the intended objectives were not met. I really felt that I have wasted charity money and have wasted everyone's time since everyone had to take time off to attend this workshop.

To make things worse, there were several times the discussion went off tangent and some just didn't seem to understand the question at all and their answers seem to be not that relevant. Then, my "number two" came down and again I messed up the protocol and felt horrible for having neglected her. I did not ensure she has a place to sit and did not give her a set of the notes when she joined us after the afternoon tea break.

Then the caterer was late again for the tea break and all the participants will have to go back into the workshop without tea break. I got quite mad and called to "complain" to the social worker. The catering service is a social entrepreneurship by clients of another social service organisation and we thought of supporting the clients by engaging their service but I ended up being disappointed by them. I eventually felt extremely extremely horrible because this is the first time the social service centre is trying this family for their catering service so I hope that this has not affected them. The cook, a young mother, came carrying her baby in front of her and kept apologizing for being late. Since the participants went back into the room, I made a decision for them to leave the food and come back to collect the utensils two hours later, since I did not know when the participants can come out to have their break again. Again, this turned out to be a horrible decision since the young mother, together with her two children and probably husband had to wait around for the next two hours for us.

Really, by the end of the day, I felt like a total failure and, it may sound stupid, but the intention to even resign even came to mind. I think this is me and I tend to run away from failures. It seems that God has blessed me with so many successes in the work I do that I cannot accept failures. Just a moment ago, my friend messaged me to remind me to relax and lift my troubles to God. I think I tend to forget about that but still, I can't get over how so many things went wrong and how a failure I had been.

The pounding headache stayed with me till today and I just didn't have any more mood to work. In the end, I did something which I would not expected myself to do, given my character.

Anyway, I still thank God for watching over me for my first department devotion today. Even though it was my first time leading devotion, I felt it turned out better than I have thought. Mustered up courage and led worship and sang "At the Foot of the Cross" and "So You Would Come". Today is also the first time, I prayed aloud in a group.

Today's sharing was about the gift of grace from God; how we can freely receive something from God with nothing. Isaiah 55:2 said "Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? " A few things about God's gift of salvation:

• It cannot be earned
  "... It comes not by merit but by mercy, not by trying but by trusting, and not by working but by resting. In the words of the apostle Paul, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). In another of his New Testament letters, Paul added, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:5)."
• God Paid for It Himself
  "...He gave us the freedom to accept or reject Him. From the beginning, however, our first parents chose to walk away from Him. Instead of leaving them in their rebellion, He revealed a plan of rescue whereby an innocent victim would die on behalf of the guilty...He sacrificed His Son to pay for our sin (John 1:29; Hebrews 10:5-10)."
• God Offers it by Grace
  "...But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense [Adam’s sin] many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many” (Romans 5:15)."
• It's Available to All who Receives It
  "Most of Jesus’ best friends were fishermen, not scholars. One was a tax collector. One had been possessed by demons. One sold her body for a living. What they had in common was their willingness to accept the gift of God... Even in His dying hour, while hanging on a cross between two dying criminals, Jesus gave the gift of eternal life. One of the two mocked Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” The other criminal rebuked the first and said, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Only because salvation is a gift of grace could Jesus say to him, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:39-43)."

I also took the opportunity to share my testimony of grace; of how I have fallen away from God for years but He has not forgotten me and have brought me back by grace.

I'll Report You to the Principal

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These were the exact words that came from my ex-teacher today because we had been "naughty" :) 10 years ago, we were still in our JC uniforms, studying for our prelims and "A" levels exams... boy was it a stressful time.

But look how time flies... 10 years down the road and we are all now working in our respective jobs, some are married, some are getting married and some are still single. Most of us matured quite a bit and are undeniably facing more struggles than when in JC. Well, this is adult life.

But we will always remember one of our teachers who, despite being "naggy" at times but were nonetheless like a mother, putting a lot of effort into her work with us. We remembered how during one of our "A" levels paper, she was so worried about us, she came by to see how we were doing only to be "chased away" by the invigilator.

Now that all of us have parted ways and are relatively established in our areas of work and family life, we still remember this dear teacher. So during one of the recent gatherings, me and my friends decided to organise a get-together with this teacher to celebrate teacher's day with her. Despite being quite last minute (we had only decided one week before), it was surprising that everybody said "yes" and we were able to quickly get a get-together put together (hey it rhymes) :)

Everyone played their part and everything just turned out so well today: I and my friend coordinated with the teacher and everyone while someone else got the gifts, someone was in charge of photography, rushed to get the photo developed and placed into the photo frame, in time to present it to our teacher before the end of the gathering, someone helped to book the place, someone brought her polaroid camera and we had fun taking photo snapshots of one another, someone ran out to buy marker to write our names onto the photo frame and someone helped to "hijack" the bill from my teacher hahaha... there was just so much "chemistry" and everyhing fell into place nicely. (Gunman 2 by tomskydive)

Our teacher still look the same. She still look as motherly as ever and came dressed humbly in her T-shirt and pants. Before this, she has specifically instructed that we do not get her anything and that we must allow her to buy us a meal. Well, being the "naughty" us, we all hijacked the bill and of course bought her a teacher's day gift. No wonder she wants to "report us to the principal" :) In the end, she made us promise we let her pay the next meal and that we must meet up with her annually :) Well, we'll see hehehehe...

Supersize "Sensitive" Me

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My sensitivity has worked for me but unfortunately has also worked against me.

For the last few days of the week, I have been feeling really really really bad about something, to the extent my interaction with people has somewhat been affected. Well, I was coordinating this in-house training for next week and somehow, the idea came that maybe I should invite a fellow colleague of mine to come along to join me in the training. I asked and this colleague indicated that he is keen to join me. But when I aproached my boss about this, she wasn't the bit thrilled since that would mean taking another person away from work. And maybe it had been the way I had put it, she might have thought that this colleague approached me about it. Think she eventually approached my colleague about it. I do not know if my colleague is angry with me but then I just feel so so bad putting him in a spot. But I do feel better having explained and apologized today; I smsed him and will just leave the rest to God. Boy, do I hate conflicts and I can sometimes get so sensitive it gets the better of me. Sometimes, I just wished that I am not so.

But, on the other hand, my sensitivity is also been a gifting from God. It seems that in recent times, God have been sending to me people who are troubled and who have backslided or have been misled by "unconventional christian groups". I remember that, despite working in a christian organisation, I had been rather resistant about ministering to others in my work earlier this year (see here); I saw my work as the secular part of the organisation. But increasingly, God has sent, again and again, people who have backslided or have been misled by "unconventional christian groups" and again and again, I had been given the opportunity to share my testimony. Somehow, the interviews with these people would usually turn into a long conversation with them sharing with me their struggles and about their faith and this just provided the opportunity for me to share my testimony about how I have backslided and how, by the Grace of God, returned to Him.

In fact, recently, I have a new volunteer and I found out that he was keen to visit a "supposedly" cult church; the same one that my friend is in now. It was really an ethical dillemma as I worked through it with him during the volunteer interview; on one hand, I was concerned about him as a brother in christ but on the other hand, I am asking whether how much it is appropriate for me to intervene, in the capacity of a volunteer coordinator. In the end, I decided to be genuine and share with him how concerned I, as a brother in christ, was about him going to that church. But he ended up asking me for the address of that church and when I had refused to give to him (since I do not know), he seemed disappointed. Did I do the right thing? I am really really confused.

But one good thing is that, I am making progress with my friend in the cult. I have been, in a way, running away from this calling of mine and it has been difficult talking to my friend about it. There was just no opportunity because everytime I decide to talk to him about it, he brings another friend along to try to psycho me to join his church. So recently, God blessed me with a pari of movie tickets and the idea that I should invite him to a movie. This should provide me with the opportunity to talk to him in private. So, I plucked up the courage and asked if he would like to catch up with a movie and to my surprise, he agreed. I am praying that God will just bless me to say the right things at the right time in the right way. The thought that people are using religion for their own interest really pisses me off!

I also realized that I have been very very busy lately and everyday of my schedule has been filled with meetings and appointments (and some of these appointments actually clash with one another). Starting to really feel tired and bad about rejecting friends each time they wanted to meet up with me. Have recently made a decision to just do something for myself and I pulled out from 2 portfolios I was holding outside of work... I just wasn't coping and needed some rest.