Sunday, August 23, 2009

I R Monster

You know something is wrong with you when people are afraid of you, and it got me thinking and I've come to the realisation that I have a severe lack of control over the amount of force I utilise. I have come to dread to game of touch footy, reason because people complain against me for using too much force... In fact I think I get that/will get that reaction in almost all social team sports games I play. I seem to accidentally hurt a lot of people... and I swear it must run in the family somehow, cos my brother had similar problems I think :P. It makes me afraid of making physical contact with anyone, particularly girls... I've accidentally hurt someone from a nudge, to a poke, a slap on the back and all sorts of relatively normal gestures.

I've even hurt myself because I got over-excited once... Last year at UF camp, we were playing dodgeball... And I managed to give myself an extremely bad grass burn on my knee that I still have quite a big scar from now. I crouched down as I pegged the ball and being overexcited I scrapped my knee on the grass... Didn't notice the burn until like 30 minutes later until I calmed down from the excitement...

It's probably a result of simply excessive amounts of adrenaline I guess... But yeah... When people tell you they are genuinely afraid of you when you play sports... You know its a bit of a problem...

See, if a task requires me to be gentle and controlled then I can force myself to do it but most of the time there are no restrictions... And I will inevitably use excessive force. I mean this problem even carries over to my talking and me playing instruments or in any activity I could potentially get excited over... I can talk really quitely and suddenly just talk like a megaphone... and when I play guitar I always get told that I'm strumming ridiculously hard... yet I feel like I'm just playing normally.

But yeah... I don't think there is any kind of way of restraining it... Which is kind of annoying... So yes... I hate playing mixed touch footy... cos I always end up hurting someone...

I mean I am much better at individual sports/challenges that require no restraint whatsoever, particularly full body exercises... Stuff like obstacle courses and rockclimbing or just running around like crazy or martial arts. The reason for that is probably the fact that I do not need to restrain or be gentle because I don't need to make contact or friendly contact with anyone...

But nyeah... I dunno... Random thought...

Sunday, August 9, 2009

RICE 2009 Review

Well RICE is over for the year... I guess I haven't documented any of it on here really... but yeah, it was an amazing experience of what God can do and watch Him touch and change the lives of people.

There was this kid wondering the streets outside the church during BDO, and apparently he heard the music and he came in to check it out. And he heard the gospel preached... I'm not sure if this was the kid that said he became a christian that day at BDO but man, it was amazing to see God working. I mean the kid was not with any adults or anything... just this lone kid in a stripey shirt all by himself. I mean only God knows the reasons why he was there that day but it was truly amazing that God did bring him there and intended for him to hear the gospel.

and then at the Rally. It was just amazing to see so many kids, 292 of them gathering there to listen and here the gospel, some of them for te first time. Some 32-40 kids said they wanted to know more about God. That night, something inside them stirred, perhaps we'll see them again next year at RICE 2010. 16 kids that night said they wanted to become christians, that is, to dedicate their lives to Christ. For those who don't know what that means, it means that they have recognised that they are lost in this world and lost to this world and that they wanted Jesus to save them. There is no amount of emphasis at the joy it brings to us to see even just one of those kids there to choose to follow Christ. For those who thinks that this is just silly superstition then I'd have to say, go hear the gospel for yourself before making any bias judgements. But yeah, to see God working and transforming these kids is just truly amazing and a massive blessing for us leaders. Last year I was one of those kids in the seats and yeah, the reality of the gospel hit me harder than a sledgehammer could ever hit me. I'd have to say RICE played a huge part in my own walk back to Christ.

But the God's blessing wasn't just in the events... It was amazing how everything we did just came together, even when things weren't going as we intended or imagined, in the end God was the one in control. This was God working through us, our eyes couldn't see what God could see. In the end I, personally, was stunned by how everything no matter how inadequate it felt just fell together.

Our God is truly amazing... anyways enough of this rant.
Go RICE! and I pray that God will keep working through RICE to win over the city of Brisbane! RICE 2010!