.:: Eternity ::.

I actually wrote this in an email I sent to few of my friends last Friday.
Thought you might like to read it. If the link below doesn't work, just copy and paste it to your browser.

From: SILAEN, Antonius
Sent: Friday, 4 July 2008 9:53 AM
Subject: Something to share

After leaders meeting (after church service), I decided not to join fellow leaders from Joseph for dinner. I actually wanted to join my group's dinner in sunnybank but found out that they already finished dinner, so I went back home.

Found left over food I cooked the other days, I reheated it and had it for dinner. One of my housemates came out of his room and we starting sharing about our past life. Man, what a wonderful conversation. He didn't share much as I did most of the sharing, but while I was sharing about my family, how poor we were long time ago, I couldn't help but thanked God for what He has done to and for us as family.

You might not believe this, but when I was little, we were so poor that once I had rice with tomato. Then once we shared a fish with everyone in the family, 4 of us had rice and piece of fish. At that time we rented a house made of pieces of wood (not timber) and the floor was soil. We didn't have mattress at that time, so we slept on bed-frame-shape made of bamboo. It wasn't an easy journey, at least for both of my parents. Through it all, I could now see God's covering and blessing were everywhere as we survived and managed to stick together till this day.

ah... it seemed not so long ago I experienced the hardship of life, living way under the poverty line. I miss mum now. Hope you're doing fine mum. God, please comfort her and strengthen her. And please help dad to take care of her. I miss you both. Nite mum, nite dad.

Just came back home.
Drop my friend home after taking him to hospital. He was really sick before, but he's fine now.

While waiting in the emergency waiting room, I remembered the night when I was at exactly the same place waiting for doctor to attend me. Ah... it was a cold night as well, the weather was cold and I was feeling cold, to top it all, I couldn't even breathe properly as my heart was in pain. Thought I was dying, literally.

I saw lots of people tonight, the sick came with their family/friends. But what I saw was more than physical sickness, it was the state of their spirit. At that time I was thinking, "hmm... it'd be nice if I were a doctor. I can talk to all the patients about God." ahahha...
Oh well, I'm home now. I felt really bad for not being in LG as I was supposed to lead praise and worship, and discussion. But I thank God for my friends who willingly took my place for pnw and discussion. Ah... I miss them so much. Steven and Kimie, you two are just wonderful. Thanks guys for your understanding and support.

There's actually nothing special today, but something cool was deposited in me by the Holy Spirit today.

We all know how important it is to pray, but for some reason it never occurred to me to start praying for the city of Brisbane, together with others, especially the working people in city. Without thinking much, I quickly emailed a couple of friends and told them about this crazy idea, to meet once a month (to start off with) either before or after work and pray together.

1 person replied saying it's a good idea, but the rest haven't replied yet.
I don't know if they would agree to pray together before or after work, but I decided to go ahead myself even if noone wants to come and pray together. Journey of a 1000 mile starts with 1 small step, right? Through 1 simple prayer, I can see it in my eyes revival in this city, people will be saved, life will be changed and transformed and so many people worshiping God together. ah... I'm so excited to see that happen, yeah, I want to see revival in this city, in the city of Brisbane. woohoooooo....

Yeah, sometimes reality bites, ahhaha...

I've been catching up a lot with many of my friends whom I haven't seen for ages. And as much as I enjoyed catching-up with different ones, there's one question that really annoyed me all the time (cause it's always the same question for some reason), they always ask the same question, who's my gf and when will I get married. I was like. "Helloooo.. next question please?" So I ended up explaining to them that I don't have a gf and not sure when I'd get married, ahahhaa......

It's not that I don't want to get married or have gf at all, in fact, I do want to have a gf and get married (hey I don't think I have the gift of celibacy), but it's just that it's not on my number one priority list right now. How hard is it to understand? Yes I'm getting older, but oh... c'mon, I trust God will give me the right one in His timing. Who knows, maybe tomorrow He'll reveal her to me, maybe next week or next month or next yr or 2 yrs later (and I'll surely be captured by her beauty, her heart for God and people). I'm not worried at all. The reality is, as much as I wanna have gf and get married, at the moment I want to be used by God more and more to reach out and save people for Him. Well, you might not understand this, but just think of something you're dying to achieve right now, and having a gf/getting married doesn't really matter at all (although it's part of your desire), cause all you want is just to achieve that goal, nothing else matter.

Anyway, if you're like me when people at your age are already married (with kids), you better prepare yourself for all these questions and unnecessary pressure from family members, ahhaha....