back for some big PUBLIC EVENT

sorry again for the very late post. since ive been back in melb from singpoare, ive been busy with my new apartment( this will be further described in the following para), preparing for uni, adapting to cantonese service in MCBC( this is totally great!) and finally experiencing my first homeless night......
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alright, so my new apartment is just one road apart from the uni. ^^ it has a pretty look from the outside of the building and the ground floor is like a resort lobby, having snooker tables, car racing machines, plasma television plus many many sofas, bbq pit and open space have-fun area and also computers to go online. sounds marvelous eh? but once you take the elevator up to the rooms... u get a 180 degrees change of environment. heee it has gotten much comments from various people and these are some of them. " this looks like some fire escape route...", " WA, like one whole row of prison cells...", "really very small leh, and where's the toilet?!" yea i have to share the washroom and kitchen with about 23 other people... just like a public place. sad right? T.T
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then, moving on... YAY for MCBC! i love the people in church, i love the church building itself, and i love CATALYST and sunday canto service! catalyst is the friday gathering where we interact and discuss God's Word. =) ive attended several services so far and they have been really meaningful. and also for the new friends ive made, thankyou for helping me fuse into the community =) kit, ricky, shuoi, daniel, carmen, rebecca, mick, rachel, ivan, anson, fran, phoebe, eugene, peggy, jack, lydia, jimmy, auntie alice and sorry for some names i might have missed out. i always look forward to the coming sunday whenever a new week begins. heee and one more thing. theres going to be a camp in july that is welcoming people to join. it would be focussed on the topic of relationships in relation to Christianity, so the criteria to join that camp is to be a believer and single or attached but not married and in the age range of 18-35. and many of them asked me to join and the answer i always have to repeat is, " dont ask me, im underaged..." and their reply is," HUH?! really?! when are you going to turn 18?!" hehehehehe im young! but anyway, keep praying for the upcoming camp and events.
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okay, finally we come to the most interesting part of this post. it was 23-03-2007. temperature was about 33-37 degrees in the day.

samsam went to uni and on her way back on the train, there was a gas explosion at one of the stations and the trains cant pass. she was stuck at the station for 2 hrs before trains could pass again. this happened at about 12.30pm.

i was on my way to friday gathering, with ivan. so we were at the train station waiting for the train and i saw people reading the papers. the front article had a title that reads, " BURNLEY... HORROR" *shock* burnley is one of the suburbs where lay goes for some uni lects. i actually wanted to borrow one of the papers to have a look but 不好意思 neh... but even without looking at the article, it is obvious that something big happened there. oh no...so this happened at aprrox 6.00pm.

then after my church gathering, mick and rachel sent 3 of us who are staying in the city back home. i was the last to get off so when we were heading towards my place, we crossed one cross junction that had faulty traffic lights. mick suspected that there is a blackout in the area, and at that same moment, doggie called me to say that there is indeed a blackout in almost half of the city area. most apartments didnt have electric supply, only those ground level shops and of course hospitals n uni were still brightly lit. so i grouped together with andy's cell and we discussed where we should go. shearan and jup stay near my church area so was not affected by the blackout. so 6 people, sze-er, doggie, andy, shearan, jup and me got onto sze-er's car. first we sent shearan n jup back home, then guess where the rest of us went? WASH CAR! haha. we went for the manual car wash somewhere near jup's place. then after that we headed back to the city. so actually in short, i was in the city, then i took the train to glenferrie, then after church mick drove me back to the city, then i was on sze-er's car to glenferrie, then again back to the city. wahaha! ^^ samsam was alone at home so we kept calling her to make sure she's fine. but in the end we think maintaining sufficient battery in our phone was more impt. =) okay... then since the elec hasnt recovered yet, we went to get supper at Hungry Jacks before going back to andy's house(its dark and we could only depend on candles and torch and handphone light). as we drove back from HJ, we saw a road block which says this, "ROAD BLOCK for PUBLIC EVENT". haha it sounded quite funny at first but this blackout is truely a public kind of thing though. we waited n waited n waited n at ard 1am plus i guess, samsam replied doggie's message that her apartment got elec liao... then it was followed by doggie's apartment and lastly mine. the elec recovered starting from the city up towards the uni. as we left andy's place, it was raining and it was freezing. me and sze-er was even in shorts and short sleeve tops. melbourne is crazy! one moment its 33-37 degree celcius, then it falls to about 10 degree celcius. BRRRRrrr....we reached home about 2am plus.
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for the first time, i felt how it is to have nowhere to go, no home to return but luckily ive still got friends' company.=)) wads happening to melbourne? was it an attack? is Christ returning? this incident fits perfectly to the bible study session at catalyst last night (Matt 25:1-13). we talked about the importance for preparing ourselves ALWAYS for the return of Christ. constant prayer, reading of the bible, attending church services, fellowship and concern for people around us, keeping a close n strong connection with God. He is going to come back anytime soon. this place we are in is becoming more n more complicated and disaster-prone.
Lord, as You said in Your Word, these are signs that the world is going to end. may i pray that when You come again, we will have more than enough oil supply for our oil lamps, to be well prepared to receive You. and at that time, believers will return back to the heavenly home with You. In Jesus name, Amen.