ggtggthn

Been quite busy with personal life during the past week in finishing up preparing taxes and financial statements for my church.

I realized one thing - I have difficulty memorizing stuff if I don't speak it out so I can hear it back. Is this wonderful? I've been trying to memorize Psalm 119. And discovered during the second week I had hard time doing it. It wasn't until last week I found out this trick of speaking it out loud.
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-beach trip:
saw many stars for the first time in my life. It was a very dark night. I wasn't allow to stay up to watch them spin around the north star.

What is camping? Why do we need to sleep in a tent and build a fire to get the most out of camping? Some people live in a tent for all their life and I don't think they think sleeping in one is more special than sleeping in a building.
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Saw how Tracy did street evangelism today at Eden Center. So cool and so easy. For the rest of us we probably freak out if we were asked to approach a stranger and start sharing why you believe what you believe. She made it seem so easy.

There were 11 of us there. We took photo and had bubble tea too.

Note on worship: Ken Baugh preached on Hezekiah's Prayer
ref: 2 Kings 19
-Why don't we pray? We believe God doesn't answer.
But Prayer is a reflection of our Christian life.

1. Godly life
2. Learn & Obey
3. Faith

WGTS (radio station) is being considered of auctioning off because their parent company (Columbia Union College) needs money to keep the school going. I'm sad.

The top bidder is going for $20 million for the station. What is WGTS's revenue now? $2.5 million. This is going to make a lot of listeners mad since they raised money to keep the station going in the past and now it is outside of their control.

I like WGTS and also possible newer station format (more NPR station, yeh, i love news). Hmm, I don't know who would win out. Only one month away to the switch over. scary.

Oh, and the people who work at WGTS are going to lose their job if they're going to sell the station. This make me sad because they are talented group of people.

[1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072700696_pf.html
update: *jump for joy* they're not going to sell the station. 10-5-07

Awakening fest[1] is 59 days away.

$14/ticket for group 10 or more, $17 individual of advance ordering, $20 for buying at the door and no group discount for buying at the door.

[1]http://www.awakeningfest.com/Awakening2007/

Lynchburg retreat [1,2].
Awesome weekend - went through a crash course of the Sonship class & charismatic worship experience. Built relationship.
Met some people whom I went to school with. One was a roommate of my accountability partner. Another became a pastor.

had interesting small group leaders.

Speaker: Dr. Ron Johnson, Jr. from Living Stones Church in Chicago [3].

web:
[1] http://www.myspace.com/lynchburgccc
[2] http://www.xanga.com/lynchburgccc
[3] http://www.lsfc.org/v5/main.php

Life has been going steady. Nothing here, move along.
( here )

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The Class: Feb 9 & Feb 10:
The Building Lasting Relationships seminar encourages you to develop a personal plan for your life and relationships, and helps you discover:

- Eight bricks for laying a rock-solid foundation
- God's expectations for singles

- Secrets to effective communication and resolving conflict
- Keys to dealing with anger and forgiveness
- Understanding and appreciating male/female differences
- The purpose-driven man and the purpose-driven woman
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source: from MBC's website
http://www.mcleanbible.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=3907

-got a raise
-got permanent position at work (have full benefits)
-received my diploma from NOVA (and I can claim officially I have an Electrical engineering degree)
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Retreat is over. And over all it was good. Nothing was really bad. Talk/Lecture was superb. I didn't take notes though because I aimed for just taking only one point away. More on this. Free time was good. Delighted that there was an unintented free time on the first night. That was great and best of all. Food was good over all except for the Chinese food immitation but it was made up during the Dinner and also a full meal for every meal. Another thing that bother me was forced sleeping early though for our own good. But waking up wasn't coerced: no one came around to ringing the bell in your ear. Yeh. But people normally was up anyway and pretty early too.

One thing I got out of was reminded every spiritual things we do was to bring us closer to conforming to the image of Christ. Devotion is not just devotion, prayer, worship, fellowship; each and all have their purposes. Application: was that we're have influence on other people and the test is wether we are taking glory away from Christ and pointing it to ourselves.

On the last lecture, more application on what it means to be humble, to be gentle, to be patience, and to be forbearing.

humble: using our gifts in the right purpose and not to gratify our own desire.
gentle: not insisting on our rights inorder to put down someone. Not being intimadating. Forgiveness. Not fault finding.
Patience: The same idea especially not fault finding. It is how long you are willing to expect the other person to reform.
Forbearance: Able to live with other people petty personality.

All of them can be sum up in one word of building up each other.

===
Yup, time to plan for retreat 2007.
Wish list:
-more free time less and shorter sessions. I hope 3 instead of 6. The chinese side had 8 sessions.
-add brief small group discussion. Prefer one after each session.
-remove mandatory devotion
-session end by 8:30PM

Retreat is this Friday.

And Ann is going. Yippy! So is Linghao and Dennis.

I just look at the map. It won't take long to get there but we might run into traffic. We are leaving at 3:00. We will miss the opening ceremony and maybe the first session.

We are picking up Myphuong, Grandma, Myself, and Mom. So it would take us a while to get there. Dinner at 6! Ya, we will make it in time for that.

----
Change of Plan.
We are picking up also Julian and Arvin from the airport instead of Grandma.

Bad internet connection has prevented me from posting much the past week. I think it has something to do with the hibernation function of Windows. Love Linux but is still using Windows for most of the work because I haven't learned enough Linux yet to be fully competent on the system besides there is no internet connection on the Linux box.

Good bye to the Tree's as they go to MO. We spent time together during the past weekend. Loading yes. And watched movies. Thank to the Louie's for hosting a sleep over. We watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Les Miserables and some other too. It was my first for both films. So I got a cultural update. Les Miserables reminds me of the The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. When I look them up, I found out they both were written by Victor Hugo.

Kudos to Esther for winning the Clues game.

Someone said that Pastor Tree played the human version of Tetrix.

I'm up for more Tennis. It is good.

Note to self: don't play monopoly with only two people esp with your sister. That game should be banned (hehe).

Links from Chris. Many of them were mentioned at the Lynchburg Retreat.
http://www.ijm.org
http://www.worldvision.org
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ctmag/features/issues/social.html
http://www.sojo.net
http://www.jmpf.org
http://www.tonycampolo.org
http://www.globalissues.org
http://www.littlelights.org
http://www.compassion.com
http://www.globalrichlist.com/

A plug for the Retreat.

Church Summer retreat is coming July 21-23. Everyone is encourage to go. Promotion is heating up.
http://www.skycroft.org

I haven't signed up yet. I will probably go because I think it's fun. Sometimes you don't need to have a reason to go. You just go by that weird feeling that says to go. It is the right thing to do.

But there are plenty of reasons. I am not sure if Uncle Minh mentions them yet. He is coordinating the Retreat.

-Learn about God word. It is a time to supposingly get away from the everyday life and to seek God. It is like going to a monastery.
-It is a time of fellowship. Not very often when the whole church get together. And I think we invite the Herndon church to join us. So there are twice the fun. Some say great, I get to see you for the whole weekend. It a time to spend time with other people.

-It is a time of serving. It is usually a time to try new thing. Like leading small group, or doing worship, or workshop, or camp fire, or activity.

-To hear testimony. I think that was one of the best features both from last year and also at the Lynchburg Retreat.

-Learn new songs. Usually but not always.

-Time to stay up late. I don't think this is the official reason favors by those in charge. But many either going to stay up because they want to or just that they couldn't fall asleep on a strange bed.

-Time to be alone. I hope it is possible. There are plenty of free time. It could be a time to meditate on a passage of scripture in the wilderness or as close as it comes.

-Time to try out "American" food. Must eat. For some it would be the greatest cuisine in the world but most Chinese would just trying swallow. Skycroft food was great the last time we were there.

-I think another most important thing the retreat does is to focus us again on our goals and visions and realign us toward a common purpose. It would be a time of "casting vision" sharing what we were doing and going to do. Each year retreat serves as a mile stone. And we want to hear from other people and we want to bring other people on board to our plan. It also serves as a reality check and heart check.

Some people worry about the direction of our church is headed. I think this is a fine time to change course or stay the course.

Retreat has so many purposes. I know what purposes I have when I go. They change from year to year. And as I attended more I get the feel of what is possible and what is more like wishful thinking. I know that one retreat won't probably change the course of my life but I am willing to try. I think the Lynchburg retreat has done a great thing for me. I want to replicate the effect on other people.

Going to volunteer for the Fairfax festival. Yeah. And I get free ticket too and drinks though it wasn't my reason to do it. I did it because I think it's fun and it is something new.

----
What is different between Compassionate International and World Vision? To me they are doing the same thing except that World Vision is a bigger organization and doing more things to relieve poverty.

http://www.worldvision.com
http://www.compassion.com

A lot of people at Frontline are sponsoring a child through Compassionate International.

Why should we sponsor a child? And When?

----
Urbana is this year. IV version of a christmas conference.
http://www.urbana.org

Pastor tree is leaving at the end of June.

Today is the global day of prayer.
http://www.gdopusa.com

and it is the day of pentacost (what ever that is). Yippy. It is a celebration 50 days after passover (a Jewish festival). Some Christians celebrate the day when the Holy Spirit empowered the apostles to be Jesus witness in Jerusalem. You can read it in Acts chapter 2 in the Bible. www.biblegateway.com

About the global day of prayer. I am disappointed that there is no rally in DC or in Fairfax.

http://www.cccvacpa.org
http://www.graceherndon.org
http://www.cbc-r.org
http://www.gcccnc.org //
http://www.nvccc.org // 1801 N. Quaker Lane, Alexandria, VA 22302

http://www.cbcm.org/ - bible church at Rockville
http://www.chantillybible.org/home //they have a chinese ministry
chinese alliance church at vale rd //no webpage

http://www.frontline.to // not chinese
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nvccc is hosting a VBS.
NVCCC Summer Vacation Bible School
July 31 – August 4 Time 9:00 am – 12:30 noon

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favorites stations
http://www.wgts.org
http://www.wgms.com
http://www.npr.org

Just started a geocities websites.
http://geocities.com/greenmnd4
and a yahoo 360 blog.

They have pure html coding. It seems daunting to build a site from scratch.

-Went to YG last night.
-Attended Men Sexuality Conference with Grace Herdon
-Ate out at BaHa
-Watched X3 with friends. Pretty cool movie. A bit sad.
-Will go to the Cantonese dinner
-Leadership training tomorrow. I just realise I am doing "leadership training". Wow. I had a goal to do as much as I can even before I realise I've been doing this for the past six months. Good stuff.

-Will attend Grace Herndon Church tomorrow. Their worship is at 11:20. Good stuff too.

-I am uploading deuteronomy 10 on geocities.com/greenmnd4

-computer working fine.
-returned from Lynchburg Retreat.

Lynchburg sermons and songs are online
http://www.cbc-r.org/lynchburg2006/index.html
The song I really like there was "Til I See You"

Chinese Baptist Church of Richmond
cbc-r.org

I think this is the Greenboro Chinese Christian Church of North Carolina. They host the Lynchburg registration web site.
http://www.gcccnc.org/

The best of this retreat was the small group.
Chris Lin was the leader.
Tom, Chris(2) Dan, Eric, Dave, Dave(2), Sam, Samuel, Phil?
Essence?