Likings and Loves for the Sub-Human

'This blog post was done in remembrance of my favorite oriental brother, Theo Ng. Praying for you (almost) every day bud!'

Did you know that a 'Gentleman Club' is just a fancy name for a brothel/strip club? I sure as hell didn't, and I learned the hard way. Just wanted to put that out there, just so no one else makes the same stupid mistake that I did.

Anyway, in other news, we've recently managed to run another successful iStand Weekend here in Melbourne. It was an incredibly enjoyable retreat, with the main themes being focused around 'The Four Loves'. I was asked to give a talk on the difference between 'like' and 'love'. How fun!
Anyway, I knew that in order to pull off a successful presentation, I would have to do a bit of research on love. And so I did. It was a long and hard journey, but it was well worth the effort. I myself had come to have a more fuller understanding of the word 'love'.

The Journey Through Love

Take Off Your Pants and Jacket

'Mastery of the moment is mastery over life'

As mentioned in a previous blog post, most of the lifestyle questions the kids ask are sex-related. Common questions include: 'you cant date on YMT, but your allowed to hook up, right? You can still 'get some', can't you? Your allowed one-night stands once a week aren't you?' (I absolutely love getting these questions!).

Anyhow, for the last couple of weeks, we've been running a couple of 'Sexuality' themed ministry days. Now, with the days being 'sexuality' themed, I was expecting a few sex-related questions. What I was not expecting, however, was the amount of questions I got on Masturbation. The kids questions were soo persisting that I decided to go home and do some research on the Catholic teachings of what the urban dictionary defines as 'Wanking'.

Chocolate Covered Cockroaches

'God allows evil only so as to make something better result from it' - St Thomas Aquinas

One question that I occasionally get during a school ministry day is 'How can you believe in God when so many bad things happen in the world?'. Now, even though I never have a definitive answer to this question, it never phases me when I get asked it.

However, I can still remember the first time I was asked the question. It was last year, during a school ministry day at which I was helping out the Sydney YMT. We were at an all girls school, and during small groups,  we were going around the circle and each describing our relationships with God. One of the first few girls said that she had been brought up a Catholic, but currently didn't believe in a god, nor did she want to believe in God. When she was asked why, she told us that it was because when she was a few years younger, her newly-born baby brother had passed away a few seconds after birth. She asked us 'How can any of you believe in a good God when shit like that happens?'

Now, this was the first time I had heard something like this. I immediately felt an overwhelming emotion of sadness for the girl and her family. I was also in shock at the openness and honesty of the girl. How do you reply to something like that?

It has been almost a year since I met that girl. I haven't seen her since, and I don't expect to see her in the future. However, I periodically pray for her and her family, that they may one day experience the true and full love of Christ.
 
Anyway, fast-forwarding to this week. One of the follow-up ministries that we run on team is a youth group which we like to call iSTAND Nights. Now, during our small group discussions at iSTAND this week, the topic were discussing was Justice. We started a hot topic about what justice is and its relation to sin. About 5 minutes into the talk, we each agreed on a common understanding of sin: an evil act that is blatantly rejecting God and refusing to accept his love.

One of the guys in the small group also made a distinction between physical evil and moral evil. He also made it clear that God, being awesome and good, could never be the originator of something evil. God created the world to be good, but it is not yet complete. Through suffering, it is being shaped and moved towards its final perfection. This may be a better way to classify physical evil (eg natural disasters, birth defects, etc). Moral evil, however, comes through the abuse of the privilege of freedom in the world (eg murders, rape etc).

In reflecting on what we discussed in our small groups, I've come to a conclusion that the question shouldn't be 'How can anyone believe in a good God when there is so much evil in the world?', but more so 'How is it possible for a human being with human emotions to endure life in such a morally evil world if God did not exist?'

Christ's death and Resurrection shows us that evil will not have a final say in this world. God works with a bad result to produce good results. And during The Final Judgment, he will put an end to all injustice.

In the life of the world to come, evil has no place, and all suffering and enduring ends.

Just before I peace out, I just wanna share with you an analogy about sin that someone awesome recently shared with me.

Sin is like missing the mark. Every decision you make is like shooting a bow-and-arrow towards a dart board. Sometimes we miss, and go completely off. Sometimes we hit dead center. Wherever we hit, we always must strive to hit the center. And to us, God is like our personal coach. As we go along our individual paths, we often miss the mark we aim for. All we have to do is ask, and our coach will tell us what we're doing wrong, and what to do right in order to reach our target.

Fish and Chips for the Soul

Always remember, you are unique and individual. Just like everyone else.

So, every morning, I wake up, have a cup of coffee, and do a thing I like to call '20's in 20 minutes'. This pretty much composes of me reading through the daily scripture readings, and then summarising my thoughts on the readings in a small number of words. I then e-mail my summary to one of my mates up in Sydney, who then e-mails me back his summary.

Today, I'm trying something new. Instead of sending my mate an e-mail with my reflection, I'll be sending him a link to the URL of this blog. What a lucky guy!
A couple of reasons why I'll be doing this:

1. Because today, and today only, I'll be posting my reflection on my blog.
2. Because I like change
3. Because Sam French is currently my only reader, and I think its time to expand the blog by doubling the number of readers. Don't take it personally, Sam. I still love you. Its just that there's sooo much of me available to go around, and I wanna share it with one more person.

Anyhow. Let's begin.

What Is Love? (Baby Don't Hurt Me)

Melbourne. The city that never sleeps (due the amount of coffee everyone drinks)

So, one of the activities that we run on the YMT at most school ministry days is a reflection activity called 'The Real Me'. What happens is we give the kids a bunch of personal questions and ask them to reflect on these questions, followed by discussing their thoughts in small groups. These 'small group' discussions have the ability to go in two completely different directions; the kids will go incredibly deep with their sharing, or they will be awkward turtle silent.

Now, depending on the feel of the small group sharing, I'll usually ask the kids if there were any questions that they found particularly hard to answer, and usually, I get the same question unanswered by a majority in the group: 'What does love mean?' So, what will happen next is the kids will then look on at me with the expectation that I should be able to answer this question. Now, to be completely honest, I have absolutely no idea about what 'love' means. But I never get around to telling the kids this. I'll just smile back at them and reply with 'I would love to give you the answer, but that would be cheating. Why don't you tell me what YOU think love is'. The kids will then come back at me with 'We don't know sir'. (Now, this usually pisses me off, because the one thing I hate about ministry days is being called 'sir' They could call me 'dickhead' for all I care, just as long as they don't call me 'sir'.) Anyway, I then ask them to just wing it, and tell me what they think love is. This then usually leads on into an awesome discussion on thoughts and opinions on love.

So, during the last two ministry days, I've been compiling a list of what the kids in my small group think 'love' is. One of the days was an all boys group, while the other was an all girls group. This is what they had to say:

I'm Lovin' It

Another completely subjective and naive recount of life events by yours truly.

So, it has recently been brought to my attention that the multimillion dollar international fast-food chain McDonalds will be celebrating its 40th year anniversary for making Aussies fat. And man, those Maccas corporate giants know how to chuck a party!

$1 cheeseburgers. Can you actually believe that? Cheeseburgers! For ONE DOLLAR! How brilliant! There's just one tiny catch though: The one dollar cheeseburgers are only available during 12pm - 1pm. How gay.

Anyway, so me and my fellow team-mates/co-workers/siblings/cult-members/whatever-you-wanna-call-thems were driving back from the airport yesterday, when we saw the sign from heaven. $1 Cheeseburgers are available at Maccas, along with the legendary 'McFeast' burgers and shaker fries. Now, to a normal person, this sign would probably have no meaning whatsoever. But to us poor teamies, this was definitely a sign from God. That meant lunch for 4 for no more than about 10 bucks!

Anyway, so we decided to drop by a Maccas on the way home. However, instead of spending the planned maximum of $10 between the four of us, we made a few impulse purchases too. No surprise there.
So, a good $40 later, we had chowed down three McFeasts, four large fries, one small fries, three large cokes, one large sprite, one McFlurry, and about five or six cheeseburgers.
Ahh, impulse purchases at Maccas. If anyone knows the secret on how to resist the McTemptations, please inbox me, 'cause I'd love to know.

Even though half of my weekly allowance went on maccas this week, you cant help but be amazed - wait no, inspired by the value for money meals they provide the hungry. Sure, the food might be like total shit for your body, but that doesn't mean it dosen't taste good. I'm the first to admit that I quite enjoy my Big Macs. I even remember when I was in Year 8, I told my at the time girlfriend that for our first date, I would take her to the Golden Arches Resteraunt in Darling Harbour, and that she could order anything she wanted and I would pay for her meal. She was so impressed at the time. Now, some people may already see where the rest of the story is going, while others may be thinking 'how on EARTH did you afford that?'. Well, I made a promise to my baby, and I wasn't gonna bail on my promise. I took her to the Maccas just off George Street in Sydney, and spent $20 between the two of us. What an awesome way to save cash on a romantic date! And I'd have to say, that that date was easily the most fun date I've ever been on (not that I have hundreds to compare to). We had a great night, my gal found the joke hilarious, even more so because she was Korean and she understood what it meant to be cheap =].

Anyway, I'm off for now, duty calls.
PEACE OUT MA AMEGOS.
Catcha on the 'flip' side!
=]

Latte and Lectio Devina

Sleep in, coffee and Jesus. What a great start to a day!

So, I decided to take a couple of hours to just get away from it all and have some 'me' time. So I decided to come to the best cafe in Australia (which, coincidentally, is a 5 minute walk from my house). I got my Bible with me, as well as the YouCat. I'd just like to start by saying, the gospel for today is friggin awesome. Well, now that I think about it, every gospel reading is friggin awesome.

Today's reading (Mt 15: 21 - 28) is the one with the Canaanite chick who begs Jesus to heal her daughter. Now I know what your all thinking. Your thinking 'What on Earth is a Canaanite? And why on Earth would Jesus want to heal a Canaanite chick?'
Well, I have no idea what a Canaanite is, but I can only assume that it was someone who wasn't Jewish. And I can only assume that the reason Jesus helped out the Canaanite woman was because he's Jesus, and Jesus is awesome and merciful and he loves everyone.

What really stood out for me was the part where the woman cried out 'it may not be right to take the bread from the children and throw it to the little dogs, but even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master's table.'
How cool is that?! God's mercy and love is soooo fantastic that he even cares for the shittest, most insignificant people! Even Canaanites!
Nothing escapes Christs love. Nothing.

That part even gives me food for thought on what is right and what is just. In our secular world, so called justice is brought when people are persecuted for their bad deeds. However, Gods love shows justice through his mercy on our failures, even though we don't deserve it. Isn't that neat?
And people ask me why I'm Catholic. LOL. Why am I a Christian? Because God loves me and is merciful towards me, even though I don't deserve it.
If got can look at me with love the way he does, maybe I should try doing that too. I'm gonna thank God for all the little joys he gives me which I take for granted. Like my breath. And coffee. What would life be without these two amazing things?
Anyway, I'm off for now.

Ps, sorry if my literacy is shit. I'm posting this on my mobile, which doesn't have spell check or grammar check.
Peace out ma amegos.

Please remember, to tie a knot in your pyjamas...

So, me and my household went out on Sunday night to a family's house from our community. Now, the family has 5 kids with ages ranging from 0 - 8, and the maturity level in my household  ranges from 0 - 8. Which meant that our dinner conversations that night were very interesting. Topics ranged from 'the Government brainwashing our kids' to 'Yo Gabba Gabba!' to 'the Government brainwashing our kids through "Yo Gabba Gabba!"'. Pretty soon, we were all singing old classics like 'Da-Gloomph Went The Little Green Frog One Day' and '5 Little Ducks Went Out One Day (Over The Hills And Far Away)'. But when the five (legally considered) adults in the room started singing 'Please Remember To Tie A Know In Your Pyjamas' was when the kids went crazy. They were dancing moves that I didn't know existed! It was SOOOO cool to watch, especially when Sophie, the 6 month year old daughter, started shaking her head to the beat!
All in all, it was an awesome night, but by far the best part was the ride home. We got lost, so we decided to sing 'Please Remember To Tie A Know In Your Pyjamas' with a whopping 30 IN THE BED!!! It took 40 minutes, but by gosh, it was worth it =]

Team? What is Team?

As mentioned before, I am a volunteer youth missionary. I'm part of an organization known as the Youth Mission Team. So, usually, instead of telling people that 'I'm on the Youth Mission Team', I tell them 'I'm on team'. Now, the Youth Mission Team (YMT) is a self supporting charitable organization, which runs off donations. Can anyone spot irony in that sentience?
Well, let me explain it. There are two key elements to being a volunteer on YMT. One of them is the lifestyle. The other is the ministry. Now, the lifestyle we life includes a curfew (10pm weekdays, and midnight on weekends, just so we can party hard), earning $25 a week for personal use, single vision (which means celibacy. Which means being single in heart and in action. So no dating, no relationships, and no 'hooking up' or 'one night stands' or whatever you call that sort of stuff), respect for authoritative figures (I don't mean Julia Gillard), being a part of a Covenant Community, living in a brother/sisterhood, and having part time work. Just so you know, the money that us volunteers earn during part time work DOES NOT become personal money. That money gets pooled in to our household, and we run the households through that money. Thus, we are self supporting. HOWEVER, the second element on YMT, which is the ministry, does not have any stable form of income, so in order to financially maintain the ministry aspect, the YMT needs to rely on donations. Ministry days involve running youth groups, camps, and reflection days, as well as mentoring kids.


Now, you see those people in the picture above? You can click the picture to enlarge it. Anyway, they are the people I volunteer with. Well, to an extent. The oriental has been replaced, as he had to do national service in Singapore. And the woman on the top of the pyramid (I wont say her name for privacy's sake, but for the time being, we'll call her Robby) is our paid manager and isn't actually a volunteer.
Oh, and here's just a fun fact. You know on Sam French's Blog Post,  where he mentions about his youth group and how 'Originally it was run by a girl from the parish that unfortunately had to move away for study', well that girl was Robby. Same person. Small world, eh?

Choices, choices, choices...

So, I've been receiving hundreds of emails asking me why I decided to make my blog on blogspot.
So why did I choose to make a Blogspot blog? Well, because, as Sam says, 'Twitter is for twats', and I really didn't want to make a WordPress, because WordPress blogs are more professional & formal, two qualities which I lack. So, Blogspot became the choice, simply because I know of no other blog sites. And because that's what came up when I I'm Feeling Lucky'd 'blogs' on Google. Just quickly, just so you know, I always bold I'm Feeling Lucky, simply because I think it is a very clever and underrated search engine feature.

And that's my story.
You are now viewing the finishing result of my story

The Main Purpose

So I was talking to my mate Sam French yesterday about my day in all its worthlessness. What surprised me was that what was a seemingly slightly abnormal day for me astounded him. His next few words seemingly went like this:

Josh, you're a Catholic Missionary who seems to be well grounded in both your faith, and the secular world. Your a very real and reliable person, and as a youth minister, you're be great in the gift of evangelism. How funny would it be if you started up a blog about your strange life? It would make Catholics seem less intimidating and more down to Earth. Plus, you have some pretty funny stories to tell. Heaps of people would love to read a blog about your life. Well, I would anyway!

(Sam spoke in more of a derogatory sense)

I told Sam that the only way I'd be making a blog would be if he made one too.

And so here we are. Sam has already begun his blog page about his trip to Spain for WYD, which can be found here. You should definitely check it out immediately, because its genuinely better worth your while to read his blog instead of this junk. Sam's blog will be filled with fascinating facts and figures on the history of theology. My blog will be filled with fart jokes.
Sam's blog will take you on a journey to the beautiful country of Spain. My blog will take you on an unemotional ride where I drone on about random stuff going on in my life and in my head.

Without further ado,
Let the ride begin.