time

INFPs are idealists and dreamers. And when you're an idealist and a dreamer, much of your time is spent in your own head, reliving the past and anticipating the future. In your pocket is a collection of ten-second moments of beauty, from a week ago, two weeks, a month; and little words from snippets of conversations, the tiniest things that made your heart swell. You don't remember what came before or after, how you got there, but those moments you play again and again and you reshape and recolour and let it fly like a kite and watch it unfold in the sky.

The past couple of weeks away from home have honestly been pretty mundane. I haven't clicked that well with the other volunteers; I've had very little teaching opportunity, and I'm absolutely unable to communicate or click with the younger kids; I feel very much alone and alien in this place. It has really been the conversations with people back home keeping me alive. And when you're stuck in dull reality and the words on my screen from people back home are making you laugh, and you're a dreamer, you let your mind run, run, run behind and run forward all too fast. I have let it run dangerously, and it is time to pull the reins in. But at the same time, these dreams are so beautiful and how I would love to reach out at the future in my head and grasp it, course through time like a speeding motorbike, zipping through the highway with the mountain on our right and the endless blue sea on our left, the wind in our hair, chasing chasing -

but time will continue to keep its pace, sixty seconds and minute and sixty minutes an hour. It will continue to crawl as it pleases, and the days and the months will come in its time. Patience, to breathe in slow and deep and take in the present. Live in the moment for what it is, stop reaching for a mirage.

a 2-minute summary of the Book of Jonah

because it's really too cute i can't even

God: Jonah, arise and go to Nineveh and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me!!!!!
Jonah: WA JIALAT RUN
Jonah: *runs* *finds a ship* *buys a ticket* ok bye
God: *sends a storm*
Sailors: OMG WE'RE GOING TO DIE JONAH WHAT DID YOU DO
Jonah: Ummmm I tried to run away from God
Sailors: WHAT THE WHY YOU PUT OUR LIVES IN DANGER!! Ok you better not cause us all to die cos we innocent
Jonah: Ok throw me overboard
Sailors: ...huh...no la bro...ok we try to go to shore
Sailors: Aye cannot, wind too strong. Sorry Jonah bye
*wind stops*
Sailors: WAH THIS GOD IS REAL thank you God
Jonah: WOW God u saved me i’m surviving in a whale thank you God ok ok i’ll go to nineveh
Jonah: *goes to Nineveh* YET FORTY DAYS, AND NINEVEH SHALL BE OVERTHROWN!!!
King of Nineveh: *takes off robes, sits in ashes* STOP EATING AND START REPENTING! Maybe God will change his mind
God: Mm very good ok I’ll spare y'all
Jonah: WALAO now they think I’m lying!!!! AIYO GOD JUST KILL ME
God: Is it right for you to be angry?
Jonah: *sulks* *goes to a place to sit and see if the city crumbles* walao damn hot
God: *makes Jonah a plant for shelter*
Jonah: Ahh thank you God
God: *makes plant die*
Jonah: WALAO
God: Is it right for you to be angry that the plant died?
Jonah: YA DAMN ANGRY
God: So shouldn’t I also pity Nineveh and spare it from destruction? 120,000 people who can’t tell the difference between their right and left hand
Jonah: :|

Touch

Curled up on the floor, her back against the cold comforting wall, she allows her arms to wrap around herself. It is all the human warmth she permits, on special days like these when her heart is full with yearning yet empty with fear, choppy whirly waters that only arms can stabilise. Her skin is baby-pink raw, tingling sensitive, a fence armed with electricity; she recoils at the slightest touch. A stranger brushes past; a friend puts his arm round for a picture; a classmate pats her on the back; she immediately freezes rigid, struggling to calm the tremble. Something bitter and black starts to form at the back of her mouth and it rises to her temples and over her arms and legs and into the very pit of her, and she struggles to get it off. The instant aversion. Repulsion. Oh but she longs for affection, how she longs for affection. For someone else's strong arms to hold her frailty. Instead she spreads both hands over the ache, adding pressure, attempting to pacify. She has always borne the weight on her own, the hole in her chest wide open, a plea to be outside herself.

She met someone today. She was sitting on the little ledge behind the classrooms, overlooking the pond. Cross-legged, her hands clasped together, slouched over. It was a quiet, empty late afternoon, and she came to meet Peace again. But no- today somebody came and sat with her. She heard footsteps first, oh no. But the footsteps grew louder, sneakers dragging on the concrete, until they stopped by her side. A red haversack on the floor. She looked up at his pale blue tee, his fringe falling over his eyes; he glanced down at her. Set himself down on the ledge to face her, crossed his legs. Breathed out, a silent sigh. He raised his eyebrows at her, a small smile to say and what about you? She turned to look at the pond instead. The ducks were sticking their heads into the water, their butts pointing to the sky. Turned back. Fringe boy was still looking straight at her, his smile gone but the concern in his eyes clear as crystals. She took in a deep, slow breath - did she dare? - she nodded in her heart, brave. She looked at him for a long while, and he back at her, a silent acknowledgement of hearts, a communication of souls. One of those moments to keep in a tiny box of treasures in your pocket. His hands - his hands reached out towards hers. She froze. Her heart pounding, the electricity coursing through her arms, a warning, a siren, the black forming in a ball in her throat. Keep still. He could see it the fear in her widened eyes; he paused. But the fear turned into courage. Keep still. Frailty just beneath the baby-pink silk.

He reached out again, soothing her fear with gentleness in his eyes. Touched her knuckle, then let his fingers cover her hands. Wrap around her palms, a firm grip. His warmth seeped into her skin and spread up her forearm, up her shoulders. It was light, glorious light, and it was chasing away the ghosts in herself. She let the tears fall from her face; she began to laugh; it was the most beautiful day. 

"I am not repulsed by you." 

eugh

Looking back at my blog posts again and like yuck. My writings have become so boring. I bore myself. I guess my posts were the best from around 2010-2012? Where each one was a wealth of new imagery and fresh emotion, and each one drew from a well of pain. Pain is the easiest trigger for writing. I guess I just haven't been feeling that bad lately. I guess it comes with the necessary exchange of that pining pain. Is writing a curse, then? Along with making poignant music and art? I was listening to Xue Bu Hui and it's such a beautiful song and the Spotify version (which has clearer audio) really grips my heart. JJ, as a singer, does what a writer does: his voice is a portal between his heart and the listener's. Hearts speak to one another; the wealth of emotion carries over to mine. And I'm like, I remember when my writing did that. When a friend told me she stopped reading my blog because she would get too sad. When strangers emailed me to tell me that I expressed their own pain for them, and it brought healing. I guess it takes pain to convey pain. Maybe I have grown immune to that sort of self-destruction. Traps covered over with leaves that I have learnt to be wary of. Test the ground before you step on it; at the first sign of danger, run, or you will fall into that never-ending pit. Well, I don't know. Things were pretty terrible a few months ago, too. But maybe it wasn't the beautiful kind of pain, the kind I could turn into an intricate, delicate butterfly to take flight.

Or maybe I just can't do it anymore.

Reminded of JJ's 第几个一百天 - the time he fell so sick and in his distress thought he might never be able to sing again. But no, he has come back so much better. His voice is so much stronger now, more mature, and just as overwhelmingly expressive. I hope I get back this writing thing, because...I've come to hate my writing.

Or maybe I became too reliant on personal information, and then people got hurt, and then I retracted in fear altogether. No more to be used in my writings. That's probably for the best, but I have to go back to being able to convey emotions without conveying situations, turning them into metaphors and portals.

I'll keep trying T_T

measured in souls

(it is evident through this post that my inclination is towards writing, not photography. nevertheless, i've included pictures because even a bad one speaks a thousand words.)

2. michael 

the next part of the lesson is devoted to writing about our ambitions. "what do you want to be when you grow up?" we ask michael. he remains quiet for a while. a hint of a smile appears on his face, quickly blossoming into a bashful grin. he looks down at the table and pushes up his spectacles shyly. "ask ilya," he laughs. "no, say it yourself! come on." after more encouragement, he bashfully reveals that he wants to be an architect. our little boy spends the next fifteen minutes poring over his exercise book, imagining himself thirty years down the road, designing houses and malls and museums. when the hour is up, our chinese volunteers take over for art class. they are architecture majors, so we tell them about michael's dream. the girls bring out sheets of drawing block and a few sharp pencils and get to work. for the next two hours, they meticulously show michael how to draw a building in 3d. lines that converge at a vanishing point, shapes, shading. he does not look up from his work even when his siblings arrive. soon it is four o' clock, then five. he rolls up his drawing block and tucks it into his bag. the children play in the common area while waiting for their parents to arrive. michael sits around for a while, watching them gather in circles over uno or the 200-piece puzzle. then he retreats to a corner and takes out his drawing block and pencil again.

3. lukman

lukman jokingly imitates an american accent, then laughs at himself and waves his hand in front of his face, as if shooing the embarrassment away. he comes every day on his white motorbike, even though he's seventeen and barely takes classes here anymore; it's just a second home to him. today i watch him teach a class of children some simple mathematics, not because he's supposed to, just because he might as well. he's just as witty and comfortable with the children as he is with the volunteers. after class, he and his friend take us around on their bikes. we go to lukman's mum's roadside snack stall. just one thousand rupiah for a stick of meatballs or a risol! we buy lots. his mum sneaks in an extra timpan for each of us. lukman tells us that he's been with the center for five years now. perhaps, he says, after he graduates from university, he'll come back as a local volunteer.

4. gabriel 

a blackout descends without warning just as computer class is about to start, so there's an abrupt change in plans. the kids are sent back outside to classroom 2. they look at me expectantly. it always pays to have activity ideas in your back pocket for times like these. i get out a few packets of loom bands from home: white, electric blue, orange. demonstrate how to do the first few loops. little gabriel is playing catch with his younger brother in the grass, but his eyes catch sight of the colorful bands. he takes a seat in the front row, eager to learn, too. his brother comes over for a while, and gabriel teaches him how it's done; but he soon loses interest and goes off into the field again. gabriel shrugs it off, and makes one bracelet with all three colors. he lets me finish it off with the clasp and put it on his wrist for him. then he makes another one, faster now. finishes it off all by himself - he doesn't need to be shown twice - and calls his brother over. holds his brother's hand and stretches the bracelet to get it through. and then he makes a third one, a different pattern. summons his brother again. gently slips it onto his other wrist this time. his brother presents both wrists with glee. gabriel is delighted. "now you have two! and i have one." they giggle.

(yes, the child on the left is a boy, not a girl! confusing, i know. but since when were haircuts ever meant to be gendered?)

Help Kopus

If I could fly to Nakuru, Kenya now to take pictures and videos and do write-ups of all the children who need sponsors there, I would. If I could do a video interview with them so that you could see what they're like, I would. (There's always Skype, but the wifi at my Aceh center can hardly load Facebook, let alone a video chat.)

But I'm not in Kenya; when I applied to International Humanity Foundation, they told me that the Aceh center needed volunteers, so I came here. But the Kenya center houses 75 children from the impoverished region of East Pokot, and gives them a home, food, and access to education. Because the region is very poor and the living conditions are harsh, the center also tries to bring relief to the community whenever possible. (It has a farm!!!! The kids are apparently really enthusiastic about helping to upkeep it.) Julie from the Kenya center tells me that they have only been able to provide two meals a day, and tea for breakfast. Ten kids are malnourished. I will elaborate on the breakdown of the sponsorship fee later.

Part of my work at International Humanity Foundation involves looking for sponsors for children who need it. I'm here to appeal for sponsorship for a boy called Kopus from the Kenya center.

Here's a writeup about Kopus that Julie sent me:

Kopus was living with his mother before he came to IHF, but she was too poor to care for him. He has three brothers who still live with his mother in the remote area of Riongo. Kopus is in Class One at Primary School. His favorite subjects are Mathematics and Kiswahili. Kopus loves to sing traditional songs from Pokot and he enjoys playing football.

Here, at IHF Kenya, we look after over 75 children such as Kopus by offering them a safe home, food and education. All of our children come from the marginalised tribes of East Pokot in Kenya who face some of the toughest living conditions due to drought and land rights conflict. IHF aims to support the tribes by not only looking after those children whose parents may have died or who due to poverty cannot support them, but by educating those children we are preparing the leaders of the future. Leaders we hope with pass on their knowledge and skills to their communities but also defend their rights, traditions and values.

I am writing to you to appeal to you to support Kopus. He can be supported by you in two ways either by paying for his basic needs (our Orphan program) at $37 each month, or by assisting him with medical care (Medical Program) at $15 each month. You can find out more about our different child sponsorship programmes at www.ihfonline.org and also sign up to sponsor Kopus.

If you choose to sponsor a child it is not just a transaction…you will be making a real difference to that child’s life. Each month your sponsored child will write to you and tell you what is happening in their lives. Many of our sponsors write back to their child and we make sure the child can read and understand the letter.  Some of our long term child sponsors have built a long-term pen-relationship with their child and have become firm friends. Our children are loving, respectful and very grateful for the support of their sponsors and this comes through in their letters.

I hope therefore you will be able to help us by supporting Kopus or indeed any of our children at IHF Kenya. Details of children who need support are on our website if you would like to consider another or several children. If you have any questions about child sponsorship at IHF Kenya I would be most happy to answer them.

If you'd like to read more about where the money goes:

We are trying hard to work to a model of sustainability by developing our Peace Farm but with 33 children in High School and a likely another 10 joining next year (only two will graduate) we are facing a sever gap between our income and expenditure.

It costs us around $28 a month just for food (which is less than $1 a day if you think about it), add to that commodities such as hygiene products and clothes at around $10 a month the Orphan sponsorship at $37 doesn’t quite cover the cost.   For the last year we have only been able to provide two meals a day and tea for breakfast. Four kids are officially underweight (according to the Kenyan Red Cross child BMI/age index)  and ten kids are malnourished.  We are seeking donations to sponsor breakfast but these will be sporadic at best.

For education, a high school student costs for fees an average of $300 per year plus annual requirements (school uniform and books) $100, plus transport and lunch money $108 – totalling $508 per year or $42 per child.  I have also not included one off costs like exam fees, admin fees, tuition fees and other random fees that  schools in Kenya require. You will again see that the TEP sponsorship of $10 per month nowhere near covers this.

Finally medicines – our medical sponsorship of $15 per month does tend to cover our medical fees however we do have special cases like Kamama that is blind and schizophrenic and who should be getting weekly counselling at $8 per week  and also Chepuser who needs an eye operation in the near future which will cost $843…

I don't know what the Kenya center is like, but I can tell you about the difference that sponsorship makes here at our Aceh center. A young child here recently lost his father due to an unexpected heart attack. His mum earns a very small income selling food or something. The child's older brother has a burger stand that doesn't bring in much income either, but he also just fell ill with a serious disease. The co-director at my center just managed to secure a sponsorship for this child. For just US$10 a month, the sponsor will pay for his school fees. They were worried that without this sponsorship, the child might have to quit school to help with the burger stand. At our Aceh center, the sponsorship is generally only used for the child's public school fees.

You can read more about the Kenya center through the volunteers' blog posts here. 

If you would like to sponsor Kopus, please please please let me know, and I'll get you in touch with Julie. If the cost of sponsoring a child is too high for you but you would still like to contribute in way you can, it only costs US$10 a month to sponsor a child's education, and the class sponsorship is $30 a month. You can also donate to the Kenya farm and the Famine Feed that they conduct to feed the surrounding community 2-3 times a year. (The last time I tried donating through the website I had problems with it though, so if you're having trouble with it too just let me know and I'll contact Julie to see if there's any other option.)

If you do decide to sponsor a child, please remember that it's a commitment. It doesn't just stop at 3 or 4 months - in the 5th, 6th, 9th and 14th month, Kopus will still need money for food and school. It's just a little over US$1 a day - think of it as helping to sustain a life halfway around the world. It forms a unique connection, more than a transaction; you're saying "I care about your day-to-day, and I'll see you through it however I can."

Church-hunting in Aceh

Don't get me wrong, I love this heavily Muslim place. The women look so graceful in their headscarves and long skirts (and they ride motorbikes too, it's awesome); the men are very nice; the children are lovely. I fall asleep to the recitation of the Quran blasting out of the mosque and I think, how awesome it would be if we could blast Hillsong music out of our churches at night. But while it's beautiful, it's also tiring, being surrounded by a different religion. I'm the only Christian volunteer at the center, and sharing a room with 4 others means I don't have the space to worship and pray out loud. We're not to eat in public, or in front of the kids, because everyone else is fasting. And everyone is speaking a language I don't understand. It's tiring to be present but not included.

On Sunday I was determined to find a church. The night before, I was told that the Methodist church has an English service on Sunday afternoons. I couldn't find the service details online, so I left at noon with the address in hand. Hopped into a rickety becak and told the man the address. Red polo tee, red motorbike. Where the left side mirror should've been was a green screw instead. I think he thought I understood Indonesian, so he kept talking and talking and I'd nod in agreement or laugh at whenever it seemed appropriate. I loved how his speedometer wasn't working; his needle was just jumping around.  I think towards the end of our ride he realised I didn't actually understand him.

A blue concrete arch: "GEREJA METHODIST INDONESIA". "Ohhh, methodist, this one methodist," the driver said. He offered to pick me up after I was done, too. I didn't know how to say "I don't know what time it ends, so it might not be a good idea, I'll just get another becak when I'm done", so instead I just asked him to come at 5pm. After all, I didn't know if the afternoon service was at 2pm or at 4pm, so 4.5 hours would probably be a good buffer. Right?

A woman from the church approached me and conversed with me in Chinese. Hearing her speak Chinese made me feel so much at home, made everything sound less foreign. Their Chinese sounds less foreign to me than their English, because their Chinese kind of sounds like Malaysian Chinese, whereas their English's mostly not very fluent and heavily, uniquely accented. Turned out they only had English services on the third week of every month. They did have Chinese services every week, though, but in the mornings; I'd missed today's service. Great. So now I had 4 hours left. It was still so refreshing though, seeing crosses on the walls and a hall with pews for worship. I wanted to ask if I could just go in and sit, but they might be suspicious.

As I walked out of the church compound I realised there was another church right beside this one. The doors were right open. I walked into a small, unimpressive hall, with a few pews and a little podium. Oh. A tiny congregation, huh. The gates to the stairs were also open, so I tentatively tiptoed up. A beautiful hall greeted me. It wasn't colourful or magnificent, no stained glass or fancy crosses. But it was peaceful. Transparent glass tiles forming crosses in the white walls, wooden brown shophouse-style windows, pews of polished wood. It was a magical moment, just me and a house of God.

(Bethel: house of God. I want to name my future child Bethel.)

A man appeared. I stood apologetically, asking about English services. In Indonesian, he said no, they only had Indonesian services here. He was short, very tanned, and jolly. We had a little conversation with what we could muster: him not understanding English, and me not understanding Indonesian. He was from Papua New Guinea (ah, that explains the skin colour - it was much darker than other Malay Indonesians); came here 10 years ago after the tsunami, and I think he came to complete his last 2 years of education here. (I might be wrong. He was saying all of this in Indonesian.) He manages the sound system at the church. I left after a while, not wanting to disturb him further; we probably wouldn't have been able to understand much more of each other at this point. I wanted to say "God bless you" in Bahasa but I couldn't remember how, so I just thanked him.

I walked and walked and walked. Everything was closed. Came across another church, Catholic, but it was closed. I walked and walked and it was still only 2.30pm. Hot sun, black pants, I forgot my hairtie. So many empty becaks came my way, slowing down for me, asking if I wanted a ride. I was so tempted to just go back to the center, but I had made an agreement with my becak man, and I didn't want him to come all the way here for me only to be let down by another irresponsible customer. I told myself to persevere. I decided to go back to the Methodist church and read Fireseeds (Dan Hayes) until it was time.

It felt so free, sitting in an empty compound within a church, reading a book about God's work in university campuses across the world. It felt free being able to pray out loud. A rat was running about in the drain at my feet, making all the trash clatter - drink packets, plastic cups. A group of ladies walked out - they must've just finished a meeting. One was going into her car when she noticed me, and came to sit beside me. We chatted in Chinese, again, and I asked her how she felt living in a place that was so strongly Muslim. She said it was generally quite alright, both religious communities largely left each other alone, it was quite peaceful, well sometimes restricting but generally alright but remember not to eat in public when the Muslims are fasting; they will scold you! When she left, I saw an old man walk slowly and sheepishly into the church compound, looking behind him as he entered; he crouched in a corner and took out a packet of food and started eating.

Just before 5pm, I decided to hunt for dinner. Outside the church there stood a woman selling gado gado. I noticed that she wasn't wearing a headscarf or long sleeves, so I asked if she belonged to this church. She said no, she was Catholic. Pointed in the direction of the Catholic church I'd walked past. This time I wanted to say it, so I asked her to wait while I took out my phone and searched for Carissa's Bahasa cheat sheet. "Tuhan memberkati mu". The Lord bless you. She seemed very happy.

5.07. Becaks still passed me by, but I was like no, the red polo tee guy said he'd pick me up. I kept on the lookout. 5.10. Finally he showed up at 5.12. Raised his chin to me like he was greeting a familiar friend.

1: Nurul

The kids will see a new face today. My black Outward Bound polo tee and three-quarter jeans - "cover the shoulders, cover the knees". The power has been out for a few hours. The air is hot and pregnant with water vapour; our living room is dark. I sit still on the couch, doing nothing, trying to forget the fact that I'm wearing pants. When you're calm you'll naturally feel cooler: 心静自然凉.

Cue Emily's cheerful, chiming voice, a plump little Indonesian girl clinging closely to her. Emily encourages Nurul to say something to me. "Ask, 'what is your name?'" Nurul timidly echoes, with awkward breaks between each word: "what is your name?". Immediately looks away. "I'm Karen, what is your name?" After more encouragement from Emily: "My name is Nurul."

Emily asks Nurul something in Malay, and Nurul nods. "Karen, Nurul wants to play with you," she translates. Nurul goes to get a puzzle, then comes to sit by my side. She seems content to just have me watch as she assembles together the colourful pieces of Canada. "Nurul's a little slower at learning, so she needs more attention," Emily tells me as Nurul obliviously works on the puzzle. "But she's very sweet. She doesn't seem to mind if you don't understand what she's saying. But she's very sweet."

I ask Nurul how old she is. She puts up her fingers: eight. "Eight? Lapan?" She sullenly nods. We sit awkwardly beside one another. I try to get her to say something. I point at the different parts of the puzzle. "Orange?" A pause; a nod. "Red? Merah?" She nods. "Which is your favourite?" She doesn't understand. "Pink?" Silence: I've run out of words. After a while she says two words in Malay, quietly. I don't understand, but I think she doesn't understand when I say I don't understand. Eventually I shake my head. She seems a little sad. So I nod. She brightens up and overturns the puzzle again.

Later, I am called to observe a class. The architecture undergrads from China are teaching the children how to draw a cube, with shading and all. Some of the kids are doing impressively well. But Nurul can't seem to get the lines right; shades in all the wrong places. She grasps an ochre colour pencil. She asks for an eraser. She rubs and rubs and rubs, gets the lines wrong again, doesn't understand why it isn't looking as it should. The teacher keeps going with her pencil, her shading makes the cube look magical; the little boy Michael is doing a really beautiful job; and here sits a slouching Nurul, her paper an ochre mess, her cube never looking like the others' no matter how much she erases and tries again. Nurul is sniffing.

When the rest are almost done, she leaves her stuff aside and runs out to the porch, where Emily is setting off on her motorbike. Nurul continues to stand there even after it has left. She is carrying her schoolbag. I leave the art class, put on my shoes. I approach Nurul from behind, put my hands on her shoulders. "Are you okay? Okay?" She turns towards me and nods, looking down. After a while she says something in Malay and takes my hand and leads me back into the living room. She continues saying things I don't understand and she goes back to the games rack and takes out the same Canada puzzle. Sits on the floor. She overturns the puzzle; the big wooden pieces click against the rough tiled floor; she puts each piece back where it belongs again, with more speed. More intentionality.

She cannot draw a cube or speak English, but she must prove herself, find comfort in the one thing in which she is confident. She is done. She overturns it. Does it again. A young boy deliberately runs into the puzzle and knocks it all over. She shouts, indignant, but soon calms down again as she falls into the rhythm of the puzzle. Another boy comes over, one who speaks to her kindly, and she responds with friendliness. The third time, she passes it to me. It's my turn now. It's a challenge. I know because the boy starts to chant in support: "Ka-kak! Ka-kak!" I smile, and still take my time with it anyway. Nurul helps me out. Saskatchewan is a lovely indigo. Nik's hometown. Toronto is represented with the CN tower. Ottawa. Quebec. All these things that make no sense to Nurul, but it doesn't matter; she knows the shape and position of each piece like the back of her hand, and they are friendly to her.

Lesbian

I'm here to recount a conversation I had a while ago that is very relevant today. Posted with permission.
-

She told me about her new boyfriend; they'd been together for a few weeks. I noticed the happiness in her voice. I was little taken aback, since the last time we talked about relationships she told me about how she had many other more important things to focus on right now, etc., but it didn't matter. She seemed happy, so I was glad for her. I was grateful that she had told me something personal, and I wanted to offer something in reciprocation. I felt prompted to talk about my first relationship somehow, but it was a dangerous thing to say. You can't just talk about something like that to anyone. She might be weirded out, she might see me differently, she might become guarded. I struggled with the dilemma for a few minutes.

"My first relationship was with a girl, but that ended and I'm straight, so whatever." Shrugged, like it was something to shrug about.

"Huh? Really?" She seemed taken aback, but more out of fascination than in a negative way.

"Yeah..."

"Can I tell you something? My boyfriend is...a girl also. I just call her a he so that people won't say like 'eee, you're lesbian'. I'm afraid of what people will think."

Something tugged at my heart. I knew that this moment right here was God-planned. He was the one who had drawn up this friendship; it was so clear now.

She had never been in a relationship with a girl before, but although this was different, it was no less real. Her 'boyfriend' gave her the strength to face the problems in her family and brought her happiness.  She had liked her for quite a while now. I understood exactly how she felt. People can say all they want about 'unnatural' love, but it feels as real as any other. Emotions don't always discriminate, and love is love.

She told me that she was also beginning to feel really guilty towards God, like she was no longer worthy of being His child. For two weeks now, she would go to church on Sunday morning, and sit outside the chapel until the service was over. She didn't feel worthy of being let in. At this point I felt like God had orchestrated our entire friendship for this moment, like I was, right now, acting as God's messenger to her.

My first relationship lasted slightly under a year and nine months. God came into my life halfway through it. He didn't refuse to let me into His house; with open arms, He filled me with His overwhelming love, until I wanted nothing more than to pursue Him. As I was moved to tears at every church session, as I fasted and read the Bible and prayed and questioned and received, all other things in my life simply dimmed themselves out of existence.

"God has already forgiven you, and nothing can come between God's love for you," I said with urgency, with firmness. "See, I do things that make my dad angry sometimes, but he would never want me to stop talking to him altogether. Isn't it the same for our Father? He already knew everything about your life before you were born, and still loved you enough to create you, to die so that you could freely come to Him. And now you think you are unworthy of His love?"

None of us are worth God's love. The fact that we are unworthy is the reason He had to die to pay the price of our sins. God died to make us worthy, to bail us out. And since all - ALL - our sins have been paid for, nothing can separate us from God anymore.

"Please, don't stop talking to God. It breaks His heart more that you're not talking to Him. He knows, and it's okay, nothing you do will make Him love you more or less." There were tears in her eyes. She nodded, silent. I prayed so hard for her that night, that God would continue to show her that nothing, nothing, could stop her from being His daughter. And slowly, as God's love grew in her life to become the Greatest Love, all other loves would submit to it, and stand or fall in its presence.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Rom 8:38-39

Freedom always comes at a cost

I have a habit of learning things and being done with them before becoming proficient. I learnt how to play the guitar about two and a half years ago, so that I could play in CF if it was needed. I learnt how to play in the keys of G and D, but couldn't do bar chords so I could never play Bm right, and always avoided the key of C. I tried my hand at fingerstyle for a while - tried Blackbird and Tears in Heaven, but never finished learning either song. I still make mistakes when I play: CF would know all too well. It's been so wonderful and useful being able to play the guitar, and it really helps me in worship. But I never went beyond the basics. I learnt just enough to get by, and gave up.

My brother, on the other hand, came back one day when he was 14 and started playing a refrain on the guitar over and over again. I was like, "wow, you can play now?" and he said "nope". But every day, for a few hours at a go, he would lie on his bed and practice. Every day. Soon he was able to play anything. Like, he was able to play Sungha Jung arrangements. He could figure out how to play something in fingerstyle just by listening to it. He started being able to play things that Theo was playing. Coming home every night to the tune of Rylynn - one of my favourite moments at home.

And that is guitar freedom.

Guitar freedom is being able to play whatever you want. But that comes with discipline and practice. I don't have guitar freedom. I can't play whatever I want. Same for financial freedom. If you don't have the discipline to save and carefully steward your money (I'm guilty of this too), you won't be financially free. You'll continue to be bound by money. This is also often true of me. I don't work as much as I should, and I highly prioritise meeting people, and meeting people often happens over food, and soon I'm bound by my lack of money again.

I love to teach English because it's so important for a person to be able to express exactly what they want or how they're feeling. Being able to express yourself makes you feel free. But learning a language comes with practice. I don't know how to tell my students that. The skill of expression that I have is not a miracle. Read, write, read, write, train yourself, unlock that treasure trove within you, and your world of expression will also be set free. You know, I love creative writing because it's the avenue that sets my inner world free. All these ideas in my head, these emotions I can't express, this beauty that comes out in garbles in speech - they become elegant on paper. Yet I haven't been training. I decided I didn't like creative writing classes because it felt too stifling, too controlled and sterile. I haven't written a good creative piece in a long, long, long time. The last good piece I wrote was before Yale-NUS started, I think. And I see that I'm beginning to lose it, and I'm beginning to panic, because it's my one avenue, my refuge, my old friend, and it's slipping through my fingers because I failed to practice and keep and train my skill. And if I'm no longer able to effectively express ideas creatively in words, then I am no longer fully free to express myself. The colourful mess in my head will always only remain a colourful mess; the piece I produce will never ease the ache; I will lose my ability to write, and hence, my freedom.

Freedom comes at a cost. For things like music and money and sports, that cost is discipline. The freedom to walk around safely at night is something many Singaporeans experience; that comes with the cost of tight law enforcement. If evil weapon-wielders practised their freedom to hurt people on the streets, we wouldn't have the freedom to walk around safely at night. The freedom of peace comes at the cost of self-restraint on everyone's part. People say that love brings freedom. When you and your significant other are in love, you free up each other's souls. You are free to be yourselves, and in each other you find your own true self. Yet a relationship comes with commitment, and commitment means sticking to a decision you've made even when you don't feel like it. True love doesn't mean it's always easy; it just means it's the most rewarding. Love requires sacrifice, but that sacrifice is worth it.

Our desires, our wants, are endless. But in order to have freedom in a community, we need to decide what happens when our desires touch on another's territory. If I were the only person around for miles and miles, I could want all that land and have it; I'd also be very lonely and sad. Thankfully, there are many other people within that land area where I come from. However, in order for my community to have freedom, I can't have all the land. We all have to give and take.

Why should the freedom for speech be brandished about like it's the only one that doesn't come with a cost?