Diary : 5 Nov 2011

Today was our very much anticipated mass food distribution after coming back from Singapore.

But it didn't go as planned and it sure doesn't look like how it should have been.

Less than half the people turned up. Why the remaining half was not picked up by a staff who "misunderstood" and the people never made it here because they hadn't been informed earlier.

I was upset, but things were about to get worse.

The meeting started with close to 100 people and my deputy at this point was supposed to do a short sharing to keep the crowd entertained while waiting for more people to come. When we decided to continue with the service. The crowd was unusually unsettled, talking amongst themselves as the staff made introductions of our ministry before we started our gospel sharing.

Suddenly one lady spoke up. She asked "Isn't it too narrow minded to not allow people to collect items on behalf of relatives when we are not able to make it ?" She was referring to our system whereby only the people who came got to receive the goodie bags and we're not allowed to hold for others, as there will be no end to people asking on behalf of others.


But this question was the devil needed to throw the team off guard. The words in the question caused my staff much distress and she started to explain a lengthy rationale. Before she knew it she had taken up more than 30mins, eating into the gospel sharing portion.

Though we managed to convince the lady, we lost the greater picture. 

There was little we could do. Especially when the whole exchange was in Hmong. And by the time I stepped in. We only had 20mins to share. And with my translator in a state of disarray, she was not fully focused and started to amplify the sharing. So with every line, it took another 5 mins for her to explain.

I could only share for the last 10mins or so. But such great lessons were learnt today.

Where the devil is so terribly cunning that he can use a simple trigger to get people all ruffled up, resulting in the gospel not being fully preached to the people.

As much as I'm upset. Its also a reminder for our team to continuously go into prayer.

May this be the first and last of its kind !