The Wilful Sunflower

I had a really good time last night, first at my church's cell group meeting and then at home. My cell group was having "games night", playing games instead of having the usual sharing/discussion/study stuff, so it was fun, and then at the end of the meeting we celebrated my birthday.

They have a tradition of saying "words of blessing" to the birthday person. It's kinda like saying something encouraging about the person, or telling the person how s/he has impacted your life in a positive way. Lemme tell you, it's really cool. And touching...

I've only been a part of this cell group since May, so that's like, what -- four months? But it's amazing, you know, how much I feel a part of the group. I feel welcome and accepted and comfortable. It's kinda scary, because I'm starting to learn how to belong again. Given my history with church in general, this belonging is the hardest for me coz it's like freefall. And I'm continually afraid that I'm speaking too soon, that before I know it something will happen and maybe it will all fall apart again.

Neuroses aside, I'm amused that I'm starting to sound like one of the cell group "success stories", but there you have it! I like my cell group!

After the meeting, I went home and when I opened the front door, found the entire house in darkness (save for the porch light, which was like a blazing beacon). Emmy came out of the shadows towards me, so I asked her why it was so dark. "Erm, couldn't be a power failure, could it?" she replied, which made me look at her strangely. Of course it wasn't a power failure, the porch light was on. Duh!

So I went to switch on the sitting-room lights, but Emmy stopped me. When I asked why, she said, "Not fun, lah," making me look at her strangely again. I proceeded to the kitchen, where I saw the rest of my housemates huddled in the dark outside Adeline's room at the back. "What are you guys doing there?" I asked. Dion could only manage a feeble, "Hi, Sunflower!" in response.

Figuring that they must be up to something and maybe I should pretend to be blind, deaf and dumb, I went back out to the sitting-room, and next thing I knew, I heard the sounds of singing... then Adeline appeared with a cake, lighted with a single candle.

Later, we went over it all and had a good laugh. Apparently Adeline had had problems trying to light the candle and she shooed them out of her room. "I told you guys to distract her, but what did you do? You just stood outside my door and went, 'Hi Sunflower'! If I ever form a band of robbers, I'm not going to ask any of you to join me!" Adeline said. "Then you all started singing and I was wondering where Sunflower was. Wait for me to put the cake in front of her before singing, lah!" Bwahahahahah. I liked it that way, though. So much funnier than if they had really managed to get their act together and surprise me!

A bunch of colleagues at work -- those on the Youth desk -- got together and gave me a silver chain & cross (so sweet), Daphne, another colleague, gave me a teddy bear (which she named Mr Dildo!!!! No comments, hahahah), yet another colleague bought me lunch (ordinary chap fan or mixed rice, but food is food!!), and Mom sent me a handmade card(!). And I had two cakes, one from the cell group & one from my housemates, and numerous SMSes, one phonecall from Australia which I MISSED (ended up with voicemail instead -- *slaps forehead*). Blink called and told me he's gonna buy me dinner, so we'll probably do that next weekend coz he's on campus during the weekdays (and his campus is in the middle of nowhere -- Bangi!). He's turning into quite the gentleman, eh? I luuuuurve my not-so-baby brother :D