WRONG WAY

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

I have let sin reign in my mortal body and I obeyed evil desires. I have not been a servant of God with a clean heart and clean hands. I do not deserve to be in this leader position. I am not a role model.

2008 Carmel-Elim Joint Evangelistic Meeting

2008 迦密 以琳 佈道會

DATE: July 26 (Sat) AND July 27 (Sun)

音樂話劇 Musical Drama :

<尋*遇*見>

這...是不是你 ...is this you?

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一個話劇, 兩個結局 one story, two resolutions

Now auditioning for additional actors and actresses.

Also recruiting (10-12) Stage & Props support (dressed in black).

More info to follow about other recruits.

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SPREAD THE WORDS & MARK YOUR CALENDAR

JULY 26 (SAT) - JULY 27 (SUN)

COMING TO A FRIEND NEAR YOU

HAND FOOT MOUTH DISEASE?!

That's what I got?! Well, I was definitely expecting a virus named more complicated than that.

Symptoms: Excessive formation of canker sores on cheek side of gum and tongue, tiny red bumps which become blisters on the palm side of hands ,and the sole side of feet. The bumps started out tiny and the sensation is like ants biting (and burns a little, too). Then they grow in size and become blister with fluid inside. Canker sores don't go away and grow in numbers, too. develops with sore throat, again, aggravating and not going away. lots of pain involved. no headaches/ coughing/ sneezing - which is typical of cold.

Cause: typically an entero-virus called coxsackie-virus A16. where to catch it? no idea, but I got it from my brother cos he had those hand blisters a week ago. he didn't do anything and the rash healed in 6 days itself.

treatment: None (!) can only relieve the symptoms of painful blisters and ulcerous canker sores. antibiotics not helping (yep, I tried that yesterday)

again, finding out what it is, but not knowing what you did wrong and nothing to treat it. just like my thyroid mass.

Here's how it started:

Friday - found out two red spots on my right palm, thought i hurt myself but didn't remember where. disregarded  them.

Saturday - uh oh. got worse. Now I had them on both hands, and a numb kind of pain, too. had brunch w/ ex-coworkers from SRG after morning worship practice. had a glass of rose and that's where the symptoms exploded with joy and me with pain. canker sores exploded like fireworks. sore throat as background music. after movie with Rudy, had to find a pharmacy to find instant canker relief but to no relief even after finding one. got home and found s'more on the sole side of my feet. thought it's some kind of virus and popped an antibiotic. determined that it got worse and i'd better stay home on sunday.

Sunday - stayed home. sore throat aggravated. can't eat. can't drink. can't swallow w/o pain. cycle of waking-up, eating rice porridge, popping antibiotics, going to sleep, then waking-up...etc. repeated 4 times. found out the nearest medical center that takes my Aetna PPO, would see them first thing in the morning tomorrow. emailed my coworker of my contagion.

Monday - woke up. went to the doctor's. the center's closed for some "dumas" alarm problem(!) went to the center across the street half a block away (Maimonides Primary Healthcare Center on 64th & 7th). waited an hour before the doctor finally came in so the nurse could ask him if he takes walk-in patients today. nodded his head, waited another hour and a half before seeing Dr. Patel, not the original doctor.

Dr. Patel is a rookie doctor. just started his residency. asked me all the questions i needed for a biography and still clueless to what i have. said i'm his first "real" case since he started. i could tell he's as clueless as i am, but that's ok. he's new, i know what being new is like (refer to my August entry). no pressure on him. i told him my brother had it a week ago, and his gf had it too.

as he typed up my symptoms on his computer, he suddenly turned around, "there's this one called hand-foot-mouth-disease that might be what you have...let me check".

Dr. Patel googled hand food mouth disease and found the first entry about all you can know for HFMD.

dr. patel said, " see, you can find everything in google!"

(yeah, which means i could have done it myself) but i said, "but not the prescriptions."

dr. patel went on to say, "let me find a picture just to make sure this is what you have."

"well, i know what it looks like. i just need to look at my hands."

anyway, afterwards he went out to find his superior to discuss treatment/ prescription for me. she, dr. chorny, checked my ulcerous mouth and my blisterous hands again, told me that HFMD is highly contagious. so the stuff i got : a steroid mouth rinse which will heal the darn cankers much faster than normal antiseptic ones. zilactin which BURNS!!! my canker but forms a protective layer so i can at least eat w/o crying. for the blisters though, there's no help. they only gave me ibuprofen to kill the pain.

*ah...* (sighs of relief) i finally found out what i have. although i still have 3 or 4 more days before this coxsackie sucker virus goes away... but i'd be immune afterwards.

when i heal, i: must have a bowl of noodles with tons of MSG. must have the beefiest, juiciest burger with a pound of meat. and then shanghai style soup dumplings.

MY FIRST TIME(S)...

Many first times since July...

+First time decorating weddings (7.7)

+First time going to staff meeting(7/?).

+First time pulling a 13-hour shift at work (7/18).

+First time going hiking (7/21).

+First staff inauguration (7/22).

+First time working on a Saturday (today! 7/29!)

+First time using my planner for real because I'm so busy >_<

All my first times are stressful though...

-Going to meetings is obvious bc it's a lot of tedious administrative brainwork and not fun.

-Decorating I've mentioned before already. I'm too tired to talk about it, again.

-Working on the weekend is apparent, too. (I was so tired last and this past Friday that I had to skip fellowship and go home. That's a first-time semi-legitimate excuse not going to fellowship...)

-Even hiking is stressful because I got pissed off at someone at some point.

Cause & Consequence...

I had some pride problems this month so I prayed to God to give me something bigger than me so I can rely on him. Well, he answers prayers, magnificento:

+/-Monday I'd be going for the first time to Kansas City for a business trip, being only at this new job for barely 2 months. I don't know enough to be the one going with my project manager. But we're under-staffed. (That's why I'm at the office now to work extra hours.)

I'm now officially our project team. Me, alone = project team.
(Project is a retail space 15,000 s.f., construction to start 8/16, opening by November, impossible task for 1 person at such a tight timeframe!)

WANTED: Masseuse Magnificento who can rub my sore shoulders away...

PROJECT OF MY LIFE

And it's not even my wedding!

OK, I think I'm mentally well rested enough to finally write something about this wedding. (For these few days I'm just letting myself rest and not even review or think about what happened 7.7.07) Thank God, literally, for making the rainbow happned as we have planned!! I was worried sick for the longest time that the rainbow curtain won't happen >_<

So here's the "project synopsis":

Jay Tak wanted nothing but a rainbow for a wedding. So even if there's no bride, there has to be a rainbow.

He initially suggested an arch-shaped balloon rainbow, but I immediately rejected and dismissed it. I don't want people to think this is a kid's birthday party or Mitzvah. So then we thought fabric would be a good idea, but what do we do with fabric lei?

Thinking about it through and through I finally decided that we should make it like a ROMAN SHADE. Not only can you present the rainbow colors elegantly, but the pull-up shade also creates a dramatic entrance for the bride. Not to mention Jay Tak's insistence on the rainbow was based on "God's covenant under the rainbow", not in, alongside, or otherwise.

Once that idea is approved by Jay Tak, we have to seriously think about how to assemble it. This technicality is the most difficult part of the project.

Problems to be solved:

1. We cannot drill holes on the underside of the ceiling soffit in the sanctuary. How do we support the rainbow shade?

2. The rainbow needs to be pulled up and down. How do we make the 7-color pleats still visible, instead of collapsing into one stack of 7 colors, one behind each other?

3. Do we punch holes into the fabric to attach pullable cords? Or how do we make the 7 different fabric into 1?

4. We need to span from light fixture to light fixture in the sanctuary, that is, 12' long in total!

We spent the most amount of time figuring this out. We had many "design reviews" and it was not until end of May that we have purchased the correct colors and fabrics; and 2 weeks before the wedding that we scouted Home Depot for the construction materials.

The final, Low-Tech, Low-Budget, High Engineered Solution:

(3) 4' Plastic tubes readily connected by plastic rings (these were plumbing/ electrical plastic tubes) to be horizontal support for the entire mechanism at the top. Since we cannot drill holes at the top, we use plastic cable ties to tie the horizontal support into the metal ceiling grid already in the sanctuary ceiling.

Then we use (4) 3' long x 3/4" diameter wood dowels taped together for the interstitial support for each color pleat, the connected taped-together part secured by binder clips already bought by Elim for last Praise Night. Totalling 4 "connection binder clip points" from end to end of the 12' fabric.

The 7 pleats are then connected by regularly intervaled tied cords into those binder clips. There is then another set of loose cord in the 4 rows, then we stick a bubble tea straw inside the loose cord between each pleat so that we cannot pull the fabric all the way up - This way you can still see all 7 colors even when the curtain is pulled up.

Finally we tie 2 loose cords together on one side, and the other 2 loose cords on another side. Operated by Ellie and Me. Voila.

** This is an extremely low-budget, low tech but highly engineered project! **

Let me raise this over my head and hand this over to God as a gift for his grace of giving me the skills, and Jay Tak the skills, too. Without Jay Tak this cannot be happened! He is my chief engineer!

Yeah so I have no time left to think about MC-ing. -_-Thanks to Iggy though, who did an awesome amazing thorough job on the prep work! =D

Imperfection of course being that da.rn X-rated game which we shouldn't have played.

Advice to all couples-to-be: do not play games at all ! It really is unnecessary. (I asked Rudy if the Americans do that, and he said no because it embarrasses the newlyweds.)

And now, time to review my wedding get-ups this year so far!