SIGH.

NIGHT CYCLING
I'm forbidden to go Night Cycling for combined cg outing, super bummed about it. My mum said that my cycling skills are really bad, and when cars zoom past, I have a tendency to panic and thus put my life in danger (esp when it's at night, on the road with few cars who drive fast). I'm so disappointed, cause I've never night cycled before, and I really wanted to go to Esplanade in the middle of the night and just sit there with my beloved cg/ex-cg members. SIGH. I feel like a 16 year old whose mum still needs to sign parental consent form. Honestly, this is the first time she has objected so violently to something I wanna do. So I guess, it's Commandment 5 obeyed.

MONEY
We had an argument about money. She feels that kids should give their parents money when they start working, and that we three are counted lucky to not have to carry this burden. I feel that the children need money of their own, and parents, still earning the same income, should be able to support themselves, and not take money from their kids who are still struggling to make ends meet. Apparently she feels that back in her time, children HAD to give money to their parents to help support the family, and that children my age are selfish to not want to contribute to the household needs etc. Honestly, I think that's bull. Since all three of us ended A Levels, we have strived not to take a single cent from our parents. As much as possible, we earn our own living, excluding university fees, we pay for our own expenses, we juggle to balance work, studies and our relationships. What part of that being selfish, I don't know. If parents feel that they are still not getting by, even though their children are earning their own money, then it's time to check up on their own expenditure. If parents feel that children SHOULD give them money, I feel that it's time to look at the context, the society at which we are ALL living in right now.

Back then, each family had 8 children, obviously parents needed that extra money that the elder children had to bear and work for to support the entire family. And after time, these children (who started to work at a young age) develop a mentality of having to give part of their money to their parents, who are not struggling anymore when all their children have grown up and are no longer clinging onto their parents. Right now, we've gone out to start working part-time, so we don't have to take money from you, so we can ease your burden. But somehow you're just not satisfied until all our money goes to you.

I don't know what mentality many people have, it's like a "what I went through, you have to go through too" idea. So if I went through poverty, my children have to experience poverty. If I went through suffering, my children have to experience suffering as well.

So, if I went through divorce, my children have to experience that too?

Thank God for my generation's thinking. What we went through, we pray that our children wouldn't have to go through. We work, to give them a better life, to let them fulfill their dreams, to see them go far. We will, within our means, not allow them to go through what we went through. For example, giving money to parents who don't need it and scrimping on our own daily expenses, constantly thinking of how to get by each day, each week, each month. I want to see my children without burden, to see them run free and go after their dreams, inculcated together with a sense of independency, and that with Christ, nothing is impossible.

CHC
Let's just say: Nothing has been confirmed yet. Absolutely nothing. Undergoing investigation does not equal guilty as charged. CHC does not join the ranks of Ren Ci or NKF, whose board members have been found laundering money off its donations (i super-simplified it, may not be what exactly happened, but somewhere along those lines).

I trust the leadership. I trust Pastor. I trust the board members. If anything happens, and CHC is found guilty of allegations, then that'll only be cause for celebration. Number one, that (wo)man will be held accountable to God and only God, and secondly, sheep and goats will be distinguished. The church will grow from glory to glory, faith to faith, strength to strength.

I love my church. I stand by it. I believe in it. No one man rules the church, God rules the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail. (: