NEW YEAR 2012 + Important announcement

Happy New Year 2012 to all!!! Wishing everybody a healthy, prosperous, and successful year. Keep moving forward. Don't let past mistakes hamper you from reaching and accomplishing your set goals.

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead..." ~ Philippians 3:13

Indonesian churches in the GTA are holding a belated Christmas event called "Christ, Our Source of Peace and Unity", on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 5PM, located at the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia (129 Jarvis Street). Doors are open to everyone, as you are welcome and encouraged to come. The cost is free and there will be a Christmas service (our band is in charge of the Praise and Worship) as well as some entertainment and icebreaker activities. Dinner is provided. Please keep in mind, however, that the service and most of everything else will be conducted in Indonesian.

If you have any questions and are interested to come, please refer to the email listed at the bottom of this poster. Should you find it more convenient, you may also inform me of your arrangements. Repondez, s'il vous plait.

Have a blessed one.

I'll be home for Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOU, MY SWEET AND DEAR READERS (who celebrate it)!
May this Christmas bring peace, joy, and warmth to your hearts.

From my snowman gingerbread cookie to yours,
H.

Best friends

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day IV (Warning: picture heavy)

Muneng, Central Java

May 24, 2011

We left for Muneng around 7 AM today. From what I was told, the village at which we are staying is located behind Mount Merapi. We took a few pictures along the way as we were reaching to the top. We were able to see Mount Merapi from a good distance.

The mission crew + Mama Damaris in the van

Love hurts?

Hurting has always been an inherent part of loving. What's ironic is they're inseparable – I mean, hurting and loving.

That is simply how things work in life.
We cannot love without hurting, and it is impossible to be loved without being hurt in the process.
What matters is not how much we love and get hurt, but how much we can TRY to withstand both facets and actually DO withstand them regardless of the season.

It's undeniable that love and hurt are interdependent. When love is present, pain is non-elusive. Just as fire and heat, they go hand-in-hand. When fire burns, the heat hurts. But what happens when you've acclimated?

Mother Teresa once said, "... if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." In other words, what happens when we make love a routine? What happens when we've become accustomed to loving? Will we still feel the hurt?

I'd say yes, however, it won't be as harsh as the first experience. In the end, it's hurt that makes love stronger. When a knife is honed on a regular basis, it will indubitably be sharper each time. Love is a knife that gets refined by the sharpening hurt.

I would deem it implausible to love without hurting. To love is to be vulnerable to all kinds of pain. To love without pain is unthinkable. Love hurts. But that's just the way it is.



From a girl whose love has been hurt,
H.