Home, but not all there.

So I was on the bus home, and night was falling.
Home at long last, or so I thought. No. Not all there.

I left a part of my heart with the REACHers.
To the Singaporean hosts and REACHers that showed us their genuine hospitality and friendship.
They showed us around, and the ones in my group took us to the Esplanade library and to see the Merlion.

To the Indian friends I've met, they really are friendly and they really know how to have a good time.
For a few days we shared a little part of our lives and our culture. Here's to the fruits of our land! =P

Also to the others, the Koreans who took care of my bro, Khamsahamnidaaaaa~

and to Alvin and the Indons, who gave me a batik fan and handcrafted gifts, they remind me ever of you all.

And to that African brother who gave me a paradigm shift in exchange for a scoop of durian icecream, you were truly a Godsend to me. You woke me up from my slumber, and caused my dead heart to beat again, not for the frail and fleeting attentions of women, but for the downtrodden, the weak, the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the abused, the maltreated, the grieving, the forgotten peoples of this earth who weren't as blessed as most others are.

Brother, I may have forgotten your name, but I will never forget your smile through the tears you shed at my outburst of generosity and kindness. I had compassion on you, and in Jesus' name I bestowed upon you the taste of durian. You however, broke my heart and opened my eyes. Life is no bed of roses for you and your folk. Let me never forget the need of the peoples of the world. Whilst I still sit comfortable in air conditioned rooms after a bountiful and filling dinner, with enough light and electricity to carry on typing, with four walls around me and a roof over my head, with no one wanting to kill me or my kin because I am a Christian- so many others are suffering in the rain, the heat, the freezing cold, naked and starving, running and in hiding from men who would lay hands on them simply because they called on His Name. Wait for me, Brother, I am coming to you soon. I'm trying to get there as soon as I can, but so-called godly men around me are deterring my arrival to you. Pray for me, beloved Brother. I am coming.

Once I got back, the signs started coming again. The 1st sign was really shocking.
I was having lunch with my dad one day after we came back and then he said something totally weird, like Twilight Zone weird- he apologised to me for sending me into this IT industry
It may not seem like much except that

1. my dad never apologised

and

2. my dad never regrets his decisions about me

so it was a first and I was wondering what was up

The 2nd sign came shortly a few hours later my university test result came back
and apparently due to my lack of passion, it told me that I had to delay another semester
which is already wayyyy extended.
My dad bluntly told me this was not for me and he asked me what my passion really is,
and the first thought in my mind was

Life is Mission

The third came when I was already praying hard about this series of events
and I was really questioning how could He send someone sinful like me
Those of you who known me as Jon Black can testify to my Black-ness
And I read in Luke 5:18-20
that I should not be afraid, and He will make me catch men

So ok, the 4th one was a few days later. I was wondering if this is really even going to work, I mean, why am I giving all this up, and I was playing my violin, Madia,
then I started playing a song that I have forgotten for about 20 years-
a teeny weeny song that I learnt in kindergarten. I never fully understood the lyrics back then
but that day when it came back to me, it hit me and I began to cry
the song was called "Make me a servant" and I don't know why but that song came back at a right moment. I've never remembered that song for two decades and it was just shut away for a moment when I needed to hear it. It goes like this:

Make me a servant

Humble and meek

Lord let me lift up those who are weak

And may the prayers of my heart always be

Make me a servant

Make me a servant

Make me a servant today

I submit to you that Life is Mission. I rest my case, members of the jury. I have been surely and divinely called.

So yeah, the final sign will be when my pastor gives me the green light. Or so I thought. Last Sunday I spoke with a pastor and he wanted to talk with me later about it in more detail. Summary: He thinks I should go back to studies in uni first. It sure sounds dandy, but to me, I just felt the wrong-ness of that idea, the way a traveler just feels that the bridge he is about to cross over the wrong river, that deep and certain feeling that is both sure and intuitive.

I chucked that thought aside. Maybe he is right. Then my violin tutor told me to wait... he said that I should wait a few more years because Moses waited for 40 years. I wanted to shoot back that Simon Peter and the Apostles were called immediately, and that a lot of commands from Jehovah Himself starts with, "Go now..." but I realized that if I did respond in that way it wouldn't be completely respectful and loving, so I held my tongue. I mutely nodded and kept that bitterness inside.

O Lord, how Your servants prophesy sweet sayings to calm the multitude when they should instead be driven to action! See how they use Your Word to play it on the safe side of things. Send me with fire, O Lord, and let Thy servant be used according to Thy will.

So I thought that maybe God is sending me back to uni, or so I thought...

The Calling

So, I was in Singapore from the 17th to the 21st of July in the 2013th year of our Lord for the
16th Baptist Youth World Conference themed Reach
(See, even the theme itself is mission-related)
And I thought that this was just another rally, we get all fired up, and we all go home, and by next Sunday its business as usual, with bonus holiday pictures like

Yeah, I'm the shorty in the middle v(T.T)v

And

Left corner, standing *not so short after all* ^_^

And I've got to say, my bro and I had tonnes of fun over there with God's people. But it was so much more than that. I never thought it was going to end up like this, and impact my life this way.

During my first day there, I explored the common area once we got there, and hooooo boy there were so many stalls to visit. There was this one stall, tucked away in an inconspicuous corner, and there were a few ladies seated there. It looked like any other stall there, but for one notable difference. It was filled with flags and maps of different countries. And led like a lamb to a slaughter I followed this strange unexplainable impulse to walk to it. It said boldly SIM~ Serving in Missions.

WHOA. This must be a joke, right? God, You let me throw those years away studying lifeless machines and NOW You lead me here? Those days are long gone, GONE! Look in the box labelled

Impossible

and tell me what You see in there? Yes, that's the dream I gave up! And now You dare-

"Hello, young man. How may I help you? You have an interest in missions, yes?" 

Said a sister to me. I fumbled out a response that maybe I was. I told her frankly that I didn't know what led me to that stall, bypassing other stalls with big names like the BWA and the Dallas Baptist University. I just told her how I really was, and she understood. I chatted some more with another sister who was with her about the possibilities of me going into missions. She gave me a card, and left in me a slight tremor

 Am I really too late?

So it passed, I walked away from that stall as fast as my legs could. This is nuts!~ said I to the Lord.
Remember Jonah?~ retorted the Lord to me. Sure, send me a sign~ I snapped back bitterly.
*Readers beware. When you ask Him for a sign, He gets dramatic pretty easily*

On the 2nd day, we discussed the passage where Jesus washes His disciples feet, and I got this urge to point out to my family group (its like a Care Group, but International!) this sentence in the passage:

He got up from his meal

And eloquently I posited to my interested group members that when we are called for humble service, we are often called during the times when it is most inconvenient for us. So we, like Jesus, should respond immediately when we are called, not when it suits us.

Christianity doesn't have the luxury of convenience, I argued. I felt the Lord chuckle at my side: "Couldn't have said it better. Now about your university..." I tuned Him out for the rest of the discussion. Really, I was getting flustered

On the 3rd night, if i remember correctly, there was this speaker who challenged us all with a few questions~

What would you do for Jesus if you had no restrictions, nothing to hold you back, not time, not money, nothing?

was the one that impacted me the most. Really, God? You're going to pull this off underhandedly? You know full well that I would've wound back the clock and entered into missions. And NOW You want me to think about it? But my university...? "You have said it from your own lips", I felt the Lord answer. I swallowed hard. My dad isn't going to like this... "Follow Me. No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" But...I haven't even started missions yet!!! "You did when you first called me Lord."

Then He gave me a break, and didn't bother me with signs until the next day. I was having a stroll with my newfound friends from India and Indonesia and Singapore. We were having durian icecream.
*Readers, if you haven't tried durian, do so. Now. I insist*
And we thought that it would be a fun idea to see the reactions of people who tried it for the first time.
A German brother who sampled it pulled a poker face and said it tasted rather good.
An African brother to whom I passed a spoonful ingested it, savored and started thanking me with tears in his eyes. I jest not, his eyes brimmed over with tears and he thanked me profusely for my kindness.
Kindness??? What did I just do??? @,@
And then it hit me. What passed as my lunch's dessert was this brother's breakfast. He hardly had a bite to eat since the start of the day! No wonder he looked so famished.
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in"
Whoa. Lord. This blew me away. Later we packed lunch meals for refugee children in destitute countries, and I felt...happy

You'd think this is all over? Not even close.

Prelude

Hey there, I'm Jonathan, or some of you may have known me as Jon Black.
Regardless, this is my writing place where I will keep you all updated about my Calling.
Its a capital C, because if you're blessed enough, you'll get it in your life.
Let's define Calling~
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as its first definition:

1. : a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence

Now ain't that something?
I suppose it had something to do with me raised in a church where high over my head hung the words:

Life is Mission

Or maybe it was the time when I was in high school and I visited the missionary ship Doulos. These fine men and women of God who manned this ship as a crew are all professionals who would've made big money in the world, but instead chose to serve God on this vessel called Slave (Yes, Doulos means slave in Greek)

Or maybe because I was exposed to the accounts of the life-changing work of God through people like Dwight Lyman Moody, Jim Elliot, Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and David Livingstone. These titans were nobodys~ but God picked them up, sent them into the ends of the earth and made them carve a place where the light of Jesus may be seen by every people, nation, tribe, and tongue. They were my Ultramans, my Supermans.

Or maybe it was because I wanted to live beyond the ordinary, crossing over the boundaries of the mundane to the miraculous. The dream in my heart was to one day be involved in fulltime missions. I wanted to be used by Him. Anywhere, everywhere.

Did I have other dreams? Of course I did! I wanted to write music that would move my listener's hearts. I wanted to create beings of metal and artificial intelligence. You could even say that at one point in time I wanted to conquer the world and rule it like a supreme tyrant. However, some dreams were not meant to be, and in my humanly wrong way, I lumped in the dream of being a missionary together with all the others and chucked them into a box in my mind labelled

Impossible

And I went on to get my Pre-U cert in TARC (boy, was I miserable there), and then entered Universiti Malaya. It was my dad's dream come true. I was secretly miserable. Resentful, even. I had to give up my dream of becoming a missionary so that I could please my dad somehow (yeah, I crave his approval, it's an Asian thing) and then I was disappointed because I had to turn down an English degree from UTAR because my dad refused to let me take English as a degree~

"No ****ing way am I letting you go to Kampar and study English for RM30k" ~Dad.

So I thought that pursuing a Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) degree there would make him proud of me, and maybe then I'll be the son he always wanted. But I struggled, I do regret taking this course. Not that it was too hard, but it really isn't my passion. I didn't know how to tell my dad about this, and the years dragged on. If I continue on this path, it's going to be another 2 more years of fruitlessness before my graduation. And I despaired.

Then Singapore happened. I approached it with cold calculated skepticism. Really, a rally of fired-up teens and me, a washed-out, wasted potential, worldly, sinful, etc, person joining them? You might as well collide matter and antimatter and enjoy the explosion. But I was shocked to find they were just really normal people like you and me. They have doubts, regrets, disappointments, unfulfilled dreams, demands, pressure, but at some point in their life, God raised them up to be who they are today: leaders, teachers, pastors, and missionaries. And then the question stirred:

Is it really too late for me?