what a baptism day this past sunday @ curtis park! several thousand of us inundated the neighborhood.... it was one of those not-really-feeling-like-getting-up mornings for both of us. that and we thought we didn't know anyone getting baptized. but when the Spirit moves, what can we do but follow? turned out to be a divinely appointed day, on many fronts -- celebration, new/renewed friendships, forgiveness, restoration. can't say enough: He is good.
last weekend, we also ran our 2nd run of the season -- for the
jim utley foundation, promoting a drug-free generation. signed up w/ joe and jorge, now regular runners. :) y insisted on running on the still recovering ankle... came in 7th in bracket. not bad for handicapped sprinting! g is 2 for 2. 2nd in bracket, 4th overall women's, 10th overall. exciting for the most unathletic, clumsy, always-chosen-last-in-sports girl.
can't forget b-day wishes to papa ong! the may father & son tigers advance yet another year. celebrate & enjoy in hokkaido w/ mama and fam.
getting ready for the big apple and then the eternal city, venezia & firenze for our shindig...
y gets to "share" (get trumped? haha) his birthday weekend w/ mother's day every year. this year, it fell on the same sunday so it was kept low key.
had brunch @ pbc's main street cafe for mama kao (one of her fave places) and got to catch up a bit with the newlywed wu's. mama ong was delivered a chicken essence and floral basket. :)
that weekend, we also played delivery boy and girl to a henri bendel event while the sweetlylovely boys were away at a battle for the Bible conference. the last time we went bearing flowers was for their chick-fil-a gig so it's been fun meeting some of their clients and prettying their places up.
as a sort of belated b-day celebration, we'll be off in a few to nyc and then... italy! found out after we booked that we'll be missing e&s's wedding after all with some schedule conflicts. but we'll still get to hang out w/ one of y's close s'pore friends (+ wife + baby) who is in manhattan for a short stint.
much work to finish before we leave, though!
last weekend, we got to be a part of an incredible city-wide service day, joining with 30,000 other folks from some 40 churches in ministering to needs in and around dallas. caravans of yellow school buses ferried us to communities to serve, to give, to be hands and feet. coincidentally, out of dozens of buses we just happened to hop on the same one as j^3: jason, james, john. our team got involved with central dallas ministries, helping out with their thrift store, clinic and day care -- painting, landscaping, and planting a garden. funny story: john had to go, like badly, and went to the restroom @ church's chicken next door, nearly getting left behind. we were so tempted to stop vouching for his absence since the leader was pretty convinced he might have hopped on another bus. further details about what happened @ church's would be TMI. :D ask him.
at the end of the day, though, we are reminded that servanthood is not an every now and then deal but one that we are called to as an outflow of His love for us. we are grateful for the external focus team at wm that continually offers us mediums and opportunities to serve.
saturday, the day before, was somewhat of a bizarre day. we had signed up to run the white rock n' roll 10 mile w/ our "kenyan ken." :) then last week, yuee suffered his second ultimate injury of the season: rolled ankle. we still decided to go -- y would bike, g would run. we woke up to dark skies and sheets of rain... but ken convinced us it might be worth a try. we got there just barely in time... 10 miles and a post-race party later, results came in. turned out yuee got mistakenly placed 3rd overall - his tag scanned even though he biked AROUND the sensors. we quickly notified officials which bumped ken to finishing 4th overall and 1st in his age group. g was misrepresented as male (on paper) but then once changed, found out she placed 2nd in her age group: her first race award ever. and a surprising one, not having trained after a quarter. we wound down @ the white rock festival afterwards (race bibs got us in for free) -- too much excitement/drama for the aging!
