Blessed

After the sharing at church choir practice today, I realised how super blessed our choir, Calvary Pandan Chinese Choir is.

When I first joined the music ministry at 16, I joined the church choir with 4 of the 5 girlfriends from the 88 batch of Sunday School, Ruth, Leeling, Lydia, Bixia. We loved to sing so much that we'd get together to sing church songs when we're not playing and running our organs out at a game of captain's ball during free and easy time in youth camps. Our beloved 'class mum', Shu Juan Lao Shi, and the Sunday School department gave us many opportunities to serve as a batch. And we loved music so much that every programme we led revolved around the wonderful world of hymnal music. For Teachers' Day 2003, we played a live telecast of a dj at work (I was the dj!), dedicating favourite hymns to the Sunday School teachers. The hymns were sang by a live choir, comprised of my batchmates and yours truly. Then for Sunday School Sunday 2003, we acted a skit for the nursery, kindergarten, primary and secondary school students about a selfish little girl who didn't love her neighbour, and we tied in the theme song too. I can still remember I had to wear my Primary 4 blue chequered dress and clip my hair hmph and some children thought what we acted was real and started crying! hahaha. Then for Christmas 2003, we created a mini cantata with cello accompaniment for the primary school kids. We had shadow puppets and a live choir that sang beautiful carols like 'Silent Night', 'The First Noel, 'The Shepherds Left Their Flocks Astray'. Although our batch identity has pretty much dissolved, I am really thankful how God has preserved all 4 of us to be in His music ministry. It feels special, especially when no other batch girls are like that :)

Church choir when I was 16 was not anywhere as great as church choir now, though I really admired my cousin, Pei'er, who is a power soprano currently accompanying my cuz-in-law in Dallas Seminary. We took a long time to learn new pieces and weren't disciplined to sing or committed to even attend the practices. Turnover was high so the tone of the choir was always changing.

But I've seen God's Hand work in our choir. The turnover is greatly reduced, with people who were MIA-ers now committing as much more active members. Conducting workshops and annual voice courses have increased the quality of the choir, and the preparation for 25th Anniversary NIght of Sacred Music brought us all closer. Shu Juan Lao Shi would bring her coffee cakes to share with the famished choristers, and many of us would play with Cadence and babies before choir starts. I can feel that the love for God's music emanates from us all. The wives and babies of new fathers would wait at the back of B3 every Sunday so they can finally return home after spending 6hours in church. Though famished with loud growling empty stomachs, the younger people would bear their hunger (from morning, like 7plus 8 am!) till lunch after choir at 2plus. I see the small sacrifices that people in my choir is willing to make/has been making for years. For some, it's 14 or 20years. Though there is much room for technical improvement, what encourages me most is the uplifting of the passion for God's music. With passion, anything is possible because there is the heart to learn and serve. Though we might not be the best choir, we are definitely choristers who see our praise as a fragrant sacrifice to the Lord. I feel so blessed, thank God.