FFH - Still The Cross

Sometimes it seems the world's unraveling around us
We fear it all my one day come undone
We can't forget the One who came before us
To forgive the past and bring hope for what's to come
When it all comes crashing down
The cross still stands alone
And on this our faith is built
And our courage is made strong

When the world falls apart
And you fear for your heart
There's a tower of peace
It's still the cross
So bring your sick and your poor
And your longing for more
To the place of relief
It's still the cross
There is hope for the lost
It's still the cross

Sometimes it seems that I have been forgotten
I don't know how I will make it on my own
But the One who said I will never be forsaken
He still hears my prayer and I will never be alone
When it all comes crashing down
The cross still stands alone
And on this my faith is built
And my courage is made strong

Chorus:
Bridge

Though the world may not confess
You and Your holiness
One day all will see
You in all Your majesty
And the cross will stand alone
As the place where You made known
Your love for all mankind
Till then in it we'll hide

Flashback to 2002.

The year is 2002. A group of us: Jenny Halim, Alfons Kurnia, Adelia (Alfons' sister), Livia (my sister), Mery Tan, Buntoro, and I. We went for a roadtrip around Los Angeles. A great fun, visited a lot of places for the second time. ie. Universal Studios for the second time, Disney for the second time, and it was the second time I went with a group of friends to welcome the new year at Disneyland.

The series of Alfons' pictures that I took during SHOT this past Saturday reminded me of this trip. Here is a series of pictures that I took during the trip when we waited a long line for a ride at Universal Studios.

Pose 1

Pose 2

Pose 3

Meet Buntoro...

Buntoro Adi Sugianto

Innocent Look, highly loaded with knowledge and potentials. A great friend. I called him 'A Cun'. Once, we all begged to see him jump like how 'Cun Li' the street fighter female warrior jumps when she wins a tournament. And he did! The image of him with 2 braided balls on top of her head jumping multiple times with innocent smile saying 'I Win! I Win!' sticked to my brain since then, and I call him 'A Cun' since.

Vote For The Best Pose

Meet Alfons Kurnia.
One fine sunday school teacher.
One great bass and classic guitarist.
Patient at heart.
A good friend!

Pose 1	Pose 2	Pose 3
Pose 4	Pose 5	Pose 6

San Francisco Touring

Cie-cie, Daniel, Steve, and I brought mom and dad to tour San Francisco. We started late because I had to meet and discuss Tien San and Joana's wedding planning in the morning. It was good enough time though that we covered: Ghirardelli Square, Pier 39, Fort Point, and finally have dinner at Okazuya.

At Ghirardelli Square	Gleeful Passersby

At Okazuya, dad ate Sea Bass that Daniel very much recommended. And to everybody surprise, he commented saying that my cooking was far better than what the restaurant served. I was flattered, a bit embarassed. =)

Meet The Parents

For the first time I met mom and dad since my last visit to Singapore in January 2000. Good to see them again, they have not changed a bit in their appearance. In fact, I think my mom looks younger than last time I met.


Debbie and I at NBC Restaurant

This is also the first time my parents meet Debbie.

Debbie's Birthday!

A.. I vaguely remembered I might have been awakened by the alarm clock at 4:00 AM, but went straight back to my warm blanket. I was later awakened by the normal body clock, saw strong lights coming through the window, I jumped out from bed and found out it was already 9:00 AM. Hm.. not as planned. I went to my computer and told my boss that I was taking another day off.

I woke my brother up, started packing, and hit the road like around 11:00 AM. Nothing much happenning on the road. This time I took US-101 S instead of I-5 S, since US-101 became Hwy-1 at some point and I thought the scenery should be pretty in the day along Hwy-1.

Arrived at Livi's place around 5:30 PM to drop my brother off, and went straight to Debbie's place. I dropped by some place to buy a small bouquet, hoping that she liked the blue colour. Going through a lot of traffic, I arrived at her place around 7:00 PM.

Spent about 30 minutes at her place, chit-chat a bit with her mom, and then we headed to the restaurant. Dinner at LA Prime at Bonaventure Hotel. Everything there looked elegant, including the way the waitress spoke. We went with the waiter recommendation: Delmonico Steak and Seafood Platters. Yumm...

Later I found this website that explained what kind of cut 'Delmonico' was.
http://www.askthemeatman.com/answers/answer_to_delmonico_steak.htm

Based on the MeatMan's explanation, I guess we ate a Rib Eye Steak. It tasted much better when I ate it. Maybe I was comparing to my own Rib Eye steak cooking, or maybe the name 'Delmonico' gave much tastier meaning, or maybe it tasted much better because of the company of a person I love very much. Ya .. maybe that's it!

Second Day Camping

I was the last to get up. Birds were chirping and they sounded very close to our tent. I thought it was pretty at first only to find out later that they were menace. Just below our food storage, there were pieces of plastic bag that looked shredded. When getting ready to pack our lunch, I looked for the bread, then I realized that the shredded plastic bag was our bread bag. Argh!!! the birds ate up our lunch!

Started the day with breakfast. Jen said that she wanted to cook 'telor mata sapi'. I searched for the eggs and realized that I forgot to take out the sausage dog for the bonfire last night. Jen to the rescue..., she combined the sausage and egg, it tasted really good.

We had breakfast: noodles + meatballs + vegetables + eggs + sausage.

Then we headed to the guys tent to have the morning devotionals. Jen captured the worship songs and bible passage we discussed.



I chose the passage from Ecclesiastes 2 with the title 'I Hate Life' hoping to raise some curiosity and intrigue us more to dig the Bible.

After we have finished with the devotionals, we started to break the tent and put everything away to the car. We were ready to leave the campground at around 12:30 PM.

Just when I was ready to hit the gas, I felt the car hitting something big. Shocked! I thought I crashed the car tire into a rock. We were fortunate, the rock only hit the car bumper. Still, the car belongs to Ko Paulus, and I felt obligated to maybe fix it before returning it. My mind started wandering, thinking how I might do that. I would be leaving for LA the next day and would not have time to hold off the van any longer. So I could only hope that Ko Paulus would accept my apology and the check to pay the bill.

We then drove to the Mt. Wittenberg trailhead. It was not very far from our campground. We stopped by a small general store to buy really expensive bread. They charged $4.50 for a loaf of bread.

Hiking to the top was easy. At the top though, it was not as pretty as it sounded when I read about the hike from the 'California Hiking' book. But still the view was great. We could see Point Reyes from the top of the mountain while having our lunch: the expensive bread + lettuce + tomato + slices of beef + sweet oranges.


Lunch at the Mt. Wittenberg overlooking Pt. Reyes.

I asked the question to each of them: What is the best part of this trip. Jon said the curry, and I laughed hard. Others said the orange. And so it seems food takes the first priority over beautiful scenery, devotionals, and others.

I suggested different route returning back, a bit longer than the route that we took. But Jen seemed to be in a hurry and wanted to get back soon to continue her homework. We then took the same route back. On the way back, Jen took countless of pictures. There were all kinds of interesting trees and flowers. It's interesting how I found myself more tuned to search for intersting objects on the way back.


A panoramic view of an interesting tree.

When we returned to the car, I felt some mixed feelings. Like that was the end of it, feeling thankful that everything (well almost everything) has gone right, feeling sad that it was the end of the fun time, feeling blessed my boss let me take the 2-day vacation, feeling tired imagining I had to wake up early the next day to start driving to LA and work.

We had our parting dinner at In-and-Out. I asked Stephen to pick between the burger and the curry. He only laughed, I laughed along knowing his silent answer. Then I asked Jen, and she right away answered: the burger. A.. I could only comfort myself with the fact that our students are honest.

I sent each one to their home, dropped by the chevron station to vacuum the car, then returned it to Ko Paulus.

Excited, exhausted, and a big exhale to a very sound sleep.