Facilitator

Another Landings Run just concluded and finally I was not able to taichi the facilitator role. With it being a physical run, there is no way to get cover from the other parishes. This is the first time my baby face is actually useful since the people in my group are in late 20s to early 30s. Being the youngest, youngest looking and the laziest person who does not have other responsibilities, I have no other excuse to siam.

As cliche as it sounds: God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called. I am bad with saying prayers and affirmations and I am not even a good Catholic role model. I basically do not have the qualifications for being a facilitator. All I have is only my age being closer to the group. I was worried that I projected my own stress to the group and I am glad that overall, everything went well and everyone had a good Run.

While the first few weeks were surprisingly well for me, the last few weeks were getting tougher and tougher. I was not well during week 8 but another person was already down with COVID. I needed another group photo to be used for the retreat booklet since the previous photo taken at home session was missing one person. I had no choice but to force myself to attend that session just to take a photo. At least having two incomplete photos of the group is better than than a random Google image for the retreat booklet.

The next stress was to find a personalised Bible verse for everyone in my group. For someone who does not read the Bible, it was a search from the scratch. Writing paper affirmations for the group was also not as easy as expected because I was too perfectionist. I was worried about the positioning of the writings, if I made any spelling errors etc.

I was too premature to be thankful that renovation plan was just nice to not interfere with retreat. My original plan was to go home after the retreat, do laundry, do some packing and transfer some stuff to my aunt's place. Only after the last session tonight then I would bring my working laptop and start staying at my aunt's place and the renovation starts tomorrow. Unfortunately on last Tuesday, they said not to use the toilet anymore from today because they are starting to work at the unit upstairs and they worry if it would affect the water in my unit. Bleah... There is no way I do not use the toilet for one day. That totally ruins my original plan. I had to concurrently pack for retreat and for the luggage to bring to my aunt's place. I transferred my luggage and laptops to my aunt's place on Friday and I would just go there after the retreat.

I was annoyed when someone told me he had to work on Saturday of the retreat. The retreat dates were already made known since 2 months ago and he told me about his work few days just before the retreat. Sheesh.. It made me worrying over most of the Saturday if he would turn up or not. I was already stressed over the group prayer session and if he arrived in the middle of it, I would have to leave halfway to explain to him. In the end, he arrived only after the group prayer. Perhaps I was the only one who was overly worried about the group prayer. Everyone else seemed to be okay with saying their prayers and I was the one stuttering.

We did not go to RedDot for drinks last night since it closed rather early. Some people brought drinks and we drank at the canteen instead. I regretted wanting to kaypoh that one can of Asahi beer. Haha.. I know I could not hold my alcohol well and it got me tipsy. Thank goodness that unlike the previous retreat, there were fewer people staying over. This time, we could use the shower room with the heater rather early. Although I did not have any nightmare like previously, I still did not sleep well because a pipe in the toilet was making a constant whistling noise throughout the night.

It was raining so heavily after lunch that I wasted 2 hours just to wait for the rain to stop. I did not want to take risk with Grab because everyone who took Grab on Saturday was dropped off at the wrong place. I just realised that when the default address in Grab when FMM House is selected is 49D Holland Road, instead of 49 Holland Road. I could try inputting 49 Holland Road directly but if the Grab could not find me, I also could not help with the rain. Anyway in the end I waited and went back together with a group mate so consider it as a bonding ba.

Honestly, I was too pre-occupied with my tasks as a facilitator that I did not really enjoy or benefit from the retreat. Well, I suppose that is part of my service and offering for this Ministry. Now that everything is concluded, I am thankful to God for this Run and for this group. The main takeaway for me is the realisation that I start to lose the 'joy' and to grow tired because I start to treat Landings as a ministry. I need to re-orientate myself again to think that this is a community first so that I do not lose my way again. I hope the new people will join the community since having more people around my age and whom I know maybe the fresh breath of air that I need.