I am up late tonight preparing songs for the upcoming Christmas service. After picking strings and singing along couple times to the song Joseph’s Lullaby by Mercy Me, the song lyrics just hit me hard, I just busted in tears and couldn’t hold back. Knowing that this special Child will grow up and will DIE for the sins of human, Joseph just treasured the precious moment with baby Jesus sleeping in the manger now. There is just no sweeter moment than this, watching those tiny hands and feet, the silky soft skin of the child, eyes closed, in deep peaceful sleep.

Well, that was lovely but it was not why I teared up. It was the thought of “for God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son…” It’s the well-known verse that I have read and come across countless of time now suddenly ‘spoke’ to me. With God-given privilege of being a father, I understand more on the sacrifices God made.  I certainly cannot do what He did. Will not. Absolutely not.  I would not give up my children for anyone, for any reasons, even with getting all the money it the world. Never.

But He, who loved us so much, gave His one and only Son for us. That what brought me to tears. I just don’t know how else to react to that. It’s just too huge for me to think to comprehend what He did, all just because He so loved us. He gave His Son just so He can have the relationship with us. I’m just in shock for I’m not worthy of His love. I’m a sinner, and absolutely nothing in me that even worths His attention. Now He gave all He has for us, freely, how would we respond to His love? I don’t know about you, but I’m just humbly and accepting His love, His gift. I am in tears, but it is the tears of joy that God loved me that much.

I cannot look at the Nativity scene the same anymore. Seeing a baby in the manger, I see the love of a father who would gave his most prized possession to have me.

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On the way to work this morning, I heard this Bible verse on the radio and it got me thinking.

“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, … that we might receive the full rights of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5 NIV)

Even with our fancy Rolex couldn’t tell when God is about to do something. He operates on a completely different time set that ours. He allows things to happen at the right time when He sees it is good. Even in the event of God became man born in manger, has to wait until “the time had fully come“.  Why then was a good time? Why not when Israel was exiled to Egypt? Why not when they need a king? Or why not now?!

Though we might have a slightest idea of why, but one thing for sure, we don’t think like God does. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8) But we know that the end result, when the time come and God allows things to happen,  is always perfect and satisfying. It always works out at the end.

Some people might not like the idea of being kept in the dark for surprises. But aren’t surprise visit or Christmas gifts be more thrill and extra special when you are least expected? Especially, when it is someone very close to you and you haven’t seen for years, or e a present that you really want it. I think God just wants to make sure our joy be completed, exceed expectations, from joy to .. overjoy.

Aren’t we all the little children whom constantly bugging our Father with “Are we there yet?” question?! Follow God is a journey. There are things we are anxiously waiting, expecting, praying for so long, yet have come. There are things that just happened ‘for no reason.’ We might not have the answer or understand why at the time. But, take His word: “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” (John 13:7) We will understand. We will praise God for what He did.

I love this good oldie song, taken from Ecclesiastes 3:11, that I still often sing:

In His time, in His time
He makes all things beautiful, in His time.
Lord, please show me everyday
As You’re teaching me Your way,
That You do just what You say
In Your time.

Wow another year , and a busy yet wonderful season of Christmas have just passed. I meant to update the blog with what was happening, but just one thing after another and I just couldn’t keep up. Well, it looks like a series of events are just going to happen pretty soon, and I am very excited about. I don’t want to keep piling things up to write about, but I don’t have enough time to tell every detail. So I be brief.

Let’s started with Thanksgiving. We didn’t have a church retreat this year. For the whole long break, we hang out, stayed up late, played lots of Bomberman on Playstation 3. It was a lot of fun. We spent Thanksgiving day and eating dinner at Mom and Dad. It was great.

Then started Christmas. Grace was very excited and wanted to decorate the Christmas tree this year. She decorated it all by herself and did a wonderful job. Tis the season, our church had the annual Bible Memorization contest. This year it was only 8 verse in Psalm. That was quite fun.

Christmas is always a busy season at church as we prepared for the annual special Christmas program. This year, we did not just one drama as the main program. We had carols combined with worships, we have choir songs, children songs, duet, trio, fun skit, sermon… Due to the complication of choosing the location to held the Christmas program, we had the service early than previous year, on the 19th. I felt like Christmas came too soon, and we didn’t have enough time to practice. It seemed overwhelming, but all things came together at the end. We had 200+ attendees, and dinner was served afterward. It was great.

Since we had early Christmas celebration, we felt much relax on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We went to Winter Wonderland, a Christmas Special at New Life Church. It was packed!! They had 3 services, back to back, and traffic was a mess. The attendance was 14000+ for 3 services. We hang out at home, open presents on Christmas Day, and have Christmas lunch at Mom and Dad. It was good time.

Before the year ended, the youth hang out and had dinner together at TGI Friday’s. The church also celebrated the birthday of everyone in 4th quarter. It was funny to see Benjamin lined up to receive his birthday card.

To celebrate the New Year, the youth hang out at Duc-Huyen’s house. We had foods, played gift exchange, and Anh Duc showed pictures of his trip in Iraq. It was quite funny that he mixed some quite disturbed pictures among the scenery pictures.

So… 2010 has started. I’m very excited for what’s ahead. There are goals, resolution to achieve, grace and blessings to come, lessons to learn. I am looking forward to all of it, and I want to document them all here, as much as I can. See you in 2010. Have wonderful New Year, you!

See pictures:
Christmas Program at church
Winter Wonderland
Christmas with Family
Year End

I’ll be brief. I’m still catching some rest, mind you! Hehehe… In short, we had a great Christmas Celebration. Here are some recaps.

This is our stage, lighting setup and decoration. Beautiful flowers!

Guests, friends, and family came to celebrate the birth of Jesus. People from Denver churches also came to join our celebration. There was about 150+ attendees, I think.

As soon as we greet the guests, we started singing familiar Christmas Carols with the congregation. Then the youth choir began their songs.

Next is the dramatic dancing that illustrates God created Man, but Man fell into temptations, sinned and departed from God. When Man realized he’s in the depth of sins, he tried to break free from it. He struggled but was unable to set himself free, while Satan and his works haunted Man and wanted to take his life. That’s when Jesus came to the rescue, saved the day, saved mankind. There were two solo songs for this dance, and I soloed one of the song, Adam, Con O Dau? (or, Adam, Where Are You?) I choked up a little bit toward the end of the song. They must have performed very well, and very convincing.

The children also had their share of the celebration with their songs and dance. You can tell which part of the songs they remembered the most. Grace was singing off key, and I actually laughed out loud when I heard her in the backstage…. hahaha…Kids are so adorable! They also cited 4 memory verses in Proverbs.

Then there was a Christmas poem by Brother Tin. It was beautiful. Following was a song and hip hop dance. They practiced well. 

And the grand finale, the bittersweet drama of an old man who lost faith, struggling to make a living and taking care of his daughter. He wanted to give his daughter a  gift for Christmas, but he has nothing but than few dollars earned from selling firewood. He thought God has abandoned him in his poverty. His daughter also wanted to get her father a warm coat for the winter, but she has nothing to offer other than her lock of hair. Ironically, the father got a comb for her beautiful hair, but his daughter had already traded her hair for the warm coat, a gift for her father. They hugged and cried as they found out the irony, but they also learned the message of Love in Christmas. God has not abandoned them. For He so loved the world the He gave His Only Son for us. How could He abandoned us? He would never. Ever!

The service was concluded with the closing invitation, closing prayer, and a song from the youth choir. We then have a Christmas Dinner party right after. There were lots of foods prepared for us by the food committee. It was awesome.

The tired-most part of the program was the cleanup afterward. We had to take every thing down, vacuum, setup chairs, etc ..because the Hispanic church is using the the sanctuary the next day.

Well, that wasn’t a brief post at all… but there you have it!  Merry Christmas everyone! Good night world, I’m catching some sleep.

See more Christmas pictures

My favorite holiday is definitely Christmas, bar none. No other holidays are compared to it. The gifts, music, decoration, the joy, love, the anticipation, exhilaration and sometime the overwhelmingly stressful of the preparation are what make the season great and memorable. Ultimately, it’s the season to reflect and celebrate the gift of Christ to mankind. At church, we usually we start preparing for Christmas in mid-November. However, this year we have some difficulty with reserving the church for our special service and some other reasons, we started way way late. Instead of having one big production as we mostly do every year, we go with varieties this year: choir songs, solos, duets, dramatic dancing, hip hop dance, children song and dance, and a short skit. We had 3 weeks (well, 2 Saturdays and 2 Sunday evening) for practice and rehearse. Yeah, as you can imagine, it’s not pretty!

Practice schedule was tight, but I think  somehow we pulled it off. After couple songs practices, we divided into groups: one group to practice hip hop dancing, other group to practice the skit and line reading, another to teach the kids their moves. We switched our performers from group to group like crazy, taking advantage the limited time slots we have. Our Pastor, the multi-talents director/writer/actor/music director/supervisor, who I proudly call him Dad, was overlooking the whole bits, from music playing, choirs practicing, skit lines reading and acting, dancing. He also recorded MIDI from his old trusted keyboards and sent email to us the songs to practice at home. It was awesome! Everyone was doing their part, as it’s like …. Santa workshop.

 Now for Me, I took in the responsibilities of Power Point, Projection, Video clips, Stage and Lighting. Yeah, crazy me, right?! Well, the Powerpoint and Video clips are things I do for church regularly, so those are given. I shared with my dad with the idea of the manger scene, and he said go for it. So I came up with several designs in my head, but as decision and choices made, it ended up more involved than just a picture-stapled-onto-the-wall. And to get the effects right, it needs lighting and background, and so and so… My wife asked me why didn’t I just ask someone else to do, but somehow I think with the time we had, it would take much longer to hand off to someone else in charge. Then I have to explain the idea, draw the concept, specified the measurement and the equipment, set appointment and time to meet, reviewing the plan, answer the question… you get the picture. It’s just too long. All of those are in my head, so by all mean, let me do it myself. So, I told her: “Honey, I got this! I got this.” … Of course, I don’t. My stubbornness will come back and bite me later.

Tonight, the rehearsal night, I had the Powerpoint and Video clips for the drama dancing done. However, they need some minor adjustments. The lighting didn’t work out too well for my expectation. Light colors were just vanished into that dark wall. So much efforts of whole evening of install and setup… but I think it still looks better than without. The rock-wall idea for the inn at the manger scene didn’t turn out well as I plan, and it was quite labor-intensive with paper and glue.  I dropped the silhouette shepherds cutout because there was no time. My painting of the Mary-Joseph-baby looked like cartoon. The barn structure came out alright. And if it wasn’t countless helps from my brothers and other youths, certainly there would be no manger scene on the stage.

 Others have helped setup the chairs. The foods for after-service party are prepared. The flowers are made. Things are in place, mostly. I’m so tired. It’s 4AM and I need to catch some sleep for the program starts later today… There is just no time to pondering what-should-I-wear tonight.

One thing quickly before I’m heading to bed. Dear my wife, thank you for your love, care and support, for worrying about me, and be patient with me, and taking care of the children while I’m overwhelming with the prep works. I love you! Dear God, thank you for your greatest gift of Christmas, Yourself, to us. Thank you for bearing with my stubbornness and secretly helping me all along. Thank you for remind me that Christmas is all about You, not about other things that we do to celebrate!

See Christmas Rehearsal pictures

I got home from work and Grace was so excited to show me something she made. She handed me a present, carefully wrapped in snowman holiday gift wrapped, and proudly stated: “I made this all by myself, without anyone help. Just me!” I asked if it was for me, then she said it is for both mommy and daddy also warned me “You can’t open it now, not before Christmas. You have to wait until then!” Aww… that is so adorable! It’s been quite a long time since I’m this excited to wait until Christmas to see what presents I’m gonna get. Thank you, Grace, my little Santa Claus!

… I don’t want a white Christmas, but it’s really happening! The weather is dropped ridiculously low at 0 (F) degree  today, not counting the wind chill….  Brrrrhhhh!… Everything is frozen over, covered in frosted ice. Ponds. Tree. Rooftop. Electric wires. My hands and nose… everything. It’s like a scenery from the Chronicles of Narnia. I was on the way to work, and couldn’t resist to take my camera out and snap couple shots of the beautiful snow-covering sceneries, and some that overlooking snow-top Pikes Peak. Enjoy the artwork of our Creator!

See more pictures here. The weather is expected to stay cold throughout this week, with high in mid-teen. It’s cold… bitterly cold! Though I still have reasons to be thankful for: The Northeastern states are in freezing cold and without electricity. There are homeless folks are out in the cold, no shelter, no warm coat or foods. I’m just grateful.

Anyway, this cold weather will make the preparation for Christmas program at church this Saturday more hectic. More on that later.