In the Beginning

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Huanyan's side of the story:

It was somewhere around July/August 2007, when I first met Angelina at OG Orchard before service. A sister, by the name of Shuyi, told me that there was a sister who just returned from Australia and wanted to be connected to a lifegroup (it was called caregroup back in those days) in the university ministry. I was a new lifegroup leader back then, only having taken the position in church for about three months. But even though I  was struggling with leading the LG, I felt that I could not refuse anyone who wants to join my LG. So I decided to allow Shuyi to link this sister up with the LG. 

I still remember the first impression of Angelina. She was not exactly the most cheerful person I've ever met in Hope. At that point I could not understand why but slowly it made sense (that is another story which I will let Angelina share herself if she wishes to as to why she did not appear cheerful). Also, at first glance, it did not ever come across my mind that I will ever consider this girl as a potential life partner since I never get to interact with her that often back then. If you ask me, I would have told you other names whom I had served with more often. 

But I must say that as I approached graduation, I slowly noticed how her involvement in Crusade has helped to mold her a strong support to her leader. As she shared with me on her struggles in prayer, I saw back then how she grew in that area as well. Yet one event stuck in my mind. It was sometime in August 2008, if I remember correctly. She asked me if I was burned out, or some questions somewhere along that line. It was one year after leading the LG and I did not know that I was burned out. Needless to say, I thought, 'what could a girl who is not very frequent in church know?' Then God took me out of Singapore on a conference to Hong Kong then and used Ps Jeff to speak into my heart that particular Sunday. As I think back, that was about the time when I saw a sister of great discernment, something which caught my eyes but I didn't really give it much attention back then. 

But as it is, I graduated and we parted way since I had to move on to the Young Adult group. As I look back and reflect on what happened during this period, I must say that perhaps the friendship in university was left off with a sense of respect for this young lady and a sense of wanting to ensure that she remains well taken care of even after she was not longer under my care. I did not know that this will have its own consequences some years later and God will converge our path again. I even remembered telling the LG back then that unless God brings all of us together again, most likely a lot of us would not end up in the same LG, especially after I graduated and moved on. But I will leave the story of convergence to next time. 

 Angelina's side of the story:

I was first introduced to Huanyan in July 2007 by a sister Shuyi because I wanted to be connected go a university LG upon returning from Australia. Thus she connected me to her LG, where Huanyan was the LGL.

My impression of him then was that he was a pretty loud and lame person, totally not someone I would naturally hang out with. But since he was my LGL, then "no choice". On a positive note, he was someone who was very helpful and seemed to be a know-it-all when it came to things related to university matters (which was pretty much what a freshie would be concerned with at that point in time) and apologetics. So whenever I had any questions on university life or apologetics, he would be the first person I would go to. Although we were from very different courses (him being in History and me being in Applied Chemistry), we had a similar interest in entrepreneurship and I was his junior in Technopreneurship minor. Thus I would also consult him whenever I had questions or needed reference materials for the Technopreneurship modules.  

In terms of his leading as a LGL, I felt that he was a pretty strong, but hands-off leader. You can definitely count on him to "chope" seats for us every service, inform the LG of all the announcements/information and settle whatever admin stuff that needed to be settled. But he seldom asked me about my personal life or follow up on some of the struggles I shared at LG, even though I was clearly someone with lots of issues in my life at that point in my life. (Perhaps it wasn't appropriate for him to probe too much as a guy as well).

Two things that stood out to me when he was my LGL in my first two years of university:

1) The role that he "created" for me to serve in LG

By the second year of my university life, I had pretty much come to terms that I was back in Singapore for good, and was ready to move on in life and to serve in some way in the LG. However I struggled with volunteering to serve in the existing roles in LG as I did not feel that any of the roles (leading pnw, games) were suitable for me. But one thing I knew was that I had grown in my heart for prayer, and if there was a way that I could serve in LG, it was to minister to others through prayer. Thus he and Shuyi decided to create this new role of leading a time of prayer and ministering after pnw at LG. Through those times of serving, I experienced the reality and power of God. This was one of the rare times that I felt I was serving God according to my gifts, rather than just filling a need in ministry and I thoroughly enjoyed those times of serving, 

2) How he "took care" of the remaining LG members in the university ministry and ensured that our transition to the next LG was as smooth as possible before he moved on from the university ministry. Knowing that I was someone who took relatively long time to warm up to a new group, he made sure that the next group I was transferred to had people that I was already familiar with. (This was something I realised not to take it for granted, because the subsequent transitions to other LGs were not as smooth).

The last encounter with him when I was in the university ministry was the prayer I made for him at a camp – where I felt that it was a season where God was preparing him for missions.

Little did I expect that I would end up in his group again after I moved on from the university ministry 2.5 years later.