There are no words to describe something really, and truly, beautiful.  Just saying 'beautiful' is a word too small to describe the awesomeness of beauty that touches your heart;

a beautiful flower

  a beautiful sunset

    a beautiful day in a beautiful garden

      a beautiful song

        a face of someone you love

          a beautiful vision of heaven

            a beautiful God

Sam sent a beautiful song.  "I can only imagine" MercyMe.  Thanks Sam

Organising games can be so fun, and mind-boggling.  You want it to be exciting, and yet it's hard to not think about games that you have seen and heard of before, and then when you do think of or find a new one, you have to think about whether it's suitable with the age group and the settings i.e. place and event.  Then you have to lead it, and that would be the most fun part, where you find out whether or not the game works.  We'll see... I haven't got my game for tomorrow...

Mel was talking about camp tonight.  So I will share about camp too.  I was wanting to share this for awhile, so yeah, I will get down to it right now.

At the end of May, I was at a two week jungle camp at Sipitang.  It was mostly talks in the morning, and practical in the afternoons, and presentations at night.  It was extremely tiring, but we had fun, and the environment was nice,

so it wasn't at all bad.

I'm so sorry, I don't know why the pictures are so small, but it'll have to do..  This guy is teaching us how to make a temporary shelter using wooden staves and leaves.  We would later on use what he thought us to make our 'kitchen'.  He also taught us how to make animal traps, which I don't remember how now, and also how to light a fire, which I remember but can't seem to master.

That is my foot.  I was bragging so much to my friends how I rarely get leeches, and then this one day, I was just looking through my things in the tent, and I nearly stopped breathing because there were THREE huge ones on my foot.  Obviously they had been feasting on my foot for quite a while, coz I don't normally check anyway.  So after that, I was constantly visited by these friendly companions.  And I stopped bragging that I don't get leeches.

That is what they call a tiger leech.  It's supposed to be really itchy if it gets on you.  So thankfully, this one is not on me.

Always there for me no matter what...

Ok, this is the one I really want to talk about.  We had survival/group camp for two night, where they threw us into the forest with 5 cans of sardines, 5 cups of rice, 10 pieces of Jacobs crackers, 5 sleeping mats, 4 sleeping bags, a canvas and one set of extra clothes each.  All this for a group of 9 people.  I was lucky because some of the other groups had 12 people.  The first night 9 of us took turns to eat out of 1 mess tin ( it was porridge with sardine ) with ONE spoon.  By the 2nd night we had 4 spoons, 3 made out of wood.  This was a real test of character, because I was the group leader (and the only female group leader of the entire camp) and I had to really be patient because it was hard to survive with 8 other people whom I was not close to.  And yet, we made it...it was good.  Though I do have this funny feeling in my gut now when I hear the words 'survival camp'.

So....yay to camps!!!

off my new camera

  I got a new camera.  A Canon A550.  The good thing is, I'm taking pictures again.  The bad thing is, I walk slower, talk slower and do everything slower when that camera is in my hands. But anyway, here are some shots of the places I've been to and the things I've been doing.

My dad and mum brought the dogs and me...ahaha..to the Tuaran beach near Rasaria Resort.  Here, my dad was scared that Oliver would go attack the Japanese man behind, who wasn't scared of Oli, by the way.  Oli kept on running to the Jap man, so my dad kept on asking him to sit down.  But I don't think dogs sit down in water...

Gabriel's fur/hair/whatever had lotsa sand on it after this.  But Gabriel really enjoys wind.  I guess anyone would if their hair/fur/whatever flies in the wind like his...

 
I just like this picture.  A lady walking with her umbrella while her dog insists on looking at the camera while walking like a crab...

Her name is Voon Yuen.  She's one of those people with whom I am a very noisy person with.  She's just so loud, and she speaks Chinese better than malay or english, and LOUD.  so yea, you can imagine.  We talk like two ladies bargaining in the market.  This is at the Tenom Agricultural Park, which I went to for a field trip.

Part of the bedroom at the TAP.  I slept with my lecturer and two seniors.  The good thing is that I slept well, coz all the other rooms were full of noisy people my age...heh..

Ok, honestly this wasn't the photo I wanted to upload, but I accidentally put it on. Anyway, these are flowers of a vegetable we eat quite often.  Recognize it? 

Just a leaf on a water surface with water on it's surface..

Ok, this is the one that I wanted to upload but I put the vegetable pic instead.  This is a snake that the TAP staff put on their plants, to keep away insects.  I didn't know snakes eat insects..

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This is at the camp site of the Crocker Range Park headquarters.  They provide tent plots with roofs, so those of us who get old tents pitched here, but those of us who get new tents...like Dayah and me

...pitched under a tree.  It was very cold here at night, so it was sooo nice to sleep.  Do you know why our tent door is facing this side and not the other side?  Because the other side is a drop, and I was afraid to be waking up half asleep and walk straight down into the drop.

Along the Crocker Range Trail, we came along this make-shift tent.  We were told it's for park staff to rest after working.

See I'm still wearing my sweater even though we were hiking?  It was really that cool..  This is at the top of a tower that was built just for some Japanese people to look for flying foxes in 2004.  It was a strong tower, but I really don't agree with their stairs, because...

It was SO STEEP!! This was when we were going down,...

...and this was when we were going up.  This picture is horizontal though, not in the right position.  But I wasn't bending down or anything, the stairs are really this steep.

Ok, that's all for this entry.  Man, uploading pics are tiring, I don't know how some of you put sooo many.   Anyway, thanks for paying attention this far.  God bless. Goodnight.

I really want to sleep.  But I have to do this, because I love them.

I've been real busy lately, planning and organizing.  It takes up most of my day time, and as I learn to organize my time and prioritize between studies and activities, I also sometimes stop the chaos in my mind, and realize,  that I am going to miss them, so very very terribly.  I know I don't show it, and maybe if I wanted to , I wouldn't know how, because I've become so good in keeping my tears in check.

This song often comes to mind;

Packing up the dreams
God planted
In the fertile soil of you
I can't believe the hopes
He's granted
Means a chapter in your life
Is through

But we'll keep you close
As always
It won't even seem
You've gone
Coz our hearts
In big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
Cos the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

And with the faith and love
God's given
Springing from the hope we know
We will pray the joy you live in
Is the strength that now you show

-michael w. smith

BE STRONG

Every morning, when I have my breakfast, I eat bread.  Bread is good, and it's nice to eat with many things.  But, I have to be strong.

The reason is, Oliver and Gabriel also like bread.  I guess we made a mistake when we started giving it to them off the dining table.  People who are strict with their dogs would never do that, I guess.  I only give them the sides, and in the beginning, I only gave them one side.  Oliver would get a bigger piece than Gabriel, to be proportional.

Now, whenever I pull my chair to sit down for my breakfast, they run from wherever they are and sit down right beside me.  And unfortunately, do the most pathetically "cute" things that the hardest heart would have compassion on them.  Gabriel would jump up and put his two front paws on my lap and if I insist on not giving him bread, he would pat my lap with his paws.  And he wouldn't go down until I give him bread.  Oliver would sit on the other side of me and now and then nudge my arm with his nose.  If I look at him, he looks at me with his annoyingly beautiful brown eyes that probably means, "Pleeaasee.." Once in a while he would also jump on my lap, and my view would be of a big brown dog body.

So this morning, I really tried.  Gabriel's two paws were on my lap and Oliver was looking on, patiently.  I almost succeeded not giving my bread, and I tried not to look at them.

But when I was almost done to the last side on my sandwich, I made the deadly mistake of looking at them.  And oh...Oliver's eyes were so....

And I gave them my last piece, and lost that part of my bread.