Home Renovation Helpers*

It’s really just been more of the same the past month.


Except that I had a lot of renovation work done in the apartment - an agreement with the landlord and our new lease agreement. It required me to leave the house with Jack for hours on two days...I relished the excuse to escape.



Yi Hui is still very dear. And growing. Cooperating. Being civil. The ‘consequences’ for calling so often seemed to be working and the phone calls had been significantly cut down. And on the days that I had to answer the phone which had been ringing all evening with, “Well, I guess this means that you don’t want to walk to school with Jack tomorrow.” I’ve been glad for the opportunities to sleep in, or not have to answer the door.



“Yi Hui-Free Days,” I call them.



However, we had fallen into a pretty do-able routine. For the most part she was consistently meeting me at 7 for the walk to school, coming by for a reading lesson in the afternoon, if I was available, and only calling once from her grandparents when she returned home, and once from her dad’s place when she went over there to sleep. If this was all she called, then I would meet her the next morning to walk to school with Jack. She talks to Tyler, she likes him. He has warmed up to her a little. She still things Cameron is mean and should be scolded. “He stick his tongue out. Go like that.” she shows me.



“He learned it from you Yi Hui. Cameron never stuck his tongue out until he saw you doing it to him. I think if you stop sticking your tongue out at him, he’ll stop doing it to you.”



It was a positive direction on all counts. Then a week ago Sunday she got sick. Need antibiotics sick. The first part of the week she stayed home from school and was bored out of her little mind. She had nothing better to do than to call me...or James. All day long. She started showing up at the door again when she started feeling better.



With one more week left in the Singapore school year, there was even one day off: Hari Raya Haji on Wednesday. By then I was working on a bookshelf refinishing project and had the pieces out in the “common area” of our “lift lobby.” There was no escape.



She asked me what I was doing and I said that I was working on a painting project. Did she want to help me? YES!



Actually she kept me company. And I found it kind of funny. She and the neighbor boy Dharvin showed up to help and I gave them each sandpaper. Showed them how it’s done. Showed them again.



It was no small project! There was one large table Cameron uses as a desk, and two 6’ bookshelves that needed to be refinished. As I’m sweating over them, in clouds of paint dust, the kids came and went and tried to work and kept asking, “WHEN ARE WE GOING TO DO THE PAINING?”



I told them “WE ARE DOING THE PAINTING! This is called ‘PREP WORK’.”



It kept them busy and it didn’t slow me down to have them around really. I liked the company, and there’s no WAY my own kids would be interested in spending their mid-week holiday doing volunteer sweaty manual labor! And as usual it took much longer than anticipated. In fact, out of the stain yesterday, and the hardware store out of stock today, the bookshelves still sit up against the wall in the lift lobby, surely irritating my neighbors.



Cameron was upset 5 days later when he saw that the underside of the lower shelves were not painted in faux wood grain of the rest of the shelves. They were mostly blotchy solid black. “You LET her paing MY shelves???” he asked, mock horrified.



“She WANTED to help me, and I let her have some fun on places that you’ll never really see. I suppose it would have been different if you wanted to work on the project with me...”



He didn’t have anything to say about it after that....except a few hours later, he said, "Thank you mom. I love the shelves."


*an excerpt from The Chronicles of Clementi Ave 2 - My adventures with Yi Hui

On Being Church Home-less. Our Journey.

Written for a friend who is on a journey between church homes.


I'm sorry for the angst you are going through, and for the relationships which are strained because of your current predicament. ICK. ICK. ICK!  


First let me say, that though I am sending you an impersonal email, I am also open to talking with you and praying with you more about this subject. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is purpose in it. Godly purpose for your development, and how he wants you to grow and become even more mature. He has a plan. It doesn't take away the pain and frustration that you are experiencing on so many levels, but there WILL be a time in your life when you value having gone through this experience.  


I've never taken the time to write out our story on the issue of finding a church home in Singapore, but you've given me a good excuse! So indulge me, while I share my church history:

James and I have been believers since the 1960's for me, and the 70's for him. We grew up in one church all our young Christian lives (different ones!) and when we got married he was a pastor in another for 12 years before we moved to Asia to serve churches. 

We were 2 years church homeless while living in China. We did find Christian community there, but because of making the choice to put Tyler in chinese kindergarten, we didn't regularly fellowship with the other foreigners - so as not to let our kindergartener Tyler know that there was an international school option. We were in strong agreement, had the backing of our supporting church and family at home. 

This however, heightened our eager expectation to move to Singapore and settle in a church, and let our boys grow up in a community of faith. 

God's plans were different. 

After many many weekends of church visits and short stints with Church X (the boys didn't have any friends after 6 months) and Church Y (one too many 'I can't take this any more' experiences in worship) it was finally 18 months before we settled. We had earnestly prayed, months on end we asked our supporters and church home in USA to pray for us about this. We never were naive to think we were looking for 'the perfect church,' yes, we know all the sayings and have been part of a church family long enough to know where there is people, there is messes! Grace Assembly of God is where we finally settled. More out of visitor fatigue than any sense of calling that it was the 'right church' for us. An interesting decision, which has turned out to be a good thing. But I'm not pentecostal, and like order and traditions in worship. But we loved the teaching of their Senior Pastor, and how he was empowering his staff. They had a lot going on with missions and their worship included musicianship and they even had a growing drama team. It took awhile. But Grace grew on us.

It seemed like such a let down to not ever have any church 'click' for us as we continued to serve and minister in many various churches while we called Grace Assembly of God home. And it was 'home' though even by 2009 neither of our boys had any peer friends, or older male mentors. 

Both James and I have been able to see God's hand in this being part of our story. One of the biggest reasons, is how this has given us new eyes to see the Bride of Christ -- whom we love and long to see more beautiful -- from a different perspective. Steeped for years in churchianity and immersed in local church ministry from the inside, I wasn't able see corporate worship and the whole church experience from the viewpoint of the ordinary church-goer until I became one. If we had found the church we were seeking, and settled, we would not have experienced the breadth of churches we now know, which gives us now a unique understanding of the many facets of the broader church of Singapore. And then there's the best part: we would surely never know the dependence on and intimacy we now have with Christ from the loneliness that came from those years of never really finding satisfying community here for our family. 

In 2007-08 when we had our year in USA, what I was most looking forward to was feeling at home in a local church. Ironically, painfully, it was never realized. The personal course on Christ's sufficiency, and abiding in HIM alone for identity and fellowship had a few more lessons to go.

HOWEVER, upon our return, I felt very strongly led to seek AND FIND a church home where the boys would find and worship and serve alongside good friends, develop a sense of extended family and male role models they could admire and want to emulate. I knew it had to be God's will for them to know the sweetness that comes from feeling "at home" in a church body. It had to happen before these boys grew up and left the home of his parents who love and are called to serve Christ and his church. Of course we wanted a place to enjoy worship together! And of course I wanted to find a place where we felt we could trust the spiritual nurture which would build on what they were getting from us and from their Christian School. We have nothing but fond regard for Grace, and it was heartbreaking to have to admit to our pastors David and May Lim that we felt like we had to make a change for the sake of our boys and in some strange way, for the future of the church that their generation will be leaders in.

This time in our search, we had Grace as a touch point to return to from time to time, and it was THANKFULLY only 9 months before we were confident it was the right thing to do to make the new Redemption Hill Church plant our new home. A story for another time, which includes Cameron asking me during worship, "Do you think I look like Pastor Simon?" and what (in fun) I called "Kimberly Creasman's Eccumenical Tours," AKA "The Gypsy Church" (This was to keep me lighthearted and sane - only somewhat successful - while we searched again for home)

I have a hard time expressing how wonderful it is to feel 'at home' in church again for the first time since 1997. But my sense of identity is (hopefully!) now firmly rooted in being in Christ rather than anything I am doing for his church.

In this new home, one of the 'callings' I sense is for me is, in some small way, helping those who are not new believers, but 'transfers' who come to settle there make sure to have made healthy closure with their previous fellowship, and with the Lord about what has taken place in the past. I've felt a strong conviction that the Lord will not continue to bless this church if people rise to positions of leading who have burned their relational bridges in previous churches, are sour grapes or have ugly roots of bitterness breeding under the carpet (how's that for a rojak of mixed metaphors?)

You have a solid grounding in your theology of church. You love Jesus and want to please your Master. You are being misunderstood by well-meaning and perhaps naive/immature individuals. 

A wise and godly therapist once helped James and I through a crisis with some other people we worked with by saying, Take in what is said and lay it all at Jesus' feet. The Holy Spirit will confirm if there's any truth he wants you to take from it, and then let him lift the burden of the rest of it off of your shoulders. 

I pray that you will sense, in the midst of this heaviness, that it's HIS yoke. Lean on him. Learn from him. When it comes to the core of your soul, and even as you cry those tears, knowing that it is HIS yoke makes it easy(ier) and his burden can be light.

CREASMAN's NOVEMBER what's new(s)

Dear Friends,

Here's a brief update on ways God has answered y/our prayers recently:

CRMS held a Focusing Leaders Facilitator Training a couple weeks ago, with four new facilitators and two new staff joining in.  Really enjoyed it! James also did a Mentoring Seminar last week.

    

We had a 2011 staff calendar planning day last week, and had good synergy talking about ministry ideas for next year.  With each passing year, our staff continues to grow. 

Thank you Lord for raising up Asian mentors who are called to build 

spiritual leaders in Asia.

The boys fiished football season last weekend.  Cameron (13) got to play other positions besides Center, and carried the ball to score a few times. His team were the champions!  Tyler (17) had a good season overall, but a couple of tough losses to finish the season. He's come a long way since that year in Pasadena on Maranatha High School's JV team. He has an MVP award to prove it.

It was fun for us as parents to pitch in where needed. Making meals, coordinating the announcers booth, meeting up with and praying with other parents. It was fun to widen and deepen our circle of friends in Singapore.

Tyler got results from his second SAT (brilliant!). He's now on to more subject tests and ACT. He's daily working at the university applications. Cameron is maturing in his responsibility about assignments and is already on to Basketball for one of the school teams. 

Lord, lead these boys in discovering an ever deepening personal relationship with you. Help us teach them genuine dependence on you as they find the niche you have for them in serving this world. Thank you for your just-in-time provision of Godly mentors for them as they grow into men.

Join us in Praying in NOVEMBER: 

4-7th - Tyler's off to a YoungLife camp this weekend.

8, 9, 18, 23 - James leads mentoring group meetings, with personal appointments on other days.

11-14th - James and Cameron have a Father/Son retreat to listen to Dr Dobson's "Preparing for Adolescence" and talk about growing up.  This is a 13 year-old right of passage in our family.

15th - Joanna our first part time Administrator is training Regina Fermin these two weeks. Regina will start full time when Joanna turns her heart and focus to her two young boys at home on the 15th.

18th (17th in USA) is our CRM Day of Prayer. We will spend concerted time today praying for you and the things on your heart. Please let us know how we can pray for you!

15 - 19th - CRM will send out a short email devotional to staff and donors that contains a reading from the Psalms and prayer points/reflection questions. The purpose of this is to offer a tangible means of coming together as one community to recall His works, offer our praise and thanks, and finally, celebrate all He has done. It makes me feel more connected to you all when we have the opportunity to do such things together. 

25 - 28th - a year ago we had a rather spontaneous Thanksgiving Dinner and the floodgates opened with dozens of guests! Pray with us for wisdom about how to use Thanksgiving Dinner (November 25th!) as a platform for hospitality and sharing the gospel in our neighborhood.

A lot of planning, and praying, and meeting, and encouraging, and stock taking is happening as we end up this year and plan for next year.

The Neighborhood Report from K!:

 

God continues to obviously be at work here in our neighborhood called CLEMENTI. The report* is much the same as before: Daily I am making new acquaintances. I keep meeting other Christians in the neighborhood.  This little girl Yi Hui and her family are clearly the answer to our prayers for a tangible way our family can help the poor. She's like a "stray child" around here. In befriending her, she's not only blossoming a little more each day, but our neighbors are dumbfounded to see her tagging along with us. I trust we are a model of Christ in this, and will continue to lean on him for guidance now that the novelty of it all is wearing off (especially when she calls and calls and calls if she is not with us)! We're setting some good boundaries and she's learning consequences! 

 

*the report* about Yi Hui is chronicled online through this link. An exceptionally funny outtake is written at http://charminfullbloom.blogspot.com.

Lord, together we pray for salvations, and the tearing down of idols in this neighborhood. Inspire the community to be kinder and generous with this little girl and with one another, but we are asking for eternal significance to flow out of the simple things like teaching her manners or how to read. Thank you that she now comes to church with us and loves being a helper and meeting more people.

 

A women's Bible Study, a mentoring group for younger couples, and a church home group broadens Kimberly's circle outside of the apartment and our local neighborhood. 

Please let us know how we can be praying for you too.

Fondly,

James (who's laughing, not crying here) 

& Kimberly Creasman

What We've Enjoyed Reading Recently: 

Kimberly - The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, A Clear and Simple Explanation of the World's Best Seller, John Cross. Exodus.

James - Zechariah, Generation iY, Tim Elmore

Charitable Giving thru CRM

(Thank you for making our work here an extension of your heart for Asia.

We pray that you'd have great joy in these kind of investments, 

whether is it with us or with other good work around the world!)

www.crmleaders.org

Donation questions (in USA) 1 (800) 777-6658

you may add "preferenced for Creasman-acct 5651"

CRM- 1240 N. Lakeview, Suite 120, Anaheim, CA 92807-1831

More Fall Highlight Photos: 

 

Tyler played football on an Army Base in Korea.

 

We are happy that Cameron's student pass was extended through 2015 when he graduates High School. Had a bit of trouble in the renewal process with Immigration and are thankful for God's provision.

 

A good chance for a mother/daughter picture. We're thankful for God's care in walking Sue Coventon, Kimberly's mom, through many health challenges the past few years. It is so good to spend time together.

Cameron (in the center of photos). On offense (above), and defense (below)

Update for Rivendell Foundation: The NO Muscle

Broad, maybe even big things are happening over here in this tiny nation. Pastors and leaders mentoring networks are expanding in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, China and likely other places we aren’t aware of. Monthly, Jim coaches the leadership team of an international evangelism ministry through Skype, following their Focusing Leader’s Retreat earlier this year and they begin to pass on these mentoring values to those under their leadership.

Nearly every month lately Singaporeans or others in Singapore have approached Jim and CRMS about the possibility of joining staff. This year we’ve doubled our 6 (4 Singaporean, 2 Chinese) to 9 (5 Singaporeans, 1 Indian, 3 Chinese).

And yet, it’s the seemingly small things, contradicting what we think of as “strategic” or “influential,” that I want to write two stories about this year.

Late last year (2009), I (Kimberly) was trying to hold firm in my Spirit led resolution to strengthen my “NO” muscle. I needed to focus on some challenges on the home front, so I sent a facebook message that went something like this:

“Your Church’s Christmas outreach with your Filipino congregation sounds like a great idea, but I can’t help you out that weekend. I also think it’s something that you two are equipped to do even better than I could. I won’t help you that day, but I will meet with you to brainstorm ideas of how YOU can do it.”

A few weeks later, on a Friday before our CRMS staff meeting, the young couple met me at a coffee shop near the CRMS office. Gabriel, an emerging leader, a Chinese Singaporean who works as his church’s administrator, and Hannah, soon to give birth to their firstborn. She’s an Australian young woman who had met Gabriel while a missionary in Cambodia and he’d come up to Phnom Pen on a short-term mission trip. We brainstormed some ideas of how to engage Filipino maids (domestic helpers) in an outreach by offering some creative and meaningful arts/crafts. They settled on helping participants create a journal. At the event, the participants would start it, then send it back to children or other family in the Philippines asking their families to add their own stories to return back to Singapore at the end of 2010. Hannah and Gabriel would also spend time at the event helping the women think of more ways to bridge the miles between them and their loved ones and give a short gospel talk about the bridge that God took to connect us to himself through Jesus.

What I didn’t know was that by my exercising the power in “NO,” I would also discover over coffee that this couple was in a “boundary time” in their development as leaders. They are dreaming of being missionaries to Japan, looking for an agency and needing someone to coach them through decisions in that direction. They didn’t know me through CRMS, they knew me through theatre connections. They didn’t know much about our organization. That day I invited them to follow me to our staff meeting that afternoon. They could meet the others and get a feel for the ethos of the office. In a society where day-planners are often packed with commitments, this couple had the afternoon free and we had a delightful afternoon welcoming them to our staff meeting.

And, their Christmas Outreach was a great success without me.

We’re now coming up on a year later. Gabriel and Hannah would still like to go to Japan and are determining next steps. They have a sweet baby boy, are part of a Focused Living Mentoring Group we’ve put together for some artistic younger couples who are in transition. Having got to know them better over the past few months, I have no doubt that the FL process is exactly what they needed and will be influential in helping shape their future – even though it will not likely be with CRMS. They’ve also had some set backs: Hannah’s been healed, and then recently re-diagnosed with cancer. They’re still waiting on God for a lot of things. They have astounding peace and grace in it all. They could use your prayers.

For Rivendell Foundation:

“And LORD, please show us a way, as a family, to show your love the poor. We need to know more about living sacrificially and service. We want to somehow make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged that requires more from us than going on a short mission trip to another country, or simply writing a check.”

It had been a nightly part of my bedtime prayers with my younger son for more than a year. My boys are now in their teens, and have been ministry kids their entire lives. As they get nearer to jumping out of the nest, I’ve been more and more desperate for them to live a life of faith that requires some sacrifice on their part.

You see, our ministry here in Singapore is primarily coaching and empowering spiritual leaders in thriving churches and mission organizations. It is not the kind of missions that brings over short term groups from home churches in North America. No one comes to Singapore to roll up their sleeves and build a house for the homeless, or make improvements to the local orphanage or give nutrition lessons or vitamin A shots to prevent blindness in malnourished babies. Here in Singapore, we’re geographically situated where natural disasters are not likely to happen. The city/state of Singapore is a nation that is growing in it’s own resources and commitment to relief and missions and sending teams out from here as if we are the “Antioch of Asia.”

Having lived in a city in China, in our first two years of language study, my boys have seen the destitute. However, we rarely did more than play in the park with them or briefly practice our fledgling Mandarin. We made friends with educated Chinese. We mixed with homeowners, not street vendors.

These past 11 years in first-world Singapore we’ve chosen to live in the suburbs of government high-rise housing, but 90+% of the nation lives like this. The interiors of these apartments vary widely. The “haves” and the “have nots” are not usually extremely a “have” or a “not.” We all purchase our vegetables and fresh meat together in the local wet market, but even most Singaporean neighbors don’t befriend the Hawkers. I chat each morning with the coffee man, and know the grocery clerks by name. I teach baking to the twin daughters of the video store owner, and share children’s books with the younger son. But we haven’t shared many meals with any of them. There are the day laborers from Sri Lanka or Burma or Bangladesh who keep the public grounds clean. We can’t speak with them in their languages, but can share a thank you and smile with each day.

So, you see, even though we’re missionaries ourselves, and even perhaps seen as “the needy” to some of my expat friends or donors, these boys of ours are growing up with the sense of entitlement I hate in myself.

And then, after living here more than a year, she started following me home. Yi Hui, the little neighborhood stray child who never spoke to anyone and didn’t seem to have a friend or family. If she engaged you, it was to stick out her tongue and stare. When we bought a puppy a year ago, something changed. She was very attracted to him whenever she would see him out on a walk. Finally one day when I greeted her with “Jack”, she opened up. She does speak! I was glad to have learned Mandarin so that we could converse.

We were gone for most of the summer in 2010; a college road trip, and quick visit to family and supporters stateside before the CRM Worldwide conference in Langkawi Malaysia. But when we returned in August, she started showing up everyday, on the playground, following me home, entering my home. She’d tell me that there was no one at home to look after her until late at night. She’d change the subject if I started asking about her family. She’d tell me she was hungry. I started earnestly digging in to finding out who her guardians are and what the details are about her schooling, and her developmental delays and low IQ. As she became a daily fixture in the Creasman’s home I asked the LORD for wisdom in boundaries. As clear as if it were an audible voice, and without a moment’s hesitation I heard our Saviour say, “If you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it for me.”

Now it’s a few weeks later, I’ve met most of the family, and it’s messy. As we navigate tricky relationships with elderly housebound Chinese grandparents, the school and Singapore’s social services system, I’m hearing more resistant voices. The voices of my sons.

“She’s so ANNOYING!” complains my 13 year old.

“She’s the answer to our prayers.” I reply and tease him that she’s forcing him to practice his rusty Chinese, and making him (our notorious “C-” student on a good week), seem like an academic superstar in comparison. “I know it’s inconvenient for you, but God has brought her to us and you get to model his love to her. She is the key who is opening relationships throughout the neighborhood. People here are coming to know Jesus partly because they see Jesus in you when you show kindness to her.”

When she showed up at 7AM today (the local school has the day off), it was before my older one had even gotten out of bed. Pulling the covers over his head he complained completely straight, “Why doesn’t she get a life and find some real parents?” I hit him with a pillow. Both of my boys managed to escape the house before I was ready with the dog for his morning walk to school…today with an 11 year old girl tagging along.

“Come upstairs with me to meet her family.” I asked my 17 year old son who’s in the midst of college applications and his last year of playing American football. “Mother,” he said, “You choose your own path.”

“Yes, that is true; but my path will always affect YOUR path, so it might be nice for you to get on board.” He rolled his eyes, but showed up at their door 20 minutes later and wowed them with his immaculate Chinese and manners. He even kissed me goodbye in front of them when he headed off with a friend.

When we were all sitting around the table at lunch after church on Sunday (she went to church for the second week in a row) they both were joking and complaining over the weekend about being embarrassed by me bringing her along. I surprised even me and started to cry for the first time in a long time. Both boys instantly shaped up and turned tender and apologized and came nearer to me to sit close. Little Yi Hui was inbetween it all and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all, but you can bet it made an impression on her. It sure did on my boys. They turned a bit of a corner in their attitude about and toward her. Perhaps even toward me. Even better if toward God.

It’s been a season of relative isolation for me. God’s called me away from my long-term commitments in teaching drama or working on theatre projects for churches, or having regular mentoring groups. I’ve been clearing my calendar from nearly all activities but personal ministry with artists I’ve mentored for a long while, one focused living couples group, a church home group and a women’s Bible Study. It seems I’m losing my life-long passion for theatre. I’m a high energy, creative person and have a half dozen ideas a day of what can be done in ministry. I used to act on many of those ideas . My husband has called me the “Tazmanian Devil.” However, recently my favorite activity has been simply “Listening Prayer.” I’ve drawn near to Christ and for the first time in a long life of being an active Christian I have the joy of learning to be idle; abiding in him and waiting on him. The only ongoing creative endeavor I’ve begun in the past year has been strangely to take up playing the piano. Not ordinary piano class. No, I sensed this strange call to learn how to play children’s songs on the piano and get more domestic in my late 40’s. And now I know why: Yi Hui loves music and is learning spelling and rules for behavior if put to simple tunes.

Would it surprise you to know that she has been the key to opening up new opportunities to share the Gospel DAILY in my mostly Buddhist or Agnostic neighborhood? Of course not.

Would it surprise you to know that since I locked the front door in order to write this story down, she’s been knocking on the door and trying the door knob to get in the whole time? Maybe. 

I think I'll go answer it.