2006 Top-10 Moments: Number 8

Taking 8th spot this year is my church home cell group which has been a fixture every Friday evening for me for more than a year now.

I really thank God for my cell leaders, the husband-wife tag team of Gerry and Peichi, who have been an anchor of spiritual stability the whole time I have been there.

Their prayers and words of encouragement has always been uncannily timely and I think I might have said this before, but meeting them alone for tea/lunches were the only time in my life that older adults gave me such undivided attention and listened to me for all its worth.

Not even my parents have done that for me.

So I am eternally grateful for having them around during this season of recuperation and rebuilding. It's largely their efforts in maintaining this community of believers that helped enhance my whole church experience as well.

Truth be told, our cell group has not been christened by Stanley as "Friday Evening Service" for nothing. I think if everybody turns up, the cell group might top 30 people. This number is half the membership of my friend's church in Bangkok.

But the company has been great. Having 30-somethings as cell members mean we have their children running around as well - we actually have a children programme running when we have our cell Bible study and all.

And being among them just gives the full familial feeling, like I am part of the body of Christ. As the kids can't seem to decide whether to call me kor kor and uncle, I am grateful just to be among them. It just gives me an excuse to be a kid again as I swing that little Matthew about.

The cell has also been a site of reunion of sorts where I got reacquainted with people from my first church at Crystal Tabernacle from years ago. Chris and Minnie were Sunday School teachers there after I left in '94, so they know a lot of my Sunday School minders.

While this simply serves to remind them how old they are, I guess for me, this cell group is quite simply a glimpse of another facet of what heaven could potentially look like.