It’s funny how God brings people and places into our lives at the right time and right place, when we most need them, yet do not know where to look. That’s how it was with EV. In fact, that’s how it has been with everything in my life.

My journey to become Catholic has been a journey filled with miracles, divinely arranged co-incidences and God’s blessing and providence. The chapter of my life that I will share with you now is the one where the path I have been following converges and finds itself in a community called EV.

I first heard of EV when I was an undergrad in NUS, while I was part of the NUS Catholic Charismatic Group (NUS CCPG). EV had come down to organize a retreat for us, and I was very impressed by the presence of the Holy Spirit and the healing He brought during that retreat. I come from a broken family and was very touched by the healing that I experienced.

The years passed and I continued and increased my involvement in NUS CCPG. The community was a campus-based ministry filled with very different personalities, but with a single aim and purpose, that is, to love and serve the Lord by bringing Him to the people on campus. I was growing in my relationship with Christ by serving Him, by being one of the leaders in the community, and my only desire was to give back to the God who had called me and chosen me all that I had and all that I could in return for all He had done for me.

During this period, EV was a group of which I only heard fleeting references to. It is only now that I can see how even then God was preparing me to move on from the community to which I belonged, how in His wisdom, even when I couldn’t see His hand and certainly couldn’t understand why things were happening the way they did, He had a perfect plan for me of which I had no knowledge.

I really think He is wonderful, but at that point in time, the nature of my relationship with Him was causing several areas of my personal life to crumble. First of all, because of my belief that I had to “do something” for God in return for all He had done, I nearly went mad (not literally) trying to do everything. I neglected my mother and brother, both of whom are very important to me. I neglected old friends. I even neglected things I should have done, in the name of Jesus, thinking that all this would please Him.

Well, little did I know that Jesus does not demand service of us in this manner. In fact, it is His love and His words that are the most important, and it is out of this that genuine service sprouts, just as it was Mary’s act of listening at His feet that He found better than Martha’s busy rushing about getting things ready.

Naturally, in due course, the inherent difficulties in my relationships were exacerbated and grew to a size that made it impossible for me to remain where I was. I was unhappy at home, I was unhappy with my friends, I had a terrible break-up and I was unhappy with myself.

It was at this point in time that EV came into my life again. I was invited to the ‘Be My Witness’ (BMW) Retreat, which I attended, and where I heard about the Father’s love. This was different from anything that I had heard before and the effect that it had on my perspective of God and myself was tremendous.

Well, God was clearly now leading me along this path. A few months later, I met a lovely Irish Jesuit priest at St Ignatius who listened to me and showed me that God does not require us to “do” things for Him, but that first and foremost, we must have the word of God. He suggested a weekly bible sharing class as the most effective means of living our lives in truth and in knowing God, so with a few friends, we started meeting on Fridays for bible sharing.

At the same time, I have also started attending Faith & Light meetings, where we spend time with intellectually disabled children and their families one Sunday a month. These children have Down’s Syndrome and other disabilities, but the joy I feel simply being with them cannot be compared to anything else I have experienced before.

I have also started helping out with a friend’s post-confirmation class at St Ignatius and may be helping out in catechism as well, if time and resources permit. I feel now that formation and teaching of our youth is very important and suddenly the things that I used to read up on and hold long conversations with friends about have become useful.

And most importantly, I have learnt to spend more time with my family and friends and doing the things I need to do. I have learnt to look at reality and realize that God is in the reality that I face every day and that He asks of me to live in that reality and not to cop out by thinking very simplistically (because that is what it is) that “God will provide” or “God will look after everything”, without wondering if He is actually calling me to action of some sort (with prayer, of course, as opposed to mad action that has no beginning or end.).

And so it is with deep regret and yet gladness that I listen to the plans for EVCC. Regret that I cannot be part of this community, because God seems to be leading me on a different path at this point in time (or maybe always). And gladness, because I can see in this new covenant community the potential for growth and the building of His kingdom in a way that will be even more powerful than before because of that commitment to Him and to each other.

As Jesus told His disciples in Chapter 14 of the Gospel of John, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you.”

And may all the members of EVCC find joy in this place in the Father’s house that the Lord has prepared for you, as the rest of us journey in the kingdom to the place where the Lord has prepared for us too. I wish everyone a good journey in His kingdom and the Lord’s blessings on all we do in His name. And we know that in His perfect timing and infinite wisdom, He will make all things beautiful in His time.

Thank You, Jesus. Amen.

– E. Lua gave this sharing when EV Prayer Group became EVCC in Aug 2002.