The world of JULIANA

The w’kend had been a very eventful w’kend in the Christian Calendar. Most Christians in the world would’ve gone to church at least 3-4 times thru’out the last one week considering that there was Maundy Thursday a.k.a The Last Supper , Good Friday  & Easter Midnite service thru’out the week. The following is a reflection of events on a day-to-day basis over the last w’kend.

Good Friday

Firstly, knowing that it’ll be a darn long tiring day, I took the day off from work. *yippie!Robz was invited to St Mary’s Cathedral @ Dataran Merdeka to say a sermon on one of the seven words of the cross! Being the proud wife I am, I tagged along to go see hubby speak.

Sat in church next to father-in-law and brother-in-law. Robz spoke very eloquently and had much praises for his sermon from the congregation. After that, rushed off to St Peter’s (our church) in Bangsar as we had our Good Friday service at noon till 3pm. Any Christian person would know that GOOD FRIDAY services in church are always always very tedious and lengthy !! Imagine having to attend two services! OK….That sounded like I’m whining. Let me hunt for a politically-correct word ‘ere à ahh…it was just “energy-draining” ! Good Friday service in our church went on well. I was the organist and playing the organ for the STORY OF THE CROSS is perhaps the most daunting task for me thru’out the year in church! It’s the phase whereby the congregation and the priest take turns to sing a couple of verses and they all have different melodies! The BEST part is, the lyrics are completely in Tamil. Ahhhh, so glad that I attended those boring Tamil Classes back in Penang when I was nine yrs old! It certainly came in extremely handy whilst tryin’ to figure out what people were singing so that I’d get a cue as to when to change music.

Decorations

Immediately after Good Friday service, it was already 3-ish in the afternoon, and we had our traditional yearly hot-cross buns. I think I must’ve been hungry ‘coz I had three buns. Usually, I stop at one bun! After that, it was decorations decorations decorations plus one final rehearsal until 10pm!!!! In retrospect, itz amazing that all those involved in the function had stayed back from 12pm till 10pm in church participating in the event. There were sarees to be hung on the walls of the stage, letterings to be put up for the backdrop, blue & white cloth in the shape of scallops to be hung on the sides of the walls inside the hall. After hours and hours and hours, we did it. Then, there was one final rehearsal. It was even more exciting ‘coz the AV-Team had brought in some funky party lights and

………the mystical smoke machine!! One generous church member brought complimentary food and drinks for everyone knowing that it would be a long day. At the end of the day, we were worn out, but still felt fulfilled that the decorations had been done and the stage and hall looked ready for the event on Sunday.

Beauty & grooming

Spent the 1^st half of the day on …..personal grooming. *winks. Sitting  at home eagerly waitin’ for time to pass by was boring. Went to the hairdresser and had a wash-n-blow-dry to kill time! Oh yeah, the fact that it helped to give the hair a ‘straight-sleek-look’ helped,too.  Then, proceeded for a facial at the beautician who’d do my make-up on the day of the event.

Facials are meant to be relaxing and pampering. This one was particularly difficult to relax ‘coz thru’out the facial, all I could think of was the concert! In fact, for the last 2mths, all I’ve ever thought ‘bout for at least 17-18 hrs in a day has been the concert!!

Saturday evening a.k.a Eve of Easter

Anywayz, after the facial, I figured that getting some sleep would be a good idea. Robz was darn tired,too ‘coz he had driven me to the facial and decided to hang ‘round there for 2hrs and then picked me up. Aww….such a sweet boy! Anywayz, we both went back home and tried to get some sleep. Robz is so lucky ‘coz whenever he plans to sleep,he sleeps 5mins after that. Whenever I attempt to sleep, I successfully step into slumberland at least 45mins after that! This time, I TRIED to sleep for ‘bout 1hr. Nope. Didn’t work.

Anxiety is not the best of ingredients towards a good restful nap. Was so frustrating seein’ Robz sleeping like a baby whilst I needed all the sleep I could, and hadn’t gotten any (sleep!) . Grrrrrrrr……decided to go check on attire to be worn for the Midnite Service, and prepare ingredients for dinner. Finally, it was dinner time. There I was, with absolutely no sleep and a bundle of nerves, all excited and counting down hours for the concert, whilst Robz was still……fast asleep! Had great joy waking him up. We had delicious home-cooked food for Easter-eve dinner. Fish sambal, prawns and mixed vegetables & rice.

Easter Midnite Service

Then, it was time to get dressed for Easter Midnite Service. Wore the blue&silverfish-goldish “pattu” saree that Robz gave me for Easter a.k.a my easter present! Aiyoooooooo, trying to drape that saree was an absolute nightmare. Eventually, I had to literally “wrap” it around me, quickly put on some jewellery, make-up and perfume and run to church to get some help from an Aunty who’s my ‘saree-angel’ ‘coz whenever I’m faced with a ‘challenging saree’, she helps me out! We ran to one of the tiny rooms in church so that Aunty had some space and privacy to adjust my saree in church!! Aunty did such a fantastic job and the saree looked so neat and pretty! Easter Midnite Service went well. The congregation was packed and all decked up in finest jewellery and dressed up in pretty sarees in a rainbow of colours with jasmine flowers on their thick black hair ! Thatz what I love ‘bout Indian churches ‘coz they get all dressy when it comes to events! *winks. (me included!) .Hahaha….anywayz, after midnite service, at about 2-ish am, it was time to prepare the balloons. An Aunty from church was supposed to bring 2 balloon PUMPS but at the last-minute, somethin’ came up and she was unable to do so. So there we were, the Young Adults group, worn out after sitting thru’ Easter Midnite Service,and we had to blow 300 balloons all thru’ the mouth! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……goshhh, it was certainly good exercise for the lungs.

The children could hardly manage blowing the balloons and they’d ask us to tie the ends together. Even us, the supposedly strong grown-up adults were struggling with each balloon. We finally did it. All 300 balloons had been blown. Then, there was another group working on the stage. Sarees were draped from various ends of the stage. Scallops were hung on the sides of the wall. Robz had to come back for service on Sunday mornin’ at 9am as he had to preach another sermon at the English Easter Service. Hence, he went back home earlier whilst the rest of us stayed back later. There were so many li’l meticulous details of deco to look into and thankfully we had enough man-power to handle that. In the end, at 5.30am, we decided that if we didn’t leave church then, we’d look like zombies in 12hrs’ time for the event!!! So, finally left. My kind bro-in-law gave me a lift back home.Of course , again, it was so difficult to get some sleep even at that odd hour! *Sigh.

Easter Sunday

Robz went off to church and I was so knocked out with tiredness that I could barely wave to him as he left for church. The day passed by quite quickly. By 4pm, I was off to the beautician with my ‘luggage bag’ with all the various outfits for the nite along with matching accessories! Time spent at the beautician flew past and in the end, I shall vainly say that she did a greattttt job! Since I was the MC, I told her that she could dress me up as much as she wanted to and she suggested that I wear a tiara! The last (and first) time I wore a tiara was for my wedding! So, it was lovely to get an opportunity to wear it again! The saree looked fabulous and my beautician had done a twist-style ‘coz I wanted somethin’ unconventional. We arrived at church on time and guests were beginning to fill up the hall.

Minutes before the concert

After all those months and weeks of practice, the day had finally come. It was almost unbelievable that with all the anxiety and excitement and anticipation, there we were, just moments away from the function. Went upstairs to the AV-Team and we held our hands together and said a prayer together. After all the crazy fierce side of me that they had seen during rehearsals, I was very very calm ‘coz deep down , I knew that our AV-Team was the best group we’d had and that they were fabulous! There were some last-minute changes, and our AV-Team managed to fit in these unexpected changes even with that short notice! VIPs had arrived much earlier than expected. . The Anglican Bishop & his wife. Robz had a chance to greet some familiar friends before the concert whilst I sat comfortably in the fully air-conditioned changing room ‘coz I was told not to ‘expose myself’ to the crowd or not when we appear as MCs on stage, our outfits won’t be a ‘suspense’ anymore! *wink wink.

The concert began…

Concert started on time as planned despite the wet weather. The opening event was super-awesome and there was much applause that we could clearly hear from backstage. There were so much cheers and claps of hands. Our enthusiasm and excitement tripled up to the maximum!  We knew that the crowd was already captivated with the beginning and hence, half the battle had been won! From then on, everythin’ went on extremely smoothly, just like the rehearsals that we had done over and over and over again for the last 1mth. Dancers were ready back-stage for their respective events.

Stage-co ordinators had organized everythin’ backstage so perfectly. Our chatshow was a hit with the crowd and thankfully, they understood the concept of weaving in various items/performances via our chat-show. Robz looked dashing in a zamindar suit. Being the MC & the ‘chatshow-host’ was an excuse to change into three entirely different outfits! First, there was that pretty turquoise saree, then a lovely asymmetrical maroon evening gown and finally a north Indian red & green saree. Lucky draw presents had amounted up to 40 gifts! Each committee member had contributed a couple of presents for the lucky draw item. Hence, there were 40 lucky people that nite who walked away with 40 presents!! We used a traditional Indian ‘kodam’ to put the ticket-numbers in and the young cute usherer looked so dainty carrying the ‘kodam’ thru’out! The fashion show was fascinating with an array of gorgeous sarees & lengha’s on equally gorgeous ladies and men, who had gone to the salon to do up their hair, professional make-up,etc!!

Reactions to the concert

In the whole, the entire concert was a success! We had a standing ovation at the end of the concert! The final act was classic. It was the theme song from ANNIYAN and we had an innovative church member who dressed up in a black hood with a white mask (yep yep…to imitate Vikram in Anniyan) holding up a banner that said ‘GOOD NITE’. ! Guests had sooo much of praises and compliments for the entire event. My dad is usually very very frank and he tells the truth straight at your face regardless of consequences! It was so cool that even Dad loved it and said …. “ Hmmmm….Julie, u know what? I enjoyed that concert and I’d say you people did a pretty good job”.  What a relief it was. After all those painstaking hours of rehearsals and preparations, the event was finally over….with a loud bang! Members from other churches were full of admiration. Our own church members were thrilled seeing their very own mothers/fathers/children on stage performing!!

The Aftermath

Now….the concert is over. I feel an unexplainable vacuum. I guess that’s what a person goes thru’ once you’ve spent your entire heart & mind & soul into a show and you end up feeling almost …s-s-s-sad that the event is finally over! Organizing a concert is somethin’ so new to me. Somethin’  I’d never done in my entire life. Our chuch has organized several concerts in the past. When I was a medical student, I’d perhaps play the organ for an item or two ‘coz I was studyin’ overseas & I could barely attend 1-2 rehearsals prior to the event. Whilst I was workin’ in the hospital, participating in church concerts was just…..completely out of the question! I had always marveled at how people organized such good concerts. For this concert, there was such excellent team-work from all groups of church members, both young and old. We had an amazingly reliable AV-Team which I consider the vertebrae – backbone of the entire event. Stage-co-ordinators ensured that participants were ready to perform their event. The VIPs were so happy to be a part of such a successful concert! Ultimately, I know that it was God’s Grace that held this entire event together and I thank God that it all ended so beautifully.

H-h-h-h-h-hiccups

Of course there were some hiccups. Minor hiccups. In any event, there’s bound to be hiccups. Being the new, recently elected Young Adults’ Fellowship President, I know that I now have to face the music. Guess what? I’m all ready for criticism thatz gonna be shot at me. Haha…I guess thatz somethin’ that I had prepared myself for all the while whilst

co-ordinating this concert. Am totally looking forward to the next major meeting to discuss the ‘post-mortem events’ of the concert. Being a President, one has to be open to critiscism, be it constructive or destructive. I’ve personally learnt SO MUCH from this concert. The experiences gained are far too precious.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we had a fantastic super-duper Easter concert within the four walls of our very own church. Guests from all walks of life & denominations & religion were there. Participating church members of all age groups had made an effort to be present at

Our 1mth long rehearsals, regardless of various family/work commitments. Everyone was so co-operative and we had excellent team-work. We’ve managed to forge a very, very precious and close bond and fellowship within church members.  That , my friends, is priceless.

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** to those of you who managed to read right till the end of this blog, thatz 2524 words !! Haha…I couldn’t help it, I was so curious , I HAD to do a word-count. *giggles