On the right: Aceh Kid. On the Left: touched.
feel the rain on your skin. no one else can feel it for you. only you can let it in. no one else, no one else can speak the words on your lips. drench yourself in words unspoken. live your life with arms wide open. today is where your book begins. the rest is still unwritten.live your life with arms wide open.Many a times people asked me, "hey Fai, how's life?". The honest tendency is to say, "Oh you know what? Life sucks man. It bores the shit and screws the piss out of me so much i feel no better than dyin'." Then again, upon reconsideration and after one long breath, I would always reply, "Life is Beautiful." So so much beautiful that each day i embrace the unprecedented possiblities with arms wide open. I take pride in the work i do, i love the people around me. Life is like rain. People complain when there is rain, yet when the heat of the sun scorch them silly they complain yet again. We never did once realise that with rain, deserts spring to life and rivers flow. Civilisations grow and man thrives. That is it with life. People take it for granted, as cliched as it may sound, yet they never realise the beauty and majesty of a gift so tenderly granted by God. How difficult it is to bring forth life, how a painful 9 months it was, yet people waste it away in a slash of the neck.Time. another blessing to mankind. like life, time trickles down the flow of waste and ignorance, sometimes in drips and at other times in torrents. sometimes i wonder, where on earth did my time go? I recall my brother farhan from fmsa telling me yesterday, "Maybe that was why the time machine was thought of. As much as people want to get into the future, they want to be back in the past and relive the times that they had. For one moment in life passed will never ever occur again." Cherish the time that we have and above all, above them all, cherish the love that you get from the ones around you, from those that you in turn love back. Like i said, i wondered where did my time go? after all the procrastination and fooling around, i do wonder where the rest of my time come from. You see, time flies when we have fun. No i dont mean that time becomes shorter when we make full use of it, but time became more in a period of time. Like for instance, cus i know this sounds like some philosophical gibberish (or more like some bullshit) to you, this is what i mean. In 24 hours, when we do house chores or home work, time seems to be like dragging, you know? like it takes years to finish the work. But when we have fun, time seems to fly. Like in the same twenty four hours we do things like, say, go to the theme park. Seems like just five minutes have passed but you actually spent one whole day at Escape. But in a third instance, time EXPANDS for those who spent it for the sake of God. Like in one twenty four hour day, like any usual day, we go to Mosk, meet up with friends to discuss the latest yoth project that we initiated, pray along with friends in congregation, listen to talks by a Scholar, attend Usrah, do homework and preach the words of God. We do so much, in a day, it seemed that what could only have been done in one week, was in fact covered in one day! This illustrates the verses of the Lord in Eventide:In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. By (the Token of) Time (through the ages), Verily Man is in loss, Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy. [The Holy Quran - Eventide 103: 1 -3]One fine day after congregation (jum'at prayers) at Sultan Mosque with bro Ashraf, we went along arab street to look for food. Before settling at the Moroccan Cafe, we entered Al-Wardah bookstore (correct me if i got the name wrong) and boy was i elated to see so many books. There was this one book which caught my eye, it was this book on the Museum at Turkey, which displayed some of history's greatest artifacts, like the renowned staff of Moses, with which Moses (peace be unto him) parted the red sea, the embalmed forearm of John the Baptist (Yunus AS), the turban of Joseph (Yusuf AS) and the mantle of Muhammad (SAW), which inspired an Arab poet of the past to write a song based on the Holy Mantle, a song which you can view at Bro Mohksin's blog http://fadhixz.blogspot.com .
But the book wasnt the point of this post. The thing was, Bro Ashraf and I encountered this man in the bookstore, a white Australian man, whose name i dun even know. He preached to us the words of God, and recited off the Quran with such elegant fluency and made us realise the true message of Islam that I began to feel so belittled for a while. His strength in his Faith was so immense that he inspired me to pursue more in life than just all the bullshit that we've been after. My life isn't about the materialistic. It's about the intangibles that im after. That white man spoke so much in twenty minutes, and had to leave soon. After exchanging handshakes, we greeted the salam and he was gone even without me getting the chance to ask his name.Bro Ashraf introduced me to FMSA, (Fellowship of Muslim Students' Association). After Camp Itqan (which my previous post was all about) Ashraf asked me, Raudah and Kamal to help out at the Youth's events. I was addicted to helping out at the volunteer works. Once after the encounter at the bookstore Ashraf asked me to help him out with a couple of admin work (more like laminating certificates) at FMSA on friday nite. i was still in my school uniform, and when i reached the place in eunos, i was really excited mainly because ive heard so much about FMSA but never ever been there or been in any of their events before. Bro Mohskin, Sis Shamsydar and Sis Farz are some of those i know in FMSA. when i reached there at about 7 plus, i was introduced to Bro Alfian and Sis Siriana. They were great people and i helped em out till 9 plus, before making my way home. That, ladies and gentlemen, was my first chapter in my Life at FMSA.
The second time i got there was more of a coincidence, nothing planned. Initially Ashraff and I thought the meeting for the Mission Aceh project Committee was at FMSA. So after meeting up with Ash after school at hougang, we made our way to FMSA. on the way there, i reconfirmed the venue with Alfian but so happens that we got the venue wrong, supposed to be Change Alley at Raffles. Darn, so we just proceeded on to FMSA, and there we waited for Alfian to reach so he could brief us on what transpired at the meeting. While waiting, the usrah (or in laymen's term is family in arabic) was happening so ash and i joined the brothers and we sat down to discus the latest issues around. I was the newest member there and i integrated so easily i felt at home. the bros were warm and we talked away about issues and projects. that was my first ever usra and i was glad that i was addicted to it.
Yesterday was my third time there. At school we had this interhouse games, which i was furious about mainly because when my house (phobos) fought with triton in touch rugby, there was this gurl who was shouting commands from the side of the field when she wasnt even involved in the game at all, just a substitute for triton house. then the phobians were damn irritated by her and when triton oh-so gloriously won the damn match she was the first to scream and shout her head off that triton won. the phobians hate her. grr. at 6 i bathed after all the sweaty games i played for phobes, and made my way down to eunos again towards FMSA for another usra session with the big boys. since ashraff was busy cus he just started school at uni, i went there ahead of him and was warmly greeted by farhan alfian and bro zul. after quite some time the usra finally started, and this time the issue we discussed was on brotherhood and friendship, something i hold dear to myself. it was cool, but since i gotta be home before it was too late at nite i made my way from the ongoing usra at almost ten. the guys usually end it very late.On national day this year, rather than slacking at home or mugging for promos or even watching the parade, i was at masjid khadijah helping out with FMSA's fund raising project. almost 4000 packs of briyani was made, and i was with the guys peeling onions and all, squeezing lime juice, sweeping the floor on the eve of nat day. on the day itself, i was with the shipping team who transport the packed briyani from packaging counter to outside the mosk for the customers who bought the coupons to come and collect their briyani. it was quite hectic as more and more of them came and soon we were loaded with work. raudah was at the 'fanning counter', fanning the packed briyani cus u can only close the container when the rice is about cool, and kamal and i were the shipping buddy. heheh. kamal was also the dalcar man cus he packed the curry into the small containers. it was a messy business. after a tiring day, the four of us raudah ash kamal and i scooted off to masjid khair at god noes where it is to send the briyani to some of the ppl at mosk. after that we went to some mall (God, faizal, u suck at places) and we hang around there cus ash needed wireless connection at Mc's to access his laptop so he could register his subjects into his uni's website. yeah. and soon after the four of us parted, with kamal and raudah heading home and ash and i towards tampines to watch tokyo drift with ustaz fyrooze at Century Square. tokyo drift rawked la.
on the 11th august, 2 days after nat day i tagged along the aceh kids entourage around singapore. i was eager to follow them mainly because i wanted to see the aceh survivors for myself. i was at the tamp library in the morning to read up on some stuff while waiting for ash to meet up with me at the interchange before proceeding towards sultan mosk for congregation. after that, the aceh bus arrived and we were greeted by the mosk's official and we had our lunch there. we then went to the malay heritage museum, and then went to asian civiliation museum. it was kinda fun. after that we walked along the singapore river at raffles place and just had some sight seeing before the guys went to watch the national day fireworks.
on the saturday the aceh kids went to the science center and boy was it fun. i became the "father" of one of the kids, Agus for the day and showed him around the science center, explaining to him the science behing the optical illusions and eye-catching experiments. it was great to feel close to the 12 aceh kids. they were just like us, and from what i heard some of them lost all their family to the tsunami, while others, like a six year old gurl was found roaming the streets after the tsunami. the fortunate kids went to singapore and i felt attached to them soon after. at about after noon, the lot os us comprising the 12 kids, 5 aceh teachers, volunteers from NTU, Darus salam youth and FMSA, about thirty to forty of us took the bus to holland V mosk. after a short performance by the grannies there (which was very good choir performance by the veterans of the mosk!) the aceh kids presented their own dikir barat performance. and gawsh it beats the dikir barat of singapore. after lunch at that mosk we went on to Sentosa, at about four plus. the kids went to underwater world, merlion and that jazz, but the volunteers went to slack at the beach. bro Mohksin, sis feedza sis mashita and sis filza and i went to the breakwaters and sat there, talking. it was a picturesque sun set and was fun.
the sunday when the aceh kids were supposed to depart for their homeland, we went to ECP and had some fun rollerblading and cylcing. after a short while, the whole biiiggg groups of us bussed our way to the airport and then we had our last few talks with the aceh kids. they performed one last time at the terminal, and after a sad song sung by the whole group, and ppl start to really miss the kids, i felt attached to them. this gurl of thirteen, named Ella, sorta liked me, and i found it touching. she was a brave soul, and was perky as well. she told me to send her a picture of me once she got back to aceh, and i was kinda missing them already. soon after they went into the departure hall, everyone kinda got sad and some cried. they waved while the volunteers watched them from the glass windows, as the kids got checked at the cutoms. after they left, sister fariheen told me. "you know what faizal, ella told me to tell you she hated u for winking at her, like it was disgusting and bad to do that. but she said that she kina liked you." oh no faizal, you made an aceh survivor like you! baad boy, faizal, bad boy.
after so much reminiscence, i realise that my life, with the time that i spent on the path of God, is so so much beautiful. yes true, promos is killing me, yes true, school life and the politics behind council was darn stressful, yes true the teachers were being one helluva pain in my ass. but all this i took with a smile on my face, and with God's strength which i invoked everyday through my constant prayers to Him, i braved the harshness of life, and took pleasure in overcoming the challenges that man made for himself. my results start to climb, and i was elated to get 2 A's for economics, and was the only pass in class for GP. i like to see others take lead from me, and i would like to outreach and touch the lives of others. like the aceh kids whom ive met and left a print in their souls, i want to reach into the depths of others and inspire them and light up a small ember within their hearts. through the faith i have with my Creator, i will each day try to the best of my human abilities to change others. i want others to see life as a beauty and gift from God.
more photos can be found at mashita's blog
http://www.ita-mania.blogspot.com/
the lil birdie who broke its wing that i found at sentosa.
from the back: Me, Mohk, Filza, Feedza. Taking picture: Mashita.
From Left: mashita, feedza, me, and teachers from aceh.
Live your Life with arms wide open.*
10:57 PM
burn! - 'cus the lovers of God are ablaze.
_______________Guidaci Sulla Retta Via 1:6_______________
