You Got Me! My Surprise 25th B-Day Party!

You Got Me! My 25th Birthday Surprise Party!

Last night was hilarious…I can’t believe they got me for my 25th birthday! So Passion Church plotted out a surprise birthday for me on Thursday night. I was totally oblivious to the whole plan…I think God must have turned off my discernment gift on purpose…haha…Jesus You are hilarious!

So here’s the story…

I picked up Matt and Jumpei after class around 5:30pm (they were both in on it the whole time) to head over to UCLA for simple church on Thursday night. When we got to UCLA and parked we got a phone call from Alyson asking us to pick her up from Brentwood mall. Why? She sounded like she was about to cry and tells Matt that her friends left her at the mall and she needed a ride to Passion Church. Since, I was preparing the lesson that night I told Matt to just take my car and pick her up while I prayed/prepared for the meeting. Matt immediately responds, “I think we should go together.” I thought that was odd and said “Why?” Matt then talks to Alyson on the phone again and says, “Because Alyson wants you to pick her up!” I was like, “Why is something wrong?” I talked to Alyson and she tells me that she and her ex-boyfriend got in a major argument at the mall and he left her stranded there with no ride back to school. So she tells me, “Please just come pick me up I need to talk to you and I’ll share with you when you get here!” I totally fell for it! I started getting worried and was thinking something major wrong must have happened. I even asked Matt did you prophetically sense something was wrong with Alyson and that’s why you said “we should go pick her up together?” Goodness!

Immediately, I called the leaders of Passion Church to tell them I was going to possibly be late. None of them picked up the phone (Josh, Caleb, Tina, etc) so I began to get even more worried wondering if something bad happened among the leadership of the group. (Reason being because I had faced some major spiritual warfare the night before) So being the “protector” that I am, while we were driving down Wilshire Ave. to pick up Alyson I started praying in tongues and started praying against the power of the enemy (so I thought) against Alyson and anything that might have been going wrong in Passion Church. Jumpei and Matt both started praying in the spirit and doing warfare with me (pretending to at least) as I prayed for God to protect Alsyon and the leadership. It must have been at least 20 straight minutes of binding Satan and praying for the protection of Alyson and the rest! Goodness gracious!

We finally get to where Alyson is at on San Vicente (Brentwood Mall) and she tells us she’s at the Coral Café. I couldn’t find the place so I kept calling Alyson and she kept giving these “horrible” directions (stalling time) and I was getting frustrated. Finally, we find the place where she is at and tell her to go out to the front of the café to get picked up. She comes out to the front and comes into my car sobbing. I’m like, “Alsyon, don’t worry it’s going to be okay, are you alright? What happened?”

I’m about to turn back down San Vicente towards UCLA but Alsyon says, “Wait don’t go left, go right, I know a short cut!” I can’t believe I still didn’t pick up what was going on by then. All of a sudden I’m driving down San Vicente and to the right I see a bunch of Asian students standing on the side of the street in front of Cheesecake Factory holding BIG GREEN AND YELLOW banners (I see Dave Liu and I was wondering what’s he doing out on the street screaming? Must be a student organization event?) All of a sudden I look closer and it’s all my friends from Passion Church holding the big banners saying… “HONK YOUR HORN ITS JAESON MA’S 25TH BIRTHDAY!” LOL! Cars all over Westwood were honking their horns and shouting out Happy Birthday to me J Wow! I was totally SUCKERED and totally BLESSED! I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I didn’t pick it up at all…they GOT ME GOOD!

It as an awesome 25th B-day! I loves these kids J I call them kids, but really they are the best hearted group of college students on the planet! It just totally blessed my heart that all of them would go through all the trouble to wish me a happy 25th birthday. It meant so much and it was definitely probably one of the most memorable birthdays I’ve ever had.

We experienced the full package Jesus birthday Thursday night. We ended up having to wait more than hour for our seats at Cheesecake Factory. So what did about 20 of us do? WE HAD SIMPLE CHURCH outside in the outdoor patio area of Cheesecake Factory. The same way we would do church at UCLA we ended up worshipping, giving thanks, having fun and doing our participative Bible study on John 11 (The Raising of Lazarus) and praying for one another right there in the public of Westwood on my 25th birthday!

It was a beautiful and wonderful experience. Celebrating my b-day with my church family and enjoying the breaking of bread (or Cheesecake Factory) on an immaculate Thursday night. It was SWEET! God’s presence was totally present with us. Thank God the whole thing with Alyson was not spiritual warfare. I was totally relieved and thankful to God that it was just a prank! Phew! God is good!

So yeah, they got me! Well, God got me! Haha…thank You Jesus for setting me up with a great community of Jesus loving friends and giving me one straight up AWESOME 25th B-day!

Praise God I don’t have to pay the extra daily fee to rent cars anymore since I’m 25 now! WoohOOhoohHOOoohhOOOoo! Its my Birthday! whut whut! 11/11

posted by Jaeson Ma @ 11/11/2005 04:10:00 PM