The Birth of LivEmbrace

It's a random conversation ...?

Last year @ around the same period of time (April 2007)... Erico and I studied together for our final exams. We didn't have any class in common but we just studied together as it's fun to study together! (I think? We think? haha...) Since then, Forestry Center has become one of our most favorite places to visit at UBC. Almost every day during the exam period, we studied at the Tree house? area on the 1st floor. and during that period of time, we contributed quite a lot to the Tim's business. =p Yea, we studied, (we listened to our own ipods while studying=p), we ate, we played and talked...lots of gossips? lots of jokes! ha yea lots of fun! =]

In one of the afternoons, I think we were both quite bored with study or too sleepy to study, whatever ... Erico showed me this song: Hosanna by Hillsong United (at that time Hillsong's album 2007 - Above All is fresh off stove), so it was my first time hearing Hosanna. Erico said that's the song she liked the most in that album.
I thought it was quite good too. Did she also say she liked the drumcover at the beginning of the song? (I can't recall, but now she certainly does.)

I don't remember if it's before Hosanna or after ... Erico told me about AFC's SoundLives 2007 which was a training program for local bands and she said she wanted to join. She just started to play drum a bit and apparently, she's already quite into it. haha.. I joked with her .. "yeah, we can form a two mane band. me guitar and you drum! =p" "Ho ar!", Erico really take it seriously or she just went with my joke(I am still not sure.ha..). Anyway, that became quite an interesting topic for us to talk about during study breaks.. and we even started to choose songs for our SoundLives audition. ...and "Hosanna" was Erico's pick! haha.. pretty crazy eh? Erico and I were like so beginner of our instruments and we were thinking about forming a band to join a band training course.! (oh well, our view is it's a training opportunity for those who need training and we should qualify for that reason. haha) haha.. but i think at that time we were more of being silly than being crazy la.

You know, two men band (drum+guitar, Erico+me) is really unrealistic..so to make it (the topic) more realistic, we thought of Vivian. Then, we started to talk a lot about Vivian behind her back. haha.. about her, her piano and the fact that she plays piano ... pretty well! Better eh? drum+guitar+piano! mmm. Erico+me+Vivian? I was not so sure about that.. haha.. cuz I was not too familiar with Vivian at the time. Did Erico think the combination was very unlikely too? (i don't remember.) But, even if Erico and I thought it was possible.. we had never asked Vivian. In our perception, very unlikely but we just kept talking about it for our own interests and fun. haha...

Then, on an evening ... of our regular fellowships at Vivian's house, after the activity, we started to hea.. what do you do when you hea? chat! Since Erico and I were both there and we were so into the crazy "band" idea and SoundLives... it didn't take us long before we started on the topic again. And Erico told Vivian about that? or How did we grab Vivian's attention and dragged her into our conversation? and Vivian became so excited about the idea of forming the band too.! (I think i can still remember how excited she looked and sounded. but well.. she's always excited. ha.) She also wanted to include Peter, Daisy and Ken.. our church's worship team. As she said, the only purpose she could think of for forming the band would be serving at our church. and yea, we need vocals too.

Of course, Vivian did a bit more than just talking about it. She actually sent out an email to everybody (Peter,Daisy, Ken, Erico, and myself)about forming the band and the SoundLives band training opportunity.

From that point on, this conversation become a hot topic..among us. Email came back and forth..about whether we should form the band and whether we should take advantage of this opportunity. Do we have this need at our church? Is our congregation gonna accept the different worship style? Do we ourselves have the necessary capability and instrument playing skills and experience to form a band anyways? lots of discussions thinkings,and reflections... to a point our inboxes were flooded(spamed) with these emails each day.. haha.. that continued for one or two weeks. The majority of the opinions were not for the idea. and ... Our conclusion was ... we were not
ready for the opportunity yet.

I was indeed fairly disappointed. But at the same time, I realized how stubborn I could be if I so wanna something to happen. ... Once I become passionate about something, i become almost unstoppable. ..

Anyways,, after that, things started to become quiet. ...However, during the quietness, one day I received an email from the worship team (Peter, Daisy, Pearl, and Vivian) and they invited me to be part of their upcoming worship serving to play guitar. I was pretty excited to receive that invitation and decided to give it a try. For that worship, it's the first time Vivian and I played together, (Vivian on piano + me on guitar). The song we played was The Heart of Worship. I played pretty badly and offbeat most of the time. haha.. well, that was quite an experience that I won't forget.

... sometime in the summer, I think It's Vivian who suggested that maybe we 3 of us could play for Elisha Fellowship. It's als that we have the discipleship sessions every other week, so she suggested that we could take advantage of the 30 min before discipleship to practice at church where we have not only piano but also drumset! And I could bring my guitar from home! All Ready! So began .. we had our first practice together at church on the second floor .. we had our honorary vocalist Jessica. the first song we 3 played together with Jessica singing..was This Age by SOP. From then on, we began our "underground" practice ...

Some time after that, Erico too was invited to play drum on the team.. i remember i was busy and really stressed with my coop work at that time so I didn't take part in that worship. That was the first time Vivian and Erico played together. Not that great either hah.. but was good try and brought something new to our worship. =]

So yea, Erico and I both played individually with Vivian in worship once..but Erico and I and Vivian never played together until...until...

... I think i will just stop here talking about the things that happened...

One thing I was really glad about was, though we didn't decide to form the band when we first talked about it, we did create a name for our "band" in imagination.
---> LivEmbrace: Live Embrace. (there's another long story for the creation of this name.)

... I think we all know how we got to where we are today as a team as part of Live Embrace. Why is Live Embrace even here in the first place? God is in this journey with us. He began the journey for us because it's Him who called us together. ... Our purpose seems to be all so simple. He has already given us our name... Do I still need to say?

... Let our life be filled with music, one of God's beautiful creations.
... Let our life be filled with dreams, love, and passion, and rejoice in God's wonderful plans.
... Let our life be filled with God's holy fire, burning and keep burning for Him and His great vision.

... Let's begin this new chapter of LiFe music journey with each other. with love.

Meant to be...

Live Embrace!