In Tassie

hiya, have been in good ol' tassie for the last 3 days since christmas... what beautiful weather! 10-25degC! woohoo! and the sun's blazingly bright!

anyhows, thank God for providing us with all we need, especially accomodations- its been pretty awesome.

somehow, its beginning to look like we've terribly underestimated this little island- been all the way to the south in Esperance Bay, then all the way east to Swansea and the Freycinet Peninsular, and then up north from Bicheno to St Helens and the Bay of fires... Today we pushed westward and am in Launceston now... arrived at 11pm, and grateful for a place to stay. Been a few awesome sunsets!!

i'll try to get some pics up sometime.

cheers!

Prayer for the Year Ahead

O LORD and Heavenly Father,
I stand at the threshold of a new year.
Small and uncertain of things to come;
I stand in awe of all that you have in store for me,
of what you are preparing within.

Surely we are destined for greatness in You;
for your Glory demands it.
It is not with strength and power that I come to You,
But with weakness and tenderness, and with love.

I thank you for your faithful hand about me this past year-
Each step, firm and secure;
For faithful friends about me,
and Godly men that cross my path
to plant a seed in my life,
And to assure me of Your greatness, favor and faithfulness!

Your strength O Lord, I need;
Your wisdom at my right hand,
Your favor at my left;
Grace before me,
Christ about me,
Binding me to You and You to me.

Teach me Jesus, to take level paths
Where my feet may be on sure ground.
Direct my thoughts to You
and let my words have its fill of grace;
keep my eyes focused on You
and my hands free from idleness.
Keep faithlessness away from me
and have joy abounding in my heart.

Though the path may not be clear,
Nor the next step sure,
I ask for patience and faith to trust You dearly,
to have an awe and wonder
of You.
Keep my heart pure and tender;
To lay down my crowns before Your glory
to surrender my desires and burdens to You,
for it is too great to bear alone.

I need Your Holy Spirit to guide me, inspire me and to hold me
safe from myself and a broken world.
Direct me to your courts daily;
Here's my heart, take and keep it, keep it for Your courts above.

Jesus being my all in all,
In His Name, I say,
"Amen"

GSD

Pensive

On the eve of the eve of christmas
the eve of a family vacation
exhilaration and yet uncertain. no accomodations booked, itinerary not fixed

Cool!

time changes everything
time is defined by change
everything changes
defined
timed

years fly by
months pass
and the days fade from memory
moments vanish from vestiges of impression

Lord, won't you rekindle the sense of awe in my heart?
Keep if fresh and tender
amen
אמן

Oh I Want To Know You More

Steve Fry

Just the time I feel that I’ve been caught in the mire of self.
Just the time I feel my mind’s been bought by worldly wealth.
That’s when the breeze begins to blow I know the Spirit’s call.
And all the worldly wanderings just melt into His love.

Oh I want to know You more.
Deep within my soul I want to know You.
Oh I want to know You;
To feel Your heart and know Your mind,
Looking in Your eyes stirs up within me,
Cries that say I want to know You,
Oh I want to know You more,
Oh I want to know You more.

When my daily needs ordinarily loses life and song.
My heart begins to bleed: sensitivity to Him is gone.
I’ve run the race but set my pace and face a shattered soul.
But the gentle arms of Jesus warm my hunger to be whole.

Oh I want to know You more.
Deep within my soul I want to know You.
Oh I want to know You;
And I would give my final breath,
To know You in Your death and resurrection,
Cries that say I want to know You,
Oh I want to know You more,
Oh I want to know You more.

Christ-mas is With Us A-gain

What's christmas got to do with me? A time where I feel 'all christmassy' and warm and fuzzy? Food, candles and nice friends? Worse- christmas in the tropics; how terribly unexciting. No snow, no shepherds out in the freezing cold, no reason to sit around a fireplace, nor for hot chocolate, nor sugar-saturated christmas pudding. Tough. Christmas in a tropical city- all that marketing, sales, commercialism, NO STARS in the humid night sky, only the flashing blinking lights of freezing malls and stuff. Sweaty people trying to push things in your face.

Then there's the problem with the date. 25th December. Which roman emperor in his right mind would have called for a midwinter census? People would have revolted! It must have been suicidal shepherds out in the snow, not to mention explaining why grass would be growing under that blanket of frost. Poor sheep. Then again, it took the wisemen over two years to arrive, so I guess the 'nativity' of Christ- his 'babyhood' if we could call it- still stands. He would still have experienced two winters before they arrived with the gifts. The three gifts. Not Three wisemen. Oh well.

What was He thinking? Forsaking the perfection of heaven, for the squalor of earth. Better yet, die for us. And while in that manger he's that image of frailty, tenderness and innocence; a foreshadow of how he ends his life frail, tender and still innocent. Jesus you're so beautiful.

"The most Innocent [man that ever lived] had to suffer the Most Unjust suffering, so that the most wicked of us can live our lives as innocent" Loren Cunningham

"Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo."

Then there's Mary. The poor girl- the psychological trauma. My goodness! God's poster child for using the simple to confound the wise. Carrying a "holy embryo" as Michael Card calls it. Half the chromosomes? Oh dear. What a paradox- the Created carrying the Creator. Its repurcussions echo through all time.

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

Then again, she was faithful- faithful with the task set before her. It would not be an easy journey. From cradle to the cross- talk about total quality management, or cradle-to-the-grave service. And yet, in this case it went more than the grave. There was the glory of the resurrected Jesus Christ!

Christmas seems to me, a simple reminder in the calendar that Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. His work on earth was complete and perfect. The whole history and humanity of man converged on those 33 years of incarnation, culminating at the cross- where all the prior deeds of man, the present and all the future deeds of man were summed up with Jesus on the cross and crucified. Before we were, he bore our sins, our suffering and our pain. More than me remembering his birth, I will remember his death and his ressurection. And I MUST remember he is coming again. Coming very soon.

C. S. Lewis summed up Christmas in one sentence: 'The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God.'

Put Christ back in Christmas.

Equality the Highest Pursuit?

From C. S. Lewis, on Membership (Sobornost, No 31, June 1945)

"It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense- if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining- then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immmortal souls then I think it conceals a dangerous error. The infinte value of each human soul is not a christian doctrine. God did not die for man because of some value he perceived in him. The value of each human soul considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. As St Paul writes, to have died for valuable men would have been not divine but merely heroic; but God died for sinners. He loved us not because we were lovable, but because he is Love. It may be that He loves all equally- he certainly loved all to the death- and I am not certain what the expression means. If there is equality it is his love, not in us.

"Equality is a quantitative term and therefore love often knows nothing of it. Authority exercised with humility and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live....

"I have wanted to try to expel that quite unchristian worship of the human individual simply as such which is so rampant in modern thought sided by side with our collectivism; for one error begets the opposite error and, far from neutralizing, they aggravate each other. I mean the pestilent notion (one sees it in literary criticism) that each of us starts with a treasure called 'personality' locked up inside him, and that to expand and express this, to guard it from interference, to be 'original', is the main end of life. This is Pelagian, or worse, and it defeats even itself. No man who values originality will ever be origianl. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake, and what men call originality will come unsought. Even on that level, the submission of the individual to the function is already beginning to bring true personality to birth. And secondly, I have wanted to show that Christianity is not, in the long run, concerned either with individuals or communities. Neither the individual nor the community as popular thought understands them can inherit eternal life: neither the natural self, nor the collective mass, but a new creature."

What is Man?

What is man, that You are mindful of him?
Ps 8:4

Fragile. Handle with care. That's what the label would be on our boxes if we could be sold off the shelf at wal-mart, or ordered online off amazon.

The whole of humanity is held together on threads. Whole organizations, nations, corporations, families, and even churches, seem built on evanescence. Vapor- that's what the bible describes our kind. Here now, gone next.

Its a miracle the work of our hands exist- the REAL work; the eternal kind, not the kind you work for for the world. It does so, only because of grace, and the goodness of God. Whole churches and christian ministries are held together with seemingly flimsy, flippant collective of "volunteer" workers. The next moment, should they withdraw their support, it'll just vanish without a trace. Simply amazing if you think about it. It really is grace and mercy that the so-called "ministries" we serve in actually grow, multiply and prosper. Relationships established and trust built, all simply on the basis of Faith, Hope and Love. Without the truth and substance therein, and without the Holy Spirit's reality and power, it all falls flat. Splat.

So, Lord, hold us closer to you. Let me stand on your promises, but should i falter, to fall on your grace.

Oh Lord, our God, how excellent your Name is.
ps 8:1

Glimpses of Glory

If this is fallen creation, what must heaven be like? Brian Doerkssen

Bible School Graduation

Oh Cool! my dad and jersh finally had their graduation from bible school today! quite a graduation service... and a really long one. We all had fun- including abel!

Busy busy

we just finished a v v v exhausting but exhilirating three days intensive with steve kuban- this really anointed and talent worship leader/songwriter/pianist.

it was pretty incredible- we only met him thursday evening for our ONLY rehearsal. He wanted to rehearse through 20 songs for the concerts over the next two nights... in the end we only got through about 6 songs or so, because quite a bit of the time was spent fine tuning sound, and working on individual lines. He was really meticulous, which i guess did a real lot of good for the team. he practically worked on each vocal line and instrumental part. Learn a whole bunch from him on how to rehearse! Ended practice that night at 12:30, and by the time we sent everyone back, it was 1:30am... and as i was driving him back to Garden Hotel, where he was staying, as we chatted, we realized neither of us had any dinner... so we went down to newton food center for some supper, which was fun! i finally made it to the hotel at 3am, and got home... snoozed friday in, and did the friday night concert.

Quite an experience, these last few days... if Z3 were ever to really be serious about doing evangelistic outreaches/concerts, we'd better get prepared to be really stretched- spiritually, maturity, discipline and stuff... not to mention musically- we're miles from where we can be!... Press ON!!!

And today we met again to do a sound check for a set of portable audio equipment YI is buying for camp... quite a stretche really!

And if you're reading this, please do take a short moment to pray for Z3. the next 32 days to Christmas will be a real stretch for the team: demo recording, thailand mission (7 from the team), the remaining pple to do the svcs when they are away, YI camp (2 sessions as t team, plus some other individuals are helping out at PA or playing all througout camp), and finally, an evangelistic concert at Beauty World Shopping Center on 20th Dec...

Please pray for focus, for time to rehearse, and wisdom in putting it all together.

God gets all the glory!

שלוס shalom

There Is A Rock

Steve Fry (1992)

Though friends like sand
Would one day blow away
Those held dear no longer stay
There is a Rock
Upon whose strength I lay
Who will never, never change

When each success
That I would call my own
Fades to distant memory
There is a Rock
Much higher than I have known
Comes to break me tenderly

Oh God I do recall
That all I have is Yours
Be to me that Rock
When I am lost and see no more

But bless'd is he
Who makes the Lord his trust
Even when the days are dark
He learns to walk
With God whose ways are just
And lean on everlasting arms

Be to me that Rock
When I am lost and see no more

Though mountains fall
And nations waste away
I'll be still and know my Rock

And I shall enter
To a spacious place
There to ever walk with God

The Folly of Man

oh, was rummaging through some old pile of stuff sitting in my room i havent touched, and came across some really intriguing rambling notes i made while in a semi-conscious state (read- zzzing) while preparing for exams last october (it must be, because its sitting in the same chronological pile as the rest of my misc. notes).

Here it is transcribed for you to read... interesting stuff, considering its not premeditated, and totally tapped subliminally. Makes for metaphysical fodder.

Makes me pause to think. Much.


========================================
The Folly of Man: October 02

as I waste away, the 3 areas of my life lie unfulfilled.

Body: my electrolytes and my electrodes burn.

Mind: vast resources of the mind, preparations of the years not tapped. existing only on paper and not in action. forgotten to seek, restore, renew, rebuild, trust.

Spirit: Preparation and defences made in prayer remain unchecked, unlooked for. return to it.
========================================

Psalm 63

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

1 O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

9 They who seek my life will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.

11 But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God's name will praise him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

Cousin's Wedding

Just got back from my cousin Singhuey's wedding back in the ole hometown of kluang... man, it was one massive event! woah...

Anyways, it was off to a good start when we actually arrived 1.5 hrs before the wedding (this means we set off at some unearthly hour which must not be named!) at our cousin's place to get changed and then to church do some last minute rehearsals and stuff. It was a nice, formal, presbyterian wedding, good 'ol formal eulogies, , hymns, benediction and stuff. I had to check out the piano- apparently it was on the verge of breakdown, and din't want a broken string for a legacy. There, i found out they had actually prepared an electone-feel-alike keyboard for me (!!)... quite sufficiently pleased with it, better then a twangy petrof any day. : )

The humble, old-ish, stainglassed church was fully packed out with friends and relatives from all over- sensory and memory overload! Simply amazing... relatives... there's no end to them! I mentally classified the relatives i met into two categories- those that i know (30%) and those that i don't (70%). Infact, i don't even know if those i don't know are relatives. haha. Anyhows, every now and then i get pulled to say hello to a total stranger, and my mom or aunt or whoever, will tell me how i'm related to this person, and how i had to address this fella in the chinese titling. Soooo confusing... Later over dinner i find out from JS how the western relations naming works, e.g. 2nd cousin, twice removed. So much simpler; no hassle.

[So,.... do you know your relations???]

Nice, long, formal wedding- felt like a business transaction. Haha... if you think about it, all weddings are transactions- legal, financial, social, emotional and spiritual... anyways. But a nice transaction nonetheless, as weddings go. There was a nice pipe-organ introit and recessional to start and end it all- totally traditional.

The opening prayer by a deacon was almost a complete sermon- thematic introduction, main point, subpoints, anecdotes, development, closing statements, amen. haha. And finally, a church where the hymns were sung with gusto... amazing... i raised the key for the last verse of the last hymn, and the congregation really took off and hit the high F right at the last line! When was the last time i heard such a congregation attack hymns back home? Oh- the pastor was one mean preaching and solemnizing machine- he spoke simultaneously in mandarin and english for the solemnization. Never seen anyone do that... Cool!

End photo taking was one massive logistic nightmare- the sheer volume of guest was something the half-dozen photographers were not prepared for. Also, i realize, if only someone could count out 1,2,3, so the 15 cameras could all click away simultaneously on 3, it will save so much time... but no one did- it took ages before it was completed, so mouth cramp.

Right after the wedding reception, we checked in to the hotel our aunt had booked for us... it was a really big and neat hotel- all 12 storeys of it. Guess what! it turned out that the majority of the hotel was booked out with relatives and friends from out of town, who came for the event... so it was pretty much relatives here, there, everywhere, bump bump. Our room on the 11th floor had a really nice view of Gunung Lambak- kluang's very own mountain backyard... taller than singapore's at anyrate! Was glad to sleep the afternoon away- quiet, restful and productive.

The wedding dinner was at the same hotel... kinda cool- 80 tables. Dinner must have been one massive logistics and admin operation. Even more relations- many drove in late afternoon just for the dinner, kids in tow. The dinner was mc-ed by another deacon, who's a doctor by profession- he was practically a medical stand-up comedian. And there were quite a few doctors and dentists present too, including the former State Physician, whatever that meant. And some datuks too... it was pretty much a doctor, dentist, datin, datuk dinner... hahahah... This is what happens when a doctor marries a dentist, and have another dentist for your father-in-law. The doctor-dentist jibe went on when the couple gave their appreciation at the end of dinner. Bizzare.

Anyways, i'm relieved to be home (not to mention a weekend away from playing 2 services). It was quite an experience, and i'm grateful i'm not in the centre of the whirlwind... yet!

Ooh, and, i bought a bottle of goat's milk on my way back... more on it sometime... i think.

333

Jeremiah 33:3 listen

"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."

Leonids Aftermath

hey! we caught a grand total of ONE shooting star! and boy was it bright! technically it was a Fireball- streaks across half the sky, instead of just a scintillation.

anyhow, that's the end of the show.

but it was a fun time chatting, singing, praying, worshipping, discussing stuff of import.

cool- thank you kiong and zb!

Leonids Tonight

hey, sooo tonight will supposedly be the first phase of the leonid meteor shower. i wonder if i will actually stay up and out all night somewhere to catch a glimpse of the show, and who with: likemindedly-insane characters are hard to find.

updates later.

Prayer and Chaos

I had one really cool conversation yesterday with George, our friend from Ghana. He's here in NUS doing a masters in social work. And he was telling me how he just submitted an essay entitled "spirituality in counselling", and it discusses the christian perspective of prayer and Holy Spirit intervention on counselling sessions. In it, he even quotes a source which pulls in Chaos Theory. Its quite simple- Everything is interrelated, though there may not always be an obvious correlation. Therefore, prayer and its effect may not seem to have any direct relation, one cannot disprove its efficacy.

Pray, pray and Pray!

Moon and Mars

this is a really neat pic i took in august... the night just before the massive power outage in the Northwest United States- little did they know what would hit them in 18 hours! read

Anyhows... this is the NYC night skyline, with the Moon and Mars visibly hovering over the city, taken from the roof of the Empire State Building... all 82 storeys of it!

Enjoy!





more here

Moon Burst

moon-burst... taken on 10 sept at about 1:30am... if you look carefully you should be able to make out 8 stars around the moon.

Leonids

Leonid meteor shower watching anyone? Friday 14th Nov pre-dawn hours for Asia Pacific.

Expect up to a meteor every 30 seconds

More HERE

Preambular Post

Hola!

Its been quite an adventure learning how to prep up this page; I wonder how it will grow.

Conclusion to preamble is: blog will not quite be the place to put up my privatest thoughts, but it would be a useful platform for me to generally journal events and updates, for posterity perhaps? Now this would require greater diligence than doing my qt!

So there.

Philosophical Question

Well, now comes the great philosophical question: what should get posted here, and how it should be presented.

I've seen enough rambly blogs around. Perhaps this could be an exception? nah...

But really, what is it behind bloggers to put what they put up for people to read? what do we want to achieve? fame? anonymity? notoriety? or simply a vent for self expression? and to what end?

Is it where you present your most presentable side, or present your ugliest side? what is truth and authenticity when it comes to blogs? a thin veneer, or the steak? WHO are we- are we what we perceive ourselves, or are we made up of what people around us think of us, or simply a composite of both, or neither? My suspicion is that the last option is true.

"i am who i am because the Great I Am says i am"

Intrinsic vs extrinsic.

And what is it that make people read blogs? are they thoroughly interested in the ramblings of another, or do they have some agenda in mind? or simply voyeuristic or bored or mad. Tell me... why are you reading THIS? don't you have anything better to do?

Enough of philosophizing for a while... let me figure out how to better present this page... do some housekeeping and slight editing... must figure out the commands and stuff... or steal from other websites!

Cherrio. пака!

PS. To bloggers out there... do we present ourselves differently on a blog than in real life?

Second Post

Hey, its not so tough afterall, to get things started... if you're not asking too much...

trying to make sense of it all...

שלוס

First Post

Heya, this is my first attempt at putting myself up for you to see on the netpedestal for the world to see.

I wonder how it will grow and develop... For all we know, this could end up as one of the countless billions of abandoned websites littering the net.

We'll find out, won't we?

GSD