convent76

Really, really friends ?

2012-01-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Its the penultimate day of the hols . In less than 48 hrs i will be back at work; joining the millions of other M'sian Chinese whose leave ends this Sunday. Hai, so that's another CNY over, we will all sigh as we put our noses back to the grindstone of another year ahead (doesn't matter CNY officially lasts 15 days, for most of us once work begins, that's the end of the festival realistically speaking).
For the past 1 week, i have had the luxury of actually regularly checking out Fb and news portals online. I read 2 books, including one on King David which had been lying around on my table since the last book sale - that's like since Aug 2011, leaving only 2 remaining books on Joseph and Jesus to finish off the pile. And I finally put on my track shoes after umpteen years of telling myself i really should start exercising. A looong time ago, i was actually quite conscientious about getting up early morning to go round the small playground/park near my house.... well, at least for a short while. Then the lazy bones syndrome set in, and those early morning walks stopped. I still get up early to do my morning tingy with God, but the bed was much more inviting than outdoors. But deep inside, i knew i really should get going again; it just kept getting postponed... like they say, spirit is willing but flesh is weak. Until God sent me 2 people on the same day, to tell me look, you better move your legs now, while you still got legs to move (talk about being threatened!) .... Both of them apparently were 'forced' to exercise, one becoz she didn't want to waste all her money already paid to a personal trainer, the other becoz of Dr's orders. So I got the message loud and clear, it's now or never... and I thank God these 2 folks were the push i needed to get me going, even tho they themselves never realised the impact they had...

A dear sister in Christ asked me a rather odd question that made me ponder a long while - am i your fren? To some, such a question would be so... duh?? But it begs to be asked and answered in this day and age when some of us can claim to have 800, (i tink that's the last count when i checked out one of my kids' listing!) or even thousands of 'frens' all over the world... online Fb, Twitter, MSN or whatever latest new-fangled social network site there is out there in cyberspace. Honestly, i don't tink having 800 names in my address book qualifies them all as my 'frens'. And honestly too, I don't fancy clicking "add fren" on a name i have never heard before makes that person my fren, even tho he/she may be a fren of someone whose name i do know . Indeed if i am brutally honest, i tink it's more accurate and truthful to classify many of my 'frens' as more of acquaintances only. Not only that, i guess many of the people in my life even , be it church members, working colleagues, family/relatives aren't ''really'' frens the way i see it. Oh ya, of coz there's a relationship bond that ties us together through social intercourse, common participation in activities, group dynamics, etc etc; all the elements that fulfill psychological theories of human sociology. But frenship isn't a theory or a number.
To me, it's a...connection that's very individualistic and personal. So, who are "really, really" my frens?? Well, for a start, i can count them all on less than 1 hand. Aiyoh, so miserably few arr - poor thing?? I beg to differ... No, I am not poor in frens , I am very richly blessed by these few. I may not see them or contact them all the time or even often at all. But they are precious to me, they teach me lots of things they don't even realize themselves. I can tell them anything, everything or even nothing at all on occasion. I can bawl my eyes out in front of them and not bother wiping my nose. I can send them long lists of prayer requests and all they reply is Done, or they give me back their own long list! I can (sometimes) talk crap, and they will listen, and then they dare tell me quite to my face that i am talking crap! To the rare 1 or at most 2 exceptionally close frens, I can confess my innermost thots, dreams, fears, sins even. By the same token, all these that I can do to my frens, they can do likewise to me. Someone defined frenship as 2 hearts beating as 1... yep, its a heart thing that's up close and personal. As I thank God for my frens, above all, I remember this awesome truth with gratefulness - Jesus is my best fren...as the old hymn goes:

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find a solace there.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends...John 15:13

A Quiet CNY 2012

2012-01-26T00:44:00.000-08:00

For the first time in some 10 years, we didn't balik kampung during CNY. We couldn't, as most of my folks in Alor Star were 'keluar-ing kampung' instead. One family was off to Penang, another ventured south into JB. So we were stuck in KL, and i was grouching hai, no one to cook yummy steam boat spread or tom yam prawns and this and that and the other dish for us to slurp slarp our tongues over....
A week earlier my eldest princess got it into her head to go Cameron Highlands for a break since she was on long leave. My no.2 and 3 actually preferred to stay home, so i was kinda hoping for some quiet 1-to-1 mother-daughter time with her, esp since she would be disappearing into Indonesia after CNY for the next 2 months on work assignment. But it wasn't to be, as all accommodation in Camerons was fully booked over the festive period (duh, what else to expect when its 11th hour scrambling around!!) So, there we were, stuck at home.
But it turned out not so bad as it sounds really. I mean, well, I did manage to cook up some decent edible stuff, tho not exactly a buffet spread like other big family reunions... look, how much can 4 fellas eat? In fact, i even learnt a new dish... so now i can add sweet sour prawns to my somewhat limited repertoire of jiu hoo char the next time a pot-bless event comes around!!
And we still did the normal 'pai nian' to all the KL relatives from my husband's side; the kids still got to eat CNY goodies in other people's houses and pocketed some angpows. And they still got lotsa time to do whatever kids their age do these days. We even got time to catch a movie together - Chinese no less - very handsome Nicholas Tze and Jay Chou .
Plus we maintained our regular 2 nites of Bible reading as well. I have been doing a long series on the famous faith chapter (Hebrews 11) with them. We were at Moses, and talking about how his mother in faith and no doubt in fear, still floated him off at 3 months old down the Nile river, practically surrendering and trusting in God to take care of the special baby He had given her. I rounded up with my own reflection on this - that there will come a time when we all will have to give up, let go of people/situations/things we wanna hang onto, when we realise our limitations or our weaknesses, we just have to trust that God knows how to handle it, and totally surrender to Him, even when its scary or doesn't make logical sense . As usual when the session came to an end, I asked for either prayer request or praise report from them. And it was the youngest boy who piped up "Thank God for our family" And i think it struck all of us then, at the same moment, how true that was.
Thank God for our family. Thank God He kept us together. I have no husband, the kids have no father for the past 10 years, but we are together as a family. At my lowest 10 years ago, I had been reduced from the heights of worldly success to coping with 3 young kids, a mountain of debt and a pittance salary as a church kindy teacher. But I didn't have to 'bump' the kids off on rich relatives , I never had to beg to put 3 meals (and more) on their plates everyday for the past 10 years. They may not be able to afford the smallest item from the classiest joints, our groceries are from the local (read cheapest deals) hypermart, not up-market imported stuff, but so what. Our house is no palace, the roof and toilets leak, the parquet is coming off, but its home - and its fully paid for (and it's smack in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in KL, so I am told). And hey, we are so blessed we are even able to go overseas holiday , thanks to a very generous and loving 'sponsor'.
My youngest is now 18, such a handsome young man - Korean film-star looks, everyone says. My princesses - oh, they have blossomed into beautiful young women (of coz I am biased, which parent isn't!) My eldest found a niche in an international NGO that finally gives her a chance to live out her heart's compassion for the marginalised and down-trodden of society. I thank God He put that desire into her , for surely it is His heart-beat as well. Surprisingly its my no. 2 who opted for law, following mummy's footsteps; never imagined it would be her, but well, let's see where God leads her with this... my no. 3 just managed (on practically the last day) to enrol himself into college, matriculation. How they have all grown up...Not to say they are perfect angels; hardly.
Indeed there is so much to thank God for..... most of all, for keeping us together as a family, thru all the new years that have come and gone. Not just a family bound by blood, but bound and kept in God's own hands of love, uniting us together in faith thru Jesus Christ. I am so so thankful each one of my kids know the God of their father and mother for themselves; that I didn't pass on to them a religion, that they know Whom they believe and why they believe. I am so thankful they know its not about being good or doing good, its not about a well-paying job, success, or nice things this world has to offer. They know its beyond all that, becoz they already know the Way, the Truth and the Life is only in Jesus Christ. They themselves have experienced the reality of a God who loves, forgives, saves, cares, provides and guides them into the best that He has prepared for them, now and in the hereafter, even if things may actually look quite the opposite, despite whatever else they don't have. They know their lives are held by and in divine Hands, grounded in a divine purpose and meaning beyond the ordinary. I didn't teach them that, God did...

A CNY message from one of my kindy teachers beeped into my phone as i was sipping coffee in the early morning; it read, "May God make our new year 2012 a happy one...Not by shielding us from all sorrows and pain, but by strengthening us to bear it, as it comes... Not by making our paths easy, but by making us sturdy to travel any path, Not by taking hardships from us, but by taking fear from our heart, Not by granting us unbroken sunshine, but by keeping our face bright even in the shadows....

It's the most meaningful message I have received for this CNY, and so apt becoz that's what God has done for my family over the past 10 years together. We are so blessed, God be praised.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"... Jeremiah 29:11

Click here for CNY shots

Things Same Ol' Same Ol' and Things Different

2011-12-28T01:05:00.000-08:00

So its the same-same story. We all greet everyone else as the year 2011 draws to a close with the same thot, same expression - aiya, so fast time pass hor... another Christmas already, another new year ahead. In about a week's time, we say hello to 2012. The newspapers will be flooded as usual with pictures and pages of 2011 events, consigned to something we call memory or history. Again people will be talking about making and no doubt breaking resolutions.
I will be hosting the usual pot-bless dinner with some old 'kaki' before we head off to count down the new year in church. Yep, we are doing the same ol' same ol' things that we have been doing for the past 10 years, ever since we joined the big family of Christ .
My eldest princess turned chef for Christmas nite and cooked up the mandatory family dinner. But this year we were blessed with a huge turkey , thanks to a loving sister in Christ, and besides my brother, we seated an additional guest (the chef's bf) at the table. Definitely more left-overs from the feast this year! The same tree had been put up a few weeks ago, except it now dangled with some newer ornaments, it stood in the same corner of the living room. And if you are game enuf to visit the malls at this time of year, there are plenty of trees decked up ever so nicely, just for people to admire and pose with for the camera. The kids as usual had hunted around for presents all over the crowded malls, right till the last minute. Only this year, they got lazier; instead of wrapping them up nicely, they just dumped the ones meant for family under the tree - save the trees, save work; after all its gonna come off anyway - can't beat that kind of logic, tho its so totally un-Christmassy. My brother - being the usual generous uncle that he is, had blessed the kids with spending money and asked me to name what i wanted for myself. I was reminded of Queen Esther who was asked by her king 2x, "What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you." So tongue in cheek, i asked my brother, if i wanted half his kingdom, would he give it to me? (he never answered me on this one, heh heh)
Indeed what present could satisfy the human heart? Diamonds on your fingers, rings on your toes, gold bars in the bank, mansion by the lake, sports car in the garage? Good health, prosperity, no troubles, no heartache? Throw in perhaps, a steady job (or for some, any job), a good boss, understanding frens, loving family... the list could go on and on. So what do i want? For once i honestly couldn't be bothered getting myself anything for Christmas; oh, there are of coz lots of things i could want, but all the glitzy blitzy stuff the world had to offer really didn't excite me anymore ; in fact it had ceased to matter a long time back, just that this year, I totally gave up the effort of even wading thru the endless labyrinth of shops - with each passing year it seems my case of crowd-phobia gets worse, maybe its just the 'aging factor', or maybe its just the little niggling voice that asks, do you need 1 more dress, 1 more pair of shoes, 1 more this or 1 more that to be happy?? Nah, not worth battling the queues for... So I told my brother, what I want he couldn't give, since I already had that which God Himself had given me 10 years ago - a love that abides, peace that's out of this world, joy that abounds - all that gives meaning and purpose to life; what more could i ask for?

Over the week before Christmas, in the light of seemingly random happenings, the knowledge that I already had all that mattered really blessed my heart....
I went out to lunch with an old lawyer fren from my long ago days of legal practice. She tells me she's seen so much death this year, her own father, family members, frens, her district assemblyman; she's had quite enuf of funerals.....Another fren sent me an email which pointed out that Jesus wasn't born on Dec 25th, and Christmas actually came from paganistic rituals of long ago, things which i already knew anyway. It concluded there was nothing to celebrate about Christmas, since its all a big sham....The Sat before, as usual, I was helping out at the street-feeding alley and sat down to talk with an old man who disclosed that he was already 66 yrs old and in between odd jobs. I wondered why he wasn't with family, he didn't say much, but his eyes said everything about rejection, loneliness, tough times past and present (and likely future). I asked him if he believed in God, he said yes, he knows Jesus. And so I reminded him what having Jesus meant - it didn't mean a life free of problems, or a life full of all good stuff. But it did mean having a God who is so much much bigger than life's problems, becoz He rose from the dead, and is alive with us. I pointed to his white flowy beard and recounted Jesus knows how many hairs he has on his chinny chin chin. The old man looked like he was going to cry as he kept nodding his head, as if willing his brain to remember why he believed and whom he believed. I did the one thing i know how to do in such circumstances - I prayed for him. Its not often I hand out money to these street-folks, I have heard too many sob-stories to fall prey to emotion. But in this case, to one who never asked and never spoke the need, I felt led to press $10 into his wrinkled hands ; to let him know Jesus cares, always has and always will . He looked up without a word, but his eyes said the thank-you that was in his heart. And i knew as much as he was thanking me, he was thanking God for reminding him of the hope that he had in Christ Jesus which no one and no trial could wrest away...... On Christmas afternoon, I followed a neighbor to visit her fren who had undergone state-of-the-art treatment of a suspicious lump pressing on her spinal nerve. For one facing such a situation, she was so joyously confident it would be ok even if her life were to end this moment, for the simple reason she knows Jesus holds her hand even thru the valley of the shadow of death.....
Some things will never change - the fact of suffering, unfairness and death in our midst, the fact that despite the questionable origin of Christmas and its misunderstood connotations due to gross commercialisation , Jesus Christ isn't a sham - and He is definitely worth celebrating about. Becoz that moment in time some 2000 years ago when God decided to connect with mankind on earth in the form of a human baby born of a virgin - things changed for eternity. That moment in time when Jesus hung on the cross to fulfil God's plan for mankind's redemption, things were never the same again. And that's why i celebrate Christmas - not for the usual same ol' same ol' things of nice presents, yummy dinners and melodious carols . But for the difference that the Christ who came has made and continues to make a difference in my life on earth. For that matter, the difference He can make to anyone who would just believe. But for Him, my sins would condemn me into a horrible hereafter, but for Him, I would never have known the peace of God that transcends all human understanding and overcomes all circumstances. But for Him, I wouldn't have known unending love, amazing grace. But for Him, I would not know what life is in all its abundance, here, now and certainly in the hereafter. That's the priceless gift I have received and forever hold dear, not just remembered every Christmas, but in every moment that i still draw breath. How blessed I am!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"...Isaiah 9:6 "... you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save his people from their sins" ... Matthew 1:21

Chasing sunrise and rainbows - a different kind of holiday

2011-12-19T05:12:00.000-08:00

It was a recipe sure to fail. Whaddya expect if you have been warned its the rainy season and you still proceed to go anyway? And you excuse it by getting everyone to pray God will do a miracle to somehow turn the season in your favor, just becoz He loves you so much?! Duh, who was i trying to kid, man? Why should God do a miracle just to please me?! Ha ha, well, anyway that was how I justified my ill-timed holiday. Plus i had the nerve to claim God wanted me to go seek His face far from the madding crowd. Truth was i was just plain fed-up and tired of work, and wanted an excuse to get away from it all. I know, i know, actually i didn't need any excuse, i could just go. But somehow must get God involved mah...doesnt it sound so much more 'spiritual' to say "I am seeking God's face" than a plain, "I want to just do nothing"?! .... Ahh, the foibles of the human heart; how we disguise our desires with a veneer of holiness, daring God to bless our own 'things'... and that's how i ended up in Sg Lembing, even tho Dec wasnt a good time to go view the famous Rainbow Waterfall and Panorama Hill sunrise. How could I even get the idea that the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth would actually suspend the laws of nature which He had set aeons ago for kutchi-kutchi me - looking back I can only say I must have been delirious from over-work! I can just hear Him chuckling... "Child, thy name is Audacious Presumption!"

If you were to spend 8 hrs driving 500 km for the intended purpose of catching the sun rise and a rainbow over a waterfall, and you didn't get to see any of it, that's called a disaster holiday. But ah, how gracious is my God, that He didn't turn the seasons around, notwithstanding the fervent well-meaning prayers of family and frens that God would actually stop the rain so my plans would work out. Nope, instead He turned me around - to appreciate a totally different kind of holiday - a holiday that went all wrong but turned out all right...
In the beginning, I was very confident that He would grant me at least fair weather becoz the day i set out from KL was fine, and my local contact in Sg Lembing also confirmed it was fine there, after a rainy spell the past week. And like all humans so quick to pounce on anything that could support an essentially wacky (read bad) decision, I praised the Lord and patted myself on the back for my 'faith'. So I was in very good mood driving leisurely along the Karak h'way right thru to Kuantan and turn off to Sg Lembing village. Did you ever open eyes to notice the scenery along the h'ways? Its pretty amazing, all the varied hues and shapes of green on earth and greys, whites and blues up in the sky....that's how much i enjoyed the 250 km drive to this small town outside Kuantan.
Sg Lembing apparently was the M'sian El-Dorado of the past, holding its own as the largest richest tin mine in those days. It retains its old world cowboy-town outlook, there's just 1 main street, all the shops/houses are ancient, locals zip around on m/bikes w/out helmets and balance umbrellas in 1 hand when it rains (obviously safety isnt a top priority with these folks). The only petrol station operates from a mechanic shop which sells it by the bottle (I learnt too late i should have filled the tank before coming into town!) There is plenty of cheap accommodation, everyone seems to run a home-stay business - i was booked into a decent bungalow with 3 rooms, all fitted with double and bunk beds, fully aircon, attached bathroom with heater, spacious living room with TV and even kitchen available for group vacation. i had the whole place all to myself the first nite i arrived - so nice and quiet. (The next nite a group of 5 youths checked in, which led me to wonder why on earth would 3 gals and 2 guys wanna squeeze into 1 room, but well, none of my business... anyway they could bring the house down for all i cared, since i would be leaving the very next day).
I wasn't prepared for the 'ghost-town' when i first arrived... esp worried about food, coz i definitely didn't fancy maggi mee in my room, but thankfully the caretaker invited me to hop onto her bike and showed me the food court a short walk down. It was only 6 pm, yet all were already closed except 1 stall, which proved more than sufficient for my stomach, for the lady cook dished up a tasty meal of local tomato mee together with a good dose of very chatty conversation. I had an early nite, anticipating the climb up Panorama Hill to catch the sun rise.
So it was that at 5 am, armed with a torch lite, I was trudging up the steps - I had expected a stiff climb, but i didnt quite expect it would take some 700 narrow steps uphill all the way in the dark. Unfit as i was, there were many times I stopped and simply dropped flat on my back, feeling like i would die 100 times over, my heart was literally exploding out of my chest. I daren't even look up becoz i dreaded how many more steps were still stretched out and up ahead. And it was whilst lying flat out, staring at the moon above, gasping for breath, that I was reminded, how much worse Jesus must have suffered going up all the way to Calvary Hill to hang on a cross for me. I dunno whether it was sweat or tears that were wetting my cheeks as i struggled along, step by step, minute by minute, half a heart wanting to turn back down, but the other half wanting to complete the journey....

And then, i heard voices floating from below, which meant there were others climbing up as well; and kiasu that I was, that drove me to the final spurt of strength to conquer the seemingly never-ending staircase to heaven. I couldn't help thinking tho, drat, there goes all the peace i was looking forward to... 1 hr later, finally i hit the peak, only to be followed a short while after by a very noisy family of kids and adults all chattering away...geez, how on earth am i supposed to 'meet with God' like this?! And hey man, there was no chance of even catching the sun rise, becoz the whole hill was covered in clouds and mist.

But what was an obstacle turned out such a blessing for me - the 1st sign that God was setting me up for something different... The family was so disappointed there would be no glorious sun-rise they trooped off downhill after barely 5 mins - leaving me all by myself. One of them was so nice to approach me to descend with them, becoz he warned me the rain would be coming and it could get dangerous, I simply smiled and answered, 'its just a hill, what can be so dangerous?' So there, i got my wish to be all alone. No, there was no glorious sun-rise, but for the 1st time in my life, i could appreciate how beautiful clouds and mist can be. The wispy whirly twirly stuff was so thick it enveloped me all around. And i wondered is this how it must have been for the 3 disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus?? Everything around became kind-of blurred but I could see thru and know I was still standing on solid ground. And the praises came as i watched the heavens move around me in shades of white and grey, fingers stretching out over the hills , touching the valley below, and curling up into never-ending infinity beyond.... i will never look at clouds the same way again, and on top of that hill, i opened not just my heart, but my mouth to worship the Creator of heaven and earth. I came to catch a sun-rise, instead God caught me up in His cloud. If you have never literally danced on a mountain top or heard your own voice carried by the wind, you should.... for 2 hrs I simply worshipped thru the rain. It was cold, I was shivering but it hardly mattered, becoz He was there with me. What a comfort to know the unshakeable presence of a God who envelops you in His embrace, when life's cold winds blow around you and clouds of fear come creeping in. I didnt need the sun-rise after all; I just needed to be reminded of the awesome God who holds the entire universe in His hands. How many times we lose sight of God just becoz we get caught up in the 'mists' of problems, concerns and issues of everyday life...

By the time the rain stopped, I was ready to descend - to more mundane affairs of the stomach, and more than ready to fill it up with the yummy local yong tau fu mee - better by far than our KL Ampang yong tau fu. Then it was time to hit the road, a walk-about and first stop at the only official place worth visiting - the museum. The weather however started to act up again, but this actually allowed me to rest my feet awhile and curl up with a book i had brought along. When it eased up, i was back on the road, in search of Sg Lembing's other tourist attraction - the suspension bridges across the river. Little did i know God had set me an appointment with an old lady operating a run-down sundry shop at the other end of the bridge. That's how unimaginable His ways are; to send me a complete stranger all the way from KL to remind her how much Jesus loves her, as her own widowed daughter, just like me, had been asking her so many times to just believe. This wasn't the only special appointment God set up for me - over dinner that nite, i was back at the noodle lady's shop where again the rain got me stuck, and so she and her daughter got to hear of the precious love of Christ that's waiting for them to respond. And i was reminded of God's over-riding Word that applies in every circumstance, at every hour (even on vacation) - that He wishes none to perish, and we are to be prepared in season and out of season to give an answer to everyone for the hope that we have in Christ Jesus . If for nothing else than that these 3 people needed to hear the good news of Jesus that I was sent there, I am more than satisfied with this holiday already.

It rained so much the trip scheduled for the next morning to the famous Rainbow Waterfall was cancelled. I was pretty disappointed, it looked like nothing was working out the way I had planned. The tour fella suggested i extend my stay into Sunday so i could sign up for the next trip. I was very tempted; I had come this far, surely God didn't bring me all this way to see mist and rain, maybe, just maybe He will give me the rainbow the next day..... To go back now meant i was left with no sun-rise, no rainbow, no nothing...what a wash-out holiday - literally. But I resisted, if God didn't wanna show me anything, well, so be it.... Thou shalt not test the Lord thy God...

So I packed my bags, had a good last meal of curry yong tau fu, wished the noodle lady well, and kept asking, God what's the lesson here? But it was only as I was driving home that I finally 'got it'.... How often we make fantastic/good plans to do this, that or the other. We conscientiously pray over it, about it and for it, and we assume (quite erroneously) that God will bless us and make everything work out nicely. And then it doesn't. How many times we search around trying to 'find God' in this, that or the other 'good' thing, activity, place or person (read church, prayer, pastor, ministry, bible) ...and He isn't 'there'. I was trying to chase rainbows and catch sunrises, beautiful things by themselves. But God isn't in the rainbow, He isn't in the sunrise. He is the great I AM. Life may and will disappoint us, but God doesn't; He's got surprises up His sleeve that's too wonderful for us to ever imagine even - He surprised me, right there in the car, as i was driving back all the way i came, the still small voice said , "Lo, I am with you always". Haha, i was laughing and crying at the same time... what a merry-go-round He led me - on top of the hill, thru the rain, to strangers in the weirdest places...back to where He's always been - up close and personal to me, for me. I was looking for God in all the wrong places... as i sat quietly in church the following morning, as a prelude to Christmas, the lesson was confirmed so sweetly in the Word preached....

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son and will call Him Immanuel, which means God with us.... Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23

For fotos click here

Hanoi Revisited

2011-07-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

10 yrs ago I remembered Hanoi as a rather dreary town. I first visited this capital city of North Vietnam with my husband . What struck me then was the presence of military soldiers; it was such a contrast to its very more lively counterpart in South Vietnam, Saigon. 10 yrs after, its caught up, esp in terms of tourist appeal. The soldiers have all but disappeared from the streets. Locals now know how to pander to the tourist $; they have even learnt to cheat gullibles. We learnt this the hard way the very first day we went walking about. I paid $21 for 3 slices of pineapples as my girl unsuspectingly posed for fotos wearing the vendor's hat and carrying her sling of goods. The other girl literally got her slippers torn off her feet and harassed into paying $10 for a slap of glue to stick the loose parts together! After those episodes I was the growling tigress, barking at every vendor who so much as dared come near us! But that aside, there were nice Viets as well, esp the ones at the hotel we put up in, who went to the extent of 'lending' us local currency coz our pockets 'dried up' temporarily.

And of coz cruising along Halong Bay on a boat was a memorable experience, albeit an expensive one. Stil if you are a nature buff like me, its just one of those things you must indulge in once in a lifetime. And hey, I found out I could actually do things I didn't tink i could do....like having to handle a kayak on my own, since everyone in the family had paired up, leaving me the odd one out, and gathering up enuf guts to jump off the ship ala Titanic style! Lesson of the day - an old dog can still learn new tricks!

To view fotos click here

They will carry the torch

2011-07-17T03:37:00.000-07:00

They are every parents' worry. We talk about them, despair over them, pray for them. And our hearts constantly wonder, Will they turn out ok? That's kids for you.
When my husband left this earth for his heavenly home 9 years ago, he left also 3 kids without a father to look up to. I know i could never be a father to them; i just dunno how. I am a mom, not a dad. And in my desperation, how often have i cried out ( I still do, to this day) to the Almighty, "God, You are the only Father they've got now, You are their Abba; please watch over them, please grow them up in Your ways."
I would be the first to admit i am not a perfect mum. I know sometimes i am too strict, but sometimes i am not strict enuf. I have watched my 'little birds' grow wings to fly, often with much trepidation of soul. Because I realised 1 thing early; much as i want to, i can't stop them from learning life's lessons on their own. It's like bicycling; every kid has to handle it by himself; no one can ride the bicycle for him. And yes, he has to fall sometimes to learn the hang of it; he will bump into things and get hurt. We can run alongside them, shout directions at them, try to hold the handle for them, fix a third wheel to steady them, but end of the day, we still can't ride it for them.
I don't think i am the typical mom either; i know some frens who are horrified at how i bring up my kids. They think i am way too lax, becoz i let them make their own decisions; i try not to impose my will on them. But I let them know I would be very disappointed, hurt, upset if they were to go ahead to do the thing that I disagree with them about. Certainly we have disagreements, sometimes very strong ones. And yes, sometimes they go their way against my wishes. That's the time I bang on heaven's door and pray for more grace and mercy and their Abba Father to guard them despite their wilfulness.
I try my darndest to train them up in the ways of the Lord by insisting on family altar time twice a week; just halfhour sessions studying the Bible and praying. I started this 9 years ago, it used to be 3x a week, but we have mutually 'negotiated' it down to 2x these days, becoz I know they chaff at this; which youngster wouldn't? But i tell them to do it for my sake, and i appreciate they make the effort. I know too well these sessions will have to stop one day... when i leave this earth.... when they move off into adulthood and lives of their own, which is why i feel keenly the need to impart as much as i can in the little limited time i have with them. Yet i have oft wondered if all these sessions make any difference in their lives; whether they are really paying attention even.
Well, it looks like I really have nothing to worry about on that score; it took an illegal rally to teach me to trust that God really holds my kids in His hands, and He will not let them slip. If not for them provoking me with questions that made me ponder, I would never have joined the Bersih demo on July 9th 2011, in which case i would have missed the lesson that God wanted to teach me through them. That it's easy enuf to say we love God, but when the crunch comes, are we willing to die for Him, if called to?
Beyond having to face and answer this question of my own faith, I am also reassured of one other important thing. My kids will be ok. If they can reason out concepts like justice and righteousness and boldly go ahead to do what is right, they will definitely be ok, even without me. I was the one with the doubts and misgivings. They were the ones who shamed me enuf to walk the talk, to stand up for what I claim to believe in.
My most constant prayer for them isn't for riches or job security or a good life. Its just 1 thing, that they know, love and follow after Jesus Christ, the Lord their God. There is no greater blessing, no greater treasure than this. A couple of months ago, I read out my will to the kids. I have nothing much in terms of earthly wealth to bequeth unto them, the only valuable inheritance i have to give them is the example of my faith; that i have lived a life worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him in all ways, submitted unto His will and bearing fruit for eternity. If they have caught onto these things , I am assured I have done my job as a mother; and with that I will be content - that they will carry the torch to light the paths of their generation and beyond.

"For you were once darkness, now you are light in the Lord; live as children of light" ...Ephesians 5:8

Truth is Inconvenient

2011-07-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

It's the first time in my life I joined a demonstration. Do I like demos? No way. Was I scared? Of coz; its no "walk in the park, picnic on the grass"; u know wat to expect when its been declared illegal and everyone is being warned by everyone else from the King to the church to well-meaning frens to stay home and be safe.

And really that was what i intended to do dutifully as a law-abiding citizen and obedient sheep; at least it was until i was challenged by my own kids with certain thot provoking questions like...Ma, where would the world be if Martin Luther King just prayed and didn't march? Ma, where were the Christians when 6 million Jews were systematically led to slaughter by an evil dictator? And even from my youngest teenager ... Ma, Malayan Union also got march for independence , you know? (gee, at least he's studying for his SPM correctly!) And I recalled myself, didn't Jesus cause demos everywhere He went - demos of God's power, grace, love, healing? Didn't the early church "turn the whole world upside down"? - all for a cause greater than themselves. Still i dithered, becoz I didn't "really" want to get involved in this messy business of demos; I was already figuring how inconvenient it would be; trying to get past road blocks, maybe having to walk a loooong walk into the city centre, besides what purpose would all that 'noise and clatter' serve, not to mention the risks involved... well, again it took my kid to pointedly tell me off (nicely) - whether or not the demo gets results isnt the point, Ma. Its simply whether you choose to make your stand in support of it. I guess its like voting - its your choice; even if the one you chose doesnt win, it's ok, you made your choice to vote this or that person becoz of the ideals he/she represents.

So there's that all-important word - choices. My kid asked me what made me change my mind last minute to join a rabble (read rebel) crowd. I guess the final straw was when I was told our weekly street-feeding for the poor/homeless had to called off becoz the food couldn't be brought in due to the road blocks all over the place. And that's when something clicked inside. I felt angry, angry at all the things that are happening in this land. Everyone knows, everyone complains, there are tons of emails floating around on all kinds of stuff which we shake our heads at and yes, certainly pray over. An email sent to me said to pray for good sense to prevail. Of coz we are to pray. Duh. Well, that's fine and good; only problem is you can only talk good sense to people who will listen to good sense.

At the end of the day, i had to answer myself 1 question: if i believed in justice and righteousness for all, how much am i willing to show it? Some frens sms'ed me that i was very brave to go out there, when i asked for prayer support for my family. My reply is I am not brave. Its just that there comes a time in everyone's life when each of us have to make a choice about the things we say we believe in - that's a very personal decision. Well, my day had come. Yet right up to the morning itself, i was still jittery. I woke early, couldn't sleep, and sought the Lord for confirmation. I was half-hoping He would keep silent, so I didn't have to go. But He did confirm. So i found myself smack in the midst of a crowd of I-dunno-how-many thousands, marching along with them on July 9, 2011. A day that will forever be etched in my memory....

A day when i saw total strangers of all ages, races and religions gathered under the skies and faced a big red monster truck firing tear gas just becoz the crowd was formidable in size. There were entire families, people from same kampungs, from outstation states, even someone on a wheel-chair. And it was total strangers who went all out to help one another, without any qualms or calls needed. When the tear gas started, and some took shelter in a car park, a man opened up the firehose reel there and sprayed water over everyone to wash away the sting. When people had to run into the bushes surrounding a private hospital, everyone was extending hands to each other to haul and push each other up the slippery slopes. With authorities chasing us all the way into a church compound, somebody opened up the back gate for people to climb over. Someone offered me salt to ease the throat. Another was handing out zip-lock bags, telling me, Aunty, better keep your handfone inside this, if not get wet by the rain, still another old man offered to share his umbrella with me - This is 1M in action, no need words or banners to proclaim it. But what shamed me personally was a non-Christian group who spontaneously started a prayer meeting in the heavy rain. I watched as people just stepped out from their shelters and ran to join them in the open.

Was there violence? Yes - tear gas, water cannons. That was about the only actual violence I saw in my group (I can't say what happened to other groups spread all over, becoz of the blockages which separated us) But well, if you wanna call making lots of noise and chants and singing Negara Ku and shouting Daulat Tuanku several times violence, i guess we were pretty violent. My group didnt have any 'famous faces' to lead, but whoever was shouting instructions we obeyed - so obediently we sat when told to sit on the road, walk when told to walk, regroup when told to regroup. (Of coz, we didnt need to be told when to run), so where's the violence? In fact when someone got a little bit too enthusiastic and started running down to the truck which was parked in front of us on the road , people were shouting at him to come back and not provoke the authorities. Violence?? Quite the opposite, there were some very happy people that day - the mamak stall-operators , McDs and 7-11 stores which dared to stay open - they were doing roaring business; did anyone bother to interview them about loss of income caused by rioters??? Did they get looted???

Was there inconvenience? Of coz. So we can put up with all sorts of traffic jams every 'normal' day of our lives and for this one day we say we are soooo sooo inconvenienced? The funniest thing is when we wanted to disperse, we couldn't! Talk about deliberate inconvenience. By 4 pm, most of us were tired, and all we wanted to do was go home and take a bath after being pelted with tear gas and soaked to the skin by rain . Someone was asking like typical M'sian, where got makan arr? Yet there was still that big red bully truck monster hogging the road, and they were not allowing anyone who looked M'sian thru the barricades. So unless we suddenly grew blond hair and blue eyes, we were stuck. I approached a policeman and asked if i could just walk thru alone. He was very nice and said yes, so hurray, off i trooped only to be stopped 2 mins later further down the road and turned back with a very sarcastic, "you orang buat kecoh, sekarang tahu rasa kecoh lah". Geez, what a sour lemon. So I had to take a very very long and roundabout way back to the LRT station, only to find it closed. Great... now all those who simply wanna call it a day can't get out of KL!! I am still wondering, hey, man, what's the logic? I thot the idea was not to let people gather around in 'illegal' assemblies; yet what do you expect people to do if you stop or hinder the very means that's meant to disperse them? - you get illegal assemblies at the LRT and bus stations some more lah! To be fair though, i have to tabik the police for being fair with all the opposing sides involved.

Was there politics? Of coz. But surely whether we like it or not, politics is politics. And surely concepts like justice and righteousness don't exist in a vacuum. There is supposed to be justice and righteousness in politics, in economics, in social affairs, even in private affairs; in fact they are meant to work in the very fabric of human life, isn't it? So how can we divorce these ideals from the realities of life? And I guess that's what I joined the rally for - to make my stand for ideals which are surely God-ordained for all of humankind. Others may join the rally for different reasons, rightly or wrongly, but that's not my concern.

Was it worth it? Yes. Being there on the spot exposed the falsity of many of my (our) facile assumptions. What has been 'manipulated' into our psyche is the threat of what-could-happen. And i realised, hey, its all hyped-up - The threat turned out as unfounded shadows. As it goes, from the behavior of the crowd, if only they had been allowed to make their 'noises' in a stadium, all the inconveniences could have been so much reduced and better-controlled.

Unfortunately we have been ingrained to fear violence, we assume all strife = violence and violence = bad. Therefore we will not get involved in any strife situation; we will pray for peace. Yet what is peace? As someone puts it Peace is not the absence of strife. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, slept in the midst of a terrible storm - that's peace, even tho strife was all around Him. At the height of it all, when people were running all over, and tear gas was stinging my eyes and throat, and I was wondering what if i get arrested, what if i get trampled in this rush? - I had His Peace. I faced the fear by His grace, and survived it. So did my kids, tho we were never together at all. My eldest was up close and personal to the front-line action, doing her reporter's beat, tweeting real-time reports into her office. My no.2 didn't even want to go with me. Ended up she had to walk all the way from/back to Sentral. (Hey, that's still better than the woman who walked from Mid Valley!)

I got back home, finally after they opened back the LRT at about 5.15pm. None the worse for wear and tear , praise God except for achy achy feet...... Looking back, I think perhaps above all, this experience is for me, a test of how prepared I will be when the day comes when God calls me to give up my life literally (not figuratively) for His cause, would I still balk at being "inconvenienced"??? Would I choose to "be safe" than run risks for His sake?? Ahh, million $ question. I think I am better prepared to answer it after July 9th 2011.

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it" - Matthew 16:25

Birthing a new baby

2011-04-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

1 year - that's how long it took to 'birth' Mutiara, my very first BM book. Its a beautifuul baby; but then everything born of God must be beautiful, yes! I give all the glory to God for surely He is the ultimate Author of this book.
Sure I have always had this 'thing' to write, even as a teenager. I still keep the cut-outs of my poems published in newspapers in those days when i was spouting lovey-dovey heart-wrenching prose of those emotional highs and lows of my teenagehood. Even then i have always had this dream of writing a novel one day that would hit the best seller list... ah, the stuff of romantic dreams of long ago days...what happened? well, i got married, the kids came, and somehow the dream got parked somewhere at the back of the brain-bank, marked "KIV". And then, my husband passed away, and in his will to me, he mentioned i was to write his memoirs; to assist me in this task, he left me tons of cassettes (hallo, in those days, we still used cassette player la) on which he had pre-recorded his thots on life, fatherhood, marriage, me, him... one time, i listened to a recording of the cries of our first baby - my eldest princess. After awhile, i decided it simply hurt too much to listen to all his collection; and so i left them aside to gather dust. I told myself i would get down to executing that part of his will when i retire and have nothing else better to do with my life... and so, the dream of writing got parked again into "KIV".

I guess it would hv remained parked forever in KIV, had it not been a dream born of God. Some 35 years down the line, He resurrected it in a most unusual form. He sent me an Encourager, a human angel i first met at an orang asli conference and then again when she came to preach at our church BM service. She approached me to write a Bahasa devotional for women. I blinked, who me? And then i thot again, why not? After all i have always wanted to write.... and so the dream grew wings.... looking back, i stand amazed at how God began that work in me even before i knew Him...

At the gila-gila age of 12, I took on the name of Christine, like most gila-gila teenagers of my generation; adding an "English" name was considered "kool". Of all the thousands of names I could have chosen, it had to be Christine. No other. 11 years after I called on the name of Jesus, I discovered Christine actually means follower of Christ. And i am reminded of God's Word in Psalm 139:15-16: My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How awesome it is that God had already even then laid claim to me, without me ever knowing it....

People are surprised i can converse and write so well in a language that is not my mother tongue. The funny thing is as a Chinese, i can't speak my own dialects well. ( Praise God i am learning now in my old age, as i sit listening to our Pastors preach in Cantonese every Sun morning in the Chinese service ) The secret of my fluency in Bahasa is even funnier - i fell in love at the tender age of 15, swooning head over heals over my BM tuition teacher, a Muslim. Ah, the throes of unrequited puppy love... he was my inspiration to sweat over Bahasa. I remember how disappointed he and I was when i got a 'mere' C3 in my MCE then. Thank God it was the temporary madness of teenage-hood and the gila cinta phase passed. But the good that came out of that - my skill in the language - stayed stuck in the brain cells. I didn't get to use the skill at all for the next 25 years of my life, but what God has planted stays, like a slowly germinating seed in the heart's soil, waiting for its time to sprout . And at age 50 it bloomed - Mutiara is the resulting flower. So today I can only thank God for His faithfulness, at what He started in me, nurtured and perfected it, true to His Word in Hebrews 12:2 , Jesus Christ is the Author and Finisher of my faith ...

I stand in humility because I can boast nothing that is mine about this book. I remember His Word in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. What else can i say? God would choose me from so long ago, when i was weak, foolish and base... and today He is the One worthy of all praise.

The only thing i can boast is mine about Mutiara is the blood, sweat and tears of the birthing process. The easiest part was actually the writing; the ideas came, though i had my moments of doubt as to what i should write that could take the reader through 180 days of meditating on God's precious Word. The hardest part was the most tedious; re-writing after my Encourager-turned-Editor slashed, added and reworded most liberally my very raw first draft. At first it hurt the ego; and i had to remind myself it's her job to edit and mine to obey, becoz it's God's book and it has to be THE best and that's why God sent her to me for that very purpose. But if i thot re-writing was difficult, the most difficult was yet to come - for the first time in my life, i knew what lay-out meant. And again i thank God He already prepared someone to do what I could never do on my own. My dear dear cell mate volunteered to undertake the most frustrating part; attending time after time to details like spelling, spacing, punctuation marks and all that most boring-est stuff that goes behind writing a book... this 'mid-wife' literally tore hair laboring with me and Ed to birth the baby. We even went thru panic attacks when the files 'crashed' towards the end, probably becoz of too many amendments. I was so afraid the 'baby' would abort!

Oh, how we prayed, and prayed and prayed. And God delivered end of the day. So I surrender this labour of my love unto the Lord, that it may bless every reader as He intends it to. To God be all the glory. I am looking forward to bearing more 'babies'. Indeed no. 2 is being conceived even now.... after all, my Master Jesus said,
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last - John 15:6

Bihar 2011

2011-03-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

Its been one fantastic trip. As our plane touched down onto KLIA ground,the past week spent travelling in Bihar, North India seemed almost surreal to me. This is the furthest north the missions team has gone to. 2 months ago when the call came asking who would be willing to go, in spite of the high expenses, I straight away signed up, recognizing it as the culmination of a vision given to me 9 years ago, that the gospel would be preached from south to north, from east to west of India. Especially as all reports indicated Bihar was reputedly the 'graveyard' of missionaries and even tho Bihar had a long history of various religions carried down from its past, I knew God was gonna work His resurrection power over this land and its people. I also sensed a new phase in my own personal walk with Him, for i found myself desperately crying out to die to self that Christ may live in me. So it was with an expectant heart that God was going to do a great work through the team that I went forth. And truly God is faithful to answer desperate prayer.
We flew into Kolkatta and then to Patna, the capital of Bihar, and then drove 6 hrs into the country side. It was a loooong drive indeed; becoz the road was jammed solid with heavy trucks on both sides. Never will i complain about KL traffic jams again; Bihar jam stretched some 60 km all the way.... we found ourselves bumping along road shoulders and short cuts into dust tracks across fields. It was absolutely back-breaking since there were 9 of us squeezed into a 4WD, together with luggage.
But all the discomfort counted as zero because the ministry was so so wonderfully blessed of God. For 6 days, every day, afternoons and nites we were running 2 public meetings all over the place. We would just set up 'stall' at road junctions, near open areas, (like public schools), under trees.... the local church mobile van carried only portable loudspeakers. All they needed was a guitar to start and as the sound of worship blasted out, people would start gathering around us... The youths were so talented they entertained the crowds with comedy skits. And as the Word of God was shared, people would respond. Especially at the last 3 nite rallies, which were held at the town 'padang' the crowds were huge. It was like a scene out of Jesus' days, they brought in the paralysed, the comatose and laid them out on mats. Hundreds of people would come up at the end of each service for prayer. And wonder of wonders, God worked miracles in their midst as people willingly called out the name of Jesus... many experienced healing just like that, as the power of God came and swept into and through hungry hearts. I was so so privileged to see a lame man arise and walk and a demon-possessed girl just fell by herself and was delivered. Many publicly testified there and then of their healing. I have never seen anything like this in all my 9 years of ministry in India. The anointing was so strong, thanks to a wonderfully talented pastor who traveled from another district some 9 hrs by train to join us as worship leader and translator. I had only 1 prayer every time - that the glory of God would come down... and He answered marvelously each time. His presence was so strong. We knew it was all His ministry, His work; becoz we really didn't even have to lay hands on the people. What a tremendous blessing for me to be there! I felt such a release; just speaking from the heart, no longer tied down to my notes. Truly Holy Spirit was at work, praise God. Before I left, a sister had given me God's word that everywhere I were to go, the land would turn green. Another had mentioned the glory of God coming down. How 'chun' His Word is. Everywhere I went, indeed life sprang forth from dry hard ground; truly this is the day Bihar is raised from the dead!
Right up till the last day in a Kolkata church, when we faced a somewhat hostile crowd who were celebrating the state 'holi' day (where they simply threw colored powder on everyone, much like the Thai water festival), God was with us all the way, granting us His protection, for we were let go unharmed.
We even managed to squeeze in an hour to visit a quaint Baptist church set up by foreign missionaries who laid down their lives in the land of India and William Carey's house, which stands to this day nearby one of the River Ganges' tributary.It was a sobering and humbling moment, reading the dedication/memorial plaques, recognizing the extent some saints of God are prepared to sacrifice their all for the Kingdom. Compared to them, what is the little that I do, coming as/when i can to this land that God has put upon my heart!

As i settle back into the routine of ordinary life back home and recall His faithfulness, how truly signs and wonders are to follow the preaching of His Word, all i can say is AWESOME GOD! To Him be all the glory, honor and praise.
"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." ... Jeremiah 33:3

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Alone but never lonely

2010-12-24T05:11:00.000-08:00

Its Christmas eve 2010. The Christmas tree stands quietly in the corner of the living room with me as its only admirer. The house is still. I was keeping my no. 1 princess company watching a re-run of Hannibal Lecter's disgusting killing techniqs as she waited for her 'date' to pick her up. My son was in his own world headphones stuck in his ears, eyes glued to the computer upstairs. My no.2 had already taken off much earlier with my car. Well, at least we had a family dinner together; for that i guess i should be thankful.

Altho these days such occassions are getting rarer and rarer. My freezer is still full of last weeks' stuff which i dont bother to cook since almost inevitably, one or the other will call last minute to say not eating in. All of my 3 kids seem to be living in different time zones from me; their nite becomes day and their days become nite. I see them for fleeting moments, if at all nowadays. Our family altar times studying God's word together are also being cut down and more often than not, gets postponed for one reason or another. And to think i expected them to stay at home more when both princesses broke up with their respective boyfrens some months back. Its turned out quite the opposite. I end up bemused; was it better then when they were 'hooked' up with at least a 'steady' or worse now that they are free and swinging single, as touted on their Facebook status??? They dutifully 'report' where and who they are going out with, but that doesnt help much really. Coz i still get up every now and then to check if they are all back in their beds. Sometimes i would wake every other hour, and when i see the lite still on in the living room, i would know one or the other is still out there somewhere. Sometimes i would hear the gate outside clang, and i would breathe a thank you God for bringing Your child home safely.
It doesn't help when i open the newspapers and every other day there is a report of some youngster/s getting killed in auto accidents at 3 am after a nite out. All the more reason i find my solace and comfort in constant prayer that our Father God would watch over these kids of His becoz i know very well i can't ever, or adequately enuf.
So what's a mom home alone to do on Christmas eve when all the 'baby' birds (who aren't so baby after all) fly the nest? I have done all my 'spiritual exercise' for the day; Bible, prayer, family session. So here i am, updating my blog which has been left unattended for quite some time. I have been so busy over the past weeks, even tho its supposed to be school hols, but i hv had to go back almost everyday to handle staff appraisals, thinking, planning for the new school term etc.
I look back on 2010 and I stand in awe of what God has done and continues to do in my life. Against my own initial reluctance, He promoted me to head Mighty Kids as principal. His Holy Spirit was my inspiration all the way as I finished writing my very first book in Bahasa which is now in the hands of the Editor and lay out designer. Prayerfully, it can be launched by Jan/Feb 2011. He expanded the street ministry i have been involved in ; by bringing in my own church to participate in the followup work of opening up a nite shelter, which has been in my heart for years. Indeed God is faithful and good .
Tonite for once i am at a loose end. I recognize i am entering another season of life. The world would say i am suffering from 'empty nest syndrome' but its actually more than a sense of missing them. I recall 9 years ago after the funeral, the aloneness of an empty bed without my husband beside me, knowing i would never see him again this side of earth. But as it was then, so it is now. In my aloneness, I know I am not lonely. For His promise is true...The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you ... Deutronomy 31:8 For God is with me; He is the ever faithful One, everlasting One, blessed God, eternal Savior, Light of my life.

God took me on holiday... off the beaten track

2010-09-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

When someone asked me if I was going to China alone, I didnt realise how prophetic it was when i uttered out, Yep, its just me - all alone with God. For the 7 days I was in Guilin/Kunming was as if God took me on holiday. Well, I guess if God blessed me with this free air tix, He has every right to direct the trip!Perhaps it sounds like I am just 'spiritualizing' everything, but as much as this was a very physical journey (I have never walked or climbed so much in my entire 50 years!), more than that it was a very spiritual journey with God as He unfolded along the way so many learning points, first of which was to...
obey God's prompting - As I passed by the $$ exchange counter at LCCT into departure lounge, I was wondering if I should change more $; but I shrugged the niggling thot thinking I shld be ok. Within 2 hrs of arrival in Guilin, I realised I was short of cash, having spent 1/2 of what I had brot on train tix to Kunming - certainly not a good start-- immediately I sms home for prayer... There was sufficient tho to get me to my 1st stop which was a very looong 4 hrs ride in 2 buses up to Longsheng, famous for their mountain rice terraces. On arrival at the foot, I was told it would be a 10 mins walk and offered a sedan chair ride up for a price. The cheapskate in me declined, as I figured, what's 10 mins walk... sap sap suey lah... here's the 2nd lesson..
Dont believe all that you hear - becoz the 10 min turned out to be a tortorous climb uphill over steep narrow steps and pathways, with heavy luggage to boot! Reminded me, in life, we really shouldnt just swallow everything that people say; only God's Word is Truth.
That aside, Longsheng is indeed very beautiful country, which made it well worth all the sweat. Somehow something about mountains always stirs my heart. I climbed to the highest viewing points early the next morning, marvelling at the fantastic view of row upon row of sculptured fields on the mountain sides. A sense of God's awesomeness hit me as I imagined how Moses would have felt alone on the mountain top with God. And it was on the highest point, literally out of the blue, that God met me up with a local guide who was leading 2 German tourists. He initiated a conversation and told me plainly to forget Guilin and head straight for Yangshuo, and that started me thinking; hmmm, could this be God's leading again?? Still I had a train to catch to Kunming first, and by providence this guide had 1 available space in his tour van to take me in, saving me 2 precious hours of travelling time back to Guilin train station... that's what I call a 'God-send'! Time enuf for me to locate a local bank to replenish my fast-emptying wallet. And from the 2 Germans i learnt a most valuable tip: the train station had a luggage dept where I could just dump my bags for a fee, so I could walk around unencumbered.
So it was onto the 2nd leg of my journey into Kunming, some 18 hrs train ride away. The 2 days I spent there again surfaced up many more learning points, first of which was that...
Proper communication is a must - We all know that's obvious, but in practise, how many of us really 'communicate' well? Kunming is a huge city; on arrival I called up the hostel I had booked and was given the name of a building to locate. But I neglected to ask its name and address, assuming that it was near that landmark. Result of incomplete and inadequate direction = 1 lost sheep in a very big city! But thank God He is ever the Good Shepherd - despite the initial blundering, I located the place, and still had 1/2 day to explore the city, which I thot should be a breeze. But it wasnt, which taught me a major lesson..
All things are indeed possible with God - What I had assumed it would be a quick walk in the park turned out to be a very long ardous climb up Kunming's Western Hill. The 6 km path led thru a trek of steps uphill much of the way. After the 1st 5 mins, I doubted very much I had it in me to finish it. As I huffed and puffed my way up, i found myself asking God, so what are You telling me this time?! He answered, When I am with you, you can do all things. I was reminded of the prophecy spoken over me there and then, of which I had 'complained' to Him several times that it was all too much for me to handle. Heaving my way up, I found my eyes stinging, not just with sweat, but with tears. Becoz He had chosen this way to show me indeed with Him, all things are possible, when it's His things. Indeed the higher i climbed, the harder the effort i put in, i saw stage by stage the reward - the view just grew bigger and better the higher I went. By the time I hit the summit, i could see 360 degrees of the entire city below me. 2 things kept me going the 2 hrs, trekking some 10 km over at least 1000 steps -
the promise of the view at the top - just like God's promises, the effort we put into this life of ours will be worth it
fellow travellers along the way - there were old, young, children, even dogs going up and down the same path; my heart rebuked me if old folks can move along with walking sticks and all, i should be ashamed even thinking of giving up!
So it was that I just focused my eyes on the next step in front of me, not bothering to look up at the many more facing me. Isn't it how that is with our lives? When God speaks His plans for us, we accept in faith, even if it appears impossible, inconceivable, even downright inconvenient; and we just go along with Him, 1 step at a time; and He will reward with the most fantastic results at the end of the journey.
The lessons didn't stop there. As i rested my aching feet in bed that nite, I prayed healing and more strength for the days ahead. By the morrow, my feet were well and ready to go on to the Stone Forest, a 3 hrs bus ride away. Again lessons were waiting in store for me; first of which was basic...
Don't be too quick to run ahead I had been told to catch bus 22. Happily i hopped onto the first one that came along, only to discover it was going the wrong (opposite) direction; which cost me an extra hour travelling time wasted. Same with life, ya.. when we don't bother to check where we are going in life, we will end up wasting it... By the time I arrived at the Stone Forest, it was mid-day, filling up with the usual noisy bunches of tourists. I took off on my own and found:
It's ok to go against the flow - whereas the tourist crowd took the easier less strenous way of hitching a ride on the tram to round the huge (and yes, it is huuuge) forest, I chose to walk and got to poke into places that the tram skipped. Isn't life is more fun that way too, instead of just following the crowd, if we allow God to take us aside individually, we will experience things that are out of the ordinary.
It's ok to get lost - thats the flip side of wandering off on your own. Becoz i avoided following the crowd, i ended up lost. After a while it just seemed like never ending steps going up,down, down, up in between stones and more stones. I was getting a little panicky as I prayed for God's angel to get me out..and behold, right in the middle of a deserted track, there sits a little old (58 years old to be exact) lady, who turned out to be a guide, esp stationed on standby in that remote spot, i guess, for lost sheep in distress like me! How reassuring it is to know no matter how lost i get in life, i have a great Shepherd over my soul to lead me home! and that's another related lesson in there...
It's ok to trust the expert - the hostel had given me directions , yet different people at the ticket counter, bus station and even on the street, told me it was wrong. Still I stuck by the word of the hostel people, trusting they were the experts who shld know - and they were right. So it is with our lives, when we know the One who is right, we can trust His Word to lead us in the correction direction, even if others say contrariwise.
Its ok to change plans - at the Stone Forest, God confirmed this for me in a most dramatic way. On one of the plaques was a cryptic inscription - you are sent here as an angel of God, not a traveller alone. Immediately i knew the word was for me. That more than a physical holiday, God had other plans in store. And there and then, i decided to change plans; instead of staying in Guilin, i wld head straight for Yangshuo, even if it meant losing the deposit for the room i had booked there. So it came to pass by the end of this trip, God opened up opportunities for me to share Jesus with 3 persons; all in broken Mandarin, 2 on the train ride and 1 on my final day, in the taxi to the airport. This to me was truly the highlight of my holiday. My only regret is not being sensitive enuf to 'close' the encounter with the taxi driver, who was so open and ready to listen. On hindsight, I kicked myself; I should know better, she had already informed i was the 4th person to tell her about Jesus..but i failed to pick up the cue; like a fisherman who got 'lost' in the 'fishing' and forgot to 'pull in' the net. So it is when we fall back on our own ways of the flesh, and fail to follow God's leading... I can only pray God right my wrongs in His grace and mercy for me and this precious soul...
Indeed every step of the hundreds of kms i trekked and bussed my way through, I have felt the nearness of God's presence with me. I had lots of time - to pray and to read His Word; much more time than I would have had at home. He taught me big lessons, small ones in events appearing so simple, yet bearing meanings so profound. Even as i travelled, l realised:
Our life is a journey of 'markers' we will pass through time and again. This sunk in on my 2nd day in Kunming as I was travelling along the same road, boarding the same buses, I learnt it pays to be alert to watch out for the familiar landmarks, so I could get off the nearest spot to get back to the hostel. So it is everytime we read His Word, we pray... these are every Christian's 'boundary stones', landmarks that keep us going in the correct direction.
God truly provides - I was so hungry at 1 time, switching 3 buses on a 4 hour ride to get to the famous Jiu Xiang caves outside of Kunming, I had skipped b'fast and lunch. I told God, if only He could bring some food on board... a woman stepped onto the bus selling fresh hot corn on the cob.. talk about immediate answer to prayer!
But God saved the best for last; He knew there was no way I could get round Yangshuo by myself,tho i naively thot otherwise, so He had already sent me the guide on the first day up on Longsheng Mt. When i contacted this man, he charged me a very cheap $200 for the day, which included all admittance tix for a private river cruise, a novel experience of Yangshuo water cave and a scooter ride round the country side to the unlisted off the normal touristy spots. As i floated down the Li river in the morning on an open raft, marvelling at the karst mountain landscape stretched out before my eyes, (it seems there are 20,000 mts in the region alone) I heard His voice in my ear... you have seen the works of man, you have seen the works of My hand, you have climbed mountains, gone into valleys and caves, now you are coming back to the living waters - the Source of all things.... How fitting it was that this trip should end with water; and I was moved to pray the river of God to flow all over the land of China.
The climax was the adventure into the water cave, an underground cavern filled with the most fantastic stalagmite/stalactite formations culminating in a dip into 3 different natural 'swimming pools' -1 ice-cold, 1 mud pool and 1 hot sauna - a totally out of this world experience. As i lay there, i was thinking - that's what the Christian life should be all about... a fantastic experience that's full, varied and exciting!
There is yet a final lesson to be learnt on the very last nite of my stay. I had booked a ticket to see the famous Liu Sanjie show, reputed to be an extravaganza of Chinese tribal dances, weaved into a love story, and performed by thousands of dancers, on an open air stage built on the waters of the Li River itself. The viewing stands could seat thousands as well. I was very much looking forward to it, but unfortunately the rain which had started in the evening continued unabated. They gave us plastic sheet raincoats to wait out the rain, but eventually the show was cancelled because of safety concerns over flashing lightning across the skies. I guess that's how sometimes we regret certain things that did or didn't happen in our lives.
But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, I would be content if i am able to say like the Apostle Paul, 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.' (2 Timothy 4:7)

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever... Psalm 118

For fotos click here

Turning half a century

2010-05-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is it; finally i hit the big 5-0, i have crossed the half century mark! 50 years of life, and i know i will never see another 50. The 1st b-day sms came from my eldest princess; she had taken the trouble to send it off in the early morning hours to make sure hers would be the first to greet me when i 'on' my phone. When i came downstairs,i noticed a huge Strong's Bible Concordance on the dining table. I thot it must be that girl again, leaving her things all over the place, tho i was telling myself, hmmm, this girl is really serious into Bible study,using fierce Concordance all...then i walked into the kitchen to be greeted with a sinkful of ants and a melting fridge, becoz someone had not bothered to wash up properly and neglected to close the fridge door... I had a good mind to wake up everyone there and then to give them a lecture about household chores. That is till i noted a small piece of paper on the Concordance, and opened the 1st page and read all the 3 kids b-day wishes for me.... all the irritation, anger, etc melted then. Esp when i read what my no.2 wrote on the present -dearest mama, I dont know what this is, but i am sure you'll like it... ha ha. How timely to be reminded that life is really more than dirty sinks and left-open fridges... I knew the Concordance was expensive. I had eyed it many times before but decided too expensive, and had got myself a cheaper one. I had only mentioned this to my no.1 when we were attending Bible class together last week. And here it was, some more in large print!
So i was in pretty good mood when i left for work on my bday morning. And at school, i had another nice surprise - the teachers had all shared to buy me a bouquet of pretty pink roses... soooo sweeet... i hvn't received roses in some 9 years already, since my hubby left.
The treats continued... my no.2 got tix for a live stand-up comedy show featuring Jit Murad and Joanne Kam for the family at nite. The only trouble was she didn't know the reputation of Joanne Kam, well- known for her risque jokes.The tix weren't cheap either, so against my own inclination we went anyway; after a good dinner treat by my brother. The theartre was packed, small as it was; tho none of us really enjoyed the jokes. Personally i felt poking fun at man's reproductive organs and treating sex as casual lust wasn't particularly funny.
Anyway, to wrap up the celeb,since it was also mother's day, i opened house for a pot-bless dinner on the following nite with my close church 'kaki'. We laughed, ate, prayed, yakked... It didn't matter that my dinner plates didn't match,or that i forgot to put in the key ingredient for my signature dish, so we had jiu hoo char without the jiu har; didn't matter that the cake was a bit smashed up, becoz it couldn't fit into my small fridge; didn't matter i dint have matches in the house, so we just had the cake w/out the candles.... ha ha, i just felt so so blessed...
at age 50, I have the best of everything... the love of God, the love of family, the love of my dearest brothers and sisters in the faith. And i realise that's God's plan for everyone actually; that's what human life is all about; whether we are 5,15 or 50. Thank God, thank God I am experiencing this wonderful, wonderful life of blessing beyond all the things that this world can offer me; this is IT!

For Jesus said, " The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full"... John 10:10

New Delhi 2010

2010-03-09T01:16:00.000-08:00

My heart is still in India. Arriving back home early in the morning, i was half disoriented , weary in body, but still on a spiritual high over the 10 days ministering in the land that has come to mean so much to me. This trip was special to me, for it meant the fullfilment of a prophecy received 8 years ago when i first stepped foot into India. When my feet landed in New Delhi, it was like a dream come true; a vision come to pass.
Our team was small, only 3 of us M'sians and our Indian Pastor connection. We were practically living out of suitcases in cheapo budget hotels , travelling up some 100 km out of New Delhi to cover 3 towns in some 5 days; we were running around so much i could hardly keep track where we were day after day. And it was so cccccold... i could literally blow fog out of my mouth in the mornings! But despite all the inconveniences, i felt so so blessed, seeing how mightily the hand of God moved in all our meetings everywhere we went. Every 1 of the prophecies I had received for this trip before we embarked on it literally came to pass.... what a faithful God. For once I could stand up and preach in perfect confidence, not relying on/fretting about notes, even when messages were changed on the spot. Everything flowed so so well, even in spite of hiccups here and there.
All the monetary loss i suffered as a result of the house break-in before i went isn't worth an iota compared to the spiritual blessings that God showered me with in India. So all i can say is praise God, praise God, praise God...
My kids told me they managed to survive without my money, coz they had forgotten the new place where i had stashed the cash on hand for them...thanks to a human angel who replenished over and above the angpows they had lost in the burglary... ha ha, that's how faithful our Abba Father is....

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised... Psalm 145:3

For pix, check out this link

BreakIn

2010-02-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

Never thot it would happen to me (heck, isn't that what everyone thinks!), but it did. Some petty thief broke into this old house which has been my home for donkey years without any mishap, ransacked all the rooms and made off with all our cash and 2 cameras. And that with guards stationed 3 houses away by the side of my house. Go figure that one out... so much for gated, guarded and closed communities, makes me seriously re-consider whether to keep on paying good money when the very thing that they are supposed to guard against happens right under their noses! Tho, as my no. 2 princess says, its hard to blame them when the thief broke in thru the back gate. But then what good are those high fences built across our back lanes with part of my money for?! Hmmm, i knew right from the beginning, no guards, no barricades, no human scheme can really stop evil from attacking.
And attack it was, I am certain ... happening as it did, 3 days away from my India missions trip. I just thank God He protected us from worse harm. No one was in the house when it happened, all the family passports and important official documents were not taken. It's only money and things of the world that was lost- and that can be earned back and replaced anytime.

Still it hurt; any loss does, i guess. And in dealing with the hurt, i learnt something else; which just goes to prove God's word is true: that in everything He works for good for those who love Him according to His purpose. The break in wasn't a random bad-luck thing; i don't believe in luck, good or bad; i believe God has a reason for allowing things to happen in our lives, good or bad. But it was only a couple of days later, when i took that hurt in prayer to Him, that the lesson hit me. And it came only when a dear fren showed up at my gate directly after work the day she heard about the incident in the morning and handed me an angpow, insisting i use it for the missions trip that I was going for. It wasn't a big amount of cash. But what struck me was her heart. She of all people, she who needed money more than i, she who had bigger problems in her life to handle... here was someone who sacrificed her much needed little to bless me. I was truly humbled; I didn't expect this at all.

I had only informed close family and cell mates about the incident. I am thankful for all the prayers that have gone up to heaven on our behalf. Yet it is this little packet that brot tears to my eyes, when i recognized the bigness of the heart behind the smallness of the gift. Truly it speaks volumes more than the most saintly or powerful prayers offered. This was a prayer lived out in action. And i remembered how Jesus reserved the highest praise for a poor widow who gave all out of her poverty compared to the rich guy who gave out of his richness.

This gift coming as it did when i was struggling with the hurt, eased the pain of the loss, not becoz of its quantity, but becoz of its quality. And I learnt something else as well. Many times we are very quick and sincere to offer sympathy to others who suffer. But it stops there; most of the time. Its not that such gestures aren't appreciated; of coz they are, and of coz no one is obligated to go beyond that. We all have our own lives to carry on, and its perfectly understandable. I went thru this with my husband; after the condolences and the funeral everyone goes back home. That's to be expected. So it is with me as well; every Sat I minister to people on the street with problems much too big for me to solve; sometimes i feel so helpless; all i can do is pray for them and go back to my own comfy home.

...A few hours after my fren dropped by, someone else called me up and asked me point blank if i was really ok and how much was stolen; in not so many words financial help was being offered. And my heart thanked God that He would remind me there are people who go beyond the norm; not many, but 2 within 1 day restores my faith that there are human angels walking around with hearts of gold.

And having gone thru the experience, i would want to behave a little more like that. Instead of just offering tea and sympathy to someone in pain, i will also be asking, God, what else do You want me to do to help this person a little bit more?

"....Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?... James 2:16

Reunion

2010-02-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

I learnt another of God's truth this CNY 2010 - when you are faithful in the little things, He will bless you in all things. When my dear bro mentioned he wasn't making the long trip balik kampung to Alor Star this year , I groaned. That would mean so much inconvenience to us, having to drive back ourselves in the old Proton, with none of us knowing the way around AS. The kids grumbled; i was in half-a-mind not to go back, but remembering how I had committed 9 years ago to make up for my past 30 years mistake in forgetting my family there , I decided we would all go anyway. And so it was on the eve, early (well, we thot it was early anyway) at 530 am, we started the drive back... only to find hundreds of other smart-alecks who had gotten up as early as us, all jamming up the h'way out of KL heading up north. Thank God the money invested in the kids' driving lessons proved its profitability; the 2 princesses took turns at the wheel, and finally hit AS 6 hrs later,(which was still much earlier than we expected)by mid-day. We even had time to shop around in the local mall, before somehow bumbling our way to my sis' place. Finding our way around AS for the next couple of days we were there wasn't as hard as i feared actually; thanks to God's angels (human and otherwise), we only got lost like 3 x, and no, we didn't end up in Perlis, so that's good!
There was the usual obligatory dinners, lunches, greeting faces i couldn't attach names to and giving away angpows to this, that and the other's kid/s - nothing new really. I didn't even get much chance to speak to my sisters, becoz the eldest was busy with her own schedule, the 2nd with fussing over cooking and her own daughter's family down from JB. And apart from my younger niece, who was a 'new' Christian, without my big pastor bro around, none of them wanted to go to Sunday church with us. So we pretty much did our own thing for the 2 days we were there. But but but... God works beautifully when we least expect it....
I found short but most precious snippets of time to connect with my niece's family from down south , for the very first time, I sensed a warming up of the relationship. Most times in the past, it was just hi/bye. This year, her youngest kid was the catalyst that brot the adults together... the normally reserved husband was so cordial; we joined in playing his fireworks, he even sportingly went out purposely to get ice cream and beer for my boy to try. (well, better he try under the safety of mama's eye, rather than elsewhere right!)It's a shame the non-Christians in my family haven't had pleasant experiences of Christians within the family circle. As I tell the kids, nothing shows up the sincerity or hypocrisy of Christianity as much as our daily conduct; and that is why we go back every year, to be a living testimony of God's love and goodness to others within the family. Not that we are perfect; but we try to walk the talk of being loving, respectful, filial and yet not compromising our faith to be different becoz we believe in a God who is the only Way, Life and Truth. Besides as i always say, there are bad Christians, there are bad Muslims, there are bad Buddhists, but that doesn't at all make God bad. It's people who are bad; that's the universal truth, unfortunately we get it all confused when we dare judge God by the people who profess Him.
Anyway, there is nothing i can do to change other people's behavior or perception , for none of us can control other people's lives, but I can pray and I can choose how I behave, to portray a good witness of my faith, as Christians are all called to.
Which I guess is really the message I have been tasked every time i head back for CNY ... both for the Christian and non-Christian members in the family. God gave me the opportunity , for once, to meet up with my 2nd bro alone to talk about heart-stuff. I guess its the rare family that has got everybody loving everybody else; mine is no different; its hard to reconcile years of hurt done against each other, to forget about who is right or wrong. We all struggle with issues of anger, unforgiveness and refusal to let go. Every year i go back, its with 1 dominant prayer in my heart; that God would work a miracle in the lives of my family to bring them together in the love of Christ and the love of each other.So I do what i can,the little that i can, as my bro puts it biblically, to be a peace-maker - since that's what true reunion is all about really.
And talking of reunions of another kind, even on a last-minute detour off into Penang, God keeps building relationships... instead of heading home to KL, the kids wanted to stop over Pg, if possible for 1 nite, to go to the beach. I was about to give up after searching out 4 hotels - all full house. At the 5th stop, lo and behold, right in a fantastic location (just off Gurney Drive) , in a place aptly called Good Hope Inn, there was... 1 last room available for just 1 nite, at an-impossible-to-get price considering the festive period. Ha, talk about God's blessings and favor! And it gets better - it always does when God's in the picture... we managed to meet up with my husband's aunt (whom we haven't seen in like donkey years), and her son, (also down from KL for CNY) who treated us to a most sumptous hotel buffet lunch.
And that's not the end... down at Miami beach, our fave spot, we bumped into a very very old fren - David the illiterate beach boy who's like a practical brother to my husband in those long ago days when they went fishing together as little kids, going out to sea. He was the one who took me out in the boat my husband bought for him , to scatter his ashes into the Pg sea after the funeral. That's some 9 years ago; much has happened since then. The boat named after me is gone now. Miami beach was hit by the tsunami; but is since re-built. And David... he's older, sadly he's no longer with the wife and kids, he shows me his IC now with a Muslim name. But he's still as black, his teeth are still as white, and his smile still as welcoming to us as those days. And i tell him, no matter what name other people call him, God knows his name is David, i remind him who he has been named after in the Bible - a king no less, the ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ; he grins and nods... he understands what i m trying to tell him without so many words ... that God still loves him, that no matter how much he has messed up his life, God's just waiting for him to return. He keeps telling us we must come back for a longer stay, and he will take us out once again to Monkey Beach to enjoy some fishing, snorkelling, camping and BBQ . And yes, i am sure we will...the kids are looking forward to that ...
Back in KL, as we visit the rest of our relatives , again I am struck by that word - relationship. It doesn't matter that every year, we go to the same places, see the same people, do the same thing all over again... we exclaim over how this, that or the other person has grown, we exchange notes on what we've been up to, we wonder at how fast time flies, and its another year past, we wish each other well till the next CNY... behind all these mundane activities of the festival, I see God's hand glue-ing, repairing, restoring, expanding relationships, cementing them in the blood of His own Son, Jesus who came to be that bridge that reconciles everyone back to Him. That's His business, which He makes our business, as Jesus puts it...

...."You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven...." Matthew 5:14-16

For pix of CNY 2010, check out this link

Makeover

2010-02-08T02:44:00.000-08:00

Can't believe that's me, all dolled up... it's such a novelty, being 'made over', i am like a giggly teenager trying on her first blusher and mascara, heh heh. It's been years since I last 'painted' my face. Nowadays its only a quick touch of eyebrow pencil and lipstick before I step out the door; having thrown out my makeup set long ago, i actually need to borrow from my kids if got formal occassion that needs something more elaborate than that.
But this was the full works, complete down to false eyelashes and hair stylist thrown in. Nope, it's not a heavy date, it's not someone's wedding, it's not a special occassion... just a photo-shoot for an article on women who have survived to be published in Her World, which my eldest princess talked me into doing.

She was tasked to find women who have survived traumatic life experiences, like death, disease, bankruptcy, accidents , abuse ... all the untold tragedies of life which happen to human beings everywhere everyday. I had recommended her one of our kindy teachers who just went thru a mastectomy for removal of a cancerous breast to be one of the interviewees. And then the kiddo asked me if I could tell my story of dealing with my husband's death too. So, since she had like 2 days to get the assignment done, this mama couldn't not help, right. Anyway i figured if what i say can help bring some cheer, some hope to someone who could be facing difficult situations, why not...

And that's what got me this make-over tingy over 2 hrs at a studio one evening. Seated by my side was a famous M'sian artiste - Ning Baizura - no less, and around me walked skinny beautified waifs who were there for their own foto shoot. I felt most certainly out of place...i was sure they were wondering what this old aunty with white hair is doing dolling up, ha ha. By the time they were thru with my face and my hair, i couldn't recognize myself. It was... dramatic, to say the least, tho I must confess my hair felt like wires held together with so much gel, and my eyelids felt like they had wings (the poor girl working on me couldn't find eyelashes to mascara, so she stuck on a pair of really curly obviously false ones heh heh!)

But the worst was yet to come. Posing for the shoot was a torture. I can't understand how models do it, putting up with facing the ever-flashing camera and blinding lights this, that and 1001 other ways. Plus i suspect they must use cement to plaster the smiles on. I was so awkward; the lady kept telling me to relax, look confident.... duh, how do you do that when every 2 mins, you are bombarded with instructions to put hand here, don't bend your knees, step back, step front,stick head out, pull stomach in, aiyoh yoh.... thank God they were satisfied after about 1/2 hour strutting and some 30 shots later. My poor colleague had to endure 2 changes of clothes and 70 shots! By the time they let me walk out, my eyes were smarting, my body ached from all the physical acrobatics... i was pooped..(it figures... old aunty mah)

I got home, and just for the fun of it, kept the make-up on till dinner to show the kids... they freaked out. My son hated it, my 2 girls at least were slightly more complimentary. And I had such a tough time cleaning all the muck off. I tell myself, I like being old aunty me better, and I thank God I don't have to put on any faces for Him, other than the one He gave me in the first place, because

...." I am fearfully and wonderfully made; His works are wonderful (that's me, in the original), I know that full well." .... Psalm 139:14

A M'sian returns...

2010-01-12T02:19:00.000-08:00

When I saw Helen's mail in my in-box, i knew something was up. Helen is not the type to email... she always says she doesn't know how to fiddle faddle with her PC - its a complete mystery to her apparently... so for her to email is most unusual to say the least... and indeed, it was to be a rare ocassion - she was headed back to sunny M'sia and stopping over a couple of days in KL, for once. That had me scrambling to somehow pull together a gathering of whoever are in KL to welcome our dear grande dame home. So it was, that on a Sunday nite, 2 guys and 4 gals from the BM/HS gang met up with her, and with each other. Ha ha, as i said, it takes a homecoming M'sian to get local-ites to gather!
Helen is... well, Helen. She hasn't forgotten her Hokkien, despite all her years in Aussieland, notwithstanding her definite 'ang mo kau' accent. The couple of hours we sat gathered around a table of KL's famous (ie famous to all except me, the 'katak dibawah tempurung' who doesn't venture out much, and definitely not to such 'hi-fi' places) Sky Bar on the 33rd floor of a hotel whizzed past much too quickly. So we ladies just had to plop ourselves down on the lobby cushions for some 'extra time'. If not for the fact that some of us had to work the next day, i venture we would still have been sitting around till the counter staff chased us out!
For me, it was also a really once-in-a-blue-moon chance to see the 2 guys; and meet their wives and Hock Seng's 3 pretty princesses. As we recalled the names of the others, it was with a tinge of nostalgia in my heart, remembering our school years, when all we had on our agenda was exams and pimples.
Now, i can only guess at how full some of our lists are - probably can churn out spread-sheets galore! And so we say we have no time; got so many 100001 things to do. Actually surely time has always been there for all of us. God has always given 24 hrs a day to each of us; no less no more than when were 15, as now when we are 50. So really its merely a matter of choice what we do with those 24 hrs. I could spend it getting bogged down with worries about my kids, my job, my watever... or I could spend it getting focused on the things of God . I could either work an extra hour (doing stuff, more of which will still be there tomorrow, and never is finished anyway), or pray an extra hour instead (which however will not add anything to my earthly bank account). The first may earn me a promotion up the corporate ladder, (and with it, more stuff to do ); the latter blesses my heart with the peace of God that transcends all human understanding.
I made my choice 8 years ago when Jesus knocked on my door...someone once quizzed me, how is it that when everyone aims to climb up the ladder, i appear to be climbing down. Ahh, i tell this fren of mine, you see, we are climbing different ladders....

..."So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal"...2 Cor 4:18

Countdown to 2010

2009-12-31T19:15:00.000-08:00

This time round, the year end hols seems to be such a 'rush-y' one for me. Or maybe i must be getting older and slower so much so i am still trying to catch my breath after greeting 2010 in church on 31 dec, the last day of 2009??? What with school training, Taiwan trip, street ministry work, thanksgiving dinners, Christmas celebration with the orang asli and Indonesian brethren, it seems like the days just flew by... here i am already in January 2010, and tomorrow, i will be back to work again...

As i roll over the past 2 months 'countdown' in my mind, i hv got mixed feelings...
I am so grateful for God's many blessings thru out this year; the highlight of which must be my boy's baptism on the last nite of 2009 - the perfect icing on the cake on top of the 6As and 1 B results of his PMR( which its only by the grace of God that he managed, for the minimum studying he put in of his own effort!!)Long have i prayed that he would take this public step of obedience to God's command. And as i watched him 'dunked' into the baptism pool,this mother's heart is finally at peace, that it is done... all my immediate family has now publicly unequivocably acknowledged Jesus Christ our Savior, Lord and Master. What greater joy, what greater blessing can there be than being secured in His love, knowing for sure we are God's precious children, part of His great worldwide family of Christ-ians, and part of the multitudes that will appear together in heaven on that final day of reckoning, when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is indeed King and Lord of all...
Yet, despite all the festivities of the season, there is a tinge of sadness in my heart; for those who haven't experienced or dont want to experience such great blessing... I see the faces of the street people I minister to every Sat, i remember the long list of frens and other family members i pray over daily, i know there are billions more all over the world who have never known the One who came to save them. And my heart grieves; as God Himself surely grieves, for those who have not chosen to come back to Him....
Over the month of December, i saw many Christmas trees... different shapes, sizes, all beautifully decorated of coz. But as I admire them, there is 1 other tree that comes to my mind. A huge, ugly tree, shape of a cross. That tree was raised on a hill top more than 2000 years ago; on it was hung not whimsy pretty decorations, but the bruised and broken body of the Savior of the world in public demonstration of God's great love for mankind. That tree stands tall in my mind's eye; and i take consolation that becoz Jesus bore it, died hung on it but rose alive 3 days later , there is hope for man to be saved.
So as 2010 begins another chapter in the history of the world, i thank God not just for the blessings that He can (and does) give , not just for what He can do, but above all, for who He is - our loving compassionate merciful Father, who wishes none to perish but all to come to repentance and everlasting life - and what He has already done - provided Jesus as Redeemer and Savior of our souls.

"...Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree..." Gal 3:13

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where heaven meets earth...

2009-12-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

Taipei was a blast, tho a rather short one. I never knew Taiwan had so much to offer the tourist; now thanks to a dear fren who palmed off her unused ticket on me, I got to spend 3 1/2 days in the land where heaven meets earth (or so she tells me ). Now i know why she likes going back.. Taiwan's got everything for everyone - shopping, sights, food... wat else can a gawky-eyed tourist ask for?! I actually nearly missed my flight.. thanks to an express bus which wasn't quite express enuf, the gates had closed 10 mins before i rushed up to the counter... but thank God the man behind it was in good mood and let me thru, just in time to present myself at boarding gate.
My first impression of Taipei after hopping on board their city bus shuttle on arrival was bleh, how drab and drabby it is.. coz the buildings were old, and gray, and flat, and it was drizzling and cold and cloudy.. But first impressions are deceiving (should hv learnt that by now, you wld think!) By the time i checked into the budget hotel, my eye balls were glazed over trying to take in the crowds of people, shops, sounds, etc etc.
God was really good to me; He kept the worst of the rains till my last day . The rest of the time was refreshingly cold cold cold. I was ill-prepared for the freeze tho, so had to don 2 T-shirts out, ha ha, never believe everything you read on the Net; it said 19 degrees, i thot that was tolerable .. instead it plunged down to 15!!. I did the mandatory city tour on my own, hopping aboard bus and MRT, only got lost once (heh heh,going wrong direction )... Taipei transport is super efficient and so clean; people actually Q to board and bus drivers announce approaching destinations; tho of coz it made little sense to a white banana like me... still with a smattering of broken Mandarin, Hokkien and sign language, i managed to find my way around. There was so much variety, so much stuff I ended up not knowing wat to buy, so i decided to forget about the shopping, and concentrate on the seeing...
And the seeing was best, especially in the country side.. i registered for 2 out-of-Taipei tours, and enjoyed them thoroughly; it was well worth the money. Spending 1 day ooo-n-aah-ing the fantastic Taroko gorge (supposedly one of the wonders of Asia) where at one spot, looking up at the sky, it appears as if heaven really does meet earth! The other tour was to the coast and up to Chiufen, a hill village which used to be an old gold/coal mine . I thot I hv seen sea in M'sia, but you aint seen nothing until you see the real ocean.. I saw a 'small' sample of the Pacific ocean, and its... mindblowing. Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery just at that point, so didn't get many shots.
What struck me as we wound our way up the hill were, of all things, the cemeteries. Cut into the side of the hill were little 'houses', not the drab tomb stones of our M'sian Chinese graves, but really elaborate and quite sizable structures , with colorfully painted designs on their roof tops and walls. My tour guide commented must make sure the dearly departed have a nice house even in death. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him there's a much much more beautiful house in heaven waiting for those who know how to get hold of the keys to enter!
Tho a part of me wished i could explore more, but by the end of the 3rd day, honestly, i was already home-sick. People say i shld have gone with some company instead of alone, but its not really that. I hv no problems travelling alone; tho i am surprised everybody seems to think me weird for doing that. The only disadvantage is i hv to foot all the bills myself and i can't eat all the food i wanna eat since no one to share with, hee hee . It's just that after 3 days away, I was so happy to be greeted with a welcome home greeting in Engleesh as we landed, and i never knew i could appreciate hot air so much as i stepped out of the LCCT terminal!... Simple things that jolts you into recognizing that home is still home.
As i settle back into the old familiar routine of life, my heart is full of gratitude, remembering i have a home which God Himself has prepared waiting for me, one which surpasses any and all earthly homes, and therein I shall dwell, secure in His goodness and His mercy...
....Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands... 2 Cor 5:1

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Something good out of something lousy

2009-11-14T23:24:00.000-08:00

And it all started with cendol pulut.. what was supposed to be a short drive to Penang took us 10 hours...... well, actually it started when a local budget airline (supposedly the best in the world) messed up our family annual holiday trip. We were booked to go to Manado, Sulawesi for 3 days, but discovered to our shock, only on the way to the airport that the plane had left w/out us, becoz of a reschedule which wasnt informed to us beforehand. So, there we were, with all our bags packed and nowhere to go for the next 3 days..... but i guess God has a way of turning something good out of something lousy... the family council decided finally to head up to Penang instead. (the younger 2 had to be 'bribed' with a promise of shopping tho!) Truth be told i wasn't that eager to go, but no. 1 princess insisted we go somewhere, anywhere... and i m glad she did... coz we all had an unexpectedly grand time... thanks to a handy little thing called GPS....
Which my bro was fiddling with... i was most impressed by the gadget... his was a hi-tech version, got ultra sultry voice to alert which way to go ..plus listings of food and places of interest... so it was that Ms GPS directed us to cendol pulut somewhere in a little kampung called Simpang Pulai off the NS h'way..
It was really littel, and really way out; actually on the road to Camerons. Just a nondescript hut, literally by the road side. Makes you wonder how on earth it got listed on a sophisticated GPS!! But it was gooood. And so started our free-n-easy drive... guided by Ms GPS who directed us next along a bumpy, dusty earth trail to an off-the-track hot springs enclave in the middle of nowhere...
This wasn't the well-known tourist spot which charged a fee for entry. This was absolutely wild, free and all for us only (since it was a week-day).. we had such a fun time dipping alternately in the hot pools and the cold rushing waters of the river... beats any man-made jacuzzi.... and the weather was just perfect even tho it was mid-day, the clouds provided nice shade. Only ting missing was the eggs, we could have had some hard boiled on the spot, if only we had brot them... but then, none of us anticipated a hot springs adventure anyway!
By the time we had enuf of hot/cold waters, our stomachs were ready to receive solids... so since we were near Ipoh, Ipoh it was... this time Ms GPS failed us; but there's always friendly human GPSs at petrol stations to direct us to the famous eating places in Ipoh town. Unfortunately by the time we ronda here and there, it was past lunch time 2 pm. These Ipoh-ites not like KL-ites, got food anytime of the day. At 2 pm, most of the shops tutup already. Still there was enuf to fill empty stomachs... the irony of it is my boy ended up taking Pg asam laksa in Ipoh!!Since we were in no hurry, we turned off at Bkt Merah Laketown to look-see look-see before rolling onto Penang. Nothing impressive, except gawking at ducks on the water!
Finally arriving in Pg late evening, we checked into the hotel. Come dinner time, the rain put a damper on our plans to blitz the open-air hawker-food stalls. So we had to be content to drive out to a nearby mall, and after going round and round in circles arguing over what to eat, instead of good ole Penang food, we had to settle for .... of all things.. Manhattan Fishmarket. Imagine, going all the way to Pg to eat Western food, which can be got in KL... bleh. Not that the fish-meal wasn't good; it was. But as i kept grumbling... I wanted PENANG food! Then it was a drive about at nite downtown... its been so long since i was in Penang; but the memories of my early childhood remained, and so i turned tourist guide for the kids, entertaining (or rather boring) them with grandma stories...
Next morning i insisted rain or no rain, we would hv Pg food..so finally at Pulau Tikus market, i got to indulge in chee cheong fun, assam laksa, char koay teow, curry mee, thick kopi-tiam coffee, etc etc. Quite happy, we decided to take a trip up to Pg Hill, since the kids had never been, and the last time i went was like... gee, umpteen umpteen years ago. So behaving like typical tourists lugging cameras in hand, we went up, gulped some fresh mountain air, ooh and ahh-ed over the views from the top, and came down satisfied we had done 'something' in Pg. Of coz no trip to Pg would be complete w/out a stop-over at Lorong Selamat for food (wat else!!)...more hokkien mee, char koay teow, rojak, ice kacang, to fill the stomach... Final stop was shopping, since we had promised the kids... not that there was much to shop at Bayan Baru centre. So by the time we hit the home road, it was late afternoon. Near dinner time Ms GPS directed us to clay pot chicken rice in Bidor. It wasn't great, but it filled the need. We ordered noodles - ying yeong - expecting the normal KL Cantonese version of wet hor fun. Instead turned out Bidor version consisted of totally different and opposite variety - dry fried mee hoon/ mee. Lesson of the day: Don't assume all things called by 1 name are the same 1 kind!
So ended the great adventure which should have been in Manado, but happened in Pg instead. Considering that this was the 2nd flight re-schedule, we choose to believe we were just not meant to go to Manado - who knows, there are enuf real-life stories out there that sometimes delays, cancellations, changes are forced on us for very good reason, even tho we can't see it then. I rmbr tales of survivors of disasters telling how they were saved becoz of a last minute change of plan. Well, in any case, God more than made up with an unexpectedly nice and easy trip for the family, so we are indeed much blessed...

" And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose "... Romans 8:28

Log into http://picasaweb.google.com/laisaikhoon for peep into the great adventure!

As baby birds grow...

2009-10-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

My eldest princess turned 23 today. Over the w/end we had a family dinner to celebrate together with fave uncle (he's fave, becoz he always foots the bill, ha ha) and boyfren. I hv trouble keeping tabs on how old the kids get every b-day that rolls along(that shows how old i am!!). Slightly ashamed to say i still haven't gotten her a present - i left it to no. 2 princess, since she's the shopaholic in the family. But the prob with shopaholics is they never make up their minds!! Anyway, no. 1 is gracious; she knows she is much loved, with or without a present, and not just on her b-day.
She threw me a bomber the other day; she's not really 'into' her current job; and that's less than a year's work put in only. Her passion is writing and she wants to do it full-time. I can't help but think how my genes have rubbed off on her; i m still dreaming that dream after donkey years... here she is, at 23, actually tinking of living it. I shake my head at youth's restlessness and gung-ho.I dunno if she's tinking she's gonna be the next JK Rowling or watshisname who wrote Da Vinci Code...but I guess at 23, anything and everything seems good to try out; the world is your oyster, as the saying goes.
But i, looking from the vantage point of 50, see all sorts of road-blocks. Still i dont have the heart to be a wet blanket to remind her of the practical difficulties of such a choice , esp when i myself am not sure at this stage wat to make out of it. Besides if it's really God's will for her life to launch out into a different road, i don't wanna stand in the way. I've seen this 'kid' grow into a confident young woman thru 23 years. In my mind's eye, i recall those scenes on TV how a mother bird by instinct knows when to push the baby birds out of their nest after a while. I used to shudder at the images of little balls of feathers falling out, wobbling on their feet, flexing teeny wings trying to get lift-off; and there is the apparently unconcerned mother bird, just watching from the sidelines. And i fall to musing, I should be more like a mother-bird; otherwise my babies will never learn to fly.

Yet i harbour a human mother's natural concern for her child's well-being; how will she survive if she doesn't hold a full-time job, wat about her plans to get married, esp since the boy also aint interested in a 'regular' job but is tinking of going into full-time church ministry... gee, how will they set up family like this lah ?! All the how's, and no answers.
But at least i am consoled by her declaration that she wants to use the talent God has blessed her with according to His way. So i shld be happy she won't be writing her stuff, but His stuff - that's already a prayer answered to thank God for. And i guess 23 is as good a time to start living out a dream as any age, so long as it's of God, His time is always the perfect time.
So against all natural fleshly inclinations to whack some good old cow (i mean mother)-sense into her head and to keep her 'safe' in a cozy secure job (nest) , i shut up; and go down on my knees once again... to pray God's will be revealed and done in her life; that He will show her the how's and the where's...
Hrrmph, guess this mother will just go back to doing what she knows best to do... pray, trusting in God's Word....

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.... Jer 29:11

When the storms come..

2009-10-17T05:54:00.000-07:00

The past month has been heart-rending. 4 cancer cases. It started with one of my church sisters, very active lady, always reaching out to share her faith; we were all shocked when told it had spread into her spine, lungs, and most of her organs at stage 3. After that in quick succession, 3 cases from within my own kindy; 2 of our staff's family members - a husband was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer,and the other a relapse of daughter's leukemia, even after a successful bone marrow transplant and last week, 1 of our very own staff had a breast removed. We pray constantly for them, for healing and that their faith not only remains steady, but will be strengthened even in such difficult to understand circumstances.

Its times like these that make people question the existence of God. If there is a God, He must be good, if He is good, why does He let such lousy tings happen to 'good' people?? And wats so great about this God they call Jesus?? ... see, Christians also suffer the same things other people suffer, Christians also get cancer, they also die wat. Yeah, sure they hold these great healing encounters now and then, and yeah, sure, there miracles of people who get cured, but wat about those who don't?? Wats the big deal about Jesus??

I guess it all depends on what you tink God is there for. If like most, you only want a God who caters to your every whim, fancy and wish, i m afraid Jesus is bound to disappoint. Problem is we tink God 'owes' us - that if we worship Him, He is supposed to give us health, wealth, prosperity and happiness in our lives. So when He doesn't, we shrug and say, heck, i dont wanna God who can't gimme a forever happy life without any problems. But the truth is God doesn't owe us a single thing, we owe Him everything...from each breath that we are breathing now, right down to the tiniest cell in our body. It's all by His grace that we are alive this moment in time. So, big deal? No, being alive is no big deal really, unless you recognize how big a deal it is being dead instead.

That's why we are a big deal to God, becoz He sees how dead in sin many of us really are tho our bodies are alive breathing. That's why His priority is not our physical self; unlike us, He doesn't bother how many white hairs or wrinkles we get, He's doesn't care how much money we have in our bank a/cs, how many degrees we have to our name. Doesn't He care about about our problems? Coz He does, He sees them all; the tears, grief, suffering, anger, despair...in fact He's known it all; when Jesus walked on earth as a man, He went thru all that Himself. Of coz He cares that we hurt, we are struggling, but He's more interested in getting our spirit right with and alive in Him. Becoz even if our body is being wrecked with cancer, even when our world is in a mess, so long as our spirit believes Jesus is the Way, the Life and the Truth, tho we may be crying our hearts out as our boat gets caught up in the storms of this earthly existence, He commands the winds and the waves to be still; He calls fearful hearts to rest in Him who is the Prince of Peace. He who created the heavens and the earth comes with a grand promise; that those who believe in Him shall never perish but have eternal life.

That's the big deal about Jesus. He's bigger than cancer, bigger than tsunamis, bigger than any and all the giants in our lives that we call 'problems'. No, Christians are not exempt from suffering; the only special thing is we have a very real, very beeg God who walks with us thru every trial and leads us all the way to heaven, such that even thru the valley of the shadow of death, we shall not fear. Becoz after all we go thru on earth, we know we shall stand in the presence of God Himself, secure in our heavenly home that is guaranteed to those who would just believe. When we live everyday with the reality of that kind of hope, nothing, absolutely nothing in this world can take us down.

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want..." Psalm 23

Unexpected Blessings

2009-10-07T04:01:00.000-07:00

It started off as just another company trip; a short 1 day overnite stay at Port Dickson with some 70+ people, all staff from the various church dept and ministries on our annual get-away to 'ber-bonding-bonding'. Mighty Kids (MK) had a record attendance of 23 out of 24 staff attending (and the odd one out was only becoz she had committed to earlier booked travel plans). As usual, when MK ladies get together, they are the noisiest, busiest, sporting-iest, brashiest group around.
It was a pretty fun time, filled with eating, putting up hilarious performances,competing in telematches, a spell of nite swimming, rounded up by a bit of shopping for Seremban siew pau...

As per the normal practise, the rooming arrangements were picked at random, and some of us ended up being paired with staff from other depts/centers. Of coz the natural reaction was to try to exchange places by mutual consent to room with someone familiar. I was paired with one of our church pastors (who has been known to just put in an appearance during the day) . Up to the last moment, i was wondering whether i would even have a room mate and waiting to just rope in some MK staff to fill the gap in case she wasn't overniting... But she did call and graciously asked if i would be more comfy sleeping alone, since she knew i was a light sleeper and was afraid of disturbing me. I told her it wasn't a problem, as i happen to be one of those who find it difficult to sleep away from home anyway. So we ended up together.

And it turned out to be a real blessing, unexpected as it was . Becoz as like all mums, i told her my concerns abt what was happening in my children's lives, and the good pastor that she is, she ended up praying with me for them... nothing like a pastor's prayer to add extra wings to mine own.... and on the very last day, i was doubly blessed when she released God's vision and anointing for me personally. I didn't even know i needed to be ministered to, but as her words and prayers flowed, my tears flowed, as i recognized God's goodness in giving me something i never even asked for or thot about at all.... such is His faithfulness; He knows what i need even tho i may not. And i came back with a wonderfully refreshed heart, confident of the way ahead for my own ministry and assured that my children will turn out ok, becoz He holds their lives in His mighty hands and will not let them slip...

So I was testifying to the rest of the teachers...the lesson is obvious - don't try to change God's plans...we are put into people's lives and people are put into our lives for good reason, tho our eyes can't see it, and our naturally selfish inclination is to manipulate our circumstances to be more comfortable. God doesn't just want us to have a good time in life , He's more interested in making His presence real to us every time everywhere - that is the highest blessing.

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Just Do It

2009-09-22T03:26:00.000-07:00

I finally did it. After weeks of dithering ,postponing and just plain forgetting, I got down to giving away permanently a part of my savings to a total stranger. Not easy, as it meant having to make do with less for family and self but ever since God spoke so clearly to me about releasing the blessings He's blessed me with, i knew it had to be done and i already knew the target recipient - World Vision. So it was i managed to get their contact from a fellow colleague who has herself been a World Vision supporter sponsoring a Mongolian kid for the past 7 years, logged into their website and pledged my little contribution to an unknown child somewhere in the world. I purposely didn't wanna specify any preferences, coz i wanted God to lead all the way...

And lo and behold, He sent me a child from.... India. Of all the children in the whole wide world, He sends me an Indian kid....ha ha, back to the land He originally placed a burden in my heart for... how appropriate!! and so now everyday i got somebody new to pray for... they sent me the child's profile, with her name, photo and family particulars...I showed her off to my kids; they pretended horror... oh no, we got an Indian 'god-sister'?!! My boy wryly comments, there goes watever little inheritance we gonna get from mom ; we prob gotta entertain a whole Indian village for Christmas now ...my no. 2 says when she tells her frens i m off to India on another trip, they always ask her whether her mom got an Indian kid stashed away somewhere...now she can tell dem, i actually do have an Indian kid!!...funneeee these children of mine , how i love them!!

Do i need another kid? Coz not. Can i afford to commit $$ that would/should be spent first on my own family needs?? After all, they say charity shld begin at home. Why take on other people's problems when we can't even handle our own?! Well, if we all thot this way, the world would be a terrible place to live in. Besides years of walking with a faithful God has taught me, when i take care of His business (and His business is simply the lost, sick, needy, unsaved of this world) , He will take care of mine. If we waited till we solved all the problems in our life, we would never get round to helping others who are in so much more need. Its like saying sure, i will donate my $$ when i hv put away enuf of my own,(which will never be enuf, we know),i will donate my time at the orphanage when i retire from my job (by then, we are either already too old to be of much use, or first need to go round the world, play golf, take care of own grand-kids, etc etc...so, the time is now or never.

But why World V? Surely there are lots of equally needy local homes, causes i can contribute to? True. Jesus says we will always have the poor with us.8 years ago, when i was down and out, God already put a burden in my heart specifically for kids. Every day i look at the kids in my kindy, my heart bursts. Every time i go for overseas missions, its the kids that tug at my heart strings. Its kids that will carry the future to come, for better or for worse ; not just in this land but in the world. So I put my $$ where God has put my heart in.... a 'world' kid.

Its a great feeling, not becoz i m doing something great, but becoz in letting go of 'my' money, i m set free from being controlled by it. It's a great feeling becoz in obeying His will, i experience the truth that it is so much more blessed to give than to receive...

" He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God...." Mic 6:8

Letting Go

2009-08-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Ah blessed holidays... but how fast they fly... 1 week and its down to last few days already... it'll be back to school next week... and another 3 months of teaching. Tho i resumed full-time teaching a class in July, it still feels 'new'; thank God its turned out so far so good, despite some initial hiccups taking over from a teacher who resigned mid-term. There was some "noise" over my taking 1 week off for India missions, but the more serious concern over the H1N1 threat overshadowed everything else, as worried parents kept their kids at home. My class closed for a week directly the day after i came back from India , not becoz there were any cases amongst our kids, but becoz of kids' siblings who caught the virus from some other schools. I thot i would be given extra 1 week off, but no way... ha ha, boss said the class can close, but me teacher must come, since i wasn't even in M'sia for past duration! And then some of the teachers 'kena' quarantine, becoz of their own kids getting infected, so attendance has been yo-yo-ing... so its a good thing the hols started...
I caught up on my reading, prepared for upcoming preaching assignments and finally used up my bday gift certificate (given by the kids 6 months ago!) at the spa. (very relaxing experience it was, coming complete with scrub, jacuzzi and 1 full hr massage with infra-red heat all; i was suitably impressed enuf to buy up another voucher, thinking to use it for someone's bday) But what i really valued was the luxury of spending unhurried time with God, esp in the mornings. No need to keep an eye on the clock, no hurrying thru prayers, unlimited time for just worshipping and being still before Him... getting to know Him and myself more.
After 8 years of walking with my Shepherd, I hv come to recognize how He just will not leave me stagnant in self-satisfied complacency.. every now and then it seems as if He deliberately shakes the boat of my life and forces me to re-examine who I am and where I am in His eyes. And i come away humbled, as i see that there are still many areas in my heart that need to be 100% surrendered.
How easily it is to be self-deceived; i honestly thot i had surrendered all to Him. Its easy to think that when we seem to be doing all the right things; going to church, reading Bible, doing good works, praying... all the things a Christian should do. And then wham, i realise in spite of my professions of trust in God, i am still hanging onto certain things closest to my heart - kids and money. Indeed ask any parent, and those 2 areas are bound to be the strings that tug the hardest at us.

I pray for my children all the time , but lately it seems my prayer is out of desperation, not faith. Daily to God I moan that they dont seem to experience the reality of Christ in their lives, i deplore the way they let the world influence them in their thinking and attitudes , i despair as i hear them confess the same sins at family devotion time over and over again, i cry over how they enter into questionable relationships, make unwise decisions... i enlist the help of prayer partners to pray with me , for me, that God grant me the wisdom to handle them. And then it struck me when a sister reminded me gently that God knows best, that i really have not let God take charge after all . If i have, why do i get so worked up that at times i can't sleep tho i hv prayed committing difficult issues over them to the Lord?

And i dare claim smugly that everything i have i hv given over to Him. But again that's not true. By the time i finished reading a book on Freedom of Simplicity, i realised i was merely paying God lip-service, becoz if i really cared about how billions of people in the world are literally dying both physically and spiritually, i wouldn't be hoarding a financial contingent 'safety nest', beyond the basic resources that God has already blessed me with. I justify it as provision for 'the kids' - which parent after all doesn't want their children to have the best possible head-start to a 'good' life , so i skimp and i save to give them an inheritance .... but that again shows just how little i trust that God will bless and provide beyond the necessities for them.
Ahh, how true it is that the human heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure, so says the Word of God. And as i recognize this truth, i stand convicted and repentant before a God who knows me more than i know myself... as my heart lies exposed before Him , once again I fall at His feet to ask for grace and mercy, clinging onto His promise that as i confess my sins, He is just and faithful to forgive and cleanse me of all unrighteousness.
Moving beyond that, i know what should be done must be done - and that is really to mean what i pray - that i let go of my kids, my money and put them all on His altar, becoz actually they are 100% His; they are just 'on loan' to me for a season of time. I am just a steward of these blessings; and I better let the real Boss take charge, coz He really does know best...

Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts,
See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.. Psalm 139:23-24

The Mystery of Prayer

2009-08-10T02:55:00.000-07:00

I am digesting one of my fave authors Philip Yancey's book on Prayer- Does it make any difference?? .... its i call an 'honest' book; ie it dares to ask questions and doesn't pretend to give perfect, fairy tale answers... just like my all-time fave book - the Bible. Many smart people have questioned why there are inconsistencies in the Bible, if it's supposedly God's word. I hv myself asked the same questions (tho i don't consider myself in the smart category , but i aint exactly dumb either). But i hv come to a point where i m convinced Truth is truth; the existence of Truth doesn't depend on our belief . As someone argued; an atheist actually needs to exercise greater faith to believe in the non-existence of God, than a theist who by faith believes there is a God. Our finite mind thinks something is inconsistent if it doesn't add up the way to the way we expect things to add up, like we expect 2 + 2 = 4. But God doesn't exist as an equation to be added up and made sense of. He puts it quite simply "My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts". He's revealed enuf to enable us to believe and to be saved - He sent Jesus into our world. What else He doesn't choose to reveal or explain is His prerogative as God.

But i digress... i was meaning to talk about prayer, becoz i could relate to Yancey's frank discourses on the subject. He asked questions i hv often asked myself. Why pray? What good does prayer do, when we all know some prayers don't seem to get any answers? Can we change God's mind through prayer, if we can, then wldn't that make God 'wishy-washy'?? What if someone prays for rain in 1 area, and another prays dont rain for the same area, how is God gonna answer?? Someone wisely replied, God will answer His way lah, ie effectively 1 person gets a yes, the other gets a no answer!! Is that how prayer works/don't work?

Everyone who professes some religion prays. As a kid, i was taught to pray by my parents... we went to temples, we had a lot of altars in the house..i can still see the walls smoked black by all the joss-sticks she lighted up twice daily. When i married ,my husband and i continued to pray to the family idols. When he was diagnosed of cancer, i prayed like crazy... any god, all gods, no matter... and then the miracle happened - Jesus captured me, my husband and my kids, and so the focus of my prayers changed. Not only that, i notice, even the content of my prayers changed, ever so subtly... my prayer-time used to simply a whole list of things I wanted God to do for me and mine,and oh, of coz i add the obligatory Thank You, God at the beginning and the end. This took like... 5/10 mins at most. That was my prayer life. And then i went to India..... and saw people PRAY...

Not short little prayers... these folks hold 2 hr prayer sessions, some starting as early as 5/6 am. (and that's not even counting attending church service which takes up at least another 2 hours)Plus these folks are not very 'polite' pray-ers... they make so much 'noise'- its like a whole babble of voices rising up to heaven. Not to mention they got very strong knees.... they can kneel on a thin mat covering cement floor very long (for me, anything above 5 mins on my knees is long, ok). So, after India, i took a serious look at my own very limited prayer-life then. I started reading books on prayer; without any exception, i found that every Christian saint worth his salt spent hours in prayer. I guess i shldn't be surprised by this, after all, that's exactly what Jesus taught and modelled in His days on earth. And there is no excuse of no time. Like the rest of us humans, Jesus had 24 hrs a day, He worked full-time (even over-time) , yet prayer was a non-negotiable with Him. So what excuse do we have? I especially have none, since i hv been so blessed with a job that gives me the luxury of free afternoons. Conviction started me on the road to discovering prayer....

8 yrs down the line, i m still discovering new facets about this journey called prayer...expanding from self/family to relatives to frens to strangers, from things to life issues, from people to nations, from 5 mins to 30, to 60 and beyond.. it's like a drop of ink on blotting paper; the prayers just kept on spreading... and i found, hey, there is no lack of stuff to pray for; if we only cared enuf to look around our broken and messed-up world. Truly God Himself puts burdens upon our hearts to pray for.. At one stage tho, i got stumped becoz i ran out of words to pray; but thanks be to God who already provided for this lack - He assures us His Spirit helps us pray with groanings and moanings which He alone understands. Becoz ultimately prayer is birthed in the Spirit, and the spirit doesn't need expression in human language, we need never be stumped over words. At times, its just silence when I come before the Lord in prayer ;those are truly very precious times of refreshing, of simply 'waiting upon the Lord', spirit-to-spirit. Other times i sing my prayers out with a joyful heart, remembering His goodness to me. And many times, its only tears that come out of my eyes instead.

Even tho i may get no answer for a long time, or at all, even tho the answer may not be what i prayed for.. i keep praying anyway, becoz that's what God tells me to do; and that's what Jesus did ....for i hv discovered its not about God answering my prayers really; of coz I want Him to. But i've come to realise praying changes me instead, esp when i dont get what i want the way i want it when i want it . Its the No, Later-not now answers that God deals me , that teaches me so much more than the blessings He does give , such that i finally understand His will is all wise, all knowing, all perfect, and I can trust that He will give me what i need, all that i need, over and beyond anything i could ever ask for.

For no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart can conceive what God hath prepared for those who love Him... Isa 64:4

The Wonder of Worship

2009-08-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

Something happens to my soul when I worship. Bible says when we draw nigh unto God, He draws nigh unto us... what an awesome wonder that is.. that the Almighty God of the universe, my Creator, would deign to draw me into His presence...that the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the One who stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, put every star into place, calms the winds and the waves... knows me by name and lifts me up into His throne-room in the heavenly realms, to sit at His feet and gaze upon the beauty of His holiness.

Such that as the song goes, when i turn my eyes upon Jesus,and look full into His wonderful face, when i turn my heart unto Jesus and worship His glorious name, the things of the earth grow strangely dim...Such is the wonder of worship that goes beyond language,words or tune...

India taught me 2 things - how to worship and how to pray. The first time i set foot in a church service in a small church in an Indian village 8 years ago, i was floored by their worship, even tho i didn't understand a word or know any of the tunes or the songs they sang. Becoz they didn't just sing, they worshippped... gloriously, unreservedly, totally,.. and watching the people before me raising their hands and voices high, a miracle happened inside me ... i knew w/out a doubt i stood in the very presence of a holy God. It wasn't an emo high, it was just a 'knowing' in mind and heart; so overwhelming that the tears simply flowed.... and I hv never been quite the same since then...

I came back to M'sia with a hunger for worship beyond singing pretty songs; that was 8 yrs ago; now i m even more hungry; its like tasting my fave char koay teow - starts with a wee mouthful that simply whets the appetite for a full plate. Best part is unlike fleshly pleasures, the law of diminishing returns doesn't apply to worship... the more i worship, the more i want to worship, until i am all lost in God. He has taken me from English to Chinese and Malay worship, each move drawing me deeper, closer than before into His presence; that truly its no longer about me or anyone else in the service... its totally all about Jesus; my Lord, my God, my Master, Savior, Lover and Beloved of my soul. The more i hunger, the more God feeds me; He Himself puts new songs into my heart that do not even need words anymore. The highest praise I hv received is not that i can preach power sermons or write well or is so active in ministry or watever, but that i am a worshipper of the one true God.
Does God need my worship? I dont tink so. He is God, He doesn't need a human that He created to tell Him how glorious, fantastic, awesome, holy He is... on the contrary, i am the one who is so so blessed when i worship Him for who He is, all that He is..glorious, fantastic, awesome, holy .... oh, the wonder of worship!

"Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness "... Psalm 29:2

India Again

2009-08-07T00:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, its India again, after the last trip in March,i almost didn't get to make it this time, coz i hv just taken over a 6 years old class upon resignation of a teacher. But God is good; boss said ok, so i was freed to go again to this land that's always on my heart and in my prayers... 10 days doing God's business there...
This time involved a lot of travelling ... my old bones got jolted hard on loooong trips, 5/6 hrs at a stretch over hundreds of kilometers of roads.. the 11 of us had split into 3 teams, ministering in old and new territories. The first two days was spent in the hot hot hot south....trying to sleep in enclosed quarters was like steaming in a sauna. Besides nitely preaching at open-air rallies, we put in some time at a drug rehab centre and a home for old folks and unmarried single mothers; my heart was pierced to the core by the sight of babies and kids of these abandoned young females rejected by family and society. In the face of such hopelessness, I can only bring them a message of the God of hope who loves them even if no one else does...

Moving up to Bangalore,the weather thankfully improved a lot, as it is some 3,000 ft above sea level, thus accounting for refreshing cool breezes thru out the day. It was my first in this large mod and relatively clean city; even the slums were quite decent compared to the one i saw in Mumbai. I was assigned last minute to preach to a class of young bible school students... wondering wat on earth to say to a bunch of people who knew much more than me about theology, doctrine and all that stuff.. but God showed me that its not what i know that matters ; its wat He puts in my mouth that can move even the most seasoned student to tears ..i simply shared with them the vision i had gotten in one of the earlier church services i had preached at,of a bloody cross over India.. the message was clear that God was calling forth His people in India to sacrifice as Jesus sacrificed and died for India. It was a sobering message, but one which assured victory for the blood of Christ is the good news of salvation to all. As the pastor told me later, it was a most appropriate message, in the face of growing persecution of the church in many parts of the nation..

Another day of travelling after leaving Bangalore for a small town in Dharmapuri really taxed the body. On the lighter side, we had time to spare for a short (if you call 2 hrs short) trip to the famous Hogenakkal waterfalls outside the town. It was quite an experience, not just admiring the vast expanse of falling waters, but also ogling the male species who were publicly being massaged with shiny oil all over the place. The oil massages are apparently available for ladies as well, which obviously, none of us were keen to try!!

Workwise, we had to contend with rain at the nite rallies. During 1 session, the small crowd squeezed into an empty lorry parked near the rally grounds; as the rain drizzled on, the men ingenously rigged up a make-shift tent with a plastic sheet stretched over 4 poles, and everyone simply gathered under it ; even in the rain, there were people with open ears and open hearts... But the session that really amazed me was when some of the people who came forward to receive Jesus,after hearing the Word of God preached, simply started crying... and i knew, indeed, i could feel, the very presence of God's Holy Spirit in our midst... it was totally awesome,i myself ended up in tears as i prayed over them. Some would be quick to dismiss it as mass hysteria, or emotional hype, but i know it is not. The team had prayed daily for God to move, and in that rally, He had answered in a very real, tangible and mighty way.... i m so so blessed to be at the receiving end...

This is the 2nd time i hv seen people - non Christians - reduced to tears, for no apparent reason. The first had happened just last month, when i was ministering at the KL street-feeding one Sat. We had spent some 20 minutes just worshiping God with songs of praise, when a young man, who had been enthusiastically dancing away at the beginning, suddenly sat down and started weeping; and to my own surprise (and i would add,embarassment) ,i found myself crying along in full public view , tho we had not exchanged 1 word even...
i knew then the overwhelming touch of God on the human heart is very very real, i understood then what i had only been reading about in books that detailed how people can just come running out of pubs in England or supermarts in America,leaving everything undone, and heading for churches where services were being held, to fall down on their knees at the altar and cry out to God. I had wondered, did it really happen that way? And can it happen in these days? I hv prayed ever so desperately God, won't You move once again to touch hurting hearts in our world today... Well, God answered me very definitely... Yes, it did,yes, it can, and yes, He will..again. Praise God He does not give up on humankind, tho many choose to give up on Him..for such is His promise...
"Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not, they are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness... The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.." Lam. 3:22-25

Chk out http://picasaweb.goggle.com/laisaikhoon for more pix

Celebrating Love

2009-06-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 21st we had a sumptous dinner for the 'men'( = my son, my brother and my eldest girl's boy fren) in our lives, since it was Father's day. Well, it was supposed to be the gals cooking for the guys, but ended up the boyfren gallantly helped out the only chef in the house - my eldest princess !! The rest of us only pitched in when it was apparent dinner was gonna be late if we sat around expecting the 2 love-birds to do it all!
Actually I m not much for Father/Mother's day or any of those over-commercialised occasions like Valentine. Surely it shld be obvious we dont hv to wait around for dat 1 day out of 365 days in a year to tell our beloveds that we love them... not that i hv anything against special celebs on those assigned days, i like celebs; which for me means just having a nice feast with those dear to my heart....

But now that i m classified in the singles again category, i can empathize with those who have no 'special other' or father/mother around or worse dont find their earthly parents worthy of being celebrated on such occasions. I m sure there are many who tink such things are over-rated; in fact i know of people who would actually find an excuse not to attend church on those days, becoz they feel 'out' and cant relate to the often mushy-mushy sentiments expressed then.

But mushy-ness aside, I myself confess every father's/valentine's day brings abt a tinge of sadness in my heart, becoz it's inevitable to recall past celebrations when my husband, the kids' father, was still with us. Sometimes after all the festivity of the day is over, and i m alone with my thots in the silence of my own room, the old familiar pain of a lost love sweeps over the soul, like a prickly thorn pressing into the soft layers of buried memories . Sometimes it comes even during the climax of the evening when everyone is smiling happily enjoying each other's company, i would catch myself stealing glances at the kids, who were no longer kids really, and wonder wistfully... wasn't it just yesterday ; why couldn't it be ....

But God is always quick to pull me out of these moments before they degenerate into self-pity and regret... He reminds me of the greatest love of all which He has showered upon my entire family as our Abba Father in heaven; the ever faithful One who watches over us all the time 24/7 x 365 days a year... for all the years to come; He call us the apple of His eye. Man, that's priceless, to know that the almighty God who created and sustains all things in the universe, thinks of me as so precious. Not only does He think of me , but He proved His fantastic love by sending His own Son Jesus 2000 years ago to die for my sin and set me free, today, everyday for all eternity. Wow! what a Father....

"Blessed [be] God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort"... 2 Cor 1:13
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God"... 1 John 3:1

"Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done as in heaven, so on earth ..."

50s bash

2009-06-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

It was some b-day bash... finally the plan to gather for a reunion-cum-50th bday bash came to pass on 6/6/09 in Bkt Mertajam. 2 tables of 'lau ee' gathered in Shelaiton Restaurant to oooh and aaah over each other, esp me, since it has been 32 years since i last stepped foot in BM; and some faces i really couldn't place, tho i remembered names. I took the weekend off, taking a break from my street ministry, to travel up north on Saturday morning together with 2 other 'KL-ites' for company, put up at an old class mate's house and returned home on Monday morning.
It was an eating spree all the way from the time we touched down in BM till we left; very bad for the waistline indeed. It started with laksa and popiah, continued into 9 course grand dinner, Penang chee cheong fun, otak2, fried quail, baby octupus, ice kacang, curry mee, steam-boat, hokkien mee, nyonya kueh... where my stomach found the space to accommodate all that, i wonder!!
After the nite's grand banquet, the troupe adjourned to exercise their lungs in a K-OK joint nearby. What a sight to behold 50 year old lau ee macarena-ing and limbo rock-ing under the wires!! Who says only young people have all the fun??
On the serious side, I had prayed before i came that God would find me a church to attend on Sunday, since i really didn't wanna miss going to the Lord's house. Tho i had absolutely no idea where to go, my host was most kind to drop me off early at a methodist church, which service however only started at 11 am. But the kind aunty there directed me to a baptist church further down the road. Still i was way too early by some 1 1/2 hrs for their service; but the young caretaker was most gracious to open the gate for me and let me sit in the sanctuary. I was made to feel most welcome as many were the brothers and sisters in Christ who came up to greet me personally, as obviously i was a new face. They even announced the names of all the newcomers over the pulpit.. truly it felt so good to be part of God's big family.
I was invited after the service to join in the fellowship lunch, but had to excuse myself since my frens had other plans... we went to this place in Bg Lallang deep in some kampung area, which served fantastically cheap and yummy seafood - imagine steam fish head for only $27!! It was open air eating, and despite the heat, so many people were waiting to be seated. The visible cooking area was a hive of activity, so efficient were the chefs, each specialising in their own dish only.. food was being rolled out practically like an assembly line..
As i blog this back in KL, i am remembering the happy faces, the laughter, the jokes, the catching-up of years past; memories of who did what when, updates of where so-n-so is now, wat happened to this/that person... 32 years ago we were all fresh-faced girls in pig tails and school uniforms. Now most of us are mothers with grown/growing kids, some divorced, some widowed, some still swinging single, a handful have passed away from this earth... to have lived 50 years is a long time, half a century. And a question came to my mind - could we ever have imagined then how our lives would turn out as it did?
I for one can't. I remember at age 12, I took on an english-fied name, Christine for the fun of it since it was the fashion then...I remember dreaming about getting married, having kids and living happily ever after...i remember i fell in (puppy) love with my BM tuition teacher and worked so hard at the subject; both of us were so disappointed i got only a C3 for my Form 5 exam....all these things i remember, but...
How could i have known that i would be a widow at age 42? How could i hv known the name i took then would actually define who i am now, as i found out years down the line that Christine actually means a follower of Christ. How could i hv known that the skills in BM i had acquired then would now help me minister to the non-Chinese speaking groups of street people i meet every Saturday?
No, there was no way i could have known all these, but God knew. When i first read in the bible that God already knew me even before I was formed in my mother's womb, that He had plans to prosper and never to harm me, i was totally floored. How could this be; that God already knows me; when i wasnt even made,much less born? And yet looking back over the years of my life, that's exactly the truth... i am not an 'accident', i wasn't 'evoluted' from some ape ancestor; i am 'fearfully and wonderfully made' by the Lord who loves me so much He has planned to save me all along, calling me back to be His very own daughter of the Most High God. Ya, it took me 40 years to return to Him; i hv wandered off the wrong paths, but He is ever the good Shepherd who goes all out to bring back even 1 lost sheep - like me. There's nothing like having the certain knowledge that my life is held in the palm of His mighty hands, for Him the Potter to shape into something beautiful; not becoz of what i can do (which ain't much really) , not becoz i deserve it (i m just another sinner, saved by grace after all ) but becoz of what He can do, and wants to do to me, for me, through me. That's the ultimate meaning of life on earth that gives peace beyond understanding, joy unspeakable, grown out of a love divine... available to all through Jesus Christ, the One who proved through His death and resurrection that He is truly the One and only Way, the Life, and the Truth. Becoz no other man, be they teachers, prophets, gurus, healers, no matter how good their ways, no matter how saintly their character, no matter how noble their lives, has ever died to take the punishment of mankind's sin and rise alive in glory.

So,as i reflect on how gracious God has been and continues to be to me, i know its not how long we live; none of us will be around to greet the next 50 years. God says the length of our days is 70 years, or 80 if we have the strength. But however many/few days i have been given on this earth, i thank God that i can live each one of them knowing, loving, and serving Him who pulled me out of the mediocrity of "my-self" life, and blessed me with the fantastic new life that Jesus has promised to all who would believe His promise:

" I am the gate, whoever enters thru me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full".... John 10:9-10

p/s for more pix of the gathering, chk out http://picasaweb.google.com/laisaikhoon

The party continues

2009-05-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

There's a song ringing in my head..I am so blessed, so blessed, so blessed...first my own fleshnblood family started the ball rolling on my b-day , then 4 days later on Sunday (which coincidentally was mother's day ) , my Christ-family joined in and continued the celebration. My eldest princess and boyfren slaved over their speciality cored apple dessert, my 'kaki-kaki' all came to bless with pots of food...my brother got the cake... and i made the only dish i know to do well (jiu hoo char )... and tra la... wat a spread it was for the dinner table. What better way to grow old than being surrounded by people whom i love and who loves me! And all this is possible only becoz the God who is Himself love taught me all about love..

I remember how i used to be, all caught up, wrapped up in my own family. After i married, it was basically just me, the hubby and the kids.I lived my life secure in this little cocoon i had created around us. Sure i had frens, but they were not family. Heck, back then, i didn't even visit my own bros n sis back in Alor Star during Chinese New Year. And it wasnt bad, not an unhappy life for i told myself that's all that mattered;so there was a measure of selfcontentment that came out of a self-contained, self centered lifestyle. It kept me going 20 odd years after all.

And if not for my husband's cancer, i guess i wld hv continued living like that to the end of my days ; unaware that life is meant to be more than a self drawn circle. It is meant to be so much much more; I found the meaning of a full, abundant life only at age 40, when my world was turned upside-down literally... then only could my eyes see right-side up. What an irony. How i thank God each day, He pulled the comfy rug from under my feet and opened up a wonderful fabulous world that i never knew existed, becoz i was too busy caught up in one that was my own creation.

I hv bn asked if my God is so good, why didn't He let my husband live. Hey, i asked the same question myself then, but how true it is that God is not here to grant our wants;we didn't create God, we are created by Him for Him. His aim is to make saints out of sinners; to bring us back to Him, for He is the greatest blessing. So just becoz bad things happen doesn't mean God is bad. If not for the bad things that happened in my life, I wouldn't know my God is so really really good. If there was no agony, we wouldn't know the meaning of ecstasy. If there was no darkness, we wouldn't appreciate light.

8 years ago, God called me out of my darkness into His light. He took my husband home, but gave me another much extended family to love and be loved by. He took my job, and gave me a calling. He took my money and gave me treasure that can't be bought. He broke me, and then He healed me, restored me and gave me a meaning to live beyond myself, beyond my kids, beyond causes and things. He has put songs in my heart i never knew to sing, and now 8 years down the line, as i celebrate another b-day, another mother's day, i am so thankful to be so so so blessed...

We love because He first loved us... 1 John 4:19
This is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.. I John 4:10

My cup overflows

2009-05-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

I turned 49 yesterday. Wow, that's just 1 year short of half a century old. Its...mind boggling to say the least. How did the 49 years pass so fast, can it be my eldest is already a 23 year old woman herself ? Gee, what happened to all my 'babies'?
Ya, ya, i know, they grew up and i grew... old? Where got. I grew, yes, in terms of years older, but in terms of heart, i grew up too. Thanks to a God who opened up my eyes to the Truth of life and love - was it just 8 years ago...

When i came down on the morning of my b-day, i found such a beautiful surprise waiting for me. The kids had taken the trouble to do up the chairs with cutesy balloons, there were 2 stalks of roses beside the greeting card and the gift voucher for spa treatment on the table. Bearing in mind i only got back abt 10.30 pm after a prayer meeting the nite before, they must have 'pa-kat' and waited till after i had gone to bed to do up the tingy together... how sweet, but wat brot tears to my eyes were the words in the card; which i m so proud to reproduce here:
From my no 1: Dear Mama, happy b-day. Thank you so much for loving us (despite how difficult it can be sometimes) and sticking it thru the years. You really are the best, no 1 mom in the world! Hugs. I pray that God will grant you ALL the desires of your heart and overflow you with blessings!
From my no 2: an unexpected poem - Happy B'day.. a million apologies, a thousand hugs, a hundred praises, tens of gratitude, one heart, unlimited love. A mother knows best, a mother wants the best, you know God knows best, you know God wants the best; that's what makes you different, that's what makes you special.. May God honor your sacrifices and grant you your hearts desires. Amen.
From my no 3: Dear mama, Happy 50th b-day (Trust a guy to get the age wrong, duh!i warned him he better not do this to his wife!) thanks for everything you did for us. I really appreciate it alot. i hope God will bless you mightyly (ya, still need to work on his spelling!) for all your good works on earth here! Have a blessed b-day.

Wow, reading this was all the present i needed. It made all the tears, all the sweat, all the prayers , all the heartaches, and yes all the white hairs worthwhile... i am assured if they can write these things, it means they know how to appreciate love, they know how to pray blessing for others, and their hearts are in the right place - with God.

What more can i ask ? So all i do is whisper thank You, Lord, for blessing me with these kids, thank You for helping me train them up in the way that they should go, so that they may remain in the ways of Your righteousness and never depart from them. Thank You, Lord for filling my cup so much it overflows..

Not Just Another Easter

2009-04-14T04:51:00.001-07:00

After India, there was really no breather for me, as i had a lot of catching up on Easter drama rehearsals. 2 days before i was to leave for India, Pastor had caught me by surprise asking if i would like to try out for this year's Easter presentation in church. Despite my telling her i wouldn't be around for much of the rehearsals, she said no problem. So no more excuses not to say Yes! I had only a couple of prelim trial runs before i left for India, lugging the script with me... not that i did much with it, since it stayed in my file almost untouched when i was on missions!!. So by the time i came back, i had to express-track learning lines, positions and fitting in with the rest of the cast and crew.
It was a pretty simple drama; husband and wife grieving over their only son, who was brain-dead kept on ventilator due to road accident. The son who had just become a Christian had signed to donate away his organs and the parents were in a dilemma whether to honor his wish. Thru an interpolation of songs and excerpts from the Passion of Christ video, as well as a re-enactment of Jesus' crucifixation on the cross, the parents are led to understand the purpose of suffering, and the promise that God gave to the world in Jesus who came, died on Good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday to guarantee hope beyond tears, life beyond death. I was to play the part of the wife's Christian sister who brings them to the point of realisation to let go of their son to God, and in the process themselves come into the saving grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
It was a real tear-jerker, 'emo' all the way as my kids said after they saw the performance. I had thot it would be 'just acting'; after all it's 'just another story ' for 'another Easter'. But somehow as i went thru the rehearsals, God took me along a spiritual journey and gave me an experience which moved me to real tears even as i mouthed my lines. It was no longer 'just acting'. One Pastor who watched our final rehearsal commented... "you people actually cry real tears.."... it was as much a question as it was a comment.
And it was true, we cried real tears. I don’t know about the rest of the cast, indeed I don’t even know anything about acting a part. But somehow the right words just came, the tears just flowed, because God took me into the heart of my stage character who was tasked to speak a very simple message - that beyond death, there is life; beyond despair, there is hope; beyond tears, there is joy.
On the stage, I was taken back along a spiritual road, remembering Easter.. as I reminisced about my stage-nephew receiving Jesus, my mind flashed back to the time I uttered the prayer that changed my life. And I remember the pain of grieving for a husband then dying of cancer, mixed with the peace of God that flooded my soul, and so my tears flowed...
As the desperate father belted out the song lyrics to a silent God , 'can You hear me? Am i getting thru tonite?", i remember the many times i had fallen to my knees in tears of anguish over things i couldn't understand that were happening in my life, asking God the same questions, so my tears flowed again...
As the screening of the Passion of Christ synchronised with the song of Mary, mother of Jesus ..."Mary, did you know when you kissed the face of your baby, you were kissing the face of God?" i remember the amazing love of Jesus for me, me, who didn't even exist 2000 years ago, that He - the King of Glory - should become a wee little baby for my sake, forsaking heaven, and so my tears flowed afresh...
As the King of Glory hung on a cross, His body beaten, tortured and all bloody, i remember here is One who suffered for me, bearing not just my, but the world's sins, and so my tears flowed some more...
As finally He breathed out His last words "It is finished" ,familiar words memorized and sealed in the mind’s vault twisted in my heart once again , and I remember the price He paid for my life - with His own, as the Savior who died for me , and so my tears continued to flow..

Many Good Fridays and Easters have come and gone. Christians all know the blessed message of Christ coming to die on the cross, taking our sins, and being raised alive on the third day to give everlasting life to those who believe. We can get so familiar with this 'old' story we lose the wonder of it all.. that God so loved the world He sent His Son Jesus to die for us, so that whomsoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life...

As i 'acted', my heart knew it wasn't 2000 years ago, it's today, everyday, the cross is before me, so that i may remember it's not just another story, it's not just another Easter...
and so my tears flowed for

Greater love hath no one than this that He lay down His life... John 15:13

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Hyderabad

2009-03-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

How fast time flies, each day blurring into the next.. 10 days in India and here i am back on home ground once again, breathing in the M'sian heat (not as bad as India tho... there in the afternoon, its sooo hot i do believe we can cook an egg outside...in May it apparently reaches up to 40 degrees... pheew!), feasting my eyes on clean even roads (something we don't appreciate often enuf, unless you are bumping along in India, trying to avoid cows, people, buses, motorbikes who all have their own rules..!); this morning when i was being driven home, we saw the most beautifuul sun rise greeting us.. fluffy blankets of gold, yellow, orange clouds blended in a wonderful burst of colors across the sky... what a fantastic painter God is..!

The team spent 5 days in Hyderabad, supposedly one of the most mod cities of India, it being the IT capital and all...but the only ting we saw mod was the brandnew airport, just opened to public, very spanky nice even by international stds. We didn't go into the city proper, but the small hotel we stayed in was decent enuf, and slap in the middle of a suburb town, so there was chance to do a little shopping on the side, after our ministry in the nearby villages. The thing that struck me most abt Hyderabad were the rocks everywhere ... it's really tough ground, they literally dig out mountains of rocks for building; homes are square little brick boxes, the poorest ones are just a small dining room in size - go figure out how a whole family sleep, eat, and live in an area as small as 500-600 sq. ft. Kitchens and toilets are of coz outside (with just enuf standing or rather squatting room). It always amazes me that despite such conditions, the people take great pains to bless us by the only way they know how... preparing simple yet simply sumptious food to feed us... and its like a kenduri... the host household cooks by the pots to cater to the whole community of people who gather to hear us. Such is the warmth of the brotherhood of believers in Christ Jesus; which goes beyond our different skin colour.
The highlight of the ministry was a visit to the Lambadi tribe, this particular gypsy group, their women folk distinguished by big ornamental rings in their hair, nose and on their arms, was a semi-permanent cluster scattered over wide fields...so we drove field-hoppping, distributing soaps and bread. Tho they accepted our gifts, they were very vocal, indeed some of the women were even agressive, and resistant to our sharing of the gospel. But even in the midst of opposition, the word of God got thru, to the children and to the few adults who were willing to listen. So it was that for the first time in their lives, some of them got to hear about a God who loves them so much He died for their sins to give them life, for the first time, they heard the name of Jesus, in their language YesuPrebu. And for me, that was enuf... my job is done, God will do the rest in His good time.

And talking about good time, we witnessed the baptism of 2 indian men in one of the outreach churches. One was a totally paralysed old man who had to be lifted out of a chair and into the baptism pool. The other was a miracle case, a younger man who had been totally paralysed but after much prayer had recovered to the extent of being able to hobble around, since his 2 feet remained swollen. The next day we were off to some other village, word came that the guy with the swollen feet had passed away. All of us had thot it would be the older guy who actually looked more sick than this one... Much as we share the grief of the bereaved wife, but looking at it from God's perspective, it was such perfect timing, as we managed to give this brother a grand send-off from earth by baptising him before his passing... wat better way to go off in style; at the height of his faith publicly declared through water baptism!

Last time i was in Mumbai, didn't get a chance to looksee or shop at all. This time, God is good; we managed to slip in a bit of sight-seeing into an old fort in Hyderabad - fort Golconda is apparently only 1 of 2 places in the world which boast a remarkable open air acoustic system, where if you stand and clap at certain places at the bottom of the fort, way up high at the top it can be heard. And in one little enclosure, someone whispering in one corner can actually be heard very clearly in the opposite corner - truly a case of walls have ears! Such technology already available in ancient days, even before modern acoustics were ever invented. There was even an underground 8 km tunnel which served as an escape route for the king in case of invasion, big enuf for a horse to be ridden thru (King not supposed to walk mah!) It was quite worth the 3 km walk up the hill just to hear the sound effects. And we ladies marvelled at the huge dressing room of the queen and concubines all... it's as big as 1 1/2 bedrooms! How quaint that in those days there were no mirrors, so there was a reflecting pool for the ladies of the court to check their make-up!

Well, that was a good break from all the preaching and praying, which in itself we did only by God's power anyway. I was really blessed; beyond the satisfaction of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, seeing souls respond to receive Jesus into their lives, and praying for the people, God gave me beautiful visions at almost every rally I ministered at... esp at the very first meeting, i looked at 100s of empty chairs and my heart was going down, down, down, having so little faith and asking God, how can all these chairs be filled...i was dreading that i would hv to end up preaching to empty chairs; already once i had to preach to cows!! .... but God is faithful, even when i m faithless... the chairs were filled somehow.. and He let me see the most fantastic vision of angels lined up before Jesus on His throne, scepter in hand, crown on His head, hovering over the rally grounds... my heart was just lifted up and soo encouraged... i saw God's holy fire in a burning bush spreading into a huge cross, i saw crystal drops of Holy Spirit rain falling down and living waters gush out of bellies of people, i saw this church unveiled in all glory as a bride of Christ, pillars held up by living saints joining hands and shoulders upward.. and all i can say is thank You, to an awesome awesome God who allows me to see such wonders of heaven, with these earthly eyes of mine! How true is God's promise...

Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not... Jeremiah 33:3

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Penang comes to KL

2009-03-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

So much for moaning and groaning about missing all your girlie get-togethers up north... thanks to Ah Hong's social skills, somehow she pulled a bunch of adventure-kaki's, piled them all into a bus and a car, and hey presto, 11 ex BM Convenites met up at a Chinese restaurant round table on March 7th in KL... Finally i got to see in person wat i hv only so far seen in email fotos... many faces , i m ashamed to say, i took a loooong time to place... (thanks Bee Keok, for being so gracious not to whack me for hugging you w/out even knowing it was you !! Wat to do, this 'lau ee' is (nearly) half a century old...)
Apart from the food, the ting i most enjoyed was actually hearing people call me 'Sai';hee hee, you know its been donkey years since anybody called me by that name..tickle my ear lah! Of coz couldn't 'ketchup' with all 10, but i more than content to chatter with Loo Lin and Bee Keok most of the time... all the old mannerisms, even the voices... wat a flood of childhood memories... esp when we were reminiscing abt the times we put up our Convent dramas written by yours truly the budding (even now still budding) writer... ha ha, Loo Lin the Sleeping Beauty and Geraldine the 'screamer'in some dumb scary-movie script i dished out... has it really been... 30 years??

Where have all the flowers gone? Where have all the young men gone? Where have all the young girls gone? Remember that song? - Long time passsing... and how it ends - When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn? Well, wat have we learnt all these 30 years? Even as many of the group are turning the beeeg 5-0 this year... (bleh, i m still in the 'baby' group, at 49!)... surely we have gained much, lost much in our journey ... my prayer is that watever/however much we hv lost, we wld hv each gained much of the things that truly matter in life ... as Jesus asked :What profits a man if he gains the whole world, and yet loses his soul? A poignant and a pointed question which surely behoves all of us to ask, esp at this stage of our lives, when we hv accumulated 1/2 a century of memories and experiences....

Hmmmmm, maybe one day, once again, we can all sit down around a campfire (anyone recall those scouts/rangers campfires?? - my last one was 30 years ago!!), toast marshmallows, and exchange grandmother - ok ok, ok ,not that ancient, let's stick with 'lau ee ' yarns abt wat we have learnt....

And here's the perfect chance to do just that - join in the GRAND REUNION, now being planned by our efficient social sec Hong and June... announcement coming sooooon....

Check out more fotos on line at http://picasaweb.google.com/laisaikhoon under My Photos klpg nite !!

What could I/you be?

2009-02-10T02:28:00.000-08:00

It was Thaipusam holiday; i thot for once everyone would be at home and we would be one big happy family. Well, we were all at home for the better part of the morning, but each was in our own bed, in our own rooms. As usual i was the earliest one up, and even after finishing my morning time with God at leisure (unlike work days, when i hv to keep a more watchful eye on the clock), all of the 3 kids were still zzzzzz-ing in their own dreamland. Then one by one, they got up.... and left.
No.1 princess says good morning and good bye, dashing off in her car for a whole day out with boyfren at the mall, no. 2 princess gets up later, and announces she's off after lunch to shop for a b-day present for a fren, attend his tea party and won't be back for dinner, as her boy-boy's family has invited her to go vegetarian. No. 3 son gets up last and after a lightning mandi kerbau, runs off to the mall with his frens... so at 1 pm, old fuddy duddy mama is left in a big empty house, on a public holiday, all by herself... and i tink, gee, 'empty-nest' syndrome already started - so much for family together-ness!!
And then i start tinking, what would i be w/out the kids , after having had them around for so long? How do i define myself, my life? If someone were to ask, what are you/ wat could you be, wat's your answer? I tink many of us would simply say I could be... a millionaire, artist, mother, wife, ... our first reaction would be to tink of an occupation of some sort as a definition of who we are/could be. Take away my kids, take away my job, take away church, social work, what am i, really? A sum total of a body, spirit, soul; a bundle of emotions, thots, experiences. Is that all a human be-ing is? But God says I m fearfully and wonderfully made in HIS image. And surely be-ing a human made in God's image postulates that my life must hv meaning and purpose.... so i m not 'just' a mother, a teacher, a writer, Chinese, Malaysian, female, widow... watever labels we create to define our 'being'.
I was re-reading this book "The Life That God Blesses" and the writer was pointing out the standard practise of companies having mission statements to define wat the business is all about, but he questioned how many of us actually have sat down to define our life's mission - what we are all about ? And that started me thinking; it took me quite a while to think thru actually; first to pray and then to write down the things that came to my mind. I guess we could call it simply goal-setting; but it's more than that really. Its getting to grips with things of the heart; things that really matter to God about what Christine Lai Sai Koon can be in His eyes... i finally came up with this personal definition:
My life mission is
To glorify the Lord my God and live a life worthy of Him thru:
1. Focusing on the things unseen and not on the things seen by -
a) worshipping the Lord for who He is, not for what He can do for me
b) seeing the big picture in all circumstances as He sees it, not sweating the small stuff
c) total dependence on His Holy Spirit power in all situations at all times
2. Upholding HIs truth in love at all times by -
a) daily renewing of my mind in His Word (right thinking)
b) practical application of the absolute principles of His truth in all my deeds (right doing)
c) declaring and defending HIs truth in all that i say (right speech)
3. Responsible stewardship of all that He has blessed me with in ministry unto Him by -
a) utilizing my energy, skills, time, and talent to serve others, for the love of Christ
b) managing my financial resources with prudence, cheerfully obeying every prompting to give unto His Kingdom
c) actively fulfilling the Great Commission in:
i) faithfully consistently seizing every divine opportunity to be a witness in word and deed to proclaim the good news to all He brings into my path
ii) building up the body of Christ without regard to denomination or discrimination.

Thats as complete a statement as i can come up with to define my life purpose for now. God has 'infiltrated' my life to such an extent i cannot tink of a better reason for living than to live it out all for Him; becoz He died for me to give me this abundant life. And so i told Him after this was done, Lord, all i hv left on this earth, however many, however few years it is, of this life, help me to live it out in a way that's pleasing unto You. At the end of the day, that's all that really matters.... the life that pleases God is a blessed life. So if i can be a blessing everyday , then surely i m the more already blessed!!

...For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever..Romans 11:36

Chinese New Year 09 ... in Alor Setar

2009-01-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

Its really been one festival after another from Hari Raya, Deepavali, Christmas, and now Chinese New Year is here and will soon be gone... its been one makan after another... disastrous on the waist line for sure!! We had a breezy fast drive balik kampung on the eve itself, making the trip in 4 hrs flat, but the return on the 2nd day was a torture for me driving, it was stop, go, stop, go with all the cars on the road heading back to the big city for work...
Alor Setar was hot, hot, hot with not a single drop of rain. CNY eve was a surprise, for we were invited to a 'family' get together at a local hotel... we had expected just the immediate family, but found ourselves seated amongst 25 other tables of relatives we had never seen before...from my eldest bro-in-law's side of 4 generations.. don't ask me who's who from where... i don't remember!! And they are talking of organizing a bigger one next year!!
We bumped at my 2nd sis' place this time, since she had room to spare. Her govt. low-cost 1 storey terrace house had been cleared of all idols since my youngest niece became a Christian and the Chinese altar in front mysteriously caught fire by itself one day.. my sis had the insight to tell me she tinks the idols will not be 'comfortable' with this Christian God and therefore she agreed to the removal; tho she herself hasn't committed to receive Jesus yet. I am thankful that at least she and my eldest sister come to church for that one time in a year... to 'give face' to my brother the preacher-man. This year, he was really preaching at the Alor Setar church; a message in keeping with the time, he talked of new clothes for the new year; of how God stands ready to clothe us with precious garments of salvation and His very own robe of righteousness in Jesus Christ, if only we would discard our own clothes of self justification and recognize that it is by grace that we are saved, not of ourselves or of our works, so that none can boast before God.. i was desperately praying God, touch my sisters' hearts today, today, draw them into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but it wasn't the time, I guess. Tho they listened with their ears, tho they came up for prayer, but they didn't want to commit yet...i cannot understand why anyone would not want to receive God's love and salvation, my heart is grieved but i guess that's the amazing nature of God, that He would allow us the freedom to choose to reject Him, so that when we commit, it is really out of love and not compulsion, that we come to Jesus becoz we want to really,really, for no other reason than we believe He is who He says He is, the great I AM, who alone is able to save. So i guess i gotta pray some more and love some more...I can only stand on His promise that when one is saved, the entire family shall be saved one day in His good and perfect time....

... now we are back in KL... my eldest already started work. Praise God she is settling well in her new place at Jobstreet. God is truly showing her favor; in the midst of recession and cutting back jobs, within a month, she had some 5 job offers. She starts the new year with a new job, new car, an expensive lap top and a boss who happens to be my cell member, her short story is going to be published this Feb 10 by MPH in an antology called Urban Oddysey..... such is the provision of a God whose plans are always to prosper and never to harm us...my no. 2 princess finished her 1st year semester with excellent top grades; she's earning money from her on-line fashion review blog at diaryofane-shopaholic...my son moved up a notch from bottom to 2nd from the bottom of the class ...and i guess he's right when he reminds me hey, that's an improvement, besides he's already in the best class mah... hai... the indefagtible logic of youths!
And so... to God be the glory for all things going well in my family..in the midst of so many things going wrong...in society, in the world about us; the Bible says it clearly, the days are short and evil; worse things are in store for this earth. Yet it is in the darkest of shadows that light shines brightest, and dispels it. It is when we are down in the deepest valleys that our eyes can look up to the highest mountains with hope that there is a new dawn coming over the horizon...
the dawning of every new day when the Son of Righteousness shines His light into the darkened hearts of men to lead them out into everlasting life. For such is the God of mercy and compassion who wishes none to perish but all to come to repentance and eternal life in Christ Jesus... we don't need to wait for new years to come around once in 365 days..... every day is a new beginning, if we choose to open our hearts' doors to let His light in...for Jesus said, " I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.." John 8:12

xxxxxfor more CNY pix, check out http://picasaweb.google.com/laisaikhoon xxxx

Another Makan??!

2009-01-08T00:59:00.000-08:00

Yep... just being a typeeecal M'sian - any occassion is a good occassion to eat and celebrate! So it was after countdown on Dec 31st 2008 ....still makan-ing. This time, it was a loooong overdue get-together pot-bless with some good old frens..nay, not frens, more than frens, becoz these few that i can count on my one hand are truly the ones closest to me in the big family of Christ that we all belong to . They are my 'sounding board' for wise counsel, they are my 'pillars' who support me in united prayer to God for they know the heaviest things upon my heart. They are the ones who lend me their ears and their shoulders. Closer than my cell-mates, these are the ones who love me enuf to tell me off when i need to be told off, who shut me up when i need to shut up. And that's more than friendship already... i m so blessed that God sends such people into my life!
We hv gone thru some 6/7 years of time together, joined together by a mutual passion to share the love of Christ to those who don't know Him. Somehow God pulled us together when we went thru a church training programme on evangelism; so i call them my EE (evangelism explosion) kaki. We graduated,and found ourselves working together. Every week end we would all gather with others as like-hearted and minded to visit the local hospitals to minister to sick, lonely, hurting, dying patients. I hv since branched off to do street work, but i thank God every day for these faithful servants who are still at it every Sat, and even now venturing further afield into private homes , to spread the message of God's great love to those in need. I count myself privileged to know these human angels.
So its always a pleasure to meet up for grand makan every now and then. This year, we have not been doing much of that, tho we see each other in church, talk regularly via phone, email , but hai ya, too caught up with this, that and the other to sit down for a proper meal together... until 2009 already rolled in! So we take it as a farewell to 2008 and a welcome to the new year... which is already 8 days old as of now! It was also timely to celebrate my 2 kids b-days, my son turning 15 and my no. 2 princess turning 19... actually i hv to confess i quite forgot about their b-days til my no. 1 reminded me ... bleh, this old mom, really got fuddy duddy brains lah!!

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New Year, New You?

2009-01-01T02:36:00.000-08:00

So 2009 has officially begun... again i marvel..gee, so fast, one more year gone.... at the stroke of midnite Dec 31st 2008 just passed into history. I was in church, as has been my usual practice these past 8 years, counting down the seconds with a huge bunch of people in God's house. No, we didnt have any fancy fireworks, no fierce parties of revelry, but a celebration no less... remembering God's faithfulness in bringing us thru another 366 days of life and singing out praises unto Him who is worthy. Amongst the crowd was a group of Iranians and another group of Africans to give us some 'international' flavour! We sang our hearts out, we listened for about 2 hours,as individuals trooped up to give public testimony of how God had blessed , protected and provided for specific needs and answered specific prayers. There were touching accounts of miracles of healing, of lives transformed, of souls saved by God's grace and power. To me, there's no better way to usher in a new year than to remember God's goodness throughout the old year and be thankful to Him in all things that has come to past. Becoz as at 12.01, Jan 1st 2009, i m still alive, and well.. and my heart is at peace, filled with hope for the 365 days ahead, becoz He is walking me thru.. again!
Yet I know some people dont bother much about Dec 31st; they cant see wat's the fuss; its just another date in the calendar to mark off. I guess that's true. After all thanking God shld be a daily affair; we dont hv to wait till Dec 31st to be grateful! Still to me, Dec 31st evokes a stirring in the heart somehow, not becoz there's anything special abt the day itself , but more like it's a symbol, a water-shed that represents the passing of the old into the new; there's something final final about it.
Before leaving for church, we had sat down as a family to a simple dinner. For once,both my 2 daughters' boy frens were with us. To me, it was a rare occassion, as we dont get everyone this close all together at one time. And i was moved to gather everybody around after dinner to read from God's word : "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:23-24)
When i first read this verse a long time ago, i thot how odd it is that God shld require us to go and reconcile with someone who has something against us; not the other way round. I wld hv thot it more logical that i go and ask forgiveness from someone against whom i hv harboured ill feeling or wronged. Yet here it was clearly, God said go reconcile with the person who has something agst me, not me against him/her. Which means if i m aware someone begrudges me, rightly or wrongly, i m to make the 1st move!! Wah, not easy leh, but that's what He said, and that's wat i hv to do, even as I acknowledge He is God...

Thus, much as i was all ready to go to church to thank God and worship Him, yet I m reminded to first make amends. Repentance must come before rejoicing, mourning comes before dancing. So it was that when i checked my heart, i knew before i could come before God, i had to make right with my own family first. I was sure there were things i had said and done to my beloved kids which had hurt them, things which they were keeping hidden in their hearts against me. And I wanted a full release of forgiveness. Again it doesn't mean i wait until Dec 31st to do this. Like thanksgiving, confession should be a daily habit and it is with our family; whenever we gather for family devotion (which is at least 2x weekly) to study the Bible, we freely confess our sins as we pray together.
But this Dec 31st it seemed appropriate for me to make public confession. So I did. It wasn't easy; i had to swallow every bit of my adult pride; saying sorry in public is very humbling. But i thank God I did it; becoz now the past is truly buried.. and i can go to church with a light heart, for i hv done the right thing before God and before man, standing on the guarantee of His promise :
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new" - 2 Cor 5:17
"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteouness" - 1 John 1:8-9

How do you see 2009??

2008-12-29T01:38:00.000-08:00

Well, Dec 25th has come and gone, now everyone's counting down to Dec 31st 2008. Its with a mix of dismay and excitement that i realise school's gonna start in 6 days' time!! Dismay coz aiyah, no more sleeping beyond 5 am anymore; now hv to build back the discipline of early morning routines... excitement becoz hey, my boss is still my boss, and God's shown me such a challenging vision for the year ahead for the school.. my kids couldn't understand why on earth i would hesitate to be promoted to Principal of Mighty Kids, ha ha, guess that's the initial reaction of most. When my boss first sounded to me about 4 months ago the possibility that she may move on to other things in her life, i quite dreaded her suggestion that i shld take over. Not that i m not ready; and i know i can do the job; so its not a question of ability or readiness. As always its a question of heart - do i want to? And honestly i had to tell God, Lord, i dont want to lead,i just want to follow. Just as my boss candidly admits she feels she's so comfortably settled into a 'rut'; we call it comfort zone... so likewise i confess i m also reluctant to assume new tings, becoz my 'rut' is so comfy!After all, i've been with her from the time the kindy was set up 8 yrs ago, and praise God for His favor on the school that we hv come to a stage where growth has steadied throughout these years. Yet i didn't wanna be disobedient, if really God wants to move me up to other things, well, who am i to say no?? So i simply left it to God,and told Him, if He wanted to promote me, He would hv to give me the passion to head the school; well, He didn't burn my heart, but He did burn my eyes with vision instead of better things are coming, i know... coz i saw 2009 as a year of spiritual liberation - its Mighty Kids 7th year of operation, and biblically, 7 is freedom! How exciting.. I know this is the year we need to start using those wonderful fabulous wings God hs already given us to fly for Him! For those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall fly on wings of eagles; they shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint... Wat a promise!

So, despite all the gloom and the doom-sayers of 2009,yes, i m excited. The whole world has been bombarded with how things are just gonna get worse and worse in the coming year. There is such a burden of heaviness in the air, despite all the surface festivities of Christmas and New Year; i tink they call it 'window-dressing'. But the outlook is being trumpeted daily in the news reports of lay-offs, no/less bonus, frozen salaries..and that's just the economics; wars and unrest are still being fought all over the world; just look at the mess our neighbour Thailand is in, and we still read about humans killing humans in Palestine. So you ask me wat's there to look forward to in 2009 except more bad news? I guess if i look with human eyes, there really is nothing beautiful on the horizon. But if i look with the spiritual eyes of the heart, with a confidence that the God who created all things good (and that includes man) in the beginning, the God who knows everyone by name (tho some dont even want to know His name), the God with whom ALL things are possible, the God who says I AM the same, yesterday, today and forever... if i focus on that God who is King of kings and Lord of lords, then i see different things... i see that in the midst of bad, evil and suffering, God can turn it all around in His own time, in His own way to make it good. Dont ask me how or when, its enuf for me that He can becoz He says so, and God never lies. (only man do that) He came to dispel all darkness, by virtue that He is the light of the world. So why shld i wallow in fear and worry abt this, that and the other ting hitting me? Ok, if bad times are coming, so be it, my God is still good!Watever times it may be....
I will lift up my eyes to the hills - from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made the heaven and earth... Psalm 121:1-2 .. for God promised:
When you pass thru the waters, I will be with you, and thru the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk thru the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you... for I am the Lord, your God... Isaiah 43:2

Celebrating Christmas at Home 08

2008-12-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

Well, Dec 25th has come and gone again (and Dec 31st 2008 is already counting down..4,3,2,1 day away) . As a Christian, i bemoan the crass commercialisation of this most holy and blessed event, reducing it to nothing but ubiquitous displays of Christmas trees and blaring of sacred hymns in every shopping mall, with strutting Santa Clauses and SantaRinas...i only ventured into but 2 shopping malls this year, and that was just for presents and groceries and i almost didn't even want to put up the Christmas tree in the house; not that i have anything agst such a beautiful tree, but its just that its got absolutely nothing to do with the birth of the Savior of the world !! Buuutt... well, the kids raised a fuss and as my smartie eldest princess said, if i wanna do away with paganistic rituals, i might as well dont even celebrate Dec 25th as Christmas, since it wasn't even Jesus' real birthday, but just a handy date picked by the Roman Emperor Constantine for purely political reasons! Well, she's right, and the house does look kind-of incomplete w/out the tree; so out it comes for yet another year....and i guess it does look kind of pretty, esp with the lights twinkling and all, even tho truth to say, our tree is not the 'normal' orderly decorated in 1 theme kind that's common to most. I like mine 'hotch-potch' which means everything jumbled up everywhere, so every year it's a different look, altho the ornaments remain pretty much the same...
To me, just like that tree, Christmas is always the same, and yet always different - fresh and new as each day that is given of the Lord. Just like God is always and forever God , but each day should bring a new living reality of God in our lives. So i go to church/work every day, i do lots of things the same everyday, but i wanna look for that newness of life that makes mundane things meaningful. Truth is as i discovered, its not anything i or anyone can do that gives purpose to this life on earth. Its not making more money, its not fighting for a noble cause,(tho that is worthy of itself), its not doing good and avoiding evil, its not dreaming big visions (tho that can be a motivation), meaning and purpose in life has already been given to all, as expressed " The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever "...but in the finiteness of our flesh, we only want to 'live well'= a happy trouble free existence on earth. How sad it is when God has prepared so much for us and we are content with so little. As one writer puts it, we humans are so easily placated; we are like little kids content to make and play with little mud-pies in the sand, when the Creator of the universe tells us to look up and see the glories reserved for those who would take their eyes off the mud !!
I want to enjoy God forever becoz that goes beyond enjoying life on this earth. And each Christmas i m reminded once again how God has made that enjoyment possible - now on earth, this very moment - by coming to earth 2008 years ago, in the form of flesh... that we might behold Him, full of grace and glory..
Christmas reminds me how blessed we are that God has done all that needs to be done for us to enjoy Him forever... if only we would come to Him, who came to us and loved us first. My heart was bursting as i sat in church Christmas morning with the kids beside and behind me, singing those old sweet hymns which praise so aptly of the Savior born unto the world, that whomsoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life. All other earthly pursuits pale into nothingness in comparison to this one purpose of the Divine - that He came to seek us, His creation, who were lost and to reconcile us back to Him, thru that little baby born in a manger in Bethlehem at Christmas...

So, tho we end up doing the same things this year like last year...my no. 1 princess turned chef for the day and we 'servants' sweated it out in the kitchen to produce a labor of love for the dinner table.. a quiet time with family gathered around, and of coz the mandatory opening of presents,yet for me, this is the ever new wonder of Christmas ...
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders; And He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.. Isaiah 9:6

p/s .. for more fotos, log onto http://picasaweb.google.com/laisaikhoon
(yes, i learnt a new skill - how to create my own album of fotos on the web... old dog can learn new tricks eh!!)

Celebrating Christmas in Cell Fellowship....

2008-12-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

And so the parties continue... the same nite after the street-feeding, my cell held a gathering for invited guests of the members. Looking back at the fotos, i rmbr how it was 8 yrs ago that this cell first became part of my Christian life..
at that time, they were complete strangers , yet they so readily opened their hearts to me at the time of my deepest grief,as i was trying to come to terms with the loss of a dearly-loved husband... i rmbr how one of them approached me in the midst of all the people trooping in and out of the house to pay their condolences - i was too 'pooped' to even cry, and she asked if she could get me groceries - and she returned with bags of stuff later, for which she refused to be reimbursed...
i rmbr how my very own boss, the headmistress of the church kindergarten i had just joined some 5 months ago insisted, despite my protestations, to stay over with me, and in the middle of the nite i ended up crying becoz i missed my husband so, and all she did was hug me...
i rmbr how the whole cell offered to help me shift house - a nightmare! - and the men went around nailing, drilling and hanging heavy stuff for me after that, not only my cell, but there was a whole troupe of youngsters from my daughter's cell driving a convoy of cars, loading and unloading continuously thru out the shift...
i rmbr those times when i had no money to go for India missions trips - which is like every time practically! - and one or other of my cell members would draw me aside and give me a love offering, and always somehow end of the day, there would be enuf...
i rmbr how in one of our cell outreach projects, we all (some even brought their kids)were driven, many standing in the open back portion of 2 jeeps, bumping all the way up to a remote mountain deep in the forests of Raub to minister to the orang asli community there, and then bumping all the way down again in the dark nite, pelted by rain..

And now 8 yrs down the line, it's this bunch of people (minus a couple, add new ones since then )with whom i am still meeting up every Friday nite... praying together, worshipping together,learning about the ways and the Word of God together, eating together, laughing and yes, sometimes crying together, and of coz celebrating Christmas together, joined by a love greater than ourselves - the love of Christ that binds us as one in the family of God. And best of all, bringing non-Christians into the circle of this love that can only issue from Jesus , the God of all love, grace and mercy
For Jesus said: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another - John 3:34-35

Celebrating Christmas in the streets...

2008-12-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

Tis' the season again when Christmas is in the air...Dec 25th is now only days away, but already celebration parties have been and are being held here, there, everywhere. My first started last Sat on the streets, as I pulled in some of my Bahasa church members to help out at the street feeding programme I minister at weekly. It was the 1st time we did it all in Bahasa M'sia; right from the worship songs to the sharing of God's Word, which I delivered by my own testimony of how i and my whole family was saved 8 yrs ago, during the crisis of my husband's cancer, thru receiving Jesus Christ, God's most precious gift to mankind...
indeed every Christmas i can't thank God enuf, realising that if not for the birth of Jesus, it would be impossible for man to be reconciled to God, and we would all be condemned into the pits of hell, as we actually deserve...but becoz of Him who was born at Christmas, a way has been opened for everyone to walk right into heaven... praise God for the Hope...
and so in that little dirty alley, on that Sat, i thank God that even in such a place , the message of Hope went out to the poor in spirit,the hungry, homeless, hurting.. for even if no one in the world cares for these who are looked down as the very dregs of society, God still loves them, and God still calls everyone to repentance and everlasting life - He is ever in the business of saving souls, no matter how wretched they are, and how privileged i am to do my little part to lead them to Him...bringing Hope to the hopeless; that's what Christmas is all about...
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son (Jesus) that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life - John 3:16

Mumbai

2008-12-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

IMAGES OF INDIA ...

Today i am home, sweet home after 10 days in India...10 days of being so blessed by God to be able to give the little i can give in terms of preaching, prayer and ministry to Christians and non-Christians alike...
10 days of seeing God move in spite of and above things which happened out of our control, but always within His control. For truly the entire team of 12 stood only by His grace, as we experienced physical and spiritual challenges in doing our work...
The day before we left Mumbai had been bombed by terrorists. I was praying so hard that God would make it possible for us to go despite the danger, and so was jumping for joy when the official word came that we can go. But had to reassure my 2nd daughter who was quite dismayed that i should be going into such a place at such a time - that God holds my life in His hands all the while; there is no one and nothing - not even a bomb - which can take away my life, if He doesn't will it. So Mumbai, it was...
It was hard enuf planning logistics for 3 teams going 3 different directions; what more, within my own team, we were split again into another 3 sub-teams; straight away upon arrival at Mumbai, we were whisked off to diff. places. I found myself quite alone travelling into a village some 1 1/2 hrs drive away from Mumbai. The church was slap in the middle of a field, and to reach it or get out of it, we had to walk via a small pathway strewn with rocks; at nite it was absolutely pitch dark and we had to carry torchlites. Toilet was 2 shacks outside the church building, which thankfully were clean and decent. Along the pathway was a hut where a family made muruku for a living, and a slum settlement where we did children's work in a little space within houses...children ministry is always fun, for Indian children are ever so approachable and friendly; they come forward to touch you, shake your hand, ask your name again and again, so... lovable. I had a grand time teaching and they learning the Malay song Goyang-Goyang, and telling them the story of Jonah and the fish!
God is so good to answer the desires of my heart... i had so much looked forward to visiting Dharavi, reputedly Asia's largest slum settlement, but it appeared initially i had to stay in the village. So again i was praying hard, God, i want to minister in Dharavi.. and again He made it be.. the plan was changed and i found myself in the most horrible, gut wrenching, pit of pits, where so many human bodies live together side by side in what i call holes, not homes or houses. Built 2 storey high out of concrete so close to each other you just have to stretch out both arms and that's the distance btw neighbour and neighbour. Each hole is barely 10x 10'- its kitchen, bedroom and everyting rolled into that space. They use steel ladders to climb up to the 'homes' built one on top of another; and get thru by a hole in the wall of the downstairs portion...outside there is no drainage, drains are stuck full of stagnant water, rubbish everywhere... children naked, everyone walks around barefoot... such filth, dirt ... i dunno how to describe it. People hv to gather at water pipes to collect water, and yes, to lug pails all the way up the steel ladders to get it into their 'house'. Alleys are so narrow if one person is coming one direction, the other from the opposite has to move aside and stand still to give way. And amidst all this, people are doing business, tanning leather, selling sundries, sewing/ironing clothes.. my heart broke... no human being should be living in such conditions...
But even in such hovels, God moves.. as we distributed tracts and our Indian church members shared the love of Christ, some listened, invited us into their homes to pray, posed for my camera...and in the midst of all that misery, a teenage girl who spoke English responded to my sharing and opened her heart to Jesus... yes, in the midst of such darkness, the light of God can and did shine..
Even in the places which were bombed, which we managed to visit on the last day in Mumbai...yes, i was at the Taj Mahal hotel, and the other 2 places as well.. it had turned into a huge parade of people massing around the area, some praying, some walking holding placards proclaiming peace and unity,TV crews,police and guards evrywhere.. wat a heartbreak that it shld take a tragedy to bring together people of all tongues and age in a common denouncement of the utter incomprehensibility of terrorism - the ultimate derangement of man's nature - humans killing humans...yet again in the midst of such horror, God preserved 1 sole terrorist to survive to tell the story of man's wickedness, 1 out of 9... who says there is no God?
We left Mumbai by nite train, which took us 1,600 km 24 hrs from west to east, down south to Chennai... and again, He answered my prayer; for stuck in a coach with us, 2 of our fellow occupants, a young girl and a Nepalese guy heard the story of how God gave His only Son to save the world...
I can only thank God for His faithfulness, for even at the end of our missions, He was with us... our car suddenly stopped in the middle of the highway as we were journeying back from the village.. the brakes had jammed... i wouldn't be here today if there had been a bus or a lorry tailing us, the 3 of us were all seated at the back, literally sitting ducks for a rearend collision... truly angels must have been shielding the car from any other vehicle, despite it being the main busy h/way into the city.. and such are the wondrous works of God, that even in this kind of situation, in the middle of nowhere, we were able to share in broken Tamil to an Indian Muslim family, whose run-down house was by the roadside.. God is truly everywhere, everytime... it was only later that we realised our accident actually averted another more serious one which would have happened to the car owner's family, becoz the next nite they had to travel long distance for a relative's funeral... thank God it happened to us, and not them... that's the wonder of a God who knows all things and works them out for the best.
So,i look back on the past 10 days, in awe of an awesome God to whom i can only give thanks, praise and glory , for indeed He is worthy.

....and Funerals

2008-11-04T02:38:00.000-08:00

Now talking about funerals, my 2nd bro in law went home to the Lord last week, after a 3 yr battle with lung cancer. Like my husband it was only during the last days of his life on earth that he came to know Jesus. I rmbr sharing with him the story of how God came into our lives during Chinese New Year when i was back in Alor Star a year ago. He never said much then, and i left it at that, tho i never stopped praying God would touch his heart. Well, it looks like God did, for suddenly out of the blue, March this year, he announced he wanted to be baptised. And so he was. My sis called for the pastor the nite before he passed away; and after being prayed over, he never regained consciousness; so peaceful was his passing.

I had journeyed back with some misgivings in my heart; for my sis' family relationship had been somewhat strained betw her and the daughter-in-law. (the only Christian amongst them) Things had gotten to such a stage, she had in a fit of anger disowned her only son who sided with the wife. I was wondering if World War 3 would break out at the funeral, but thank God He heard and answered my prayer for peace to prevail; i was shuttling to and fro betw the parties trying to reconcile them, to forgive harsh words spoken in anger , irrespective of who is right or wrong ; just as God forgives us who have all sinned against Him ; who are we not to forgive those who sin against us...

And i fell back to thinking how true wat the Bible says about the human tongue - it is a fire, a world of evil amongst the parts of the body. Such a small little organ, yet so lethal is its effect. How many times have we spoken out w/out thinking and lived to regret our words? Once released out of our mouths, nothing can be taken back. We could say sorry, we could whack ourselves on the head 1000 times for being rash, we could cry our hearts out; but we could never remove the sting of words. The worse part is if we allow the sting to fester, it becomes toxic poison in our system, building up hate, resentment, bitterness, pride and a critical spirit which only serves to destroy the peace and love which should attend our relationship with others.

I used to think i was entitled to say anything and everything if i was right. (and even if i was wrong, i would say it anyway, becoz i figured that's my right to my own opinion). Well, i m discovering my perspective is not the criteria in determining right or wrong. So before i open my big mouth, i bite my tongue and ask in my heart, God, what's Your take on this? Isn't it true that only God's right is right? I mean, my right could be very wrong to you, and vice versa. If the world was to be governed by every individual's idea of right or wrong, it would be even more messed up than it already is! But hai, we human beings can be so self-deceived; in the name of independence, liberty and tolerance, we tink its ok to just live and let live, hoping to preserve the peace. But that kind of peace is a delusion really; it merely sweeps everything under the carpet of pretence that each of us can live as we like with our own standards of morality and ethics.
At the end of the day, there is only 1 standard against which we are judged; and that is no man's standard, but the standard of a 100% holy, 100% just God. Before that absolute standard, we all fail, some more miserably than others, but all fail, becoz none of us are perfect; God knows all have sinned, that's why He sent us a Savior, coz He knows we can't rescue ourselves, no matter how much good we do or attempt to do. The rights could never cancel out the wrongs... when we come to realise that truth, that's when our heart will finally acknowledge the need for a Savior....
Thank God He has already anticipated that need, and answered it by giving us Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life; if only all would believe this.

Of weddings.......

2008-11-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

Talk about beautiful beginnings... the other day i received a most unexpected call...from a loooong lost person from loooong ago... it was my mom's fren, whom i call aunty Molly, back from the days when we were still staying in this fabulous place (employees quarters) with a swimming pool called Taman Aman. I rmbr i threw my very 1st b-day party by the pool side when i turned 18; and i wore this black tingy - my 1st 'sexy' piece (well, it was sexy to me then!) presented by Cat and the girls... wow, such a throw-back to the good old days... well, anyway, back to the present.. aunty Molly btw is actually Jinai's real aunt... and it turns out her son was getting married in KL, and to cut a looong story short... yep, i went, and i met up with aunty M and Jinai as well... not only dear Jinai, but her whole family - i kept marvelling how her impish sister Amy and the little bro David had grown soooo much! (ok,ok i keep forgetting how old I am myself! ) Well, Jinai is... Jinai, still same bubbly character i rmbr her as....

and of coz weddings being weddings, hai, the bride's beautifooool, the groom's handsome...i was kept entertained by the screen put up to run the 'life-history' of the happy couple... my mind rewind back to the weddings of our yesteryears... rmbr we only had video taping, and even then, there would be this guy who had to lug around this huge, big blinding light tingy sticking it into everyone's face, capturing every pimple and every drop of sweat in the heat! The weddings now are so hi-tech, man... everyone is using computer techno to do up cutesy pix of 'him-n-her' from baby in diapers to teens courting, down to how and where the question was popped finally. I attended one where the guy actually wrote it out on a waterproof board underwater, as they were diving in the deep blue sea off the coast of some exotic island... man, talk about romance!

Indeed, marriage is such a beautiful beginning, ya. It symbolises the epitome of man's journey for wat is commonly termed a 'soul-mate' to walk thru life together. And it should be beautiful; after all God created the first human relationship to be that of a man and woman bonded in holy matrimony for better for worse, for richer for poorer till death do they part. And i m sure every couple who walked down the aisle would not hv thot anything else to the contrary on that big day. Yet if we take a peek at what happens 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 7, 15, 25, years down the line, isnt it sad that some of the beautiful beginnings have turned out less than beautiful. Indeed dont even have to wait that long; sometimes in a matter of 6 months, the happily-ever-after euphoria is already turning into black-faced mornings after.. no matter how perfect it started out, all too soon, the honeymoon is over and all couples are put to the test, not once, but again and again...

How many of us, to be honest, have entertained silent doubt in our heart abt our partners, especially after a quarrel??(If you hv never quarrelled with your spouse, i salute you, becoz you must be a very very rare 'breed'). I rmbr once my husband asked me whether i ever regretted marrying him... and i m ashamed to say i couldn't answer, becoz the truth was sometimes i did. To say no would be a lie, to say yes would hurt him; so i changed the subject. (ya, typical woman!) It made me feel even worse when he volunteered that he never regretted marrying me. At that moment i realised wat a terrible person i can be...i recalled horrid things i did; like taking out work frustrations on the kids and on him, never wishing him good morning, always waiting for him to say sorry after a fight (even if it was my fault), oh, so many many little tings that negated love. Not that he was a saint either; but then who am i to judge, when i myself am such a sinner?

Weren't there any good times to rmbr? Of coz there were plenty. And it was these that kept me going when he was so ill with the cancer eating up his body... it was calling up strength from the memories of a love which began beautiful, got a bit worn and off-color thru the years, but still was strong enuf to weather the pain of disease and yes, death. I knew my husband loved me, but i never knew how much till after his passing, when my brother told me wat my husband said when questioned why he wanted to become a Christian; his answer was" becoz of my wife". Wat he did tell me after he prayed to receive Jesus on his hospital bed was that now he understood wat i had been trying to tell him about Christ - finally he knew wat peace was.

And so it is, i treasure those last moments of his life, when his love for me led him to experience the supreme love of God. How merciful God is, to bless me with 17 years of a marriage that survived the ups and downs of crisis after crisis, and above all, saved us both when we were yet sinners, and promised us that eventually we will meet again in heaven to live a life that surpasses anyting we can ever imagine or dream of.....

So today, i can still smile ... ...i am not a poor,little widow.... i am rich beyond measure; for tho i may have nothing in this world, i have everything in Christ Jesus... and i know wat was a beautiful beginning on earth will end up even more beautiful in heaven! My husband breathed his last on his bed at home, with my bro-in-law at his side singing Amazing Grace.... how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, i once was lost but now am found, was blind but now i see.... i used to hear and even sing this song at scouts/rangers' campfires in school but i never understood its meaning till that day.... praise God for His grace that He gave us His one and only Son Jesus who came to seek and save the lost, to bring us out of darkness into light, from death into life. For He is the Beginning and the End, He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega; from Him, thru Him and to Him are all things.

Blessings... from generation to generation

2008-10-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

Today i m basking in reflected glory as i admire my no. 2 girl pix shot featured in Star Youth, on the e-shopping review blog that she operates under Diaryofane-shopaholic.blogspot.com...Hai, she looked so sweeeeet... and my heart is so full of gratitude for a God who blesses me soooo much even unto my next generation; i m certain their daddy up in heaven is smiling like i am!

For not only my no. 2, but no. 1 princess is already seeing her work in print, altho its a small beginning, she has had some poems and just recently another short story published in Quill, one of the MPH mags.

To think when i was their age, i used to harbor ambitions abt being a writer... 20 yrs down the line, whilst i m still dreaming my old dreams, my daughters are seeing their dreams already happening! I like to tink it's all my genes being passed down, of coz. But i know deep in my heart, it's all the work of God, a wonderful awesome awesome God who holds their future in His mighty hands and has got all sorts of plans to prosper and never harm them.... it gives me such assurance and hope to know this; that all i gotta do is love my God, creator of heaven and earth, and this God who is our Abba Father will surely bless the kids He gave me in the 1st place - when i learn to let go and let Him work in their lives...

Thats always the difficult part; which parent doesn't want the best for their off spring? Which parent hasn't tried to do the best for his/her child/ren - we nag, lecture, pressure (and call it advise) our kids with our own expectations abt how they shld live their lives, which parent hasn't worried day and nite abt how their precious kids are gonna turn out, tear hair when we encounter rebellious , closed-up hearts and ears which refuse to listen? We groan and moan and wring our hands, and try even harder ; we work hard to earn lots of money to provide them a house, a car, to make sure they get the best education, get the best earning job, marry a 'good' person and live a 'nice' life... but wat if God has other (usually more exciting) plans for them??

But really, actually, all that worrying does no good one iota. I learnt early on when i was struggling as a widowed mom that i can't handle it all, so one day when i had done crying for the umpteenth time wondering how on earth to be a 'father' to my young son, i just gave up, admitted defeat... and gave it all away to God. I just as good as told Him, look, You gave these precious kids to me, and now i honestly dunno how to take care of them, since there's supposed to be two of us, me and the dad, now there's only one of me; whilst dad is partying in heaven, i can't do this alone... i give them back to You, as their Abba Father who loves them more than i ever can, who surely is more than capable to watch over them, for You are the God who never slumbers nor sleeps, who sees them in their coming in and going out.. In the words of the Bible, i just cast all my cares upon Him, and truly in accordance to His promise, He sustained and continues to sustain me.
So instead of living my dreams thru my kids, i bite my tongue and refrain from telling them to.... take this course, apply for this job, do it mama's way... its so easy to plant our desires on our children; but i have to learn my desires don't matter; at the end of the day, God's plans outbeat mine anytime; they will reach their best potential when they find their destiny in Him.

The moment i committed 'my' kids back to Him, the release came into my heart. Of coz i m human, and there are still times when i tear hair as a mom. But such times, i purposefully still myself to pray and say again that prayer, Lord, they are Yours, i give them back to You. Forgive me that i keep forgetting it... And the peace washes over the heart again, with a certainty that He knows and in all things He works for good for those who love Him according to His purpose ; even when my eyes can't see any good! Truly as Jesus promised, when we come to Him all weary and laden, He will give us rest.

I m so glad i dont have to carry the burden of looking after the kids by myself, that God actually carries them for me, when i surrender to Him. And i can only whisper never ending thanks for all His blessings upon my family. As i remind the kids, we are not rich in $$ terms, but in Christ we already have treasures beyond earthly value! At times my heart is so full when i look at them over the dinner table, and realise how they have grown from little kids to teens and now the 2 girls blossoming into womanhood, and already God is blessing them with so much talent.... i m excited for them, knowing as they learn to walk with the God of their father and mother, their lives will always be a blessed adventure... truly the blessings of God are from generation to generation without end....

hmmmm, now i m wondering about the boy.... he hasn't shown any bright sparks yet , but he does have rather longish fingers... perhaps a Picasso or Richard Clayderman in the making???!

Of tears and fears

2008-09-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

Its been sobering, visiting a cancer-stricken terminally-ill brother in law in Ipoh, attending a funeral wake for one of my kindy children's mom (who passed on after a cancer relapse), hearing via email of Choo Khang's demise, and just last Sat being told that one of those homeless street vagabonds i used to counsel had also passed away.... So much of the stink of death around.
Bottom line, we never know do we, when its gonna strike any one of us. But as the saying goes, in life there are only 2 sure things - death and taxes.

I got to musing how we should be preparing for both diligently, even if we hate it, coz there's no running away from them. My husband used to prepare my tax returns; now for the past 7 yrs, come every march, i gotta dig out all those records and do it myself. I used to hate it; being unfamiliar with all the columns of figures; but it gets easier with each year's practise.

I have also prepared for my death; from my will to the songs i want sung at my wake, down to my last words to the kids. They already know wat i dont want - long faces, sad tunes, mournful eulogies. I want a party to celebrate the life i lived on earth before death and the life eternal i will be living after death in heaven with my God. Becoz i know for sure the second i breathe my last on this earth, i will be in the loving arms of Jesus, my Savior in my permanent home, right in heaven. What blessed assurance this knowledge gives me!

I remember how fearful i was about losing my husband to death before knowing Jesus; not just for him but for myself, wondering where's our final destination when death strikes ?? I feared because i didn't 'know' death. That's human nature; we all fear things we don't know.
And I remember the tears i shed at his wake. Yes, there were tears but by then, 2 years of experiencing the power of God's love, grace and mercy in my life, there was no more fear; becoz my husband knew the same Jesus i knew, i was sure of where he had gone, sure that we would be meeting again when death comes to me. Whats there to fear when my God has conquered death forever?! Death couldn't hold my Jesus; it can't hold me; for indeed anyone, everyone who calls on His name shall not perish but have eternal life. That's God's guarantee sealed by the blood of Jesus which flowed from the cross of Calvary. In the certainty of death, is the certainty of life everlasting - what an amazing promise... only an amazing God can give, and prove by the One who loved us so much He died for all, that all should live.

Yes, there will always be tears when earthly life comes to an end, but there need not be fears that death or hell (wat other alternatives are there?!) is the end; thank God, Jesus holds out the key to a new beginning, a new life where there is no more pain, sorrow or tears. I tell my kids the only tears i want shed at my funeral to be tears of joy - becoz then i would finally be home with my God, my Lord to live a fantastic life some more - Now that's a hope to live and die for!

Ulu Mulu

2008-09-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

I m just back from the wild wild east... of M'sia, Mululand to be exact. It's either you will love it or hate it. For me i fell in love...tho not exactly at first sight... the love affair started only upon resting my achy feet after walking 1.5 km in the hot hot afternoon sun, dragging our luggage from a really bare airport to Mulu park HQ, where we had booked in for a 4 day 3 nite stay... all gung-ho adventurers trying to be heroes, mah (the truth is we too kiamsiap to fork out wat was to us a rather unreasonable fee of $5 per pax for a 5 min ride !!) ... wat an adventure it was... first was culture-shock - all you see is all you get, and all you see is green green forest forest everywhere your eyes roam. No kedai runchit , no kampung, no.. nothing, not even maggi mee (except those sold at the 1 and only cafe which is like $5 per instant cup!) The nearest ATM is a 1/2 hr flight back to Miri! Guests who opt for the cheaper accommodation are practically locked in as from 9 pm, coz the quarters are situated right inside the park cafe which closes at that time!

So if you are the type who will die w/out karaoke, chlorinated swimming pool, gym, spa and the full works of a so-called 'must-have civilized' vacation, you will hate Mulu. (Of coz if you have the $$ to splash, there is the fancy Royal Mulu Resort which houses all these 'obligatory' stuff for city slicks!) But if you are like us, with an Indiana Jones heart, who dont mind touching stinky bat guano, (thats poo, for the uninitiated, not that we had much choice abt the matter; it was either touch it for grip or fall off the rocks!) , getting shoes all wet splashing thru small-time but still raging rivers, gingerly walking on a 2 km suspension bridge 20 m above ground amongst tree tops, (praying the ropes wont break when you are right in the centre and there's a yawning river down below you) holed up in caves so dark you cant see your fingers in front of your face, dipping into icy cold clear fresh waters ... if you are the type who just wanna gape at God's fantastic handiwork in trees, flowers, bats, worms, ants, things i dont even know the names of.... you will love Mulu... for this is truly wat Eden must have been like in the beginning.

And btw, yes, they actually have a Garden of Eden named for a beautifoool spot, they even have Adam and Eve's showers! And oh the caves, the caves... wat works of art they are!! There is only 1 word to describe what we saw, did and experienced during our short stay there - AWESOME. These few pix dont even begin to do justice to the wonders of Mulu, you gotta see it to know wat i m raving abt... for wat we saw represented but the littlest fraction of wat Mulu is all abt - we only got into 3 of the 'easy' caves (meaning for duh duh tourists who have absolutely zero experience of caving, like us jakuns from the big city!!) Was it dirty? Well, whaddya expect lah? This is mountain territory; if you are squeamish abt sweat, mud, creepy crawlies, afraid of the dark, heights, shadows, man, take it from me - this is the best place to confront and conquer your fears!
We were so so blessed... God gave us such fine weather every day/nite that we had something on, even tho the weather is apparently pretty unpredictable with flash floods in the forests known to happen. And when we flew back into Miri, we were so favoured by a local pastor's daughter who drove us around for a quickie tour of the town before our flight home. And bonus : hey, no flight delays!

So i m already planning to retire in Miri - its got sun, sea, sand, beach, and mountains all in one, plus lots and lots of opportunities to do God's work amongst the interior regions populated by many who don't know the love of Christ..... wat more can one ask for?!

One World, One Heaven

2008-08-10T03:03:00.000-07:00

So how many of you were glued to the TV catching RTM1 live coverage of the opening ceremony of Olympics 2008 on 8/8/08?? I was one of the estimated 4 billion folks who tuned in, tho regrettably all i saw was lots of blurry colours since my old TV reception was 'off'. But i opened my eyes beeeg beeeg at the mind boggling display of China's finest performance... must say i felt a little twinge of pride at how perfectly they brought it off... i am Chinese after all mah!

Bt i wonder how many of us bothered to continue watching after the opening... all those 200 over contingents marching into the stadium... after awhile it just blurred from one team to another... i was going to switch off after 15 mins... but something happened to my heart as i listened to the commentator droning on and on announcing country after country after country, and as i watched row upon row of athletes, officials walking in...

They were just so many names, but as my eyes observed so many smiling faces... peoples of all races - white, black, yellow and in between... peoples of all religions and govt systems - i heard Iran, Iraq, Canada, Laos, Taiwan .... peoples from countries i never even knew existed.... and half my mind was on the latest news that somewhere in the Eastern bloc, Russia was fighting a war with some country, and i remembered America invading Iraq not that long ago... and here in this Birds Nest stadium, for once, for all, the world stood as one. For once, in this place there was no politics, no war, no color that divided... what no human could achieve, the Olympics did - drawing together a normally divided world to forget at least for a brief moment in time our differences. Is that great or what? And i felt hey, isn't this how it's always meant to be?

But sadly as i finally switched off the TV to head for bed, i knew it couldn't last, even within the grounds itself over the next weeks, people are striving agst each other to be the best of the best. We will be cheering our nation's athletes on to go for gold, silver or bronze. Everyone will be out to beat each other( hopefully by fair means) to show off who is the most powerful in this world!
So for another brief moment in time, the national anthems of the champions will blast. And then it will be all over... till the next Olympics wherever. Then somewhere along the line, we forget about the glory of the unity of humankind, and we go back to live behind our walls of race, religion, politics, gender, social and economic disparities. That's the real world we live in now.

Still my heart beats with a hope that it will not be this way, becoz God will not let things be this way. In His Word, He has promised there will be a new heaven and a new earth, where every knee shall bow and every tongue confess the true living God, where peoples from every tribe and every nation shall gather and bow at His throne of grace... from which flows love and mercy forever more...where "the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.. and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying and there be no more pain... for behold He makes all things new.. He says " ..I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts..."

So many things we thirst for in this world... yet just like the Olympics can only unite us for a little while, the things that we think can satisfy us - medals, accolades, power, money, success, health- are but transient false security blankets we draw around ourselves. But when we thirst for the Truth, and are ready to believe, receive and appropriate it, we are set free to live as we are meant to live, in one world, one heaven.

Highlights

2008-06-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

BM Ex-Convent Alumini Buffet Lunch 2006: Sunday 25th June, 12 noon at Hotel Park Royal, Penang.

BM Ex-Convent Alumini Dinner 2007: Saturday 30th June, 7.30 pm at Hotel Pearl View, Seberang Perai, Penang

BM Ex-Convent Alumini Buffet Lunch 2008: Saturday 16th August, 12 noon at Evergreen Laurel Hotel, Penang

As the years roll by...

2008-05-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

I was squinting my eyes and racking my brains when i viewed the 1976 batch of HSBM 'brats' on their 2008 video clip....trying to put names to faces from the long ago's of yesteryears... remembering the 'good ole days' when life was but a song, and we all dreamt of knights in shining armour (come on be honest, girls, you did too then, right? )sweeping us off into the beautiful sunset.. of coz comes complete with fancy car, big house, highpower career...hmm wat else?? Dunno wat the guys dreamt of, but must be pretty much along the same line, wat else is new, eh! Now 30+ years down the line, much water under the bridge, many dreams later... wat do we have now that we didn't have then? and wat have we lost that we had then?

I turned 48 a month ago. I m really not much into b-days, anniversaries and stuff like that. It used to matter a lot to me; bt not any more; coz i figured why shld we make such a big deal of 'special' days in our/others lives? Shldn't every day be a special day to love somebody, to make somebody happy, to wish another well? Why wait for a b-day, Valentine, or Mother's day or father's day or teacher's day or watever day to celebrate someone's life? But i digress, so anyway, my eldest princess, all of 21, sprang a last-minute surprise by arranging a dinner with my brother, and a small group of my dearest sisters and brothers in Christ. ..i felt so blessed.. and in my heart, i was telling God, thank You for bringing me thru all this 48 yrs.. i look back and i m so grateful He found me 6 years ago, in the midst of my darkest hours, Jesus shone His light into my life, and i hv never been the same....

I thot i had it all then... husband, kids, house, car, career... bt isn't it so true , we have eyes but do not see, we have ears but do not hear, we have hearts but do not understand... its only when we lose the things we love, that we gain wat is immeasurable treasure. Or like the Bible puts it, those who would lose their lives will gain it, those who would gain their lives will lose it... it takes loss to make us realise wat true gain is. For it was when i lost wat i thot was the great love of my life - my husband - that i gained the greatest love of all - in Christ Jesus.

When all else passes away, as it must, one day... we all know we can never take with us the things of the world that we accummulate thru the years of our lives on this earth, so why do we focus so much on them? A writer put it this way; there are 2 ways to get enuf, one is to accumulate more and more, the other is to desire less. Do we stop in the midst of all our activities and ponder when we stand before God, wat are we going to say to Him when He asks what have you done with the life that I gave you? Becoz He's not going to look at how many houses, cars, shares, gold, degrees you have to your name , how many times you donated food or money to the poor, how 'good' you have been... He'll just ask you does your heart know Me; do you know the One who is the Way, the Life and the Truth ?

So, so wat if i don't have the fancy car, the big house or the high powered career - I already have the most wonderful priceless treasure that no money can buy, that no one can give except the Holy One who created the heavens and the earth... And to think, its free for all who would just believe and receive the blessing God wants everyone to have!!

Seasons

2008-05-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

The Bible says there's a season and a time for every activity under heaven... how true God's word is. I had thot now that i've found my calling doing street work, i dont ever wanna stop; i had big plans, big dreams as i helped out in the ministry... yet 2 yrs down the line, it was taken away by circumstances beyond my control.. how i struggled letting go of something that had come to mean so much to me. I argued with God.. surely You don't mean to destroy such a good work that has been carrying on for so long, surely You didn't bring me in just to kick me out again.. oh, how i struggled, refusing to believe God can actually choose to tear down even a beautiful thing.

But finally, thru much crying and praying, i got wat God was trying to teach me... He's in charge of all things, and He's got every right to do wat He wants however He wants, whenever He wants. If He builds up, He can tear down...yes, even precious things. But His Word reassures me, that in all things He works for good for those who love Him according to His purpose, and that applies in all circumstances, even and esp. when things look bad. Somehow good will come out of it, in His perfect timing and way. After all that's wat my faith is based on... faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things yet unseen... I've since given up a major part of the street work; cutting it down to once a week Sat feeding.

So for once in my life, i got so much free time on my hands... it's a difficult adjustment for me, coz i m always the do-ing type, can't sit still . And i guess that's one more lesson i gotta learn - to just wait upon God for Him to lead me further. Frankly i'd rather be doing, doing, doing, rather than praying, praying, praying! Come to think of it, aren't most of us like that? We get so busssyy doing stuff, we lose track of the most impt thing we shld be doing -sitting still and listening to God. Instead we get involved in all sorts of things, even good things for that matter.

Looking back, i shld hv seen it coming.. during my last trip in India, for the 1st time in my life, i found myself preaching to more cows than people! Never happened to me... such a blow to my pride.. and i guess that's the problem... i was getting too proud, involved in so many 'good' things i was in danger of forgetting the One behind the good things, i hd come to tink i was pretty indispensable, after all hadn't God blessed me with so many talents, so many skills, surely He wants to use me to the max?? Surely He doesn't mean to put me on the shelf fiddling my thumbs! But He does, He whams me on the head to remind me - hey, kiddo, remember who you are; nothing but clay which I moulded into something worthy, I can use you, but I can also NOT use you....

Ahh, how gracious God is - He pulls me back when i m in danger of straying off the cliff...I know its time for me to let go of all other things - good and bad - and just sit at His feet and enjoy God for who He is, not for wat I can do for Him. The yester-years were terrific summers and the experience was fantastic. But now that my winter's come, i m learning hey, it's not so bad, esp. when He's around. I may not be as comfy as the sleeping bears (since i dont fancy zzzzzzz that much) but winter's cold forces me to snuggle up into the warmth of His everlasting loving arms, and rest in His peace that transcends all human understanding - and that's a truly terrific place to be in!

The legacy of a mother

2008-05-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Its Mother's Day again...add another year, another few more white hairs on the head... i woke early in pensive mood today to prepare for church. And as the kids all piled into the car, i looked at them, and said a silent prayer of thanks to the God who has guided me all these years into bringing up children who know Him as their Father in heaven, a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows.
Over the past 2 days I hd attended a prayer seminar, which really cut me to the heart, hearing the pastors talk about the days to come; when surely God's judgment shall come to pass upon all mankind. The Bible tells it, we know it, but we don't like to dwell on it, becoz it speaks of things we wld rather put off, like getting our lives right with God, becoz... we prefer to think..hey, man, don't be so morbid, things are fine, we are pretty "good" people, we do good, we try not to harm others, we don't kill, murder or steal, all we are interested in is to get a comfy life for ourselves, our kids, our families, we just wanna do our own thing... is that so wrong?
Guess not, but where is God in all this? I was trying to warn my kids over family time with them yesterday life is not all fun and games... if you know the world and all the things of the world shall pass away, how are we supposed to live today? We see so many 'unheard' of things happening this year alone ; Myanmmar never had a cyclone, Indonesia has been so torn apart by disaster after disaster, in M'sia, crime stats show 41% increase over just 3 months, 1 out of every 5 M'sian youths hv mental problems, (China apparently has 30 million of such people ), there are 60 new drug addicts every day.. we moan wats the world coming to? No place is safe, not the car park, the shopping mall, even outside our gates we get robbed!
I look at my kids, and i wonder wat kind of world they are gonna inherit... wat can i give them as a mother who loves them, wants to protect them and give them the best?
And again i m driven back to acknowledge in my heart that there is nothing i can give them that wld stand them in such troubling times as these, except that they have a Father God who they can turn to; not a human mother who is herself imperfect and so limited in what she can do for them .
So all i can do this Mother's Day is mouth a prayer that come what may, my kids will recognize and cling onto the only treasure, the only legacy their mom can ever give them - the knowledge that when everything is gone, when the world is all upside down, when storms blow, they can stand firm in Christ Jesus, becoz He is the rock of their salvation, and they will never be shaken..
I pray that they will look unto the things of God, that their eyes of their hearts will be opened to see the eternal stuff of the soul , and not be distracted by the temporary attractions of the flesh of this world, and that becoz they carry the light and the love of Jesus with them, they will make a difference to the lives around them, for as they have freely received; may they freely give....

Who cares?

2008-05-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

For the past 2 years, i had never been busier or felt more content with my life. Every Tues, Thur and Sat i wld travel down to KL to be with the street people. On top of the Sat feeding, i was ministering at this drop-in-centre which opens Mon-Sat which functions as a place for them to eat (3x daily - nothing fancy, just plain stuff like bread, biscuits, maggi mee) rest, bathe, get their clothes washed, play carrom, watch some tv and free movies-cum-supper (on Thursday nites) . I wld drop by after work for a couple of hours to sit and listen to their stories, counsel those i can, share the message of God's love with those who are open to listen. We do wat we can to help as far as we can. Like arranging for those willing to go into drug/substance or prison rehab, old folks/women's homes, buying bus tickets for those who wanna balik kampung after finding out how tough life on the streets can be...
You will be surprised how many people just walk into the centre from all over M'sia, as far as East M'sia and even foreign lands - some are sooo young, just teenager drop outs and runaways... They all come with a common dream - to get a job, make big $$ in the big city of KL... and then after 1/2/3/4/5 days out on the streets, with no job, no home, no food.... God only knows how many are sucked into criminal activities and bad habits and end up totally lost ... society frowns upon them, rejects them; no one gives them a chance. They can't get jobs - who wants to hire them?! So, they are stuck... My heart breaks over some of the stories i hv heard... but by God's grace and mercy , a few, a very few handful i hv seen break thru the vicious cycle... proof that even in the midst of such darkness, God's light shines thru, becoz really God is the only One who cares abt them.
There is really little that i can do for them , but i know i can pray. So i pray with them, for them, and thank God when some break free... for all the sweat i poured into this work, there's no greater reward than to see this happen... when lives which are all broken up get mended and turned around, transformed by God's grace and love...
2 yrs spent in this ministry hv given me so much joy, so much meaning... and i was tinking i dont wanna do anything else...but as usual, God has some surprises up His sleeve for me...

Soooo looong, tooo looong, man!

2008-05-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

Phew, i thot i wld never be able to get back into this blog... after being 'poked' by our faithful 'social secretary' Hong, i visited it, and my, my, discovered i really hv bn away much too long - my last posting was 2006!! Goodness gracious, that's like 2 years, man... and then started a really frus time of trying to log back inside... thks Hong, for hanging on wit me in there past few days and doing watever it is you did ... and thk God He answers even the silliest of prayers i send up - like pls God, help me get back into the blog!
So, hey, its good to be back on line yakkety yak yak... you know God has a funny way of stirring things up in my life. 2 years hv zipped past, 2 very fulfilling years. Which saw me so buzzzy i didn't bother keeping up with this blog. Not that that's an excuse, but aiyah... always got other things to do....
I was enjoying myself so much actually coz I finally found God's calling for my life. 2 yrs ago, He touched my heart to serve in street work, ministering to the homeless in the heart of KL Chinatown in Petaling Street. Somehow things just fell in place; one thing led to another, and before i knew it, i was joining in this street programme , which was run by a group of churches working together to feed and minister to this particular group of people.

First time i helped out at the weekly feeding, i was amazed... we closed off a whole back alley with canopy, food was carted in to feed a crowd of at least 100 people, made up of all races, all genders (ya, even those 'in-between' sex), all ages, all religions... my eyes popped out literally... you name it, we have it... the drug addicts, alcoholics, exconvicts, HIVs, unemployed.. the whole array of society's outcasts , in short. My heart was like... God, there is so much need here... wat i saw was truly the love of God manifested in the team of volunteers chipping in to pack and distribute the food/drinks, the doctor and nurses tending to the sick, others sitting down to talk and listen to their stories... who else could love these unlovables, unloved and unloving??

I've since been going back to that back alley every Sat. except when really can't. Some people question why on earth would we spend our weekends feeding a bunch of no-gooders. Some people even condemn the practise becoz as rightly put, it's a rugi business - We spend time, money and effort on seemingly useless (even dangerous) characters. Worse such charity only makes them even more lazy. It's a valid point, i guess, if we want to count in terms of "good, useful" people, this group would never qualify. That's the way the rational human mind thinks, but thank God there is a God who values each and every human life as worthy to be saved, no matter how sinful, dirty or horrid that life is. This i guess is what love is all about. Whenever i look at them, i m reminded of what the bible says - If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? That's not difficult; the difficult part is to love those whom you'd rather not love... like dirty, smelly street folks who got 'questionable' habits and live goodness-knows-wat type of life. It's a world far far removed from what we know....

Updates

2008-04-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Just wanna inform that one of our ex-convent76 girls, Grace Teh Goay Hwa has migrated with her family, lock, stock and barrel to Alberta, Canada on 27th February, 2008 - Wednesday morning. All the best to her and surely going to miss her cackling laughter!!

1st Anniversary

2007-03-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

Come this 1st July 2007 is our 1st anniversary of our BM Convent76 Blog. Keep the flame glowing! Don't let it extinguish....

Home Again

2006-07-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

So good to touch down on M'sian soil after 10 days away. But already missing India again in the heart. I have been so blessed during this trip - had prayers answered, seen God's miracle literally holding back the rain at our nite rallies time after time, and most of all, seeing the unbelievers come up to receive Jesus as God's message touched their hearts... so humbling to be used of an awesome God to turn people in need to His great great love and mercy.. hard saying goodbye to our wonderful hosts - the pastors of the districts we were travelling in - truly God's leaders with a servant's heart; they were so kind and blessed us so much, even with the little they had.... in short, i had a wonderful time in India - God is so good He even allowed us time to shop a fair bit! So, already reserving a place for next trip next year!

India calls

2006-07-17T03:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's count down time; I leave for Chennai, India on church missions this Fri July 21 and will only be back 10 days later on July 31. It's my second trip to the country this year; this time the team numbers 12, five of them first timers . We are slotted for ministry work in a lot of villages all over the district which will involve preaching at open air public rallies, teaching in house churches, medical work and visits to school/orphanage/old folks/drug rehab centres. Expecting God to move powerfully to heal broken hearts, bodies and souls and to transform lives wherever He sends us...

Till We Meet Again.........

2006-07-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

A million thanks to our Christine Lai Sai Khoon for putting up this Convent76 blog. I hope all of us still cherish the moments together at St. Marguerite's Convent BM.

From table to blog

2006-07-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

So, here it is, i have to give credit to my 20 year old daughter for creating this in double-quick time.. now i gotta figure my way around this thing...who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks??! Just that this oldy is a bit slow...