A Signpost from God...

Just a moment ago I had the idea to write something about something. God just revealed to me that many things are really not coincidence but it is Him who engineers many things together so that His glory may be made known to all men.

I just sent Christopher to the airport. He came back just for a few days from JB though his holiday is much longer. Many may ask why. He'd just say 'For the Kingdom's sake!'. Each time when I see or think of this brother, I will always remember God's grace, faithfulness and goodness in his life. From the impossible, God can do the possible. He managed to get into his choice of course, Architecture and into his choice of university after his STPM. Despite of the education system and everything else when God moves, nothing can stop Him.

It is so good to see Chris each time his confidence increases over time; being sure of what he's doing in his studies, ministries etc. Thank you Chris for being the vessel that God uses to be the signpost for many others to see. I will always remember His great work in your life & knowing that this is only the beginning makes everyone excited.

Salute salute to you :@)

Jia you!

p.s: That reminds me too about looking at life in different ways. Many things are NOT in our control, therefore we don't have to try so hard to change it. It will be better if we could seek God's way in our situation...easier said than done huh? Jia you everyone in the journey of discovering more about Him who has set us free!

authenticity...

It's the 2nd day of July. It's exciting and at the same scary to see how time flies SO fast! Someone mentioned this 'the older you get, the quicker you feel time flies'. How true it is? It is VERY true indeed. If you don't feel it now, you just have to wait; your time will come, and it's rushing really fast.

Quarter 3 is an important season for many; Secondary 3 & 5 will be having their public exam soon, for the church many big events are in the calendar waiting to be launched. One of them is the Official Opening of the New Church Building. From the day when I stepped into the church in Nov 1999, people have been talking about this since then. Finally after 10 years, the day is approaching. Soon and very soon we will have a permanent place called 'home'; a place where many can find hope because this is where God's presence dwells. I pray that this memorable 20 09 2009 will come true. Argh...if we still can't move in by then, maybe few of us should really just go there and camp there for a night! Anyone wanna join in? It will be a fun night, I'm sure!

Just a week before that, Bible Conference (BC) will be held in MBKS Auditorium. We'll have Merdeka Worship Retreat just 2 weeks before BC an the Youth will have our very 1st Anniversary the day before the Worship Retreat. Scary huh?! Not forgetting some members are going to Singapore to attend the 1st Global Conference (GC) a week before the Youth 1st Anniversary.

Aren't we 'worked' harder than our 'real' earthly work? To certain extend, yes we are. But that shouldn't be a surprise, should we? From the day we sign up as Hope Family Member, we knew all these were coming, sooner or later. Actually when we really think about it, Jesus really never promises us a bed of roses after believing Him. Maybe in certain times, there are so beds of roses somewhere, but they come with the irritating thorns. Argh...don't you want to take out your scissors to cut off the thorns? It's annoying, isn't it? Yes, of coz it is annoying! Otherwise Jesus won't ask us to Deny ourselves, Take up the Cross and Follow Him! What a tough thing to do huh! Yes, its tough, but that's the price to pay.

I pray that my Christian walk with the Lord is not just based and seen as what I do in the ministry alone. If people recognise me as someone leading worship on stage that's good. If people see me as someone who play great music, that's ok. But if we all can be recognised as a person who love Jesus so much that we are willing to love His people in many practical ways, we indeed hit the mark!

I love Paul Baloche's song 'Jesus My Reward'; where one of the lines says 'I just want to hear You say Good & Faithful Servant...'. That's all we need to hear from the Lord when we see His face.

Till the day...

unleash the potential...

Ever since the change of the government, few things have been happening. One of them is the issue about limiting number of subjects to be taken in the public spm o-level exam in the country. Why do we have such thought? Thanks to the inefficiency of some kind of scholarship department in the country who fails to manage the scholarship entrance requirement properly; maybe there are a lot of academically smart students who managed to get 15A1s and yet did not get the scholarships. Therefore by limiting the numbers of subjects taken to 10, it will help. This is a JOKE, don't you think so? The Biggets joke from an educator point of view. By the way, anyone can tell that this is a joke. You don't need to be a teacher to tell you this.

After a few days later, I received another sms news alert. Here is the headline 'BM teachers in Chinese Independent Schools will be given training by Education Ministry to help them teach the language better'. What do you think? No doubt most students from the Chinese schools are poor in BM. But that's just the fact! The learning of any languages need a lot of time to practice both in spoken and written forms. In the Chinese schools, Mandarin is the main medium. Unless those 'bm specialists' really know the context of the situation, it is absolutely a way of wasting time.

A day after that, I received another news alert. It says 'Education Ministry wants feedback from the public on whether passing SPM English should be compulsory in order to obtain SPM certificate'. Actually anyone who wants to give their views on this, can call 03-7723 7070 or email kpkpm@moe.gov.my. I did! I sent them an email and surprisingly I received a reply after 2 days. It's either very few people wrote to them, or they are just too effective. Let's have good faith that they are just too effective now and walah... Malaysia dah ada harapan huh?! Hope is on its way! I told them that our Malaysian English level is already very low (look at the way I write the blog, you'd know!) In my mail, I also mentioned that if I were the employer, I won't even employ a person who just gets a Pass in English in SPM. What so big deal about getting a Pass? Arghh...Geramnya aku... I better continue with my report writing...

t.w.o camp 09'

What do we have after the O.N.E camp? T.W.O camp of coz! T.W.O stands for 'Together We Overcome'; the theme for our very 1st Youth Boot Camp. We spent a night over the weekend in Santubong Resort for a time of fun & fellowship. The camp started on Saturday morning, ended with lunch feasting at church on Sunday afternoon. In total 101 signed up, 3 last minute couldn't make it.

We took 2 big buses + 1 church van. Apparantly the buses must be quite comfortable that people felt alseep while on the way to the camp site. Eric was meditating, very seriously.






Few of the 'obstacles' that blocked our way


Great Tent of Meeting!

Love the tag!


The Black & White!
Love the colours!

It started off by completing 2 ice breaking games. There were 6 groups each with 14 members. The biscuit eating game was really fun. Thusan was one of the big winner for this!

Biscuit-eating competition

Apart from this each team had to work on designing their own group flag. I must really compliment every group. It was absolutely amazing to come out with such design in such a short time! Clap Clap Clap!

Ngajat dance before designing the flag?

Hard work paid off finally!

Guess whose is this?

The main activity 'Amazing Race' on the hot Saturday afternoon became the big killer. This activity meant to 'help' youth to exercise their 1-year accumulated exercise into just 2 hours. You can imagine how 'jia-lak' that was. Overall however it took them 3.5 hours to complete the race. For many, it could be torturing in the beginning but when the whole thing was over, it was indeed pretty rewarding.

Run for life!


Guess what were they doing?

There were singing NEGARAKU!

Various game stations; torturous?

Big sacrifice huh?!



This is the first time I saw Santubong beach. It's not bad at all. Different ones have been telling me how terrible the beach is.

Dropped Dead!

Dinner prepared by Family Group!

Evening Saturday service was great. Everyone was in the relax-mode & this made the praise & worshipled by Sam really great! No more proper long pants, shoes, etc which always hinder people from expressing fully in their praise & worship. Ps Laurence shared the story about Samuel that we should respond to God immediately when He calls just like what Samuel did.

Evening Service!
I received one comment from a young leader. He says this: Wow, I never know we can praise & worship God in such a good atmosphere by just using a guitar & keyboard'. Well, the bottom line is, the heart that matters. On the top of that, in a casual setting, it's easier to get different ones to participate too.

We celebrated Jonathan's bday that evening. He had a good surprise!

After the service, different groups were busy preparing their group presentation for the next day. Wo...many didn't even sleep; some hang up at the pool side, some in the room chatting & having pillow fight etc etc. I couldn't take it anymore so I slept at 1am. Hehe...

These kids never stop growing; looking up & down for plates, bowls basically anything that can contain the food!

Morning High Praise is always refreshing!

The presentation on Sunday morning was hilarious. I must say this is one of the best presentation ever, looking at the limited practice time that they had. It exceeded my expectation. Well done guys :@)

We love you Rex! U Rock!

Group presentations; thumbs up to everyone!

Lunch at church was great. Thanks to few of the working adults who helped to set up the main sanctuary for us. Thanks to the family group too who willingly cooked the dinner for us on the 1st day. The food was fabulous!

For the next camp, we must organize a 2-3 night camp. However though it was a little short, the impact of the camp was great. Looking forward more getaway trips!

Great group of Committee. I trust that through the process of organizing this you guys have learnt much from one another!