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!