Goodbye 2016

It's time to part with 2016, time for a new beginning. I've in my hand massive projects coming my way and I'm getting all excited already. Right now, I am building a team to do that. It is something like the Bill Gates scenario, fully focused on the outcome and then take massive action to ensure its success. It is sort of do or die attitude that I would have to take for now.

It is great to come in with such a big mega project in hand, and also like to thank the folks that I worked with in my previous project. It has been a great journey but then again, it always come to an end inevitably. And my learning from my previous project (or lesson learned/retrospective) are

1. Business priority changes all the time, so when it changes, it sends waves of changes throughout the organization. Sometime it is in our favor and sometimes it isn't. Whether it is or it is not, learn to be grateful and thankful for whatever it is.

2. Be flexible with change, always try to be agile to changes as the new constant are the changes. And changes are the very essence of survival for organization.

3. Play team, and they'll always be people who doesn't. But we play team. It is an attitude of life, and one may win by benefiting from others, you might never know what the real outcome is. Play team gives us truly genuine friendship that will last a lifetime.

4. Accept the outcome that is not within our grasp. Don't worry about things that we cannot change, because it is useless. Instead focus on everything that is within our grasp so that we can change the outcome no matter how small it is.

Thanks 2016, you truly humbled me. I have learned to be more grateful and more conscious of others.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Hanz on his 2nd anniversary

Little Hanz is my son. He currently loves to play with a set of Disney characters that is about 8cm tall. He likes all the character. He would hold on to them and arrange it on the table while also arranging his train set as well. This must have been attributed to the TV programs that he was exposed to. He is basically impressed with Bob the Train and also Disney character finger family.

He learns about his finger through the finger family song, and he would want to know about all the diverse range of animals to character that people ingeniously create and put on youtube. Also he loves to show his finger while trying to sing along with some of the finger family song. He can't sing yet, but he can string a few words together, but now able to do a full song just yet.

While on car ride, he loves to look at trucks and count them. He would make remarks like, daddy lorry, mommy lorry down to baby lorry, depending on the size of course. And if he doesn't see them, he'll start to scream. Talking about screaming, he likes things his way, and if he doesn't get his way, he screams, especially to his elder brother. I am figuring out how to resolve this, I mean, try to make him understand not to shout. Now, I can just tell him not to do it. Hopefully as he grow up, he doesn't continue this shouting and screaming stunt.

My prayer for this little boy is of course the same with my elder boy, to grow up strong and healthy. Have a great life, with great purpose. Life is after all 80 years or about 30 thousand days ONLY. Make it great with God's guidance.

He loves a hug from daddy, of course and loves to ask me to take him out for a walk. He would say in Chinese, when he is scared, "Not scared, not scared, daddy is here to protect". That feels so warm and nice. My little boy, happy 2nd anniversary and many more to come, live it with purpose.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Pushing on...

Please try to fight and be more confident, a little....
Please try to fight and be more confident.
Please try to fight.
Please try.
Please.



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Be real, be yourself, be awesome

Random thoughts but one thought that came to my mind is that, we have to be real, be ourselves, be present and be genuine. Sometimes we tend to advertise too much of our perspective in one area and not the others. Not that we should do that deliberately, but, it gives a distorted orientation to our friends. For e.g. this person is always happy or this person always eat.

The one thing that I should do is that, be genuine. I think it is really important, that we are comfortable posting anything out and not worry about our outlook and image. If we think of an issue and has an opinion, I don't think we should hide that fact. This will really help, in getting ourselves across to others in a way that our online friends or friends whom we usually only communicate online understand the real us.

Other random stuff this week was, I need to beef up myself with some good knee exercise. Some research done, it says that walking, cycling, swimming would be good choices. Also yoga. I think I need to look into this soon.

Also I need to look into is meditation, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche seems to be a very interesting guide. I'll research about him more. More to come on meditation, which I think is a very important thing in my life moving forward.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Learning from the Expert, but Execute like crazy

Today I got a chance to listen to a master presenter, whom, very humbly claimed that he is not an expert, but he is there because he has done it so many times that he eventually pulls it off every time. I am touched by his humble opinion of himself and of course, his ability to execute the presentation very well, though the subject are not that exciting. And of course where he is, he also shared what is his current issues.

That lead me to thinking as general and some of the bad habits that I constantly fall into whenever I am about to do something
1. Stop giving reasons why I can't and the hundreds of classes I have not attended. Get on with it, execute and learn on the go!
2. Stop looking for Secrets to...., Ultimate Guide to...., Master Ninja Ways to..... While all this are great learning (I think), don't let it stand between myself and execution. Too many times I have invested my time looking for that one magical (book or Internet article) that will change the world forever. While deep down inside I might have known it may not have existed, but the excitement of spending (wasting) hours just looking for it has really taken a lot of my time away. Just go ahead, seek the expert, ask all the questions, get ready and start execution.
3. Things need to be done, and that is the reason people purchase our services and goods. Nothing come about if nothing is done. Keep that in mind. Often, in entrepreneurship, it is not about the one great idea that no one has thought about that would succeed, but it is the ability to execute like crazy over any idea that would bring succeed.

Take Away: Be the ferocious executor, of the plan. Expert advise is welcomed but not at the expense of wasting time. At the end of the day, what counts is what we have produced, not the search for Ultimate or Secrets. Leave those to free time.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

2016

I can only take time to reflect upon this quote, which summarizes what happened in 2015 and what I have to do more in 2016. Great quote which will definitely spur me to look into myself and stretch myself to do the things I have always thought impossible.

“Only as high as I reach can I grow
Only as far as I seek can I go
Only as deep as I look can I see
Only as much as I dream can I be”
Karen Ravn

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Your Staff at Work

From worklife.org

The Lord said to Moses, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail” – so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.  (Exodus 4: 2-4)

This extraordinary story is an example of how Our Lord will use anything to turn our attention towards Him. God wanted Moses to get completely in line with His plans for the people of Israel. That required Moses to:

• Understand once and for all that God calls the shots;
• Put his role and gifting into God’s hands for God to use;
• Use his role and gifting with confidence because they belonged to God.

Moses’ staff was standard equipment for a shepherd, which was his work before God gave him a new assignment. The action of throwing it on the ground was obedience. Running from the unexpected and unwelcome snake was plain common sense. But picking up the horrible creature? – That was obedience and courage, followed surely by huge relief as it became the familiar staff again.

Over time, and with experiences like this one, God trained Moses to take authority in God’s name. As Moses learned through practice and obedience, he became the man God wanted him to become. The staff-serpent would be used several times to work vast miracles as God broke the power of Egyptian rule over Israel.

In our work situations, the staff can symbolize the roles and gifts we have. Throwing the staff down symbolizes our surrender of those roles and gifts to Christ as part of our daily walk with Him. Picking up the serpent, and its change back to the staff, symbolize the reality that once we give our roles and gifts to Christ, He puts His stamp on them and has freedom to reshape them as He chooses. The staff looked the same afterwards, but it wasn’t the same. From then on, God used it even though Moses carried it.

What is your staff at work? You have one. Where is it along the sequence of staff-serpent-staff? Where is your heart of workplace obedience to Christ along the same sequence?

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Pick of the week: Story on CHANGE

Interesting bulletin I received from Heera that I decided to put here both for myself and friends...

This month I want to narrate a great story on change.  There was a monastery in a faraway land where thirty monks lived. Every morning without fail at 5 am, they would all gather at the great hall of the monastery and pray and meditate. One day as they were praying, a cat started to play in front of them and this affected their concentration. The chief monk then told the youngest monk, Zun Zi to tie the cat to a pole and give it a saucer of milk, so that it would not interrupt their prayer session. This was done and the monks carried on their prayer in peace.
           
The next day, the cat appeared again and the chief monk again told Zun Zi to repeat what he had done the previous day. The third day, the cat appeared again and soon this act of tying the cat to a pole and giving it milk every morning became a ritual. One day, after almost three years of this ritual, the cat died. The monks carried on their prayer the next day but somehow felt something was missing as they had not carried out their usual ‘cat ritual’. At the end of their prayer, the chief monk told Zun Zi to go get another cat from the village below so that they could continue this ‘cat ritual’. And thus the practice continued. This went on and on until the chief monk himself died. Soon Zun Zi became the chief monk, and in the process seven cats had died. One day, Zun Zi himself died, which meant that there was no one alive who knew the origins of this ‘cat ritual’. The ritual however was still carried out.

One day, after their prayers and as they were having tea, one of the younger monks asked the senior most monk, “Sir, why do we tie the cat to the pole and give it a saucer of milk before our daily morning prayer and meditation session?”  The senior most monk surprised by the question replied, “I really do not know. All I know is that ever since I came to this monastery we have been doing this and I am sure our past generations must have had very good reasons to do it. So let us not question them, let us just carry on with this very important ritual”.

Isn’t the above story a very true reflection of what happens in many organizations i.e. there are many systems and processes which are obsolete or out-dated and yet they still carry it out because ‘it has always been done this way’. I have personally seen this in many organizations and the excuse has always been, “I didn’t create this system, it was already here when I joined.” My view is that no system or process in any organization is ‘cast in stone’ i.e. all of them can and must be changed when necessary. It is the job of any incumbent manager, head of department or CEO to change whatever is redundant, obsolete or out-dated. This could be from people, to products, to systems and processes, to documentation.

I think however that many managers are usually very comfortable with the status quo and therefore do not make any concerted attempt to change to the detriment of the organization. They normally use inheritance of the system as an excuse. My belief is that every system and process in any organization must be examined on a regular basis and changed if it is not in line with organizational strategies. Only with this can an organization develop and be relevant in the present very competitive business environment!

Thank you so much for reading this newsletter and I do hope I have added a little to your change management knowledge! Have a great month of July and do take care.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

How to take on the World!! A Collection of Wisdom and Guides

At times when I feel burned out and asked the question like, why is this happening to me, why ONLY me, does this happen to other people, why it doesn't happen in their lives, why God is so unfair, why, why, why. All this questions enclosed myself in a situation of self doubt, self limiting and self defeating rant to myself (at least in my own head), and discourage me until I lose my way.

Well I was thinking this has to stop, especially now that I am playing many roles, not just as a friend, a colleague, more importantly a father, a husband, a son, a leader etc. It not only dis-empower me but also the people around me and the people who look up to me when they are in situations. I am quite sure I am mature enough not to do a scene in public, but those thought in my mind will eventually be sensed by those around me.

True enough, some people do ask if anything was wrong with me, especially closer friends. Well I try to tell them what the problem is but I cannot pin point the problem. That leads me to begin to think, what is wrong in my head... Well there is no real problem actually, but the combination of repeating the same things day in and out as well as negative thoughts being repeated in my head causes me to not see the richness of life which I already enjoy on a daily basis. It is time I wake up and take on the world, as the title of this post says it.

Here are a few lines I'm sure I will take a look every morning from now on to ensure that the negative thoughts will not distract me off my awesome life.
1. God made me special and awesome :) Stop comparing my life with others. They're probably not as awesome. (By no means I am putting anyone down, it is just something to appease my competitive spirit inside so that I feel better than others, haha, no friends or family are hurt in the process)
2. Misfits will do what misfits do best - Not try to fit in with the rest of the world. This one is from a friend, I read it and liked it immediately.
3. I decided that my life IS extraordinary. Therefore I have extraordinary problems as well, don't look at others and say 'why it happens to me'. My reaction to problems in life will be extraordinary. Bring it on!!
4. Problems are my best opportunities.
5. For anything to happen, I have to take action, not anyone else.

Well that is at least how I motivate myself. I hope you guys have your own ways as well. Have an awesome life, friends.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

The Urban Poor - Another Side of Kuala Lumpur

We are all capable of running into a routine that we are so rooted to that we do not want to change it at all after a while. I am guilty of this, having rooted myself into my daily work routine, taking a day off for my organization's Global Impact Day. The question of whether it is going to be fun, will I learn something, will I be penalized for not ensuring that the work is done and so on filled my selfish mind.

Fortunately, I decided, whatever the outcome it would be, I would just sign up and offer up myself to do my bit whether it is lending a hand or spending some time for a cause. And I must say that I am handsomely rewarded, much more than I could have imagined.

The mission that I took was to distribute food to the urban poor. The other three choices was to offer donation, offer to help up in an office fund raising event or to take the children for a visit at the National Science Center.

Somehow the 'urban poor' captured my attention and I decided that is what I want to be part of and that is what I really want to see with my own eye. We went into the heart of KL, Jalan Imbi if I can remember correctly for a place called Kechara Soup Kitchen (KSK), a place that distribute free food to the needy as well as the urban poor. From the shoplot itself, we can see people dropping by for a meal. We loaded the food required to be brought to the village, and waited for every participant to get ready. Some of us travelled in cars while others travelled with the KSK van.

As we arrived, the folks, mainly old folks from the area starts to line up for their food. We distributed food, biscuits and fruits. After we are done with the folks that has waited for us, we then carry the ration in boxes to distribute them to who were not able to come forward. We went though several houses, spent some time interacting as well as took some photos. To me, it is really a mixed feeling as I would not have imagined somewhere in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, we have a village area, with mainly older folks and are classified as urban poor. They are friendly and are open to us.

What can we do more for this folks? I'll probably not dwell too much into that, but if any of you are into giving time and resources back to the society, there are plenty and it is time for us to take action if we have not done so.

On mission accomplishment, not to be outdone by our colleagues who is having an extended makan time at the all famous Yut Kee Restaurant. All the blogs and recommendation on the Internet seems to be true. It is pretty good. And I just managed to capture one shot of my colleague who happen to be sitting between me and the menu board behind her. She is an awesome driver!! And here is the photo of us on the way back as well. Thanks Team.

P/S: After I have given a few thoughts, I purposely removed the name of the place that I visited along with those photos so that no one feels hurt for classifying a certain area as 'urban poor'. People who is in need are everywhere actually, and as much as this folks that I visited needed food, they need as much attention and friendship as well. Have a good day :)



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Book Sales like Never Before

I heard about the crazy book sales, but I have not seen it until the other day, I went and people don't carry plastic bags, but they carry boxes and luggage bags.
I was totally unprepared, I felt ashamed, haha.

Check out the photos....

Look... the kid is carrying a BOX!!

They bring books by pallet via a forklift I think

Not to be outdone by the kid, I have a box (hehe) and 4 shopping bags :)

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Hanoi

Day 1
Arrived early in the morning and when we got out of the plane, the temperature gave us a shock and the winter chill went down my spine. I am imagining the time that I will be away from my son, and the time that I am going to miss him, but a break for myself is really much needed. I was looking for a break away from work, as well as giving myself an opportunity to make some important decisions coming my way.

Done with the formalities in airport, five of us make our way to the hotel on a normal sedan car though we asked for a seven-seater like Toyota Innova. Anyway, the few of us squeezed into the sedan and went on our 30 minutes trip to Hanoi City (Old Quarters). Funny, I have always thought that Hanoi = Saigon, apparently not. From the journey, we started to notice the condition of the road and the way driver communicates with one another. The honking never stops and it just seems that cars are talking to each other with it. The number of vehicles on the road is unbelievable and there are scooters everywhere going in every directions and it seems impossible at times to imagine how get to our destination. Like one of my friends say, controlled chaos. The other word that I cannot get out of my mind is 'population explosion'. This 2 phrases describes exactly how the city is, to us from Malaysia.

Well we reach our destination with the driver unable to find the hotel, which when he finally did, had to reverse back to the hotel because he couldn't figure out how to get there. It was quite a ride! We settled in to www.luckystarhotel.com and it is pretty good. We put down our stuff and embarked by foot to conquer Hanoi. First stop is to search for food.

The first attempt to look for food did not go too smooth, though, we finally landed ourselves on the sixth or seventh eating place we came across. It was for 'pork' rice noodle soup. It was the nicest food I have tasted this year and with the cold weather (around 10 degree Celsius), it was too good. The only down side is that the soup was cooled too fast for our liking. When we were done with food, we then next explored around and went back towards a cafe we saw earlier. And yes this cafe offers 'Kopi Luwak'. Priced at 250k Dong. A bit pricey, I think, so we settled for something less, Vietnamese coffee. The thing with Vietnamese coffee is that it is really strong, and the cup is really too small. I prefer a big cup of coffee, and couldn't find something like it there. We relaxed at the cafe for about an hour before we embarked by foot to Standard Chartered office.

Our friend managed to locate his Vietnamese friend who brought us out for a good dinner. Of all the delicacies we had that day, the "Fried Needle Fish" was probably one of the highlight. It was good. I'll probably have more photos coming up with this in my Facebook, but for now, it is just one great dinner. And, our neighboring tables, when they are about done, they sing to the tune of guitar for like an hour or so. We all had free Vietnamese music :) We got back to the hotel for an early rest at about 1030pm. Day 2... coming up...


~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Changes

 I have now make a shift in work life. Doing about the same work but with different people and different environment. I am still trying to feel comfortable in the new place. It is not easy if I have been working in the same place for the past 7 years. I have build a bond with the friends and colleagues that I have known for years.

On the 2nd day in my new place I am looking at the Word of God to help me adjust to my new place. I am comforted with the following:

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7)

As his children, one of the many things that he let us feel is the emotion and that is one big thing that separates us from animals. Emotion is part of God and that is now part of us all. We know how to feel love, happiness, sadness, loneliness etc. which all forms and shape us. With this change, I know that God taught me that, yes, I have made great friends, but I have to let go, as nothing in this earth is eternal. I must burden myself to share the Word to them so that we can save them and ourselves. We are all made to be disciple and I cannot shy away from it. So when I decided to move out from the comfort zone I am in, I know that God is preparing me for something better, somewhere better, that I can impact more people. I have to think eternity then.

God bless all and have a nice day! Please pray for Japan as well.


~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Shopping Around

Wow.. it is not that easy shopping online. There's plenty of stuff to choose from.

Come to think of it, it is not that easy to find a good story book for kids, one that teaches good value as well as durable hard covered book. I'll try to find out more.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Thank you 2009, Welcome 2010

My believe is that every year we have to look back and see what progress we have made, do a minor tweak or adjustment and see where we are headed to next. In all reality, 2009 has not been an easy year, as do most years anyway. It will be a waste not to look back and take away learning points. The reality is that the world seems to have gone on a twisted economic cycle. Just to recap some of it the financial meltdown in US, the laying off of workforce all over the world, cutting back of spending from consumer to corporate, the almost always worsening weather and its getting really hot here, political disappointment (the usual picking and biting of each other but as a nation, no real progress), H1N1 another name for another strain of something as common as flu (but it has name because it kills us easily) and inflation on daily items.

So it does look crappy 2009, isn't it? well there was a feel scare but we all survived. And well, for all the stuff mentioned above, it is really beyond my control anyway. What I could do was what I can influence both from my personal action and personal thinking. In spite of all above, it was quite a fruitful year to complement a sad list above :) It is a year that I achieve my PMP, got an award in Software Testing for the organization I service, made a few friends, felt closer to God (yes, we pray more during the tough times), attended Wealth Mastery and preparation for fatherhood. Not that bad at all, I think.

So, come 2010, first of all is making real progress in planning and execution, as well as getting excited and fill my enthusiasm for life itself. I have to be more detailed now, and more precise in execution as this is one of the area I feel lacking the concentration. You know, we can be so distracted sometimes over things we have to do. I am really thinking of a year plan and then breaking them into quarterly plans so that the tracking is much better. From past experience, yearly plans are seldom looked at. Though with quarterly targets, I must live everyday by itself that is, everyday I must make progress and live it to the fullest, in passion, enthusiasm, love and joyfulness. We know we have today, but we do not know whether we really have tomorrow. And all of the daily activity jumbled up really packs it up and well hopefully still giving myself 7 or at least 6 hours of good sleep, plenty of water and pack in a couple of hours of good exercise and sun light every week.

A lot of cutbacks as well for 2010, I must reduce wastage time. Plenty of it, I suppose I should start with less TV, less games (yes, I still do games), less unhealthy food, less negativism, less pessimism and definitely less anger. I find that we live in a world full of pressure and pain. As yet technology has provided us with ample amount of convenience, I do find that with so much convenience, sometimes we do not appreciate life enough as it is. One thing I remembered that Keith Cunningham taught me, is that we have to set aside time to THINK. Have you really sit down and think today? Have we sit down and appreciate each and every present that God has give me and thank God and thank the people around me? Nope, have not done much of that. Come 2010, I definitely will.

One theme I want to make 2010 for me personally, is that 'To make this world a better place, with compelling future and exciting tomorrows for people around me, more so my family, so that the energy and enthusiasm around me will bring me to greater heights with God and understanding him better. To utilize my time so fully that I translate all my plans into outcomes that I wanted through perfect execution, as well as being generous with time for family and friends.

Yes Yes Yes, I can't wait for 2010!!

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

A long break and now back

After about a couple of decade not writing blog, or at least that was how it felt like, I decide to write something today. But have no specified topic to write about, so lets just say I'll comment on something and everything that I can remember or know that is happening around me.

1. Economic Crisis OR Financial Crisis: Friends and family around me has been talking about the crisis and our stock market hitting rock bottom. That is then when we buy our house and invest a few 100k into blue chip stocks. Apparently over a period of 5 years, it will double your income. Well if that is true, lets us dig into our pocket and see how much we have :) 2nd problem, when do we exactly hit rock bottom :) And lastly, will you have that much to invest, just in case you have emergency. Well have to do a risk analysis already

2. Politics: Nothing like what I have read in the Sejarah textbooks. It is amazing how politic play a role today. It even seems to overshadow everything else like the police, the judiciary, the MACC and it is like all this pillars of the country is under political party. Well how sad that we can only make a decision every 4 to 5 years (that is, every general election). So, it is like we pay a movie ticket and watch it for 5 years. In between, you could do nothing about it. But one thing I do wish, can everyone involved in it just think of the country first, and everything else second. Look at the shape of the economy in our country. Companies are doing all the cost cutting for survival and we still can see a lot of 'advertisement' of political leaders, of that our country is in a good shape, of everything is good and fair. Nope I don't buy that. We have come into the working world and we only know one thing, only RESULT is justifiable. I don't see any activity that can justify result from 8/3/08 until now. So, zero result thus far, and not to mention the poor return of my EPF :( I thought the country did pretty well last year. Enough talk I suppose, I could go on forever.

3. Global Climate Change: I have said this many times, look at the kind of weather we have. It is really bad. It gets really hot and we have rain almost every evening. The climate is definitely changing, but how would it affect things globally. No one knows, hopefully our kids still gets to see what we see today.

4. PMP: I am doing this course and it is just so hard to answer some of the questions. I am really trying to work hard, after a long day of work, going back and do revision. It is not easy especially after a long day at work place. I suppose I need a lot of motivation and a lot of coffee. And hopefully with a lot of trial exam question and a lot of reading and memorizing, I can make it through.

5. Scandals: Is it me or what but there seems to be a lot of scandals lately. How come Dr Chua's issue re-surface? Scandal is subset of politics I suppose.

6. Meetings: I propose we held some meeting under the tree rather than air-con rooms. It is better for the environment and heck, important meeting of the state can also be held there, why not a small company's meeting, right.

7. Health: I seem to have problem with cough, it haunts me so often and it takes so long to get well :( Also it takes so long for me to recover after a game of basketball. My muscle ache is really a nuisance. Otherwise, pretty cool. Not to mention my mental stress increased when Man Utd went down to Liverpool at Old Trafford. But let me tell you what champion is made of, they will come back stronger AND so am I.

Well 7 points, represents 7 days in a week, 7 deadly sins, 7 heavenly virtue and of course the 7 dwarves :) I better get on with what I am doing and more updates down the road...

In the photo today: Indiana Choo and the Landmine Museum of Cambodia. Wow, boy do I look like .......

Blessed weekend ahead :)

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 4 - LAST DAY)

Happens to be the last day of the trip. We have not scheduled much for today, it will just be the regular Sunday church celebration at Kampung Bukit Serok. Morning, we prepared ourselves, bathed and ready to go. We went off first to the same place for breakfast. And roti has never tasted that good before. We took our fair share of roti telur over the last 2 days, but we did not want to miss this for the 3rd day and I myself ordered exactly the same thing as 2 previous days. Only later, I found out that their Roti Sardin is nice as well. We'll see whether I would have the chance to come back here for breakfast :)

We reached back the church after our sumptuous breakfast. Cleaned up the church hall for the service and I went off to pick up the kids. It was an enjoyable ride on the old little van. It felt totally different from driving car. It is really heavy and the feel is just different. Noticeably, the reverse gear needs to engage in a little pull before moving to reverse. How weird.. Luckily I was told how to engage reverse gear by a team mate. Although it is just a stretch of road divided by a trunk road, I went around back and forth 2 rounds AND it took me 1 and half hour. The weather was hot and we just keep encouraging children playing by the road side, near their house to come right up the van and join us. Of course they recognize the van and as the van passes, they keep looking at us.

Back at the church, the kids gathered and they decide to have an adult fellowship session. So the kids (making up 80 - 85% of the crowd) has to be taken aside for children's activity. As we have ran out of our previous days material, because we have been here for 2 days of activities, we have to resolve to last minute ideas. Finally we had some question and answering session and then moved on to the story of creation. It was tough handling the kids, and I think we had 4 adults trying to do that. It was still not easy. At the end they could be faster, louder and their volume could easily have drowned anyone of us.

At the same time, the adults were doing their own fellowship which I hope will be a good beginning to grow the number of faithful Christian here.

All done, we packed up, sent the kids and adult back, did a debrief, bid farewell to our Pastor there and we were on our way a little bit after lunch our. We decided to stop in a town called Bahau to get ourselves lunch at about 4pm. Yes 4pm, and that is the time we had lunch. We went for Chinese food, and as we circled the town for this restaurant, it gave me a great chance to come back to this town that I have a lot of memory when I was younger. I have friends here. But I think they have all left town now or I don't know, probably not staying around anymore as most of them I have not contacted for years. Anyway it was great to come to this town again after more than 14 years. I could recognize the town and some part of it, but it has grown much more.

Hitting the road after the meal, I saw a dead python on the road, and it looks really big. On our way back, it rained, and rather heavily at certain stretch, reminding us the goodness of God for all our days that we had activity, we didn't have to go through the rain at all, not once. But things are done now, and rain can come. We reached back to our starting point at about 8pm +. It was a journey well remembered, one that God moves before us and prepared the place for us. One that God lead us and not by our strength...

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 3)

Time to continue to write the 3rd day of the trip. Here goes... The night before, it was raining quite heavily. We had a good rest on the hard flooring of the church building. Though I found that in the morning for the 2nd day consecutive, the space I had to sleep on is much smaller because my team mate tends to lean towards my side. Anyway over here, the 'cock' helps by giving us morning call come 6-6.30am. The cock will make a comeback tonight, which I will detail towards the end of the 3rd day :)

We woke up and pack our stuff into the van. This is because we are on a mission to 2 more villages or Kampung. We went to the same place as Day 2 for breakfast and then off we go to Kampung Inoi, which is the furthest from the church location. The journey was long and we have to take the Oil Palm Plantation roads to get into this village. We have to travel through the oil palm estate that the road is far from being good, was hard for the van to go through. After about 20 minutes of this road, we arrived into the village. The Orang Asli here is very shy, small sized and skinny. They also do not have electricity and they were using old water pump, like those I saw in Tom and Jerry. Being a town folk, I am a little bit surprised at the condition that they are living in.

We wasted no time in kicking off with our activity. We started to sing and dance to our song to attract children and adult alike. And the kids start to come and see what is happening, though they are very shy. We have to ask them a few times and give them balloons to get their attention. After what seem to be a long singing session, we finally got together a bunch of kids (10 - 15 range) and taught them the 'Fruit of the Spirit'. They are somewhat shy, quiet but some of them are quite intelligent kids. To our surprise some of them are much older but the body size still is very small and their hair brownish, probably a sign of mal-nutrition.

Given all the Fruit of the Spirit training, balloon, jelly and stuff as present, our other members starts to arrange and disseminate clothing to them. Most of them, the cloths seem worn, some even bare their top (guys / boys I meant) and seem to walk around like that under the hot sun. Most of them seem happy grabbing those clothing running back home. Also the pastor had a little session playing 'doctor' by providing medical aid to some of them who requires them, especially those with skin problem. We decided to visit the Tok Batin (village head) to give him a present and have a chat with him. On the way, we saw a small black snake crossing the road while we are in the van. The pastor told us that it was poisonous. I am quite surprised to see a cobra crossing the road literally in the middle of the town!!

We reach the Kampung Inoi Tok Batin's house and notice the simplicity of it. it was plain and without anything special. He is an easy going man and nice man. We gave him the gift and then had a few chat with him on what is happening in town, then went off to gather up the rest of the team member to move on to the next town. Next stop is Kampung Gadak.

Gadak is a much nicer town, with electricity and water supply. Houses are arranged nicely and there seemed to be a lot of land. People here is nice and friendly. As we reach this Kampung, I think we skipped lunch and started to prepare for the telematch and movie in the evening , much like the 2nd day schedule. Before that, we went around to hand out flyers and we even had a chance to visit the Tok Batin of Gadak. All is well, he is very supportive of our work here and gave us a resounding support for our activity there in his village. We left soon after a nice chat and we asked him to join us later on in the evening.

Back to our church member's house, we prepare for the activity to come. The food is prepared by one of the local Orang Asli church member there. Again, we repeated of what happened on Day 2, the only thing is that the crowd is different, the kids is different and the crowd here is much more easier to control then in Day 2.

We did all those with the presence of the Tok Batin for most part of the movie and we enjoyed dinner together. The food was great and every one of us, the kids and adult alike all join in for the great feast of nasi lemak and ayam.

The evening and darkness soon sets in. We started to clean things up and move on our way home towards the church. Along the way, our van got lost after we sped of with pastor's van right behind. We turned into a wrong turning and was frantically waiting for pastor's van to pass us, only that he is in front of us. We waited for a long while before we were able to communicate via the mobile phone. All is well, we reached back to church, cleaned up, debrief and falling asleep. As I remembered, while I was bathing, a 'cock' was sitting right at the corner of the bathroom watching me bath. I didn't realize at first but was told by someone who went to the bathroom before me. So I did see that cock, sitting comfortably at a corner, peeking at each of us taking bath. This is the same day I saw the longest centipede in my life. My blood was already cold looking at the 20cm odd poisonous creature. It went off as fast as I could take a closer look at it.

The night was suppose to be short but was lengthen by our team mate in charge of journal. They were having a meeting after debrief to put down the facts and points throughout our adventure for the last 3 days. Myself and team lead was fast asleep when we were woke up again with the sound of laughter. I am not sure, I sat up and was offered noodles. Why not, right. I had it, done with, drink water, brush teeth and ZZZzzzZZZzzz. Look out for Day 4 (Last day)

Learning of the day: Life is already very good where we are, cherish and thank God for it. A lot of people live with much less, so don't complain.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 2)

Day 2 starts with the 'not enough sleep' symptom. My eye could barely open and I have to force myself up to clean myself up and bring myself to do devotion in BM. It is not easy. I have to think of how to say it after having not spoken BM for a very long time. Well, fortunately it went quite OK with the topic being James 1: 2-4, talking about 'Suffering is Good'. Indeed. Having remembered from the 1st day that it would be working non-stop from sunrise to sunset, it motivates me to have everything prepared and ready early on in the day.

The day started well with we traveling to a place our team lead call Karatong. It was a small little nice township complete with buildings, mini-market, several rows of shops, some government building, a MARA bus-stop and a field. Overall it looks like a small little township area just like you see it in town. We went to one of this Malay store that serves normal Malay and Mamak food. I ordered the famed Roti Telur. The Roti Telur here is different because it not only has egg, but also some other mixed spices and also onion. Tasted good actually. The drink here taste OK as well. I think I drank teh tarik for this first morning of OA.

Soon after breakfast we went back to church, prepared and set out again to hand out flyers from house to house of our activity in the afternoon and night. We found that shape-able balloons is a very attractive tool for kids. The afternoon activity was Sukaneka (what we meant was telematch - targeting the kids) and evening time event is the Jesus Story movie. We went around on our old faithful van to pick up the kids and adults alike. The kids are very excited every time the van passes and they wouldn't miss the opportunity to jump up the van. Some kids are shy though, which requires a little bit of persuasion by their friends.

The afternoon under a little shade, we played telematch such as 3 legged race, racing with ping pong ball balanced on a spoon, pair crab walk with balloon between them etc, all played as a team game. We permutated the games as it fits to keep the kids' attention. All is well, no injuries or sort, but a lot of fun and the kids were given regular breaks because the weather is very hot. Still we have to thank God because there is no rain, so that all this can be carried out. After what we believe to be a joyous outing for the kids, we cool things down with some individual games, and also a station prepared to teach children how to sing.

We kick start the evangelistic event with prayer, singing of songs and then when straight for the Jesus movie. Then we went for John 3:16 and prayed together with the kids. It was an event to highlight I must say. Kids was the most responsive and although they were a little bit restless during the Jesus movie which lasted for an hour, the rest was quite cool and accordingly done. We finished early, cleaned up and then send the kids home. No dinner for the night, we decided to visit one of the houses, which is going through a wedding ceremony. Apparently some of our team mates know her. We went and witness some sort of wedding ceremony. It was nice, and it was very joyous occasion. They were 'food', dance and music. It was very much like Malay wedding, only it is not. And we got to learn that Malay wedding and Orang Asli wedding has some similarity.

We had our late dinner there at the wedding and took some photos. We went back shortly cleaned up and prepared for bed time. It was a good night except that our room (the church floor), was visited by 'water ant', bees and similar small insects. Prior to resting, we had a debriefing with the pastor to discuss the day and to highlight the activities tomorrow. Without proper break in between, for the entire day, my body starts to become very tired and I fall asleep shortly with the rest of the team.

Learning: Kids are really hard to control especially when they come as a big bunch. God is good to each and everyone of us, as he has given us a gift of life and a gift or happiness. Human heart though always wanted more and part of our human is always looking for more. I believe I would like to challenge myself parallel that is, to have a better relationship with God and to expand my human wanting that is of more positive and useful for people around me. Shape-able balloon is very attractive for kids, they make sword out of it and start to chase each other for a fencing sword fight.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 1)

The journey starts from church where we travel first to Seremban -> Senawang -> Kuala Pilah -> Kampung Bukit Serok. The journey was somewhat weird. As I have motion sickness, I couldn't or wouldn't want to remember too much about the trip prior to me driving. I just closed my eyes so that I wouldn't fall sick of my motion sickness which I have been having since I was a kid. I was driving my teammate's car (Camry) and I do think that it was much more comfortable then the van, which we decided to use 2 vehicles instead of one because of the amount of load we are transporting. 7 person + loads of stuff including food, stuff and bags.

The van were not so lucky because it wasn't filled with enough water causing it to have to make a half an hour stop at Perhentian Nilai. My teammate meanwhile already drove the Camry all the way to the next stop, having missed the Perhentian Nilai, where we were suppose to meet up. We then met up again at the exit of toll where I became the Camry driver. I am then able to open my eyes and not fall sick, though I have to put a lot of concentration on the road.

We made a stop at Senawang for brunch. It was great, and our team lead seems to know the owner of the shop. They were chatting a bit while plates of food being served. The food is not extraordinary but it was nice and tasty. Enjoyed and happy, I was quite amazed with the ticketing system in Senawang. It seems that we will only pay the parking when someone put a ticket on your windscreen. So if they don't, you don't have to pay. I didn't get one.

Continuing the journey, we went through the windy and hilly roads to Kuala Pilah and then from there we went on our way to Kampung Bukit Serok where the Church is. The journey was OK, coupled with my teammates chatting. It really make time flies. So without knowing, by about 1230pm we arrived already at the Kampung. There is a left and right side to turn in for the Kampung. The church was located on the right, so off we went through. We arrived at the Church and were greeted by Pastor Joham and family.

We have no lunch and since we were scheduled to arrive earlier, straight away, we unpacked, refreshed and set out to prepare for children ministry in the afternoon. Part of the team stayed back to prepare the material for 'Pinochio' while myself and team leader went on to fetch children. The turn out wasn't that fruitful and we have found only handful of kids for the children ministry. Not that it is a bad thing, we were able to teach better, communicate better with a smaller crowd.

Pinocchio mask making

Scrambling for their project

Children sitting in a row

Boy does the kid have fun listening to the story of Pinochio getting a long nose and so on. After learning the values, we top it up with Pinochio mask and chompers making.

Group photo with the kids put on their 'mask'

After that, we cleaned up ourselves and had dinner. Dinner was nothing great, just something pre-prepared and heat up type. Yeah, we did not want to waste too much time on this. After the dinner, we will have to go over one of the houses for Cell Group Meeting. The night turn out was great. We fit in 30 odd people in a house, 80% kids again. So we did a great round of worship and as the adults view a short story on Addiction issue, we brought the kids behind the house for a session of 'Fruit of the Spirit'. It was again very challenging with the kids and some of them are very good boys and girls BUT others were terribly hard to handle.

Singing Praise

Fruits of the Spirit

Kids at Cell Group Night

There we concluded our activities with a lot of fun and had some time for a small supper. Along the way actually we prayed a lot of which I did not mention above. Also the weather was very good, contrary to the weather which is rain every evening back in town. Also we heard from them the weather was raining most of the time, until we came with a lot of prayer for good weather. And God is good indeed for an opportunity for us to conduct activity in good weather.

Learning for the day, at least for myself on the first day is ONE goodness of God in my life TWO God miracles is more apparent here in mission work THREE this trip has a lot to do with kids.... In spite of the need to control this kids really scares me, I had peace in my mind despite my body being very tired. Will talk more about the trip, wait for my posting about Day 2

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.