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.

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.

Purpose of my Life

It is the point in time every year that I take a step back and see what is happening in my life. Every year I make a little bit of adjustment here and there, like less of sinful food, more of exercise, strategy to reduce my body fats, strategy to contact some long lost friends and etc. This year though, I take a more profound approach by asking the question, what is the purpose of my life here? Well it has been 2 weeks since I asked that question and really it is not one that I readily have any answers to, even though I have 2 weeks to think about it.

I do know that everyone has a different purpose. Not everyone look at it objectively, and build a plan to achieve it, most people drift by it or get into the thick of action without giving too much of a thought about it. When they do give a thought about it, it is too complex, takes too much time, so, revert to something easier or forget about it.

So after 2 weeks, here is what I have, the most important thing for me is to trust and walk with Jesus and to build that relationship, next is to be the best that I can be with all the given talents and physical health, to give my best to my family and friends and to do my best in every initiative that I embark on.

I suppose time management, wealth, happiness need not be mentioned here because if I am able to do the above and prioritize accordingly, the rest will be added on into my life. Am I missing anything? Well, my friends, do say something if you have anything constructive :p

~~~ 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.

Annoying

I can't help it but sometimes find myself annoyed when someone come up and say, hey, we are keeping tab, looking into, planning to do some censorship on the Internet. Why so concern about something that you cannot fully control, and then have some half measure of censoring selectively. All this while, the MSC bill guaranteed that no censorship of any kind seems to take the back seat now.

Well anyway, I am not against the view of improvement, but I am against the view that something that is more important that need to be done that was not taken into consideration. Take for example, green house effect. Did you just take a look at the video 'Inconvenience Truth' with Al Gore narrating and presenting almost the entire documentary. Well that is how bad the environment have been and if they want to do something 'big' like censoring and keeping tab on the Internet, why not
1. Have everyone in Malaysia (or at least college student), to watch Inconvenience Truth, understand it and take an exam. Easier than censoring Internet but much much more important.
2. Invite Al Gore to Malaysia to speak to our leaders and business leaders - repeatedly if it is necessary. Easier than censoring Internet but much much much more important.
3. Impose an even tough environmental control against depleting our natural rain forest and carbon emission by car, factories and machinery. Have regular checks and audits to ensure and enforce of such implementation. Easier than censoring Internet but much much much much more important.

I am not sure, but this is our only earth and we have to take care of it. God has given us only this earth to dwelve in and if we do not take responsibility, than who else? If earth is gone, everyone will be as well. Censor Internet, give me a break...

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

From my e-mail box - Beautiful Lesson

The girl in the picture is Katie Kirkpatrick, she is 21 . Next to her, her fiancé, Nick, 23. The picture was taken shortly before their wedding ceremony, held on January 11, 2005 in the US .. Katie has terminal cancer and spend hours a day receiving medication. In the picture, Nick is waiting for her on one of the many sessions of quimo to end. In spite of all the pain, organ failures, and morphine shots, Katie is going along with her wedding and took care of every detail. The dress had to be adjusted a few times due to her constant weight loss An unusual accessory at the party was the oxygen tube that Katie used throughout the ceremony and reception as well. The other couple in the picture are Nick's parents. Excited to see her son marrying his high school sweetheart.

Katie, in her wheelchair with the oxygen tube , listening to a song from her husband and friends

At the reception, katie had to take a few rests.The pain does not allow her to stand up for long periods

Katie died five days after her wedding day. Watching a woman so ill and weak getting married and with a smile on her face makes us think..... Happiness is reachable, no matter how long it last. We should stop making our lives complicated.

Life is short
Break the rules
forgive quickly
kiss passionately, love truly
laugh constantly
And never stop smiling
no matter how strange life is
Life is not always the party we expected to be
but as long as we are here, we should smile and be grateful.

As I reproduce this piece found in my mailbox, I didn't take the trouble to find out whether this person is in fact real or not. If the write did have such good imagination to even create a story of such, I think he or she knows something about life. And indeed if I reflect back at myself, too many times I have been looking into the small things and get frustrated with the minute things. The big picture, how about being alive and even close to our loved ones. Life is indeed fragile and unpredictable, but Love is something uniquely God build into us from his own image. How can we not learn to love and give more than anything else. If there is something I can learn from this is I need to Love and be less selfish. Have a great day, folks.


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

A Long Holiday (not enough though)

We had a pretty long holiday. A 2 day holiday for Hari Raya and then comes a working Friday and then off again for the weekend. It was a good break to relax and spend some time at home with family. After that it was the Christmas and New Year in the month of December and come January it is Chinese New Year. Well the flow of holiday seems good while the financial crisis and recession continue to hinder any mood of joyous and festivity. Coupled with the problem with Satyam, the overall outlook of the new year seems to be able to do much better. And of course not to forget our fellow human beings in Gaza, some of whom have died while Hamas and Israel continues to engage each other in a war that is punctuated by cease fire calls on and off, but they actually have been fighting all this while.

I like to spend a long holiday to really sit down and reflect on all this things. I may not be able to change anything at all, but, it is time for me, at least, to sit back and look at everything I understand from a perspective which I myself can accept. Whatever it is, things will get worst, according to the bible in the book of revelation. Probably that is a place to start to find peace in my heart amidst chaos in the world.

Haha.... that is all my ranting today :)

This is where I want to be.... ahhh....

~~~ 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.