Our Recent Trip to Australia (Part 3)

We flew from Gold Coast to Melbourne. Daniel (my brother in law), Melia (my sister) and Titus (my nephew) picked us up in the airport. In Melbourne, we spent a lot of time with them as well as with Anthony (my brother), CE (my sister in law) and Noah (my second nephew). I will share more about our time with them in part 4.

In Melbourne, we also spent some time with some brothers and sisters in Hope Melbourne (Waverley & City Centres). I accepted Christ into my life on 29 July 1994 in a care group meeting of Hope Melbourne, Waverley Centre. I left Melbourne to Singapore in June 1998.

We visited Waverley Centre Sunday service. It was great to be able to come back for a visit after 9 years. I have many wonderful memories of my time with the Waverley centre. It was a place where I knew God and grew spiritually. It was a place where I learnt what it meant to really serve God fully. It was a place where I captured God's vision for the world. It was a place where I witnessed great life examples, transformation of lives, the visitations of God, etc.

Back to the visit. The video clip we brought was shown in the service. After service, we spent some time with some brothers and sisters who would be going back to Singapore in the near future. It is nice to get to know them. We hope to be able to know them better, perhaps when they are back in Singapore for holiday. Below are some pictures we took with them.

From Waverley Centre we went to another part of Melbourne to meet some brothers and sisters from the City Centre. It brought back some memories to me as well. One, my younger brother, Anthony accepted Christ in the City Centre. Two, I met Ferry again. Ferry and I met and in the Waverley Centre. However, he later on went to join the City Centre. Three, I used to join City Centre's services occassionally in the past to do skits for their Indonesian Services.

Back to the visit. We went to someone's house and had a great time of fellowship and sharing with Ferry and company. The group was a very joyful group. We laughed a lot during our time together. We showed them the video clip there as well. Below is a picture we took with them.

The next day was Monday. We were leaving Melbourne on Monday evening. On Monday morning, Ferry came a long way from where he lived to the place where we stayed in Melbourne to spend some time together. We had a breakfast and some quality time together in a nearby Milkbar. Ferry's photo is below. Ferry is actually Jorry's elder brother. (Jorry is a key leader in our Indonesian group in Singapore). Can you the resemblace? :)

Both Lean Choo and I really enjoyed getting to know some brothers and sisters in the both centres in Melbourne. I had a good time catching up with some old friends as well. I am really thankful for the big family that God has given me. Wherever I go, in many parts of the world, I can meet people who love God and desire to fulfil His vision for the world. This is indeed is a privilege and joy that God has given me. Thank you, Jesus!

Our Recent Trip to Australia (Part 2)

This is part 2.

We moved from Brisbane to Gold Coast on Sunday night. We spent the next few days in Gold Coast doing our annual retreat.

Effectively, we only had four days for this retreat. We spent some time playing, planning and praying.

We actually stayed in the same apartment as we did in 2004 when we went to Australia to attend my brother's wedding. What a loyal customer. :)

This was my second trip to Gold Coast. I think it was Lean Choo's third trip. This time I decided to visit one of the worlds as I thought it would be quite strange to go to Gold Coast twice without visiting any of the world at all. :)

Some of our Gold Coast photos are below. Enjoy! :)

The apartment from a distance

The living room with a model from Singapore

This model loves kitchen

The view from the balcony

The Famous Surfers Paradise

I was posing

The Movie World

The Police Academy Stunt Show

Do you like Shrek?

Shrek 4D show was quite cool

That wasn't me

I look thin here

Lean Choo loves flowers

Who poses more convincingly?

A rare couple photo

The painting was large

I am thin in comparison to...

I guess I really like to pose

Our Recent Trip to Australia (Part 1)

Lean Choo and I are back from our trip to Australia. We left on Thurs, 11 Oct (night) and came back Yesterday (early morning). We went to three places in Australia which are Brisbane, Gold Coast and Melbourne.

We really thank God for giving us a very fruitful trip.

We had three objectives for our trip. Firstly, we would like to build relationships with our brothers and sisters in Hope Brisbane and Melbourne. Secondly, it was a time for our annual retreat. Thirdly, we would like to spend time with my siblings and their families in Melbourne.

As it would be too much to blog everything into a single entry I am going to do it in four parts. I will do this chronologically.

We arrived in Brisbane on Friday (12 Oct) morning. Ps Wenan fetched us in the airport. He drove us to our hotel and then we spent some time together. At night we had dinner with Ps Wenan before we joined a student care group (they call it "life group" there).

........................Some scenic views in Brisbane....................

On Saturday we had lunch with some student leaders (mostly unit leaders). At night we had dinner with some brothers and sisters in which some of them are returning/going to Singapore soon.

........Lunch with Sarah, Evelyn, Kelvin, Chia Yen, Han, Joy...

On Sunday morning we joined a young working adult DMM meeting. Then we had a quick lunch before we joined a WFL class (they call it CDS -Christian Development School- there) After the WFL class we attended the afternoon service (for students and young working adults).

In the service, they showed the video clip of our Young Overseas Graduates and Internationals Ministry. We managed to produce the video clip just in time for this trip. We didn't know that Kelly was very popular in Brisbane. People really cheered when they saw her appearing in the video clip. Eugene Chong was quite popular as well. :)

After service, we had dinner with some young working adults before we moved to Gold Coast. After that, Eddy and Boy kindly drove us from Brisbane to Gold Coast.

..................Eddy's young working adults group and us.......

We were really touched by the warmth and hospitality we received in Brisbane. From the time Ps Wenan fetched us in the airport to the time Eddy & Boy drove us to Gold Coast we felt and experienced Brisbane hospitality all the way through. We received many meal treats and they kindly brought us around Brisbane in their cars. This experience has challenged me to up my hospitality level down here in Singapore. Hospitality is indeed one tangible expression of love and care. I believe that sometimes or often we underestimate its power in touching hearts and lives.

Besides hospitality another thing we saw in Brisbane is that the vision was very much alive there. It is so gratifying to see like minded people in other parts of the world. Though we live in different parts of the world we share the same heart beat and passion.

Well, I shall end the part one of this blog entry here. To Ps Wenan and my brothers and sisters in Brisbane, thanks much for everything. We had a great time there with all of you. To my brothers and sisters in Singapore, it was a great trip and it is good to be back. See you around again soon!

6 weird things about me

from Jasmine Poon's blog. Rules: Each player of the game starts off by writing 6 weird things about themselves before choosing another 6 of their friends to sabotage. People who get tagged needs to write in a blog on their own, 6 weird things about themselves and state the rules clearly.

Below is what Jasmine wrote...
1. I don't like mushroom!
2. I teared throughout the teaching taught by our Hope Founder in 1996
3. I swallowed a chewing gum when i was young and I thought I'm going to die in the next 1 hour!
4. I like Chemistry, my favourite subject!
5. If I have chance, I love to travel to 238 countries in my life time. (I will be very old by then and I need to be super rich)
6. I love cartoon smurfs - a small blue creatures....
Tag : Nel, Lennon, Leanne, Donald, Ps Jeff, Micheal Santoso

6 weird things about me...
1. I read hundreds or even thousands of comics in my childhood.
2. I used to swim for up to 13 times per week at a point of time in my life.
3. One of my uncles was one of my school teachers in the secondary school.
4. I didn't know what the word "study" meant, perhaps until secondary school.
5. My siblings and I attempted to extort from a cousin. The plot was discovered by his mum.
6. My friends and I joined a basketball club and played against a group of girls quite often.
Tag: Eugene Chong, Jasmine Yeo, Desmond Lee, Christine Chean, Shirley Melinda, Daphne Low

Being innovative

Some time ago I had an opportunity to sit in a very unique cab in Singapore. There were only five of them. The cab driver was a very friendly guy. His cab wasn't attached to any cab company in Singapore, it was privately owned.

The main bulk of his customers were from a shipyard. Basically, there were people living somewhere in the middle of the sea and only came back to the land every 30 days. They would then spend their one day in the land to shop provision for the next cycle of 30 days. The cab driver would drive them for the whole day to get their stuff. As different groups of people come back to the land each day, his business was basically quite good. On top of this type of customers he also accepted private bookings. (If anyone wants his number, I have it)

The cab driver told me that the he way he reasoned things was quite different to other drivers. For example, if many drivers would tell him that a particular location is not good for business he would purposely go there. He reasoned that if nobody wanted to go there there wouldn't have enough cabs in the area.

I found this cab driver to be innovative. He was thinking out of the box.

I believe that in whatever we do in life it is important for us to be innovative. This is especially true for the work of ministry. We need to maintain our freshness. The world out there is competitive and changing very fast. We must do the work of ministry with the spirit of excellence and innovation all the time to stand a chance for progress and growth.

This may be a high call, especially to those who do not consider themselves to be a creative person. But our God is more than willing to give us wisdom when we ask it. He is the Source of all of good things in life. Those who choose to believe in Him and walk in His ways shall receive a greater share of those good things.

Thanks Mr. Cab Driver for reminding me on the importance of being innovative.

A touching moment...

Last Sunday afternoon, after a prayer meeting, some of us gathered together for a briefing for our upcoming YA event, 13. It was a touching moment for me as I saw the Y, YY, YYY generations working together for a worthy cause.

Indeed, this is a glimpse of the kind of the church that Jesus is building. A kind of church where people do not allow their differences (age, background, personality, etc) to divide them. Rather they decide to complement one another with their unique strengths. This is a kind of church where each member is not interested in exalting their own individual interest but the interest of the Kingdom.

For those who are not familiar with the definitions of Y, YY, YYY in our young adults ministry, here they are:

Y - those who are in their thirties
YY - those who are in their mid twenties and late twenties
YYY - those who are in their late teens and early twenties

That touching moment provides a perfect platform for me to publish in writing what I shared from my heart verbally during a district missions nite on 20 Sep 2007.

I want to be reminded continually that God has put the Y, YY, YYY generations together to accomplish His purpose in our world.

Below is what I shared that night (not a verbatim copy but almost):

Sharing from the heart to the YYY and YY generation:

I am now part of Y generation. One regret that I have is that I didn’t cultivate dilligence in the early part of my life, when I was part of the YYY and YY generation. In fact today I am still cultivating dilligence though I am thankful that I have progressed.

You see, when I was younger I depended too much on my intellect and the grace of God. I am very far away from being genius. But since young I knew, through a test, that my IQ was higher than average. And somehow I depended on it, at least partly, for survival.

I didn’t understand the word “study” perhaps until Secondary School. Even after I understand the word I didn’t study much still, a trend that continued even until my university studies. Thankfully, I somehow repented I think during my last year of my university studies.

One day when I was in Primary 3 or 4 my teacher was so fed up with me as I didn’t do any of my homework at all, a usual habit for me. He commanded me to leave the classroom. I didn’t want to. He dragged me but I held on to one table and then probably to a chair. But he was stronger than me. I was out of the class. I then wandered away to a particular area in the school. I think the teacher was trying to find me. Later on when I came back to class it was another teacher. He was quite nice to me. Perhaps he was scared that I would wander away from school.

In my life I did many stupid things. When Lean Choo and I got married the theme of our wedding was “Only by grace”. Indeed it was only by grace that I survived physically, emotionally and spiritually to get married that day.

Though I have many stories to tell about my mischiefs and grace encounters I do regret wasting my life a little bit by not being a dilligent person.

YYY and YY people, I urge you not to repeat my mistake. Learn from mistake. You are only in your late teens and twenties once. Do not waste it away. Don’t allow the world and your peers to distract you. Invest your life fully into the cause of the church. Live out the purpose and destiny God has for you fully.

YYY and YY people, you know, it is not about me. It is about you.

Many years ago God birthed into my heart a burden. The burden was for me to be in a place in the world where I can find people from various nationalities to win them for Christ, disciple and train them and release them to the various parts of the world to plant churches or contribute in some ways to the church of Jesus Christ.

When I was Singapore, in the early years, I saw a mental picture of a greyish building with many classrooms, a large auditorium with flags of many countries of the world there. Then I saw a mental picture of the map of the world. One picture of this greyish building appeared on the map then it multiplied to many greyish buildings all over the map. There was fire on top of the picture of one greyish building. The fire also multiplied and appeared on other greyish buildings on the map.

I believe this is it. This is the place. Singapore is getting more multinationals by the day. Singapore is an excellent training ground for world missions.

YYY and YY people, indeed, it is about you. In the years to come, some of you will be leaving Singapore to extend the work of God in different parts of the world. Some of you will be in Singapore to strengthen the base. Some of you will be going while some of you will be training and releasing people to go. Some of you will be in Singapore but you will travel quite a bit to support and strengthen our teams out there. Some of you will be in Singapore but you are pumping financial resources to advance God’s work abroad.

That’s your destiny. In the years to come, whether you are a church planter, a full time staff, a pastoral leader, a specialised minister, a marketplace minister we share the same destiny. God has a vision for the world and He wants us to fulfill it. God wants each us to sign up fully for the cause of the greatest corporation in the universe, the church of Jesus Christ.

YYY and YY generation, live out your destiny fully. Invest your life fully to the cause of the church of Jesus Christ. Do not waste your teens and twenties away. Make it count for yourself, God and the Kingdom.


Sharing from the heart to the Y generation:

I have not forgotten you. How can I forget my own generation?

Whatever I spoke about the YYY and YY generation apply to you as well.

But there is one thing that I would like to speak to you about.

I believe that God wants you to be a mentor to the YYY and YY generation.

In a way, you eat a little bit more than salt than them. As such why don’t we invest our lives so that the YYY and YY people can flourish better than us? Why don’t we allow them to learn from our successes and failures so that they will eventually do better than us in all fronts.

In a LC in Kuala Lumpur some years ago a man of God gave a word of prophecy. He prophesied that God is going to use some people who are not apostles to shepherd and raise apostles from those under their care.

The future apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, pastors, specialist ministers and marketplace ministers are among the YYY and YY generation. But many of them need spiritual mentors. Many of them need career mentors. Many of them need life coaches. Many of them need spiritual fathers and mothers. Many of them need friends who have gone a little bit further than them.

Y generation, that’s our calling and destiny. Would you join me to raise the next generation of leaders for the nations?

Let’s live out our destiny fully as well.