Two Old Photos

Recently, Fenny sent me two old photos from the Melbourne days.

Wow, I was really slim then.

Would this also be a vision of my future if I really put my heart into exercising and eating healthily? :)

Two Important Events

Wow, it has been almost two months since I last blogged. Of course I can say that my schedule has been packed. But truthfully I also experienced some loss of momentum. Also, I have been pondering on the way forward regarding my blog including changing blog.

But more of that perhaps next time. :)

Today I want to take time to blog on our two upcoming YA events.

The first one is our YA Combined CG tomorrow. Peter Truong will minister to us. He ministered to us last year and he is back again this year. Yesterday, Peter met the YA leaders to minister to us and to train us for tomorrow. We witnessed several of our leaders receiving physical and emotional healing.

The details of the event is as below:

The second event is our YA Team Rally this Sunday.

Once every a few months we take time to celebrate, look back and look forward. This will be our last Team Rally for the year.

I would like to really invite shepherds, core teams and leaders in YA group to join us for this time. There will be surprises for you. Come and find out. :)

I want to thank Ben and Name from CN & Christine's groups for doing up the wonderful e-invites above.

Now back to tomorrow's combined care group. If you are reading this blog I covet your prayers for God to move mightily in our midst tomorrow administering His renewal, emotional healing and physical healing.

Indeed it is not going to be by our might our our power but it is going to be by the Spirit of God that we will move from strength to strength and glory unto glory.

"Thank You Jesus, Amen!"

After almost three weeks

Wow, it has been almost three weeks since I last blogged. I would need to catch up in the next few days.

Let me start with where I left, UNVEIL.

We did UNVEIL. It was indeed an entertaining night. I am confident that we have also sown some good seeds into the hearts of around 21 pre-believing visitors who were present that night.
I want thank CN, committee (Jinqi, David Chua and Yoppie) and team (many people) for anchoring the event. I salute all the contestants including those who went for the auditions. We appreciate the judges (Kin Wee, Jaclyn and Angie) and our guest performer (Nel and band). Thank you also to those who were there and for inviting your friends to join us as well.

Congratulations to Megan (the winner) and the Butterfly (the runner up). Cheers to August Rush, J & J and Tian Tian & band for putting up a wonderful show as well.

Here are some pictures of UNVEIL courtesy of Penny. Thanks Penny. You are a faithful servant of God.

For more photos of UNVEIL you can go to Penny's photo website at the following address:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pennypoon/sets/72157607023494468/detail/

Thank God for UNVEIL: THE STAGE.

UNVEIL: THE STAGE

I am excited about our YA Event 2 this Friday - UNVEIL: THE STAGE. CN and team has been working hard in the planning and coordination of the event. The auditions have been completed. Six contestants (a mixture of individuals and teams) have made it to this Friday.

For those in AG1 district/YA group now is our turn. It is our turn to give the committee and contestants our very best support. One way we can support the committee is by being there and by bringing as many people there as possible. Nexus auditorium needs to be filled up by people to create the kind of atmosphere we need.

We can support the contestants by giving them our votes that day. On Friday, the judging criteria would be as follow:
60% - Judges' decision
30% - SMS voting
10% - Fans/audience support (banner, cheers, etc)

May the best man/woman/team win! :)

For those in AG1 district/YA group it is good to remember the objective of this event. UNVEIL: THE STAGE is a kind of outreach event (Matthew Party). Also, we are in our final week of our Adults region growth and YA360 charge. As such, brothers and sisters, this Friday let us bring as many friends and family members, believers (contacts, visitors, those who have slidden away) and pre-believers (those who are near and those who are still afar) to UNVEIL. Let us fill at least 3/4 of Nexus Auditorium this Friday.

You can download the e-invite from my blog to send it out to your friends and family members.

For those outside AG1 district/YA group we covet your prayers. Pray for us. We will definitely need it. Thanks in advance.

I definitely look forward to a highly entertaining and impactful time at UNVEIL this Friday.

snaphots of the past few weeks

Many things have happenned in the past few weeks. I could have blogged many entries on those happennings. But I am still on my way in becoming a more frequent blogger. But at least I am a regular blogger? :)

The past few weeks?

Once again, we made various trips to Changi Airport. Changi Airport can be our fourth home after our CCK home, church office, Nexus.

We sent Bairang off. She had been with us in Singapore for years. She was leaving to France to further her studies. May God use her greatly in a new land.

We sent off Leslie and baby Nathan. Leslie was joining Ronald, her husband, in Perth. We look forward to meet this amazing couple again in December in Singapore. I didn't take Leslie's picture. But I took Nathan's pictures. Sorry Leslie. :)


We sent off our STM team to Nairobi, Kenya. There were seven of them. I was pleasantly surprised to see many people sending them off on Thursday after midnight. The team was just going away for 10 days. What will happen if they were going away for some months or years?

Lean Choo, I and my young cousin joined the 4th Indo Service Celebration. It is great to see how the Indo group has grown from strength to strength.

We attended Albert and Marsli's wedding. This is one of the largest wedding dinner I have ever attended, around 60 tables. I do not have the picture of the couple. (becoming a bad habit?) But I have a picture of some friends from Melbourne who attended the wedding as well. (Two of them are from Hope KL)

On Saturday, we had some leaders and friends from the district gracing our humble home. It was great to have Lean Choo's younger sister joining us as well. The game of CITADELS once again captured the attention of some individuals. We also did a pyschological assessment for almost each one present in the gathering. If you want to know what kind of guy or gal they are looking for you can check with me. :)

Well, those were some of the happennings in the past few weeks. Just one more before I sign off. One day when I went to a NTUC supermarket there was . . .

A Memorable Night

Last Thursday was indeed a memorable night for me. It was our YA combined care group meeting. Some of us were praying and fasting believing for the Holy Spirit to move powerfully that night. I could sense the hunger and the faith of various individuals for the move of God in our midst.

When we had our prayer meeting at 6.30pm I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a number of people there present for the prayer meeting. Some of them were not on duty. They skipped their dinner just to be present for the prayer meeting.

During the care group meeting we could sense a strong presence of God in our midst. Fenny gave a word of prophecy that flowed very nicely with my short sharing that night. May Hoong prophesied about each individual receiving a personal word from God. Her prophecy came true for later on we heard about people indeed receiving a personal word from God that night. I also heard of people really being ministered by God that night. Praise God and praise God!

The worship team lead by Ah Long and Lean Choo did well that night. Fenny praised the worship band. Even though they were new to one another, having many songs to play and practicing only once they managed to pull it off. Kar Wai , Helen and Wynnie also presented a beautiful dance item in between the praise and worship. Technically it wasn't a presentation as they danced unto the Lord and allowing God to minister to the people through their dance. They danced with grace and beauty.

This morning when I joined Florence's morning devotion I heard one of her members giving a very encouraging testimony. He applied what he learned on Thursday about consulting the Holy Spirit. He wanted to approach his director with some anger in his heart over his paycheck. However, he refrained from doing so. Instead he withdrew to a place and prayed. He asked the Holy Spirit to guide Him. He then heard the Holy Spirit giving him a practical idea of how he should speak to his director. He followed the Holy Spirit's instruction and everything went through very smoothly. Imagine if he had followed through with his anger instead. The Holy Spirit is indeed our Great Consultant and Great Counsellor. I commend this brother for being a doer of the Word of God.

I want to thank Jasmine and team for making thursday night possible. In fact many people served hard behind the scene to anchor the event. I want to thank everyone who were hungry for God and fasted and prayed for the Holy Spirit to move that night. I believe that the God saw the hunger in our hearts and graciously poured a measure of His presence and grace. Thank You Holy Spirit! Thank you people.

I really believe that our Adults Camp was just a beginning. In the recent weeks or even months we have been experiencing a greater presence of the Holy Spirit in our Adults services. We sensed His presence strongly in our combined care group on Thursday as well. I look forward for exciting months ahead.

Come Holy Spirit! We can't enlarge without You. However, with You we won't be able to stop enlarging.

Lewis

Last week my third nephew was born into the world. He is my sister's second child.

My brother, his girlfriend and my cousin visited my sister and Lewis in the hospital. Lean Choo visited Lewis a few days later.

Anyway, it was a very interesting hospital visit. In short, the room was very noisy for an extended period of time. But to my amazement Lewis remained very calm and peaceful. There were times that he looked like wanting to cry but somehow he calmed down again.

That incident reminds me of having peace in the midst of a storm.

Here are some pictures of Lewis.

Welcome to the world Lewis.

May you grow to be a man after God's heart. :)

Weird Dreams?

The last few days have been pretty eventful for me. I will take some time to blog about it this week. But for now I would like to blog about dreams.

Last week I woke up remembering my dreams. The dreams were very interesting.

The first dream is about a kind of large animal/monster/creature (octopus, snake or both) that is destroying the city and the house I am in. I see the large creature destroying things in the city. I see part of the large creature appearing in the house. I remember seeing Lean Choo and I running away from the house to escape from the creature. There are two twists to the dream too. The first twist is about me seeing some crews (possibly film crews) in the house signifying that the entire thing is a movie production. The second twist is the discovery that Lean Choo and I are the only ones who can stop this large creature. Cool right? :)

The second dream is about one of my aunties and I. We are in Jakarta. I am helping my aunty to carry her bag. I can even remember the colour, white and pink/red. As I cross a road and reaching the end of the road somebody took away the bag by force. I attempt to get it back but the person takes out a knife to threaten me. Later on I report to my aunty on the lost bag. My aunty says that there is $26,000 in the bag. I think my aunty is bringing the money on behalf of somebody to be passed to another person. In my dream I am wondering to myself about the matter of paying back the money, by installment?

I do dream a lot. But I don't always remember the details of my dream. Sometimes God speaks to me through dreams especially when I was a younger believer.

I am wondering if the above two dreams mean anything or if they are just weird dreams. May be only time will tell. For now what I can do is to record it in case I need to refer to it in the future.

Just Acia

I seldom blog about food. But it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy eating. Today let me introduce to you Just Acia.

Around two weeks ago Lean Choo, May Hoong and I had dinner together after our meeting on Sunday afternoon. May Hoong brought us to this place in Dhoby Ghaut MRT. That's right Dhoby Ghaut MRT.

She told us that the area (the shops in the MRT area) used to be quiet. However things changed after Just Acia started their open concept restaurant.

The ambience of the place is good. It is good for meetings and mentoring sessions too.

Their set meals are reasonable in pricing (sorry, I forgot how much) and tastes pretty good. (do note that I am not fussy about food though)

One pull factor for me to come back again is below. They give free flow of drink and ice cream for just $2.95. I think that's a pretty good deal.

If you around the area next time you can give it a try. Any queries can be directed to May Hoong. :)

One Tough But Wonderful Week

Last week was one tough but wonderful week.

Last week was the first week of our new district structure. Whenever a new structure kicks in the administration load would go up (e.g. new floor plan, restructuring forms, etc) I thank God for Lean Choo who shoulders most of the admin work. We are excited about our new structure. We know that this new structure will benefit everyone in the long run. My heart and prayers are for those who are adjusting to their new groups. May each one adjust well and may God bless them greatly!

On Monday, I had lunch with Ee Lee with some others. Later on some of us spent some time praying and prophesying over Ee Lee as well. We are proud of what Ee Lee has done and will continue to do in Santiago. At night Lean Choo and I were in the airport sending off two people to Australia. Wynnie flew to Brisbane and Jia Yin flew to Melbourne. Both for their studies.

On Tuesday, Barnie flew to Adelaide. I didn't manage to send him off. I was spending time with a friend. I do not know this friend for long but God has allowed our paths to cross. I appreciate him for spending time with me and for sharing his heart with me. I am praying for God to continue to lead him and guide him. He is precious to me.

As various ones are furthering their studies overseas I have been communicating with our Hope Churches overseas as well to ask their help to embrace our people. It is so good to have spiritual families in different parts of the world.

On Wednesday, I had my first ever singing class. I signed up for this course just to help me to sing a little better (e.g. it's important for a service leader to know how to sing a little so as to flow better with the worship leader) and to accompany Lean Choo. After the class, I had the privilege to join Ps Jeff to share some thoughts with some upcoming church planters.

On Thursday, I was rushing to prepare for my sermons on Saturday.

On Friday, I was working on my sermons and on the Combined Team Rally (CTR) chairing. I had a good time praying with Ps Jeff and also some others preparing for the night. The CTR was certainly prayerful. After the CTR, many people stayed longer to be prayed for. It was so good seeing many people hungry to receive more from God. After finish praying I went back home and do more preparation for the following day sermons.

On Saturday, I arrived in Nexus slightly before 12pm preparing myself to preach in the two Youth services and Tertiary service. Thank God for helping me through the three sermons. What struck me most about the three services were the many people who came to know Jesus that weekend. The last time I was in Youth 1st Service around 3 people came forward to receive Jesus into their lives. Last Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised to witness so many people wanting to receive Jesus that the front area was filled up with people. In the second service, many people also responded to Jesus. In the Tertiary service, we ran overtime. Thus at the end we just led everyone to pray along if anyone would like to receive Jesus into their lives. At night Jasmine sent me a text message that six people from the Poly group responded to Jesus. Praise God!

I am so happy seeing so many people receiving Jesus into their lives over the weekend. I really want to affirm my brothers and sisters in the Youth and Tertiary Services. "Thank you for not keeping the love of God for yourself. Thank you for loving your friends by inviting them to come to service so that they can have the opportunity to know Jesus."

Last weekend services have stirred up my compassion for the lost once again. It is just so good seeing people responding to Jesus. God has been blessing our young adults ministry with salvations. But I believe that God wants to give us a lot more in the near future. May God continue to enlarge us in every way!

After the Saturday services Lean Choo and I went to CN & Christine's place for their housewarming. It was so good seeing many new friends there. Many of them are internationals. I was reminded about the first care group that I led in Singapore in 99. Lean Choo was in that care group as well. Our care group then had many international friends as well. The difference is that CN & Christine's groups have a lot more labourers to care for their international friends. :) I am excited seeing what God is doing through CN & Christine and their wonderful team.

On Sunday, it was a good service. It was so good having people going for their baptism as well. (I will blog separately on this). I had some fruiful meetings in the afternoon before spending the evening with my aunty and cousin. My cousin just arrived in Singapore to further her study. I was impressed with my young cousin's faith in God. God is going to use her to touch lives.

Last week was one tough but wonderful week. Sometimes the work is hard but the joy is great. Though I have been a believer for almost 14 years God has never failed to surprise me with new experiences again and again.

As I thank God for last week I now shall look forward to this week. The same God who was there last week is the same God who will be there this week.

Some Recent Photos

I just downloaded some recent photos taken with my simple Samsung mobile phone. It is said that a picture speaks a thousand of words. Behind every photo below there is a story. Can you guess it?

Clues:

1. My regular weighing machine (1 photo)

2. Farm visit with Church Staff Family (7 photos)

3. SBS Bus with VIP Seats (1 photo)

4. Sending Ronald off to Perth (the baby boy's name is Nathan) (3 photos)

5. A personal water dispenser (the number "8" refers to eight glasses of water per day) (1 photo)

Wimbledon and more

Portugal and Holland lost in their quarter final matches. It proves that soccer is not my calling. Thus I will now change sports. A major tennis tournament started on Monday. Yeap, I am talking about Wimbledon, arguably the greatest tennis tournament in the entire tennis calendar.

Wimbledon is special for many reasons. One of them is because it is played on grass court. Today there are very few grass court tournaments in the world. Another reason is because Federer is a great grass court player. He has won this tournament 5 times on a row. If he wins Wimbledon next Sunday he will be the first player to do so in the open era.

During Federer's first round play yesterday something unusual happenned. Dominik, Federer's opponent, sat besides Federer nearing the end of the match. This is very unusual to say the least. Normally players sit at their own designated chairs during break times. This will help them to focus better on the match. The photo of the incident is below.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/24/sports/tennis.php?page=2

This scene is heartwarming. It reminds players and fans that there is more to life than winning tennis matches. Sometimes we can be too focused on our selfish passion and goals that we sacrifice more important things such as God, people around us and people out there.

On Sunday we had a district event where we celebrated God's goodness in our midst in the past half year, affirmed people and look forward to the months ahead. We called the event, YA Team Rally.

There many people that I want to thank for making the event possible including Desmond & Ziying, the coordinators of the event. However, I want to take this time to make a special mention of the deco team. I discovered that Shiyan and team really put in a lot of efforts in making the deco and gifts to serve all of us that day.

Sometimes the contribution of those who serve behind the scene go unnoticed and unappreciated. But sometimes these people serve the hardest. Sunday's deco team is one example. If you are interested to read more of the story you can read Shiyan's blog on the below link. I have also taken liberty to download a photo from her blog and upload it below. :)

http://shiyansimplyliveforyou.blogspot.com/



I just want to take this opportunity to really appreciate the many people in the district and church who have served behind scene faithfully in many many occassions. Thank you for giving yourself to God and to all of us. Your labours are not in vain. I pray that you will continue to fight the good fight of faith and keep your faithful service to God so that more people like me can be blessed and impacted again and again.

By the way, yes, this is more important than Wimbledon. :)