ChIcKeRiFic LiFe

Easter Day….A day to remember that Jesus has risen from the death. Watch the Lamb is a song written and sung by Ray Boltz. It speaks about Simon from Cyrene who took the cross for the Lord on the way to Golgotha. Well it is actually a fictional version cause it is not recorded in the Bible what happened before and after Christ’s death. But the song speaks about keeping our eyes fixed on the Lamb the Lord Jesus Christ. Here I would like to share two testimonies from church today. Both of these testimonies are two people from my CF and who got baptist today. Let’s call the first one CL and the other one YW.

CL is born in a typically Christian family. He said that he went to church was out of obligation and not because he wanted to. After coming to USM, he started reading the bible, owing a bible and even praying everyday. He started to grow as a Christian as he went to church and also to CF. He thanked God for wonderful room mates who were Christians who has helped him to grow as a Christian. As he took the step of faith, he prays that this will be a new beginning in his life.

YW is a girl from Sarawak. Born to a non-Christian family, her family forbid her to become a Christian. She was even brought up to dislike Christians. As she grew up in school, she heard the gospel from her school friends. When she accepted Christ, she knew that her parents will not allow her to go to church. When she came to USM, she started to serve in the CF and church. Here her spiritual life grew in leaps and bounds. Until one day God ask her to get baptize. Of course it was hard for her because of her parents but she obeyed God and told her parents. At first her parents objected, but after much prayer, her parents relented and allowed her. 

These two testimonies really showed me that we must keep our eyes on Jesus no matter how hard life could be. It really encourages me to be a better Chrisitian to continue to Watch The Lamb.

Sorry guys for the long awaited second part…been super busy and also the connection in campus is super bad.

Thursday (Day 3)

Woke up very very late..Overslept…started doing my assignments. Told myself to finish my work by that day. Talked to Wai Hin online and had a great time. Finished my report. In the evening had dinner with Paolo. Then had a grand tour of his university. About 10pm only left his place and went back to Kenny’s place where I stayed up to watch some movies.

Friday (Day 4)

Woke up a little bit early cause I had to meet my mum’s cousin (whom I have never met before). Met them at a restaurant called Jack’s place. After lunch went to Aunt Irene’s house for more food and chat. Talked until about 4 then had to go to the bus station to get my ticket back to Ipoh. At night had a small party in Kenny’s place. All the gang I knew was there. We had pizza and KFC. Here I would like to say that the KFC in S’pore taste bad haha…I prefer the KFC in Malaysia. I think halal chicken tastes nicer (hehe). Played X-Box games then as people left watched Billy Elliot (really touching show).

Saturday (Day 5)

Had lunch with Kenny and Bro Mike B. INDIAN FOOD!!!!!!! Ate until really stuffed. Went back to Kenny’s place to pack. Evening came and off I went to my cousin’s place for dinner. Met the whole family there finally. Really great time of knowing the other side of the family. Left about 7 and back home, packed again. At about 9 left Kenny’s place to go to the bus station. Met Kenny there who sent me off. At about 10.30 my bus left S’pore.

All in all my trip this time was a relaxed one. I didn’t want to do anything there but just sit in the house and sleep, watch TV or just do my work. There were some good things to. I took a walk near Kenny’s area and had a great time alone. Didn’t really do any shopping cause didn’t felt like it at all. Also I had a great accomplishment. Read two books there:- 1)  5 People you Meet in heaven and also 2) Tuesdays with Morrie.

That sparked the interest in me to read (currently reading Memoirs of a Geisha). But I had fun there in S’pore and I hope to be there again soon.

Yes…I was in Singapore two weeks ago and boy what a wonderful week it was. It was annual personal retreat to Singapore and each time I’m there, I feel refreshed and also feel all energetic to start the year.

Tuesday (1st Day)

Arrived in Singapore about 9 am. It was the longest bus ride I ever had in my life. 10 hours. Actually I already reach JB at 7 am. It was the jam at the causeway that really took the longest time. Kenny picked me up at Beach Road and we went for breakfast…Pork mee. It was very unique cause the Pork Mee had See weed inside the soup. Something new to me. After that headed back to his home where I rested until the afternoon while Kenny went to work. Slept until 2 and then went online to do my lab assignment. Kenny called me about 5 and we were suppose to meet up in Chinatown. Met him there and we ate ‘tong sui’…mango. Then off we went to meet up Wei Kann and Zi Xiang for dinner in Marshay. Ate very little cause the portion of the food serving is huge. After dinner walked around Orchard for a while and then off we went back home to watch tv and off to bed I went.

Wednesday (2nd Day)

Woke up at about 8.30am and got ready to go out for breakfast. I went to the same place Kenny took me for breakfast and ate Nasi Briyani. After that went for a walk around Kenny’s area. Very nice place. I want to have a place there someday. Then about noon went back to the apartment and did my assignment again. Met up with Kenny about 6 to have light dinner cause was on our way to watch a play, "Confessions of 300 Unmarried Men", darn hilarious and so true about Singapore man. After the play we went for Italian food and boy was it Yummy and filled with cheese. Then slept very early cause was super tired.

More to come……………..

Just couldn’t come out with a title for this post. Haha…Cause it’s a lot of input that has been happening since last week.

Last week I was in La Salle Centre for the annual Formation Team meeting. Needless to say I’ve learned a lot during the weekend.

In the morning of Saturday we had a workshop on Media..really interesting topic about Press Freedom, how the media works, who owns them, etc…One of the most hottest topic was Freedom of Speech through the media. If you ask me, yes we should have freedom of speech but we need to be responsible with what we publish or say. Okay take for example the recent publications of the Prophet Muhammad comic strips in some Danish newspaper. Now this newspaper is asking for trouble. What happened to being tolerant about people’s religion. And now because of this, it gives even more reasons for terriosts to bomb more people to death. To make matters worse, in solidarity of Freedom of Speech, many other European countries decided to continue to publish those pictures. Sigh…real idiots. Okay well if you think that is silly, some people in Sarawak decided to do it also. Now I’m not really sure what happened there, but now the newspaper has been suspended (which I thought was a silly thing to do anyway). I believe in Freedom of Speech, but I believe we need to careful and wise what we do with it. I have been blogging for quite some time, but what I blog sometimes I need to check just in case I offend someone or some group. Ya what about my freedom of saying things, well there are other journals that I keep that I really speak my mind. But for this blog, it’s more of a personal learning.

Another I learnt during FT week was the word Crisis. Eric said that sometimes in our lives, we need to acknowledge them. It helps us to realise that we are alive and our lives are not so stagnant. Well thought about it, and reflected on it. My Christian life was like this before. I was just going on and on like stagnant water. No movement, no excitment. But I was happy. I thought my Christian walk was perfect. Little did I know, God was working behind the scene for the biggest Crisis to happen in my life. Well to cut the story short, the crisis happened (if you want to know, ask me) and I came out of it victoriously and now am happy when the Lord ‘kacau’ me. People use to think that Crisis happened because you are on Satan’s attack. I don’t believe all crisis is caused by Satan. Some crisis is brought by God so that we can put full trust in Him to bring us through. So don’t worry about crisis. Stop and pray maybe God is working

To all my friends who have been faithfully with me Happy Chinese New Year….This CNY has been a HOT one. Ipoh as usual became the only place where people decides to be during the season hence the many traffic jams that only KL-nites suffer are all here. And to make matters worst my car’s air-cond wasn’t working at all. So the heat plus the jam equals to frustration. But anyway all was not lost during these few days.

One thing about Chinese New Year which I always enjoy is the fellowship with my family and my extended family. I really like it when my auntie and uncle with their kids and their kids’ kids come back to our house to stay and also to celebrate CNY with us. The kick is this. The only pure Chinese people in the house are only my family and also my aunt. My aunt married an indian man and she has three chi-ndian kids (my cousins). My cousins all married people not of their own race. My eldest cousin married a Punjabi girl. My second cousin married a Eurasian girl. Thier little brother married an Australian Chinese. So you can see how rojak my family is. Oh ya also not forgetting, my mum’s second brother married a Malay lady. So I have cousins of different races and also different cultures. All of us are from different religion too. And yet we still love each other because we are still family.

This Chinese New Year was also a time of reconnecting with my friends. On Tuesday I had a reunion dinner with my Form Six friends. On Wednesday I had dinner with the band boys from SMI. So nice. I got to meet back all my old school mates. I had a great time recollecting memories of all of them. How we can actually get on each others nerves and yet still remain tight friends.

So this year CNY was a time of sharing and also reconnecting with people. It has no more become a time of just collecting ang pow.

Finally everything was over. In a matter of 2 hours, the whole concert was done. Yup can’t really believe it but it was 4 months ago that the committee in the CF decided to do this big event. Praise God after 4 months, He has seen it through.

Never once in my life I have wondered that USM KKj’s CF can do such a thing. I mean yes we once had our Evangelistic Nite before in 2004 but that was really really small…and yes we have our annual Christmas Night but it’s always on Christmas. Besides since the academic time table does not allows us to have Christmas Nite anymore, the CF needed another avenue to spread out its wings. And I suggested to do another Evangelistic Night, concert style. After much praying and seeking the Lord, found the perfect person to head this, Job. And yes God is wonderful…..so is the team that I’ve worked with for the past couple of months, Jason, Simon, Jinny, Sui Ying, ah Lia, ah Kung, Felix, Tun Shin, Christina, Su Anne, Kenneth, Ann Nee, Hui Hing, John, Paul, Tow Lian, Kok Mun and not forgetting Max and Joshua. You guys really showed how God can use you mightily in campus and also as Christians.

The whole concert for me was not just to evangelize to our campus students but for me I realise it’s an eye-opener to our CF members that with God we can do all things and with God we can really rock our campus. It’s high time that our CF step out to ‘run faster and reach higher’ for the campus. No more shall we just sit down and just wait but to do something. As Simon said, "It’s not the end, it’s just the beginning".

Was it a total sucess? Yes!!!! But of course there were a lot of hiccups along the way and also on the night. Well I won’t be sharing what they were because I don’t believe in dwelling in the past but learning from them. Well for a first try I believe we did a great job. So hopefully the next CF commitee will soon plan for next year’s concert.

We had practice today….from 1pm to 3pm…It was one of the best practice that we ever had. I have never heard all the band members playing so together in such a long time. Then it got me thinking that the band is now more relax to begin with and I have always learnt that if you guys play more relaxing and also more calmly then you will suceed. Throw God into the band and also having the spirit of worship then you will have an explosive worship. I’ll try to post up some pictures on this blog. But knowing me haha who don’t have a camera have to depend on the rest for it. So please be patient

Another interesting thing happened yesterday. Our Evangelisitic Nite is themed ‘Better than Life’ as in Jesus is so much better than other things in life. But someone asked me whether we had spelt the life wrongly. As a Christian you will definitely understand why we chose Better than life and to you it’s not wrong. But to someone who is new, they might not understand it. Okay back to my story. This guy who happened to be my neighbour in campus asked whether the ‘life’ was supposed to be spelt ‘live’? I asked why he said that. He said it should be spelt ‘live’ cause he thought we were making a statement on the show being ‘Better than live’ meaning must come cause it’s a Better than a live show…haha I really didn’t think of that. After explaining the real meaning of the theme, he understood and also I think I got into him about the whole affair. When I got back into my room, I just realised that hey it’s a great conversion opener and also a great way to bring our friends to the nite. So really thank God that He chose this theme for us…….

Better than the riches of this world, better than the sound of my friends voices, better than the biggest dreams of my heart, and that’s just the start……..

Finally after so many times trying to log into my blog…it finally works….How’s everyone? Me? I’m doing fine. Already two weeks have past in this new 2006. I’m actually happy to be living another year….

And of course during these periods, people all over the world try to make resolutions. Do I believe in resolutions? Hmm..hard to answer that. However I do believe there are pros and cons to resolution. For me resolutions are like some guidelines that you set for yourself to improve yourself. But of course the resolutions need to be practical. Don’t set resolutions that you know that you are bound to break it……

Anyway here’s my list of resolutions (or actually for me goal setting)

1) Read at least 5 books this year (does not count comics, children books, text books). I hate to read…Don’t know…never found the joy of reading before. But this year I want to challenge myself to read at least 5 books.

2) Continue to lose weigth. This resolution has been made every year and I’m proud to say I’m making progress. (slow but surely).

3) To at least tell people about the gospel. I’m afraid to share the gospel. I preferred to do it in other means like dramas, mimes etc…But I believe that it’s great to tell the gospel face to face.

Well there is my three top resolutions that I made for myself. I hope you did yours…….

Dear all, Thank you so much for giving comments so far…….So sorry I was unable to reply or even update myself cause I was very very busy these few days…..But it was a fruitful type of busy for me cause God was really speaking and teaching me lots of stuff.

NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2005

National Conference (NC) was held from the 28th of Nov till the 3rd of Dec in Peace Haven, Genting Highland. About 450 students attended this conference. They were all from the campuses and colleges all over Malaysia and there were even students from Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. The theme for this conference was en.ZYME…….in lame man’s term ‘like YIS in a batch of dough’. As Christians we are called to be like YIS….to permeate into our society to spread the love of Christ. The Conference was great…I met lots and lots of people there. Met up also with my Camp Cameron friends and also my Camp family. The whole conference gave new meaning to lots of CFs that attended. There was one participant who said "I believe that God will do something great after NC for all the campuses". As for me, God really spoke to me. The whole conference really was a refresher and also a rechallenge by God about my Christian walk with Him in my campus. When I was in 1st Year….somebody once prayed and said that God has a big plan for me in campus. I didn’t realise what it was until 2nd Year when I was serving in my CF. It was really to show the CF that it needs to be an aset to the university. My conviction always was if one day USM decided to ban our CF, will the community in USM fight for us? For the time being I guess not…the CF have become a social club for Christians to meet. We have made our own comfort zone for ourselves. It challenged my president and me a lot. The CF have come a long way indeed. The unification of the Chinese and English section was indeed a hard but a fruitful decision. Right now my burden is for the BM section. They have been secluded long enough and now it’s time to bring them back. It’s going to be hard but I believe that God is really calling for that. So please pray for us…

I was also part of a small group…actually I led one. CHEGAR PERAH was our name. A small town in Pahang. My group was a very quiet group but a very spiritual one. The people in my group were from Mature Christians to a new believer. But our discussions were really fruitful and meaningful. I really miss yo guys.

15th NATIONAL LASALLIAN LEADERS CONVENTION (NLLC)

The NLLC was held on the 4th of December till the 9th of December. Yes I had no rest. Unlike NC, NLLC was a project I was involved since Form six and have been loving it every year. The convention was attended by 88 participants from all Lasallian schools in Malaysia and Singapore. I was part of the Organizing Team and believe me it was GREAT. The theme this year was ‘A STEP FURTHER - CHALLENGE THE BOUNDARIES’. The theme really spoke to a lot of people including myself. The whole convention process was really challenging. Firstly I was in charge of Ice Breakers…..again. Sigh, when I first got the job I wanted out cause I didn’t want to be labeled the Ice Breaker guy aka Energizer Bunny. But Eric told me something one day…ever thought why you are always there….have you ever thought that maybe you are there to train people up to be like you..TING…didn’t think of that. Haha…It was really a selfish decision not to do it because maybe I didn’t want other people to be better than me….well it was the first boundary broken…..with that I want to thank Moira and Cheryl for being the greatest kuncu-kuncu I ever had.

I was also incharge of the Heritage Play. A real killer cause it was the OT’s doing it. My greatest fear was time….can we do it?…..well OT’s you have proven that you guys can do wonders…..and yup the play was sucessful. For me it was the process of getting the play to work that became a learning for me. Personally I’ve seen myself grow a lot from this experience.

But the thing I wanted to share was that God was working in this convention. Personally I was asking God questions like whether I should continue on this journey. The whole week God was showing signs that He did and then I realise, I’m helping people realising that we need to help our society. A lot of Christians were in this convention and  alot of them were convicted that they too have become ignorant and also apathy towards the poor and the less fortunate. Some have even repented during one of the nights (btw the convention is not a religious programme). I was touched…and God really worked in mysterious ways like when the rain should come or shouldn’t come haha…….Anyway it was great. And i’m ready for next year’s convention (if I get invited…Vinesh hint hint)……put me down as Ice Breaker Man again……..

Came back to Ipoh on Thursday. Haha  already have things to do. This time it was my church’s Vacation Bible School (VBS) for kids. I helped out as a helper for the 7-9 age group. It was a great two days…really had fun but it was really tiring. This year the theme for VBS was Son Games 2005. ??? What ??? Son Games like Summer Games..so Son Games….very Olympic themed VBS. Each day of the VBS there was a day theme.

Day 1 - ‘Join In’ - Wasn’t around haha…cause I was coming back from campus. But the whole day was themed Join In. Come, don’t care who you are cause you are important in the Kingdom of God.

Day 2 - ‘Keep On’ - Keep On..don’t give up cause God’s with you. The Bible story was about Paul on route to Rome when his ship was caught in a storm. Really great day…but really haha so tiring by lunch time.

Day 3 - ‘Let’s Celebrate’ - Win or Lose…let’s celebrate. If we win, Praise God if not, Praise God also cause we also won in many other ways. We need to be thankful to God always.

The three days was indeed fun. Last year when I helped St. Michael’s Church with their VBS I had loads of fun. This year also I had loads of fun. Sometimes it’s great to help out in these activities. It helps you to remember that the Kingdom of God is not only for the adults but all…………

On a negative note…hmm…recently there was a big news about Jessie Chung, the girl who was actually a guy. Hmm…until now I’m still havin problem addressing him as him or her….okay…oh well…He was married recently to a guy and it was a grand affair…1) It was very expensive 2) It was the first gay marriage in the country 3) it was endorsed by a Christian Church

Okay my comments on it…Don’t get me wrong..I’m not agaisnt gay people. haha….I’m agaisnt people who change their sex. To me…if you are a guy be a guy…..God made you tat way. If you change your sex then you are changing wat God has made you as. That’s like becoming God yourself. To become God yourself is like saying you’ve done something wrong God..and I’m doing the rite thing for you again….hm…but I think most humans are like tat. Sigh we are all still man.. "For all have fallen short of the glory of God"