New Year Resolutions for 2008 - first draft

New year resolutions are no stranger to me. Some goal settings 'experts' said that the goals must be measurable, not sure mine are measurable enough, but here are mine.



I want to be working 85% of the time during 2008. Yes, I will be contracting and will not be working as a permenant staff. 15% of the time I can do what ever I want - namely mission work and holidays.

I want to be more hospitable. I will plan to host dinner at least once every month. People are getting busier. If I can book them in weeks ahead, I can catch up with some old friends and get to know some new friends.

Healthy living, now, this may be little bit hard to measure, but stil can do. Exercise at least 3 times a week, must have vegie and fruits in my meal all the time.

Active in the small group and ministry of my new church:- weekly small group meeting including leading study or leading worship and be part of the worship team.

An oversea mission trip this year.

Changes in Melbourne

Things changed.
Railway corssing is no longer causing traffic jam during peak hours near Whitehorse road and Middleborrough.

Friends changed.
Some of them moved on to start their business,
some of them have just become parents,
some ...

I've changed.
Ready to start a new season of my life.

I am coming home in September

Yes, I am coming home to Melbourne. I cannot believe that it has been almost one year since I left. It has been a very good year for me. I have learnt much about myself, I have seen how prayer works.

Friends that I made here made it hard for me to leave.
Friends at home made it hard for me to stay.
What do I do? I can't move them from one place to another or another to one place.

I do look forward to go home.

I am grateful

This Sunday at church, while getting ready with the music team. I greeted John, he gave me an envelope and said it's for my trip to Spain. I could not believe it!! John and Jill, they are the music director for St Paul's. They have been such a blessing to me since I attended the church. Invited me to their place for meal a number of church, drop me off on Wednesday night after music practice. I am so grateful for the gift they gave me. God is good, He sends people to bless you.

Another retired couple (Wilf and Winnie) whom I met in a meeting had offered to take me to the airport. They are not even from St Paul's. It's a 90 minutes trip. What can I say? I am almost speechless!

Look around you, may be people like John and Jill, Wilf and Winnie, whom God has sent to pour His blessings into your life.

Thank Him today!

Thanks those wom He sent too.

Marmite Guinness

Yes, it's Marmite made out of Guinness yeast.

Alcohol free, sorry guys for those who love Guinness. Apparently according to some post on Internet, Marmite only made 300,000 bottles. Thus the Limited Edition printed on the label. Some people had tried it and said that it is better than the original Marmite.

See, it does not taste like Guinness, it uses the yeast extract from Guinness what ever that means. But any way, I bought one.

It's all about Him

You heard that phrase before ... 'It's not about me, it's about Him.'
I forgot about another one, 'It's not about them either.' Sometimes I tend to blame others.

Why can't they this?

Why can't they that?

Very often I missed the point and loose focus, at the end of the day it's still about Him after all.

what will I do?

A thought came to me the other day, remember last time when I posted on my blog about will I be convicted for being a christian, is there enough evident to charge me? The thought was ... if I was asked to stand as a witness to give testimony whether the person on trial is a christian, what will I do?

Don't think I want my brother/sister to go to prison.
On the other hand, I don't want to be stupid enough to tell the judge, 'hey, I am christian too, send me to jail.'
How do you apply wisdom in such case?

Tin Whistles

I started getting involved with whistles not long after I arrived in U.K. I was captivated by the haunting sound of the tin whistle. Remember the intro to the theme song in the movie Titanic? Such a beautiful sound ... so I've decided to pickup the instrument and learn to play it. It is not hard to learn how to play the notes, but to capture the Celtic mood is another story.

I spent 5 quids on a Feadog, nearly worn out that whistle practicing the instrument using the on line lessons. Not long after that, I've decided to upgrade my whistle to a very good one. This is the Kerry Songbird (D). Immediately I've notice the difference between the 2. Kerry Songbird off course is a more expensive one. I've got it on a very good discounted price.

The whistle has only got 6 holes. Normally it allows the player to play the tunes written in the key of the whistle, in my case songs written in D, I can play, other keys in C or F, I will need a different whistle made for that key. I also realised from the lessons I've learnt, you can stretch it to other keys. In my case it was key of G, E minor, and A. The key of A is a little bit tricky but can be done.

From that point onwards, I could not put the instrument down and I also explore to another area of the land of whistles:- the Low whistle. It is tuned to lower octaves, and therefore bigger than the high whistles. Yes, I ended up buying one. The fingering is the same, but the grip is slightly different. They call it the pipe grip, the pipe in this case is referring to the Scottish bag pipes.

The whistle I am holding now is Kerry Low D, yes, it's D again. Why D? I don't know. May be most of the worship songs are written in D, G or A. But that is also another low whistle that I can afford.

By this time, you would probably think that I am hooked on whistles.

On a serious note, this instrument has a sound that moves me, I am sure that it will move others. Wouldn't it be nice that this instrument can be used to express the wonders of God, the mercy of Jesus?

Faith without deeds

I was challenged by a message that was preached on Sunday. Alan was preaching on the series of practical christian living on the book of James.

'so faith without deeds is dead.' - James 2:26b

He finished the message with quote from David Otis Fuller, a 20th century American preacher:-

“If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

That really got me thinking. What evidence do I have?

Will attending a church enough to convict me? working in OM?

Will there be witnesses to testify?

If I am convicted, will I deny Jesus?

it's all about me

Lets talk about me,
Because mini me is not as big as me,
that name does not describe me,
I need something bigger than mini me,
I need something that talks about me,
Then something BIG came to me,
but that something is not as big as me,
but it does describe me,
ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce me,
yes, me, all about me,
here comes, me , me, me, me, me ,
the one and only me,
the - Mega ME!!!!

Inspired by a 'mega me' whom I met.

Visa granted, but what's next?

Today, 18th April 2007, my passport came back with the visa to remain in the country for next 6 months. I am not so sure if I am exicting about this. I will need to seek advice from a few people. I think if I got my visa within 4 weeks of application, I would have no problem remain in U.K., my issue is that it took so long and it really drained the energy out of me just waiting for it. It may be clear to someone, but at the moment, it's quite blur to me. I have to wait for "dust" to settled before I can see clearly.

But for those who prayed, THANK YOU so much.

What the?

I decided to visit the country side one day, we came across a church with this sign. Not sure if I want to eat beef in U.K. again.

Dead or Alive?

I was reading a book, Bono on Bono, on the interviews of Bono, for those who are in the know, don't have to explain who he is. For those who are in the NO, as in I don't know he is the lead singer of a Irish rock band U2 also the spoken person for DATA, (Debt, Aids, Trade Africa).

He said something very profound.
"Some people die at seveteen and put their funeral off until they're seventy-seven. And I see a lot of dead young people, I see a lot of alive old people." [pg 252]

I agree with him. I've seen quite a lot as well. I have to examine myself whether I am dead or alive many times.

Jesus says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." [John 10:10b KJV]

A lot of the time, when I examine my life, I am very much preparing for my own funeral. I also seen a lot of Christians missed out on this abundant live that Jesus is offering.

Those who are tasted that living water have demonstrated living abundantly not in the materialistic sense but in a spiritual sense.

Passport workers on strike

My flatmate told me about the news (click here) of the passport workers going on strike on 30 March over breakfast this morning. Another episode of my visa extension. Just wondering what's next?

This afternoon as I was praying, the verse came to me:-

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26.

I will pray and wait!

An expression of Worship

A friend od mine sent me this link on you tube. I was so moved by the expression of worship. Enjoy.

Give me back my passport!!!

All of this, all of this can be yours
All of this, all of this can be yours

All of this, all of this can be yours
[you took my money, what more do you want?]
Just give me what I want [my passport] and no-one gets hurt….

First day ... technically illegal

16 th March, I am technically illegal over staying in this country. With no passport, can't leave. How do I feel? Oh well ... a little fustrated that why can't my application be processed in a timely manner. But most of all I am ata peace, I can't leave until they give me back my passport in the case of the visa extension is denied.

I won't hold my breath ... I think if I hold my breath until I get my passport, my face will turn blue and I will probably die.

Okay, I'll stop whinging ...

11th hour

the eleventh hour is approaching ... still no passport and no news

2nd day into my fast ... thankfully it is also the final day.

no news on the visa, no news on the passport.

no news is good news they said, I think the saying doesn't work for me anymore.

I appreciate their care and concerns, at the end of the day, God is in control.

the song came into my mind

rescue me from hangin' on this line
i won't give up on giving You
the chance to blow my mind
let the eleventh hour quickly pass me by
i'll find You when i think i'm out of time

I think the news is going to blow my mind .....

2 more days

2 more days before my visa expires .... started my fast this morning. Not praying for the passport to arrive, or visa to be granted. But praying for God to prepare me to accept the outcome.

experiencing some headache, not because I was hungry, but it was the coffine addiction kicked in.

still trusting Him to lead.

Susan, another OMer who is applying for her visa, got her application granted. PTL.

Counting down the days ....

The d-day is getting closer, my visa expires on 15 March. I have not got my passport, I have not heard from the home office. I can't leave and I can't stay. I am waiting to see what is going to happen on the 11th hour.

How do I feel right now?

I am at peace, it is out of my hand, beyond my control.

I know who holds the future.

God be all

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. [Duet 6:4-6]

27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" [Luke 10:27]

I was reminded many times about setting priorities of my life. What comes first, what comes second, so on and so forth.

It could look something like this

1. God
2. Family, i.e. marriage life, children & etc.
3. Work, i.e. career, study for stdunets & etc.
4. Church and ministry.
5. ...
6. .. others like music, hobbies ....

I don't know, sometimes I seperate the God stuff and the non-God stuff in my priorities.

I was reading one of A. Murray's books, he pointed out why can't God be ALL in the priorities? He's right. Why can't God be in my priority number 24? Is my priority number 2 more holy than priority nuber 36? I am working on it, to let Him be in all of my priorities.

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'

two more weeks

2 more weeks, my visa expires, I don't have my passport with me, even if the immigration officer going to kick me out of the country, I still need my passport to go back. Probably because of the change of immigration rules in April, application for visa has increased. You can probably understand that my situation is not so comfortable.

TW said I was on a limbo.

Then I remember a song .....

I never thought you were a fool

But darling, look at you

You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight

These tears are going nowhere, baby

You've got to get yourself together

You've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it

Don't say that later will be better now you're stuck in a moment

And you can't get out of it

I will not forsake, the colours that you bring

But the nights you filled with fireworks

They left you with nothing

I am still enchanted by the light you brought to me

I still listen through your ears, and through your eyes I can see

...

On Monday, as we were doing a Global Action training, I was asked to read a verse, it was suppose to be Matt 13:8, but I heard Matt 8:13.

13 Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.

When I got to that verse, I've got o shock. Go back home? are you serious? the verse is definitely applied in a wrong context.

When I turned to Matt 13:8.

8 Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!

Me and another friend in OM are starting a book table ministry in the city of Carlisle, once a month, to give away free books. We've got a team of people expressing interest of helping out in the ministry.

It sounds like telling me that the seeds has been sown and will multiply.

I find this very amusing. God has a very good sense of humour of telling me something.

These were just my thoughts, I am in the situation, I naturally read the "signs" in a way that is biased, can't help it.

Staying or Leaving?

6 more weeks my visa will expire. I am putting an application to extend my stay in UK for another 6 months. If God's willing, I will stay. OM wants me to stay as they are short of hands . I will let Him decide if I am staying. I am not just sit and wait for things to happen, at least I've made my visa application. Sure enough, there are work to be done in OM. The task seems very big and may not be able to get it done for another 6 more months.

I was very encouraged by Mark, an OMer from the ships office who spoke to me one morning. He affirmed some of the my gifting of recruiting and encouraging people in the office as added value. He also encouraged me to stay on longer whether in OM or any other ministries. I don't think he's trying to "sell" me the ship's ministry.

What are my thoughts about visa extension and another 6 months in OM if the application to extend fails, this could be any where else in OM. I would say I leave this to Him.

Relationship

I've been in church long enough to learn lot of jargon. Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. There's nothing wrong with that statement. But how many people who said that really understand what it means? We the evangelicals know how to "defend" our faith with that statement. My question is that how many people really understand that? How many Christian has the life style to back it up? I believe people who experience that relationship will have that passion to back it up. One doesn't have to "squeeze" out that light of Jesus because one can't hide that light that shine from him/her.

So what do we mean by having a relationship?

Oh well you talk, get to know each other, you share your joy and sorrow, you basically open yourself to each other. You give and you recieve.

So how doest that work with Jesus?

Oh well ... you give your life to Him, you take Him into your heart.
You open youself to Him, He reveals Himself to you.

Political Correctness

The whole world has gone mad. Everybody is so sensitive about political correctness. You were not allowed to say anything that may potentially offending another person. People are now afraid to speak about truth because of that. You want to be a nice and pleasant person. On the other hand, all the TV programs that are being put on air are getting worse and worse. Swear words are not being censored, sexual explicit contents material are being broadcast and so on. Aren't these materials offensive? The supposedly "open minded" people would say, 'if you don't like that switch the channel.', and at the same time, these "open minded" people are the people who get offended when certain truth is spoken about them. Sad, sad, sad.

New year resolutions for 2007

Don't tell me you never make new year resolutions because you never achieve them. I have achieved some of them, not every one of them was achieved, 2 and a half out of four. I consider that not a bad effort. I can't take any credit of the achievements, it was God. The other one and a half that fail was my own effort to try hard.

It is mid January, I am still in the middle of sorting what I want to be/do this year. Few things came to my mind.

1. Live life to the MAX.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

I want to live the life that what Jesus promised, live the aboundant life He promised. I am not talking about physical thing. I want to live the cutting edge life that will impact people around me whenever I go.

2. Consist ant Prayer Life.

I want to pray more, I don't pray enough. To help me start, I will attend the mid day prayer meeting everyday in the OM office when ever I can. NOTHING works if there is no prayer. I want to see the power of prayer. I want to get closer to GOD through my prayer life.

3. Celtic Tin Whistle

I bought a Tin Whistle end of last year. I want to learn to play the Tin Whistle, what I really mean is that I want to learn how to play the Celtic mood with the instrument. The sweet tone of this simple instrument has such power to sooth the hearts of people. I want to use it to worship God, to lead people to His throne. Off course it is the Holy Spirit who leads people to worship Him.

I can only come up with 3 up to this point. I may add more if I come up with more.

Prayer

I have been wanting to write this for a very long time, but did not get around to it. I have been in church long enough to notice when people pray, they tend to end each of the sentence with the word "Lord". The word gets used so much, it almost becomes like a comma or a fullstop. I was just looking at the book of Psalms, phrases like "O Lord", "O God" appear many times but never the frequency of someone who pray like what I mentioned before. Sometimes, I wonder if we are praying to a PERSON or to thin air? So, don't go into curise control with 'babbling words' when you pray.

7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:7-8)

Joy in the City Birmingham 2006

What a way to finish the year 2006. I participated in OM LUKE (Love United Kingdom Evangelism) outreach in Birmingham right after Christmas. The team consists of 40+ people from 14 different countries, 4 of them including me are from down under. It's good to hear from Aussie accent English once again. The outreach is very short, 27 Dec - 3 Jan, yet we were so encouraged by the testimonies we heard.

During this short week, we did many things together. Street evangelism where we gave out tracts and talked to the people on the street. I've learnt that it is not as hard as I thought it was. Birmingham is a melting pot of many cultures. There are a lot of Muslims who live here and most of them are very open to talk about their faith.

Open air performances were done in the public area, face painting to attract the kids, sketch board message & etc. One Muslim man I've spoken to believes in Jesus Christ is a prophet. I asked him does he believe everything that Jesus said? He said Yes. Then I asked him, Jesus said, ' I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ' He was caught off guard, then he told me he believes every best part of humanity. I gave him a gospel tract and asked him to read it. On other occasion, I got to pray for the people I talked to.

Not all conversations went positive, one man who picked up that react from me. Stopped, after reading it, shouted at me quoting scriptures. The conversation went wrong when he started telling me some obscure theology about we are cells of God. His face was getting really close to mine and I could smell his alcohol breath. One team member came to the rescue and he left. Later, I've found out that other team members had similar experience from the same guy.

OM LUKE is partnering Birmingham Christian Centre for the outreach. BCC is part of the Elim Pentecostal churches in UK. Majority of the congregation members were from African and Jamaican backgrounds although there are many other nationalities represented in the church. The style of worship was very different to what I used to. I have never heard the song, 'You have made me glad' sung in a gospel style, very different. It was like Whitney leading worship.

What encouraged me during that week was that some non-English speaking background members working with LUKE. One of them told me that her English is not as good but believes that God brought her here for training and equipping her for the ministry back home.