We love Hymns!

Picked up a CD during a 20% sale in Koorong bookstore - 'Here I am to worship - hymns'. As I was listening to the CD, I was reminded 10 years back when someone said the young people in church don't like hymns but contemporary chorus. Here I am making a decision to buy this CD, I then released that it was not the hymns that I did not like, it was the way hymns was played. The lyrics of hymns are some poetic and beautiful, how could we did not like them? When I was in Adelaide, we used to have combined service where hymns were sung in the church. It was so majestically played by the late aunt Rebecca on the pipe organ. I also remembered another time when Charles Swindoll was here in Melbourne, I attended the meeting, again hymns were sung with a simple piano, the congregation sang the hymns with full of praise and adoration to the Lord. Another example, the Passion released an album with just hymns. That album was absolutely brilliant, and the congregation who attended that live recording were mostly college students.

There are a lot of rock bands recording hymns on their abalones. So why did they still say young people do not like hymns? I think it was how it was played, how it was lead and how it was sung.

It should be sung with the heart something like the following:-

1 Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

Psalm 96:1-3

MIFF

Once again, the Melbourne International Film Festival 2006 is on. Few months back, I thought I would miss this film festival. With the delay of my trip to UK, I think I can squeeze a few nights to catch some non-Hollywood movies this year. Last year, I missed MIFF because I was in Africa with Doulos. I will make an effort to catch a few this year.

Very rarely you have opportunities to watch so many films in a short period of time.

Lake House:- Hollywood version of IL MARE

The trailer of Lake House came out when I was watching another movie. It did not take a very long time for me to recognise that this movie is a Hollywood remake of a Korean movie - IL Mare. I've got this movie after reading some reviews about it. At that time I was into Korean films. It's a Korean film with an Italian feel, said one of the film critics.

It tells a story of how 2 people living 2 years apart connected by exchanging letters through a mail box. One thing is that the DVD version I've got suffers from bad English translation. Having said that, I could still follow the development of the story.

Question I want to ask is Hollywood running of scripts to make movies that they have to look to other countries for inspiration?

What now?

My mobile phone rang just before lunch on Friday. It was Wendy, my sister. Steven just had a stroke and now in the hospital, she told me. I tried to get more information from her, but she's got none that what she already told me.

Steven is my half brother from my father's other wife. He is 52 and has a son. He failed to show up in an appointment with family friend. My sister C called him at his house, there was no one answering the phone. If Steven is not in, the answering machine normally takes the message. C realised something was not quite right and decided to drive to his house. Steven's car was parked at the drive way, the letter box was not empty. She knocked on the door, there was no one answering the door. She quickly called my other brother Kok to come in; they broke in to the house and found him on the floor. Ambulance was called and Steven was admitted to the hospital.

Steven's stroke sent a shock wave to all the siblings. We are carrying the same gene from my father, heart disease and high blood pressure.

Another thought was that all these incidents that happened, I could just give up going to UK to do the mission work. I try not to over spiritualised these incidents that happened for the past few weeks. But I do sense the enemy is waving his fist in front of me. Whether my mum's declining of health and my brother Steven's stroke were the works of the enemy, I cannot tell. But I can feel the devil is whispering lies to my ears using these incidents.

One thing I am sure of is that God is still in control.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Psalms 23: 5

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Romans 5: 28

One step closer

Yes, it is one step closer. I looked at the draft version of the mission brochure, looking very nice and neat. Just a few more changes, it will be sent to the printer. A lot of waiting went behind this card, it has really tested my patient. Now, I can put this behind and move forward to the next step.

So lesson learnt?

8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:8-11

I thought I planned, but failed. It takes time for the snow to at least melt before watering the earth. I think too much and had an impression that everything should go according to my plan. It cost me a lot of unnecessary pain and furstrations, instead I could have enjoy watching the rain and snow watering the earth and making it bud and flourish.

100 mile stone

Today marks a milestone in my exercise routine. According to my heart rate monitor, I've done 100 exercises since the 7 September 2005. I've done 82 hours and 58 minutes and 4 seconds of workout. I've burnt in total of 43387 Calories. Coming no exercise at all to going to gym to work out 5 times a week; to me it is an achievement. Having said that, I lost very little weight.

With the amount of exercises that I do a week, my weight would have come down to the healthy number. But some how it did not happen. One thing is clear to me, it was my diet. I need to do something about it. Exercise and diet come hand in hand, these two have to be balanced.

I think the next mile stone I put on the blog is the time when I get to my target healthy weight according to my doctor. What is the number? Oh well ... I will publish it when I get there.

I don't care

"What would you like to eat for dinner?"

"I don't care. Anything. "

Ever been in a conversation like this? It can imply different meanings. First, the negative implication. The person who said "I don't care.", is not energetic in the food, or the dinner. The person may not even want to be there. Or he or she is in a bad mood.

On the other hand, the person who said did not really mind about the food and was happy to eat anything and enjoy the dinner that night.

This phrase has been commonly used by many people. It puzzles me all the time. Do people really care? If you don't care why bother.

I was working on a critical project and we were running out of time. The phrase like, "I don't care. Solution A or B will do.", does not help the morale of the people who's wagering on the project at all.

You may say it depends on the person who said the phrase and the tone of it. It also depends on the listeners, where the phrase can be intepreted to negative meanings.

I think the phrase "I don't care.", can be replaced with "I don't mind." I think it can tone down the negative implication.

Now, let's try again ...

"What would you like to eat for dinner?"
"I don't mind. Anything. "

Fragile

Last week, I made a trip to Adelaide. It was one of the very difficult trips that I made. My mother was very sick; her kidney is failing and not communicating very well. Doctors suspected that she may have another stroke. Everyone from the family came to Adelaide to see mum, including the grandchildren from NZ.

When I saw mum, my heart was broken. She was frail and very sleepy. Her condition is getting worst. She was very chatty last time I saw her. She used to be able to feed herself with one hand. She used to be able to recognise people but this time, she looked confused. She's in a lot of pain. The doctors who are looking after mum have never experience such a difficult case. The family need to make a decision whether to have active intervention to treat mum or to let her go peacefully without prolong her suffering any longer. Her heart was kept active by the pace maker implanted in her heart. Though her body starts to fail, it was the pace maker that artificially keeps her heart pumping. The decision was to deactivate the pace maker, if she has a heart failure the pace maker will not kick in.

Mum has been praying to God to take her home. She looks like she wanted to say something, but her condition makes it difficult for her to communicate what ever she wanted to say. She must be very frustrated.

Mum was a superwoman when she was young. She brought all us up single handily without dad's help. Dad was being controlled by the other mother at that time. (My father was married to 2 women at that time.) She has set a fantastic exmple for all of us in the family.

Life is fragile. Treasure every moment.

Make an impact to someone's life today.

Doulos Part III - Mozamibique

Doulos Part I

Doulos PartII, Doulos Part IIb

After 3 days of voyage, we finally arrived at Nacala, Mozambique. The sea got rough before2 hours before we reached Nacala. I lied on the floor in the main lounge which is the middle part of the ship. Before long, I found more and more people joining me. We got there at 5pm.

‘To Teach and Testify’ was the theme for this port. Mozambique was occupied by Portugal for over three hundred years. The country gained independent in the 80’s and was governed by the Marxist government which was all out against the church. Only about 15 years ago, the government started to open up to freedom of religion. Very few people speak English as the main language in this country was Portuguese and the local dialect. As most churches are very young, therefore the theme was chosen for this port. It would be a challenge to all of us because of the language barrier, but the language that would reach them would be the love of God.
1July 2005
First day in Nacala was my free day according to my schedule. I got better from the sea sickness as the ship is now berthed at the port. No waves, no movements, it was just beautiful. After our group meeting, I went to the E-day notice board to find out what I would be doing on the next day. E-day is one of the jargon that we use on the ship, it is the day when members of the ship’s company gets an assignment to go out and meet the locals and do some community work. The ship normally sends out few teams a day. Doulos consists of 350 volunteers from over 40 different countries. When you are working on Doulos, you get 5 working days a week on your assigned department, 1 ministry day, i.e. E-day and 1 free day.

When I looked at the notice board, I found my name on one of the team. And I have to be ready to meet the team leader at 9:00am. I did not have much time to get ready for this. The work we’ll be doing on that day was practical work, which means it would be very physical. I would need a lot of water. Being new to the ship, I went around and to look for a water bottle and I couldn’t find anything. Finally, I’ve decided to go without it, silly mistake. I packed my lunch for the day as instructed by the notice as our schedule was going to be very long. The second part of the E-day was that we will be going to show Jesus film in a village 45 minutes away from the port. No dinner will be provided, so I have to pack dinner too.

The team met our team leader, Peter who’s a very tall guy and has been nick named by people as Tiny. Our task was to dig a 4m x 4m x 3m reservoir for a missionary centre near the port. It was hard work as there was no machine to help us and everything had to be done manually. After day one, we managed to dig 1.25m deep. During that time, I managed to drink water brought by the team leader and the host provided lunch as well. It looked like there would be another 2 to 3 days of work before the project can be completed. We cleaned up after 4pm and got on to our van and headed to the village to show the Jesus film.

When we got there, it was close to 5pm and started to get darker. We were followed by the kids in the village everywhere we went. They were so curious to see foreigners in their village especially an Asian. Few of us have to distract the kids so that the crew can set up the projector and the screen. We bounced the flash at the kids and they went wild and ran around to follow us. It was fun!

After showing the film, we packed up our equipment to the van. The pastor showed us to a mud hut to serve us some dinner. I was immediately humbled by the food they served; soft drinks and chicken, simple and cheap according to Australian standard but extremely expensive to the Mozambican locals.

We went "home" tired but very satisfied.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong, a happening city. I stopped over at Hong Kong for a few nights, on the way back to Melbourne. My main purpose was to catch up some of my friends who used to stay in Adelaide when we were students whom I have not seen for many years. Before making this trip, I was told that everyone was busy. It's very hard to get together to meet. I was very happy that these friends made an effort on a very short notice to come out to meet.
There were some thoughts went through my mind when I was in this very much happening city. Will I survive with the pressure over here if I work here?
Will I have time for my friends with my very much packed schedule? Will I have time for God? & etc
I was reminded a bible passage about how Jesus asked 'Who touched my clothes?'
Mark 5: 24 - 34
24So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' " 32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

One could imagine how busy Jesus' daily schedule would be. When He was going through the crowds wanting attention, He had time to minister this woman who was suffering from bleeding out of many people who gathering around Him. I guess most people did not take notice of her but Jesus did and I was touched by the attention Jesus gave to this woman. The bible says 'Jesus kept looking around ... ‘ I am sure that He knew who did it. I could imagine that must have been a long time for the woman to come up and admitted that she was the one. Jesus was willing to stop what He was doing and give her the time that she needed.

My Family's stories

Dragon's gate is the name of my hometown village. This is where my forth fathers born. I was privileged to visit this town. Anxi is 72km from Xiamen. It is a very small town in Fujian and famous for its Oolong Tea. As we were going through the mountains on the way to Anxi and I understood why my father built one of his restaurants near Temple's Park in Malaysia. He was home sick and wanted to feel the atmosphere of his hometown that he missed so much.
The original house is now being vacant but it is still under the name of my uncle (my father's younger brother). It is situated inside Dragon's Gate village near the Bridge of Light and Righteousness. This bridge was built for the people so that they did not have to cross the river the old fashion way. My uncle working together with my father in Malaysia at that time help organised the fund raising projects to build this bridge by contacting Anxi Chinese overseas.
The house has 4 very special trees planted by my great grandfather, grandfather and my father. The fourth one was the tree planted after the death of my father to commemorate him.
During the time when Kuomintang was recruiting soldiers to fight against the communists. They would "encourage" one young man from every family to join the army. Fearing of being recruited by Kuomintang, my father fled to Malaysia with the help of other relatives in Singapore. My uncle was too young to join the army during that time and he was spared. Time was tough for the family; my father was to try out his luck to make a living in Nan yang (South Asia) to help to support the family back home.

***

My grandmother was quite sick at that time after my father left China. My uncle was desperate for help; the family went to the temple to pray. A remedy was given to get 27 water snails near the river. The family members started scooping for water snails near the river. They finally got 27 snails after working non-stop from 10pm till 4 am. But grandma died. My uncle was crushed by the incident and decided to become a doctor to help people.

***

With my father working in Malaysia, my uncle studying in the medical school at interstate; my uncle has got no choice but to send grandpa to Malaysia so that my father could look after him. At that time, my father had established himself with the Lam Tai restaurant in Rawang, Malaysia. Grandpa also died 2 years later after arriving in Malaysia. I had never heard stories like this before I came here.

***

I've met some interesting people today. Some people were old friends of my father. One man came in and told me that he was my father's student. He remembered when he was punished by my father for misbehaving. The man was old; if my father is still alive he would be 81 by now.

***

The feeling of coming back to Anxi was very surreal. In many ways I was glad that I made this visit. It has opened my eyes about my heritage and many things about my father.

Doulos Part IIb - Seasick

27 June 2005
I woke up at 6am. My cabin is still rocking. I got up and sat at my bunk bed, I could not hold it for a minute. I had to lie down again; I could not hold myself together. After about 10 minutes, I told myself that I needed to get out of my bed and get a shower. May be that would help. I just had to give it a try. I managed to get down from the bunk bed, balanced myself and walked to the bath room and had a shower. One of the most difficult showers I ever had. The bath room was rocking too.

Then I was reminded the following Bible passage. Matthew 8:23-27 (The Message)

23Then he got in the boat, his disciples with him. 24The next thing they knew, they were in a severe storm. Waves were crashing into the boat--and he was sound asleep! 25They roused him, pleading, "Master, save us! We're going down!"
26Jesus reprimanded them. "Why are you such cowards, such faint-hearts?" Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: "Silence!" The sea became smooth as glass.
27The men rubbed their eyes, astonished. "What's going on here? Wind and sea come to heel at his command!"

How I wished Jesus would calm the “storm” right where I stood. But there wasn’t any storm. I was just experiencing seasickness.

I never knew being seasick was such a bad experience. I could not function at all. The feeling is very hard to describe, I was not experiencing any pain or fever. The discomfort was all too overwhelming.

I walked to the dining room for breakfast. John was there and told me he just threw out his breakfast. As soon as I heard there, I went straight back to my cabin and chucked; I went straight to my bed.

Doulos Part II - (Tanzania to Mozambique)

26 June 2005
My cabin was in section 1:- the front of the ship. This means when the ship is hit by the wave, section one will get it first before the rest of the ship. If you put this in a sea-sickness perspective, you get the picture. My cabin mates were Lucas from Germany, Andrew from England and Tespo from Lesotho. Lesotho is a country inside South Africa. Cabin that I stayed was very small. 2 bunk beds and a very small bath room.

27 June 2005

The STEP group was meeting for the first time. STEP stands for Short Term Exposure Programme -the mission trip that I participated. Most of the participants were from America, Jordan, Ryan, Rebecca, Deets, Jenny and Jennifer. Daniel from England living in Cyprus, Hack Chul from South Korea, Reza from Albania, Raphael and Martina from Switzerland, Annamiek from Holland, John from Malaysia studying in Scotland and Rachel from Ireland. Our co-ordinator was Gill. She has been on Doulos for more than 1 year. We were brief by different leaders on the ship about the programme and what expected of us.

The ship is set to sail this late afternoon. As part of the normal safety protocol, we performed a search for stowaway, the ‘unwanted guests’ who got on board for free passage. It happened before; the ship has to make a ‘U-turn’ back to the previous port and returned the ‘guest’. Normally, there will be someone pretend to be a stowaway during this exercise. The aim is to search every part of the ship and locate the stowaway.

The ship’s company, i.e. the crew members, were out on the deck waving good-bye to the locals. I was out with everyone else to check out what was it like to sail on a big ship as this was my first time on board with the ship. The deckies were busy getting the ship ready as the tuck boats pull the ship away from the quayside. After the ship was tucked to the required distance, we set sail for a 3 day journey to Nacala, Mozambique. The weather was cloudy that day, apart from that everything was fine. I felt the wave on the deck; it was not as bad as I thought what people said about seasickness. I was taking photographs with John and Raphael who were on the deck and I could not feel any seasickness coming to me. We adjourned to the dinning room for dinner. I could feel a bit of movement in the dinning room. As I was eating my dinner, I started to sweat. This could be the weather since we were in Africa, and this land is always warm even during winter time. The sweating did not stop, rest of the people who were eating with me were fine. At that moment, I knew; I have been hit by seasickness. I finished my dinner and excuse myself and went straight to my cabin. I lost my bearing. I could not even walk to my cabin. The ground was 'moving'. I was sweating is crazy trying to concentrate each of my step back to section 1. I finally made it to my cabin, climbed up to my bunk bed and trying to sleep. I felt better when I lied down but I could still feel the cabin rocking. My body not longer fighting off the cough but trying to counter act the imbalance of my body. It was 6pm in the evening; I did not go out of my cabin that night.

Doulos Part I (Aus to Tanzania)

24June 2005
I could not sleep. It was partly because of my cough and partly the excitement of going to Africa. I think I slept about 3 hours. I kept waking up checking the alarm clock fearing that I might overslept and missed flight. I felt encouraged that a friend, Peter V from work had offered to send me to the airport. But I had made prior arrangement with Ps Glenn to come at 4 am to send me to the airport.

...

Sitting at my seat, waiting for the plane to take off to Perth for my connecting flight to Johannesburg, I was wondering why the plane took so long to take off. The plane was delayed because the panel in the cargo area was damaged during the loading of luggage. The ground crew has ordered a replacement part, the captain explained. The luggage had to be unloaded, damaged panel removed and replaced and luggage to be re-loaded. The ship that was current docking at Tanzania will leave at the scheduled time, if I missed the boat, I will have to find way to get to Mozambique to meet them. Fearing of missing the connecting flight, I prayed.

...

We arrived in Perth 2 hours late. The flight to Johannesburg was waiting for the ‘missing’ 40 passengers from Melbourne. The flight from Perth to South Africa takes 11 hours. The passenger siting next to me was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, we had some interesting conversation about faith. Apparently, he knew some prominent evangelist in the Chinese speaking church. I guess the conversation about the religion will not be favourable. I told him where I was going and what would I be doing with Doulos. We had a very good chat. Finally, the plane landed in Johannesburg.
I checked into Holiday-Inn courtesy of South African Airline. The connecting flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania was 11am, the next day.

...

25 June 2005
I woke up at 6am, I must have slept for a long time. Freshen up; I went down stairs for breakfast. It was very different atmosphere in the restaurant. There are so many Africans here. I have never seen so many Africans in my life. Serious! I slowly came to terms that I was in the continent. Duh!

...

The Johannesburg International airport was very busy. The check-in queue was very long. So I tried to find things to do to kill time. Turned around, I started talking to the people behind me and found out they are Aussies from Sydney. The mother and daughter are meeting the dad in Nairobi for holidays. The kid was doing year 11. The mother was a teacher. After about 20 minutes, I said good-bye to them and went to the prompted counter. I managed to check in my luggage and got my boarding pass. The line through the immigration counter was not as long as I expected. I was wondering why all the immigration officers always have straight face? This one in particular. How about greetings like ‘Have a safe journey.’? Is this too much to ask for? Part of my airport tax goes to your salary.

…

I went to the departure gate, checked my boarding pass and the gate number. Everything’s checked, now I just have to wait for the BUS. What? The bus? It is interesting that an international airport like Johannesburg transports passengers to their planes using buses. As I was going through my boarding pass, passport and other documents, I noticed my ticket which has the return trip to Australia went missing. Oops, I must have left it at the counter during check in. Looking around, there’s nobody at the departure gate and departure is 5 minutes away. I thought I could speak to the staff members of SAA and asked them if they could locate my ticket. Or I could call SAA when I get on board with Doulos.

…

The bus has arrived; it’s time to get on. I rehearsed my line to ask for assistant about the missing ticket many times. As soon as I passed the boarding pass to the crew member, before I opened my mouth, he passed me my ticket and gave me the look.

Okay, I’m very sorry!

Thousand apologies.

Umm, got a plane to catch.

Thank you, have you nice day.
…

The guy sat next to me must be tired. He was carrying his pillow with him. It’s interesting to see some peculiar habits of people. The in-flight movie for the trip was ‘Hitch’. I’d not been to cinema for a long time. It’s somehow predictable movie, but still enjoyable. As the plane got closer to Dar es Salaam, the passengers were given immigration forms to fill. I pulled out my travelling documents so that I could answer the questions. Nobody knows their passport number by heart. There are some questions that I could not answer, i.e. the address of the place where I would be staying. So I peaked at the person sitting next to me. He’d got a letter with OM logo on it.

Wait a minute!

OM logo? Doulos?

‘Hey, he’s going to the same place I am going.’

I introduced myself and told him where I was going. His name is Ryan. He just finished high school. His friend was serving on board with the Doulos. He plays the drums for the church.

…

I walked through the arrival gate, right before me was a group of people holding up a sign. Doulos! Yes, there’s somebody there to pick me up. I greeted them and introduced myself. Amongst the people to be picked that day were Hack Chul from South Korea, Ryan from America and we were still waiting for a few more. My luggage was being loaded by the Noah who was also the driver. Ryan went off yo catch up with his friend whom he has not seen for a while. After some time, Jenny N from America who is the book store manager from Logos II walked out from the arrival gate. She was to relieve Daniel – the book store manager of Doulos while Daniel went home for a break. It worked out well because Logos II was on dry dock. Finally, Daniel from England walked past the arrival gate. He was waiting on a very long queue to pay for his visa to enter the country.

…

The African road was like documentaries that was shown on TV. People walking on the side of the roads, women carrying their things on their heads. About 15 – 20 minutes ride on the Doulos van, we arrived at the port where the ship is docked. I was quickly greeted by Adam and Mark who would be my buddies during my stay on the ship. They showed me to my cabin to leave my luggage and then the tour to the rest of the ship. I was totally lost with all locations of the dining room, forward lounge, car deck & etc. I’ll have 2 months to work it out.

I have lost control?

I was driving to my pastor’s house for a birthday dinner. Something just crossed my mind, there’s no income coming in from now on. At that very moment, I felt like I’ve lost control of myself. What have I done? Things I’ve used to say about identity long time ago suddenly back fired at me.

‘Does the job that I am doing define who I am?’

‘Will I still have my identity if I loose my job?’

I let money defines the power I have. No doubt, money plays an important role in many things that we do. Question I am asking myself is whether it is powerful enough to control me?

A pastor once said, ‘You can have money, in fact; you can have lots of money. Be careful not to let money have you.’

Then a Bible passage came to me:-

Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Then I felt at ease, I’ve chosen to do mission; I will learn to trust in Him. It is suppose to be a journey of faith. If I can see everything, it will not be faith anymore. Yes, there are practical things that I will have to do to raise support for my mission trip. At the end of the day, it comes down to trusting Him.

STRIKE

I got a phone call one day about a percussion workshop run by a group from NZ called 'Strike'. This group is like a NZ equivalent of the STOMP. Initially, I thought this is just a workshop where you learn to play better. I had no idea that I have signed in to perform in Federation Square in the city during the Melbourne 206 Festival running parallel with the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Game. What an opportunity! There were only 2 practice sessions, Sunday and Monday. The minute I walked into the church hall, I was "strike" by the set up. There were like 2 cube structures hanging with percussion instruments. Wow! Looking at set up is like admiring a piece of art. The workshops went well; the members of the group were very patient showing us the rhythm patterns. The practice was really LOUD. Finally, the day has arrived. I was thinking about the rhythm patterns whole morning. I just wanted it to be perfect, not to upset the performance. When I got there, the square was packed with people watching the telecast of the commonwealth game. I think it was the lawn bowling final or some sort. When it came to our turn to perform, it was so quick. After all these practices, it took only 2 and half minutes of performance. Sometimes it takes years and years of learning and life experiences to handle a 2 and half minutes situation.

I resigned from SEEK

On Friday morning 10th March 2006, I've handed in my resignation to SEEK, the company I worked for five and a half years. The driving force behind the resignation was my mission trip to Carlisle, UK. I don't really know when will I be able to raise the money to support myself for the next 6 months. But I believe God will provide people to support my trip.

Before the trip to UK, one of the things I want to do is to visit my uncle, my dad's brother in China. The trip to China is very much a discovery tour about my origin. It will be interesting to find out the place where my father grew up.

After the mission trip from Africa, I have not been taking time off. I needed one. The timing is good for me. Week or two break and 2 weeks trip to China. I will start my preparation for UK trip. I may pick up some contract work just to raise whatever remaining money I need. I am so relieve, I've never felt this way for a very long time.

P/s I will update my Doulos trip, now that I have more time.

Mission Trip with the Doulos

The next few posts are some thoughts about my mission trip last year, I thought I share my journey with you on the blog.

Prelude

It started when I received a prophecy from a visiting speaker one Sunday morning service end of 2004. I was helping friends who started a new service playing djembe in worship. While asking for congregation to come to the front to be prayed for, the speaker pointed me out and gave me the prophecy, "You will go to the nations, I don't know but you will." I was shocked at the moment. I always have been involved in other ministries except 'mission'. Though I did not sign up for the next available mission trip, I took the word to my heart seriously. I know He will lead me, and the word will come to past. The week after that was a combined service at our church, another visiting speaker came, and he’s from Operation Mobilization. He spoke about mission and mentioned the ship's ministry. Once again, he had sowed a seed in my heart. One lunch time in early 2005, I was little worn out from the pressure of work. I've decided to check out mission opportunities; naturally I went to the Doulos web site. The opportunities were engineers, carpenters & etc, no IT related jobs. So I've decided to expand my search on OM web site, and found IT related jobs. The ad came up. Linux Tester for 1 - 2 years. Something happened in my heart at that moment. I tried to ignore it for the next few days. It did not go away. Finally, I've made enquiry about this position. I've got a reply from OM. Read through some pre-requisites. One of the recommendations is for candidates to have done some short term mission trips. There were a lot of short term mission trips organised by churches, most of them are very short. We're talking about 10 to 12 days. As for me, I think it's too short for me. I finally ended with Short Term Exposure Program with Doulos. STEP is a 2 month program where you're exposed to different aspect of mission.
Jehovah Jireh - the provider
I started making enquiries about my annual leave for Oct-Dec 2005 which was after my friends’ weddings. After some discussions, my leave was changed to July-Aug 2005 with one month paid leave and the other one unpaid. Normally, I would have to resign under this situation but the Lord's favour was upon me.
When I started my application to join STEP, I did not think I have enough money. The flight to Africa was expensive as it is not a very popular destination for Australians. How would I get the money to support this trip? When I got my tax return back from the tax office, it was more than enough to fund the trip. God is good all the time, all the time, God is good. Though, I did not raise money for this trip, I've used my "own" money. The lesson I learnt from here is that, my money is His money. Everything I have is His.
Another miracle happened in my application of my leave for this trip. The whole trip is about 2 months; normally the application of the annual leave will never be approved, simply because of the length of the time. Amazingly, it was approved. One month paid, one month unpaid. I am happy with any arrangement. The fact that I was able to come back to my job after my 2 months leave is a miracle. Normally, situation like this, one would quit his or her job.

After months of anticipation, the day has arrived...
(stay tuned)

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New Year Resolution

This is where I started.

Everyone makes New Year Resolution every year. There are some who don't, reason being that they said they never been able to follow it through. I was wondering it is a good enough reason not to have one. I make New Year resolution so that I have something to look forward to in the New Year. I will have goals to achieve; otherwise the I become aimless, well ... so to speak.

Here is what I got in mind so far.

Visit China.

I am Chinese, and Chinese educated. I speak few dialects of Chinese and have a very good understanding of Chinese culture and custom. Yet I have not been to China. The China I know has changed. I want to see the changes that people talked about.
There is also a family estate in China where the "Goh" began. It is my origin, my roots, the surname my father carried when he was alive. Someone once said, 'In order to know your future, you have to know your past.' It would be good to see the tree planted by my grandfather before he left China to Malaysia. There's also the tree that my father planted before he left as well. There's also a bridge built that was funded by our family. Most importantly, my uncle (dad's brother) is getting old, I want to see him.

Mission.

Last year, I've made a decision to join Operation Mobilization ICT in UK. Somehow I ended up with Doulos for 2 months in Africa. It was such an enrichment experience in my life. I believe that this year will be the year to fulfil the "ICT" part. This trip will be a 6 months journey, doing IT work with OM.

Stay Tuned.

I want to be in tuned with God. This may be a much generalised goal for a lot of Christians, but I think it's good onw to have as a New Year resolution every year. It's a relationship that needs to be maintained, it's not a goal that once you achieved that you will never go back again.

Exercise and healthy diet.
After my mission trip with Doulos, I've lost 5 kilos as a result of it. I've started exercise after coming back from Africa. I was able to maintain my weight. I feel refreshed after workout and able to sleep better. It also increases my metabolism, which equates to burning more fat in my body.
Healthy diet, this is going to be hard as I normally eat unbalanced meal. I don't eat enough veg and fruits.