Called to Love

The news came early today on twitter and international headlines about the attack on a church here. Then another and another. The latest was 3 confirmed cases with some churches receiving threats. Then there was the planned protest – which had surprisingly (thank God) fewer that expected participants.

Muslim protests over a High Court ruling allowing the weekly Herald (a main publication by the country's Roman Catholic Church) to publish the word “Allah” to refer to God in the Christian context.

If it doesn't sound like a big deal just because of a word, think again, the right to use a word! Or maybe you should read this article by Erna Mahyuni (originally posted here).

God's people have been responding with love. Many have gathered to pray. Many Muslims have come forward up to condemn such acts and to clarify that there is nothing wrong with the usage of the word "Allah". The people behind these nonsense should regret. The events have lead the people to unite.

Read what Muslims bloggers are saying

Anas

Marina

Razaleigh

God is with us.

Do join us in prayer for this nation.

Luke 6:27-28

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Two Dogs

I have managed to walk both dogs together yesterday. The recuperating dog (named Dewy for now) still growls at Casper and I need to pull them away from each other during the walks. Walking 2 strong dogs can be pretty challenging – whether they try to go separate ways or pull me towards the same direction. Don’t think my parents are able to do this.

So far no one has come searching for Dewy. Wonder if he has been on the streets for a while. Looks like I might need to find him a new home. Anyone interested? He's trained to do his "business" during his walks, rarely barks and he has not attempt to bite anyone despite being wounded. Maybe just don't quite like my attention seeking Casper.

Casper is fine with him. Maybe too friendly. But when someone comes to the house, he barks at Dewy. Maybe trying to complain to that person that there is a stranger in the house and he dislike sharing the attention.

Brown Dog Found

I am currently looking for the owner of a male dark brown dog. He has a choker collar on him. Someone saw him hit by a car on LDP yesterday night before he ran to the Damansara Utama housing area nearby. Picked him out from a drain. He looks fine and is under the care of a vet.

Please drop me a message if you are or if you know the owner of this dog.

Retreat at Gopeng

The last time I went on a cell retreat was... I can’t even remember! Retreats can bring a group of people closer together because you are stuck with each other for numerous hours. Of course the location and activities are fun but it is the people that make every retreat special.

This recent retreat with my new cell was pretty short - just a little more than 24 hours. Many of the cell members couldn’t make it but we did have 2 friends join us. We went in 2 cars and each has its own Question of the day. Ours was “Do the raft have seat belts?”

When we went white-water rafting, we figured we should bring camera in a water proof bag. But during our break, we discovered the bag split opened! A digital camera and an iphone was soaking wet. :(

Other than white-water rafting, we also did a hike/walk through an Orang Asli village to an almost unknown and unnamed waterfall. It was an interesting walk as our guide - G told us about the village, the black gibbon, durian and petai trees. He got us to try some wild berries and also shared a few hilarious true story jokes. It was a pretty nice waterfall but we were only there for a short while as it was raining heavily by then. Some of us walk in the rain back to our cars while someone was clever enough to bring an umbrella into the jungle! Oh and we brought back some souvenirs – leech bites!

Earth Camp is very cool and simple. The accommodation was a simple canopy like dorms with canvas beds. We brought our own sleeping bags. We opt for the dorm instead of the tree house so that it is easier for all of us to hangout together. They had pretty interesting toilets as well. ;-)

They must think that the 10 of us were really hungry because I seriously believe that the amount of food they prepared for dinner can feed up to 30 people. We had barbeque by the river! We even cooked our own recipe – Milo Banana. It came up with multiple suggestions from everyone.
This is one memorable trip.



*update 3rd Dec 2009 - after leaving it off for more than 3 days, both camera and iphone came back to life! :)

Kampar River, White Water Rafting

I knew I wanted to do this again. Thought I won’t be able to make it this year since I didn’t manage to gather people or plan it out with few months remaining in 2009.

When Grace asked who was interested to go white water rafting for our cell retreat, my hands were all up. :)

Yesterday was a public holiday. We reached Gopeng before 9.30am to meet our river guide, Apek from Nomad Adventure. We were then transport by a lorry from Earth Camp to the starting point where we were given the equipment and final briefing (weird but fun experience - had to dodge lots of tree branches). I thought it was interesting that we had to do “water confidence” before we started because it definitely scares you if you have not done it before or just can’t swim. Basically, it is just putting you in the river and allowing the current to carry you through one small rapid.

Apek did warn us that the water level was very low as it hasn’t rain in days. This is a grade I-III river. Our journey covered 12km and 9 rapids. It did seem rather short compared to Padas.

George, Jamie, Marilyn & I were on one raft with our guide Fahimi. Grace, Chen, Shirley and Nicole on another. Alex & Ben decided to take the challenge on individual kayak. They were given inflatable ones which were not great because it kinda got flooded throughout the journey :-p My raft proved to be the noisiest as we scream at every rapid!

What was different compared to Padas/Riverbug was:
1. We had to do body rafting in Kampar. Didn’t have to do it in Padas.
2. Kampar is a much narrower river so we kept running into leaves and branches AND hitting the rocks on the river sides.
3. Maybe because the water level was low, many raft got stuck in between the rocks. There was one time, I could stand up in the river and the water level was below my knee! There just seems to be a lot of rocks everywhere.
4. We didn’t have guides on kayak. I thought it was better to have since it is harder for the guides to help if none of them are mobile.
5. We had one guide on each raft. In Padas, we had 2 guides. Guess it was necessary there since the Padas is pretty wide.
6. I had quite a bit of bruises after rafting in Kampar. Hit some rocks during body rafting and when I feel off the raft. :-p

Be an organ donor

Lately, the radio has been running the organ donor ad pretty often. I wanted to do this quite sometime ago but just never did.

I finally did it today. We'll never know when we need to go home :)
This shell won't be of any use when I'm gone.

Why let it rot when it can help someone...you might save a some lives.

Have you pledge yours? Just download the form and fax it in. Oh, and let your family know.

Read more about Malaysia's National Transplant Resource Centre.

MJ's This is it

It may seem that many things are done to gain from MJ’s death. But after watching “This is it” today, I think the movie was the least it can do to for MJ and all the people involved in the making of the tour.

On Michael
It is undeniable that he has inspired so many talented individual who can only dream of being part of his team. It is great to see someone so passionate about his work. He seems like a perfectionist - it is amazing to see how involved he was in this concert production. In this movie, we can see how he gives his input on dance, music, lights, videos and the flow of how things will be. He does most of the cueing himself. Guess that’s why his every move is so impactful with sound, light and video combined. What I admired about him only from watching this is also how gentle he can be while being very firm on his stand, getting his team to follow his direction, how he tries to adapt to the in-ear, how he said “this is why we do rehearsals” when things weren’t right, how he allowed his backup singers to duet with him and musician to “shine”. I suspect Orianthi Panagaris is going to be pretty famous from this week onwards. :)

On his “family”
That was what he called his team of dancers, singers and crew. For each of them, they have been inspired by this 1 man since young. It was an opportunity of a lifetime to share a stage with him. They gave their all at all those rehearsals. Everyone gave their best ideas, move and effort to make this great. So much have been done - so many rehearsals to perfect every sequence and flow, massive productions sets built and all the many hours of video shot (animations/special effects/makeups) specifically for this tour usage. All the hours, sweat and tears only to find out their idol has left and they will never use any of everything they gave – never to be recognised. Really, this movie/documentary was the least that can be done for them as well. They are his fans, the only fans that have seen what the tour could have been.

Kenny Ortega, thanks for putting this together for everyone.

Another free concert

Attended the All American Reject concert last night at Car Park A of Bukit Jalil National Outdoor Stadium. I'm not a fan but I'm all for free concerts. OK, I think everyone else there got free tickets. Haha. Thanks to Andrea again. How did I find the concert?

Cool

1. The band
2. Location was probably better/larger than central park BU

Not cool

1. The long delay - final opening act only ended at 8.45pm, an hour of soundcheck - yup, AAR came out only at 9.45pm.
2. Sound wasn't as good for the opening acts - either hear the band/barely hear the singer or hear the lead & drums/can't hear the electric guitar.

Grace & nothing

Not too long ago I listened to a sermon that really spoke to me. I said so because I don't have a great memory. I tend to forget the sermon points the moment the preaching is over. :-p

It was a simple message yet very real.

The pastor mentioned that sometimes the meaning of grace has been altered/diluted

It has become something that always comes with "but you must/should do this this this and this..." It's almost like there is a condition to receive grace. It was never about what we can do but what he can do through us (Phil 2:13).

God's grace is unconditional. Whatever you have done, when you come to Him and repent sincerely, He will forgive you. It is not because of what you have or can do but because he has done all the work. But this does not mean we can continue to do things that are against Him. Instead, because of God's love, we would have this desire in us that will want to please Him and not go against Him.

Human has also created a lot of laws upon ourselves. You can't wear jeans, you MUST wear tie to church, you MUST serve, we must maintain our posture for fearing that others might look down upon you (sounds like david)... c'mon, chill. Whatever we do, whether it is praying for a specific item, reading the bible or serving, we should never do it out of guilt but because we sincerely want to.

Health

I am not sure if it was my near death experience or was it the doctor's report early this year that states I have excessive body fat and overweight. Maybe it is because I am aging! But gradually health has become something that I kind of put more priority in these days.

I have been a little more careful on food than I used to. When I was younger, I used to eat anything and everything and any amount. Haha.

I exercise more these days as well. I have always wanted to join a gym to push myself to work out. Couldn't afford it during my college years and still could not afford when I started working. But almost 2.5 years ago, I had a great offer to join a gym. Told myself that it was now or never. Was pretty afraid that I couldn't keep to it and have to quit. But I reminded myself that it is for this body that God has given me and it is my responsibility to take care of it well. So, it was not because of trend nor pressure of any kind that I signed up.

I am a member of Fitness First ever since. I didn't push myself much and was not very consistent initially. But slowly, I have began to arrange my schedule to ensure that I do work out a min number of time a week. It is challenging as I somehow have pretty much of my week day nights occupied by cell, rehearsal and meetings.

After I realized that I haven't been pushing myself enough, I started attending group classes. Well, those have pretty good so far. I haven't lost tens of kgs but I do feel stronger and healthier than before. Hopefully I can keep this up long term. I am sure that God has always planned for us to be healthy and fit. We human just aren't very good at taking care of it. :-p

God is with us

Andrea and myself had our own set of drama when noise and smoke came out of her bonnet on Nicole's wedding morning itself. Since we had a tight schedule, we decided the leave the car and get all the important things done... we just had to put this aside and figure it out later.

Good thing Andrea's Dad insist that we got it fixed as most mechanics don't work on Sun. It was a challenge as we do not know many people in Ipoh and we barely know our way around town. But by God's intervention, Andrea managed to get hold of a mechanic through a friend. It was really God with us as by the time we took the risk (somehow there was no more smoke when we tried to drive it in the evening) to drive and search for the workshop using only the GPS and landmark told by the mechanic.

We reached the workshop and their shutter was almost down. They waited patiently for us. A few of them work together to check on the car. They discovered that the problem was with the alternator. We were told that it can break down anytime for any car and there is no way to check it in advanced. Thank God they have a replacement and they didn't charged us unreasonably as we were recommended by one of their frequent customer.

The mechanic also told us that we would never had make it back to KL with a faulty alternator. Praise God that the car didn't break down during our journey there and back. It would have been a lot worse.

By the time the alternator was fixed it was around 6.50pm. I thought we were going to missed the march in for the dinner (it was supposed to start at 7pm) We did try calling Peter's friend to shoot if we couldn't make it. We reached the restaurant at 7.15pm. The dinner was delayed to start at 7.45pm.

We made it! Haha. God is good.

Nicole & Peter

10th October 2009

Nicole served with us in dew crew for quite a number of years. She was one of my 3 team members who dated someone from the worship team ;-D I remember sometimes we had all 3 girls serving in crew and all 3 bf serving in worship team on the same weekend. Cool eh. This is like the "wedding year". All 3 of them decided to get married this year. :-D

It was great to be part of her wedding helper team. My role was something I don't normally do - which was pretty challenging but this was for Nicole :) I guess I'll do almost anything for any of my crew if it means a lot to them... it won't be the best but the best of my ability.

Nicole is one of those really rare cool bride. She adapted to changes, accepted the challenges and remain cool and most of all enjoyed her wedding all the way.

I think for any lady who intends to get married, the most important thing is to expect that her wedding day will not be perfect. THEN, things will just somehow be okay. Maybe what Debbie told me is true - wedding day is overrated by the people in the industry. It's just ONE day. What is most important is the marriage life :)

Congrats Nicole & Peter and continue to grow in love with each other and with God ;-)

Kevin & Brenda

On the 21st September 2009, the sound guy and the sound girl got married!

Congrats to our 2 dear dew crews. ;-D

It is privilege to be your friend and to serve in this wonderful ministry together!

Stuff SonyEricsson should have

After using the phone for a week now, there are some things that irk me about my new SonyEricsson W705 phone.

There are certains things that I liked a lot about my old Nokia phone that is not here.

1. can't group my contact above a certain number. Can't remember what was the limit. It is definitely less than 20.
2. can't assign a group tone neither can I assign a group picture. I had to do the assignment one contact at a time.
3. can't assign photo to a contact if the photos is NOT saved in picture folder. but can be done if i open the photo and assign it to a contact. weird.
4. can't make the sms font any smaller. i prefer to be able to read as much as possible on 1 page.
5. can't set the limit of sent and inbox message so that it will overwrite to old ones.
6. it does not show me the number of sms that is in my inbox, sent, draft. hv to make sure i delete before it takes up all the space in my phone.
7. i can't assign the different profile with different ringtone.
8. the calendar does not show me a preview of my appointment.
9. i can't set auto delete to old appointment made in the calendar.
10. can't customise the number of seconds before the phone goes on standby.
11. can't customise the number of seconds before the phone auto lock. i can't lock it by pressing any button. it has to autolock or i have to slide open and close to lock.
12. can't assign the short cut key directly to compose sms. (it's a 2 steps now)
13. generally the phone is slow in response. there is almost a 2 seconds delay to enter into contacts.
14. can't customise contact view.
15. can't customise the 2 buttons on the phone.
16. can't save photo to any other folder.

But it has the following features that my old Nokia phone does not have

1. contact image pop up when sms is received.
2. love how the sms can be viewed as a conversation.
3. multiple setting for alarm.
4. shortcut key to silent the phone.
5. animation wallpaper.
6. an indicator icon that show that i have replied or forwarded a sms.
7. it shows a count time when a call is answered so i don't have to put the phone to my ears and listen to irritating caller ringtones. (the screen looks the same when a call is answered on my old nokia, never know when the call is through)

A decade

It's been a decade now that I've been using mobile phone. It is amazing how much technology has advanced in 10 years.

Nokia 5110 (2000-2003)
Mum bought this for me. I was a student then and this was the best phone in the market! The phone and the sim card cost her RM699! I remember it was with me on the eve of the millenium. Snake game was fun. Screen & button failed me at the end of it's life. Surprisingly I never broke the antenna.

Nokia 3300 (2003-2006)

Although a couple of hundreds were paid to the telco for this Linkin Park contest, but this was a music phone... a rare breed then. But learned my leason never to try this again. Too risky. In the end, the buttons failed me. I had to apply so much pressure just to hang up!

Nokia 6280 (2006-2009)
This was a timely blessing. Can't find any fault with this phone other than the fact that every time I connect it to a PC, it seems to hang and I can't seem to edit contacts either. Was hoping it would stay with me longer but it was the last straw when someone called me for an interview and I can't hear what on earth he said to me.

One day...

One day, I want to go to a U2 concert. One with the massive monter set up! This is "The Claw". 50m high crablike monolith with rotating stage, moving bridges and 360° giant digital screen projecting montages and images...

This photo was shot by Dave.

Check out the rest of the photos of the concert.

Dew Crew Retreat 2009

Photo by Jon Khoo

30th Aug - 1st Sep 2009
Another great getaway with the best crew! :)

This year, we had minimum program. We just wanted to had a relaxing trip so went to Kampar and Ipoh. Had a short tour in Gua Tempurung and Lata Kinjang. And we ate and ate (shamelessly!)...in Ipoh. The Grand Kampar Hotel is pretty nice. But the shops around it isn't fully occupied so it is rather quiet which is really nice. Most of us don't fancy hearing cars everywhere. We also met up with Sharon who is based there working with Malaysian Care.

It was great fun simply because we had such a great group of people. The after effect of the trip is fun too - looking at all the photos we took and tagging them in facebook & writing narrations for the funny ones.

Mesra Usia Emas and Tawas

I felt the urge to blog about this because many seems to be unaware of the benefits as a citizen. When I first receive an email on this, I was very skeptical. But here are some sites with more information about Mesra Usia Emas and Tabung Warisan Anak Selangor. Unfortunately the official website is only in BM. The page is not translated.

Selangor Gov Site on Mesra Usia Emas
Selangor Gov Site on Tawas
TheStar Newspaper

A new challenge

I wanted to get my room painted. And I'm proud to say I did it...myself. Took me 2.5 days. It isn't perfect but neither am I. I consider it an achievement.

Debbie & Hoi Hian

It is an amazing thing to see 2 friends come together in marriage. I've been friends with Debbie & Hoi Hian ever since they joined us in Dew Crew. I got to know Debbie a lot better when she took up the role of Media Director in DUMC a couple of years ago. I guess Debbie started noticing Hoi Hian more when they started serving together in our Nepali Fellowship. :) We have all became close friends as we serve together in these 2 ministries.



It was a simple wedding holy matrimony and chinese dinner. All of us had a great time taking photos of ourselves and entertaining ourselves! Fui Ping, Steph and myself even managed to squeeze in some time for a free make over by Bobbi Brown. :)