A New Season

The theme of Glad Tiding's Gateway 4th Anniversary was 'A New Season'.

A new season brings about changes.
A new season poses new challenges.
A new season raises champions.

Change is the only constant thing in life. There's so many changes happening at the same time. Firstly at work, I was expecting a change in department but after going through a 6 months review, the managment decided that the change is not possible. This was a change that I was expecting but it didn't happen. So the change was it didn't change.. And the only thing I could change is how I look at it. Trust God in everything he has prepared for me!!
Secondly my youth ministry. Come to think of it, I've been serving the ministry for almost 2 years. Well it's still short compared to the rest of my youth leaders who started the ministry many many years ago. And I probably have a long way to go here.. Now there were changes that I've to deal with too. After much consideration, the pastors decided to spilt up the youth ministry into 2 - Young Adults & Youths. For me, this has always been what we wanted and finally it has been put into place but what I didn't expect was the plan to shift 6 youth leaders to focus on the young adults ministry. On one end it is good as this group of people can focus on the ministry but on the other end, I've lesser leaders for the youth ministry. From next year onwards, the 2 groups will work independently on a weekly basis but will come together in terms of outreaches and church events. Because of this, the entire youth ministry has to go through a reorganisation in terms of structure and also our weekly meetings. Well I'm keen to explore new things and ideas. Just hope the idea gets through our pastor..

With all these changes in place, the challenges doesn't get lesser too. In terms of work, I was tasked to manage a project which requires me to oversee a product which I will need to think about business development, training development, maketing, reviewing of programme, etc. It's really a mounting task ahead of me!!
In the ministry, there are so many things to deal with. There are youth leaders to coach and develop, leaders/youths that have issues to settle, young adults or youth that have strayed away from God, lukewarm youths, weekly meetings, DFD, ensuring spiritual needs and emotional needs are met, planning for outreaches & events, etc. I do get physically, emotionally and spiritually drained at times. The challenges are never ending and we're also in the midst of planning for next year with the new committee. I'm excited with this new committee and looking forward to more changes coming up!!

Having to deal with changes and challenges does bring out the champion in you. No matter how tired I am, I just need to press on to finish the race!! There are 2 verses that I have been claiming. Isaiah 43:18-19 says "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth." I trust God will lead and guide us but its always our human nature to think about past experiences and use it instead of relaying on God which I must learn to. Sometimes I can't really think of anything as I have not experience it before and thus have no prior knowledge on how to go about doing it. The other verse is actually in today's bulletin. Isaiah 40:31 says But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. This tells me to press on and wait on the Lord so I can be renewed and recharged!! and will not be weary in the ministry and always on fire for God!! Be a champion for Christ...

To God be the glory!!!

GEL Mission Trip (12-21 June 2010)

This's year mission trip theme is One Choice, One Way, One God.

I thank God for everyone who helped make this trip possible. Firstly will be all your prayers before and during the trip. Secondly would be supporting our fund-raising. We started off with a few of us not able to go for the trip due to financial constraint. To me I believe that if your heart is willing to go, money shouldn’t be the concern. So I prayed and really ask God to provide for the youths and that is when we had our fund raising. And to my surprise, we had enough money to cover all our expenses there. Thank God for providing us with the money.

We had 10 youths with Pastor Rebecca for this trip. We had a tight schedule this year and were traveling from place to place. We went to 2 new places, Leyte and Camotes. We were involve in worship service lead by Shiyi, Charissa, Gladys, Joshua & Pearlyn. The children’s ministry was handled by Pearlyn, Sherryn, Gladys, Ian & Glendon. We attended a youth service in Lapu-Lapu, did house to house evangelism in both Leyte and Camotes. This was when we go house to house to share Step to Peace with God. We also prayed for the community.

There was this time where we prayed for this lady who had a stroke. She had difficulties moving her limbs and was seated down. When we went in the house, we shared with her the salvation message and eventually challenged her to receive Christ. She accepted Jesus into her life and we started praying for her. Slowly she could move her arms, we continued praying more fervently and then she was able to stand. We continued praying and praising God and well enough she was able to walk and lift up her hands to praise God. Sometimes we lack faith in God when we pray or do things, so this experience tells me to do my part and leave the rest to God.

Another happening incident was during our boat trip back from Leyte. We were all sound asleep in the middle of the night when suddenly I felt the boat was tipsy and I got shocked when I opened my eyes to see total darkness in the room. I went out to investigate and realised that the boat’s engine had died and thus the boat is stranded in the middle of the sea with no electricity. Wild thoughts started streaming into my mind: What if we drift to another island, Should I go wake them up? I wanted to wake Pastor Rebecca up and then I remembered about Jesus’s disciples waking him up in the middle of the storm and Jesus telling them “You of little faith.” So I prayed to God to take charge of the situation and help the crew to resolve whatever problem. I knew my work is not complete on earth yet and thus today I won’t be going to heaven. I headed into the room and saw that most of them were awake so I explained the situation and reassured them.

Overall it was a good experience to be with all my youths and thank God for 3 of them who were there for the first time. And hopefully more will want to be involved in mission work and see God work through them. Amen

My God is the God who provides

Thank God for He always provides for us!!!

We know that Sophia resigned and joined another company recently. Her last day was actually in mid March and she started work on 1st April (April Fools Day-what a joke). Well she wanted a break before her new job and that was reasonable. By doing so she would get a pro-rated pay and probably her next pay would be in May since she started work in April. That got me a little worried as my pay had to sustain 2 months (Mar & Apr) which was very tough. We were like calculating the spending and seeing whether it could sustain us for that period.

Normally my bonus would come in April but looking at last year's economic I was wondering if we would still have one. Miraculously it did came!! And it came in Feb this year which is like out of the norm for the past 5 years and the amount was quite substantial that was enough to sustain us for another 2 months with extra. God is so good!!! I even bought Sophia a Nikon D90 and an Ipod which she wanted for such a long time. And her full pay came in April instead of May so we really got more than we expected!!

Sometimes simple things like this get taken for granted and so we should thank God for his grace and providence. It really gave me the confidence to do God's ministry in future.

Fear not for I am with you (Isaiah 41:10)

I just completed my 4 star kayak training in Ramunia, Malaysia.

It was a tremendous experience, fun but challenging as well.

For so many yrs in OBS, kayak has never been my area of expertise and I always had the fear of capsizing and not able to roll up. I had been practising my rolls prior to this training. I know I can roll up but when placed in the sea I tend to panic. I realise it's a psychological barrier that I have to overcome.

This ramunia trip to me is not about some kayak training. I know God wants to teach me something in this trip so it's more of a spiritual trip rather than a skill training.

The people I went with were all familiar faces and people I know well. I'm glad that God put me there with all these good friends.

Then came the first day.. Goodness. The wave was like 2m high!!!! Overwhelming!!! But I still went out and trained. Capsized twice but I didn't roll up as I was afraid. I was still not comfortable at the end of day 1.

Before the start of Day 2, we were supposed to write out mistakes on a duct tape and paste it on our kayak. This serves as a reminder when we kayaking. So I just wrote 2 words on my kayak. "Have Faith". Fear represents a lack of trust in God and that is not what I want. So I put my trust in God and prayed. I thank God for His assurance as His words says in Isaiah 41:10 "Fear not for I am with you". I really thank God for his words as it brought assurance, comfort and confidence in me. I had never felt so vunerable before and this allowed me to really depend on God. Another verse that really spoke to me was in Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and courageous... He will never leave you nor forsake you".

One funny incident happened. On day 2 when we were punching through the waves to get to the green. The waves were like crashing at us on the start and it was so tough to get out. Elton was the first one out and he got hit by the waves time after time.. But finally he got through. 3 girls also attempted to launch but couldn't as the waves were so strong. Eventually 3 of us managed to punch out. It was Elton, Evan and myself. When all 3 of us were out, we were like. Eh all christian.. Yeah!! And we were praising God there and then. It was a great feeling.

So needless to say I passed my 4 star award but with the grace of God upon me. Most importantly I learned a valuable lesson from God this week which I will hold dearly!!

Thank You JESUS!!!

My partner - Jasmine

Red Team - Yen Leng, Evan, Jasmine, Gek Fong & Elton

Coping with Stress

1st week of 2010 at work wasn't easy.

The year started hectic and piles of work to be done in such a short time.

Well guess everyone feels this way at some point in time. It has been a long time since I felt this way.

I was feeling so stressed that I went to find out how do we cope with stress. So this verse spoke to me.

Matthew 11: 28-30

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

There's also 3 practical ways to deal with stress.

1) Pray

2) Praise

3) Meditate on God's words

Moving House - 29 Aug

It's really exciting and challenging to move house. Imagine only the 2 of us and we have so much things. How about those shifting the whole house. That's madness. We chose Sat to move house as it's almost last day of the month and it was a Sat where both of us were free.

We didn't want to trouble anyone so decided to shift everything ourselves using only my car.

Everything was packed in my car and we made around 4 trips since it was so near.

Both our clothes!!!

Shoes filled the back..

Carrying it was tough job!!!

The most interesting of them all is how I shift my mattress!!!

One whole day of strenous activity but was worth everything. I'm so excited so have moved in and hoping to host you guys here in my house.

Marketplace ministers

Everyone of us are called to be ministers to minister the word of God to others. A market place is somewhere we are in most of our time. Eg. school, work & home.

I had a wake up call from God today. I was working in the office and there was this cleaner doing his job, going around clearing trash and so on. I knew him by his name David. He seems to be a cheerful person everytime we say hi to him. As I was about to leave, he started talking to me. As usual, I'll also talk to him. All of a sudden, he ask me whether I'm a christian or not and I said yes. And after that we had a good conversation about Christ. He also shared about the things he did such as going from door to door to share the gospel, handling out pamphlets and even sharing the faith with our instructors!!

Now that really caught my attention! A cleaner spreading the word of God. How amazing this is. I'm not looking down at cleaners here but trying to draw the point that its not only the pastor's job to spread the word but everyone of us. From CEO to even cleaners on the street. This person is a marketplace minister. Glory be to God.

What struck me was that he single-handedly was trying to spread the word of God to our instructors. And we have so many christians as staff in our workplace. Why are we not sharing the good news with the rest? Are we complacent? Are we waiting for someone else to do the job? Think about this. If we all put our heart together, more souls will be save. *Not saying everyone just go to that individual and just pour out the gospel and make him/her believe instantly.

There's many ways to share our testimony and our faith to others. It is just a matter of how passionate we are for God. It is hard for a start but if you don't try, you'll never know. If your heart is willing, God will take care of the rest. I assure you that. So to all who are reading this, be inspired as I am by David, start slow and small. With friends it's easier to start a conversation. Don't force your ideas across. Enjoy evangelism!!

Thank God for this learning.