God's refining power

God uses many ways to refine and mould us. I remembered my pastor mentioning it's like how gold is extracted out from its raw form. Gold in its raw form is useless and ugly. But when go through intense heat, pure gold is extracted out. Just like how each of us are until we are being refine by God and thus turn out to be useful servants of God. But it's always during the heat when people turn away from God as they don't see the end results.

Sophia and me had a quarrel on Sunday morning. I hate quarrels as it always spoils each of our mood. We were at church early to prepare the presentation slides for worship. So I was there helping her find the songs and inserting it. I wanted her to be the one doing so she can learn but she was sweeping the floor and preparing the communion. And I was hungry so it kind of made me irritated as she didn't set her priorities right by doing what she came here to do. Well they say a hungry man is an angry man. Everything was done on time and we started the service. I was reflecting on the words and the attitute I put things across to her. God was refining me in a way. We had a talk on that evening to sort things out.

Things that attribute to a misunderstanding
1) Each other's conception of priorities
2) Personal interest of other things(eg. breakfast)

Fun with Frisbee and Friends

Our youth's monthly outing/activity. This month we went to Pasir Ris park to play frisbee. The weather was nice and sunny. I decided to bring along my guitar just to sing a few songs to praise God. So we started around 10.30am with a few worship songs and prayed. We warm up a bit and started practising our catch & throws. We soon formed into 2 groups and played for 15 mins. Good workout for everyone. We took a break and I started taking out the guitar and started singing. Soon the rest joined in and this carried on till like 12pm. Haha.. Instead of a frisbee session, we ended up singing praises and chit chatting among ourselves. I felt good about it and wanted to do a picnic outing next time. So do stay tune for the next outing. So we really ended up playing only 1 game and decided to go for lunch. We went to eHub to eat some set meal lunch with free flow of drink n ice-cream. Good and cheap!!

Met up with Weihong because his contractor was coming up to do some measurements. I'm really touched to have Weihong(contractor) and Chloe(interior designer) to help us in the renovation. Firstly they are not paid helping me, Secondly they have to take their own personal time to meet and discuss things with me, Thirdly they really take time and effort in helping us. So I really really thank them from the bottom of my heart and Sophia's too!! It's good to have these kind of friends. Thank God for them.

The day ended off with a wedding of my colleague, Clayton and Jackie. It was at Earshot Cafe, Arts house. It was a really free & easy kind of dinner compared to the 10 course dinner. Prefer this kind of wedding where we can sit/stand and mingle with the bride & groom. There were sharings made, songs sang. Nice and easy. Well more weddings to come!!

Festival of Praise 31 July

The first 3 days at work was more of catching up with emails, help conduct a profiling workshop and also conduct a climbing session.

I attended a course titled "Working with youths with special needs" at NCSS on Thurs and Fri. Was a heartening course to see on-ground people working with these youths. Got to speak to a couple of them. REALLY great respect for these people! Shows how much love they have. It also reminded me to look at people's ABILITY rather than their disABILITY.

The course ended on Fri afternoon so manage to settle some of my housing matters. WE've got all the basic essentials already. We have a bedframe, wardrobe, dining table, coffee table, tv console and a sofa. Although it seems like only a few items, it has already cost us quite a lot. Will need time to get the rest.

FOP was the highlight of the day. Reached there around 6 and there was only 4 of us(ivor, ying huan, her sis and me). We went in around 6.30 booking seats for 14 people. It started aound 7.45pm with True Worshippers leading the worship. It was alright but I don't know most of their songs. Bob Fitts was next and he's the kind of musician for my parent's generation. Haha.. You know what I mean. But still he's great. Sermon by Mark Conner was wonderful. He talks about us breaking free from Worries. To have freedom from worries as stated in Matthew 6:25-34. He mentioned that majority of our worries are unnecessary(things we can control) and only 4% of our worries are real.

Stratgey to have freedom from worry(S.T.O.P)

1. Specify your worries(most of them are insignificant)

2. Take action on your worries(turn that worry into action, do something about it)

3. Offer a prayer to God(Philippians 4:6-7 Submit our thoughts to God)

4. Place trust in God(Proverbs 3:5-6 Lean on him more, put our trust in Him)

At the end of the sermon when he said "Who thinks this sermon is for you?" and to stand up if you think the word is speaking to you. I immediately stood up and thank God for the word. Cause I know I tend to worry too much, for wedding and now for house. I thank God for reminding me about this and to use the strategy which was taught. It was wonderul. I'm not a captive of my worries!!! Amen.

Heard that Planetshakers will be here for 2010. I'll be there!

FOP 2009

Hillsong United Rocks..

The day started early with 5 of the youth leaders(me, Sophia, char, shiyi, ivor) attending a workshop about growing youth cells. It was attended by many other churches too. The workshop allowed us to see how other youth groups operate in Singapore and it got us thinking about how to reform our youth group. Many ideas came through my mind. But I’ll need to pray and spend more time with God to hear from him. We need to be in sync with God in order to move forward. I’m glad I could attend this workshop. Thanks be to God.

Straight after the workshop, I had to attend a church wedding. It was one of my poly rock climbing friend, Wee Li. It was held at Holy Grace Presbyterian Church along Upper East Coast Road. It was a beautiful church with a nice ambience. The ceremony was short and simple – Exchanging of vows and lighting of the unity candle. How significant! Before the matrimony started, I saw one of my girl scout, Eunice. And we started talking about life, work, etc. She talked about my wedding too and remembered how much I teared during the wedding. I was telling her how much I was touched by God and started sharing my testimony about my life story. Well she was already a Christian but sometimes by sharing we encourage each other to serve God more. So brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all part of the body and seek to uphold one another.

Saturday seems to be the busiest day of the week. From the wedding, I went to youth service and today we were going out to bless people on the street. We were doing the 100k blessing initiated by Love Singapore. I was paired up with a younger youth and it was challenging for him to just approach people and pray for them. I think it takes a lot of courage and thank God for all my youths on that day to have the boldness in them to approach people.

Now the day has not ended. After the outreach, we had to rush to expo to see Hillsong United!!! It was packed to the max but Sophia had friends to book seats for us although I long to be in front jumping. The atmosphere was fantastic. The presence of God can be felt. The band was great! Sang a lot of my favourite songs – Mighty to save, Desert Song, Inside out, etc.

Sermon was straight to the point and very relevant to youths in Singapore. It was from the passage Luke 7:11-17, Jesus raises a window’s son. The story was simple. Talks about a widow whose son died and in the middle of a funeral procession, came along this man, Jesus, that talks to this dead young man in the coffin and miraculously this young man sat up and began to speak.
How it relates to us then? Most of the time, we are carried away by the world. Alive on the outside but dead on the inside. Being carried out by the issues of the world(greed, sex, pornography, etc) and to be buried. Now comes along Jesus who gets you to Arise(wake up) from the dead so you can be saved.
How many of us are living a life of compromise? A double standard life? Many have. I was like that too. Till the day Jesus called me to WAKE UP and follow him. So arise and follow the truth.

Great sermon! More songs followed on. And both Sophia and me were jumping all around and enjoying ourselves. It all ended way too soon. We manage to buy 2 new CDs from Hillsong as they played a couple of their new songs. I thank God for having the opportunity to go for this concert as this was really God’s timing. Initially we didn’t have the tickets to go, but on Fri Matthew called us and say that his friend got 2 extra tickets as some pulled out last minute. Of course I took it. And even before going, I was quite down in spirit due to the many things in my mind. So I prayed for God to strengthen me. And well my prayer was answered. After the concert, my spirit was so lighted up and the fire burns strongly again! Amen.

Tickets for Hillsong United

Live from Expo

Household of Faith - 24 July

Today is the day we are entering into the promise land.
This was the feeling I had when I woke up. After waiting so long, we’ll be getting our keys today. Really excited over it.
It was like the Israelites walking in the desert for 40 years and finally reaching the Promised Land by God.

The day started late as both of us were not working. Once again we went around shopping for furniture. Went to Sungei Kadut area and woah, there’s quite a number of furniture shops there. Huge ones! This time round we were hunting for dinning table, coffee table and tv console. Shop around 5 buildings, managed to saw a few that we like but not very like. You know what I mean. So didn’t get anything there.

Soon it was time to go HDB for the final bit of administrative work. It was short and sweet. By 1700hrs, we were owners of the new house. Amen.

But now comes the stress part – Renovation and furnishing!

Pictures of my new house..

Off Day 21 July

It's refreshing to have an off day once in a while. Its not healthly to be working all the time. So to all that are working your butts off, do consider taking a break to rejuvenate yourself. One of the 7 habits of highly effective people is to sharpen the saw which means to rest physically, mentally or spiritually. This in turns will balance your work life and increase productivity.

So what am I doing on my off day? Well there's plenty of things to do.
1. Meeting my ID(interior designer) to firm up plans for my house
2. Shop for furniture
3. Bringing someone for an appointment

Sophia and I have been doing intensive furniture shopping for these few weeks. Tiring but fun going around looking at what we want for the house. We just bought a bedframe recently and saved ourselves $400. We're like furniture experts now. Haha..

New Blogger

Hi all,

Thanks be to Sophia. For I'm taking over her blog. So for all the many many fans of this blog. Do conitue to give your support to me.. Haha..

Stay tune for more updates.

Kenny