A Young Japanese in Singapore

I had a great time just getting to know Yudai from the Tokyo church. It's amazing to see a young brother serving full time in the ministry. He is just one year my junior and he is going to be a father few months later. I'm even more amazed by his convictions to want to serve God's people in Japan. You know how hard it is there. People simply are distorted morally and spiritually there, thanks to the world and the weird culture, of course it's happening everywhere including Singapore, just read my previous post. Anyway, it's great that the Singapore church can do something to encourage them, I just did my part by just hosting him. It's like a student exchange program, ha! As what I shared the other time, that I would not bring a foreign friend to nice restaurant, serving international dishes. When you are in Singapore, the host should bring you to eat what the locals eat, experience the real thing. I think he really love the local dishes; fried carrot cake, fried kuay tiao, horlicks(ha!), tea agelia, ju kuay, peng kuay, assam stingray, fried chili sotong, Bedok bak chor mee, otak, aboling (dumpling soup), beef hor fun, fried rice, frog leg, venison(deer meat), baby kailan, ya kun kaya toast with butter. I thought he had alot of fun experiencing or experimenting so much different things. Yudai, if you are reading this, you probably can't associate these food name with the food you have eaten here, you have eaten so much, ha! One thing I have learnt is never bring a foreign friend to eat their local food out of their country. Yudai went to eat at Sake Sushi, (I did not bring him there) and he was humble not to strongly disgrace that restaurant, ha! Anyway he totally dislike the food there, can't even fight with the worst in Japan. Of course, Japanese food in Japan has one most important factor, it's super fresh, and the Japanese can taste the difference. I would love to eat fresh seafood everyday also but even though Singapore is surrounded by water, we don't have a lot of good seafood, just lots of jellyfish! The more he shared about Japan, the more I feel like going and even Alex told me flying to and fro Japan just $600 plus, wow! Now I just need to save up. It's like going to my childhood wonderland, the manga world! Of course, I did not stop thinking and praying for the people to be receptive to the word of God. I'm wondering how interesting it would be for me to evangelise there. Anyway, I hope he had a great time here in Singapore, he also played paintball here with the staff. I believed much unity have been forged within the Korean churches and great things are going to happen there. Of course, the Japan church is going to keep growing under Takeshi's leadership, keep praying. The last night in Singapore, we brought Yudai to eat the all time famous Bedok bak chor mee, the hawker centre at Bedok North Ave 4. He also tried all other BBQ seafood, hot and spicey, delicious! Few hours later, brought him to the airport to check in at 530am, so tired but hey, this is the family, it's pleasure to serve. Anyway, we had a good talk before he went in. I think we have build a great friendship 'cos of more similarities. We are both around the same age, wives same age and we are young! We both can do so much to help others, that's just remind me to keep my faith up, and do my very best. Brother, I will keep praying for you and your wife, all the best and God bless!

Swing to Destruction!

I'm so tired tonight as I had 5 hours of over time plus I need to sent off Yudai this morning, learnt so much from him. I was just talking to him about the porno culture in Japan and it's really a challenge to be a Christian there and also to protect the younger generation. I was just talking to him about how Singapore government banned all porno magazines and heavily sensors and age-limits the movies. But I was shocked that a few hours later people was discussing on the radio regarding an article by Reuters.

It says that Singapore started to have a club where people meet, get to know each other and then have sex but some even come as husband and wife! The Chinese translation is "换妻具乐部" which literally means "change wife club"! I thought that people in Singapore are starting to get really corrupted morally. I thought people will do anything to please their pleasures, sounded as if we are some brain-less wild animals. Some of these members even have a family! Much are living a double standard life. I hope I don't sound self-righteous but I seriously think this is not right. The news just reported that is an increasing number of AIDS victims here, more than a thousand have died, more to come. Of course, not forgetting, a climbing divorce rate. I thought how important we need to emphasis on moral education, but as a Christians, I would suggest you find a good church to teach your whole family the Bible and see what the Bible says. Even then, I also need to guard myself against much temptations arising everywhere now. Lately I'm thinking how can I be on the offensive side rather be on the defensive side, I mean spiritually. Not as if I'm going to start a movement to stop all these clubs.

Well, I definitely do hope that the government can do something since the Police so far can't find complaints to take actions against these clubs. But I think there are much work to be done here, not just to do "fire fighting". We need to educate the younger generations correctly and of course keep emphasis on family life education. I'm so glad that HOPE WORLDWIDE has something here to help families, and of course not forgetting the Movie Therapy. I really do hope that something can be done, for now I'll keep praying and talking to the brothers about such temptations. All these also reminded me to be so appreciative of my wife, and spending more time with her. Don't take your marriage for granted, it's God's blessings! If you really love your wife and people around you, have some indignation against such devilish conducts and thoughts!

Ten Healed of Leprosy - Being Grateful

11Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy^[a]met him. They stood at a distance 13and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

 14When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.

 15One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

 17Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." Luke 17:11-19

The service yesterday was mind-blowing, hearing from the Koreans, Japanese leaders’ convictions and gratitude really moves and convicts my heart. It’s always refreshing to hear from foreign speakers but yesterday was a very special time for the leaders there. It’s a time to celebrate your relationship with God and the friendship they had, and of course the unity between the different churches. I felt it’s really amazing to have brothers and sisters from different countries to have the same convictions and love for God and people in their countries. I thought how timely it’s for Takeshi to preach about the ten people healed of leprosy.

Sometimes I really took for granted the things that I have, especially the most basic things, like my hands to touch, to do work, my functioning brain, my almost perfect eyesight, my hearing, my limbs. And different relationships that I can enjoy, my wife, my mum, my friends, I thought the older I got, the more I felt these things are really important, but many times because of pride and forgetfulness, I often took these for granted and even cause much hurt to myself and others. I often need reminders from different things, or people or even God’s lesson to remind myself to really appreciate these things and people in my life. Ultimately, it comes down to praising the Creator, the one who allow all these to happens, gave these to me. I think as human we must always learn to be grateful for any small little things that happen in our life. It will make us feel more happy and positive about life, also more appreciative. Don’t wait till it’s too late to appreciate people you love, else whatever you do after that, it’s simply meaningless. I just thanked my wife and praise her for being serving last night when Yudai and Alex were at my house. She felt great and I also feel happy so isn’t it beautiful. So do something today. And if you want to thank someone that you are alive today, thanks God!

Weiwen and Jovan

We celebrated Weiwen's belated birthday yesterday. So good to have dinner with bunch of old friends. Now that Weiwen already a father of 2 kids and Jovan is already 2, amazing. We had fun at Fish & Company. I thought we also had fun with Jovan, I believed he also had fun, just look at his face, you don't think so, well at least we tried to make him have fun or are we the one having fun after all, ha!

Wealth Wisdom - Me and June on TV!

Remember that day when me and June went for the finance seminar, "Wealth Wisdom for Everyone" organized by ChannelNewsAsia. I thought it was a good seminar. Though the seminar is more like an entry level to finance, but the panel of speakers gave a very good picture of financial planning in the different stages of life. The speakers are experts of their fields in finance, includes Karin & Mark Daniell (Directors), Sarah Mavrinac(University Professor), Ivan Ossa (Investment Analyst), Roger Yeh(Insurance), Frances Ho(Financial Consultant), Juliana Ng(Estate Plaining), Wendy Wong(Lawyer) and Suzanne Jung was the Emcee. Topics of the seminar includes Budgeting, Savings and Investment, Insurance, Retirement Planning, Wills and Estate Planning. Survey shows that majority of the Singaporeans want to retire early but has no idea how to, not much money for retirement. It's amazing we can't rely on the government to help us to retire. Same time, there won't be much money in our CPF after we have used it to pay back our mortgage loan. Also there are much restrictions in the way we collect back our money for retirement when the time has come, we can't take our CPF money out in whole or part at any time we want. So we better do our own planning earnestly.
On that day, June and I were also been interviewed and now we appeared on ChannelNewsAsia for this commercial. I managed to captured the clip and it's shown below. As for what I commented in the interview, my definition of "soon" means one year later, so don't expect surprises. Ha!

Con-job Surveyors

I was just walking home from the MRT after finishing an unexpected OT when I saw a group of "surveyors". Come on, give me a break, I felt like I'm trying to beat through a few thick walls. The bunch of young men and ladies looked totally harmless, well dressed, big smiles but I really hate it 'cos I know their "evil" agenda, to get your number. They pretend to do a simple survey, asked some questions and in the end ask for your number. Some of the questions could be those of financial and insurance planning. So once they got your numbers, either they will follow on you to promote any insurance products or they got their sales counterparts to do the calling. Some may even sell your numbers to other marketing companies or banks that really want to sell you any form of insurance or investment instruments. I hate it when they keep calling you, now you know how those sales people got your number and keep calling you. Jason was really funny when he was stopped by one of these people. He asked the girl if he can do the survey without giving his number, ha! Guess what's the response. So next time you can either fool these people or try playing with them. But I just show them my palm or my cool look. One even asked me, "你是不是Malaysian?", what's that for?!

Congrats to WeeChung and Serene!

Attended WeeChung and Serene’s wedding yesterday or actually few hours back. Finally both are married, thinking both are my seniors, they definitely have me and my wife’s blessings. I think this is the first time I attended a church wedding in the evening. I must say it’s quite refreshing. WeeChung booked the Straits Hall which is the bigger hall in the building, so as to “contain” his students, ha! WeeKeong ministered his brother’s wedding and Chiping is the translator in Mandarin. There were also a few contemporary performances, really classic, really jazzy, and not bad, I quite like it. I’m happy to see Dylan and Miki there. Hope they have been doing fine. Wish they would be happy to join the church more often. Anyway, wish all the best to WeeChung and Serene’s marriage and welcome to another stage of life, welcome to the club, the real thing, your journey has just started! Cheers!

 

 

Game of Mafia

Finally, I got some time to upload the video I took at my friends playing "Mafia". Well, to describe a bit about this game, it's a game to find out who's the Mafia or simply the murderer. I think this game came from the campus, 'cos it can be really time consuming at times. Basically, form a group of players. Depending on the size of the group, there needs to be at least one gamemaster, one Mafia, one doctor and one spy, the rest are simply civilians. These roles are determined by normal poker cards that will be given out and 3 cards to represent the 3 playable roles, Mafia, doctor and spy. At the begining of each round, the gamemaster will ask all to close their eyes and "go to sleep", he will call up the Mafia(s) to wake up and point out who to kill, next they go back to sleep, then call up the spy who to spy on, to see if that person is the mafia, then next the doctor to choose who to heal, then all close their eyes, then all open eyes and the gamemaster will announced if it's a peaceful night or terrible night where someone died. Then the game continue and open up for arguing and defending who's the Mafia, the majority can vote to kill the assumed Mafia, that person will die regardless if he's the mafia or not. The round will repeat again where all go to sleep and the mafia choose who to kill and so on.
Anyway, I don't like this game, too long winded, people will always argue their guts out, can bring out alot of bad attitudes! I will always volunteered to be killed but no one always suggest me to be killed, ha! So here is the game we played few weeks back, where we played for 2-3 hours, I almost died watching them play, this group got so much to argue about, haiz. These people can't guess who's the real mafia, end up killing all the innocent, then they realise the two who looked the most innocent are actually the mafia! One is my wife and the other is Celine, amazing! I must say my wife is really good at acting. I actually have more exciting clips but I will surely be killed by Yvette if I post them up, so here's the more friendly video, ha!

Raphael and Irene leaving the ministry

Raphael and Irene have decided to leave the Ministry. After much thinking and asking of advices, they made this decision themselves and hope the rest of us will respect their decision. The reason for them to leave the ministry is ‘cos of “family dynamics”. Initially, I couldn’t take it very well but after much praying and talking to people, I’m more resolved. It’s really sad to see them go. I could still remember 5 years back when they first came to lead the East. It was really a revolution. I think a lot of people really benefited from their leadership. I respected them a lot. I appreciated Raphael a lot, ‘cos he was there to understand me when my dad passed away and did my wedding, and help my wife and I to serve in the Seremban mission. There are just so much memories. And definitely I learnt much more from them. It’s really not easy to lead the East, a bunch of “Old and Wise” people. But they continue to persevere to love and lead us. Raphael and Irene broke the news last night and both cried and the rest of us also cry. It just shows how much friendship and love was there. All of us hope it would not end this way but who knows; it may be a great start for them in another direction. I hope they will continue to serve people in other places because they are just so hardworking and sacrificial. Their love and talent should continue to put into good use. I believe much more people elsewhere could benefit from their leadership. I hope we can all encourage them in our own ways of expressing gratitude.

 

 

We need desires to survive

"We need desires to survive - Phua Hee"

Phua Hee preached a great lesson yesterday. You can get it here. Basically lesson is about we need to have a spiritual desire. Many people are very distracted and bothered by their material desires, forgeting about their spiritual desires. Even then, I thought now a days many people are simply dreaming of being rich but simply no clue on how to get rich. So they work day and night and miss out precious things and people in their lives. Sadly, there's another group, where they simply have no desires for any thing, just live their life, to eat, sleep, work. They are like zombies or animals. Since the year is coming to an end, why not think about what you would like to achieve in the coming 3 months, 6 months, 1 year! Draft out a rough plan, then expand to a more detail one. When you have a plan and goals, you are bound to succeed. Still I would like to encourage you to think of your spiritual needs also.

Friends from Hong Kong

Michelle and Jean were in town last week, but they took five days to rest in Lagawi. Still we managed to bring them out to experience Singapore. XinLai suggested to bring them to Muthu's Curry. I have not tried the Indian food there. When I was there, I was quite surprised to see a beautifully designed restaurant, nothing like an authentic Indian restaurant. Anyway, it's really not an authentic Indian restaurant, no wonder I don't see alot of locals there. I then realise it's not a very good idea to bring Hong Kong people to eat Indian curry especially to a place where the food is simply HOT but no fragrance. No wonder both of them were so quiet. The food is not that fantastic, and definitely I don't think I would bring my foreign friends there. Just because I like them to try the authentic and local way, the true experience. I would suggest you to do the same also when you have friends coming to your country. Next we bought them to Vivocity, one of the largest shopping mall in Singapore. It's not fully open yet but to me, it's just another shopping mall tough it claim to have one of the largest movie screen in Asia. But we were just walking and walking, I didn't buy anything, nothing really attractive. Then we had a drink in one place, can't even remember the name of the restaurant, ha! We tried out their drinks, June took the worst drink, ask her to describe to you. I would say it's like dirty drain water, take a look at the picture, ha! Anyway, we were really tired and Steven is not thinking very straight then, what was he doing in the picture. Anyway, Michelle is always very giving and helpful, always bring present for the Singapore Christians, of course, I also received my favourite Yeun Long's Loupo Ban from her all the time. Then she also gave June some the receipe to make Hong Kong's popular mango pudding desert, it's really very nice, the ingredients are from Hong Kong, can't get it in Singapore, so nice of her. Then Apple also made brownies for us, wah, I'm so happy, got my faourite loupo ban and rich chocolate brownies, awesome! I'm just wondering why are they still single, man, brothers you are a bit blind here, even Mathew also know not to miss a good cook and dated her. Ha! Anyway, I hope they had a great time staying at our place, we'll make sure they were feel more localised the next time they come. I'll get Jason to be in charge of this, ha! Hope to visit Hong Kong again, soon.

Crying Game

I really love this award winning home video clip. It just capture the very human nature that's already instill in us even when we are baby. Even babies fake to cry to seek attention, adults also do stupid things to seek attention. At the end of the day, we just need people to be concern about us. So why not let's all initiate to love others first, I'm sure someone sincere will love you back deeply. Enjoy!

Treasure your love ones

June left for Malacca for work and supposedly to come back today for a day but received her call just now, sais she need to extend her stay for one more day. I start to miss her even for a day. Initially I thought a day without her is nothing, but I start to feel uneasy. Even if I were to spend time with a close friend, it cannot replace my time with my wife. For the husbands out there, do you feel the same when your wife is not around. Few months back, June went to Sydney for work for a few days and I felt totally weird and strange all over, like something is wrong. I did alot of things with my friends, till Jason was like saying he need time on his own, ha! I took too much time from others. Sometimes, husbands just took their wives for granted but I must say I always treasure my wife alot even we are coming three years in our marriage but still miss her alot when she's not around. I hope it will always stay this way, I mean the feelings, not that she always have to travel for work. How come I'm not the one travelling. It makes me think how valuable time with the family is. It's simply priceless! OK, I'm going to work towards the goal of having the luxury to spend more time with family in the future. This would be one of the greatest blessing from God! Treasure your love ones today!

Baby Therapy

I'm sure this will cheer you up, come on, give it a try, watch the video below. I'm sure it will lighten your day and change the way you look at things, maybe from the baby's perspective. This is definitely cheaper than Jason's retail therapy, actually this is FREE! Let a baby cheer you up!

So good to have friends

It was a long day today, now it's coming to an end, now I'm just lying down on my sofa watching the Liverpool game. I was out the whole day, also bringing the HK sisters around, I hope they enjoyed themselves. But I'm glad to see Justin there. I was justing chating with him the other day on Skype and found out that he was a bit emotional about things, plus a bit of feeling overwhelmed. I think at times we have all felt the same when many things in our life don't go the way we wanted, all at the same time. I thought Justin was a great guy, a great friend and brother, he just need to learn to build up his confidence more and learn to express himself better. So he know how to voice out when he was denied sleep till 4am, ha! Anyway he was rewarded today, but still he wanted to voice out by singing karaoke but bro, not today, I sure accompany you next week if you still want to sing. I'm sure there are some sisters who want to come along also, ha! But I learn to treasure friendship here and not take anyone for granted. It is so good be in this family, where we have great brothers and sisters all around the world. BTW I hope by now Zhiwei already have proposed to someone to be his girlfriend, else this is the tip. Congrats!

Gray hair: To pluck or not to pluck

I don't know what is your stand about gray hair. Some have deep convictions not to pull each and any one of them. They believe that if they pull the gray hair, it will still grow back and worse, more will appear. So they will rather "die" than to have their gray hair pulled out. I belong to the group where it's better to pull your gray hair. I think I'm the lucky one. Even I have gray hair, it's really little. I just pull it away and there won't be anymore for a long while. But I also found out that it is possible for some people that even when they pull out their gray hair, it will grow again, even if they pull it away the second, third time. Sad to say, if you keep pulling your hair, your new hair will be thinner and weaker, easier to drop. But if you don't get rid of that one gray hair or a bunch of them, it really make you look so "not pretty". I knew a few people that their gray hair are really messy, 'cos those gray hair are spoilt and fuzzy. I thought for guys is easier, just make a decision to shave all your hair off and take good care of your scalp, hopefully beautiful black hair will grow. For ladies, I think it's better for you to still pluck them up, watch your diet, control your emotions, maintain stress free, and excercise regularly. But if the gray hair is in the family genes, then try live with it, adopt a gray hair fashion by dying all your hair gray or white! Anyway, these are wild suggestions but to have a bunch of gray hair can really make you look sloppy, don't look your age and also don't look very confident. It's just my opinion. Try adopting it!