Allah cares

Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why do good intentions produce lousy results?
Why do the wicked prosper, and the righteous suffer?

Banyak perkara yang tak dapat ku mengerti

Mengapakah harus terjadi

Di dalam kehidupan ini

Suatu perkara yang

ku simpan dalam hati

Tiada satupun kan terjadi tanpa Allah peduli

Allah mengerti

Allah peduli

Segala persoalan yg kita hadapi

Tak akan pernah di biarkanNya ku bergumul sendiri

Sbab Allah peduli

Allah mengerti

Allah peduli

Segala persoalan yg kita hadapi

Tak akan pernah di biarkanNya ku bergumul sendiri

Sbab Allah Yesus ku

mengerti

Obstetrics Life-Saving Skills Course

Came back from conducting an OLSSC in Keningau Hospital last weekend. The organising team was great... the top dogs of SWACH. We were so pampered by the Keningau Hospital staffs... great food, great lodging, great hospitality!

How to help a baby.

How to hold a baby.

How to decapitate... err....

Playing with water balloons.

Home-made water balloon, McGyver style.

Sewing class.

The eureka moment.

The guessing game.

Happy organisers packing up to go home.

Christians are called to practise another set of life-saving skills as well...

And this is the record, that God has given to us everlasting life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1Jn 5:11-12

Marriage re-dedication

Married 25 years ago as Buddhists, today Andrew and Joyce had a simple wedding again in church. Good la, the covenant says cannot divorce one... if only more M-group do such re-dedication, there would be less broken families in this country.

Joyce telling about their earlier marriage life and how they ended up up Kota Kinabalu. Thank God for an honest mechanic in KK.

The secret is... actually they got more than 3 children...

... the rest of their children are in university, some in China... and they meet (or met) in SIB Alive... and enjoyed Joyce's wonderful food and love... in a big family called the body of Christ.

SIB Alive - 5.11.2011

This year the SIB Alive team decided that we should post our activities online as a chronicle of our spiritual journey, as well as let our students see their handsome/pretty faces... so here is a write-up of what we did two days ago.

As usual, good food in abundance.

All nicely home-made, sprinkled with plenty of love.

For the students, a much welcomed relief from the usual mixed-rice stall stuffs.

We had Joe and Poh Keong, our in-house-trained guitarists leading the praise and worship session.

The teacher Betty and her quartet.

Xiang Yee gave an introduction on the topic that we would be discussing that night... 'God's Word in Your Life' taken from Book 3 of The Navigator's Studies in Christian Living.

Supplemented with a very nicely done & colourful chart. Wow we're discovering some artistic talent here.

Discussing in small groups.

Learning points for the night...

• God's word is described as a fire (refiner's fire that removes impurities), a hammer (breaks our rock-hard hearts), a sword (to ward off enemies' attacks, and to go offensive)
• God's word pierces the deepest areas of our hearts; it doesn't just scratch the surface
• God's word is alive and active, it is not limited by time and geographical boundaries; it still transforms lives today!
• God's word is truth that sets us free from the untruths of this world
• God's word guides us into the salvation offered in Jesus Christ

Went to see cows

It's public holiday today. Yesterday was Hari Raya Aidiladha, today is the replacement holiday. Ryan got no school, his dad got no work, so we thought we would go to see some cows today... to commemorate the many that were sacrificed yesterday.

Getting to know the latest addition to the family.

The food, and ambience in Kinabalu Rose Cabin was pretty good. But I did not like the 10% service charge and 5% government tax. The hotel looked like a nice place to stay overnight.

After lunch we went to look for strawberries at Strawberry Park.

Unfortunately, they just picked the fruits the day before. But this photographer managed to find one, and took the shot with his D-Lego dSLR.

OK, now pose with the roses for me.

I might win a photographic contest with my flower shot...

Finally, we went to see the cows. YES!

Next time we go to see real cows in New Zealand, OK?

doulos, diakonos

I got more than what I asked for during my recent menyibuk trip to the Sabah Theological Seminary.

Bishop Hwa Yung of the Malaysian Methodist Church was in town to conduct a Graduation Seminar in STS. What a great privilege to listen to this humble man talk on "God's Servant".

Some main points in his lecture...

• great visionary Christian leaders are always a premium, in short supply
• the Bible talks about training servants, not training leaders
• unless the teaching to be servants is internalised into Christian lives, any talk of leadership tends to encourage self-seeking ambition, which is very destructive
• in Mark 10:35-45, leadership is referred to as doulos (slave, servant) and diakonos (an attendant, a waiter)
• even at the final hours of Jesus' life, all the disciples were still jostling for positions... only Judas had a clear view of what was really going on
• 'meek' leadership: modest and wilful, humble and fearless; confident, yet humble; strong, yet gentle
• a kampung church is as valuable as a city megachurch in God's economy; strive to serve faithfully as servants, wherever God places us (he's talking to the newly-grad pastors)
• our confidence should be built on our identity as a child of God, not on leadership positions
• the concept of the pastor is being a shepherd, not a church CEO
• in choosing leaders, emphasis should be placed on the character, rather than the education, talents, or good looks
• test of humility: do you seek out to do jobs that nobody wants to do, but need to be done?
• there is no limit to how far you can climb as long as do not care who gets the credit
• convergence: ministering/serving out of our BEING, as an out-flowing of our inner life
• need to bring back the seminary model (character training) into Bible school, not the university model (academic scholarship)

In the afternoon, there was the Graduation Ceremony held in the very nice STS main auditorium.

There was a beautiful grand piano on stage. The acoustics were excellent!

Academicians in colourful robes.

Song presentation by the STS choir.

Scrolls were conferred to those who graduated with certificates, diplomas, Bachelor's and Master's degrees. But guess who won the loudest applause? The aunties who persevered through a ten-year course, and the silver-haired grandma who received the Certificate of Attendance for Senior Citizens.

Izac

I want to read Ryan's books.

I can fit into a little basket.

A weekend at Grand Lexis Hotel, Port Dickson

I stayed in the best hotel room ever in my life recently...

And the best part was, someone else paid for it... and the airfare, and the food as well.

I thought they were a bit crazy to book such a gigantic room for a single occupant.

But I must say the beds were really very nice.

There was enough space to park an SUV if you fancy having that second wife in the room.

Nice little kitchenette, equipped with a microwave oven.

Elegant wash basin.

Odd-looking shower, but the flow was great.

And behold, the door opened out to...

...OMG an attached private swimming pool!!!

The view of the rest of the hotel... you can jump into the sea if you're tired of the private pool.

The going rate is RM 540 for off-peak days, and RM 600 for weekends. So the price is quite reasonable actually... if you calculate Chinaman style... pack 10 people in the room, bring own mattress on the floor, bring own cooking utensils... and can dip in the pool all day.

Man, these people really go all out to pamper us while promoting their products.

And they brought us for seafood dinner with abalone, lobster, geoduck, cod fish... but the restaurant was shabby and the cooking was lousy.

Thanks, Sanofi-Aventis. Anymore to come? How about the Burj next time, for a change? That would be really nice.

1Malaysia

I've got West and East Malaysia inside me.

Saya budak 1Malaysia!

The next phase

The view of Mount Kinabalu from my hotel room during the district visit last week.

I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where shall my help come from?

Psa 121:1

I will seriously need lots of help if I get sent here.