Great Weekend

Its just been a wonderful few months. Last semester results had been thankfully good for the amount of work that i managed to understand. Praise God for that, since I spent alot of time outside school, trying to lead a normal life with friends and also ministry.

The weekend that passed was one of the most wonderful weekends that I've ever had in recent months (minus the fact that I dint get to see my bro due to field camp, but besides that, everything was great!). Saturday was supposed to be a boring saturday, with many hours planned on conquering MS2008-Electrical and Magnetic Properties of Materials. One pleasant surprise came after another; first, Joseph called for a run (he's slimmed down amazingly, haha), and next, Taiyong called for dinner. We ended up talking late into the night, starting from 8.20pm, we had dinner, then talked at the void deck till 1am.

Another highlight was the YA Games day organized by Justin Sng and team. Prior to that, went to buy a new pair of boots for court playing cos my pevious pair gave way. The games was definitely fun. Frisbee and soccer. I totally enjoyed the games, and even more, the sharing with Kim at the table during dinner.

So to sum the weekend up; a very restful time, sharing with the closest brothers to my heart, as well as interacting with the Young Adult Cell people from church. Not many have friends close enough to share problems with, knowing that they wont gossip abt what i told them. Not many people have people to share the weekend with, like I did. It was just so amazing. Thank God. :). Too bad there wasnt any pictures. haha

Focus

Dont focus on the small things and miss out the big things

Right now, I'm kind of feeling quite down after my chemistry paper. Its not because it was difficult. The questions were not that difficult, but completing it in 2 hours is the difficult part. And the main reason for all the mourning was because of a 5 marks question that I did wrong. But the working was still relevent.





Walked out of the exam hall feeling like I just cheated myself of 5 simple marks. At the back of my mind though, I was thinking 'what would be the most christian thing to do?'. 'Ah, heck that.', I told myself. Last sem, I vowed never to compare answers with my friends. This once, I just let loose my feelings, and guess what I reaped; even lousier feelings. Everyone started complaining, and after listening to all those complaining, it felt even worse. So, falling back to what I told myself last sem, I kinda want to just put this aside.





I walked away from this experience being reminded of how distasteful and tiring complaining can be. Why did I choose to dwell over the 5% and overlooked the 95% that God had so graciously allowed me to understand and answer as appropriately as I could possibly have? If I allow myself to continually dwell on this, then all the talk about trusting in God would really have been nothing but lies.

A Talk with Boon Hao; Lesson From Noah's Ark

One of the first few stories in the bible, and naturally the first few bible stories I recall learning. That faithful day when God closed the ark, Noah and 7 other members of his family were with him too, and that included his wife, 3 sons and 3 daughter-in-law. Its been one of the most famous stories ever told, even inspiring a movie recently; "Evan Almighty". I had the opportunity to talk to a fellow brother from Material Science Engineering (the course I'm taking), and he opened my mind to a few new perspectives from this story that's more than just a tale.

Having taken 150 years to build the joke of the savior ship, and finally setting sail, I've never pondered upon the fact that Noah's wife stood by him (and his decision) for more than a century. Her respect and love for Noah was not recorded with words but with deeds. Whats more amazing is that the 3 daughter-in-laws followed in, forsaking the rest of the world to follow their seemingly cranky father-in-law and his wife. How strong must be the kinship between the in-laws!

This is undoubtedly a serious point to ponder. These are the unsung heroes, un-named and nearly unmentioned ancestors of ours! Even if our names are not mentioned much, will we still hang on to our faith and play our roles responsibly? Be it wife, daughter-in-law, husband, son... etc. whatever I am, son/nephew now, father/husband/uncle in the future, may I be found to be fulfilling the role God has for me.

Luke 17:10
"So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty."

Before the Morning

Been going on YouTube during study intervals to listen to some contemporary christian music and also christian radio, namely Spirit 105.3 FM. Found this song, and its ministered to me in a way that tells me that; no matter what pain I am going through or will go through, it cant compare with the joy that's coming. I also found the story behind the creation of this song, and its amazing. I'll paste it below in a link for you who want to enjoy it.



Mid terms are coming up; 2 tests next week. Tuesday is Mechanics of Materials, and Thursday is Applied Chemistry. I've never been good at chemistry, but I'm trying my best to understand the slides. Following next week would be the much needed semester break, before the rest of the mid terms file in one by one. Hopefully I'll be able to concentrate more on some other non-academic stuff in life.

Took this picture about 2 weekends ago at the Children's day outing to botanical gardens. A combination of the p5 and p6 from the 1st session. Putting aside the low class turnout due to exams and PSLE, we had alot of fun just running around and spending time with the kids.

Happy Children's Day, and the not-so-young shall continue to study...

Having a season of closeness with God now, and its really refreshing. Naturally cos of such seasons, been praying abit more lately.The Word of God is really true; the more I pray, I have many more temptations coming into my mind. From time to time, my thoughts start to stray, but its so much easier to stand up against all these temptation with God's strength.

Been a bit more active in Campus Crusade; leading worship and getting warmed up in the Evangelism comm. One thing we have to do is to plan the evangelism direction of the whole crusade ministry on the whole. Been committing its direction to God. One of the many interesting things that I took away from the Don Carson Talk 2 weekends ago is that the Church is always just one generation away from extinction. Been pondering the truth on this, and to highlight just three examples to quote.

First, the 7 churches in the book of revelations; all of them situated in the current country of Turkey about 2000 years ago. Few years ago, in this country of a few millions, only 35 christians were left.

Second, the Welsh revival in 1904 to 1905 in Wales; the greatest in Wales ever, whereby the farmers lost one-third of their vocabulary (vulgarities) such that the animals could no longer understand instructions. Yet now, christianity is an all time low since then.

Thirdly, not many decades ago, USA was still a christian nation built upon christian foundations and values. Now, its been declared that this nation is no longer a christian nation.

Will this happen in our generation in this country? Its a question I often ask myself these days.

When God is leading the way, you dont really need to know where you're going.

One Month Into Year 2 Sem 1

It seems that I've once again become busy. Too busy for my own good I guess. Need to make a conscious effort to plan my daily schedule to ensure that I have the minimal rest of 7 hrs of sleep and a substantial time of being refreshed by God's word and through prayer.

Many things I've committed to lately, generally things in Crusade and Family. Spent a seemingly uneventful summer break doing nothing other than the less then once a month ad hoc job i hold, but I do appreciate the time spent with my brother the last 4 months. He'll be going off to army about 2 months time. In the eyes of the whole, it seems intangible. And in a way, it is. Relationships cannot be seen in a glance like the amount on your bank booklet, is easily broken if just one of the two parties do something stupid that doesnt really qualify forgiveness or further investment in time. But heck, it will be good as long as it will last.
A lousily taken photo from our Taiwan trip a month back. Probably the only photo with the two of us in the same picture. Both of us were carrying cameras, but mom and dad made sure that they did not have to snap much, so either one of us had to snap the shots.

In crusade, just joined the E-comm. Hopefully by partnering with God in evangelism in my school, I'll discover another dimension of relationship I can possibly share with Him. It does comes with time commitment though, so I have to be mindful of my ministry in crusade, and also my role as a student studying in school.

Last of Hall 7 and Ming En's ORD

This is my hall. LOL. I entitled this picture "Heaven and Hell" on facebook. HAHA

Best friend for exams; TYS.

Me and Jem.
There was this night i woke up scratching and trying to find the culprit, but gave up after a few minutes. I woke up to realise that I had squashed it against the wall. haha

I killed this with my finger. I pointed at it and it died. LOL. just joking. more like I did a quick 'poke' haha.

Next up, MingEn's ORD parade. Just some photos. Pardon the not experienced photo edits. haha