Options

Yesterday I finally got a haircut after over 2 months of not getting a haircut. The first option I had was to choose between the different hairdressers around the area. After I had chosen to go to the one in Burwood. I had to decide what kind of haircut I wanted. Ever since I was little I've never actually gotten a proper styled cut, usually my haircut would just be blend in on the sides and back and then spiked a little at the top. Basically I just get my hair cut pretty short.

This time because the lady couldn't really understand what I was saying, she had me choose from a book, what style I wanted. So I choose one and that was that. In the end, my hair turned out quite alright, but it's not as short as it usually is. So it's probably gonna grow out pretty quickly.

I've learnt that throughout life, you can make your own plans, but ultimately whatever God has planned WILL come to pass.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." - Proverbs 16:9

The Future in His Hands

Throughout our lives we face many decisions and choices. Some are big some are small, whatever you choose we need to realise that God has a bigger plan for your life. Not only does He have a plan for you but He has the best plan for your life.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11

God's direction is there for the taking, but again although God is willing to give it to us, we need to ask for it and receive it. The most important decision I made in my life is to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal saviour. For without Him, I would not be where I am today. He transformed my thinking and outlook on life. Without God, I would have just been stumbling along in this game of life. With God, I now have direction and wisdom that He has given me.

I encourage all of you to think about this one choice you have, that God has given you:
"Where will you spend eternity?"

Youthful wisdom

When talking about wisdom, we tend to think about old people, they are old and wise. However young people can be wise too. Mind you I'm only 22 and God has shown me so much of His wisdom. How do we obtain wisdom from God? That's the easy part, we ask for it. God has already promised that He will give it to us. All we need to do is ask for it.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." - James 1:5

The nest step is to receive it. This is not as easy as it sounds. For example if God tells you that you should listen and learn to others, especially if they are elders and leaders then we need to obey that. If we don't we fail to receive the wisdom that comes from it.

"A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel," - Proverbs 1:5

There are many other verses in the bible which talks about godly wisdom, and it's never too late or too early to learn from them.

When you fall

Don't you know
That He loves you too much to
Ever let you go
And the storm is there to
Only help you grow
He loves you so
When you fall

- Kirk Franklin

Everyone faces problems, even I have problems I face everyday. What you do with your problem determines the outcome. If our attitude is to just ignore the problem then nothing will come out of it, but if we actively seek to resolve the problem, you can learn so much from it. Problems are there to help us, as a Christian we are expected to face problems and persecutions.

"Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." - 2 Timothy 3:12

I had a hard time with my family all my life, I was restricted to what I could do. They'd even stop me from going to Youth or even Church sometimes. I still hung on, even though it was hard for me. My social life was not even worth mentioning, all I did revolved around my uni life.

2 years ago, the time finally came that I am now free to do things my way. My family have begun to respect the decisions that I make and they no longer see me as a little kid anymore. I guess this is common to many Asian families, but through the hardship, God allowed me to learn patience. These days it's very hard for me to get angry at anyone because of my patience, of course I am still not perfect.

Let God refine us through the trials. Like the song says, "the storm is only there to help you grow". If there was no storms, life would be so boring. True faith is more precious that gold, let God mould you and refine you so that your imperfections may be made perfect in His image.

"that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ," - 1 Peter 1:7

Nothing but the truth

I love to learn languages, in the past I've been learning Japanese and a little bit of Cantonese from my friends. God created different languages, in a way the languages act as a barrier between different people. However there is one language that is universal. That is the love of Christ.

The people out there need to hear the truth and nothing but the truth because,

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32

God bless

Intelligent Bible

What is your view on:
- Abortion?
- Homosexuality?
- etc.

We all have our own views on certain things, but the most important question is, what foundation are your views built upon? What makes us think the way we think? Do we base it on what other people say? Personally my views are based upon the word of God - the Bible. Only the Bible contains truth.

You might think, well there are many other "truths" out there too. No, that's not true. Everything in this world changes, even science cannot be a truth because they keep changing things. One minute a scientist discovers something and the next another discovers that he/she was wrong. Theories change all the time, but the word of God will always remain.

"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. " - John 14:6

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." - Matthew 24:35

One Master, One Way

"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both." - Matthew 6:24 (MSG)

We can only worship one master, because there is only one way. In today's world we face many conflict and decisions we have to make. The decisions that we make depend on where our focus is set. If our focus is set on Christ then we will surely put Him above everything else, otherwise we may start to worship idols of this world.

When talking about worshipping idols, it's not just having statues that you bow down and pray to, but anything that is placed before then one true God is an idol. Things like money, your car or even family can be your idols.

"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." - Colossians 3:2

There's no doubt about it, being Christian is not easy, the bible even says that we WILL face trials. No matter what you are going through, set your focus on God and all the problems will just fade in the background. Like in the movies when they use "depth of field", the character that they are focused on stands out from the rest.

As we focus on God, He will stand out in our life and what happens around us will not matter. Know that God is in control, He knows what's best for you.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."- Romans 8:28

What it means to lose...

There is a difference between losing a game and being beaten in a game. To lose basically means that the team did not perform to their best ability. On paper the stats could be all for that team, but if they did not execute the game then they have lost. Teams lose because of what they have done, not what the other team did. To be beaten is when you've the team has played their best and there was nothing more they could do to win.

Life is like a HUGE game for all of us, we can either win or lose in life. If you know Jesus, then you should know that we already have the victory, as long as we stick to the game plan and do our best, we cannot be beaten.

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Corinthians 15:57

On the other hand if we don't do our best, we could possibly lose. Tell yourself each day that you have the victory in Jesus and do your best to execute the game plan. Only Jesus can give you the victory, no one else can. If you want to know more about this Jesus guy, visit Hope Mission Centre or Youthopea or leave a message.

Keeping Balanced

Looking at what I do in a typical week:
# Mon: Work (9-5pm), Prayer meeting (7.30-9.30pm)
# Tues: Work (9-5pm)
# Wed: Work (9-5pm), HomeCell (8-10pm)
# Thur: Work (9-5pm)
# Fri: Work (9-5pm)
# Sat: Hope Within Reach Centre duty (10-2pm)
# Sun: Church (10-12pm), Youth (4-6pm)

If I calculate how many hours I spend for each:
# Work: 40 hours
# Activities: 10 hours

The problem that I find is that, I begin to find less and less time to spend with my family. Ideally my family could come to the activities that I attend, but unfortunately they don't. I'm going to continue praying for that though. The point I want to make is that we need to live a balanced life.

God designed us to be balanced in body, mind and spirit. I need to make sure that I keep my life balanced in terms of where I spend my time. Not being able to spend time with family as much, affects my personal relationships.

Sometimes when we have too much to do, we need to be able to learn to delegate to someone. Moses was a workaholic until Jethro (his father-in-law) opened his eyes to what he was doing.

"Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself." - Exodus 18:18

When we keep our spiritual life balanced, everything else will fall into place. Only when we live our lives in Jesus can our lives be fruitful.

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." - John 15:4

On Guard

It's ok to speed as long as there are no speed cameras or police around. I'm sure many of us do this or have done it at least once in our life. We think that it's ok to do the wrong thing as long as nobody finds out. When it comes to obeying God, we need to be extra careful that we keep watch and stay faithful for we do not know when He will come back. Sure God will forgive you of your sins, but once Jesus comes back to this earth, the time of grace will be over.

We are living in a time where we are under the grace of God, which means God is able to forgive us. However it won't stay like this forever, one day Jesus will be back. Nobody knows when it will be, except for the Father in heaven.

"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only." - Matthew 24:36

We need to be alert of the things that we do, be on guard of where we are going. Abide by the Holy Spirit, allow the spirit to lead you. When someone asks you to go to a questionable place, your warning lights should be flashing madly. Let the spirit convict you of the sins that you've committed so that you may not do them again.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to come to the end of the road and hear the voice of the Lord saying to you:

"Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord." - Matthew 25:23

No Satisfaction

As people it's natural to want more things, more money, better cars, better computers, bigger houses. When I say it is natural it does not mean that it's ok, because we are supposed to be IN the world but not OF the world. That is, we are not to abide by our fleshly or worldly desires. We need to begin to realise why do we want more things or better things. What is our motive behind it? Is it greed? Is it love of money or possessions? And realise that when we do it out of our love for money and possessions, we begin to put God second in our lives.

Not only do we put God second in our lives, but because we are relying more on material things, our lives will never be complete. Only God can fill the need in our lives. There was a saying I got from an email: "The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have."

An example would be getting a Ferrari - why get a really fast car when you're not going to end up using its full potential. Make the most of what you have, in the end we will have all our desires in heaven when it will last forever. What you have now is only temporary.

"in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." - 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Revenge with gentleness

Gentleness is what we do because of the grace of God. Gentleness is being able to control your actions so as not to harm others. In life often we are mistreated, but how do we react to them? Most people would try to take things into their own hands to make things better. We think that God is not going to do anything about it. We need to realise that God is a God that loves justice.

"For the LORD loves justice, And does not forsake His saints; They are preserved forever, But the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off." - Psalm 37:28

The world will tell us that revenge is sweet. However God's way is different, let God deal with the person or situation, He knows best. Don't fight fire with fire, instead put out those flames. God will fight for you.

Saying "NO"

All my life it has been hard for me to say "NO" to people. Paul while on missions to the Corinth faced some very tough decisions. The church had wanted him to stay, but he knew that if he stayed he would only be fulfilling a fleshly desire. We need to think about why we can't say "NO" to things. Is it because of pride? Is it because of a desire to be liked or loved? Or any other reason. Of course we shouldn't say "NO" all the time, there are times that we need to be saying "YES". Think about how you respond to things, are you responding in a way that pleases yourself or does it please God?

I've always liked to say "maybe this", "maybe that" or "I might". God is really teaching me to be decisive and answer with a "YES" or a "NO". As Yoda says: "Do or do not do. There is no try."

"But let your "Yes' be "Yes,' and your "No,' "No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one." - Matthew 5:37

The real stuff

Alot of people out there use "stuff" to fill their life. Their lives are so empty that they become obsessed with "stuff" - TV, movies, anime, drugs, sex, alcohol, etc. People just want to be able to fill that emptiness. No matter how much "stuff" you use to fill that void, nothing will be able to satisfy. Many famous people in the world fill their life with "stuff" to only end in committing suicide.

Jesus came to this world to be the "stuff" that we need. Jesus came to satisfy the need that's in our hearts. We were created with a void in our hearts and only Jesus can fill it. Jesus says:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." - John 14:6

We need to let Jesus fill that emptiness, that desire and need in your life today. He is all you need.

"And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." - John 6:35

It's about time!

Well it's been a while but I'm back from my trip to Melbourne. The trip wasn't too bad, but I did miss church, youth, homecell and prayer very much. I didn't think the trip was very exciting at all, because it was mainly work, work and more work (and also eating big dinners).

As usual we had issues with our flights - normally it's just that we were early so we go to a cafe and in the end we get on board just in time - our names must have been called almost on every flight. We left Sydney at 6.30am on Qantas. I liked the Qantas plane as it is much more comfortable than Virgin Blue, plus you get food and drinks and other things as well. On Virgin Blue nothing is free.

When we arrived in Melbourne we waited almost 15 mins for my luggage to appear, in the end it turned out my luggage didn't make it on our flight, so we had to wait for my luggage to come in from the next flight.

On the way back we were rushing to get to the airport at 8pm to make the 8.30pm flight, but we got to the airport at 8.15 and so we couldn't check in and had to take the next flight out which was at 9pm.

I'm glad that God knows best and that His timing is always perfect, God is never late nor ever early. He knows the right time for everything. We as humans think we know best, but we don't. God created us and so He is the one that knows us best. How can the created know better than the creator. God created time, not us. God was never bound by time, there is no such thing as time in heaven. Time was created for us on earth.

"To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: " - Ecclesiastes 3:1

Hearing from Hebrews

The start of my devotional study of Hebrews leads into the topic of hearing the voice of God. Not just to hear the voice but to be listening and taking it in. This means to actively react to what has been said.

What if we can't hear God very well? God has spoken to us through His Son and God is the Word. So if we continue to read the bible, we are hearing from God himself, because the Word is God. There is no excuse to say that God is not speaking to you, because He always speaks to you through His word. We just need to take time to read the Word and listen to His Word.

Sin is Sin

Have you ever had someone wrong you? Have you ever had someone say something bad about you? They could have hurt you, but can you forgive them? I know it's not easy. If you think about it, the hurt that you feel is exactly how God feels everytime you disobey Him. Yet God is gracious that He forgives you no matter how many times you have hurt Him in the past.

If God who is the almighty powerful God, who has control of everything, who doesn't even need us (it is we who need Him), yet chooses to forgive us. Who are we to refuse forgiveness of one another? When we start doing that, we are basically saying that we are better than God.

"Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."" - John 8:9-11

Jesus came not to condemn the world but to convict the world of its sin so that the people may turn from their ways and turn to God. Jesus came so that people could be forgiven of their sins, no matter how big a sin, whether it is telling a lie or committing adultery, sin is still sin to God. Yet whatever it is that we have done God is faithful and just to forgive.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." - 1 John 1:9

Let us forgive one another as Christ has forgiven you. Forgiveness not only benefits the offending party but also benefits you. As you forgive you let go of that bitterness, harbouring that bitterness will only cause yourself to be hurt even more. Eventually bitterness leads to death.

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." - Ephesians 4:31-32

Differences

Jesus is the perfect example of someone who is anti-racism. Jesus treated everyone equally, Jesus loves you just as much as He loves the next person. Back in the day, the Samaritans and Jews were not the best of friends. The Jews discriminated Samaritans, and so no Jew would even speak to a Samaritan.

One day as Jesus was on His way to Galilee, He CHOSE to go through Samaria - even though it would have taken Him longer. Jesus being a Jew spoke to a Samaritan woman, not only did He defy convention by speaking to a Samaritan, He spoke to a WOMAN - which was even less common.

Jesus knew the importance of setting our differences aside, we cannot discriminate people just because they are from a different race, or maybe they are a different colour. You and I are no better than anyone else in this world, we were all created from dust and we will go back as dust.

You will never know how much of an impact you can make by reaching out to someone. Jesus knew He had to go there, and I'm sure the Samaritans had longed for someone to speak to them. They were probably feeling a little left out.

"And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why are You talking with her?"" - John 4:27

The bible says, not one person complained about Jesus talking to the woman. The Samaritans would have been more happy than angry that a Jew actually crossed the boundary and came up to speak to one of them. In the end the people loved Jesus so much that they asked Him to stay with them for two days - which He did.

So let's take the example of Jesus and set aside our differences. God wants you to reach out everyone, He wants us to go out into the world, that includes all countries, not just Asian countries or Europeans countries, but the WHOLE world.

Greatness

The world sees greatness as something that is all powerful, to be great you must be on top of everything, to be great means to be in control at all times, to be great you cannot afford to show weakness.

The Bible talks about greatness, but in gentleness. To be great means, being able to suffer without having the spirit of revenge, to have a humble and meek spirit, not demanding rights. When we continue to humble ourselves, God will exalt you.

Jesus showed us what it means to be great. Jesus had done nothing wrong, He committed no crime and yet when He was sentenced to be crucified, He said nothing. Jesus had the power to escape from it if He wanted to, but He chose to submit to the authority. From that obedience and His gentle spirit God exalted Him to the highest place.

"You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your gentleness has made me great." - 2 Samuel 22:36

Now don't think that being humble means letting others step over the top of you. Being humble means to think of others before yourself and gentleness is a gift of the spirit, so we must always be guided by the Holy Spirit.

"But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." - Psalm 37:7-11

The Mind

Our mind is powerful tool and yet it is one of the most vulnerable parts of our body. Before we do anything, we must first think about it. Before you decide to go browsing on the Internet, you would have first thought about doing it or the thought must be present somewhere on your mind.

Satan can use this vulnerability to his advantage. When he attacks the mind, and if he is successful, he will cause you to do things you would not normally do. By being able to control our mind, Satan has control over us. This is very dangerous, we must not let Satan take a hold of our mind. The only way we can avoid this is to keep our mind set on God.

Think of it like a bag, when we fill up the bag with stuff, it becomes full and nothing else will be able to get in because it is so full. Likewise if we fill our minds with Godly things then there will be no room for Satan to fill it with worldly (sinful) things.

"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." - Colossians 3:2

Alot of the times when people try to resist temptation, they try to think about NOT doing it. In their head they might be continually thinking: "I won't do it, I won't do it...". This is where we need to realise that if you keep thinking about it, then you are still filling your mind with the temptation. The best way to go about it, is not to think about the temptation at all and only set your mind on what you need to do. That way you won't even have time to think about resisting that temptation.

Religion

Most of the time people see Christianity as a religion. This is probably because people associate religion as being connected to some kind of God. However real Christianity is far from just a religious practice. What is religion? Yes, religion does involve believing in some God, but what makes Christianity different is that, all the other religions is about DO, DO, DO.

All religions focus on what man must DO in order to gain something. You need to follow certain rules and you must DO certain things in order to be good enough. Christianity on the other hand teaches:

"But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away." - Isaiah 64:6

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," - Romans 3:23

Whatever we DO, will never be good enough for God. WOW, you might think, God is a pretty tough guy to please isn't He? The Bible says that all good things we do, no matter how great are like filthy rags to Him. We have ALL sinned and fall short of mark set by God, not one person on this Earth - no matter how good they are - has made the mark.

But I've got some good news. God loves us so much that He gave us a way to get to Him - Jesus. Jesus is the one that will DO the things required by God so that we may be able to have access to God. When Jesus came down to Earth, He came to DO the work and in the end, Jesus acknowledges that:

"...It is finished!..." - John 19:30

He DID it on the cross and the work was DONE. So as Christians we no longer have to DO anything, we just need to accept what God has DONE and let Jesus DO the things that He needs to do in our life. We are not bound by things that we need to do, but instead we need to build a relationship with Jesus. When we do that we will automatically want to DO the things that God wants us to DO.

The Greatest Miracle

"Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die." - Ezekiel 18:4

We belong to God, whether we like it or not that is the TRUTH. We are God's creation and everything on this earth belongs to Him. However God is a loving God and He doesn't treat us like objects, instead He gives us the freedom to choose.


"The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." - Ezekiel 18:20

If we choose to live a sinful life then we must bear the consequences. Choosing to live in a sinful life is choosing to live in condemnation. We are responsible for our own actions, just because your parents are righteous does not automatically make you "ok". Everyone must make their own decision, Jesus says "that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" - John 3:16. Notice how Jesus basically says that "anyone" can believe and not perish, it's not any "families" or any "relatives". We are accountable for our own actions, there is nobody else to blame for our own actions but ourself.


"Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord GOD, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live?" - Ezekiel 18:23

God doesn't like to see His creation suffer. He doesn't take pleasure when He sees you struggling on your own. God wants everyone to come to Him and turn from our wicked ways. The will of God is so that the people of this earth may receive salvation.

What are you doing with your life today? Are you living in God or out of God? Is your life controlled by the flesh (humanly desires) or is it controlled by the spirit of God?

Living for God is definitely not the easiest thing to do, in fact it is the hardest, but in the end it is all worthwhile, because you can be assured that Jesus is the only way, the only truth and the only life worth living.

Set Free!

Today I am longer bound by the strains and bondage that has plagued me over the past one and a half years - my braces. My teeth are now free, and boy does it feel gooood. Praise God! I don't have to worry about getting food stuck in my braces. The only thing left is that I have to wear a retainer for a while, which isn't so bad I guess.

Work has been so hectic the last week or so. A few clients are having problems putting orders into their accounting system. Plus we got a Melbourne trade fair coming up as well, so there's alot of preparation yet to be done for that one. Melbourne is the BIG one, there will be over 1000 companies attending that fair. It's so big, they had to take out the entire exhibition, a tent outside, plus another building not too far away from the exhibition centre.

The fair is going to run for 5 days, I can't wait to see it, but at the same time because it's going to go over the weekend, I'm not too keen on missin church again...

Brisbane

I'm in Brisbane now and I'm loving the weather up here, not too hot and not too cold... it's just right! It's a shame I'm stuck indoors doing work stuff.

Today is the end of Day 1 of the 2006 Brisbane Trade Fair. For us it went quite well, in that there weren't too many problems with our system. We have 18 clients here in this fair using our scanXpress system - mobile ordering system, 6 of them had no problems whatsoever, which was great.

Afterwards we had a nice dinner, I had some barramundi with chips and salad. Tried some apple beer, which wasn't too bad. Tasted abit like apple cider. For desert I had a blueberry and white chocolate cheesecake and that was fabulously delicious.

Lost motivation...

For some reason, I've have lost the motivation to write in my blog now, well this may only be a phase I'm going through. Anyhow, I finally applied for a credit card, so I should be getting it soon I hope.

Benny Hinn Miracle Crusade was totally awesome! The power of God was amazing! Well when you got over 10,000 people worshipping God, that's what you get. When we get to heaven, there'll be millions worshipping God, how much better would that be!
So many people got healed on that weekend at the crusade, Jesus is a healing Jesus.

I'm going to Melbourne this Thursday for a conference being held by one of our clients. Then I've got a Brisbane trip coming up the following week. Work is already getting quite hectic, so much to do, yet so little time.

Jerseys are here!

Youthopea designed some jerseys for us to wear when we have Youth Cup Games. We waited and waited... and waited... and they have finally arrived (2 days ago). They looked great and as an added bonus we can share the gospel with our jersey.

The jersey has 4 colours: black, red, gold and white.

Black: signifies the sin of mankind
Red: represents the blood of Jesus
Gold: because of Jesus' death we can be made righteous as pure gold
White: through righteousness we are made holy

Let it snow..

With the snow season around the corner our youth group is going to have our unofficial annual snow trip. This is going to be the first time I've gone with them, previously I had uni and other reasons so I couldn't go. This year I am definitely going. I've already bought snow pants, snow jacket and gloves. Winter sports is pretty expensive.

It's so cold this year, I think there's going to be plenty of snow!

Hope Within Reach will be having their first training session tomorrow. The session is called "Online" and it is (very) basic IT training. I spent this evening setting up the computers, hopefully they'll be ok for tomorrow.

The 4 letter word

Everyone wants to be loved, but do you know what is true love? Love is more than just a feeling. Love is spelt T-I-M-E. Giving your time is one of the main ways to love someone. If you think about it, if you loved someone or something, then you would probably want to spend most of your time in doing that thing. Why is time so important? When you give your time, you are essentially giving a part of your L-I-F-E. Those 2 hours you just spent hanging out with your friends you can never take back.

It's all about making sacrifices. Jesus showed what true love meant, when He died for our sins on the cross. He gave his whole L-I-F-E for all of us and the whole T-I-M-E He was on Earth it was for our sake.

That is true LOVE!

Youthopea has been doing community surveys the past couple of weeks. It was awesome to be able to go out there in the Parramatta community to be able to talk to people and get them become aware of Youthopea.

Choir practices are back on again! We're learning a new song, it's called "Magnificent and Holy" you can listen to it from the album 'Real' by Israel.

My bosses are back from holidays now. I've been working on my own the last 2 weeks, it was an interesting experience. I definitely learnt alot. I hope they let me go to the snow on the 18th July.

We have Soccer this saturday for YCG and Youthopea are getting new jerseys. Woohoo! It looks awesome!

I've been playing guitar for Homecell, you can read about the testimony in the Church newsletter, next edition should be coming out soon!

Stay tuned for more...^^

Count your blessings

I finally got to wash my car today, although it rained straight after I finished. Oh well.. at least it's been washed. Now my car is quite old, it's a 1988 (I think) Honda Civic. So it's not the greatest car in the world, but thank God for blessing me with a car, when there are so many people out there who don't even have a car.

There are so many other blessings I could thank God for:
- My Powerbook G4 (that I'm using to type this up)
- Shelter over my head and a bed to sleep in
- Finances that has always met my needs
- My mobile phone
- An incredible church (check out links section)
- Wonderful friends
- Loving family
- A JOB!
- Supportive pastors, leaders and brothers and sisters in Christ
- A brain
- A healthy body
- My whole life

the list could go on and on...

So why don't you count your blessings today and think about what God has blessed you with.

Giving to Receive

The Pearl Necklace
Author: Unknown

The cheerful girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them: a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box.

"Oh please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please!"

Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face. "A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma."

As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.

Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere ~ Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.

Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night when he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"

"Oh yes, Daddy. You know that I love you."

"Then give me your pearls."

"Oh, Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess ~ the white horse from my collection. The one with the pink tail. Remember, Daddy? The one you gave me. She's my favorite."

"That's okay, Honey. Daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss. About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"

"Daddy, you know I love you."

"Then give me your pearls."

"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my babydoll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is so beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."

"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one. Daddy loves you." And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.

A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian-style. As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek. "What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"

Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver,she finally said, "Here, Daddy. It's for you."

With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's kind daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny. He had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her genuine treasure. So like our heavenly Father. What are you hanging on to?

Shopping Spree

Today I've set a new record for the most amount of money I've spent when going shopping - just under $350. Today I went to Westfield (one of the shopping centres we have here in Sydney) and walked around for about 2 hours. I came out with 2 business shirts, a pair of dress shoes, a woollen coat and a long sleeved T-shirt (which I got for free with the coat).

Come to think of it, I just spent almost $350 in 2 hours...wow...that can't be very healthy (for my bank account anyway). I've justified my spending with the fact that I haven't gone shopping since late last year (or early this year).

Anyway, I'm going to need to pack my bags since I'm heading to Adelaide tomorrow afternoon. Yet another business trip. Hopefully I won't have to to work too hard.

John 3:16

A little boy was selling newspapers on the corner, the people were in and out of the cold. The little boy was so cold that he wasn't trying to sell many papers.

He walked up to a policeman and said, "Mister, you wouldn't happen to know where a poor boy could find a warm place to sleep tonight would you? You see, I sleep in a box up around the corner there and down the alley and it's awfully cold in there for tonight. Sure would be nice to have a warm place to stay."

The policeman looked down at the little boy and said, "You go down the street to that big white house and you knock on the door. When they come out the door you just say John 3:16, and they will let you in."

So he did. He walked up the steps and knocked on the door, and a lady answered. He looked up and said, "John 3:16." The lady said, "Come on in, Son."

She took him in and she sat him down in a split bottom rocker in front of a great big old fireplace, and she went off. The boy sat there for a while and thought to himself: John 3:16...I don't understand it, but it sure makes a cold boy warm.

Later she came back and asked him "Are you hungry?"
He said, "Well, just a little. I haven't eaten in a couple of days, and I guess I could stand a little bit of food."

The lady took him in the kitchen and sat him down to a table full of wonderful food. He ate and ate until he couldn't eat any more. Then he thought to himself: John 3:16...Boy, I sure don't understand it but it sure makes a hungry boy full.

She took him upstairs to a bathroom to a huge bathtub filled with warm water, and he sat there and soaked for a while. As he soaked, he thought to himself: John 3:16...I sure don't understand it, but it sure makes a dirty boy clean. You know, I've not had a bath, a real bath, in my whole life. The only bath I ever had was when I stood in front of that big old fire hydrant as they flushed it out. The lady came in and got him. She took him to a room, tucked him into a big old feather bed, pulled the covers up around his neck, kissed him goodnight and turned out the lights. As he lay in the darkness and looked out the window at the snow coming down on that cold night, he thought to himself: John 3:16...I don't understand it but it sure makes a tired boy rested.

The next morning the lady came back up and took him down again to that same big table full of food. After he ate, she took him back to that same big old split bottom rocker in front of the fireplace and picked up a big old Bible.

She sat down in front of him and looked into his young face. "Do you understand John 3:16?" she asked gently. He replied, "No, Ma'am, I don't. The first time I ever heard it was last night when the policeman told me to use it." She opened the Bible to John 3:16 and began to explain
to him about Jesus. Right there, in front of that big old fireplace, he gave his heart and life to Jesus. He sat there and thought: John 3:16 - don't understand it, but it sure
makes a lost boy feel safe.

You know, I have to confess I don't understand it either, how God was willing to send His Son to die for me, and how Jesus would agree to do such a thing. I don't understand the agony of the Father and every angel in heaven as they watched Jesus suffer and die. I don't understand the intense love for ME that kept Jesus on the cross till the end. I don't understand it, but it sure does make life worth living.

John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Moving Mountains

Everyone has their own problems in life - myself included. Even the richest person on earth has problems, even mother Theresa would have had problems. However when we claim victory in Jesus Christ, He will cause your mountains to tremble and get you through your problems.

This can only happen if you believe and receive it for yourself. We will never have the strength to move our mountains (problems) on our own, but our faith should be in the Lord that He will move the mountains in our lives.

Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; - Isaiah 40:4

On the other hand sometimes God causes these obstacles to be present in our lives. Why? because they will build and refine you as a person. Your character is built up through circumstances.

And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. - Romans 5:3-4

Remember that the problems will always be temporary and that there is a great reward on the other side of the mountain.

God bless

Communicating the right way

When people think about communication the first thing that would most likely come up is talking. Communicating is not all about talking, but the most important part is listening. You may or may not have heard this before, but God created us to have two ears and one mouth. So in essence we need to listen twice as much as we speak. Unfortunately most of us don't listen anywhere near enough.

If you think God doesn't speak to you, well you're wrong. The truth is, He does, all the time. The only reason you don't hear Him is because you're not listening! You either refuse to believe what He is saying to you, you ignore Him or you lack the knowledge. God speaks in many different ways, but it's not much use if you don't listen. If God can speak to you, so can the devil. So becareful that you're not listening to the wrong voice. The devil may sound all good and righteous, but since when does He care whether you are a good person or not. The only thing He's interested in, is getting you as far away from God as possible.

A friend of mine said that the reason why guys have selective hearing when it comes to women, is because women's voices are of a higher frequency. These higher frequencies are more prone to filtering, thus making women harder to listen to. Interesting theory indeed.

More Godly Wisdom

Got my last 2 wisdom teeth taken out today. So now I have no more wisdom teeth, which means no more teeth to be pulled out..YAY! This time the post-surgery pain seemed to be worse than the first time. More nausea and headaches, but I'm sure that in a couple of days I should be ok.

Now that I have less (human) wisdom, BUT more room for Godly wisdom - quote from Chim.

But Nevertheless...

...not what I will, but as You will and desire. Matthew 26:39 (AMP)

There is no secret to living life to it's fullest. This can only be achieved when we are abiding by the will of God. He has an awesome and marvelous plan for ALL of YOU - Jeremiah 29:11. Sometimes we are too stubborn to let His will to be done in our lives, we keep praying to God, to have this and that. You have to realise however that God's plan is much, much better. We may not understand it, because God's mind is above ours, but it takes faith.

If a family member is dying, we would naturally pray that he/she would get better, but can we trust God enough for His will to be done? Even though that means he/she would die. God knows the big picture, He doesn't make mistakes. So next time you pray try to always include those two words - "but nevertheless" not what I will, but as You will.

When we begin to follow in His will, God will also grant your heart's desires - Psalm 37:4, how awesome is that? So how do we know what is His will? First you need to have faith and believe in Jesus and by reading the Bible, God will show you everything that you need to know. It may not be straight away but He will in due time.

JESUS is RISEN indeed

Do you know what Easter is all about? It's not about eating lots chocolate eggs, it's not about rabbits, it's not even about seeing your relatives. Easter is all about Jesus! The one that died a horrendous death, after being mocked and tortured. He did all that for YOU!

Jesus was not obligated to do it, He chose to do it out of His compassion and love for us. God could have easily wiped the whole earth and started all over again with better people, but He chose not to. When Jesus died, He knew that there would be people that would still reject Him, but He took a chance anyway.

So the work by Jesus is done. It is now up to YOU. Jesus' death has now given you three choices - will you:

• Mock Him
• Ignore Him
• Believe Him
  

My prayer is that you will choose to believe Him, because once you do, only then will you find a life worth living for. Not only that, God's promised that you will live a life to its FULLEST and that he has plans not to harm you BUT to prosper you. And what did you have to do? NOTHING...nada...zilch...the only thing that you need to do is to believe and accept Jesus as your Lord and personal saviour.

Good Friday indeed

Corny joke for today:
What is a computer man's (one that works in the computer industry) least favourite game?
Tips (or tag) because he is always the IT man =)

Anyhow, thank you Jesus for dying for ALL our sins (big and small).
Thank You for the cross Lord,
Thank You for the nail pierced hands,
Bearing all my sin and shame,
In love You came and gave amazing grace.

Thank you Jesus that we also get a holiday! No work today, except of course house work. Did alot of cleaning today. Spent the day from 10am to almost 3pm just on cleaning the house. After that I got invited to go to my friend's church for their Good Friday service. It was great, had a little trouble singing the Indo songs because I don't really know them, but it was an awesome time of praise and worship and prayer (turned out to be more like a prayer meeting).

Afterwards we _happened_ to run into some photo sticker place and it's amazing how much people would pay for just a few little stickers. One booth was $15 for 4 photos. Now to any ordinary guy that is not cheap at all. Yet people would gladly pay that kind of money. Only after having experienced myself, I realised that it's not just about taking a photo, it's about the fun in taking a photo and also being able to _decorate_ your photos with _stuff_. So you could be taking for photos for 5 mins and spend over half an hour just _decorating_ your photos with hearts, stars, bunny ears, etc. Of course the more people you get into the photo the merrier (and cheaper because you can split the money).

You may wonder why do people (girls especially) like taking sticker photos. Apart from the fun of doing it, I realise that everyone's face in the sticker photo is clean! So the photo actually makes them look better, by not showing pimples or any other blemishes. Well that's my _photo-sticker_ theory.

Learning to drive again

I've started driving the manual car recently - it feels like as if I'm learning to drive all over again (but not as bad). Just need to get used to changing gears and coordinating my hands. It can be pretty fun sometimes and sometimes it can be quite tiring. So far I haven't been stalling too much and I'm getting better the more I drive it. So hopefully in about a week or two it should be a piece of cake.

Falling With Style

Last saturday during the basketball game at YCG (Youth Cup Games), I was "flying" or in the words of Woody - "falling with style". How did it happen? you say. Well it was all because I jumped up for a shot block, but it was mistimed and the shooter bumped right into me while I was mid air and knocked me even higher. At which point my body flipped until it was horizontal to the floor. By now gravity had caught up and I could see the floor right under me. I thought - "uh oh" - and before you know it, I was rolling on the floor.

I thought I was going to break some bones, but praise God all I got were some bruises. I sat out the rest of the game but we won anyway so it was all good.

This week I've also got the office to myself for Wednesday and Thursday. You might think that - "cool, you can do whatever you like man" - no you're wrong. I think it was probably worse than having my boss there in the office, because I had to take all the phone calls and other office duties. Plus I had my own work to do as well. It's a good experience, but I wouldn't want to do it for a prolonged period of time. Hopefully we can get more employees so I won't be by myself. Anyone interested in doing Palm OS programming?

This is gonna be a relatively long post because I've lost my Internet connection for a while now.

Choir is back again after a very very long break. We're doing a performance for Easter special. Everyone is invited!! So come!! Contact me for more info or visit the Hope Mission Centre website.

Musician To Be

Yes that's right! I am a musician to be, I've always wanted to play an instrument ever since I was about 15. Now, 7 years down the track, I've finally got my act together to spend some time learning the guitar. Well it's been 3 weeks now, and I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to play at least one song.

OBS (Online Bible Study) just got a whole new look. To subscribe to the daily devotionals go here and type your email in the subscribe form. You can also read the content from the website itself.

Are you calling me fat?

This was brought up by one of my friends, it's a very catchy statement. Always gets another person's attention. Just recently I've noticed that I actually gained some weight - just a little bit. This has never happened before, I'm usually always around the same weight. So this is quite strange for me. It's probably due to the fact that since I started to do full time work, I'm just sitting in the office all day, whereas at uni I would be walking around the uni to get to classes.

I should really be exercising more to keep fit. Discipline is lacking at the moment...

Cool weather

It's finally getting cooler, woohoo! I think the summer just went on for way too long. It's already in the second half of March and we are just starting to feel the cold. Praise God that we have seasons, because I'd hate to be stuck in the heat all year round.

There is a season for everything

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace" - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Say NO! to piracy

Had a nice debate today over ethics of software with my bosses. I used to be like most people out there downloading whatever software I could so that I wouldn't have to buy anything (yes, c'mon admit it, we've all done it in some form or another - intentionally and unintentionally). When I talk to friends telling them that they should buy things legitimately their excuse is usually it's because they don't have the money to spend and they think that people who make money from it are already rich enough.

Well they didn't get rich by stealing did they? They worked hard and earned their money. So who are we (the ones that don't do the hard work) to say that they are ripping us off. A lot of time and effort is spent in computer software, it may look like it would be easy for developers to just make something. Trust me it's not, there are plenty of things that happen in the background.

God's principle is that we reap what we sow. So if you want to sow, piracy/theft in your life, then that is what you will reap later on. Sow good things in your life and you will reap good things later on.

Wisdom teeth not so wise

This must be a new record for me - I haven't blogged in over 2 weeks. Well I'm finally back, I just had a surgery yesterday on my wisdom teeth (2 on the right side - top and bottom). I went to the surgery sat on the chair and a couple of hours later came out of surgery. Didn't remember a thing while I was in there, I guess that's the point of it. The doctor explained to me what he would do though.

You've probably guessed why I needed to get my wisdom teeth taken out. Well if you haven't it's because my teeth were on its side rather than going straight up - so much for teeth that is supposed to be wisdom teeth, it can't even grow straight. So to avoid complications later on the doctor had to remove them. From what I was told prior to the surgery he would remove each tooth by opening up the gum and cutting each tooth in four pieces and then taking them out one at a time. Afterwards he would stitch up the gum and voila! All done. Sounds easy right? Well easy for the doctor, but I have to put up with the pain and not being able to eat normally for about a week or so.

Thank you to all the people who prayed for me, I really appreciate it. Praise God that I was able to get through it ok. Now after just having surgery yesterday, I am able to go back to work (not that I really want to) but my boss would like me to go back and I believe God has given me the strength to do so.

One more thing: UniCell for UTS (University of Technology Sydney) and UNSW (University of New South Wales) starts this week. (UniCell UTS has already had theirs yesterday). The details are:

UTS: Tuesday [ 12:30-1:30pm ] @ The Loft
UNSW: Thursday [ 1:00-2-00pm ] @ The Library

For more details, let me know.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." - James 1:5

God bless!

Why did the bird cross the road?

Today is yet another busy - but nevertheless good - day in the life of Victor. In the morning while driving to work, I saw something that was so cool. I saw a bird, it flew down from the trees onto the side road. It started to walk to get to the other side of the road, then as I drove closer it sensed or saw or heard the car coming and it just stopped, maybe a metre from where the cars were driving. Now usually birds would fly because they'd get frightened that they might get hit. This one just stood there. I was amazed at the bravery of this little bird, it stood there as if it were a person waiting for the car to pass. Once I had passed, it scampered across the road to the other side. I thought that was cool, then again I thought, why didn't the bird just fly across? it would have been safer.

So the question still stands. Why did the bird cross the road? Maybe the bird was too lazy to fly, who knows.

Run forest! Run!

Well today I finally started doing my morning jog again, put my new shoes to use. I didn't feel too tired after it, even though I haven't done it for at least 3-4 months. Right now, I'm just doing 1 lap around the block, but later on hopefully I'll be able to do more.

At work I was by myself most of the day, because the other people (my bosses) had to go see some clients. So I had the whole office to myself. The only thing was, I had no idea what to do, because we had done alot of the work already before, so there wasn't that much work to do. Except of course more programming work, but I needed more info on what I had to do. So in the end I just tried doing bits and pieces here and there. Tried to not waste time, oh and I made use of the time to arrange things - like going to my friend's youth - but in the end it didn't work out anyway. Oh well, maybe next time.

I got a surprise from my bosses when they got back, which was nice. They bought me Simon Johnson hand made chocolate truffles. Actually I haven't even tried it yet, just took it out of my bag now. I'm sure they're very nice though.

Ok one of my fans is getting abit impatient so I'll write more later. =)

New shoes

I finally bought my new shoes today! I think the last time I bought a shoe was at least 1.5 years ago. I didn't think that was that bad until a friend of mine told me how she buys on average one every few months. I don't know what's with girls and shoes and handbags... it's a mystery...I guess I know there are shoes for different occasions but only one pair for each is enough, I guess the problem there is that they have to match with outfits whereas with guys we pretty much have similar outfits everytime...hmmm starting to make sense.. hehe

Now that I got proper sport shoes, I think I'm going to start doing my morning runs (NOT the toilet one) again. I still need to get new dress shoes though, probably buy them sometime this coming week. The ones I have now are the same ones I've had since my year 12 formal, and it's not looking that great. I don't want to spend money, but I guess when you have to, you got no choice...

Time is of the essence

I've been really slack in regards to blogging, and maybe other things too. I guess it was timely that this week HomeCell was about challenges in doing both school/work and ministry. I need to make the most of my time and the best way to do ministry is to involve God in every aspect of our lives (which includes outside of church/youth).

Work has been quite interesting lately, because I've been doing alot of more practical work (rather than documentation) and also interacted with clients. Praise God also that I don't really have to buy a car, since we found a really cheap car for $500 and so we'll be using that for at least a year. Next year I believe God will provide me the finances to buy a new car.

"Whatever you've received from the Lord, you are able to give to others" - Matthew 10:8

God bless

THE Will

Work seems to be getting abit less directed now, because we have so much to do and I don't know where to begin. I feel bad when I keep bothering my boss asking him what i should do. I guess I just have to try to find things to do and do them. Then again I don't want to be doing the wrong things.

The first official home cell of the year was today. It was a combined home cell, we will be having combined home cell for the month of February. I found out I am no longer in my old cell group but I've been moved to another one. I trust there must be a good reason for doing so, not really sure what that is. I guess now I don't have to travel as far, which is good!

I'll share abit about what we learnt at home cell.

I've never received a will before but I bet it would be pretty exciting being able to inherit wealth or property. However God's will is even better! Since God owns everything when we as children of God inherit his kingdom how much would we have? well...to say the least...HEAPS! How cool is that? God's will is always to bless us because when we are His children, just like how a good earthly father would, but even more. An earthly father is still human and is prone to mistakes. God is a perfect God and has a perfect plan for His children.

"For I know the plans I have for you, plans not to harm you but to prosper you and to give you a hope and a future" - Jeremiah 29:11

God bless

Just for fun

Had a great time today chilling at home. Thanks to my friends for coming over and hanging with me. This kind of stuff doesn't normally happen at my place, usually at other people's place, so yea it was nice to be at home for a change. Good thing is, I don't have to go anywhere haha. We should have it at my place more often ^^

It's been a while since I blogged huh... well I was at Melbourne most of last week so I'll blame it on that. Melbourne was alot of fun though, but at the same time alot of hard work. I was "working" over 12 hours each day. So because of that I didn't get to watch the tennis matches I wanted to watch and we didn't have much time to go shopping or go around Melbourne at all. It's all good though, after all I didn't pay a single cent while I was there.

Work, work, work

Hey guys and girls, so It's been 2 days here in Melbourne. A quick recap of what's happened so far.

Wed 18th - arrived in Melbourne around 9am and got something to eat and after that we pretty much went straight to see a client - Get Fresh - (haven't even checked in to the apartment). We stayed with that client until about 5.30pm since we had another meeting to see a "potential" client. Then we went back to Get Fresh to sort out some problems they were having, so we ended up leaving Get Fresh around 9.30pm.

Thu 19th - today - another very long day. Got up at 8.00 am and left the apartment at 8.30am to have breakfast. Went to the exhibition centre at 10am to help clients setup their stands. Stayed there ALL day and worked the whole time (didn't even have lunch). We finally finished at around 7.30pm and went straight to dinner. Dinner was really nice though, I had scallops for entree and a Flounder for main course. Topped up with Tiramisu for dessert....

I expect tmr will be another long day... but it's all good... learning things as I go. Hopefully I'll get time to look around Melbourne.

From Superman to Iron Chef

A friend had his bucks party on Saturday. Oh man... I certainly would not want to be in his shoes at the time. The guys made him dress up as Superman and got him to run around Darling Harbour (for those who don't know, ALOT of people are always at Darling Harbour). So here he is making a fool of himself in front of hundreds of people, running around in a Superman suit. Then he was made to get as many people to take photos WITH him and also ASK for donations so that he could buy a child a movie ticket. Eventually he did it, raising $13 for the ticket. He did very well, go Superman!!

The next day it was the battle of the Iron Chef, and the venue - Youthopea. 6 Iron Chefs battle it out, it was great to see people bring out their cooking talents. The food was brilliant to say the least. I feel like cooking now, or at least try (since I'm not very good...)

Well next week should be more fun, but sadly I won't be there since I will be going to Melbourne for a business/work trip. This is my first time travelling for work - well I only did start a couple of months ago. I'm excited and nervous at the same time, but I think it should be ok. Hopefully the clients will be cooperative...

You may hear from me while I'm down there. I'll be gone for about 8 days. If not you'll hear from me when I get back =)

God bless!

A New Generation

The big announcement today. Apple has unveiled their first intel based Macs. The specs look sweet. I want one now! Problem is I need to buy a phone and then buy a car first. So I guess it'll have to wait till later on. Hopefully Apple will release another revision to fix any bugs in this release.

If you haven't noticed I've also introduced something new. The title is "Divine Thoughts..." not "Wandering Thoughts..." I figured it's time to stop wandering around and actually start heading somewhere. Where are we going? You'll just have to wait and see =)

Burning ... for God

What a weekend! On saturday about ten of us went to Wattamolla beach. That was cool, I haven't been there for over 6 years. It's a really nice place because it's not only a beach, but it has a fresh water inland lagoon - quite shallow mostly so it's good to play around in. On the downside I realised that night that I got burnt because I didn't put sunscreen on...bummer...and it kills!

Sundays are always heaps of fun. First up is church then we go have lunch together and then back to church for Youthopea. This week we had a games night so that was fun! Afterwards we have dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. That was yummy and then to top it off, we had Max Brenner for dessert, that was even yummier! Chocolates galore! Unfortunately my back was still burning and hurting...

Today it's time to go back to work. The day didn't turn out so bad, cos I managed to do a few things and learnt some things along the way. Ate quite a lot today, since I bought my own lunch and then my boss makes fruit salad so I had some. For dinner went to the Pastor's house (since we have Monday night prayer meeting) and we had a Singaporean dish. When you eat there, you eat until you are full. Thanks to God for all the blessings.

To top it all off, on the way home I wanted to fill up petrol. I saw one service station had it for 115 cents/litre - which is quite expensive compared to normal on Mondays. So I was hoping it would be cheaper at the place I normally go to (Shell). On the way there I pass a different Shell gas station (same company but different location). I looked and saw that they were selling at 116 cents/litre. I was not happy at all, so I say (exact words) "The other Shell will have petrol for 114 cents/litre, in Jesus name". 5 mins later I get there and guess what? They had it for 114 cents/litre. I was just reminded... I should have asked for more... sometimes we limit to what God can do, but God can do ALL things!

Yes, I'm still burning, it's hurting, but I'm going to continue burning (until my sunburn heals) and of course after that I'll keep burning for God no matter how painful.

Back to work

Got a good workout yesterday, carrying tonnes and tonnes of soil, pebbles and sand. My hands are still hurting from carrying all those bucket loads.

Today is back to work day, for me anyway (most people were already back to work yesterday). So I got an extra day, YAY! Well it's good to know that I'm going to be getting money again, I so need some right now, after all the stuff I bought for Christmas. Then I got other stuff I need to buy right now as well.

DotCom is back on again, DotCom stands for Discipling OThers for the COMmission. Basically it's where we learn the bible in a one on one situation. So at the moment I am a disciple of my DotCOM leader. Later once I have gone through it I will be able to discple others too, so in essence we are trying to teach the bible to as many as possible. DotCOM is run by Hope Mission Centre.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone! I hope you all have a blessed 2006. How awesome was today, today was incredibly HOT... we had an awesome church service held at midnight and in the morning some of us went to the beach to see the first sunrise of 2006. Today was HOT weatherwise as well as the temperatures reached up to 45 degrees celsius (113 degrees fahrenheit). Whenever we'd step out into the sun, it felt as if we were being poked by a scorching iron rod.

Again lack of sleep got to us again. I think I'm going to have another early night tonight.

Prawning

We (some friends from church and I) endeavoured to the south with the objective to catch 5kg of prawns. Unfortunately because of a few delays we did not leave as planned, but we were eventually on the road. Leaving at about 12am we arrived at Primbee at almost 2am in the morning. Straight away we headed to the waters and our hunt for prawns began. We were going in quite a good pace until we ran out of time. In the end we didn't manage to get as much as we would have liked, in fact we didn't catch that many at all - roughly 0.5 kg (about 1 lbs). It was fun nonetheless, the girls did well spotting prawns and the guys were great at scooping them up with the nets.

Afterwards we headed to the beach to relax and most of us managed to get some sleep. We also cooked our catch (prawns and some fish) on the barbeque and had them for lunch. Great outing, even though there were countless mosquitoes (I personally have over 20 bites on me).

Lately the days have been going comparatively slower, I think due to staying home all day. I guess it's good to be able to relax and take things abit easier. Can't wait for NYE though. It's going to be a blast, we're having our Sunday service at 12.05am. It's going to be a first (for us anyway), very exciting indeed.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! Don't forget the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus is the reason for the season. Today was the debut performance of the Hope Church Choir and Drama team together. It turned out ok, I think we could have done better though, but in the end I think the most important thing was that the people enjoyed it (I hope).

This week has been filled with lots of eating, fun and laughter. On Thursday, my work had our Christmas lunch at Kobe Jones, which is a Japanese restaurant in Darling Harbour (City). The food was quite nice, however it was quite expensive.

Friday was the first day of Christmas holiday, so I spent the day cleaning the house and did some Christmas shopping. At night did some more eating since one of my uni friends had a birthday.

Saturday had a Christmas Eve special service at the Pastor's house, and yet some more eating and lots of fun too. Played a game called Balderdash. If you haven't played it, try it! (It's a boardgame)

Today was awesome! Christmas service really hit it off at Hope Church. Great to see alot of people turning up for it. Afterwards went to the beach, but I didn't swim. Just stayed on the sand playing othello with my friend and just talked for most of the time. Finally did some more eating at the place of a guy from church, he had a barbecue going, the food was totally superb.

Blessed

I'm baaaack... CAMP was absolutely incredible! Man I was so blessed just to be there. We learn't heaps about Revelation and the second coming of Christ. Hearing about all those terrible things (even terrible is an understatement) that's going to happen to the people who are not Christians. I hope I can get all my family and friends saved so that they won't have to go through the pain and agony. It will be so bad that people will want to die but they can't even kill themselves..... if you're reading this right now, I hope you will seriously think about where you stand right now. I pray that you will make the right decision, because I don't want to see anyone go through the eternal agony that will happen on this earth... and later in hell...

For those that have chosen to have Christ in their life, you can be assured that you will not go through the tribulation, but you must be faithful to the end... or it will mean nothing...

We had awards for a number of things and my team (ALPHA.. go ALPHA!) shared the best SWG (Serving With Gladness) team award. Which means the best team in serving others through doing stuff like encouraging, doing favours like getting food for them, drinks, etc.

Camp was so much fun! I can't wait for the next one =)

On another note, I went back to work today. Spent most of the day trying to figure out a problem one of the clients had with their printing. So I received quite a few phone calls and made quite a few as well. It's all good, at least it wasn't boring.

Church CAMP!

Leaving for camp in less than 12 hours! Woohoo! I'll be away for a few days...don't miss me too much haha... doesn't seem like many people will anyway... ciao!

On the third day of work...

...my true love came to me....NOT! hehe

I missed writing about the second day >< well the second day wasn't too exciting, except as I was about to go home I got a scare. I actually filled up my car with petrol and it cost about $25. I had no cash on me and I thought I had about $30 in the bank and so I could use my bankcard to pay. So I went up to the counter to pay and what happens.... "Transaction declined!"... I tried it again and the same thing happened... So I go to the ATM there to check my balance, and it turns out I only had $19 in my account. Then I started freaking (but not really, since I'm usually a calm person). I remembered that I had some coins in the car. I went back to the car to get the coins and there were $9 worth of coins..phew..
In the end I managed to pay it with my $9 of coins and the rest of it using my bankcard. Just today I received my pay (from my old job) so everything is ok now.

Earlier in the day I was given the "special" task of researching good notebooks (laptops) I would like for myself. It sounded awesome, but man it's hard work.

Today I started learning about Satellite Forms - the development tool to create the programs on Palm devices. It was pretty cool, I made a few small programs to try it out. So I'll be doing more of that later on.

2 more sleeps till camp... I can't wait.

First day

Had my first day of work at the new job. Nothing exiting really, spent half the day trying to install programs into my laptop (that they gave me). Since it was so slow, they might be giving me a better one. Then only did some actual work towards the last few hours where I started doing some evaluations on the scanXpress application.

Today I learnt what cous cous are. I've never eaten them before, but today I had it for lunch, it was pretty nice. If you don't know what they are, they are kinda like a rice replacement. Looks like small yellow grains, and it's actually made of wheat I think.

Trivia night a success

Trivia night was a big success overall and also for our team, being the winners and all hehe. Our home-made buzzers worked well, which was encouraging to see. The questions were very well thought out and nice to see some variety in the questions as well. I think the whole Trivia organising committee did an awesome job!

Hope Church Camp is coming up this Friday, it's stilll not too late to register. Get the registration form from http://www.hopemissioncentre.com. I can' t wait for camp, it is going to be AWESOME! We've got people from overseas registered in the camp. So register NOW and don't miss out...

Feeling hot hot hot

Man last few days has been pretty hot, a couple of days ago it reached 40 degrees celcius (I think that would be 104 degrees fahrenheit). Definitely was not a good day to be going out. As soon as I stepped outside, I would start sweating. That was the worst it got so far anyway, lately it's cooled abit. Still hot nonetheless. I'd do winter over summer anyday I think... but my favourite is spring, not too cold and not too hot, it's just right.

Stayed at home today, for most of the time anyway. Feels like I haven't stayed home for a while, always been going out either to run errands or out with friends. It was good to stay home today I guess, gave me some time to take time out and relax. Took an afternoon nap, which I have probably never done in quite some time now. Finally got my room cleaned up abit, so the days didn't turn out so bad after all.

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Youthopean of the year

Function-Y was on today, we had so much fun. This was our last "official" Youthopea (our youth group) meeting. I won the Youthopean of the year award, which is pretty cool. Totally unexpected, but praise God for everything He's done in my life. There were other awards as well like: best dressed, humble, helpful, encouraging and dedicated. They were won by others Youthopeans. Next week we're having trivia, so if you want to find out more check out the Youthopea website.

I got a second interview for the Amazon.com job I applied for. Again totally unexpected because I didn't think the first interview went too well. Since I already got a job I'll just do the interview but I might not be able to accept the job. After all the job will be based in Seattle...

Moving on

Well I guess it's time to move on. Praise God! I got a new job at IDFX (http://www.idfx.com.au) and I'll be starting next week. IDFX is a small IT company, and because it's only a small company, I'll be doing a little bit of everything, from development to customer service. Some of the good things to look forward to is that I'll get to travel around (Australia) for now. This is mainly because IDFX has clients which are based around Australia.

The location of the job is not very public-transport-friendly so that means I'm gonna have to get a car so I can drive to work. Pray that I will get a car and not just an ordinary one, but a good one.

Shurely good

Bought the Shure e3c sound isolating earphones today! It's great! At first it was ordinary, but the more you use it (known as burning in) the better the sound is becoming. Because it goes right inside the ear, it was somewhat uncomfortable at first, but the more you wear it the more you get used to it. I've been wearing it for only a few hours and it's much more comfortable almost to the point that I can barely feel it.

Well as they always say, you get what you pay for. I'm definitely getting what I paid for - it wasn't cheap that's for shure .. hehe

ALL done

Finally finished marking! yay! Been working heaps this week. On Tuesday I worked for 11 hrs (10 am - 8pm), Wednesday - 7.5 hrs (9.30 am - 5 pm), Thursday - 6.5 hrs (1.30 pm - 8 pm) and Today I'm gonna be working for 9 hrs (9 am - 6 pm). Well I'll be looking forward to the next pay day =D

On Wednesday night I went to the CCC (Christian City Church conference/event) at the Superdome. They had Bishop TD Jakes come to speak for 3 nights (Wed - Fri) and it was AWESOME! Guy Sebastian guest appeared and sung "Angels brought me here", I thought he was going to sing some worship songs. So I was a little bit dissappointed but nevertheless he was great. God really spoke to me that night, I'll write up a UniCell teaching about it.

Finally to top it off, the Socceroos were playing against Uruguay at Telstra stadium (which is right next to the Superdome). So after the service with Bishop TD Jakes ended, we caught the last part of the game and Australia were 1-0 up and they went into extra time! I was pretty shocked, but I hoped that Australia would win, because the Uruguayans were so self-righteous. So we stayed around to watch the game on the BIG screen. Because Uruguay had beat them previously 1-0, the socceroos needed to win by 2 goals to qualify for the 2007 World Cup in Germany.

After 30 minutes of extra time (sudden death), the scores were still 1 (Australia) - 0 (Uruguay). So effectively the scores were 1-1, and it was time for the penalty shootout. Apparently Uruguay have lost the last 3 or 4 penalty shootouts they've been in, so in that sense we had a pretty good chance I thought. Kewell was first up, and give Australia a 1-0 lead, the Uruguayan shot was taken next and Schwarz blocked it! The place was going crazy! It was 2-1 when Viduka was given the shot. To everyone's surprise, he missed! So the scores levelled at 2-2 and then an Australian shot puts them to 3-2. Shwarz the hero showed what a team the Australians are by blocking the next shot from Uruguay. So another goal to Australia meant that they would win. Aloisi did not dissappoint with his well placed shot. Australia had WON!!

YIPEEE!

WOW! I never really thought about the significance of today until now. I was like, hmmm ok what do I need to do now... wait a second... I have no more study to do!!! Woohooo!! Well I can relax for a little while. Actually I still have some marking to do, which I shall endeavour to do tomorrow. Right now, I think I'm just gonna relax for a little bit.

The end of another schooling milestone, and yet another beginning. The beginning of working life, for a while at least. I'm actually planning to do a Masters/PhD later on... yes more study =P but it won't be for a while I guess. Now that uni is done, I've got a whole heap of stuff lined up to do for the summer break. The main ones involving setting up the church database and UniCell preparations for next year.

Lanyard

I finally got the iPod lanyard. Now I'm wearing my iPod pretty much everywhere I go. It's great because I can listen to it anytime, without having to fiddle around with the headphone cord - very nice and neat.

Started holiday mode a little early, gotta get back to study mode now. =P

More study???

Well that's one of the things I've been considering lately... doing a postgraduate degree. Finishing my thesis was awesome, but I love it so much right now, that I'm still working on it. It reminds me of the time when I first learnt to program in QBASIC (it was coool..), now I've got a new toy, it's called Cocoa.

I had my demo yesterday, it went well, my assessor seemed pleased with what I've done. (pray for HD! hehe) I told him that I even worked on the application some more and he is interested to see what I've done and so told me that I could send him another page to add to my thesis. Fully praise God, because half-way through my thesis I would never have thought it would turn out this good.

YCG (http://www.youthcupgames.com/) was on today. It was the first round of volleyball or I like to call it V-ball =) We played two games and won one game and lost the other. That's ok we'll win them all next round ^^

World Usability Day

Yes today is World Usability Day. Held in over 70 cities and over 30 countries participating in this worldwide event. I was one of the privilidged to be able to show off my (thesis) work today. There were a few people from outside of the university. I was especially encouraged by the amount of interest some people had for my application.

I'm VREEEEEEE

Yessss I've finally finished the "all-important" thesis. Got it handed in about 6.5 hrs ago, feel so relieved that it's all over...haven't had much sleep in the last few days particularly last night. I stayed up practically the whole night and went to uni. So that means I've been awake for the past 35 hrs or so....wow....well I've heard stories that are worse.... but that's bad enough for me.

Thanks for the "encouraging" words to get me posting again hehe.

Now I can finally do all the other stuff on my to do list...

Busy Vee

I haven't updated my blog in almost a week...if you still don't get it from the title...I am a VERY BUSY person and going to be that way for the next week at least...since my thesis is going to be due in a week's time...

Gotta get cracking...if you don't hear from me anytime soon...see you all on the other side =P

SA...KA...TA!

Yes we had SAKATA today! For those of you that don't know what the heck I'm talking about, SAKATA is a brand of rice crackers. I brought some for today's UniCell meeting. What I did was I bought two different flavours, and I opened them and switched them around. So that they would be in the wrong packaging.

The point of this was to show that sometimes people label themselves as Christians but they don't really act like one. So it's like having a packet of Pizza flavoured rice crackers, but tasting like cream cheese.

So for those of you that have experienced this, i.e. known a Christian who didn't act like one. We're not all like that, but I guess just be mindful that we are human and thus we're not perfect either.

So the point is to LIVE out what you SAY. i.e. if you're a Christian, then act like one.

Dieu te benir (that's French for God bless =D)

Boy-Girl Relationships

This started out as a comment for Warton's blog, and all of sudden it turned out to be a full on post. So here it is.

We talked about this subject for a month at youth. Note: I am saying all this in a Christian's perspective.

The list we all make is almost never satisfied. Why? because we only think about the physical...so in that sense there can never be a "perfect" partner. However God does has a perfect partner for you (unless He has called you to celibacy) and that perfect partner will have Godly qualities. They may not be perfect (as nobody is perfect) but over time both you and your partner will be able to grow to be more and more like Him.

Now when you look at things that way, instead of things getting uglier as time goes on (things get saggy, wrinkles, etc.) When you look at things in God's eyes, as time goes on that person would be getting more and more beautiful.

As for girls making the first move. Generally I think it's better for the guy to make the first move (I'm a guy....yes it's hard...even though I've never done it...I can imagine it =P). The reason why the guy should make the first move is because the guy should be taking charge of the relationship. The bible says that the man is the head of the household. Of course there would be cases when the girl is the one that initiates the conversation and that would be ok, but it's still the guy's job to initiate the relationship.

Finally as for marrying young. Divorce rates are increasing. This is because people rely on their feelings too much, they might get married and then a few years down the track they don't feel like being married anymore. So personally I wouldn't be getting into any personal relationships until I am ready, i.e. I can provide for my partner and also I am spiritually mature among other factors.

Go the WALLABIES!!

We went to Hurricanes for dinner today and guess who we saw there?? The Wallabies were there! I'm talking about the Australian rugby union team. I saw Gregan, Rogers, Tuquiri, etc. they were all there. It was pretty cool since this is the first time I've seen them in person (I've always watched them play on TV).

Afterwards we went bowling, it was pretty good. One of my bowls hit the gutter and then popped out and hit the pins. Now that's skill.. ^^

I WON!!

Praise GOD! I'm soo happy as you can imagine after you've just won something. I didn't even know I won it until the prizes actually got delivered. I came home today and I saw a box on the table with my name on it. At first I thought it was just an old parcel box. However after closer inspection I saw that it was actually sealed. So then I got a little excited of course. Inside I found a DVD and a CD. WOW! Thanks to FreshRadio, listen to them online - http://www.freshradio.net.

The DVD: Planetshakers: Evermore
*

The CD: Olivia The Band (self-titled)
*

They are awesome, I recommend it to everyone =)

I bought my friend her birthday present today. I feel kinda bad that I didn't look hard enough, well I hope she likes it. I also bought 2 shirts for myself, it's about time I got some new clothes...

* Pictures taken from http://www.koorong.com.au

One in a million

All my life I've caught the buses and never have I been in a defected bus. I've been on broken down trains, but never buses. Well today (yesterday) was the day, the bus was somehow possessed because every few seconds or so the back door would just open. It went on for some time until the bus driver got everyone out and told us to go to the nearest bus stop to catch another bus to uni.

So in the end I ended up being late for my lecture...not that it really matters anyway because I didn't pay attention half the time, mainly because I didn't get a chance to print out the lecture notes. Besides I prefer to read the textbook.

Family or career

I was supposed to post this yesterday but anyway...

My friends (mostly girls) and I were having a discussion on whether we should pursue a PhD/Career or be able to stay home to nurture the kids. The dilemma faced by one of my friends was that she wanted to be a relatively young mum (i.e. no more than 25 yrs). The problem is that she would also like to pursue a PhD which means she won't finish until she's around 26.

The problem is that if she does decide to pursue a PhD then she will have to hold off getting a kid until later (which she doesn't want to do). However if she decides to have the kid then she won't be able to pursue a PhD/Career, because she wants to be able to look after the kid herself until at least the kid has grown up.

What would you do?

Hot and Cold

Today is a public holiday for people in NSW, Australia. So everyone (or most people anyway) had a day off (school, work, uni, etc.) It was a pretty nice day, sunny, warm, a typical day for the beach. But nooo I had to go to uni to do my assignment. I heard it was soo HOT outside, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I was inside the computer labs most of the day and it was soo COLD inside.

On the way home from uni, one of the traffic lights in the city seemed to have got a bug. The light stayed on red (even though there were no cars going the other way), for over 10 minutes! I think it got caught in an infinite loop because my friends and I stayed there in the corner waiting for it to go green, but it didn't. We walked for another block and still it was red. The cars were piling up, drivers were wondering what was going on...eventually people who were daring decided to just run the red light.

I didn't stay long enough to know what happened...so I guess you can just use your imagination ^_-