miracle boy

This Christmas... the greatest gift is the gift of Jesus ...

And for me, the greatest joy besides seeing the students receiving the gift of Jesus, is to see Jeremiah back at church once again.

Absent for close to half a year.. this boy, whom medical doctors pronounced as almost-dead, and whom everybody cried over half a year ago, once again stepped into JAMs service. What a miracle God performed! Many teared today - tears of joy this time round.

Stand up quickly on your own, Jere!
Fight on!

16 december 2003

Many things to write about; but limited by the right expressions.

hug your mom ...
and bring her out

great thought

"Many times we judge others by what they do while we judge ourselves by our intentions" -A.R Bernard

Kopped this tagline from a friend's msn. Very convicted.

Grace-humility

JAM-ming-s

It is a nervous day for me at JAMs today.
Had to set up sound systems and chorus boards for both halls; and supposedly, to lead songs and preach; type out words for JAMs Spell Me! and troubleshoot some technical error.

In the midst of dealing with the butterflies in my stomach, i actually had the leisure to capture some interesting shots.

A friendly day at the playgroup - at least it appeared so at the start

It is so hard to force a picture out of this boy...

Here is Malcom trying to be worshipful And not to be outdone, YuanSheng joined in too - with a mic

"Wah... you meant Malcom can sing better?"

"I guess I should just stick to preaching..."

Simple joy...

Lesson plan

As new academic year approaches, I find myself revisiting the syllabus and planning lessons for the new year.

Lesson 1 - Numbers and 4 Operations
Objectives - Students learn about negative numbers, integers, rational numbers...
and so on...

As I ponder on, I realise I am part of a greater lesson plan too.

I realise the phases of life that I have gone through (Not the infant, toddler, adolescent - kinda of phase)
- All the spiritual phases that I find myself walking past - they all make up a big syllabus.
And every phase is a lesson plan with a great objective in mind.

The teacher - the Holy Spirit.

So I broke down all the major lessons and phases that i COULD remember myself going through
And here it is:

Lesson 1 - Trust
Left with few cents in my pocket on numerous occasions during tertiary years; but had since miraculously survived and put on at least another 10 kg (sighs).

Lesson 2 - Commitment; Endurance
I remember always getting very impatient with my fellow JAMs worker (aka santhi) during the last few minutes of finishing up projects. So instead of completing with joy, i'd end up receiving longer scolding sessions...

Lesson 3 - Humility
Shelved - no preaching; no leading segments for months; until i learned to be satisfied setting up chairs and standing behind the computer with a smile.

Lesson 4 - Anger Management
I never knew I had such huge anger problems until close friend entered in.. It took me a few years to learn to be slow to speak up and to hold back my anger.

Lesson 5 - Mercy
Yes... Mercy and grace to others - smile ;)

Lesson 6 - Love for God
God likes to revise this with me once in a while; probably more frequently now than ever

Lesson 7 - Love for others
This is a revisit after years; esp for those uncompassionate people in JAMs - who have forgotten HOW to love their fellow colleagues and friends

Lesson 8 - Wisdom of words
Say only what I mean - only what I really want to mean.

Lesson 9 - Submission to Leadership
Just when you thought that another person needs conviction in this area; you realise you also do.

Lesson 10 - Forgiveness
previous blog entry

Lesson 11 - Dependence upon God
Consistent lessons - crash courses once in a while.

When a teacher realises that the student has mastered the lesson, he moves on.
If not, some lessons could take as long as few years to complete.

I think I am a worse student than all those I have taught; combined.
I am just glad that I have a Teacher who has infinite patience and love.

Big heart, Lord - BIGGER!!

HIP-pening

I had the privilege to conduct HIP service yesterday.
It was good.

There is a man who went to the King. Let’s call him Martin. Martin owed the King million of dollars. How many of you know that if you owe someone million of dollars, you are most likely in very deep trouble.

Martin had no money to repay the King. So the King ordered that Martin and his family be sold away as slaves in order to repay the money. Martin got very scared and sad and he fell down on his knees and began to beg the King, “Oh please King! Be patient with me and I will pay back everything!”

So the King took pity on Martin and forgave him. He cancelled the debt and let Martin off. Wow! Wonderful right! How many of you don’t mind people telling you that you don’t need to pay back the money that you owe?

Anyway, so Martin went off happily and saw a friend of his, Joe. Joe had borrowed a few dollars from Martin last week and had yet to pay back. So Martin got very upset, went up to Joe and grabbed him by the collar and said, “Pay back what you owe me!”

Joe got very scared and sad and he fell down on his knees and began to beg Martin, “Oh please Martin! Be patient with me and I will pay back everything!” But Martin refused. Instead, he went off and got Joe caught and thrown into the prison until Joe could pay off the debt.

When the King found out what happened, he called Martin in. He said, “Martin, I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you also treat your friend just as I have treated you?”

Then the King threw Martin into the prison and ordered him to pay back the million of dollars that he owed the King.
...

When we carry unforgiveness, it is like carrying a weight of rubbish with us.
Everywhere we go, we have a burden, we find it so difficult to love and to live life.
But the moment we let go and say we forgive, we feel the lightness and we can go about loving and embracing more easily. And we can love and experience love more freely.

So, it was good.
It is even better that i get to practise what i preached immediately after the service!
[... ... ...]

Yea.. My experience is told within the parenthesis.
I find it hard to blog the whole story.

Nonetheless, when the matter happened, i was upset.
I felt accused and stepped on by another demanding person.
I felt i apologised for something that was not necessary - just to appease the other person.

So, the thought that went on the mind was, why why why?
And i kept rehearsing the incident in my mind that day.

It is human to ask for fairness, to put logic into every matter.
But the thing that always comes back to me at the end of every incident that i go through daily,
is what is God trying to bring across to me?

I guess He is trying to bring my message alive to me.
Especially the highlighted passage - the rubbish analogy that i used.

God is wonderful.
Every experience is precious.

I believe what i need to do, is to sift away the hurt the experiences bring;
and to retain the wisdom and lesson learned.

So we can love and experience love more freely.