What have I done?

Just starting to PACK..

Stayed in Doulos, saw Grace and Reinhard Teo too...

Met with Janice and Mathew..

0 comments • at 8:26 PM

I Seriously Think That TIME FLIES, IT DON'T WALK!!

Can't you believe it? I've been in KK for 10 months, this is like the longest break for me...
Now, I gotta prepare my heart for the next leap...

I could tell you as bluntly as possible, "I don't like the feeling of leaving home!"
I felt that before, it lasted 2 & 1/2 years, each time flying back to West Malaysia, there was a heaviness in me, my dear friend Alvin used to tell me that, "we are in the wilderness!!" (hope Alvin is enjoying KL life now.. His pal is in the midst of moving on to UK!!)


I was blessed that I could finish my diploma course sooner, while others are still pursuing their studies, I could come back for a 10-months break in KK, it was the best learning experience for me...

What have I learned in this 10-month journey?
There's so many valuable lessons and experience that will stay with me for a long time. Here are two of them:

• I learned that success and achievements only comes from God, not from man!! He gives victories to whoever He pleases.

I came back to KK with a dream of wanting to change the youth ministry in my church for the better, I mean all I see was I needed to make a change. But for the next 10 months, I realized I had been too naive and prideful. The church doesn't need me to bring change, only God can!!
I have seen how God allow my own selfish plans to fail, but also in return, allow great results to happen in my favor for His glory!!

For example, I want to start back a cell group (what a noble dream, I thought!), so that people can feel belong, I drained every strength of mine into making that dream happen my way and my style, but it did not happen!! I realized I messed up and wanted to give up and can't take the criticism that was spoken against me! When I thought I was a somebody, I was really just a nobody!

But it's funny how when we start to give up our own agendas and plans, God will show up!! That one cell group dream didn't not really head for my direction, but it was better, God grew that one cell into 5 cell groups!! Now every week there is around 50 people coming for cell group meeting to learn more about living as a community!! AMAZING!!! Could I achieve on my own? Definitely NOT!!






I wanted so badly that Ps. Jay Koopman's rally to be an awesome one and that many will give their hearts to Jesus, having the hall filled with around 120 young people. So I came up with all the strategy on how we could achieve it, we prayed, and prepared, I begged God for the target, but it was already 7:35 p.m. less that 90 people arrived, I was really upset!! "God, please.. please..give me more, didn't prayed enough?? (I thought to myself that time)!!"

We're 10 minutes late, I was praying like mad, then I realized I haven't trust God enough, I felt we need to move away the chairs 1st then God will make a miracle in front of us!!
I was reluctant at first because moving away the chairs means more space, more empty space, but reluctantly I did, and after that act of faith by the ushers, more and more people start to come in...

It's so true that God's ways are not our ways, neither is His thoughts ours, in the end, we didn't
have 120 people, so that we can be glorified, but God surprises us again, that night 210 people came (the LEADERS were right, more than 200 came!!), there were also those from churches who came and was blessed. more than 160 people responded to God that night!! WOW, okay God, I give up, not my own will, not for my own reputation, even if my plans didn't work and I fail, I will still trust in You!!

There's so many more incidents that God came in by surprises and messed up my plans but gave me something better, not just result, but a change of mind!!

I wanted to improve the quality of Worship Team, I thought I could do it on my own, but I can't, there were times we failed to get the melodies and lyrics right despite a lot of confrontation, we still stuck at square one, but funny how God surprises us again!! These young musicians and vocalists of Eklektos, ended up winning this year's Band Category in Music Festival, it was a big surprise to them as much as it was for me...



God really knocked me out and broke my mindset again and again, just when I think I am able on my own, I was actually heading for failure!! But God will bless a heart that is willing to trust Him, not leaning on one's own understanding...

MORAL OF THE STORY: PRIDE KILLS!! LET GO, LET GOD!!

• I also learned that building lasting friendship and loving relationships and helping people to find their dreams is WAY more important than fulfilling and building "the vision".

Yes, indeed we all wanna be in something BIG, AWESOME, GLAMOROUS, FAMOUS that others will notice and praise us, but along the way of wanting bring the people together to chase after a common goal and vision, I found out that sometimes we can get too caught up with achieving the 'vision', we fail to transform lives individually.

I wanted so badly to raise up a strong group of people that are effective in their service for others, a people that others can look up to, but in midst of trying to make that dream happen, I hit a lot of walls and fail to hear the cries of these young talented people. I realized some things in life cannot be solved using a certain formula, and sometimes things are not absolute! what works for me, may not work for others.

All of us (whether mature or not) need to be heard,need to be understood, need to be LOVED!!



I have learned the hard way, people may respect authorities and do what was instructed, but deep down every single one of us, we are longing for a place to belong, we have untapped potentials, aspiration to achieve, dreams to be fulfilled. It was true for the people that I work alongside with, it was so for the leaders as well as the followers.

Some wanted to be musicians, some wanted to be architect, some wanted to film director, some wanted dentist, broadcaster, and list goes on....
A lot of them whom I encountered wanted to shine God's glory in their future career, they need encouragement and all the resources they can find to reach their God-given dreams.

If all I think about is using them, I would not have know their hearts' desire.
I saw how the leaders caught that spirit servanthood and began to sacrifice their own lives to help their followers achieve great dreams.
Many of them had gave their students lives to see other young people coming to know God and experiencing His love.




PEOPLE DON'T CARE HOW MUCH YOU KNOW UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE - JOHN MAXWELL

There are a lot of things that God had put in these young people that none of us could ever achieve in our lifetime. What they need now is someone who could believe so much that are willing to help them and break them so their lives can be change for the better!!

If I can't do what they are gonna achieve someday, I should at least support them and give them a helping hand..

WE ALL NEED PEOPLE TO BELIEVE IN US!!

BUT..........What about my life and my future, my career, my relationships, me me me?
I have seen a lot of leaders and great people who spend so much time chasing their own future, giving awfully a lot of time for themselves but yet achieve very little, leaving a very little legacy behind for others. It is really sad, but it is happening wherever we go, people leave church to chase after dreams... people quit godly commitments in exchange of secular success!!

But I have also seen how God provided for those who been faithfully and put others above themselves and serving week in and week out in God's house. Even in my own life, when I stop worrying about my life and start working on changing people's lives, God provided for me without fail.

I may not be a great role model of a faithful man (I tried...) , but each time without fail, God will surprises me, He always provides!!

MORAL OF THE STORY: Believe in one's potential to the extend we are willing to give our lives in building their dreams and God will build yours!!

What else have I learned?

• I learned to work with different people and with different style of leaderships and different mindset.
• I have learned to drive VAN all around.

• I have learned being vulnerable and honest about yourself is not a weakness but a sign of strength.
• I have learned that parents are not always right, but THEY ARE RIGHT MOST OF THE TIME!!
• I have learned to give time to my grandparents and respect them, without them, my life could be at the worst!
  
• I have learned that love and influence is more powerful than title and position.

What I failed to do in KK this time? (there are a lot, but here's the 2 most obvious!!)

• I failed to discipline myself in sleeping early.
• I failed to gain weight.

So much have I learned and am still learning....but it is definitely an adventure for me!!
UK HERE I GO!!

5 comments • at 6:44 PM

0 comments • at 6:52 PM

Priorities at Stake...

It's often very hard to find out for us to figure out what our passion is when we have very little things to do in life, when you very free, when you have little to choose from..Life's Dull if that's life..

How will we ever find the things that our passion about? By trying a few things or even more things throughout your life. By filling your days with meaningful things and activity..and even NEW THINGS
What is it gotta do with passion? Sometimes or I would say a lot of times, it's when many things were throw to you at once and when you have a lot of things to focus on in a very short time! That is when your priorities is at stake (it's a good thing actually!!) and out of all the things that you are expected to do, the one thing (or a few) that you decided to focus above the others, that maybe what you are PASSIONATE about!!

For example:
You got a lot of homework to complete...
You got a lot of chores...
You got buddies to attend to...
You got a Firefox browser to surf...
You needa do devotion...
You needa call up cell members...

But.... The time that was allocated to all these:
You got a lot of homework to complete... (today: 0 hours,you choose to procrastinate)
You got a lot of chores... (45 minutes of doing chores cos mom asked you to... Obligated!!)
You got buddies to attend to... (5 sms... to keep in touch 30 minutes were used for smsing...)
You got a Firefox browser to surf... (You used 5 hours to watched YOUTUBE, update FaceBook and Blog)
You needa do devotion... (10 minutes: 5 for Bible and 5 for prayer)
You needa call up cell members... (o hours, cos tomoro still can see them)

BASED ON HOW YOU PRIORITIZED YOUR TIME.. maybe YOUR PASSION right now is surfing the Internet: YOUTUBE and FACEBOOK... You could possibly be a passionate youtube lover and a facebook follower...Well, that's your passion, cos that's your priority!!

Well, Time shows our priority, and our priority reflects what is our passion (OUCH..!!), that's means sleeping is our passion?? Nah... but if there's something else that we spend our time doing WILLINGLY and INTENTIONALLY more than sleeping could be something that we are passionate about...

1 comments • at 1:34 AM

JOY

What do I find satisfaction in? What drives me on? What keeps my feet on the ground?
What do I love doing?

One of the things, I enjoy the most in my life is to be able to really give my time to youths in church. Wow.. Sounded so noble!! Well, not really, I don't think my heart is as big as those great leaders who led a strong army and who changed the world.

I'm no youth pastor nor a church leader nor a bible teacher, I'm just a bigger (taller) and older brother to the younger ones. But it's really a great joy to hang out with these students, pouring out my life to them and at the same time receiving back life's most valuable lessons from them. Seeing them grow and experience good changes in the course of life really keeps me moving!!

We just had a combined cells outing from 3 cell groups, and 39 people came for this event, exceeded my time's lok yuk cells outing when I was form 4. God was great...

Was it always tiring? Were they sometimes pain in my neck? Ya... sometimes, sometimes you feel like "What's wrong with this youth?" or "Haiz... got attitude problem lar so-and-so", do I hate being with them? Nah... it does irritates me when stinky attitudes of youths rise to the surface, but hey, we all got attitude problem... That's when the challenge to LOVE people cames in!!

What is always about the result? Nah... I would rather spend my time enjoying the great things in life with a few of the youths... What is always about seeing they contributing to the local church? Nah... I would rather them have doing well in studies and honoring their parents? Was it always about church membership? Nah... I would rather see them being successful in all aspects of their lives when they grow up!! I want to see them doing well in life and still enjoying a live of serving God.

Some one once quotedthe acronym of JOY is Jesus first, Others seconds, You last..Wow.. such a challenge to live by..

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." James 1:2

I will perseverance to see this youths become great gentlemen and ladies that will change the world, I may not change the world, but I hope they will!!

3 comments • at 2:36 PM

Song of Hope??

THE CLIMB – MILEY CYRUS

I can almost see it
that dream I'm dreaming but
there's a voice inside my head

Saying, “You'll never reach it!”

Every step I'm taking,
every move I make feels
lost with no direction
my faith is shaking

but I got to keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I’m going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down but
No, I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most

Just got to keep going

And I
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on

_________________________________________________________________________________

I read about someone's review on the song.

Dan Milliken "SUCCESS: It is always easy when you're cute"

Is the world a fair place? Hmm...

In Dr. Tim Elmore blogpost "The lies we tell our children",
He mentioned,
"...We tell lies to our children, without even knowing it. Most of them are well meaning, but they are lies all the same. Let me toss out a few of them here...

* You can be anything you want to be...

* You are special. You are the best...

* Don't worry about what anyone else thinks...

I said all three of those things to my kids as they grew up. I meant them, too. But the more I ponder their ramifications, the more I see how they lead to trouble. For instance, I do not believe we can be anything we want to be. I will never play major league baseball or sing at the opera. My gifts just don't align with those dreams. And...while I believe all kids want to feel special, I spoke to some recently who've graduated from college and they feel they were lied to when mom told them they were special. They attended a university where there were thousands of other "special" kids, more talented than they were, competing for roles and scholarships...and reality hit. They did not stand out; they were not the best. Of course, everyone wants to feel special, but we need to clarify what that means. They are unique. As for the third lie, I understand why adults make that statement to kids. They want them to think independently. However, none of us live in a world of isolation. We live in communities and we must consider the impact of our thoughts, words and actions on others...."

:) We're all want to be successful, we all want to be special, we all want to conquer mountains. With our eyes on the prize, we often forget the fact is we're all different, created with different talents and gifts and also unique potentials. Not all of us are called to be David Beckham, not all of us are called to Barack Obama, nor even Miley Cyrus, and the lists goes on and on...

I believe we're all called for greatness, yet we used the wrong measurements to define ourselves. For example, even in my own encounters in youth groups, there are quite a number of youths wanting to get themselves into the Worship Ministry, out of it, most wanted to become "worship leaders". It's a good dream, in fact, we are all called to be leaders that worship God and who leads people to worship God.

But what surprised me was the definition of a worship leader was often misunderstood, we looked at ministry as a performance or even a hobby. "I wanna lead worship because I love to sing", "I wanna lead because someone once told me I am an anointed worship leader."
To some extend, it meant good, and in fact, God had placed dreams in people's heart for a reason. But if God told me I'll be a supermodel one day, it does not mean I should be receiving photo sessions now and demand for photographers to give us cover pages shots in magazine. (Btw, God didn't told to be model to began with, haha...)

But a lot of us love to lead people to sing songs, bring the crowd through lovely choruses, by being on the stage makes us feel so "anointed". We love the attention, we love the microphones that we're holding, we love to command people to listen to us. But worship ministry is a ministry that we used to serve God. And I believe the heart of ministry should be servanthood. Sometimes, when I'm on the stage on the keys, I often realized how manipulating we (or just Calvin) can be, we put on a "holy face" and clothed ourselves with the religious look, yet knowing that God demands more than an act but He longs for us to live a holy 24/7 life, longer intimate prayer life, a purer and selfless life.
On the stage, it is often to feel heavy, because it is often to get carried away for put on just a show and not really pleasing God's heart despite us being in ministry...

For where I came from and words that I've listened to, I was told by pastors after pastors to don't let anyone look down on your dreams, because you are going to be great oneday. Things like "People may not believe in you but God has chosen you." I'm sure most of the church kids heard this time after time after time and received words of affirmations and prophesies as well... But how do you measure "greatness"??

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against prophesies, I believe it's powerful and it is from God, I'm a believer too, but looking back at my own life, I realized too often we just focus on the good attractive destination yet do very little thinking on whether our journey/methods getting there is pleasing to Him or not. We sometimes can misinterpret prophesies too...

God gave different people with different gifts and talents, some God gave them little, some God gave them more. It's all for God's glory!! Not ours!! If God gave you more, He will demand more for you as well. Gifts and talents are not for us to compare with others but for the strengthening the people around us...

And in God's ministry, Yes, talents do matter, but do our character and attitude matched up to the size of the talents God given us. And if serving God means doing things that are not glamourous, will we do it?

What is the mountain that we climbing now? What is the thing that we battle for now?? Our success or His??

1 comments • at 3:50 PM

3 more days, Carrie will be back in KK!!
Hahaha... good news for her too, cos just finish another busy semester..

1 comments • at 9:14 PM