Project Report #35 - Close Encounters of The WEIRD Kind

It’s the end of August already, many things has happened throughout the past one month or so. I’ve been extra active in a lot of things lately because God has placed me in a position where I have no choice but to stretch my physical and spiritual capacity. I just came back from a ministry trip in Kota Bahru with Ps Ryan and 4 other Harvest Generation leaders. We really had a great time there ministering in the adult and youth service. We were also fed beyond our capacity with awesome food, I had one of the best durians in the world there as well =))

Church is really growing at a fast rate! It’s so exciting to be able to have a hand in building God a great house! Ps Ryan kicked off the Financial Series in our church last weekend, a sensitive topic most church would not dare to even touch, but the church has really been blessed by the message. It is tough to NOT allow money be the master over our life, since every aspect of our life requires money, but by putting God first in our hearts and through His power, we can be masters of our money. The beautiful thing about being masters of our money is that we can control when and how money can work for us. If money is our master, it will control us. God is not against us having more money, but God is totally against money having us.

I have always been so disturbed in my spirit with people, long time Christians in particular, who always condemn other Christians for being rich and having much wealth. Obviously, these people don’t know the Bible and God very well, as they claim to know.

But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms His covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

Deuteronomy 8:18

There are so many accounts of great people in the bible who do marvelous things that change the course of an entire nation, who love God fervently, who one of them is even called the very man after God’s own heart, that were very VERY wealthy not just in their sprit, but in their physical possessions.

You don’t believe me? Do open your Bible and refer to the following references:

1. Abraham (even when he was still Abram)

· Genesis 12:1-3

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

· Genesis 13:1-2

So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

2. Isaac

· Genesis 26:12-14

Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him.

3. Jacob (wealth inherited from Isaac)

· Genesis 37:1

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

4. Joseph (Pharaoh’s appointed Prime Minister)

· Genesis 41:44

Pharaoh also said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no man may lift His hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”

5. Job

· Job 1:1-3

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Also, His possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

6. King David (his preparations to build God’s temple)

· 1 Chronicles 22:14-16

“Indeed I have taken much trouble to prepare for the house of the LORD one hundred thousand talents of gold and one million talents of silver, and bronze and iron beyond measure, for it is so abundant. I have prepared timber and stone also, and you may add to them. Moreover there are workmen with you in abundance: woodsmen and stonecutters, and all types of skillful men for every kind of work. Of gold and silver and bronze and iron there is no limit. Arise and begin working, and the LORD be with you.”

7. King Solomon (richest king of ALL human history)

· 1 Kings 10:14-22

The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold, besides that from the traveling merchants, from the income of traders, from all the kings of Arabia, and from the governors of the country.

And King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred shekels of gold went into each shield. He also made three hundred shields of hammered gold; three minas of gold went into each shield. The king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.

Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold. The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round at the back; there were armrests on either side of the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the armrests. Twelve lions stood there, one on each side of the six steps; nothing like this had been made for any other kingdom.

All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Not one was silver, for this was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon. For the king had merchant ships[b] at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the merchant ships came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.

8. Paul (a tentmaker-biblical time hotelier to wealthy travelers)

· Acts 18:1-3

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.

· Acts 20:33-35

“I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the LORD Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' “

9. Jesus (He wore designer clothing of the new testament times, it was so expensive that the soldiers were very careful not to tear it, instead they gambled to see who wins it)

· John 19:23-24

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took His clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

"Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it."

God desires to bless us and make us wealthy, otherwise He wouldn’t have given us the power to make wealth. However, the foundation of wealth is generosity. Without a generous heart, the wealth that we gather will never last.

There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
And there is one who withholds more than is right,
But it leads to poverty.
The generous soul will be made rich,
And he who waters will also be watered himself.

Proverbs 11:24-25

I still don’t understand where ‘so-called Christians’ get the idea that becoming a Christian, we must be poor. God NEVER related humility to being poor in the physical. However, Jesus did mention that we have to be poor in our spirit so that we will always depend on him (Matthew 5:3). Being poor in spirit doesn’t mean having nothing in our spirit. When we talk about being poor, it’s always related to being hungry, not having enough. It is the same in our spirit, being poor in the spirit means always being hungry and desiring for so much more of what God has for us, totally depending on His wealth. So in other words, we can be rich in the physical, having everything that’s top notch this world has to offer, yet we must continuously be hungry for more of God.

I personally had enough of the nonsense from the older generation of ‘christians’ condemning fellow believers because of their wealth. Being a strong believer doesn’t mean we must live scrapping the bottom of our buckets every month just to feed ourselves. My God is a God of Abundance! If I choose to put Him and His desires first in my life, He will add on to me all the things I need to live abundantly without any worry (Matthew 6:32-34). So personally think that ‘christians’ that have a problem with wealth are plain weird..

God promised us that if we give our offerings and tithes in obedience, He will bless us even beyond our own measure (Malachi 3:10-11). To the measure of our hearts in how we give, God will bless us back with so much more (Luke 6:38). Most of the time, people who have a problem with Christians being wealthy have a problem with giving and tithing in church. These people are so weary of what the church will do with the money that they have missed out on God’s blessing for them if they were to have sown (Ecclesiastes 11:4).

Giving and tithing is a personal thing between a believer and God, we don’t have to worry what happens to the money after we’ve offered it to God because true giving out of a generous heart is to totally release the wealth with trust. Do you think God will keep quite if someone were to steal from the church? I HIGHLY doubt, because God is just God, even if they escape in this life, they won’t escape eternal judgment. So if Christians working outside church can make wealth through obedience, why can’t full-time workers in church be wealthy too? Does God practice double-standards? Definitely NOT!

How great would our testimony be if the God whom we declare as the creator of the entire universe, the one who supplies all our needs, can’t even provide for our daily needs? How great would our testimony be if full-time pastors can’t even send their children to the best universities? How high would people regard Christianity if full time church workers don’t even have enough to provide for their own families? If we Christians live in poverty, we are actually declaring God a liar and publically saying the Bible is fake! It is written in the Bible that we, as believers of Christ, shall not beg for bread (Psalm 37:24-26). So Christians, be very careful not to reject or condemn God’s financial blessings on other as well as yourself because rejecting or condemning God’s word is an outright blasphemy.

We can glorify God through our wealth. I believe God is raising up a new generation of millionaires and billionaires, who are strong in the Word and totally dependent on the Holy Spirit, to cause a major impact in world economics, moving governments and impacting nations. A new generation that doesn’t gather wealth for his or her own self consumption, but a people who will fund that many ministry and missions works, building many churches across the world, relieving poverty and giving welfare to the needy, all for the expansion of His Kingdom, making His Name great! All this is because we’re are blessed by God to be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:1-3).

Hope this little sharing has inspired you to live out your dreams, to make more money for the glory of God. If we choose to build God a great house, to go after what matters to Him first, He will add on much to us. I’m so glad I’m now planted and discipled in Harvest Generation, a church which believes in taking embraces EVERY PROMISE that God has for us as believers of Christ. I want to be very wealthy one day, and I want other people to see my wealth, particularly non-Christians, not to boast of my ability to make wealth, but to boast of God’s favour, goodness, blessing and greatness over my life and the lives of my future children, to be greater blessing to them not just in spiritual and emotional support, but also in physical finances.

Do mark my words, if you think money is a problem or even a curse, Please Bring Your 'Problems' and 'Curses' to me! I will gladly DELIVER you from ALL of it~!! HAHA!

PROJECT REPORT! I’ve just traded in my old car audio amplifiers to a more powerful one as the former was causing my sound system to produce a lot of white noise. I’ve also added 2 new Clarion mid range speakers to the back of my car to create a surround sound feel in my car. Now I’m blasting Eminem songs from it and it sounds fantastic! HAHA! Other than that, I’m currently planning my finances to change my worn-out clutch and clutch pressure plate. Planning to change to a Trinity 6-puck racing clutch couple with Exedy racing pressure plate from to be able to support the torque my engine is currently producing. It’s about time my gearbox is serviced also.

That’s all the time I have for now, thanks for taking time to read this post. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing it with you. Have a great new week ahead! Take care and God bless!

Project Report #34 - A Simple Plan

Hey people, hope you’ve all had a great week so far. It has been a very eventful week for me, we had Rev Kumar to speak in our church last weekend, it was a very powerful time. He spoke on the 3 Ds of Success – Desire, Discipline & Dedication. To just briefly summarize the entire message, every dream or vision must begin with a desire, in the Bible it says that God will grant to us the desires of hearts, it did not say that God will grant to us our heart’s desires. So in other words, the desires of our hearts are God given. Get it? It was such a fresh revelation to me personally.

Then to carry out that desire, we need to be discipline to maintain the pace to head towards our dream or vision. Discipline will keep us going, but Dedication is what brings us further. Discipline will only bring us to the level expected, but dedication will bring us to supersede the expectation. However, dedication cannot be activated without first having the discipline, and discipline cannot be activate without first having the desire. So cool right?

Other things that happened in past week is that Carol injured her spine to the extent of not being able to walk or sit up straight for short periods of time. It was probably aggravated during the days where she needed to finish her final thesis, the chair she sat on for long hours didn’t give her good back support, which result to her having backaches every other day at the time. It just took one dance practice to trigger a chain effect that caused her back to sprain. Plus she had an accidental slip when she went shopping and fell on the floor, which probably made it worse – this I only got to know last night. The doctor diagnosed her condition as Acute Spinal Sprain. But really praise God that her condition is much better now, at least she can move more now compare to a few days back. Do continue to pray for her that God will bring about complete healing to her spine.

A team of us went up to Ipoh last Saturday to minister in a ministry called Song at YMCA building. We really had a fantastic time there, Calvin spoke a good message on Talents, encouraging the young people there to really put effort in developing and using their talents faithfully for God’s glory. Other than ministry, the food was fantastic too =) We went to the new Foo San dim sum restaurant and had a good feasting session there. Again, we saw Phebe Ting there, haha! Second time we caught her in Ipoh. She was there for makan session after doing a camp in Cameron Highlands. It was really nice to see her again, we are all so proud that she’s still so fervent and faithful in her ministry to God.

Speaking of faithfulness, it is so vital for us to remain faithful in whatever we’re given at this current point of our life. A few weeks back, Ps Victor Wong came to our church and gave a word to people saying that some of us are getting restless with the positions we’re currently in, be it in ministry or in our careers, everything seems like it’s static and going nowhere, but God is asking us to remain faithful in it because He is working something in us even in these mundane times. Stay in the small pot for because God is still grooming and preparing us, when the time comes, God will move us to bigger pot. We just have to remain faithful in our small pots for now, that’s our responsibility, whereas promotion is God’s responsibility.

When I was reading a Daily Devotion posted by Rev Kong Hee about God Uses Faithful People, the story of Gideon really stuck me hard. Upon further studies, I found that many principals that we could learn from Gideon even before he was called by God to do great exploits. A brief explanation on the situation during Gideon’s time, in Judges 6:1-10, because of the disobedience of the people towards God, there was great oppression on Israel. Every time their crops were ready for harvesting, the enemies will swarm them over locusts and take everything away. Nothing was spared, event all their livestock were either taken away of killed. It’s like one of those moments in our lives that we wonder “where is God?”

Then in Judges 6:11, God sent an angel to meet with Gideon while he was threshing wheat in winepress. If this statement doesn’t seem weird to you, let me further explain, pay attention to the words ‘threshing wheat’ and ‘winepress’.

Threshing Wheat – To beat the harvested wheat so that the wheat grain would be separated from its chaff. This is normally done on an spinning horizontal cylinder-like device to collect the wheat grains. Here is a picture, adopted from MyWarHistory.com website, of how wheat threshing activity looks like.
Winepress - A wine press is a device used to extract the juice from crushed grapes during wine making. Here’s how a winepress looks like, image adopted from Bible-History.com website.
Just by looking at the images of the how the two activities are done, it’s so obvious that it is not right, unnatural, senseless or even stupid to thresh wheat in a winepress or crush grapes on a wheat threshing device! Yet, Gideon had to do this ‘stupid’ senseless act in order to hide from the enemy so that he and his family could have food to survive. No one would suspect that he’s threshing wheat in the winepress because it doesn’t make sense to do so. During the oppression, Gideon didn’t have the luxury to thresh a whole lot of wheat at one time, he probably had to do it little by little to avoid being detected. He didn’t have to just do it once, he probably had to do it faithfully a few times a day, single every day.

This ‘stupid’ act in our today’s terms, if we refer to what we have today, is like mixing our bread flour in a juicer machine! Isn’t that senseless and downright STUPID?! I found this very amusing when the Holy Spirit revealed it to me, yet it stuck my heart to its very core. Would I be found faithful if I am called to do something diligently without complain, even if it seems stupid and senseless to others around me? Something that others view as valueless and insignificant, would I still be found passionately working at it? You see, Gideon had to do this, not only just for his own survival, but also for his family. This speaks to me personally that I have to be faithful in the mundane, boring tasks given to me not just for my benefit, but the benefit of my family, which is the church!

Many times, big things come crumbling down because small things were not handled or executed well. If your little toe’s bone is broken, did you know that your entire body’s balance while standing up is affected? So we have to be faithful with the little things, even the stupid things that others look down on, in order to keep the church going. Rev Kong Hee said that when the angel of the Lord appeared before Gideon, the angel found him being faithfully threshing wheat in the wine-press. When God appears before us, will He find us being faithful with even the smallest task given to us?

In the bible it says that for those who are faithful with the little, much will be given (Matthew 25:21) God found Gideon faithful, that's was why He could trust him with the great things that was about to happen. Gideon rose up to be a great man in battle, he defeated the enemies that were oppressing the people of Israel (Judges 7:22-25). He was used by God to deliver and bring salvation to an entire nation, such was the great exploit that God has enabled Gideon to do. When we’re faithful with the little, God can even trust us with the revival of our nation! Imagine that!

So in conclusion, I have to speak even to myself, that we have to remain faithful in our current positions even though it may be small and insignificant, be it in church, in our companies, or even in our families and among our friends. What we do and who we are now may seem insignificant to many, but if we’re found faithful in God’s eyes, He can use us in things far greater than what we can even imagine. There are days where I feel like what I’m doing is not much appreciated and sometimes even unnoticed. But I have to constantly remind myself that above everything, I am ultimately serving God in all I do and I know He notices me. Did you think that Gideon had in mind that he was gonna be used by God, to deliver an entire nation from the oppression of one of the greatest armies of the world, while he was threshing wheat in the winepress? I highly doubt so, he just faithfully did what he needed to do, even when no one else notices.

Hope you guys are blessed by this short sharing. This is something I hope that will open up your hearts and challenge you to be faithful at a greater level as it did to me. This short passage of scripture in Judges 6 has really spurred me on to serve in my church, company and family more diligently.

PROJECT REPORT~! Nothing much has happened to my car lately. I drove if up to Ipoh last week and noticed a lot of heads turning. They probably wondering why they haven’t seen this car around although it is a Perak number plate, or maybe they’re just thinking who is this Ah-Beng driving this Ah-Beng car? HAHA! Anyway, when I got home from Ipoh, I found that my break fluids are leaking a bit from one of the brake caliper pistons. Will have to send it in for repairs hopefully this weekend. I did however made a new personal top speed with my car on the way back from Ipoh. How fast? Hmmm… I won’t announce it on the this blog ;P But just for the record, there were no other cars on the highway that time and I was actually just following behind a BMW 5 Series when I realized how fast I was going, haha!

That’s about it from me today, hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Do pop by Harvest Generation Church tonight, we’ll be having Ps Frankie Khoo, a powerful prophet of God, to speak in our special service. We’re really expecting a wonderful time tonight. Take care people! God Bless!

Project Report #33 - Nothing But The Truth

Hey people, it really has been awhile since I've last made an entry. Lately, I've caught up with a lot work in my company and church as well. It has been really physically, mentally and spiritually tiring but every effort has been worth it.

As some you know, I've been switched to a different market vertical in my company, it involves the automotive industry, something most of you would say that it suits me really well. Yes, I'm enjoying it but it's HARD work. On average, I now have to stay in the office for about 12 hours a day. It's a price I have to pay but I believe that God will never lead me where His grace cannot keep me.

My church just started a new cell group in IMU and I was given the huge privilege to head it up. God has really brought great people to join my cell group, most of them are really young in their faith but undoubtedly on fire for God. Many people may think, how can this 'Aaron' dude lead a cell group with his capability? Believe me, I myself don't think I'm capable as well, but when God calls, I just obey. I may not be capable on my own, but if I choose to partner with the Holy Spirit, I know His Zoe life will enable me to do all things.

After 2 months of leading this cell group, I've really learned to depend upon the Holy Spirit at a greater level. Many areas of my life have been challenged and I see myself learning to love people more. In fact, the cell group has been a blessing to me so much more than what I've contributed to them. One important lesson I've learned about discipleship is that if you're not willing to lay your life down for your disciples, you have not really discipled anyone. To lay down our life for something is not just dying for something, it's about giving all you have, giving the best you can give, even dying to you own preferences and self desires for the cause.

Yes, we lay down our lives for Christ, but laying down our lives for Jesus means to lay down our lives for what He layed down His life for, The Church! And the church is made out of people, so we to be a true follower of Christ, we have to lay down our lives to build people. One cannot say he loves God if he does not love what God loves. I am truely humbled by this opportunity given to me to lead and disciple future doctors that will make a difference in our nation and beyond.

A few outstanding people I see in mycell group are people like Rafaella, Amanda, Kelvin Khoo and Jim, these are the ones I'm really proud of because they have improved so much compared to when they first joined our church. Although sometimes they can be very innocently naive, but their passion to know and serve God is incredible. They're now the pioneering batch of our church's hip-hop dance ministry under Carol's leadership. Too bad I'm not gifted in dancing, I can only wobble around, haha! Check out their video dance video in HCA on Facebook Groups named Harvest Generation.

I just came back from India 2 weeks ago, had an extrodinary time there ministering, getting to know the people there and, of course, eating tonnes of delicious authentic Indian food! Me and Chris were there to facilitate Pastor Ryan who really preached his heart out at the youth camp we were invited to. You can check out the pictures and videos of our trip on my Facebook. I manage to buy myself a nice grey-ish silver coat which looks almost exactly like what Adam Lambert wears. It was dirt cheap! Plus it was tailor made to fit me exactly. I even managed to buy Carol a full leather jacket meant for export to Madrid, Spain for a mind- blowing price! It is a little too big for her but I'll send it for alteration in Bangsar.

Besides shopping and eating, we got a tour around Chennai. It's a beautiful city, very much busier than Kuala Lumpur. We were hosted by Rev. Kumar, his wife Sister Jesse, and the Harvest Apostolic Ministry leaders. Few people I'd like to commend during my stay in Chennais are Francise - a fatastic cook, he served us extensively, even to the extent of making sure our coffee is exactly to our liking; Ammi - he's been tirelessly chauffeuring us to and from the camp site to Rev. Kumar's house, he even took us on a tour of House of Hope, a shelter home for Tsunami victims and orphans, through this work anchored by both him and wife with, these children have been given hope to excel in the future, the kids all aspire to be doctors, teachers and engineers; Pastor Virmal - he has served us to a point where even our used tissues and food wrappers he will take from us by hand just we don't have to find the rubbish bin ouselves, he even braved many traffics jams to pick and send us to the airport. These 3 men of God, though leaders and pastors of the church, went all the way to serve us like we're kings, and obviously we're not. When complimented them, they acknowledged that they caught all this from Rev. Kumar and Sister Jesse, I was like WOW! What discipleship these people have! What great humility these people have, such respect for their pastor.

Through my trip in Chennai, the Holy Spirit has really convicted my heart on the topic of discipleship. I come to realise that the true mark of successful discipleship is when the disciple loves everything the discipler loves and hates everything the discipler hates. This is so evident throughout the Bible and even in today's time. Unity of the heart and spirit is mandatory for discipleship to take place.

Let’s take an example in the Old Testament, two men name Elijah and Elisha in the book of 2 Kings 2:1-12. Their hearts and spirits were so knitted together that Elisha refused to leave Elijah’s side until the very end when Elijah was taken away by the Lord. Throughout Elisha’s journey with Elijah discipling him, Elisha desired earnestly everything the Elijah had. This is not in a covetousness sense, but it was out of great reverence towards the qualities if Elijah’s life. Covetousness always results in one party gaining from another’s loss. Example when I covet your wife, I want to take your wife for my own and as a result, you have to lose your wife for my gain. But desiring something in a reverence sense comes from great admiration, respect and desire to apply the qualities of one’s life to his own, no one loses anything.

In 2 Kings 2:9, Elisha desired to inherit the anointing of Elijah, not just at the same level, but a double portion of it. Pay attention to the word ‘Inherit’; as describe by the Wiki Dictionary ‘Inherit: To take possession of a right; To receive property by legal succession; To receive a characteristic from one's ancestors by genetic transmission. So to inherit means to desire the right to own what the ‘person passing it down to you’ owns, in this sense. If you study the life of Elijah, the anointing of the Holy Spirit was ALL that he had throughout his life! So when Elisha asked for the inheritance of Elijah anointing, he was actually asking Elijah to give him all he had! Elisha saw the power of God’s anointing in Elijah life; a nation changed, people healed, signs and miracles took place, Elisha wanted all of that but at a greater level.

Another example in the bible would be Jesus himself. In John 14:15, 14:21, Jesus says that whoever that loves Him must follow his commandments. In John 15:9, Jesus says that the father loves Him and in John 14:30, Jesus says that He must do exactly what the Father has commanded Him to do. So because Jesus loves the Father so intensely, everything the Father desires becomes His desires too, even to the point of sacrificing His own life. Being a disciple, one must put away self-preference in order to grow. Jesus Himself had to put away His self-preference in order for a greater work to be done (Matthew 26:38). Does this mean we must give up our will to our discipler? No, it’s not a matter of giving up, but it’s a matter of surrendering. To surrender your will, in this sense, means to trust your well-being to the person God has placed over your life.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:14-17 and 1 Corinthians 11:1 urged the people to imitate him. To imitate is to be-like or even copy everything. Why would Paul be so confident that people imitating him will be able to grow in their stature? If you study the word carefully, Paul says “…just as I also imitate Christ” means that he is asking the people to take all the good qualities of his life and apply it to their own. Since everything that is good comes from God (James 1:17), what Paul imitates from Christ is definitely good!

So when we talk about discipleship, it definitely has to begin with a relationship. Some people actually misquote the Bible by saying the disciples didn’t know Jesus. I tell you now, people knew Jesus and were amazed by Him even before the first four disciples was called (Luke 2:41-51, Luke 4:16). Jesus was well known in the synagogue, He did many signs and wonders, He even healed Peter’s mother-in-law before Peter decided to follow Him. So doesn’t this prove that the disciples already knew and respected Jesus before they followed Him?

Discipleship is not just about any kind of relationship, but it is a relationship that bonds to the very core of both the discipler and the disciple’s life. Let’s take City Harvest Church, Singapore for example. I’m so amazed at the level of discipleship the leaders have. You’ll notice that every level of leadership, from the highest to the lowest, every single person is united together in spirit and heart. When 2 people are united together in spirit and heart, they are bound to look like each other in the physical as well! Why? Because the disciple will naturally love everything the disciple loves.

Take Rev Kong Hee and his group of leaders under him, everything that Rev Kong Hee loves, they love as well, not just in terms of fashion, but also their passion for they things of God. When you go to City Harvest Church, you all the leaders dressing the same way, talking the same, having the same passion for God, preaching the same way, worshiping the same way and so on and so forth. Is it wrong? Definitely not! Their physical expression is a reflection of their inner unity!

The Holy Spirit really convicted my heart in the area of giving up self preference. If I were to be disciple by someone, I have to love everything that person loves and hate everything that person hates. I cannot choose what good qualities I want from to take from my discipler and leave out what I prefer not to take. To be a true disciple, I must desire every quality that God has given to my disciple, just like how Elisha desired what Elijah had, just like how Jesus himself made the Father’s desires His own desires, just like how Paul encourages his people to desire what he has, just like how City Harvest Church leaders desire what Rev Kong Hee has…

Discipleship requires the disciple to be totally sold-out for the cause he is discipled for. Discipleship is powerful, even satan knows it. Take the infamous Al-Qaeda group from example, these people were discipled to an extent of committing suicide and mass murders for the cause they believe in. They are totally sold-out for the cause their leader believes in, but sadly the great passion in them is all for the wrong cause. Discipleship can make or break an entire generation, that is why is so important for us to be discipled in the church.

We as Christians are not called to just make known the Gospel to everyone around world, making God known to the world is what we’re currently doing very well, but we have a deeper calling to disciple others as well. Matthew 28:18-20, we all know this scripture really well, but we must realize that only through discipleship can we lead people to be baptized and to observe all things that Jesus have commanded us. Why do I say that? Because when we love God fervently, we will definitely desire to please and obey God fervently, and that desire will become your disciple’s desire as well. Don’t just stop at being preachers of the Word, but be disciplers of man as well, and it all must begin with us being first discipled…

I hope this sharing will bless your hearts and inspire you to be discipled to disciple others… I’m so glad my pastor, Pastor Ryan Foo, and my church, Harvest Generation Church, holds on firmly to the principle of discipleship… ‘Discipled to Make Disciples...’

PROJECT UPDATES! Much has been done to my car in the past months. I’ve upgrade my brakes from a normal 2-pot caliper to a now super strong grip RX7 FC3S 4-pot caliper brakes in the front! I’ve tested it on the highway and it works really well in high-speed braking, just don’t tell Carol I tested my car on the highway again ;P For those who are interested in upgrading their brakes, I can tell you now that it is A LOT OF WORK required. The cost is also quite significant, but it’s worth every penny. Now my braking is more efficient and stable.

I’ve also gotten my front and rear absorbers modified and serviced for better traction and I’ve enforced my chassis with custom anti-roll bars and 4-point strut bars from Ultra Racing for better handling. Now cornering is more stable and driving on highways feels so much better. I have not done any modification to increase my engine output yet besides putting in a management system and changing to 450cc injectors, may be by next year I can plan out serious modifications, but of course only if I have the spare cash because now I’m actually starting to do a bit of finance planning for my wedding =))

That’s all I have for you today, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this entry as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Take care, people! And God Bless!

Project Report #32 - Signs and Writings

Hey there sponsors, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated the blog. Well, a lot has been happening in my life as well as the car. I got my appraisal last December, my team lead gave me quite good remarks. I got an 11% raise too! Really thank God for His providence, even in these times of uncertainty, God still provided and added on. On top of that, I got a one month bonus… Hee! Hee! I used it to settle part of my study loans.

So what else has been going on in my life? Let’s start from where I left off last year… In November 2008, I went down to Singapore with a group from my church, we attended the Asia Conference organized by City Harvest Church Singapore. It was a fantastic time! I had the privilege to listen to great speaks like AR Bernard, Ulk Ekman and Phil Pringle. I even got to meet Sidney Mohede in person! What really touched me is that everything the preachers preach about, everything they taught, it is exactly where our heart, as a church, is moving towards. Creativity, beauty, colours, talents… all tools given to us to engage culture. It just confirms in my heart that we’re heading the right direction as a church…

Sidney taught about the Art of Worship, and guess what? It is exactly what we are doing and have been doing since the times of Campus City! Amazing right? Prayer, prayer, and more prayer! Worship is about God and the people. Every musician and singer serves because they’re heart is for God and the people. He mentioned that wherever he goes, whoever that he has to play with, he will make sure he builds a relationship with them first before playing with them. He also said it doesn’t matter what equipment he has, he would make the best out of it even if he has to do it all by himself. When he said all these thing, I was like “AMEN!”, “YES!”, because these are the principles we’ve been holding on to and teaching our people as well. What a great spirit this man has!

He further elaborated that a worship band is not just a touch-base relationship. Sidney told us that he, as a worship pastor, is so close to his ministry people that even who his drummer likes (potential girlfriend), he will personally be the mentor for them to work a relationship. In other words, as a worship pastor, he makes effort to be involved in people’s life, to really care for every aspect of their life. There’s so much I can learn from this man of God, no wonder everything he takes stage, the presence of God just flows so powerfully.

Guess who I met at Asia Conference? Amanda Tan!! It was so good to see her again. But it was them also we found out that she’s been down with a rare disease. My heart just broke when her mother was telling us of their story, but I personally am believing for God to heal her completely. For those of you who are reading this, do keep her and her family in prayer as well. In the conference, I met Jay Loh as well! Okay, now have to call her Jay Yeoh actually. HAHA! She was also there with her mom and brother, if I’m not mistaken. It was indeed a great time to meet up with old friend again.

Let’s move on to what I did in December 2008. I had the privilege to be invited by Carol’s family to go on a holiday with them in Penang. It’s been so long since I made a trip to Penang, the last I can recall ever stepping foot into the island is to attend a friend’s father’s funeral. Anyway, during the trip I had the privilege to also meet Carol’s aunt, Aunty Angela, and her ozzie friend, Aunty Joanna. Aunty Angela is actually a town planner based in Melbourne, Australia whereas Aunty Joanna is a full time professional singer. It was great getting to know them and seeing Aunty Joanna’s face as she tried our different types of food. Surprising, unlike typical ‘ang mos’, she is one adventurous lady! Everything also she dare to try!

We stayed in Park Royal, a beautiful hotel in Batu Ferringi. I know it’s darn expensive, and believe me, I didn’t really feel very comfortable with Carol’s dad spending on me. But none the less, I made every effort to build relationship with her dad, mom, aunt and the little sister. I even played ping-pong with her mom and aunt, which by the way are exceptional players. I had a good time getting to know each one of them personally in a deeper level. Really thank God for His favour!

Let’s move on to Christmas 2008! We had our very, very first Christmas choir presentation! It was a superb experience! We had a dear friend of ours, Lenny Lysandra, to come train us on vocal techniques. Lenny is a professional singer who graduated from Sedaya College with a music degree. She is one fantastic singer with a powerful voice. We had the privilege of having her in our recent EP recordings.

We also had another teacher who came with Lenny, she is the head of the SIB KL Malay service choir, and her name is Joyce. With both of their help, we all improved a lot in our vocal abilities. Not just in singing, but in speech, breathing, pronunciation and enunciation. Chris, Audrey, Pricilla, and I came up with the medleys of Christmas songs with the input of Joyce and Lenny. I think we didn’t do a video recording of it but I will try to look for picture to upload for you guys to see.

Moving on to January 2009, we didn’t have much activity in January other than a whole lot of people’s birthdays! HAHA! Practically all the guy leaders in Harvest Gen’s birthdays are all in this month. Calvin, Chris and myself all back to back birthdays. I really kesian the people that gave us all gifts, I know it isn’t easy for students to contribute to so many birthdays at once, but they really have a generous heart. For Calvin, we bought him a guess watch, for Chris, me and Carol bought him a pair of stylo jeans, and for myself, my cell group and the leaders bought me a bling-bling beat buckle from Ed-Hardy. They were all on a mission to change my dressing style, and it worked! For those of you who haven’t seen me in long time, I’m a bit more stylo now. HAHA!

Moving on to February 2009, Harvest Generation had its first Valentine’s Day event! And we had a national celebrity, Elaine Daly, to do a workshop on Personal Grooming. She is one hot 30-year-old, haha! For those of you who don’t know who she is, you can Google her up. She was Miss Malaysia/Universe for 2003, appeared in numerous local television shows and currently she’s the mentor for Malaysian Dreamgirls, a reality show on aspirant models in Malaysia. I and the other guy leaders had the privilege to take a photo with her. You can check it out on my Facebook or the Harvest Generation website.

February was also the month that a big hole was burnt in my wallet, my car skidded and hit a guard rail causing quite severe damage to my left door. Not only that, a week later when I was driving my Wira, as I was turning into another junction, a car bang into me because we couldn’t see each other. So 2 accidents in 2 weeks, it was so demoralizing. I was down and very disappointed with what had happened. But I believe God was teaching me something as well… Until today, I still have to pay off the repairs but I believe God is faithful to provide. I believe that the moment we don’t what else to do anymore, that’s when God steps in.

What happened in March? The Harvest Generation leaders had a retreat to Damai Laut, Lumut. It was a long drive there because we had to use the trunk roads. When we reached the place, we were greeted with an unruly surprise. Our apartment rooms were BAD! Everything was so dirty and dusty, and the swimming pool was like mass bathing pond! Good thing we had one of our leaders Catherine Tan, a hoteller, to help us upgrade to the hotel rooms. It was a massive difference! At the apartment, it was so dirty that rash started popping out from my skin! But we had a great time there recharging ourselves for another year of hardwork! Calvin and Ern Suey even got their pre-marriage photoshoot there with our amateur photographers, Nick and Raymond.

What other stuff happened in March? Super a lot of preparations for the big Easter play we’re doing! This will be the very first play Harvest Generation has ever done. One of the wonderful things that came out in preparation of this play is Harvest Generation now has a dance team! Mind you that most of them have NO dance exposure or experience, all first timers. They only practiced together for about 4 or 5 times to date and they dance like they’ve been doing it for years! Chris, myself and Pricilla have been staying back in church almost every other night till the wee hours preparing the songs for the play. The director is our very own Jeffery Yeo, which most of really wanted to strangle because his demanded arrangements for the music were so complicated! But thank God, all is done now. We just have to practice the acting scenes, only 2 weeks left! But we CAN DO IT! Do come on Easter Sunday, 12 April 2009, at 10am in Harvest Generation Church to watch the play if you guys can ok?

So there you have it, a quick recap of what has happened in my life for the past 5 months. April is gonna be another exciting month, I’m believing for new souls to be added to the church this coming Easter!

Today I’d like to appreciate another sponsor that has made us, ex-CampusCity-ans very proud. It was sad that she had to leave us to study up north of the country but distance never doused her fire for God. In fact, she got involved in the CF there and really went all out in serving. This person is none other than Phebe Ting a.k.a. Phebe ‘The’ Ting!

We were taken by surprise when we saw her in Ipoh few weeks back when we were ministering there, but it was very good to see her! We found out that they actually did a GIG in Kampar! These people are really on fire for God, they’re willing to fork out their time and money to minister in a small town. That’s really the spirit behind the GIG ministry last time. She’s even more on fire for God now than before! We were so proud that GIG did not end when CampusCity closed, she took it up and continued with it in AIMS University, Sg. Petani!

I remember few years back when she was such a shy and quiet girl. Even when we asked her to play the keyboards for the worship team, she usually would be so scared and intimidated. Slow and gradually, after much encouragement, she started to break out of her former nature and took up the challenge in ministry. I am proud to say that she was one of our best Preaching Class students of her batch. This girl can preach up a storm! I had the honor of serving alongside her for 2 years I think, until she had to leave for AIMS and I graduated. I was indeed a very memorable time to watch people grow from where they were at initially to where they are now.

So to Phebe Ting, I believe there are greater days ahead of you. Don’t ever think that what you have achieved is enough already. The very day we say to ourselves that we’ve learnt enough is the very beginning of our destruction. So keep pursuing excellence in all that you’re doing now and never cease to advance with God and in everything else you’re involved in.

When times get tough, which I know it will, remember how God has been so faithful in delivering you from past problems. Always remind yourself who God is and make Him who He is in your life. A bit confusing? Well, it just means that whatever you’ve learned from the Word of who God is, place Him as that person in your life… He is a God who Heals, He is my Healer! He is a God who provides, He is my provider!

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for participating in this project. Although I’ve mentioned to you before it’s not about the money, and I don’t need the money, but yet you were willing to contribute something even when you are located so far away. That is worth so much more than anything money can buy. Through your life, I believe many people will be attracted to God because you are an example of how God can elevate us from one level to another if we’re willing to be molded by Him. Keep up the good work!

Thank you people for taking the time to read! Just an announcement, the signing session will begin in April 2009! I will inform you guys via email on the meet-up times. Sorry for the long delay, it has really been an uphill task to organize anything for myself of late due to a lot of other commitments. But I promise you that we will meet-up soon! For those of your overseas, don’t hesitate to call me when you’re back! Awaiting your time to sign in the boot! Have a great rest of the week people! God Bless…

Project Report #31 - MonKee Business

Hey there Sponsors! It has been a fantastic week so far. I just got went to Nilai yesterday night to do bible study with some of the Inti boys there, it was a great time. We studied about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and how it all begins by first getting the gift of tongues. One of them who has yet to receive the Baptism of the Spirit was really inspired and was eager to receive the gift of tongues.

One of the boys told me that his friend showed his a video of documentary that was disproving being slain in the Sprit, in other words, falling down when someone prays for you. I just told him bluntly, that no one who is walking right with God, whose heart is right before God, would want to fake such a thing. Falling under the power of God is just a physical expression, people can fake it but it is between them and God.

At the end of day, many people can fake it, but the ultimate proof that God has really touched them is that their lives have changed. The fruit of being touched by God is CHANGE! So judge by the fruit, and not by the expressions. After explaining that to him, I really felt in my spirit that a load of uncertainty has lifted from his shoulders, that now he knows how to respond when people challenge the truth of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Many will chase after signs and wonders, many people just pursue just the expressions of the gifts of the Spirit, but we must continuously guard out hearts to not chase after just the form but denying its power. We must always run after God’s heart, making His desires our desires and becoming a person of great substance and character. Becoming a vessel of honor begins inside… So speaking in tongues and all the other gifts are physical expressions of an internal conviction. Thank God for a fruitful time there doing bible study with the boys, as I was teaching, I too reminded myself of a lot of things..

Today’s the big day, I’m going to be facing my first round of appraisal for this year. God indeed has been so faithful to me this year in terms of career. He has blessed me with many opportunities to venture into various areas of the software development industry for F&B sector. I’ve grown a lot in my knowledge and character in handling tight scheduled projects. I also really thank God for a good, generous boss and also very helpful colleagues that have never abandoned me when I was facing difficult times. Praise God for His providence!

We’ll be going to Singapore for the Asia Conference hosted by City Harvest Church in a few weeks time. I’m really excited for what God has in store for us there. It’s gonna be a fantastic time of learning and ministry. The exchange rate for Ringgit to Singapore dollar is rather high now, but no worries, God will provide! Haha! I will not let money be an obstacle, this is an obstacle I know I can overcome through God! Be prepared for the report I will bring back from Singapore!

The Harvest Generation Worship Team is currently having vocal and choir training with our singers, believe or not I’m also in the programme. HAH! For those of you who think I can’t sing, be very amazed at the end of this programme, Ceh-Wah! Just kidding… Nothing to brag about, we’re just looking into avenues to grow our talents in music and singing. We have 2 very good instructors from the SIB BM church, Lenny and Joyce, who really pour their hearts out in teaching us.

Lenny is recording artist and vocal teacher by profession and Joyce is the choir conductor of SIB KL BM service which comprises of about 60 choir members. Joyce’s mother is a ‘big-shot’ choir conductor in Indonesia and is very well know by the locals there. When Lenny and Joyce did a demo in singing, we all felt so unworthy to sing anymore. HAHA! They are so GOOD! Even impromptu songs, they make it sound like it’s been practiced for months! But we really thank God for people who are willing to stand by the church and help build us up.

It’s been awhile since I wrote to appreciate the sponsors of this project. I shall continue today introducing a young gal, who was very timid and quiet when she first came up to Subang, but after she joined CampusCity, there was a huge turn around. She’s one of the strongest young gals I know, despite going through hard times, she has risen above the circumstances and really dependent on God all the way. This gal is no other than Amanda Tan aka Alamanda!

Don’t mistake her for a Chindian ok? She’s pure Chinese~! This gal is super athletic! She can play netball really really well. To see a young student who is willing to learn, willing to give 100% in her service to God and 100% in her studies really inspires me. I speak on behalf of all the CampusCity leaders of that time when I say that we’re all very proud of her!

When she first came to join us in CampusCity, I remember she was super quiet. She wouldn’t even say more than 4 words in a sentence. But after she opened up her heart for the Holy Spirit to work in her, things began to change. She started off serving as an usher, the later as a choir member, then she took up preaching class, leadership training and bible studies, and numerous GIGs. She even joined us to pray at 5.30am, way before the sun rose, for a week when Ps Ryan called for a prayer meeting.

I thank God for her life because she never looked down on the talents that God has given to her. She has always availed herself for ministry no matter how small the task may seem to be to most people. I mean, many people think that being an usher is a small thing, but every role in the Kingdom of God is vital! Your hand can’t tell your feet that it’s useless, neither can any ministry tell the other that they don’t need it. If you’re missing a little toe, did you know that you will find it hard to balance when you’re walking? That’s how important every part of the body of Christ is, no ministry is too small for God.

To Amanda, continue to keep that heart of humility before God. True promotion only comes from God alone, so never ever despise the days of small beginnings. I know you’ll be graduating and will eventually be working. Hold on to the principles of God, never ever let your foundations in the Word and Spirit be shaken by circumstances that will arise against you. Stay faithful to the call that God has placed in your heart and pursue the vision with everything you got.

Man may look at the outer appearance but God looks at the heart, continue seeking and pursuing the things of God and He will bless you abundantly. All the best in all your undertakings, remember to always put God first in everything that you do. Never compromise on the Word and Spirit, in everything give your 100%. Honor God with your life and He will definitely honor you.

PROJECT REPORT! I’m actually considering to install a piggy-back engine management system onto my car. Still looking into the pros and cons of doing so, it’s pretty affordable because I found a guy that I can deal with a very good bargain. I may even propose to help him sell these products if I’m satisfied with the work he’s going to do with my car. Will update you guys more about this when the job is done. Hopefully I’ll be able to land some car jobs in the coming months through this. I’m still praying and looking out for business opportunities and investments in can make to gear myself up to achieve the vision that has been placed in my heart…

Well, that’s all I have all of you today. It’s pretty short compared to me last few entries, but I guess I shouldn’t take so much of your time reading this. So take care people! Have a great weekend ahead! God Bless!!

Project Report #30 - They Came, They Saw, They Got Married (Part 2)

Hey there sponsors, it’s been awhile since I last made an entry. As usual, I’ve been really busy, it’s better than having nothing to do. Like what Pastor Ryan always say, while we’re on earth let’s work hard because when we’re in heaven, we’ll have eternity to rest all we want. Haha~! I am really looking forward to where Harvest Generation is heading towards as a church. Things are getting very exciting!

We just went to Ipoh 3 weeks back to do 5 services back to back in 3 different places covered in a span of 30 hours, amazing eh? We’re going to take another service in CBC PJ this coming Saturday evening and it’s gonna be exciting! It’s like going for GIGs but at a more amplified version of it! This time, we’re stretched as working people! But it’s great because we really see the change in the lives of these young people.

Ps Ryan now is a very happy man! Finally, my senior Pastor is no longer a bachelor! This paves the way for the rest of us to even journey on towards marriage. We had a ball during the preparation of the wedding, the bachelor night and the wedding itself! Let’s just begin with the bachelor night that we had for our beloved Pastor… Writing this is not just for you folks to read for myself also to cherish these good times…

We all gathered at Calvin’s house week before the wedding day with everything prepared. I rushed here and there just to get pastor a nice ‘sexy’ underwear, Chris T bought some sex stuff and the others bought some sushi, body shaver and shaving cream. We had a good laugh shooting videos and taking pictures of the stuff we bought, here are some pictures of that very faithful moment…

After all the stuff was settled and the ‘plan’ was devised, we set out in 2 cars to Pastor’s house. Note that Pastor thinks that we’re only going to pick him up and go karaoke, heheh… So the plan was to ask Calvin to get Pastor to open the doors as we hid in the bushes nearby where we would ambush into Pastor’s house. However, the ambush plan totally failed because Pastor locked the doors behind him as he was exiting the house. So we had to say ‘we need to use the bathroom’ excuse and all that nonsense to get him to open the house doors again. Finally after much pushing through, we manage to get him in the house and sat him down in the middle of the living room as we surrounded him and prepared the ‘bachelor night’ torture…

First up, we prepared a box of nicely sliced salmon sashimi with wasabi on the side and laid it out for Pastor to eat it. NOTE: Pastor Ryan HATES sushi! But this was the request of his dearest bride-to-be for him to eat the sashimi. So pastor ate about 3 pieces but he could not finish it, by the third piece he said he was gonna puke…”all for the sake of marriage..”

Second up, we took out the nicely prepared briefs, custom designed by me, and made him wear it outside his jeans. I purposely bought the biggest size and the most nerdish undies I could find. So he wore it and we made him pose for picture taking… if any of you watch the Zohan movie, we made him do those poses… I shall not elaborate any further… HAHA!

Third up, we took out the ‘razor’~! It’s shaving time! We made Pastor roll up his pants and asked his most trusted assistant, Calvin Tay, to rub on some shaving cream on it. Then Calvin had to shave one part of Pastor’s leg… I personally think that it wasn’t enough because it can’t even be seen! But since he’s our Pastor, we let him off with only a patch of his right leg shaved. Before we could clean his legs, he got up in retaliation towards us and started to wipe the shaving cream on anyone that was around. Poor Nick Chan was on the floor at that time so he got most of the shaving cream on him… oh well, casualties of war… HAH~!

Finally, after all the shaving stuff is cleaned up, each of us presented Pastor with a sex thingy… HAHA… there were condoms, different kinds of lubricants, massage oils which can be used as lubricants as well and other goodies for a good night of ‘FUN’. Silly Jeffery was standing beside Pastor as he was pouring out some lubricants onto his hand… we all know what Pastor was gonna do, but either Jeffery was ignorant or he likes what Pastor is gonna do… so as predicted, Pastor whacked the lubricant on Jeff’s face as he was the nearest victim while we all stayed a safe distance since earlier.

So thus comes the end of the opening ceremony of the Bachelor Night for Pastor Ryan. We then head out to Neway SS17 to have out buffet dinner and crazy karaoke session. We sang the dumbest and funniest songs… well, I guess the songs were not to blame for the horrid noises we made with the microphone and speakers.

While we were all having fun doing crazy stuff at Neway, guess what the girls were doing for Brenda’s bridal shower? They were watching Olympics at Carol’s house. Oh well, the girls are just more composed than us guys… we had the night of our life!

Let’s move on to talk about the wedding preparations. The day before the wedding, all of us were working hard to get things together before 8pm so that we could rush for the Emerge Conference at Sunway Convention. Sadly that day when I loaded stuff to be shifted to the wedding location, some of the equipment tore off my back window tints causing scratches to my windows as well. At first it was frustrating because I very saying my car mah, but then again these things can be replaced whereas a good wedding for the 2 people we love so much is priceless!

All of us were dead tired by the time we were done with the logistics, dry runs and last minute settlements. Even after the Emerge Conference, some of us had to do some more preparations before the big day… I think most of us slept no earlier than 3am that night, some didn’t even sleep…

Then the BIG DAY came! Early in that Saturday morning, we all got up really early, grab some stuff from church and prepared ourselves for the Chip San Liong session, for those of you who don’t know Cantonese, this is the ‘going to get the bride’ session in Chinese tradition. I sent Carol to the hotel early that morning before meeting up with the others guys at Pastor’s house. After Pastor came down in his new suit, we prayed for the entire wedding day. Then we took some Heng Tai photos in and outside the house before we convoyed to the hotel to meet the bride and the nemesis Chi Muis…

When we arrived at the hotel, the first thing we worried about was to get the pulpit from the lorry that came not too after we parked, and unload the other stuff that we had in our cars to be set up at the wedding place. After sweating it out for awhile carrying and working the equipment, the Chi Muis gave us a rang and told us, “we are READY…MUAHAHAHA!”

So we went up to the 10th floor of Holiday Villa Tower and right outside the door, the Chi Muis were already waiting for us... They first gave us each a few tissues and we wondered what ever for? Then they made us do pumping aka push-ups… Haiyah, simple stuff la… not a problem at all… they wanted all of us to do an accumulated amount of 200 pumps.. Pastor, Doc Leong aka Kwong Yew, Calvin and I tapau-ed over 40 pumps each already… rest just had to do the remaining. So we succeeded through the first hurdle…

Then the girls brought out a tray covered with a cloth, we don’t know what was underneath it. They had stuff in 4 cups which were suppose to signify sweet, sour, bitter and spicy. Again, we guys drank until there was only a few drops left for Pastor to take… Thanks mainly to Calvin who took most of it by himself for the sake of his pastor… we guys nailed the second hurdle with ease!

The third hurdle, the girl brought out a cloth with different lipstick marks on it. Pastor was given 3 chances to guess which one belonged to his beloved bride. The first guess was wrong and Pastor was totally clueless about the correct one. Then our hero came, Mr Nick Chan… asked Pastor to smell the lipstick but of course he didn’t la, but Nick continued by pointing out the one that looked most like Brenda’s lips and guess what? IT WAS CORRECT! HAHAH! We were all puzzled how Nick would know Brenda’s lips so definitely… Pei Teng even said how come Nick knows Brenda’s lips more than Pastor? We all had a good laugh!

Final hurdle, the girls told us that they wanted RM308.08 angpau to gain access to the room where the bride was in. The celaka thing was the 8 sen~! Since our ‘beloved’ government introduced the rounding mechanism, where on earth are we gonna find 3 sen? But as guys, we always find a solution to a problem. We first went checked our pockets, car seats, under car seats, under car carpets and finally only wallets, but availed to nothing. This shows that Harvest Generation guys are not cheapos that bring around loose pocket change… HAHHA!

So we went around the hotel to every restaurant and shop frantically looking for the 3 sen to make up the dumb 8 sen. Finally after much searching, we manage to get the 3 sen from a very nice florist near the entrance of the hotel. She was giggling with her other acquaintances in her shop when we told her what we needed the 3 sen for. YAHOO! The mission is completed and we all rushed back up to the 10th floor to greet the Chi Muis but with ‘something’ up our sleeves…

As soon as we arrived at the door, we started shouting and banging on the door for them to let the groom in. They said they wanted to see the money first, we tried to trick them into opening the door to pass the money to them but Harvest Generation girls aren’t so dumb la… sheesh… we scammed them by giving them the money little by little by slotting under the door. We gave them about RM100 over until we scam them by repeatedly saying that we don’t have any more money… but actually we had about RM300 over with us at that time… hehehe… the fun of Chip-Sun-Liong sessions…

So the opened up the door a little bit with the hinge still on and asked Pastor to sing the magic song to Brenda… Pastor and all of us have not a clue what is the magic song so we started to sing the song composed by Pastor himself a few years back… ‘In Your Presence’… HAHAH! I can’t believe we sang a worship song to get to the bride, it shows that Harvest Generation men goes through God to get to the women they love… HAHA! Later only I found out that the song they wanted Pastor to sing was the song he was gonna sing for the bridal entry.. And so finally, the doors were opened and Pastor got to see his bride in all of her glory for the first time ;)

The rest of us had to head down to the garden where the wedding was gonna be held to do more preparations and sound checks while Pastor, Brenda and a few other leaders stayed back to commence with the Chum Cha aka Tea ceremony with Pastor’s family. Then it started to rain heavily… oh no…

About half an hour before the wedding began, Rev Dr Kong Hee of City Harvest Singapore arrived with Ps Kevin Loo and another pastor. A lot of the younger members of our church were stunned to see him walk in to the hotel, so much so that they didn’t know what to do and just froze. But even when he walked pass me, I could really sense and feel the anointing on that man. It’s like he has an aura around him, just an amazing man of God. Donald, Alvin and Doc Leong were Rev Kong’s personal bodyguards for the day, they did a great job but they looked so funny because they were so serious… Normally they are very smiley people but that afternoon they really took on the ‘bodyguard mode’… As the guest arrived, soon the wedding began…

Sherene, one of our close friends from Harvest Times, Ipoh, took the stage as the emcee for the ceremony and kicked it off with an opening prayer. She then asked announced the entry of the bride and the crowd we ecstatic! Well, at least for the Harvest Generation and CampusCity people… Michelle Foo, Pastor’s niece was the flower girl, Carol was the bride’s maid of honour and Calvin Tay was the best man. Pastor Ryan sang the song “I Was Born For You” as the bride made her way to the altar… You could see that both the bride and groom were almost in tears at that time... It was simply a remarkable moment…

They joined hands as Rev Kong took stage to pray a prayer of blessing over them. Then praise and worship started lead by Calvin. After praise and worship, Rev Kong took stage again to give a short sermon, which was AWESOME! I have never heard a wedding sermon like that in my entire life! Was really convicted and moved in my spirit… Then he called on to the bride and groom to take stage for the exchanging of vows, communion and prayer of blessing… and finally the long awaited line, Rev Kong gave his blessing for Pastor Ryan to kiss his bride, we went ecstatic again! And Rev Kong announced the new couple “Mr and Mrs Ryan Foo Say Liang!”…

The wedding ceremony was relatively short but amazing time for not just the bride and groom, but for all of us as well. Remember I said earlier that it was raining very heavily? Well, we didn’t understand why God would allow it rain at first, but later we realized… Thank God it rained because of 2 reasons, 1) The place where the wedding was held would’ve been unbearably hot! 2) The rain drowned out the horrid karaoke session that was taking place at the restaurant just beside the wedding ceremony thus the ceremony was not distracted… So, PRAISE GOD FOR THE RAIN! HAhaha! It was also a personal breakthrough for me that day, for the first time I wore striped shirts and a polka-dot tie which cost me a bomb! Hahaha! What to do, Carol loved the shirt and tie ;)

We had a great time catching up with old friends from CampusCity that we have not seen in a long time. The bride and along with some leaders went on with another Chum Cha ceremony with Brenda’s family this time. After everything was done, the bride and groom went back to the bridal suite to settle some things and prepare themselves for the dinner. We were packing up stuff from the garden and working in the dinner hall making sure everything was organized and planned out properly. We liaised closely with the hotel manager and employees, even made some friends during the preparations. The wedding event manager, Catherine Tan, did a superb job overseeing to everything an ensured a perfect running wedding dinner.

At about 8pm, the dinner commenced with the emcees for the night, Chris and Sherene, introducing the newlyweds in. The bride and groom entered the hall holding hands with the crowd cheering them on. Then the best man and the bride’s maid entered the hall behind them holding hands too… it was so funny! Why? Like I said before, the bride’s maid was Carol and the best man was Calvin and for those of you who were in CampusCity in 2005, Calvin and Carol had some history together in our campus party drama… Calvin was so pai-seh when he sat at the table I was at and kept apologizing to me for holding Carol’s hand. It was really funny and we laughed like mad.

Then the stage lights went dim and the hotel staff put together a stage piece which involved 2 swans dancing together and suddenly 6 baby swans came out! HAHAHA! Common Pastor, You the Man! Then Sherene and Chris took stage again to emcee the entire dinner. They really did a fantastic job and had such good chemistry on stage. For most of us, we didn’t have much time to sit down and eat everything dish that was on our table. In fact, my table most of the time was empty because all of us were running around so much. I was up in the sound/lights control room half the time. The dinner went on with speeches from the best man, the brides maid then came the infamous Yam Seng session lead by Calvin Tay… it was really FUN! Hahah! Pastor Ryan and Brenda poured the Champagne on the stacked glass and delivered a speech to the crowd.

The dinner ended with the newlyweds Yam Seng-ing at every table. We joined in the fun and screamed to our hearts content till we had sore voice and a stomach full of Chinese tea. Although we had much fun but much work was also awaiting us to finish. A group of undisclosed people went to the save room with our in-house bodyguards to do the angpau counting, some went to help out the newlyweds with some final issues at the suite and the rest of us stayed back at the hall to pack up our equipments.

By the time we left the hotel, it was about 12.30am Sunday morning. Some of us guys went back to church to move the stuff back and prepare it for Sunday morning service. When we were done with moving, it was close to 1.30am. Like I mentioned before, most of us didn’t get to eat much that night and were hungry so we dropped by Taj Curry House for a quick supper. After we were done with supper, I sent Carol home before meeting up with the guys again at the hotel where we spent the night, because it was a complimentary room. We joked and laughed awhile but eventually we all ‘died’ all around the floor from exhaustion.

Next morning we got up at about 6am to prepare ourselves for church, we had to be in church by 7.30am, a little earlier than usual, because we needed to setup and make sure everything is running on stage for the service. We had a great service that morning! Pastor Ryan and Brenda thanked the church at the end of the service because they were so grateful to all who have worked hard to bring this wedding together and it all superseded what we expected. Another great testimony is that every bill, every expense was taken care of and the newlyweds had no debt. In fact, God blessed them with more! What a wonderful start to a journey together as husband and wife, without the worry of owing any one any money… God is indeed faithful!

So that’s the account of what happened in the events that led to the wedding, the wedding itself and the day after the wedding. For those of you who didn’t get to attend, well… you missed out on a great time! As tired as we were, it was so worth it! For those who are interested, there are pictures of the wedding loaded at http://www.creativeclicks.com.my/blog/?p=575

The past few weeks have been rather frustrating for me and Carol. We really had to juggle through a lot of unnecessary burdens that was laid on to us by irresponsible people, but then again, the bright side is that it has taught us to be more gracious and merciful. Sometimes people may not appreciate the sacrifices you’ve made for them, but that’s what grace is all about, to give something to someone although they don’t deserve it.

Why were we frustrated? I’ll just give you an example, if you loaned someone something because they needed it, and then when it’s time to ask for it back, that person conveniently ignores you, how would you feel? To add on to that, the person goes around telling people that you falsely accused him of stealing your stuff… WOW! And you just asked him because he was suppose to be the person responsible right? Since he borrowed it from you? That’s why we were bummed for that moment… but this is just ONE of the issues that surfaced over the months, not as simple as that lah.. It takes a lot to get me and Carol so mad. HAHA!

But despite all this, we continuously pray for that person and pray even for ourselves to guard our heart from not doing anything out of anger and vengeance, never fighting evil with evil. It’s tough, but only through God’s love this can be achieved. Injustice is all around us, if you live our lives to justify every injustice done to us, we’re just wasting time and, eventually, our lives away. We can just do all we can do and let God take care of the rest…

Leviticus 19:17-18
‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Deuteronomy 32:35
‘Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.’

So the lesson learnt, don’t try to correct everyone’s mistakes, if there’s no conviction within their spirit then there’s nothing more you can do until the person realizes that he needs God. We can be there to encourage, show mercy and help in whatever way we can for the person, but we should never waste so much time convincing the person to do the right thing if he’s not willing to… Feed those who are hungry, give drink to those who are thirsty… Disciple the ones who desire to be discipled…

Matthew 9:12-14
When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Me and Calvin are now making trips to INTI Nilai to do bible study with a group of boys there. They’re really passionate and hungry for more of God and His word. In fact, because of them, I began to pick up jogging again to maintain my health! HAHA! It’s no joking matter because I know for me to stretch myself between ministry, work, family, relationships and building my vision, I have to be both spiritually and physically fit. But the boys in Nilai have been really a great encouragement and blessing to our cell and our church…

God is really working in Harvest Generation, we can really see the type of hearts He’s bringing in to build this church together with us. People who are Church Based and Kingdom Minded… Our numbers may not be very great right now but with core values and foundations of this church built on the Word of God, our dependency on the Spirit, and our hands to the plow, we will definitely see an increase of not just numbers, but quality of the people’s hearts! So friends, believe with us for God’s best!

PROJECT REPORT! I just changed my front tires because it exploded the day after I came back from Nilai. The funny thing is both front tires burst at the same time. HAH! Cost me nearly 1k to replace just 2 front tires, but miraculously God provided. Was really worried where the money was gonna come from because my road tax is expiring this month and I had to prepare cash to go to Singapore next month for the Asia Conference in City Harvest.. budget was really tight… actually, NO BUDGET for the tires change at all would be the right term. HAHA! Praise God for His providence that I manage to pay it all off.

Well, that’s all I have for you people today. I hope you’ll have a splendid weekend ahead. Hope to bump into one of you sometime soon, I would be running around most of the time. Take care people, God Bless!!

Project Report #29 - They Came, They Saw, They Got Married (Part 1)

Hey people, it has been a really packed the past month… ministry, work, travelling, cell teaching, music teaching, business, etc. Praise God that despite my very active lifestyle, I have not fallen ill. We had a wonderful time last month, 8th of August, we travelled to Kuantan to celebrate Uncle James’ wedding then we had Ps Victor to speak in our church Sunday service.

Let’s begin with the Kuantan trip, one thing’s for sure that we all really had fun! We departed from Subang at about 7am, we were suppose to leave at 6am but due to some miscommunication, our dear friend Tan Sri (to be) Jeff Yeo thought we were suppose to leave later. Calvin and I drove, there were 9 of us that went. Poor Carol was the only girl that went because the others had prior engagement or couldn’t take leave that day. I had noisy group of people in my car… Carol, Nick, Donald and Jeff… but at the initial part of the journey, all of them slept till we reached Karak R&R stop. From there, the geng made stupid noise and cracked dumb jokes… so laughed our way until the next R&R stop at Termeloh at 8.40am where we had our breakfast.

After breakfast, we continued our journey laughing all the way to Kuantan. In the midst of the journay, Jeff, as usual, stated a very mind boggling, yet interesting thing. He said that the governing body of Subang is planning to fight traffic problems by implementing Speed Traps in the future. At first thought, we were all like “WHAT?!!”… to a regular person, it is totally stupid and impossible to fight traffic jams with speed traps.. but as we pondered on the process and technical functions of speed traps, we began to slowly dissect how the functions of speed traps, not the stereotype purpose of it, can actually do a lot for traffic easing. How? Go figure out yourself! Haha!

We arrived in Kuantan at about 10.15am, we met up with Uncle James and his wife-to-be, Sister Pat, at a very nice but pricey kopitiam called Kemaman Kopitiam. There we had another round of breakfast again! Eating Spree! The food and drinks were superb, better quality than the kopitiam places (Old Town, Old Taste, etc) places we get in KL/Subang Jaya. The place is owned by a Chinese man, but every single worker in the shop is Malay, all the recipes for the food were also very Malay. It was a good time there. We saw 4 sizes of traditional coffee making strainers hung on the wall. At first glance, it looked like old saggy-baggy white underwear, FOUR SIZES! So we were making fun of it la, one for great-grandpa, one for grandpa, one for dad and last one for son. Plus the bigger ones had brown stains on it… looks quite bad la.. HAHA!

After breakfast, we went to MS Garden Hotel, where the wedding was going to be held. There we checked in to the room and continued making more noise. Once again, poor Carol had to be stuck there with all the guys laughing and doing crazy stuff. But of course, I tried my best to take care of her whenever I could la.. Hehe… We ran through the ceremony dry run later that evening and it was really funny. Uncle James and Sister Pat kept make funny gestures during the dry run. The rest of us practically changed the entire deco of the ceremony hall. The hotel had great deco stuff but the arrangements were quite cincai. So we did some adjustments here and there and at the end, the couple was very happy with new setting.

After the dry run, we went back to the room and rested before heading out to the mall next door to have our very late lunch. The mall really reminded me so much of Summit USJ. So ate, bought some stuff for the wedding ceremony, then went back to the hotel to prepare for the wedding.
At about 6.15pm, the entire guest had arrived and the wedding ceremony began. The couple made their entry with rousing applause, mostly from us la cause the other people were all so old! Calvin led worship while me and Raymond were on the guitars. Then Ps Ryan did the wedding vows, exchange of rings, communion and the unity candle. Before the ceremony ended, Ps Ryan invited the Kuantan pastor, Rev. Dr. Quah to pray a prayer of blessing for the newly weds. It was a very short but sweet wedding, I wouldn’t mind having such a short but so power-packed wedding myself next time. I dread long draggy weddings…ZZzzzZZZ…

We ended the ceremony at 7.15pm, then we guys went up to change into something more comfortable while Carol went to the dinner hall to prepare herself to emcee for the dinner. We proceeded with the dinner with Uncle James and Sister Pat making a grand entrance. Again, we were the ones cheering for them mostly. Carol took the stage and she did a fantastic job! She looked really good that night too… After the second dish, we guys took the stage to do a song presentation. Guess what song? Yup, you’ve guessed it! Our infamous Belaian Jiwa… for a wedding??! Well, Uncle James liked the song and it was the only Malay song Ps Ryan knew how to sing. I had the privilege to play the guitar for them with Raymond. I tell you, the singers were so emo when they sang… the picture speaks a thousand words…

After our presentation, we continued eating while listening to speeches from different ones. We had a good and ‘good’ time listening to different people go up to sing karaoke. Calvin also went up to sing, he did a really good job, karaoke kaki mah! While he was singing, my good friend Jamie went up to give him a flower. Don’t let Ern Suey know ok? ;P

We wrapped up the night with a group photo outside the hall. I took a lot of photos myself, but some I cannot upload la… for my own collection :)

We then proceeded back to the hotel room where we freshened up and changed. Uncle James and Aunty Pat later greeted us in the room, they were very happy with the whole ceremony and dinner. They couldn’t stop thanking us but honestly it was our pleasure and felt no obligation or pressure to do all that we did for them. We were very happy that everything went beyond what they expected. Praise God, it’s only through Him that we could’ve achieved this. After our long goodbyes, we packed up and left the hotel to go to a house Aunty Pat prepared for us to stay the night. We didn’t want to stay in the hotel because the room we had was just next to the newly weds… plus we didn’t bring our earplugs. We wanted to dump Carol at the hotel and all the guys to stay at the house where we can have our pre-bachelor party for Ps Ryan… but my conscience kicked in and Carol didn’t want to be left alone there also la.. darn…

Anyway, we arrived at the house shortly and unloaded our stuff. I accompanied Carol to her room downstairs just to keep watch because we found out that there were two other male occupants in the house, they looked like construction workers and were not very friendly. The guys took the other rooms upstairs. After I made sure that Carol had locked all her doors and windows, I went upstairs to join the guys. We were actually too tired to party. Jeffery went out to meet his dad and bought back some satay, which is actually no match to the Ampang satay, but all of us were too tired to eat. I fell asleep watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony repeat...

Next morning, we got up, washed up, packed our stuff and left for breakfast at a very famous nasi dagang stall. But too bad, we arrived too late and all the nasi dagang were sold out. Nevertheless, we ate the other goodies that they still had, nasi minyak, nasi kerabu, ayam goring, ayam merah, and etc… As usual, we stuffed ourselves la… After breakfast, we went off to Teluk Chempedak and walked around the beach. I could tell you the story, but I’ll just let the photos below do the job for me…

We left the beach at about 11.30am and wanted to go eat at a very famous stall that sells nice kerepok lekor, but our dear friend Jeffery forgot how to get there, after spending 20 minutes looking for the place, we gave up and just left for KL as William needed to go to work by 3pm that day.

On the way back, again everyone slept in my car until we reached the Termeloh R&R stop. The highway to Kuantan and back was really bad, the roads were so uneven... My car was practically bouncing on the road! By the time I sent everyone home and got home myself, it was about 4.30pm. I had a short rest before leaving again for cell group at 8pm. We had a great time at cell and after that we had our Sunday morning worship practice at 9.30pm. Guess who I saw there? My good friend Phoon Pei Teng! Yess, she’s back! For holidays only la, but it was really good to see her again. After practice, Carol went home to rest while I took the others along with Pei Teng for supper. Good time of catching up with her and showing the others the pics I took in Kuantan… So that’s all for our Kuantan trip story.

The next morning, we were in church by 8.15am. We had a good time praying with the other leaders and worship team members. Ps Victor spoke for our service and it was a powerful time! He spoke a message about failures… that every lasting success must be molded through heaps of failure. God allows setbacks to come into even out strongest areas so that we can be prepared to handle great success. Take the life of Joseph, just read through it in Genesis 37, 39, 40, 41. This is the account of Joseph’s life from the time where he arrogantly boast about his dreams, to the time he faced persecutions and setbacks, and in the end all that was to prepare him to be the man that he was destined to be. A lesson worth learning… Failures are not the end… True success can only be obtained when we learn how to handle failures… And there’s only 1 way to learn how to handle failure… TO EXPEREINCE IT FIRST HAND!

PROJECT REPORT~! I have not done anything to my car lately besides repairing my aircond. Found this really good aircond shop in PJ State which does a fantastic job with a superb price. I am in the midst of planning for the next upgrade which will be the base of all other major upgrades that I will be investing in the near future… Will provide you guys with more information when the time comes and when cash is sufficient.

Harvest Generation’s Second Anniversary is coming up soon in September! We’ll be having our anniversary service on the 7th of September 2008, with a very special guest speaker, Rev T.T. Quah. If you guys can come join us, it would be a great pleasure to serve you that day. Please do buzz me if you’re coming as we would need a head count because we’re catering lunch! It’s on the house!

That’s all I have for you all today, it’s gonna be a very exciting month ahead! For my next entry, I will write about Ps Ryan and Brenda’s wedding ceremony at Holiday Villa, Subang Jaya @ 30th August 2008. Stay tuned ya! Till then, take care and God Bless!