Monday, May 21, 2007

Project Report #23 - Backlash~!

Good morning people~! Another new week to face whole new set of challenges for the purpose of making us better people, I sound so philosophical.. Haha~! It’s been 3 weeks since I last made my entry. Again, I’ve been caught up with many things at work, in church and of course, this project. I’ve also recently started up my drum classes again, so my free time is really being shortened as the days go by, but it’s alright~! I really enjoy th pace of my life… I rather be busy than to be bored with nothing to do…

We had Ps Chan from CGBC Ipoh to speak in our Sunday service again yesterday, we had a great time with him. His message this time was about Christians In The Marketplace. It was a very good message and I believe all of us were really blessed by it. What is the Marketplace? How do we define Marketplace? There are a lot of different people giving good definitions like “the market place is wherever God places you…” or “the marketplace where you’re working or studying…” which all of it is very true. But Ps Chan gave a definition that I heard for the first time, he said the marketplace is anywhere that is beyond the church and your close family.

It got me thinking awhile what he meant, then I realized what he’s saying is that the marketplace is beyond the people who we are usually comfortable hanging around with. That makes so much sense to me now. Ps Chan emphasized this by using Jesus’ ministry as an example, he said Jesus didn’t only minister to the people he knew closely…He also went out to the people that He didn’t know very well to minister, to teach them the word, to heal them of their sicknesses, to perform miracles…

Why would Jesus do such a thing? Why would He do good to people who He didn’t even know? The answer lies in the understanding of why Jesus came to us in the first place. Many people don’t know what Jesus’ mission was when He came to us 2000 years ago, I know all of you all will say that Jesus came to save the lost, to redeem and reconcile man back to God, but is that all Jesus came to do? The answer is NO~!

Jesus’ ultimate mission wasn’t just to conquer sin and death, His ultimate mission was to reveal the True God to us. What does it mean to reveal the True God? Simple, to live a life of obedience to fulfill every plan and purpose that God has so that God’s power is revealed to others through His life… Jesus never ever went against the will of the Father, that’s why He lived a live of revealing the True God…

We are called to be imitators of Christ, therefore we too are to live a life revealing the True God in our own marketplaces. Through what we do wherever we’re placed, the responses and reactions we choose, our conduct and behavior, our speech, all this will reveal the god that lives in us… If Christ is the one who’s living in us, all that we do and say would be Christ-like. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, no word release from your mouth is by accident… unless you got speak defect la… Haha~!

Always remember, we were never made for ourselves. The blessings that we have were never just for our own enjoyment. There’s always a bigger cause and purpose to why we’re blessed. The Bible clearly states that we are blessed in abundance to be a blessing to others. Since we were blessed with the love of Christ that is so abundant, why not share it with someone else? That love didn’t come from you anyway, it came from Jesus… It is like me giving you RM50 to bring someone out for lunch, you would gladly do it because the money was given to you and not from your own pocket… Jesus gave you the love to love others, don’t try to love people with your own strength, its very tiring… draw from Him and you will be able to be generous with your love... You will only feel that sense of fulfillment when you accomplish what God has made you to accomplish… Cheers~!

Project Report~! I’ve hit another dead-end in my car ownership grant. It seems that the worse case scenario has happened, I thought it was all settled but I was so wrong. It turns out that the information on my insurance is different from the information printed on my car grant. Therefore it has caused many problems in insurance coverage and ownership transfer. This has caused my new engine number to not be able to be inserted to my new car grant. My insurance agent and JPJ officer is working up a plan to remedy this situation. All I can do now is pray, so sponsors please pray with me… This is serious, if this issue doesn’t clear, the documents will be compromised and the car will be clamped down… Thanks people~!

Today I’m gonna share about a person that’s filled with hot air… No la, just kidding... Haha~! This person is a dear friend and a really cool person to hang out with. I have no idea why she has a great obsession to want to blast Britney Spears’ ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ song with my car sound system. I actually really hate the song… and the singer also la… glad that she’s bald now… Hehe.. Sidetracked~! Okok.. it is my great privilege to introduce to you my dear friend… Michelle Ng a.k.a. ZeeKEE a.k.a. Mitchy a.k.a. Michillee a.k.a. Monkey…

Did you realize that is you did anything to prank her or scare her, her first response is to call you “Monkey”? Haha~! Either she’s reminding of my surname of her own last name. Anyway, I can’t really remember how I actually first met Mitchy. We just got along as we mixed with the same group of friends. I use to think she was some spoilt rich kid from Muar… I meant what else can I think right? People drive Wira, she drive Waja… I accident my Wira and got an old Ford, she accident her Toyota Altis and got a new Honda Civic... Haha~!

But she’s a very pleasant person to be around with. You will hardly catch her in a foul mood or not smiling, even when she’s really tired she will make an effort to fit in a smile or a witty remark. Her willingness to serve others is amazing~! Last time when she was staying in PJ, she use to send Cheryl Mohan back all the way to Segambut, near Jinjang, every week without fail. Not just for one church meeting, but for a few church events as well. You could see that she’s dead tired after a long day of classes, but she has not rejected her offer to serve others…

She has this habit of eating that really pisses me off sometimes… actually, all the time la. Haha~! Did you know that when she finishes her meal, she would always leave at least a spoon-full of food on the plate? No matter how much or how little she orders, every dish must be left with a little bit of the food on the plate.. The more annoying thing is, she would refuse to just swallow that last spoon-full no matter you say. Like Jesus, I have to learn to love her with her shortcomings as well… Haha~!

This gal is one strong gal, she has been through so much in her life, her studies, church and ministry, and even crisis in the family. Yet she held on to the promises of God and made it through all the trials with great success and great testimonies. Her life is really an inspiration and an example to all of how God can come through no matter what the situations are if we just choose not to give up and hold on strong to His principals.

To Mitchy… we’re served together for quite some time already haven’t we? I want you to know that I’ve had a wonder time working alongside you when I was in CampusCity and Acts Church. Your façade always brightened up the room because we could hardly ever catch you with a long face. I know many people are scared of me when they first see me, but everyone feels really comfortable when they first see you and talk to you…

You have the gift of connecting with people, your genuine love and care for others is one of you very strong points. Continue cultivating that strength and I know many many people will be blessed and inspired. In many ways we are so different, yet we manage to become good friends. It’s really a miracle from God la, Haha~! But you’re life has really inspired me to put my trust in God no matter how bleak the situation is.

Don’t hold back in sharing those testimonies you have with others. They are accounted to you for a reason, many people out there need to know the truth that you have in you. Things may sometimes seem out of hand, times many bring more stress and pressure, raging tempest all around you, but trust in the Lord, renew your strength in Him, let His peace guard your heart and you will come out of any situation successful, becoming a greater person than you were before…

I’m looking forward to the day we get to meet up again for a meal or anything… It has been quite awhile since I really had any time to talk and spend time with you and the others. Although we chat a lot, nothing beats meeting up face to face. Thank you for being part of this project, thank you for being so willing to be a sponsor, thank you for all the thing you may have done unknowingly that has blessed and inspired me and so many others… Above all, thank you for being a sponsor of my life… the very least you’ve done has made me who I am today..

Another end to another entry, I don’t know when I will have the time to make the next entry but I will keep all of you posted~! If no entries are made I will make quick updates on my chatterbox, do check it once in a awhile to find out what’s going on. Thanks for reading, I hope this entry has been a blessing to you all… Have a great week ahead and God bless~!

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Project Report #22 - Life House

Hey Sponsors~! It’s been a great few days of rest for me because of the public holidays, other than my little eczema attack, everything else is going along fine. I just realized that I only made one entry in April, very sorry about that. I was really busy last month, I hope things won’t get too hectic this month though.

As promised, I shall now unveil the pictures of the new premise of Harvest Generation Church…. I shall take you on a tour with pictures and descriptions as though you were walking in the place in real life… Forgive me if the pictures are not so nice, I’m just a casual photographer… Without further adew, let’s begin our tour… *drum roll*


To start off the tour, I now invite you to our church premise. You would have to go through these beautiful crystal glass doors. It’s not so easy to clean them okay… So please keep your hands off it and use the handles to open and close it~! Haha~!




Now you are passing by the entrance aisle, the walls in this aisle are paneled with tainted glass. The lightings and the glass gives a very elegant feel to the surroundings as you enter the church… Soon, this area will be an information counter area.


As you walk in through the entrance aisle, right in front of you would be the lounge area. We had a few in-house designers pick out the colour themes, lights and furniture. The ambience of the lounge really gives a very relaxing and un-whining feel…


From the lounge, when you turn to the left and look, there you will see the stage. There’s a group of posers here in this picture to make this image look elegant… Just kidding… We were actually preparing for our Friday Night Church-Wide Prayer Meeting when I took these pictures…

This is the front audience view of the stage.. Just look at the fantastic way all the colours blend in together. Believe or not, we used the very minimum of lighting device to create all the colour effects.




This is the right audience view of the stage, notice how big the stage is? I usually try whatever little B-Boy moves I know on the stage because there so much room to experiment on~!



This is the left audience view of the stage. With the stage so big, even when all of us are on our instruments, it still looks rather empty. Praying for a choir to come in really soon… Haha~!



Now let’s move on to the stage. These are our church keyboards, the main is a KORG Triton and the secondary is a KORG X50. We have quite an bunch of anointed keyboardist in our church, so you better come check us out~!


This picture is of course my favourite view in church, other than looking to God la… It’s the church drum-kit, a Yamaha Tour Custom. A mid range set with a superb sound~! I fell in love with this set the very moment I played on it for the church album recording. In fact, this was the very same set I used for the recording… Haha~!


Next we move on to our amplifiers. We have a Behringer Bass Amplifier and a VOX Tube Guitar Amplifier with quite useable effects. Not bad for the price we got it. It’s power matched the size of the hall.


This is our very affordable but superbly warm sounded bass guitar. It’s an SX Bass with a nice warm wood finish for the case and the tail. The sound is superb for recording and also live playing, the downside is only its weight because it’s really heavy.


Now let’s see what the preacher and worship leaders see every service. This is the front view of the hall from the stage. The chair colours looks so elegant, it’s a wonder how simple things can do so much…



Next we have the view of the hall from the drummer’s stage. We elevated the drums with an extended platform. It does nothing in terms of making the sound better, but it just looks very nice… Now you know how the view is like behind the drum set..


This is the windows of church. At the time this picture was taken, there were no curtains yet, but now we have nice dark brown curtains to compliment the elegant corporate colours of the church premise…



Now we walk through the aisle between the chairs and move to the back of the hall. This is the entrance to the sound corner and also the church store room. The design of the sound corner is pretty simple, we just places a short swing door to partition it out. Then the entrance to the store room is so cun… Looks so oriental~!



This is our sound console, it’s a Yamaha 16-Channel Mixer, we joined two of these together so we have 32 channels to play around with. Our sound system is powered by two Wharfedale Twin Channel amplifiers with Wharfedale house speakers and stage monitors. Want more technical details? Come visit our church and I’ll show you around in person… Haha~!


Next we move from the sound room to the kitchen counter. This is the back right corner from the stage front which we have partitioned out to be made into a kitchen. The counter top is so high that some members of our church who are vertically challenged have a hard time looking over it… Ya, Ya… Me included la… Happy? Haha~!


From the kitchen, turn right and you’ll see the toilet aisle. At first glance it really looked like the Chinese ‘sun-toi’ (alter) to me because of the colour. Haha~! The walls to the toilet entrances are decorated with simple square mirrors...







The other wall is decorated with simple but elegant pictures. A small multi-level shelf is placed at the corner to fill up the space and make the ambience a bit homier…





Now that you’ve seen how our church looks like behind my camera lens, come join us in person some day to experience not just the warmth of the premise and the people, but also have an encounter with God. Our services are on Sunday mornings, at 10am. We also have prayer services going on every Friday night for this month. Any enquiries you can ask me here or you can email us at info@harvestgen.com. Looking forward to see you there soon~!

Project Report~! The car is now road legal~! I drove it around with all my engine stuff repaired~! I even got a new sound system, new spots lamps and other performance stuff for a bargain price~! Plus I got a superb Twin Sub Woofer for the lowest price you can imagine~! Now not only is my car powerful in terms of engine, but sound system also super cun~! The only thing left to do it to fabricate my boot top panel, collect my insurance documents and get my aircond serviced. Other than that, my car is all ready to hit the tar pavement~! Praise God~!

I hear the sounds of great happenings from a land far far away from here. Great happenings which can only be catalysed by a heart that has faith to do the impossible. Though obstacles may rise against her, she still stood strong in her believes and never compromised. Still don’t know who I’m talking about? Well, this girl in now doing her medical degree in UK. I’m proud to introduce you to the one and only, Khoo Wee Vien a.k.a. Wee Vee a.k.a. Wee Wee…

This girl has really done the impossible both in her hometown and also in UK where she is studying now. Let me tell you from the beginning how this small sized girl made such a big impact in my life and the lives of many others. It all began in the mid of 2004, when I first joined CampusCity, I heard about this thing called Get Into God rallies or GIG. These rallies were conducted to spread the good news to young people through concerts and workshops.

There was where I first came encounter with this girl named Wee Vien. She was a very quiet girl at that time, not many people saw the true potential in her until they got to know her better. I don’t quite remember how I met her, but I remembered how I got to know her.

As we were conducting GIGs in every other state, Wee Vien had a passion to bring GIG to her own hometown way up in Sungai Petanit, Kedah. When she heard that our team was willing to go up there, she was so passionate and zealous to organize and put everything together…

I know that I was not easy for her because she faced many oppositions from different people, some I’m ashamed to say that they are also Christians, but narrow minded ones la. Haha~! Despite such heavy pressure to cease this event from happening, she continues to believe and worked hard for it. We as a team prayed along with her and finally we brought a GIG team up to Sungai Petani in the year 2006.

Over 500 people came and many young people gave their lives to Christ for the first time. I really believe that it can only be God who orchestrated all this to happen, but Wee Vien chose to place herself inline with God’s plan and became a blessing to many. Did you know that now Sungai Petani is organizing their own rallies and a lot more people are giving their lives to Christ now? Praise God~! But it all began with one small girl’s faith to see the impossible happen…

She’s now in UK finishing off her medical studies, and believe it or not, she is really anointed to pioneer a movement wherever she’s placed. She started a small prayer group which was at first rather slow, but later on it grew and many more people were blessed. Now even a full fledge church there wants to back her up in her ministry. God is really working through her…

To Wee Vien… You’ve done many great things these past few years that have brought about many changes in many people’s lives. I believe that God has really given you the heart, power and anointing to perform what others may say is impossible. Your willingness and humility to listen and obey God’s voice really astounds me.

Don’t ever settle for what you have already achieved, but press on for greater things that are yet to come. Don’t stop dreaming and envisioning great things that you desire to do for the Lord. You may have a great pass, but the pass can never be relived… Pursue for even more for the future and you will see God’s hand moving in a great capacity than before.

Many people’s lives has been touched by the simplicity of your faith, therefore keep your heart simple before the Lord and allow Him to mold and shape you to be the person He wants you to be. The preparation for greatness may be very very painful and difficult, bu the outcome and the results will be much more beautiful than your mind can ever conceive.

New testimonies awaits for you to claim… Promises that are yet to be fulfilled... So live life to the fullest and always stay in the Lord in everything that you do. God’s plans are always the best for us in every aspect of our lives. All things are made beautiful in HIS TIME, so don’t rush or be anxious over anything, but in everything give thanks~!

Thank you for being a great friend to be… Thank you for always entertaining me when you’re online. Thank you for always sharing your heart out with me… Thank you for being such an inspiration to me… I truly admire your passion and persistence… Thank you for being a sponsor for this project but above all… Thank you for being a sponsor of my life… for all that you’ve done for me has made me who I am today… Thanks~!

That’s all I have for you people~! I’ve spent about 2 hours making this entry. I chose not to highlight much words for this entry because one of the sponsors complained that she could read some of the coloured words. You sponsors tell me what you think and the majority will win okay? Thanks for reading… Have a great week ahead and God Bless~!