The truth and makes us better

It has been really busy this year, but its all good!!! Out of this busy period, when we sit down and think, and reflect the things that has happened, only then we realize how much we have learned, how much we have changed and how much we have missed.

But God is always very good, He is always there in the mist of our busyness, reminding us that He cares, that He is listening, that He is still in control and He will strengthen you no matter how tough the situation seems. He send people to check out on you, send people to encourage and send people to just have fun with you.

We can see that sometimes, when one person complain, the other people around might agree and a small thing might seem so hard to achieve or the situation is made worse because of the way we look at it. My mum never encourage us to complain, in fact she thought us how to overcome things. For example, when we complain about how hard the assignment and how hard the things that we are going through, she will remind us that we are not the only ones who are going through this phase, many have done it and many has overcome it. We have an extra helper on this earth, the Holy Spirit will be there to help us as well. All things are possible. Telling us the truth about reality (stop complaining, you are not the only one that is facing it) allows us to make a difference and look at things from a different point of view.

I never really liked to read when I do not understand something. I know that I can still get things done by people explaining to me, by people doing it for me. I know that no matter how many times I ask, they will pity this little person and will spend the time explaining patiently. My brother is a fast learner and he likes to read and learn things on his own. One day, my brother just decided not to help me out with the computer and asked me to read for myself and do it. READ IT, DON’T BE LAZY, ITS SIMPLE. I started reading, and solving my own problems. Just a simple truth, of “don’t be lazy”, I now read first before I do something, if I really don’t understand, only then I’ll ask people.

I have this friend that says whatever he sees, many times, people who does not know him gets offended. But what he speaks of is the truth. I realized that I am putting on weight since I first got to UK, but people around just say that its alright, you still have room or they say its alright, that’s what normally happen when people come to UK. I really appreciate this comfort, I do. This particular person, when he notice the change, he just said, “you’re getting fatter, go exercise!!!”. And yes, a simple truth can change the way that we eat, the way that we live our lives.

Sometimes, when we get too involved in church, our life sort of revolved around it rather than God himself. When we serve, we might unconsciously try to please our members rather than God. We dedicate our time, our effort, all we have into this place and losing the focus of our purpose. I know that we still love God and still want to continue to serve Him. But we are the living testimony of Christ, our lives reflect our relationship with Him, not only inside the four walls of the church. When I get too involved and lose focus, my mum will just ask, “what is your ministry here? Why are you there? Are you glorifying God outside the four walls of the church as well?” Then I realized that I spend too much time in church getting too exhausted to run my own life out of the church. Coming to class late, not able to focus in class, not giving my very best in my assignments, not caring about my friend’s needs ( outside church) etc, are also ways of not glorifying God. One thing I learned is that glorifying God doesn’t mean that I need to attend every single church activity, it is living a life that is pleasing to Him.

There are many people who will give us words of comfort, which is very good. But at times, even when the truth hurts or seem to put us down, we know that by identifying it, acknowledging it, acting on it, we can change and make better of the situation. We can be a better us when we know where to improve and what to change.

Idleness

White field, empty street, leafless trees. Yup, its snowing here. And it is getting colder by the day. All my body wants to do is to laze around, watch a movie, have a hot and filling meal. the sweet aroma of hot coffee just calms you down and bring you into dreamland sooner that you realise.

But then, when I was reading the bible, there it is, the verse that speaks to me. “IF A MAN WILL NOT WORK, HE SHALL NOT EAT!!!” Wow, such direct message. It is the warning against idleness.

I went to the library today, knowing that I’ll only sleep if I stay at home. Before starting, I said a short prayer that goes something like this “Lord, give me the strength to stay awake and study.” To no surprise, after an hour, my head gets nearer and nearer to the table, and soon enough, I went into dreamland and woke up only after an hour has pass. “too cold, too cold, I need to go home now.”

Many a times, “THE SPIRIT IS WILLING BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK.” but this does not mean that we can give in, we(I) might fail trying, but this test goes on. Try and try and try. Change the mind set, purpose in our heart!!!

Let us all have a fruitful winter and enjoy the lovely snow!!!

Continue to pray and ask for strength!!!

Living a luxuries budget life.

We need to get back
To the basics of life
A heart that is pure
And a love that is blind
A faith that is fervently
grounded in Christ
The hope that endures for all times
These are the basics,
we need to get back
To the basics of life

-the basics of life-

Its quite a common phrase when you hear people say, “ I do not have enough money to spend”. I for one certainly used that a couple of times before. But do I really have not enough to spend or I just want to spend more than I could afford? If I am really broke, I would eat only bread everyday. If I’m extremely broke, then I won’t be complaining even if the worst food is placed in front of me. If I am not doing that, that means that I would have enough to last me for the next day.

This is more for a student’s point of view, how to live with what we have. To live healthy life, of cos we need to exercise. Exercising here is rather cheap if you do not have any transport to bring you around. Basically, we walk to our destination. Not forgetting the extreme exercise of cycling uphill, a real challenge, at least for me. If you’re walking 15 minutes, its consider near, if about 25 minutes its ok, if 45 minutes, only then you can call it far. My daily exercise is walking for at least 1 hour per day.

There’s lots of good budget food over here. Breakfast is rather ordinary, just cereals with milk followed with some fruits. Maybe some healthy oats as well. Sandwish, puff, and maybe a some hot soup for lunch. But I love dinner!!! There’s just so much food, tried roast chicken, curry chicken, “pai gu tang- pork soup”, different types of vege, fruits and nice chocolates, noodles, etc.

Well, not to forget your tithes and offerings though. Give and it shall be given. Give out of love, give because we are blessed to be able to give. Give not because it’s a duty, but do it with great joy, appreciating His works and what the small amount of money mean to others.

It has been a month and a week since I got here. Time pass so fast over here. I learned a lot of new stuff around here, especially about ships. When I first started the engineering science, I thought the class was so boring, he’s still teaching what we learned in form 4. But when I started my tutorial questions, I took about 3 hours just to complete 6 suppose to be simple question, with help on others.

Humans are very interesting creatures, we tend to want more and more and more all the time. There’s no ending to the list of what we want. Not to say that it’s a bad thing to want more, but sometimes, we ought to pause and think and give thanks for the things that we have. How many people out there that do not have a proper roof over their head and we here are talking about buying all branded stuff?

Humans also have the ability to make the best out of even the simplest molecules. New things are invented on daily basis. If we are willing to improvise, make the best out of the simplest things that we have, we can live a happy life.

I see people with so much yet they still complain, and yet some with such minimal and are so grateful. Is this not a common paradox of life?

My mum thought me something last week. “the LAW of life” - “Love mercy, Act justly, and Walk humbly with Him”.

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy And to walk humbly with your God.

New Semester resolution

Many a times, God speak to us through different ways. I know people who have very clear purpose or calling in their life. But why am I only living every day as it is? They will say, my calling is in Malaysia, my calling is to care for the children, my calling is in India, China, this ministry, that ministry…
Am I just a blur lost person who do not know what is ahead of me?

Or do I choose to live in this “perfect world” of mine? Well, I choose to be happy, there are bumps here and there in our life. But I choose to give praise for the good and improve on the bad. Time flies, after we fall, get over it!!! Well, no one says its easy. We are overcomers aren’t we? We overcome what ever thing that is ahead, it may take quite a while, a year, 2, 3, or even 10 or even more than that. But we will overcome it someday, somehow or another.

But dwelling in our problems too long and not doing anything about it is certainly not the solution though.

I do the normal stuff Christians does, go to church, read the bible, pray, give my tithes and offering, serve other, etc… but why is it that other people have such clear calling and me, “just give your best in everything that you are doing - can that even be a calling?”
Maybe its like the story of the talent, if I am able to treasure and make the best out of all that I have, someday I might be able to do greater thing.

But well, maybe its just our perception of “GREAT things”. We need to understand that not everyone is like Billy Graham. Serving as an usher and service as the worship leader is also serving. Most of the time, its our thinking that “washing the cups after refreshment is a less good serving than preaching in front of a thousand people.” it’s the way that we do it that matters, out of love for God, love for man.

We know so many things but its hard to actually believe it. Sometimes, I might think that all these thoughts are just to comfort myself. Well, I need to be comfortable when I talk to God, after all, He’s my friend, the only friend that I bring around even when I leave everything else miles away, or the only friend that brings me around.

Its good that my library is about 20 minutes walk to my accommodation. I can listen to some sermons, chat with God, do some reflection, the coldness around here is kind of calming too.

People normally have their New year’s resolution. But well, here’s my October resolution, it shall continue till Christmas holidays.

October/ New semester resolution :
1. More God, less chatting online
2. More studying, less sleeping
3. More Healthy food, less salt and preserve food
4. More exercise, less bluring
5. More work, less complain

Something I find interesting on my stay here. “When people tries to annoy you but doesn’t succeed, they get more annoyed instead. How weird is that?” Well, for everyone’s info, I can sleep through noise quite well, and having music loud will not annoy me much (unless I am have headache).

New chapter of my life

Newcastle, the place where the wind blows when it blows no where else.

All the buildings look the same, the business selling paint will not be any good here. All the buildings are bricked wall, brown bricks, light brown, really light brown, dark brown, really dark brown, reddish.. Good thing about it is it looks nice, different, down side is, you’ll probably need more time to get use and recognize your way. I got lost about 3 times since I’ve been here. But am getting familiar and able to find my own class without any problem. =D



Some updates about me here is that I found a church, Jesmond Parish Church, with nice people, quite a number of Malaysians joining the church too. First trip out with them will be on the 1st and 2nd of November, will be going to the Scottish border. It’ll be fun. Its funny how God works. In KL, when the church is too big, I tend to go back to my Ipoh small church where everyone knows everyone, maybe God wants me to learn how things run when you’re handling a big bunch of people at that time, I learned much discipline, commitment, importance of sacrifice, fellowship, effort that you need to put in before you actually run an event. When I try to find a big church here, I end up in a smaller church, maybe God is teaching me to actually serve more, and learn more about humility. Well, I kind of prayed and told Him that I want to serve Him more, maybe that’s why the Hillsong Church is sooOOO far away now. The church here is so traditional, so different from what I imagined, but I guess God have a plan for me. If its not the right church for me, He’ll find a way to bring me away.



My classes, are pretty pack though, besides Wednesdays and Fridays, which leave us time for groceries and random activities. I got to know many people here, however, they drink most of the time (almost every night - maybe it’s the cold weather), smoke quite a bit, loves really really loud music and erm… maybe its too early for me to fix these characteristics on them. Who am I to judge anyway. Explanation from a kind friend though, “ this is the first time most of them leave home, got lost of freedom, no one to look after them, therefore…”

As for me, I normally hang out with this girl from Sarawak. Simple girl, easy going, nice, and the best thing is we can cook together (save money and good fellowship). The other regulars that I normally hang out with are the MISC gang, including some other seniors that I get to know thanks to the many HARI RAYA open house. Besides that, a few locals, but not so many at the mean time. But thanks to the church gathering, I’m able to find some others that don’t actually drink so much and have a normal Malaysian lifestyle.



About the course that I’m doing. I’m very privilege that I’m able to play with the biggest toy that man ever created, the ships… The engineering courses is rather a stranger to me at first. My classmates, mostly have worked or deal with ships before, loves the sea, have their yatch, parents or close family members handling with it. But as for me, this is my first time reading about a diesel engine, my first time learning the names of different part of the ship, first time seeing how the bottom of the ship is suppose to look like, etc… I take about one hour to digest 2 pages of work, while the rest know most of the things that the lecturer is talking about. My lecturer bought a turbocharger as decoration, I would rather go for a small pot of flower though.

Do I have enough money to spend here? Well, I bought quite a number of things here, but going slow, can’t spend too much at a time, must be accountable for it. Maybe I’m now having a little (but enough) to spend and when I actually can handle money wisely, maybe, perhaps my allowance can increase.



Still finding my way around, still looking for my purpose here, still finding the best places to shop… I actually miss my youth back in Ipoh, miss my family and friends. it’s a privilege that I can come this far, I should be able to make the best out of everything I have. I shall grow closer to God and rely on Him in everything I do. Different culture, different habits, different way of washing the dishes… Could this small size girl actually win some souls for Him here?