[joerg writes]
I've been 'away' for a while, back to share my thoughts.
Recently we been listening United, Casting Crowns, Karhryn Scott, and of course Delirious?
I was really touched by Delirious's My Soul Sings (Mi alma te canta), beautiful song- perhaps a cry from my heart from the dissatisfaction in life. Dissatisfaction at work with the lop-sided orientation towards academic excellence (people don't understand the cries of the teens do they?) and 'lifeless' colleagues getting endless job done. Well, the thesis been in a dusty shelf for a while- perhaps due to a self-gratifying excuse of a bad relationship/communication with my supervisor.
Well last Sunday's message was good, a reminder not to judge people and be very very forgiving (coz like our heavenly papa, God by His grace forgives you today, tommorrow and until the end of days, and He said in Romans 8:1, There is therefore now no condemnation to them (us) which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.) For me the deeper message is still living in His Spirit, through Him that I (& all of us) become stronger to face many of the challenges in life.
With a little LJ arriving in 32 weeks, I've been pensive of doing a little more as a husband :) God is preparing us a gift,well I have to pick up the pace in many of my current missions so that in time to come I can be a responsible papa.
Cmo te Amo
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Movies@home
[Lisa writes]
I'm in between academic years at the moment, and enjoying the non-school work days. Outside of work-hours, I thought I'd take the time to work on my "other lives" and it's been good.
One of the things I've been catching up on is movies. We are somewhat movie-buffs, but would rather avoid the cinema crowd, preferring instead to watch dvds or vcds in the comfort of our own home. Joerg especially likes that he can make his favourite shot for both of us using his prized Rancilio from Brisbane! Well where do we get the movies from? We frequent the Video-ezy at King Albert Park most often... not to borrow movies, but for the stock of ex-rental sales there. We can usually find bargains at between $4.95 to $8.95 (vcds) but the challenge is to find a GOOD movie! I reckon part of the problem is that we've collected so many of them, that we're running out of options! Sometimes we can spend a good half-hour there trying to dig out something good, and unfortunately there are times when we leave empty-handed. Other times, we leave with 3 or 4 pretty good shows. And they're ours for the keeping!
There are a couple of nice ones which we watched recently which definitely are worth re-watching. One of them is Facing the Giants, an independent (non-Hollywood) flick about a coach who is struggling to bring up his football team to victory. In the process, he re-discovers God's power and work in his life, and eventually brings the team together again to greater heights. Although somewhat predictable, it was very real; we were still drawn in to the struggles faced by the coach, and encouraged by the faith-journey he experienced. It was particularly meaningful for Joerg as he's the soccer teacher-in-charge in his school. Really inspiring, and funny at times too. I think we'll be picking this up to watch every now and again. Here's a clip from the movie...
Actually, while I like inspirational movies, I do also really go for mindless violence, action, and psychological thrillers as well - yeah give me stuff like Kiss of the Dragon, The Mummy, Flightplan, Terminator 1, 2, 3, ... . However I'm starting to realise that there's only so much violence I can take. For example, I coudn't bear to watch all of Saw and Untraceable... all that torture - physical and psychological - just had me cringing and hiding behind pillows! Recently we also bought this movie called The Strangers which stars Liv Tyler... the hide-and-seek which the bad guys played with the victims seemed never-ending, and the part which I hate most, is that they (the bad guys) got away with it! I need a movie with an ending where at least some justice is done. So shows like P2, although with some torture and violence in it, at least was more bearable because the bad guy got his just desserts.
As of last week, we couldn't find anything at Video-ezy... looks like we'll have to survive on cable for a while, sigh!
I'm in between academic years at the moment, and enjoying the non-school work days. Outside of work-hours, I thought I'd take the time to work on my "other lives" and it's been good.
One of the things I've been catching up on is movies. We are somewhat movie-buffs, but would rather avoid the cinema crowd, preferring instead to watch dvds or vcds in the comfort of our own home. Joerg especially likes that he can make his favourite shot for both of us using his prized Rancilio from Brisbane! Well where do we get the movies from? We frequent the Video-ezy at King Albert Park most often... not to borrow movies, but for the stock of ex-rental sales there. We can usually find bargains at between $4.95 to $8.95 (vcds) but the challenge is to find a GOOD movie! I reckon part of the problem is that we've collected so many of them, that we're running out of options! Sometimes we can spend a good half-hour there trying to dig out something good, and unfortunately there are times when we leave empty-handed. Other times, we leave with 3 or 4 pretty good shows. And they're ours for the keeping!
There are a couple of nice ones which we watched recently which definitely are worth re-watching. One of them is Facing the Giants, an independent (non-Hollywood) flick about a coach who is struggling to bring up his football team to victory. In the process, he re-discovers God's power and work in his life, and eventually brings the team together again to greater heights. Although somewhat predictable, it was very real; we were still drawn in to the struggles faced by the coach, and encouraged by the faith-journey he experienced. It was particularly meaningful for Joerg as he's the soccer teacher-in-charge in his school. Really inspiring, and funny at times too. I think we'll be picking this up to watch every now and again. Here's a clip from the movie...
Actually, while I like inspirational movies, I do also really go for mindless violence, action, and psychological thrillers as well - yeah give me stuff like Kiss of the Dragon, The Mummy, Flightplan, Terminator 1, 2, 3, ... . However I'm starting to realise that there's only so much violence I can take. For example, I coudn't bear to watch all of Saw and Untraceable... all that torture - physical and psychological - just had me cringing and hiding behind pillows! Recently we also bought this movie called The Strangers which stars Liv Tyler... the hide-and-seek which the bad guys played with the victims seemed never-ending, and the part which I hate most, is that they (the bad guys) got away with it! I need a movie with an ending where at least some justice is done. So shows like P2, although with some torture and violence in it, at least was more bearable because the bad guy got his just desserts.
As of last week, we couldn't find anything at Video-ezy... looks like we'll have to survive on cable for a while, sigh!
Sunday, 1 March 2009
New beginnings... a late report
[Lisa writes]
Well this is, to put it mildly, abit late. We returned to sunny Singapore last September, and the blog seemed to die a natural death as we headed into the next stage of our lives...
But I've been feeling a call to 'revive' it over the last few months, just never got round to it! What encouraged me to put my fingers to the keyboard was seeing the few visitors who stopped by to leave messages in our cbox, thanks folks! :)
Actually there is much to write about... where to begin?? If I put everything here, I'll be up til the next morning, at least! But I worry that if I spread out everything, I may forget what I wanted to share, and/or be too lazy to pick up where I left off! I reckon I'll do it in bits, at least to keep the suspense going, heh.
The few months after we came back were rather uneventful, just diving back into work and acclimatising to the weather. Have cut my hair 3 times so far, haha! Once I got started it just became, well let's see how short we can go! :P Funny but I don't miss the long hair at all, even though I've had it for the last 6 years.
I guess the most interesting thing that happened to us happened when we were at an early Christmas gathering with our old church friends last December. We got round to sharing about our faith-journey, and one of our friends mentioned the book "Destined to Reign" by Joseph Prince. Sounded like an intriguing read, and since Joerg and I both love to collect books (note, collecting books is one thing, getting round to reading them is another!), so the next chance we got, we picked it up at Trumpet Praise in Plaza Sing. By coincidence, my mum also passed us a set of CDs from his Grace and Favour seminar.
We spent the next couple of months reading, listening, analysing the messages we were hearing and reading. At first, we couldn't quite figure out what to make of it. Was this a new message? Is this a different gospel? How come we haven't heard it preached this way? Well after some long discussions with each other over dinner and bus/mrt journeys home, we realised that it's not a new gospel, or a different gospel, but it's back to what the message of the good news is essentially about. Somewhere along the way, our faith had turned into a matter of routine, without fully realising the love God has for us, and how Jesus made the difference between religion and a real relationship with God. It was liberating particularly for me, because I had believed - tacitly I think - that the blessings which people received from God were in proportion to the level of their involvement in God's work. Hence, if I was not experiencing so much of His blessings whether material, spiritual, or otherwise, then it's probably because I'm not serving God alot. Likewise, if someone else was experiencing God's blessings, then it's because they were being rewarded for their work! I seriously had believed that for awhile, based on what I was seeing in my church friends. But Prince turns that idea on its head, and reminds us that God desires to bless us anyway, and importantly, all He seeks out of us is to have faith in Him. As we believe, we are blessed! Simple as that. That's why we say it is His amazing grace- favour that is undeserved, that is not given because of our works for God, but just because we call Him Lord, and trust Him totally with our lives.
I won't say that this book changed our lives... I reckon only one Book really does. But it caused a paradigm shift in both me and Joerg - one of a few shifts that we've experienced so far this year! I confess I still struggle with some things, but I am more peaceful now knowing that God's blessing is not dependent on what I do/ don't do for Him, but just on believing on Him. It does indeed increase our love and passion to live for Him :) It really is good news!
Ok over the next few entries I'll share some of the other books that have helped us in our faith-journey this side of heaven, as well as the other paradigm-shift that's happened this year.
God bless you in your own journey!
Well this is, to put it mildly, abit late. We returned to sunny Singapore last September, and the blog seemed to die a natural death as we headed into the next stage of our lives...
But I've been feeling a call to 'revive' it over the last few months, just never got round to it! What encouraged me to put my fingers to the keyboard was seeing the few visitors who stopped by to leave messages in our cbox, thanks folks! :)
Actually there is much to write about... where to begin?? If I put everything here, I'll be up til the next morning, at least! But I worry that if I spread out everything, I may forget what I wanted to share, and/or be too lazy to pick up where I left off! I reckon I'll do it in bits, at least to keep the suspense going, heh.
The few months after we came back were rather uneventful, just diving back into work and acclimatising to the weather. Have cut my hair 3 times so far, haha! Once I got started it just became, well let's see how short we can go! :P Funny but I don't miss the long hair at all, even though I've had it for the last 6 years.
I guess the most interesting thing that happened to us happened when we were at an early Christmas gathering with our old church friends last December. We got round to sharing about our faith-journey, and one of our friends mentioned the book "Destined to Reign" by Joseph Prince. Sounded like an intriguing read, and since Joerg and I both love to collect books (note, collecting books is one thing, getting round to reading them is another!), so the next chance we got, we picked it up at Trumpet Praise in Plaza Sing. By coincidence, my mum also passed us a set of CDs from his Grace and Favour seminar.
We spent the next couple of months reading, listening, analysing the messages we were hearing and reading. At first, we couldn't quite figure out what to make of it. Was this a new message? Is this a different gospel? How come we haven't heard it preached this way? Well after some long discussions with each other over dinner and bus/mrt journeys home, we realised that it's not a new gospel, or a different gospel, but it's back to what the message of the good news is essentially about. Somewhere along the way, our faith had turned into a matter of routine, without fully realising the love God has for us, and how Jesus made the difference between religion and a real relationship with God. It was liberating particularly for me, because I had believed - tacitly I think - that the blessings which people received from God were in proportion to the level of their involvement in God's work. Hence, if I was not experiencing so much of His blessings whether material, spiritual, or otherwise, then it's probably because I'm not serving God alot. Likewise, if someone else was experiencing God's blessings, then it's because they were being rewarded for their work! I seriously had believed that for awhile, based on what I was seeing in my church friends. But Prince turns that idea on its head, and reminds us that God desires to bless us anyway, and importantly, all He seeks out of us is to have faith in Him. As we believe, we are blessed! Simple as that. That's why we say it is His amazing grace- favour that is undeserved, that is not given because of our works for God, but just because we call Him Lord, and trust Him totally with our lives.
I won't say that this book changed our lives... I reckon only one Book really does. But it caused a paradigm shift in both me and Joerg - one of a few shifts that we've experienced so far this year! I confess I still struggle with some things, but I am more peaceful now knowing that God's blessing is not dependent on what I do/ don't do for Him, but just on believing on Him. It does indeed increase our love and passion to live for Him :) It really is good news!
Ok over the next few entries I'll share some of the other books that have helped us in our faith-journey this side of heaven, as well as the other paradigm-shift that's happened this year.
God bless you in your own journey!
Monday, 14 July 2008
Lemme tell you about laminin...
Well after a long long long while, I'm finally able to squeeze out a post...
Where are we right now? I guess we're about 3/5s of the way through our thesis. It's been quite a journey indeed! Truthfully speaking we've been hitting a few roadblocks (more like mental blocks) along the way, plus the feeling of going around in circles and ending up in knots - all part of the student package no doubt! I can totally empathize with my students in Poly now... so many distractions to get around, thoughts to work out, data to analyse... I can't imagine what doing a PhD will be like! Joerg reckons it'll just be double the pain that's all. Ahem. Not for now, I think.
Right now we're also out of our old place, as the lease ended on 30 June. At times like these we really thank God for providing gracious friends who have taken us into their home - TH & Su, thanks so much for blessing us!! :) I miss our old place, for its super-convenience and the good times with friends, but where we are now, the fellowship is just as warm, and we still get to walk to Uni. Moving out of our rented apartment we had to fulfil a couple of formalities, like getting the place cleaned up and carpets shampooed. Being students (read: cheap), we decided to do the cleaning ourselves, and got a really economical carpet cleaner to do the shampooing. When the residential manager came in to do the final inspection, it just took all of 15 minutes to give the all-clear! Mind you, managers are normally fussy, but this manager took a look, a couple of swabs, and led us back to the office to finalise our departure. Whew! :) It's funny, how we've just moved on from one stage to the next... it's also a testimony in itself, how things have been progressing smoothly and seeing His provision in the ways that we couldn't foresee. All the time we've been here we've seen how He's been holding us in His hand, keeping it altogether so that in spite of the challenges along the way, we have been so blessed.
Ok so now lemme tell you about laminin... or rather, we'll let Louie Giglio (I always get the giggles when I think about his name) do the talking! If you have 8 minutes 43 seconds to spare, have a look at this video.... and be blessed.
Where are we right now? I guess we're about 3/5s of the way through our thesis. It's been quite a journey indeed! Truthfully speaking we've been hitting a few roadblocks (more like mental blocks) along the way, plus the feeling of going around in circles and ending up in knots - all part of the student package no doubt! I can totally empathize with my students in Poly now... so many distractions to get around, thoughts to work out, data to analyse... I can't imagine what doing a PhD will be like! Joerg reckons it'll just be double the pain that's all. Ahem. Not for now, I think.
Right now we're also out of our old place, as the lease ended on 30 June. At times like these we really thank God for providing gracious friends who have taken us into their home - TH & Su, thanks so much for blessing us!! :) I miss our old place, for its super-convenience and the good times with friends, but where we are now, the fellowship is just as warm, and we still get to walk to Uni. Moving out of our rented apartment we had to fulfil a couple of formalities, like getting the place cleaned up and carpets shampooed. Being students (read: cheap), we decided to do the cleaning ourselves, and got a really economical carpet cleaner to do the shampooing. When the residential manager came in to do the final inspection, it just took all of 15 minutes to give the all-clear! Mind you, managers are normally fussy, but this manager took a look, a couple of swabs, and led us back to the office to finalise our departure. Whew! :) It's funny, how we've just moved on from one stage to the next... it's also a testimony in itself, how things have been progressing smoothly and seeing His provision in the ways that we couldn't foresee. All the time we've been here we've seen how He's been holding us in His hand, keeping it altogether so that in spite of the challenges along the way, we have been so blessed.
Ok so now lemme tell you about laminin... or rather, we'll let Louie Giglio (I always get the giggles when I think about his name) do the talking! If you have 8 minutes 43 seconds to spare, have a look at this video.... and be blessed.
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Sunday, 22 June 2008
It is that simple!
Well, just a random thought that I should share.
Ans: Primarily for phone call, for communication with family, friends etc
Qn: Purpose of a car?
Ans: To transport you and me to our destination
Qn: Purpose of our job?
Ans: To earn a living
So what has it got to do with the title of my entry?
Let me use the mobile phone as an analogy of life, how we live our lives in this world. For those of you young (like me) enough to remember BRICK phone. You would be able to remember the hype when iphone was first launched in
The first point I’d like to draw your attention to is the ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ in our lives. A lot of time we have so many ‘wants’ and forget that the ‘needs’ will suffice. Well, I for one am guilty, admittedly one who has and had many wants, when I can easily be satisfied with the many blessings I have in my life. It is not helped by how the world wants to shape our thought. Do you need an iphone? Do you need wider plasma? Do you need the latest, the best, the next upgrade?
Secondly, I want to point out that everyone of us, though not commodities, has a purpose. The BRICK phone once served its master well and fulfilled its purpose. The iphone will serve its purpose, but no doubt will soon be phased out too! So what is your purpose on earth then? Are you serving your Master well?
Monday, 7 April 2008
So grateful...
Just a small yet nice thing happened today but I just felt my heart burst into praise... I've always wanted to write a song to testify but never got round to it. Here's my humble attempt...
So grateful to You Lord
For the ways You send a blessing when I least expect it
Like a parent whose eyes are always on his child
Who lets her wander off to explore all that life has to offer
Yet always around to catch her when she falls
So You're always there with me
When my mind is in turmoil
When my head is swimming
With thoughts of bitterness that eat away at this soul
Your Spirit moves in, sweeps those thoughts away
Breathes in new life and new hope
You move the mountains in my life
Those giants that no earthquake could shake
With just a sigh from You they crumble into smoke
Into dust, that's blown by the wind of Your spirit
You make me walk on water
When all seems impossible You just bring it to pass
I can't see it now but how can I doubt
When You've given it all on the Cross
On the Cross-
Your love never failing
Your power all consuming
Your faithfulness to the end of all time
How could I doubt
With all that You've done
and all that You are-
Sovereign Lord, let Your will be done in my life
From this day on...
[To be refined... for His glory.]
So grateful to You Lord
For the ways You send a blessing when I least expect it
Like a parent whose eyes are always on his child
Who lets her wander off to explore all that life has to offer
Yet always around to catch her when she falls
So You're always there with me
When my mind is in turmoil
When my head is swimming
With thoughts of bitterness that eat away at this soul
Your Spirit moves in, sweeps those thoughts away
Breathes in new life and new hope
You move the mountains in my life
Those giants that no earthquake could shake
With just a sigh from You they crumble into smoke
Into dust, that's blown by the wind of Your spirit
You make me walk on water
When all seems impossible You just bring it to pass
I can't see it now but how can I doubt
When You've given it all on the Cross
On the Cross-
Your love never failing
Your power all consuming
Your faithfulness to the end of all time
How could I doubt
With all that You've done
and all that You are-
Sovereign Lord, let Your will be done in my life
From this day on...
[To be refined... for His glory.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)