college retreat 2008

Hey all!

We had a WONDERFUL time at the college retreat! It was held from 12-14 September at Le Paris, Port Dickson. For the first time ever, the college retreat was held at a hotel. Usually, it's always been held at dorms. Stephanie, Abigail and I were in the same room, while John-Aidan, Jin, and Jensen were in another room. Noel roomed with Jon Koo.

This college retreat was a really diverse retreat, with half of the campers comprising Africans. They took over the worship spontaneously on the first night, and subsequently worship-led for the rest of the sessions. Their worship released a breath of fresh air into the camp. They helped move the campers into a higher level of free, uninhibited worship with their joyous dances and shouts of praise. It was as if they were like David, who stripped off his kingly robes and danced in the streets naked praising God, totally free of inhibitions. Now THAT is worship! :D It'll take some time before most of us Malaysians can release our inhibitions to praise God. As Pastor Julie said, most of us are still conscious when we worship God. So, we restrict our movements. Instead, she exhorted us to worship freely, just like how fans automatically give their loudest shouts and wave their hands in the air when their favorite football team wins. Indeed, we should all learn a thing or two from our fellow Africans. Worship like no one is watching!

On the last night, Steph, Abby and I tried to pull some pranks on Jin and Jensen. Haha. Didn't work out though...we had fun trying anyway. ;-) As Abby's birthday was on Sept 13, we celebrated her birthday by presenting her a cube of cake and singing Happy Birthday, Abby! right after the night session in the ballroom.

Besides all the fun and jokes, we felt the presence of God in this camp. It is my wish that all of us cellies who were there at camp will take the lessons learned and relevations received at camp back home, to apply at our colleges, workplaces, and daily life. Then only will the camp be meaningful.

See you all at cell this Friday night! Bring your friends! There will be testimony-sharing and birthday celebrations. Don't miss it!

Love,
Boo

Cell Outing, One Utama - 050908

We had an awesome time during cell outing last week. Surprisingly, we had a great turnout than expected. The boys that came comprised of John-Aidan, Jin, Samuel, John Chong, Noel, Ivan and Gideon. However, the only girls that came were Boo and I as Stephanie was away in Hanoi for a holiday.

We ate at Wong Kok Char Chan Teng for dinner and chatted, trying to catch up with everyone’s lives. Before we left for bowling, the boys joked saying that Boo should pay for all their meals. Haha.. Poor Boo.. getting poke fun from the boys every now and then. This is what happened when we are lack of estrogens!

We headed to U Bowl after dinner and coincidently most of us have not been bowling there before. We are used to Mid Valley’s glow in the dark look with disco music blaring loudly. But this is something different that we ought to try.

We group ourselves in two groups that was lead by Boo and I. Boo’s team consists of John-Aidan, Samuel and Gideon, while my team consists of Jin, John Chong, Noel and Ivan. Before we began we bet that the losing team will belanja yum cha.

Most of the boys claimed that they suck at bowling, but to my amazement they were really good at it, especially Gideon who injured his right hand finger and used his left hand to bowl instead. I am not sure whether they are trying to be humble, lucky or they are just trying to impress the girls. *winks*

Soon after our first game was over, Jon Koo aka Tai Ko came and joined us. But unfortunately, Gideon and Ivan had to leave. We embarked on our second game hoping that we will get better but some of us did not perform as good as the first game. But nevertheless, my team won for the consecutive two games! Boo, your team still owes my team yum cha! Haha!

It was almost close to midnight but we stayed on and played arcade games instead. Boo and I felt like we are in the boys club and went along with all their plans. We acted like a bunch of school children playing all sorts of games especially Daytona USA my personal favourite.

We left One Utama at past twelve and most of us are dead tired. But we had an awesome night together and it is been a while since we had fun! Coming up next is College Retreat!!

Healing Encounter Friday Night and Saturday Service

On Friday night, Rev. Dr Bernard Blessing conducted a healing service. I came, expecting to hear a great message. But throughout the whole night, he just encouraged us all to worship God through song and to continuously pray, while he delivered healing to members of the congregation.

In the Saturday service, he preached an amazing message from Psalms 37:1-7

1 Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

He gave us 7 pointers on how to live our lives:

1. Do not fear
2. No envy
3. Trust in the Lord
4. Do good
5. Enjoy the Lord
6. Commit all your ways to God
7. Rest in the Lord

Rev Dr Bernard Blessing shared a funny story where he was queuing up to buy bread, and he heard God telling him to give up his space and go to the back of the queue. When he turned behind him, the man's sour face made him not want to give up his space. The man behind that man made Dr Blessing even more reluctant at moving behind. But, in the end, he obeyed God and moved to the end of the queue. Someone announced later that the bread had sold out! And he was still at the queue. After that, a van showed up behind Dr Blessing, carrying supplies of bread, and the seller announced that as there were so many people at the queue, they would sell the bread to the people at the back of the queue first. Hallelujah!

And that is how we should always trust in the Lord. Haha.

Healing Encounter 2008 - Day 1

I was the only one in cell that attended for last night’s Healing Encounter. Rev. Dr. Bernard Blessing delivered a powerful message as usual and I was amazingly touched by the word. Before he started his sermon he made us repeat the word John 6:16 until it got stuck to our thick skull. He is such a joker!

¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, ¹⁷where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. ¹⁸A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. ¹⁹When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. ²⁰But he said to them, "It is I; don't be afraid." ²¹Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. (John 6:16 -21)

John 6:16-21 was his message. Since you guys did not come I shall try to share with you the powerful message that was preached. First of all, he told us that we must always listen to a message in church attentively and not let our thoughts drift away because that is how the devil tempt us and prevent us from listening to His word and receive it. Meaning, no sleeping during sermons, smsing, thinking about boys/girls, going for toilet breaks five times in a row and etc. I’m not kidding!

The entire verse demonstrated our life problems, whether it may be our health, family, work and etc. While Jesus went up to the mountain and pray, his disciples left him for a cruise. The disciples are just like us when are so comfortable and carefree with our lives that we forgot about Jesus.

Rev. Dr. Bernard Blessing told us that we must not be too comfortable with our lives and neglect Jesus alone to pray. He encouraged us to join Him in prayer whether or not we are having problems. On and off he reminded us that the devil would always be there to tempt us with negativity while we are busy praying.

After his powerful message was shared, he prayed for healing and deliverance for the congregation to rebuke the works of the devil in our lives. He even made us pray non-stop to claim the victory for Christ. When he ended the service, he highlighted to us that we must never be in a hurry to go home after service. We must always stay on to the very end to receive the prayer of blessing from the pastor. He said that it was also the most important part of the service and it will make a huge difference in our lives.

If possible come tonight because according to Rev. Dr. Bernard Blessing it is going to be much better than yesterday. See you in church!

more than conquerors!

Hey all! Cell today was great! I always look forward to every cell group meeting as no cell group meeting is quite the same. We missed Jensen, Samuel and Noel, but I was ecstatic when I saw Gideon after a month-long hiatus! :D Welcome back, Gideon! The cell lesson was on How To Overcome. For some reason, as I was going through the lesson, I felt compelled to exhort all of us to be extraordinary Christians. We are not saved by the Lord just to kick back and relax, waiting for the day we'll enter Heaven. Salvation is only the beginning of our race here on earth. The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 4:7-8,

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

We have a race to finish here, and to finish well so that we can win the crown of righteousness. God did not save us just to attend cell and church every week - He called us for much greater things than that. Not all of us may have to rise up as leaders, but rise up in whatever way you can! Reach for greater heights in your walk with God. God has granted each of us unique talents. It is our task as cell members to support each other to go up one level in our walk with God, to continuously be transformed from glory to glory.

That is what I want our cell to be - for all of us to mature as Christians. When we love God, we will love His people and be passionate for them. Even a simple sharing of the gospel with a friend or a stranger is a new height to achieve in your walk with God, especially if you rarely share the gospel. In short, the cell lesson can be summed up in Romans 8:37,

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

After the lesson, there was an interesting debate on why such a loving God would create us, only to know that most of us will fall and go to hell. Some found that very hard to reconcile. God loves us, that's why He created us with a will to choose whether to love Him back or to reject Him. What is love if we are programmed to do so? When we are tested, it is then that we show God whether we truly love Him or not. As Stephanie mentioned, we have equal capacity to do both good and evil. Most of the time though, we choose to do evil. So, although it hurts God very much to know that a lot of us will end up in hell because we choose not to love Him, He still chose to give us free will anyway because us loving Him will mean something.


A little reminder: to all of you who have not yet signed up, sign up for COLLEGE RETREAT! It's from 12 - 14 September (Friday till Sunday). Departure for PD is on Friday evening, so you can go right after class.

Next week, cell will be in church where Rev. Bernard Blessings will conduct a healing rally. This guy is one anointed pastor - he can cast out demons and heal the sick. Truly a miracle worker. Don't miss him out on Friday night! Invite your friends to come! Since we had already discussed about having monthly cell outings, and all of us had decided on bowling, we'll go bowling on September 5th (if the church leaders give the green light, fingers crossed :) To those who wanna play futsal, we'll play that in October as Stephanie will be in Hanoi on September 5th. Gives me more time to decide whether I wanna play or not. Haha.

That's all for now...I'm gonna fall asleep in my meetings tomorrow if I don't sleep now...I will be getting a new Kancil soon. Yay! Will be able to drive to Steph's place for cell and Abigail can rest from sending me and some other guys back home every Friday night. Abigail - really appreciate your sacrifice. ;-)

answered prayers!

I realize that I have not been very frequent in updating this blog. I shall TRY to update it every time after cell meeting. Then, it'll be more regular than my own personal blog-updating. Haha. But anyway, thank God for ANSWERED prayers! We had been praying so hard (me anyways) for someone to host cell, since most people find my place rather too far for them to travel. And, God made a way! Stephanie, our newest cell member, has graciously opened up her place for us cellies to gather! Thanks a lot, Stephanie! You have no idea how much this means to us! :D

Her house is lovely and she is an excellent hostess, making sure we're well-fed. Haha. It's not official yet, but God willing, it seems that we have already found ourselves a nice place to go to every Friday night. And soon, its light (and noise) will shine in the entire neighborhood as a house of God! :-) I am just extremely excited! There have been so many changes happening (and are still happening as I take the cell under my wing). With God's grace, He will see us through right till the very end as we become transformed from glory to glory, winning souls for the Lord and growing stronger and stronger in our faith each day.

Today, I shared the gospel with someone while waiting for my cue to start playing the part of an abused wife. Haha. I thank God for the opportunity to share and I can only pray that God will water the seed that I have planted, and bring another person to harvest that seed.

To all my cell members who are reading this, go on and share the gospel with people you meet - be they friends or strangers! Do something caring for them and they will see the love of Christ reflected in you. Keep on persevering!

Beijing Olympics!

Cell is gonna be soooo exciting tomorrow! It will be held at Stephanie's place (get to see her pretty house). We'll be celebrating the opening of the Beijing Olympics! :D Makan, get to know each other and newcomers, play games.

A tremendously exciting time!

Please pray that God's presence will be at the party, and that the newcomers will enjoy themselves so much that they'll want to keep coming to cell.

Thanks for all your prayers.