One-day Durian Tour in J.B. on 25 Jul

My PKI colleagues: ZhangYu, Yuko, Alin and Jasmine

Chocolate Shop

Durian and fruits farm

Seafood Restaurant

Praying for my family...

My 1st sister is pregnant with a baby boy. She is scheduled to give birth latest by 4 Nov. I am still finding an English and a Chinese name for my very first nephew. I will travel back to see her in Nov.

My 2nd sister still could not rent a furnished eating shop to start her business. Shop owners do not rent out their furnished shop because they are still doing well in their business. So she is still continuing to look out for a suitable shop through asking people and reading newspaper advertisement.

My dad is taking care of my grandma at home. He still needs financial support to pay for business tax and to maintain the new car.

My mum is working in KL now. She is well. She has three more assignments this year after finishing the present one.

Dear God, please protect my family. Please provide for all their needs. Use me to love and support them.

Loving self is right

The second greatest commandment reads "Love your neighbor as yourself". Jesus seemed to assume loving oneself is so basic that he does not even have to command us to do so. How do we love our neighbor if we do not even know how to take care of ourselves? Therefore, loving oneself is not wrong, it is natural and healthy. More importantly, it is the right thing to do.

To me, loving ourselves is

• Eat healthy food and exercise regularly to maintain our physical health
• Prioritize our life, our resource, and select our activities wisely. There is time for everything, a time to say YES and a time to say NO.
• Purify our minds, hearts and motives to grow our relationship with God
• Don't intentionally sin against God for temporary pleasure. We don't love ourselves enough as we allow temporary things to master us and damage our relationship with our eternal God.
• Feed and enrich our mind with spiritual nourishment, knowledge & understanding
• Don't be unnecessary burdened by things of the world. Cast away our burdens to God and let him do life with us. He would not ask us to do something that his grace can't reach us. Matt 11:28-30
• Don't look down on ourselves and feel low self-esteem. We are all unique and equally loved by God.

Loving God is...

Loving God is...

Choose spending money on oversea mission trip over an oversea holiday
Choose spending money on a brother in need over beers
Choose giving to God over eating an expensive meal
Choose loving people unconditionally when our feelings say otherwise
Choose respecting and honoring our leaders, praying for them and supporting them when they are stressed rather than being disappointed with them
Choose doing the right thing in our job when no one is seeing

I am ready!

What had happened in the past 6-week of my journey with God is a miracle. I have never felt so complete in my life before. I have tremendous peace and joy in my heart amidst the up-and-down of life.

Yesterday God whispered to me on my way to church corporate prayer meeting. He said that He is a God of miracle. God healed and restored me completely. What had happened in my life is already a miracle. He is going to perform more miracles in the second half of this year in all areas of my life. People will be amazed by God's work in me. They will praise God for what he is going to do.

Pastor Jeff mentioned that the devil will seek to destroy, deceive and distract. I sensed that all of us can flee from the devil's scheme if we allowed Jesus to reside in our hearts. He is powerful and has authority over the devil. In the gospel we knew that Jesus cast out demons. The devil don't dare to touch us or go near to us at Jesus' presense. Therefore, we don't have to fear the devil. We can call on Jesus.

Another thing I sensed very strongly is the love of God especially his equal love. God's love for all human is the same - it is so vast and immeasurable. He loves the guy who is robbing a bank as same as the pastor who is preaching at a church now. He loves the strong as equally as the weak. He loves the rich and the poor. He loves the righteous and the unrighteous. We can never outlove God. The door of God's love is open to all. And it is up to us how much we want to know His love.

More than a friend

Opposite attracts. This is true in the law of physics as well as the law of boy-girl-relationships. Certain individual of opposite gender may captivate us with their particular personality, physical appearance, character, interest, and life vision. It would be a perfect if the person make good friend with us and compliments us to make a power team, i.e. 1+1>2.

Alone and lonely

We can be alone yet not lonely, we can be lonely yet not alone...The key lies in whether we have Jesus in our heart...

How to stop loving people

1. Pride - When we have pride or think more superior than others, we are ugly at its most. Pride is really the ugly side of human. Pride is an anti-love. We can't love when we are prideful.

2. Lack of prayer - When we stop praying for someone, we stop loving the person. How can we love when he/she is not constantly in our mind or prayer? Humanly we can't give what is best for the person. When we pray, we are hoping God the mighty provider would give the best to the person.

Starting a F&B business in Singapore?

My two younger sisters are quite blessed.

The first one is married to a family who is doing food business. Her mother-in-law cherished her very much. Recently their noodle shop at Cheras became famous after they were interviewed for a TV program. Their noodle is special because they use their own recipe. The number of customers is increasing day by day.

This mother-in-law wants my 2nd sister to look for a shop house in Banting to franchise her noodle food business. The plan is to teach my sister how to make the special noodle and share the profit from the business. According to my sister, they will need to hire at least 5 person to run the eating shop. Now she is looking for a fully furnished shop house with affordable rental price.

I am thinking: If the franchised food business is successful, I may be interested to franchise the business in Singapore. F&B franchise brands like Secret Recipe, Yat Kun, Breadtalk, Pontian wantan noodle, etc. also expanded their business in this way.

Reaching the marketplace for Jesus

I asked God to guide me in my career during adult camp 2009 and my objective was met. God taught me a couple of things about the right perspectives I should have on serving God in marketplace.

1. Work is a spiritual activity. We need to draw close to God to do our work. God is the originator of work and he wants us to enjoy our work. He is the creator of all things in the universe and he created human in his own image. We can be as creative as God if we have the spirit of God. So it is important that we know him and are close to him.

2. We influence people for Christ through doing the right things at the right time, in the right place and right situation. Having higher position does not mean having higher influence on people for Christ if we don't have a heart for God and people. We solely serve ourselves and our selfish desire. This should not be the case. We serve God fully in the marketplace by reaching out to people. This should be our heartbeat and ultimate aim of our career. Career is only a mean to serve God and not an end in itself.

3. We should never get a job that would always make us feel stressed. If we can be more effective for God by being in a lower position, then we are okay with it. I don't mind to be a road sweeper than being a CoE if that makes me more influential for God.

4. A lot of times we struggle with God because we hold on to our career very dearly. We try hard to climb up corporate ladder by our own strength and selfish ambition. We can achieve it one day but we lose the grace and favour of God. Many times God withhold his blessing in our career such as higher income, position and power because God does not want to let these things destroy us.

Col 1:16,17 All things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Something about girls

I witnessed an major change in a female colleague's life since the end of last year. I noticed she smiles a lot more despite facing pressures in the work place. She also dresses more new and beautiful clothes with brighter color tones.

What event caused her to change so much? I believe it is after she was proposed by her boyfriend. The happiness must be coming from the sweetness of engagement and the preparation for marriage, from knowing where she belongs and from the security that she is loved.

When a girl feels loved, she is at the top of the world. A girl looks beautiful when she feels loved.

My First Love

My first love is Jesus, who saved me from all my sins, who suffered so much for all my wrongs, who took away my shame and brokeness, who showed me amazing love and grace, and who gave me a new life and purpose through faith.

But how many times I had forsaken my first love? Countless times! I had loved Him half-heartedly. I had always unconsciously and consciously started to chase after worldly things such as money, power, people's approval, ability to do certain things and etc. These things are good in the eyes of the world but they never satisfy my soul nor make me a more complete person. When I surrender one of them to God, I unknowingly start to chase after the other worldly thing. It is like a vicious cycle. After all these years of loving Jesus half-heartedly, I concluded that it did not lead me to anywhere. I concluded that I need a paradigm shift of mentality. I must know that the biggest loss is never losing the worldly things which will not last forever. The biggest loss is losing my first love - Jesus.

When we lose Jesus, we lose everything. When we gain Jesus, we gain everything! So I must love Jesus and I must not be distracted by the love for worldly things. We must constantly ask ourselves (or ask people to remind us) who is our first love especially when we feel troubled by worldly things. We must remember the following verses:

Matt 22:37 - Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

John 16:33b - In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Now I appreciate what apostle wrote below in Phil 3:7-11

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Don't make enemy with talkative aunties!

It is very common to see stall owners of hawker center make enemy with each other in Singapore. This is particularly evident for drink stall owners. I always feel very amused by one particular drink stall aunty in Geylang East Central hawker center. She mainly sells deserts but does sell a few type of drinks. When we sit near her stall to eat chicken rice, we usually order drinks from her neighbor stall. She will always grumble about her neighbor (just 3 stalls away from her stall) in sarcastic manner. In one ocassion, she told us her neighbor would not bother to keep their drink fresh. She quoted an example saying they keep their longan (龙眼) overnight for many days and use it to sell to their customers. She asked us not to drink from her neighbor stall as the water is taken from "drainage". Whether it is true or pure slander, some of us who heard her comments dare not order drinks from her neighbor anymore. I think this aunty must have told many people about the same thing.

Today I ate at the hawker center again after I finished swimming. I decided not to order any drink from the stall due to psychological effect or just in case something wrong with their drinks. How her neighbor's business is impacted by her slander or sarcastic remark? It is immeasurable!

In my opinion, the aunty's sarcastic remark is > 50 % due to their bad relationship rather than the unhygienic practice of her neighbor. Next time, if you run your own drink/food stall business in hawker center or any other small businesses, the last thing you want to do is make enemy with your neighbor esp talkative aunties. Guess what is the first thing you should do?

The curious case of a special friend

I know a friend who just uncovered the history of his family. Most importantly, he got to know who his real mum is and what happened to his mum. For the first time in his life, he asked his father about the events that took place twenty over years ago. His father married his mum many years ago and gave birth to him. He was a very difficult baby to look after in the first 6 months as baby. He kept on crying and crying all days and nights. It was the mum's first child and she didn't have the experience taking care of a baby. She was so stressed that she cried together with the baby. His father visited home once a week as his work place was far from home. One fine day, his father was informed his wife had committed suicide by jumping into the river in the town. At that time, the baby was only 3-month old. His father didn't quarrel with his mum. Nobody knew the exact reason she killed herself. According to his father, his mother was very gentle, quiet and submissive girl and she was deeply loved and treasured by his grand-parents.

His father married his step-mother 6-months later to take care of him. The family had been concealing the matter under the carpet all these years. His grandma does not love the step-mother as much and has prejudice against her and her two step-sisters. The matter would be briefly or accidentally brought up when there is heated argument in the family. This friend would not investigate the details further and he would continue to treat his step-mother as his real mum (though he knew in his heart she was not). He did not dare to ask the true story because traditional Chinese culture does not encourage people to discuss or mention about bad things that happened in the past.

This friend had always felt something missing in his life. He had constantly felt he was short of real and tangable mother's love. However, after he uncovered the true story of his mum, he felt as if he has just found his true identify. He was touched simply by knowing his mum had ever loved him in the first 3 months of his life. It must have been tough for his mum to take care of him. He felt that his real mother's blood is in him and he wants to live his life well to love his deceased mum. His deceased mum would want him to live well and be loved. Thank God this friend is a Christian and he is deeply loved by Jesus. When he goes up to heaven, he hopes to meet his mum and ask her what exactly happened at that time. Unknowingly he has lived longer than his mum now if count by the number of years they lived.

Mother's Day Home Trip - Part 2

Before departure to Singapore At KLIA

Karen at 友明seafood restaurant her Proton Saga as backdrop

Maggie rubs the bell to create humming sound at Jenjarom Thai Buddhist Temple

Ah Bi with flower adorning her at Jenjarom Thai Buddhist Temple

'Dim Sam' breakfast at Jenjarom

Honey Crab at 日夜兴

Mother's day dinner at 日夜兴 seafood restaurant

Mahjong at my house

Peanut toast at Lavender Cafe

PengKiat and MengLee at Lavender Bread Cafe at Bukit Tinggi Shopping Mall

Everyday is Mother's Day to my dad

View from right side of my house

View from left side of my house

My humble house and car in Banting