I am still alive

An update for the sake of updates. I am still alive. Just a little busy.

I am surprised that I could go so long not reading and writing blogs. Man, I miss all those funny posts by all those funny people. Here, is a little update in point form for people who are busy like me:

• It is deadline season: all homework and assignments are due within a short period of time. My course is coming to an end, in 4 weeks time.
• No credit: my handphone has had no credit since it recovered from its fall a few weeks back.
• Youth camp is coming: yeah.. one which I might not be going to enjoy. I might not have the time to! blewk..
• Moving to a new road - slowly: so slowly that people actually notice the progress in movement.
• Missing people: yeah, I miss proper human interaction quite a lot.
  
• Hungry: I eat the same thing each day even guys notice
• Hunger: My spirit man is.
• Homecoming: Many of my friends are coming back from abroad and I succesfully managed to mix all their dates. Brilliant eh?

How would I survive? Find out soon, if you see the next post.. ever..

Wake

Attending wakes should not be a problem for me. Having the heart of stone, this stuff does not affect me. So today, I went to the wake of the 15 year old girl who left us with two of my church mates.

Arriving late at the wake about 10 minutes late, we were led to our seats at the back corner. Booklets with songs of praise and worship were passed to us and we sang accordingly.

The difference this time was I was fighting back emotions of sadness. Although tears were coming, but it felt rather difficult to cry it out. When the singing ended, we sat down and listened to the testimonies of the Youth leader who prepared the girl for her final few days unknowingly.


******

The Youth leader "walked" with the girl from the moment she entered the hospital until the last day she left this world. The Youth leader played a vital role in keeping a spiritual well being of the family through prayers. At one point, she had a vision that God said it was time to call the girl home. After struggling for a long while, the Youth leader told the family about the vision and they too accepted it. The girl's last request was to hear or see the eldest brother who was studying abroad. When her brother called her before he boarded the plane, they spoke for an hour. As soon as the conversation ended, she was gone within minutes.

The eldest brother's testimony was just as powerful. At the beginning of this incident a few weeks back, he felt heavy hearted and the need of calling back. The family at that moment, decided not to break the news of the sister's condition for the fear of extra pressure on his studies. As days when by, again and again he felt sadness of which he could not explain. When the brother got news of his ailing sister, together with his some of his Christian friends they prayed. When the call came to get the brother to go back immediately, he missed the flight by an hour. The next available flight was the noon the next day. Going back to the hotel to get some rest, the brother got a phone call at 4 in the morning to talk to the sister. They talked for an hour or so and he went back to sleep.

The next day, the same cab driver brought him back to the airport just when the brother needed it so much. When he finally reached back here, the Youth leader went to pick him up. Sensing that the brother figured out that the sister has gone, the Youth leader prepared him by informing him the kind of visual to expect when he reaches home. The brother joined his family in a somewhat calm and collective manner.

*****

I am not sure if the I relate the story correctly or wholely, but if you could see that God was in everything, every part of this from the very beginning. No, we still do not have an answer as to why He decided to take the girl away from us but the tremendous effects and blessings on the lifes of many are simply amazing. It brought into realisation to many that life is indeed precious and it could be taken away just in the blink of an eye. Many people who knew her said they missed her so much.

But one vision was repeated each time when someone related it was that Jesus was with her through her pain and suffering. This girl is one tough cookie when she went through her chemotherapy sessions. The effects are painful as her doctor dad explained. However, the girl went through it without so much of a complain. A few mentioned a vision that Jesus was carrying her all the time.

One pastor from the Puchong church was approached while speaking as a guest in another church with a verse from Marks of Jesus telling a woman that she is completely healed (could not remember the verse).

Another remarkable thing about is that Senior Pastor mentioned that parents stayed on each day without fail with the girl. That means nearly 17 days in total. Not a part of a day, not half a day, but the whole day. Each parents taking turns in taking care of her, and always by her side.

It holds true. In the end, the girl is the victor in Christ. She is fully healed now in her new body in heaven. Some of the family members have accepeted this and are rejoicing now (especially the father and elder brother) knowing this fact by hard.

And I thought I was strong. The moment before we left, we went over to the coffin. As I approached it, a strong fear overwhelmed me and I dare not look into the covers until an aunt I was familiar with held me and together we looked in.

Until now, I am still overwhelmed and saddened. But I rejoice, with many others, knowing that she is safe now we Jesus, free from all suffering! Consider how a stranger has affected someone like me, what more if it is someone we know.

Here are two people who posted a journal on this, one is someone who is like me who kind of knew her; the other is her friend.

Departed

Three deaths affected me this past two days. And the odd thing is, I have not met 2 of the dearly departed but their death had a significant impact on me.

The first person is a 15 year old girl from a sister church who has been treated with lukemia for the past 2 weeks. Although we (people from our church) barely knew her, we were all asked to pray for her health as it was deteriorating. Some even took the challenge to pray round the clock by taking an hour each.

Her condition did not improve and as of the 1055hour, 7th October 2005, she has gone home. What would be good to know was that the family, friends and relatives stayed and prayed with her until the very moment she left.


The second person is 18 year old girl who passed away of suspected pnuemonia on Sunday Star. What really caught my eye at first was the name. At first glance, I thought I have lost a good friend. Fearing the worst, I read on. Only to find out it was someone else with the same name and a distantly similar profile.

Although it was a relieve, my heart was still shaken by the fact that life could be so fragile.


There are a few things I got from these two misfortunes.

• Life is fragile.
• Lives can just come and go easily. It is worst when it is someone you can more or less relate to. I would not say that I could fully relate to the things they have been through. But it affected me and it got me thinking about what I really want to do in life with people I know with before it is too late.
  
• What kind of life do I want to live and legacy to leave behind? One left this place after touching the lifes of so many while the other has so much potential. What do I have? Does being nice and helpful actually mean anything? I am not talking so much as about being proud of what I have done. But have I done enough? Did I do it correctly so that it affected positively on others?
• What does God say in the end when we finally meet. Would I be in a big surprise when together we sit down to review my life only to find out that I could have done better, or I have been doing things wrongly? How much of Jesus is factored in my life? Have I been so ignorant so much so often?
  
• What should the next few steps be? I have all the time my God is willing to bless me with. And I really need Him to guide me. My best wish would be to really see His ways clearly so that I could serve Him better.

To their immediate family, my deepest condolenses for your lost. May God bless your heart.

The third death, maybe we will keep it for some other day.

Pastor

October 30th was a day where the world appreciated their Pastors. Did you?

Since the first day I met my pastor, I knew he was cool, has the right heart and the passion for God. Pastor joined the church on the second week in joined the church. Joining the Youth Ministry at first, he easy going attitude sure got the youths of our church feeling comfartable with him around.

After a year later (if I got my facts correctly), pastor became the an associate pastor, leading our church into a new era or phase. Becoming our pastor for our congregation is not easy, especially when we were a bunch of crazy and somewhat slow moving people. A quick study of our church at that time would reveal we were in a bad state with many people hurt by the past.

But, one thing you really like about this pastor is that he is persistant. Through all the lousy things that we gave (well, not all the time), pastor would still do his best in bringing the best out of us.

Recently, there was a revival in church back in April this year (2005) and many people felt the need to change. These people have been touched by the Holy Spirit in ways even I would not be able to explain clearly although I have been through it. And pastor, is one of the main people used by God in this movement.

So now, you can see a radical change in my pastor. He is more daring now. So bold but so humble at the same time. He makes a stand on what he believes and nothing seems to be able to compromise that. However, that did not make him un-approachable. He is always available to the people in need of help, usually going the extra mile to make sure things are OK. If you can see it clearly, God is working in our church through pastor.

On Sunday, we finally have a chance to really appreciate everything our pastor did by hosting an appreciation dinner for all the pastors in our church.

Like the touch of God, dinner was good, icebreaker was amazing, the skit was funny and the worship session, simply spectacular.

Overall, I think pastor and his wife had a good time. So did the rest of the pastors and people. My highest regards and salute, to the Pastor who has it all from God! It is an honour to know him and be blessed in such amazing ways!

Handphone kills...

your social life when it dies. This is the truth. Many are not aware how severe it could be without handphone. Of course life still goes on, but it is when people are trying to reach you or vice-versa is when this horrid massacare occurs.

I grew up in a world where handphone was not an issue until I entered first year of college. Everyone had one. Everyone was within reach. I was not. I was hard to get (anyway you want to see it). I was in a social blackhole that anyone with a phone could not reach me.

I am glad the way I am but not my friends. They wanted me to join the club badly. Everday they preach to me. Everyday they try their best to convert me. So finally, I gave in and after many months of saving, a handphone fell from the sky.

What I have is a Nokia3310. Lovely 5 year old technology when I first got it 2 years back. Not as colourful as most would imagine, but functional. The best thing is it makes phone calls and send messagers! To compliment it, a Digi prepaid starter pack worth RM20 at that time with the lowest call rates and sms too (now even cheaper with call rates being higher but sms is still dirt cheap unless you send it to other telcos).

Since then, the phone is with me everyday for all functions and events. It is one of the first thing I see when I wakeup (to hit the snooze button) and last thing I see before bedtime (set alarm) other than my Bible. It reminds me of birthdays and appointments, becomes my calculator, a tool for communicating and for protection. It is so rugged that you can drop it a few hundred times a year but it won't show you an error screen.

Or that was what I thought.

On the 372nd time I dropped the phone (two weeks back), the phone showed sign of defiance. It showed "low battery". Hmmm... pretty common. Seen it this before. So I charged the phone.

After the whole night later, it still did the same thing each time I turned on. It would not last more than 7.4 seconds before it shuts down with a "low battery" sign.

Finally, I have to declare my phone dead. OK, I would not say that my social life is dead. It has been dead for a long time now. By dropping the phone the 423rd time just made the living world harder to contact the dead.

All my living contact numbers are stored within a silly chip in the phone and the only way to retrieve any data is to have the phone stay switched on for at least 92 seconds.

To fix this tiny whinny little problem, I will need a miracle like getting a new phone (less likely) or replacing a battery (quite likely but not so soon) or remain out of reach for a long time.

Well, no frets. It is not the end of the world, there is always something called house phone, or the internet or snail-mail or signal through smoke and pegions and telepathy an...