'Guan beh zuay lee eh meng tor'

All of us have our guilty pleasures; some listen to Backstreet Boys when they are driving alone, some gorge themselves silly with potato chips when nobody is looking. Me, I love listening to Hokkien songs. There's something heart wrenching yet at the same time endearing about Hokkien songs that no other English song is able to express in a similar capacity.

Just a few days back, Penny came to me ranting and raving about this Hokkien worship song that Nancy had passed to her. She said that this song somehow touched her and she cried when she first heard it.

So this morning we played it in the room and I was amazed. Such simplicity in the lyrics but yet so true, I wanted to cry as well. Below is a rough English translation of the song:

BEING THE LORD’S DISCIPLE
words and music by Kelvin Soh

Hold my hand, Lord Jesus
I ask for Your protection and your guidance
Protect my heart and guide my steps
That I may never stray from Your way

Hold my hand, Lord Jesus
I ask of You to open the way for me
Step by step, following Your footsteps
Never afraid of how difficult the path may be

CHORUS:
Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus
I want to be Your disciple
Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus
I want to be Your disciple

Somehow the English translation doesn't seem to carry across the same sentiments as the original version. This song is just beautiful and I can't it out of my head.

It's beautiful because it basically summarises Luke 9:23: Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me".

And we all know how difficult that can be.

Jurong 'ink'

After another long, tiring day at work - we had a last dance rehearsal at the event location of our sales conference- I finally got home at about 9pm. I could just muster enough strength to down some porridge (despite having a 2 pc KFC meal earlier) and get down to preparing for the next day's program. This included ripping off the sleeves of my T-shirt and applying fake tattoos on my arm. We were, after all, doing Kal Ho Na Ho (a Bollywood dance item).

I never thought much of fake tattoos before. Applying these now brought me back to my younger days when we used to play with those on the wrappers of 10-cent bubble gums available at mamak stalls. Velouria was her usual curious self and kept insisting that she get one as well. Since I had one whole sheet with me, I thought why not and decided to give her a small one.

It surprised me how easy it was to apply. Cut, slap, douse with water, peel and - voila! - there it was! When we were done we were so proud of ourselves that we just had to show them off.

Sometimes, it's these silly little things we do as a family that keeps me going. Takes my mind off the mundane things that keep me awake at night.

Praise the Lord for blessing us with such a nonsensical daughter.

Robbing God

8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.
9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Malachi 3:8-10

Just had a sudden revelation while praying to God. I mean, I've known this for a long time, but it never occured to me with such clarity. All this shit that we've been going through with our finances and all, boils down to one simple fact.

I have been robbing God.

It has already been ordained in His Word that tithing is part and parcel of obeying him. But time and again, I have been compromising on my tithes to pay our bills and trying to resolve everything MY way. I decided that this has to stop somehow so I started my New Year with my tithing again. I even forced myself to give more than 10%, not so that I can claim credit for it but because God deserves all the glory and honour.

My prayer and resolution for 2008 is that God will fill me with His Holy Spirit so that I will learn to fear and revere Him even more through His Word and that He will break this stronghold of finances that continue to bind me.

I am, after all, the strength of the household and all things must be set right in me first before everything else will fall in place.

Rest

Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

The past few weeks have been really depressing. Had another disagreement with my parents so we aren't talking to them now. Penny and I just have so much to deal with at the moment that we decided it's best for everybody that we leave them alone for now.

Our finances are becoming a strain on us. Again, this month I've compromised on my tithing to pay our bills. Guilt stricken, I keep crying out to God to forgive me for 'robbing' His kingdom. I've got so much to do at work, what with the new product launch in January, keeping up with all the paperwork and with dance rehearsals (for our marketing conference in Jan 2008) coming up.

Haven't been sleeping well either. The slightest noise keeps me awake at night (there's a lone bird that keeps chirping at night) and I had to put on ear plugs to go to sleep. But that didn't help much too as the sound of my own breathing was amplified a hundred fold within my ear canals. By the time I got to sleep, the birds (all of them, not just the loner from the night before) started chirping and it was dawn again.

Prayed to God two nights back and told Him that I was really drained and all I needed was some good quality sleep. For the first time in two weeks, I fell asleep without ear plugs. I woke up to the sound of chirping birds and the purplish sky outside the window. I thought to myself 'Wow, what a beautiful day!' (though the sky turned dark later in the morning and rained for the next two days; I'm sure this was God's way of motivating me). For some reason, that depressive feeling was gone. Not that my problems had gone away; I knew we still had bills to pay, I knew there was still shit to clear at work. But somehow I felt a heavy burden being lifted from my shoulders and felt so much lighter and happier.

All because I serve an Almighty God.

My soon-to-be new hobby

Been feeling restless these few days. Couldn't keep still for 5 mins and had to keep getting out of my seat to stretch myself, walk to the washroom, etc. Probably the stress is getting to me, which also explains why I can't sleep at night.

I thought that maybe it's time I did some exercise to purge out all the pent up steam that has been accumulating. Then I remembered parkour, something that I've always been intrigued by but never had the chance to explore further on.

Parkour originated in suburban France and it can't really be considered a form of extreme sport or categorised into any other form of sport. Made popular by movies like Yamakasi, The Great Challenge, B13 and Casino Royale - where 007 runs after this African guy. Basically, traceuers (particpiants of the sport) run (duh), jump, hop, somersault their way through obstacles like buildings, stairs and other variety of inanimate objects in their everyday environment.

Founder David Belle couldn't have summarised it better when he said "Martial arts train you for the fight, parkour trains you for the flight". The original intention of parkour was to train the body to move in the fastest, most efficient way in times of an emergency. However these day it has evolved into 'free running' where traceurs take to the streets to execute more elaborate and complicated moves.

You can check out the video here.

Apart from capoeira which I've been wanting to try out (cos I've got long legs which always don't seem to fit anywhere), I think free running would be quite wicked to try out. I reckon you would require a decent amount of upper body strength, which I would like to believe I have since I was capable of 22 pull ups within a minute in my prime (of course, that was 10 years ago).

I'm sure, like capoeira, there is already a small group of people already practising it here. Now my mission is to find le traceurs du Singapoeur.

Being on fire for God

We had a guest speaker, Pastor Loh, on Sunday who spoke about being on fire for God. He made a very good point, quoting Revelations 3:16 which says: "So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth". Either we are hot or cold, anything in between is unacceptable to God.

He went on to talk about why Christians today are becoming lukewarm in their attitudes towards God, getting distracted by worldly desires and the burdens of this fallen world. I couldn't help but think about myself, how I get so wrapped up in worrying about the things of this world than His kingdom. Overwhelmed by guilt, I said a silent prayer asking for forgiveness.

It's difficult to have faith and BELIEVE when things around you that can go wrong just go wrong. As i prayed, I remembered Lamentations 3:27 which says: "It is good for the man to bear the yoke while he is young". Which probably explains all the shit we have to go through in our life as God prepares us for bigger and better things.

I continue to pray that He gives me renewed strength everyday to fight the battle and forge ahead.

This Is The Day... Vel's graduation concert

All the hoo-ha and anticipation finally led up to this day. We were all so excited; changing Velouria, making sure her hair was all in place, putting on make-up for her (only to realise later that our enthusiasm was uncalled for as their teachers actually tied her hair and applied make-up all over again backstage).

After handing her over to her form teacher, we all milled into the concert hall and were all chatting and laughing, snapping our cameras and watching the Powerpoint slideshow (showcasing photos from activities that the students were involved in) over and over and over again. We were all straining our necks to see if anything was going to come out from the side of the stage.

Finally, at 5.30pm on the dot, the MC (a horrible one at that, kept getting all the names wrong) came on stage and went through the usual pleasantries. This was followed by a thank you speech from the Director of Grace House, Ms Isabel Ng, and the Head of Children Ministry of Grace AOG (can't remember her name but she was quite a character though - 'I love children and the children love me' is a line I'm going to remember for a looooong time).

Then came the graduation of the K2 kids. Their entrance could rival any banquet first dish presentation, with all the fanfare and marching. What really touched us was that Ms Isabel Ng actually prayed for the children after they were all presented their certs.

Then the concert proper began. The first item was of course with Velouria's group singing 'It's A School Day'. It was quite a mess (but a cute one) with all the kids more interested in identifying their family and friends in the audience. It was a good preview for the next few items coming up as the audience (us included) lapped it all up and clamoured for more (parents were all rushing to the front to get pictures of their kids).

There were more items in between but I think what caught everyone's attention were the Playgroup kids. These were children between the ages of 2 & 3 who were not eligible to go to N1 yet. It was a joy to see some of them running all over the stage (much to the teachers' dismay), some just froze and forgot what they were supposed to do, while others just freaked out and cried. It was a blast!

Then Velouria's group came out again. They were decked out in beach gear, with the girls in a fake hula grass skirt made from raffia and plastic flowers. This time they did a very reggae rendition of 'See The Works Of The Lord'.

But what topped it all was the finale item when ALL the kids came out and sang 'This Is The Day'. I believe this was the one that the kids trained really hard for as all of them were screaming out all the words at the top of their lungs (even for the Mandarin version!).

In the end, though we were all famished we all left smiling, satisfied that all the wait was worth it. This Is The Day indeed...