Haha, looks like i haven been really enthu about blogging this past week arh…its just that there were so many events happening last week that i did not really have time to update anything, only managed to hand in my 祷告事项 on time only.

Last monday, i went on a biking trip with 信仁哥and one other 牧师and传道, but we only managed to cycle for about 20 plus km. We managed to visit a few churches and also talked about the things that are happening in the Taiwan churches plus the prayer request of each church. This trip opened my eyes to the current situations of the Church in Taiwan which made me more certain that only through love can we really make a difference.

Haha, my dad came over to Taiwan for business, and i managed to meet up with him on Wednesday. Managed to go out and had some fun together with him and Elvin. We stayed at the Taiwan Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel, which was such a luxury, great personalised services by the employees and the buffet breakfast was great! But the thing that i received the most from this trip to 台南would have no doubt been my father’s love. Since his coming to know Christ, he has since shown more love to the people around him. And i felt loved by him during these two short days. Also, it seems that my dad has become more lively and optimistic (from the way that he was playing with some kindergarten kids to the way he talks), he has changed so much within a year. Pray that my whole family and AGPC will continue to grow with the nutrients given by God. Haha, i am beginningto miss my family and people of AGPC so much le. Now i understand why Di Song comes back to Singapore so often

Blah blah blah, fast forward to Sunday and i am serving as the violinist (this is the second week). I realised that no matter how bad i play the violin, God will still use me provided that i have the correct heart to serve him, but that does not mean that i should not continue to improve musically just because God just wants a correct heart. He wants the best from you and i must say that i haven really given my best for Him in anything before. That is why i am really trying hard to improve on my violin and to lose weight (healthy church for God to use). Speaking of losing weight, cycled 20 plus km today again and we also did some weights at an American missionary’s house (Mark). My upper body is aching so much now, and i think that we may be cycling over to 探访tomorrow. If i keep this up, i may really lose some weight.

Haha, so sorry i am really really tired. I promise i will update more often this coming week please continue to pray for me over here in Taiwan

Yeah! I’m finally at 云林水林already!!! And it is going to be the start of my official service over here in Taiwan. But before i even served, God has already given me a few surprises.

I thought that i would be serving out more in the music ministry cause it seems as though they have a shortage of musicians, but i was wrong again. They have a pianist and its not the one that comes from Taiwan, instead, its their 长老. Also, i thought that i may be teaching guitar to the kids when i arrived there, but i was wrong…again. They have an excellent teacher and mine too from now on, his name is YuTing哥. There was so much that i hoped that i could do to help the church and be their blessing, but it seems like the church over there instead would be helping me to grow! YuTing哥 is crazy about playing the guitar and plans to be a guitarist in a heavy metal band next time, he currently majors French in university. I guess i wasn’t very receptive to the idea of improving my guitar skills ever since i became supposedly “good” enough but YuTing哥 and especially the working　of the holy spirit have spurred me on to achieve for the glory of God. His determination is amazing, just like Di Song’s, and its something that I always lacked. His minimum practice time on the guitar is around 10 hours! And that is not counting the time that he reads about music! I find it amazing that one person can have sooo much passion for something, and i always thought that my passion for singing is quite strong. The real passion for music has once again rekindled inside of me! It was only the first day that i reached here and i had already had a 3 and a half hour lesson with YuTing哥 already…and I’m ready to practice even harder now! I have never felt so alive about music before and i want to learn more about music now!!! The sad thing however is that YuTing哥 would be going back to 台北 this Sunday and he will only be back every fortnight to teach the secondary school students English (maybe then i can be of some help). Oh! have i mentioned that we are sleep together? It felt strange at first but i got use to it within a few hours, its just like how i sleep with Elvin :p. Oh and talking to him makes me feel as if I’m talking to Hong Wei, cause we keep talking about music and games! Yup, so i will 加油 musically!

I also went for my first 探访 today and how i dread not being able to speak 台语! But i was fine la, just sat that and hear 信仁哥 talking to 洪伯伯, who is a diabetic and has undergone surgery to clear his swollen right hand of some unclean stuff. He has not been coming to church for around 2 months since his operation. They were discussing about just some really random stuff. 信仁哥also told me how things functioned over here in Taiwan. The people here place 关系over everything(including the law), which kind of reminds me of China Studies. Churches in Taiwan tend to attract people with activities while the church here attracts people with their care and concern (Just like AGPC). However, some old folks here tend to have a very bad impression of churches as they were brought up to believe negative things about the church. They always have the 观念 church is a bad place as it discourages ancestral worship and that the people there are all not filial to their parents! Thus the 水林教会needs to reach out to these people with gentleness, love and patience.

Ok, enough said, I’m going to my guitar lesson soon! Hope to continue to keep you updated with the things that I’m doing in Taiwan. Oh and i finally uploaded some photos unto Facebook. I also have a skype phone here so if you have skype, you can converse with me for unlimited hours :p Yeah! Hope all is well over there in UK and Singapore

Yes indeed! Without His cross there can be no eternal life. Without his cross, my transgression and sins would still be my burden to bear. Through this mission trip, I’m slowly beginning to see the more critical and arrogant side of me. Without the Holy Spirit working inside of me, I would still be oblivious to my own sins. Through staying with Elvin, I realised that I may be very critical of other people’s habits at times and I guess I’m not as friendly as people perceive me to be. Though I always feel that I’m a person with a thin mask, this mask I wear starts to feel that it isn’t as transparent as I suppose it is. So I’m trying my best to really see what kind of person I really am without the mask and may God work in me so that I can peel away my mask with His help, so that I can be a person I truly am both internally and externally.

Coming to another issue, my musician’s pride has really been shatter in 大湖教会. Feeling remorseful, I thank God for putting me in大湖教会 for 4 days! It has only been 2 days here and I have already been asked by God to wake up my idea. There are two things that I feel proud of musically, my voice and my guitar skills. All of a sudden, these two things does not seem great to me in大湖. For the singing part, my voice pales in comparison to so many of the 弟兄姐妹 over there. Their choir over there is just…Wow! A Choir of 16 sounding like a choir of 30! They are all powerful individually. Not only that, they sing with so much joy compared to me. In大湖教会’s Choir, no one is indispensible, and I pray that one day AGPC’s choir would be the same as theirs. The voice I hold so proudly in high esteem suddenly became just so normally over there in大湖教会. For my guitar playing skills, I feel so insignificant as 陈牧师 plays the guitar well and have even set up a guitar class for the 少年团契! The church can do both with and without me.

This felling of emptiness suddenly filled my soul. It’s just as 信德老师 said about giving yourself a certain value, I suddenly feel so invaluable and insignificant, like I have nothing to offer to the church at all. I did pray to God to show me my weaknesses, but I did not expect Him to hit me so hard, so sudden, but at least he has prepared me for this.

“He has brought down rulers from their thrones but have lifted up the humble” Luke 1:52

This was one of the verse that struck me the most when we were doing 灵修 with 陈牧师. The bible has never given credit to the one who is talented, but it is the one who always humbles himself that that is held in great esteem (especially Jesus). Only when you humble yourself would you then really be able to use You to glorify God. The emphasis is on You as God can do with or without you, so it is your own choice. This suddenly becomes so clear and so dear to me now that I truly experience this feeling. Its not easy to feel insignificant, I have always felt inferior. I now feel strongly about Servanthood versus Stardom in the Heart of the Artist. “Pride is the secret desire to be exalted” and yes, before I came to大湖教会, I expected them to commend me about my musically talents and use me. “Many artist are insecure”, and because of this insecurity, I want to make myself feel special so I would not be insignificant. And only when I feel insignificant would I experience God’s grace…and I’m experiencing it right not.

Even though the experience really hurts, I guess the LORD really wants to train my character and humble myself so that I can be of use to 云林水林教会, serving with a correct attitude. After this, I’m actually hoping that I can serve less off music related stuff and do more about spreading the gospel and interacting with the people. I also thank God that I’m slowly able to hear his voice and teachings again le, cause it has been a while since I really have an improvement spiritually. Though it has only been a week (5 days to be exact), I must say that I feel really blessed that God is spending so much time 栽培ing me! I’m realising slowly that I’m really special in God’s eyes.

Before I end off, I just to tell you guys that Elvin and I will be going to a camp with the church 青少团 this coming Sunday and Monday. So continue to keep us in your prayers man! And i really feel encouraged that you guys come and read my blog, it just gives me the motivation to continue on and share my experiences. Hope that there experiences is edifying though…going to put my photos on facebook soon cause its so difficult to upload to wordpress now…so sign up for facebook ba!

Hmmm…Its been a while since my first trip to Taiwan (2006) but this time it seems to be more meaningful to me because this time, i am going there on a missionary trip Elvin and I left for Taiwan on 3rd Fed and arrived safely. I would like to thank the people who went to send us off at the airport and AGPC 伙伴 who continue to hold us in prayer It will feel so lonely with out you all

 Upon arrival, 慧如传道 and 心诚弟兄 fetched us and we went straight for dinner…well almost, after you take away the time we spent in the car wash, pumping petrol, buying 洋葱饼 and getting lost for 1 hour. By the time we reached our restaurant (8pm, the last food we ate was in the airport at 11 am), we were already starving and we just ate some local dishes to fill our stomach. Their 卤饭 was super tasty. Looks like i would not not have the pleasure of losing weight in Taiwan already the desert called 双仙闹奶 was immediately a hit for elvin, i guess it was ok for me…

These few days in Taipei was really a great preparation time for us as we were very blessed to have teachers preparing us for the weeks ahead. We also had the opportunity to attend a worship workshop which really made me motivated again to pick up the guitar and try out new kinds of chords for worship 信德老师 taught us the things that we needed to look out for when we are out doing short missionaries and how we are going to adjust back to Singapore life when we head back (Oh No NS!!!) His lesson made me rethink the value(价值) which i give myself as a missionary. I started to wonder then that will my own value decrease if i cannot help out musically in the church. I guess sometimes we seem to me taking the talents that God has given us as most comfortable and easy wayto serve him. I’m still wondering what i will do if God does not want me to serve in the ministries that i’m good at and wants me to do much more things i fear doing (spreading the gospel, conversing in hokkien). Hmmm…we shall see when i reach 水林on tuesday.

On a side note, i saw a picture of 信仁传道whom i’m attached to and it seems that i’m like the 小Msize of him. I’m quite excited about working with the pastor and serve the needs of the church there. I guess i do not expect myself to make much impact over there though. 6 weeks in a place is too short a time to do much. Jesus’s 3 1/2year ministry on earth did not make much of an impact (only till later), even worse, the number of his disciples fell from 12 to 11. So i’m keeping my fingers crossed and just do what God wants me to do over there.

We will be heading to Elvin’s church in 高雄soon by train at around 1 pm and will then attend a 2 day youth camp over there before making my way to 水林. Do continue to keep us in prayer! Even though i do not know the theme of the camp, o pray that God would use this camp to continue to teach us. 

Thanks for taking the time to look through my blog, will update it soon!

These few weeks for me have been the most tiring for me, not only do i have to rush to complete my PW, i still had to face many obstacles brought up to me from God. Problems arose when i started reading Job. God suddenly seemed distant to me. I prayed to God to show me what my weaknesses were and i was bombarded with hundreds of them. I felt my knees trembling, i felt at that time that i was too much for me to bear. From there, i drifted away from the truth.

Things that i thought would never happen to me occurred. I became the guy who gets irritated easily, treats God like dirt and walks in the dark. During this time i was ashamed of putting my sins in from of God and confess, i was taking over by my human instinct and the devil. Pride, hatred, laziness, lust and other sins have taken control over my body. I complained to God a lot, and grumbling to him about the things i am going through. Worshiping  became routine, no longer for the glory of God, just something to get it over and done with. Sleep seemed more important than time with God. Falling into temptation was the easy way out and i took it. Advice from people came out from the other ear. Not much effort was left to continue continue strengthening friendships.

I asked God why is this happening to me, but i did not see that it was myself that allowed this to happen. I have allowed doubt to slowly flourish in my human brain, drawing me further away from God and Nearer to the devil. Looking back, God had used many ways to try to establish contact with me, like one of the sermons about Elijah and how God appeared to Him in a whisper. Everything looked set to changed for the better until the next day, more stuff would happen to make me more down. Prayer time with God became shorter until there wasn’t even one. I looked to me that Satan has already won the battle and i was happy even if things stayed the same like this. What was worse, i became sick this Tuesday. It started with a sore throat, then came the running nose and lastly the fever with headaches on Thursday.

It was such a tiring day today, playing captains ball have never been as difficult, i was panting all through the matches. Each faculty played 3 matches against the others, and my fac lost every game we played. Haha, but one thing i thought that i felt was useful for me was the reaction i had when we were losing. If it was me before knowing Christ, i would have been fuming mad about losing, and unable to sallow my pride. But i thank God that my perspective of things have changed. Winning or losing is no longer as important as before, what was important was that our team manage to work together really well and we allowed everyone from the team to play. But the sad thing was that there were injuries sustained during FOS, both students who were injured were from our team.

Even though losing 3 matches in a row is really quite down, i want to thank God for all the wonderful things that he have given us today. A few of our choir mates and others managed to have a mini worship session in school and i really want to thank God for this opportunity to have fellowship with others in school. And the amazing thing was that at first, there were only three of us there, then the people started coming in and we managed to have nine people worshiping together. Ha, he tripled our number of people, thats how powerful He is…

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I thank God that there are so many Christians in choir, and the choir is so banded together that we will eventually have the opportunity to spread the gospel to the them. =) We are going to hold a prayer session on Wednesday and i hope that we would from then on be able to hold regular prayer meetings for choir. Lord i pray that you use your music to move the people from the choir so that when they are singing Your songs, they too would be touched and would want to know more about you.

Along the way home i found myself a 852 buddy, Shuan, who is the third person from the right of the picture. I really want to thank God for putting people around me so that i may have many chances to share with people and hear them too. I think heard my prayer and now have blessed me with another person i can share my heart with. God has indeed blessed me greatly, but most of the time i think that i do no appreciate what He has done for me. I hope that i would clount my blessing everyday so as to always remember how much God has given me in my days here on earth. =)

Yay, everything has finally ended, i think i settle in to the new house just nicely =). I think before today, i did not sleep very well, with all the packing, i made my room too messy for my own good during promos period. This has caused me greatly as after promos, i did not have much fun due to the excessive packing i have to do…

But after that was even worse, now i live on the 3rd floor, so i had to move all my stuff up there, it took me like many many many times of climbing before i manage everything into my room and i thank God that He gave me the energy to continue on even though i feel both mentally and physically tired. And now my er…i mean our ( looks like i’m going to need to share a room with boi boi gor gor) room is super tidy now…

Will continue to jia you de…

Today was quite a sad day because it was 玉宝老师’s last service in our church. We sang our last song was conducted by her, Hallowed be Thy Name…it was a bit screwed up but still satisfactory in the end. Oh ya, forgot to say that she treated us to breakfast cause she say she owe us too many breakfast cause she always dismisses us late =) (yay for my tummy). Also, the church provided us with buffet lunch today. Wanted to eat a lot of food at first, but i had not time because i had meeting with Mei Na jie regarding being 招待员 in times of need. So i had to eat during the meeting which was a bit rude, but its better than being angry (A hungry man is an angry man).

I really thank God for 玉宝老师 as with her guidance, it has lit the desire to want to serve Christ in me. I have also learned that God uses people with willing hearts to serve him and he does not look at you qualifications, i guess that is why i played the clarinet twice in church before. I wish 老师 all the best for her future ministry and i pray that God would continue to guide her way and let her be obedient to God, with faith like a child. 棣嵩gor gor and 雪薇jie must also continue to work hard for Christ too ok?

” There is no fear in love ” 1 john 4: 18

Phew…just came back home…been at the new house packing all the stuff and getting ready to move house tomorrow. Will super 怀念 the currently house…all the fond memories…

Will be skipping sabbaticals tomorrow to help my mom move house…cause Dad and 二哥’s working. Woo, it is going to be hard work, but i believe that God would watch over the process so we could move over smoothly. Yay, the new house is so much nearer to church, but the sad part is that we still do not have a direct bus over to church, must walk for 15 minutes before taking 86 to church. On the other hand, i have direct bus home with 852. But now i will seldom have chance to take bus with Jun Yao le, unless we want to go bishan after choir to 逛逛 a while.

Going to sleep early today so i want wake up full of energy to help my mom…maybe will upload some photos of the new house for boi boi gor gor and xue wei jie…=) nitez

I remembered when xue wei and my brother left, i felt very alone because they were one of the few people i talked to when i have problems or i feel like sharing. I always wonder why i have so few people that i can talk to, and i manage to find out the reason today with the help of God.

When you want people you can share with, you need to put in that extra effort to understand a person more before you are able to fellowship with him. I missed God’s hint to me when i drop into self despair, but seeing today how God reminded me that i still have lots of people to share with made me realise that i am not alone in this world. And even if i was the last man on earth i would still have the love of God with me. And because i made that extra little effort, i manage to have a good sharing session with Lynn and Jun Yao. I thank God for the time i have with Lynn in the library and being able to understand more about her family. Also for Jun Yao my best bud in choir for the chance to listen to his worship leading experience which made me even more determined to serve the Lord with all my strength, heart, mind and soul. And not forgetting those people who i can always trust on when i need a hand. =)

Let me be ready to serve him this Sunday with my poor guitar skills which the Lord decided to use for the sole purpose of glorifying his name. Let me also be more active when it comes to sharing about the Lord.