Month: December 2014
Internet
I’ve got internet in my office. Guess I can update more often now.
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Monsters Inc. 3
So, I have a simple idea of what the beginning of Monsters Inc. 3 could look like. Dear Pixar, do pick my idea haha! I love Pixar!
Wait….. Monsters Inc. 2 is Monsters University right? So this would be Monsters Inc. 3 right? ANYWHO…
Remember how Monsters Inc. ended with monsters coming out of the closet and bringing joy to kids to power up their monster city? So Monsters Inc. 3 could start 30 years down the road where stories of monsters coming out of closets or doors or from under the bed… were just stories. Kids slept through the night without being woken up.
Before bed, parents will tell stories of how when they were little, monsters will come out from the closet to make friends with children and always found ways to make them happy. There were even story books about it. But none of the kids these days ever experience it. It was one of those myths.
One particular parent told the greatest stories of her adventures with these monsters. Her real name didn’t rhyme with Boo. She had twins. One boy and one girl, and they loved her stories. She could make it sound so fantastical and real, and the twins were always so drawn into it, they believed it more than mom did. Mom was making up the stories from dreams and daydreams she had in the past. She was a creative kid. But the twins believed in this magical world. They didn’t think mom was just dreaming when she was little. Maybe it was the fact that her stories made sense from one another. Or maybe the they just really really hoped all the stories were real.
One night, the twins heard a shuffling of feet from their closet. They were overjoyed, and pinched each other to make sure it wasn’t a dream. Then the shuffling noise stopped. It was going to jump out! But after a whole minute of anticipation, nothing came through the doors of that closet. They looked at each other. Something was wrong. They had to check it out.
As the twins neared the closet, hand in hand, they heard heard a tiny sobbing. Curious. They opened the closet door and saw a kid monster that looked like a spotted blue ball of fur with big wet eyes trying to hide from them. Slowly, of course, the kid monster starts to warm up to them and they find out that they are about the same age. The three of them become friends and start to share stories and the twins find out about why monsters stop coming to make children happy: The monster world was in chaos.
Okay, so that’s my idea. I could also imagine a dark world with no electricity. Monsters arguing and fighting and stealing from each other. Everyone unhappy with each other and no one wanted to help their neighbour. These three kids want help to make things better. So, they had an idea that if electricity came back, people would start having a hope that things may get better. And the kid monster suddenly remembered that his dad used to work here at Monsters Inc. to power up the world. He would help. Right?
Okay, that’s all I thought of. If you can think of how it could continue from here, do leave a comment below so everyone can see.
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Lovers Are Losers
I Corinthians 13:1-7,13
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
I hope some of you are going “Huh? What?” to those verses up there. That’s probably because of the Old English from the King James Version of the bible. This is a famous chapter about Love.
Lots and lots of marriage ceremonies use these words. But wait a minute. You don’t see the word ‘Love’ even once? Shame on you.
I’m sure we’re all familiar with “Love is patient and is kind; love does not envy. Love does not brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, does not seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…” So on and so forth. That sounds really good. Righteous, even. But for me, in context of how we use the word ‘LOVE’ today, people don’t get the gravity of what those words actually say.
These days, we use ‘love’ to explain a lovey dovey happy feeling inside that is an outcome rather than a cause. An Outcome!? A Feeling!? Shame on you again. People (old people especially) that have been through tough times know that love is not backing out of a relationship even when outcome or feeling says differently. It could be any love relationship; spouse, family, friends, car, house, or even for your country. It means Choosing and Standing Firm. Choice is not an outcome, choice happens right at the beginning before any action or word can even start.
But I’m sure you’re still wondering, why did I share that verse in King James Version? I’m sure you can see, the difference is the word Charity. Have you ever heard that ‘God Is Charity’? No? Me neither.
Think about this, as I said earlier, these days love is a feeling. Charity, however, is action, not a feeling. These days charity means giving to the poor. It also means losing something for someone else. A LOSS! The moment we hear the word charity, we cringe inside. Why? Because it is in our culture to ‘look out for number one’, me. Ouch. We’re just more used to saying “I’m already running low this month” rather than “I can skip one lunch so that you can have one”.
Think about this. In your mind, I’m sure you have two very different definitions of Love and Charity. List them down. Could be feeling, action, point of view, outcome, choice, giving, how much of giving, when, who, what, how low one stoops, how much patience needed, yada yada yada… I dunno how you want to compare those two words. Anyway! Now comparatively, answer me this “God is -”?
Some of you can say that charity is a quality that comes out of love and all that, which is totally true. But people like the word love and not the word charity! You know, I do see God more as an actions kind of guy. Not only that, He can be angry, sad, happy, proud, or ashamed of me, but He will still work miracles around me and through me. He still makes sure I’m well and healthy and clothes me and feeds me and allows me to have friends and family. Even when He knows I’m disobeying Him, or when I’m an idiot, or when I’m even trying to run away from Him. What is that? Is that a strong feeling towards me? Or a choice: That I’m His son no matter what.
This is a good reminder for me that love is not a feeling but an action. And it’s not even an action based on an outcome. Love is just an action because of choice: A responsibility. An oath. A sacrifice. A LOSS! A devotion. A hope. Despite everything or anything that has happened or might happen. Wow. “I love you” is now “I choose you” and not “I feel for you,” or “I prefer you the most”. A union in marriage with this kind of love sounds very powerful to me. Same as in family and in friendship.
“If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient and is kind; love does not envy. Love does not brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, does not seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails… But now faith, hope, and love remain-these three. The greatest of these is love.”
That sounds pretty different now doesn’t it?
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TeenStreet 2014 Malaysia
So a few days ago, I came back from a camp called Teenstreet Malaysia! It’s called that cuz it was held in Malaysia. Amaze-balls! I went with about 20+ teens and leaders from my church. Can you see me? I’m the guy in red. It’s a camp for teenagers aged 13-17. If you’re older, like me, you’ll have to join as service team or a coach. You don’t get LESS than a normal participant though, trust me. This was my fourth Teenstreet. Wow. The first one I went to was ten years ago!
So this year, the youth ministry of my church decided the youth needed to invest into the lives of those less fortunate. Where could we go? And what could we do? And for who? Well, that was easily answered. Why not teach our youth to invest in our own nation? Since we already do pray for God to do great things for Malaysia, and we believe the prophesies that it will start with the local church. So, let’s bless the local church. The sad fact is, that the churches in the city is rich in resource, and the church in villages are barely surviving. Pastors are quitting from being a full-time pastor because they can’t support their family. But of course, we can’t totally solve that problem. Let’s do things a little at a time: a little opportunity, and a little encouragement. Of course, it ended up not being just a little.
For 2014, we decided on one big end year goal: Raise enough funds to fully sponsor some of the interior teens to Teenstreet camp which would be held in December. Camp Fee and transportation would cost about RM700+ per person. How much money could our 30+ teenagers raise? We didn’t know. So this year, the teens from my church started the fund raising. They sold cookies, and an assortment of food for lunch after church services. And funds also came in through different connections. By the end of it, we had enough to sponsor 16 teens from the interior! That’s a lot of money! God is pretty crazy. I never imagined we could raise this much.
Then, we hit another problem: English. Teenstreet camp is basically fully held in English. And a lot of teens from the interior have poor grasp of English. We saw this as an opportunity, of course. We held one camp for one group in the interior. Basically to get to know them more, and also to do a bit of English workshop. Then, since we were going to have our own annual Youth Camp right here in Sabah, we also invited them to join us. The reason we asked them to join our youth camp is so that they get to experience what Teenstreet is like (we did our youth camp with some Teenstreet program and styles), and to get them exposed to communicating in English. And because we can only bring a limited number of teens to Teenstreet at the end of the year, we told the interior teens that we would pick only the best in english to sponsor for Teenstreet. We hoped that through exposure from our youth camp, they would be motivated to improve their English as well.
Overall, it was a good experience. It wasn’t easy. Lot’s of hiccups along the way. Organizing and contacting parents was difficult as some areas in the interior didn’t have good phone signal. And also because the people we sponsored weren’t from the same place.
In the end, it was exciting! Good experience for them. Lot’s of them never flown on a plane or slept with air conditioning. And most of all, God really blessed and spoke to them. For us, travelling with a lot of teenagers can be very tiring. But it well worth it. Serving God’s people is definitely a great joy and fulfillment. I pray that the seed we planted in them will grow into greatness.
To PowerHouse: See what God can use you to do!
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Two-Update Update
Obligatory Update
Hey, came back from a camp called TeenStreet. It’s organised by OM for teens all around the world to get to know God more closely and to find out how fun relevant the Word of God actually is. And this one that I attended is the one held in Malaysia wooohooo. It was great fun.
I learnt a lot. Even though I went as a coach, I felt like I went as a participant. The leadership training was especially good. I learned so much about myself.
One interesting part is where we have to change negative views of ourselves into positive ones. One negative view of myself is that I’m lazy. I tell myself this quite often. Then with your friend, you’re supposed to change it into a true positive view, not just use the opposite word. My group member called Nathanael changed it for me to ‘responsible’. So from now on, I can’t say “I’m lazy”, I have to tell myself “I’m responsible.”
We did ALOOOOOT more than just that just for your information. I may share more about it next time.
P.S. I WILL for sure share more about it if you ask for it. Hehe. Or if you’d like me to talk about any other topic.
Non-Obligatory Update
Did you know that I’m a guy? Being a guy, I like girls. I’ve been attracted to a lot superstars. Let me name a few: Aya Ueto, Emma Watson, Emma Stone, Chloe Moretz, Ana Kendrick, Kristen Bell, Jennifer Lawrence, and others, to say the least. Recently, I’ve met a new superstar, got to spend some time with her. It was pretty awesome.
She’s got bright eyes. She’s pretty. She’s cooler than me. She’s super funny. She’s got a heart-melting smile. She loves God. She’s kind, polite, open, honest, compassionate. She even talked to me! *CHOKE*
Whoaaaaaaa… Aaron stop. Calm down. Breath. Okay.
I guess what I’m saying is, I met another superstar to add to my list. But remember a few posts ago I talked about the 5 Love Languages? Okay, maybe not so few blog posts ago. And I said my primary is Time. Those names I gave up there. I spent NO time with them at all. See what I’m trying to say? No? Good.
Okay, I’m very uncomfortable writing about this here where people may see it. HAHA. But I guess I had to get it out of my system. I hope you don’t understand or try to understand what I just wrote.
Good bye.
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Time-Traveling Prayer
This totally blew my mind. Read on!
C.S. Lewis Daily
When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical consultation the thought will often cross our minds that (if only we knew it) the event is already decided one way or the other. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event certainly has been decided—in a sense it was decided ‘before all worlds’. But one of the things taken into account in deciding it, and therefore one of the things that really cause it to happen, may be this very prayer that we are now offering. Thus, shocking as it may sound, I conclude that we can at noon become part causes of an event occurring at ten a.m. (Some scientists would find this easier than popular thought does.) The imagination will, no doubt, try to play all sorts of tricks on us at this point. It will ask, ‘Then if I stop praying can God go back and alter what has already happened?’ No. The event has already happened and one of its causes has been the fact that you are asking such questions instead of praying. It will ask, ‘Then if I begin to pray can God go back and alter what has already happened?’ No. The event has already happened and one of its causes is your present prayer. Thus something does really depend on my choice. My free act contributes to the cosmic shape. That contribution is made in eternity or ‘before all worlds’; but my consciousness of contributing reaches me at a particular point in the time-series.
Excerpted from Miracles
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Ok bye
There is hope. We can be fixed. 