I’m So Fly

Have you ever counted your blessings? I can count. I have been very blessed all my life. Especially after I’ve given myself to ministry and God’s work.

You know, I’ve never imagined flying too much. It’s not really one of my bucket list things to travel or to experience new places. Sure, I love mountains, seas, rivers, sands, forests, and it’ll be great to see new plants and wildlife and weather outside of the island of Borneo. But it’s never been a priority or a need. Yet here I am. I’ve traveled so much in the past 13 years, I’ve probably lost count. Here’s a list of what I remember being on a plane for:

Fun: Philippines.

Conference: Melaka. Hong Kong. Wasn’t there one more?

Teenstreet Camp: Negeri Sembilan. Miri. Port Dickson. Port Dickson. Negeri Sembilan. Was there one more?

Missions: Cambodia. Cambodia.

Training: Penang (3 months leadership). Subang (3 months bible school).

Government election: KK (this was while I was in Subang).

I know this sounds crazy, but this is crazy. God has been bringing me around. Like for reals. I couldn’t have paid for all that. God provides. God not only takes care, but opens opportunity too to do extra.

If God wants you to do something, He’ll open the doors and provide for it. You just gotta walk through when it’s open.

Ok. Ciao now.

Mission Possible!

Going for mission trip today. But I’m at work now 😢.
Have to finish up my work so that I can serve those children in peace haha.

God bless them!

I’ll be preaching in an SIB church in tandek tomorrow. Pray for the team and I.

P.s. this is the first blog post I ever used this WordPress app on the phone. Woohoo

Vision

Today in Sunday School for adults, Leadership Pillar 1 Session 4, we learned about setting Vision, Mission, and Goals. These help us to stay focused in life; to not waste our time (and life) doing things that we may regret or which do not bring any contentment or bring any benefit.

The importance of having a vision, missions, and goals is something taught to me at least once a year, but it’s not something I’ve ever followed through. It’s not easy to follow a goal through or be focused on a vision in a long term (or to even plan your life for long term).

But I believe it’s about time I start being focused.

I’m sure God is with me on this one, because He helped me draft a pretty much complete Vision, Mission, and Goals this morning just on my first draft. I might share it here one day. When it’s more complete. Hmmmm should I?

Cambodia Round Two Short Report

I learned a lot from this 5 day 4 night trip to Cambodia.  There was a camp in a village where 130 teens  and children (from 13 different villages) stayed for 2 nights. We taught the children and teens about Jesus and God’s truth about them. We were the overseas guest speakers in a way. Then after that was over, we had one afternoon to encourage the teachers and leaders that their ministry was an important one, and also to give some skills and tools to teach about Jesus to their students.

I may not be able to account too detailed about this trip, cuz too much has happened. But I’ll try to explain briefly the things that has impacted me or things I have learned.

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Trust

We prepared the best that we could. Program. The word of God. Games. Song and dance. Stories. And even a drama (that we didn’t practice). It wasn’t perfect. I still had some things that I didn’t really have time to finalize. But I just prayed and trusted God to lead me. I did have a bit of time in Cambodia to do last minute preparation, but it still wasn’t enough and I really relied on Him. It was stressful but I believe God spoke and that all hearts were touched by Him. No lack of preparation or fear can stop God from moving if we really commit ourselves and commit what we can do to Him.

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Hungry

The people of Cambodia are hungry. Hungry for the truth. Hungry for salvation.

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One Man Can Make A Change

It’s amazing how one man who loves God and has God’s compassion and passion can change a whole village and it’s surrounding villages.

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Stars

The night sky in the village looked so amazing. When all lights are off, the stars came out. We all know that. What I didn’t know is that the stars could come out anyway, as long as I block out the light. There was a long long moment one night when all Joey and I did was sit outside and stare upwards. But we had to use our hands to block out the lights from the village and the spotlight that was shining at the dancing crowd (yeah we had an outdoor disco for the teens and children at night).
It reminded me that we have to focus to see glory. We have to block out the distractions that are glaring right into our senses. And then just sit back and enjoy God’s glory.

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Children

It’s been a long time since I really ministered to children. And two things about their heart that really reminded me about why Jesus asked us to be like children.

First of all, their willingness to learn. The saying ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is kinda true. The older we get, the less we are able to remember. Children remember quickly and are so willing to learn. Also, there is very little pride in them. So, they don’t just pick and choose. They don’t take a lesson for granted.

Secondly, intimacy to the small details. Once, I had a group of about 30+ teens and children. They were each given a piece of a photo that was cut into rectangles. The instruction was to piece the puzzle pieces together to get the full picture. After they were done, I asked if they remembered their original puzzle piece. And they all did. If it was me, I would have forgotten the small detail and remembered the big picture, or the main point.

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These are just a few things that I have learned on this journey. I’ll blog more next time.

If you have anymore questions for me about what we did or why, do feel free to message or comment.

Cheerio!

Who Wants Jesus?

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!

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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!

Helpless

I’ve always thought myself as a compassionate person. I have a heart easily broken when I get to know people and find out what they’re struggling with. My natural instinct is to ask, what can I do? Every time I’ve gone to the villages of interior Sabah, my heart breaks. My view of life changes. I imagine what I can do to help. I pray for them when I remember them. I am a compassionate guy.

Or so I thought. Psalm 35: 13 gives a glimpse of how much David cared for his friends. But when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fastings; and my prayer returned into my own bosom. This reminds me of all the times I have forgotten to pray for a friend who asked me to remember him/her in prayer. Because David changed his life to mourning to mourn for his friends. I don’t change my life just for a friend. Even when I’m heartbroken, I do not open my wallet and give money. ‘Logic’ overtakes me. Or, I just don’t have that love that we can see David has. Compassion is a trait birthed from love.

Compassion is not a feeling when you wanna cry for someone. Compassion is not imagining yourself in someones shoes. Compassion is a sorrow birthed from love.

God felt this compassion for you. For me. The helpless state we were born in, and delved in deeper as we lived. The trap. The pit. The hopelessness. There’s nothing we can do to free ourselves. God had compassion because He loves us. He WANTS to save us from that pit. With true love and true compassion comes action. Even the most difficult action is worth it. Because that is love. Because that is compassion. Because that is God.

He loves me

He loves you. He saved you.

Acts 13 & 14

Mission Training

 

hey all i know its been awhile since i updated.

hehe.

some stuff went wrong.

and now situation is even better than before. so it’s all cool.

 

anyways,

before i go into my devotion, i need to give you an aaron version summary of Acts 13 & 14.

(since some of my loved ones always complain that i write too much)

 

here’s what i understand happened:

God, through the Holy Spirit, asked the church to let Paul and Barnabas go. At that moment of time, Paul and Barnabas was going around the early churches encouraging them and helping the church to grow. And that was right after persecution of the church, so i can imagine that they were actually needed.

In Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Which i think just means “find other people to do what Barnabas and Saul are doing now, i need them for other stuff”.

And so Paul and Barnabas set off. Their mission, to make Jesus known. Their guide, The Holy Spirit. Not the easiest type of Global Positioning system to follow.

They preached in the temple. They preached to the big crowd. They preached to one man. They healed the lame. They preached to the Jews. They preached to the non-Jews. They were ridiculed. They were hated. They ran from a potential mob attack. They continued to preach after that. Then Paul was stoned and the people even thought he had already died. Paul was rescued by other believers.

Then they went back to their church and reported about what happened.

 

this made me think.

Did God make sharing the gospel easy?

no He didn’t.

no wonder we’re always so scared to tell our friends the gospel.

no wonder we don’t like to be chosen to go on mission trips.

it’s not easy!

Barnabas and Paul was already pulled out of their comfort zone.

Barnabas and Paul’s journey was not planned out or written on paper.

They probably didn’t know what to bring and how much.

That’s against all the rules in my Travelling 101 book.

They had to talk to strangers.

and still they got hated.

 

God wants to be known.

You know that guy who sat beside you in class last year?

God wants to have a relationship with him.

Everyone you watched your last movie in the cinema with,

God wants to love them and show them His amazing love.

Your colleagues, your friends, your family, your strangers.

God desires for them to be friends with Him.

But how will they know if God is not revealed to them?

There is only TWO things you can do about this.

Pray they don’t go to hell, and TELL them about Jesus.

 

not many Christians have responded to this call because of the hardships they know that will come with it. Even I have a hard time sharing with my friends what I think about God or Jesus or the Word. But we have to suffer for them. For the freedom of their spirit and soul.

 

God has called us.

 

But if we, the few, do not answer His call and do it,

who will?