Life Together as One and Beyond...

Our journey together as one going through the many facets of life.

Sunday, January 30, 2005

My Last Day

Today’s my last day as a BLC council member. Not sure if it’s a good feeling or not, but I do have a sense of relief. As I’ve said during the AGM, it was a pleasure sure to have worked with the others in the council. I may not be perfect as a council member but I think through it I’ve learned a lot. I believe my struggles through the tenure of a council will come in handy when serving in other areas of BLC. After being in the council for several years, I’ve stepped down with some mixed feelings but I still maintained that it’s a right decision for the moment. I hope that my presence in the council has made a positive reinforcement though I may not be doing as much as other council members. I pray for the new council that God will continue to guide them in the work-in-progress of BLC.

Now is the time that I can truly concentrate on the LIFE group.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Our LG

“The LG is so organized”. This is what PO & JN mentioned about our LG during our worship practice prayer session on Thursday. PO and JN have started joining the group since beginning of this month. PO was saying how scary that both of them were so quickly being put on the LG duty roster. However, he also said that it’s a good thing.

I believed that everyone in the LG should be a participator in some way and serving in the group in small ways is a good start. It’ll help us not to be too comfortable or to have a consumer mindset when coming to LG or church. I know that many of us are tired after work. So, coming to LG we just feel like sitting back and relax. However, I’m encouraged to see that our LG members have moved beyond always seeing themselves as tired individuals to participators. I would like to commend all of us for our participation and not consumerism.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Post Road Trip Thoughts

Phews! Just touched down late evening today. I'm surprised that I can't wait to be home. We were totally exhausted because the whole time when we were out of the hotel, NN would want to be carried almost all the time. We were both taking turns to carry her causing both of us to be extremely tired. Right now, SL is also knocked out in bed.

Nevertheless, I had a fruitful meeting with some of my Thai users and they're indeed very nice bunch of people. SL and I also met up with her uncle and spent some time together. During our short trip, we manage to visit the Chatukchak market, Lumpini market, Chinatown, Siam Centre, and Silom Village. The shark's fin and bird's nest in Chinatown were fantastically delicious and the Thai food in Silom Village is really authentic Thai cuisine.

Despite the delayed flights to and fro (arrrgh!) and exhaustion from carrying NN all the time, it was a great trip indeed!

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Thailand Road Trip

This is not an interesting picture but better than none since my blog hasn't got a lot of pictures.


Road Trip to Thailand Posted by Hello

This is my 1st business trip since starting 2+ years ago with my company. It's exciting that I'll get to meet my Thai users for the 1st time after having communicated with them over the phone for so long now.

Even more exciting is I get to bring along SL & NN. It's a very timely break for SL because work hasn't been that smooth, to say the very least.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Believe or Not!

Tell me if you can believe this…be lazy and enjoy long life! That’s exactly what this article in Star Section 2 says. So, I guess I should stop my every Monday badminton affair, 8-P. We’re always at the mercy of all these supposed scientist who did whatever studies to come up with unbelievable claims. Whatever their claims may be, I’m still a believer of well-balanced life. To me, the extreme side of anything is hazardous.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Random Thoughts on our Daughter

Last Monday was NN’s first day in pre-school. We were worried if she’ll be ok as she is quite “sticky” to SL, so we let the babysitter take her to school on the first day and we observed her from a distance. On the 2nd day, she cried a little but was ok when a teacher escorted her into the classroom. To our surprise, she was completely ok on the 3rd day when the babysitter dropped her off at school.

NN is really picking up on her speaking so much so that it amazes, surprises, and catches us at times. We begin to see that she’ll be a great sister to her yet-to-be-born brother/sister, though she always says that she wants baby sister whenever we asked her. Whenever SL is having her sickness, NN would come and ask SL, “Mummy, are you ok? You want drink water?” or “Mummy, are you ok? You want to take medicine?”. Actually, we realized that she picking up and repeating every word we’ve said to her before. That cautioned us to be very careful with our speech when she’s around us.

In LG, she would be distracting everyone to laughter with what she says. At the dinner table, with her eyes partially closed, we would be guiding her in giving thanks for the food. And she’s able to pray some parts of the prayer without guidance now.

Recalling back to a phrase mentioned by Mr. Tan Soo Inn in one of his sermons in BLC, he said, “It’s not quality time spent with your children but adequate time spent…”. I believe it makes a lot of difference when parents spend enough time nurturing their children rather than passing on the responsibility to others (school, church, grand-parents, babysitters, etc). Sadly to say, this is too often the norm. I’ve mentioned SL’s intention to be a homemaker to some people I know, and their first reactions give me the impression as if that’s something abnormal or something sad to do. That is how much society has made us to believe that it’s ok for us to spend minimal time with our kids. Go make lots of bucks so that we can provide the best for them. But, in my humble opinion, the best we can provide for them is enough time spent. SL will testify that during her childhood she had very little in terms of materialism because her family was not well off. But, she never feels deprived in any way because her parents spent lots of time with her.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

New Year's Random Thoughts

New year, new hope, new alignment. Our journey together as one is fast approaching the 4th year. Thanks to Him, we’ll have a new member soon to be added to the fold. With what is still going on until this day from the day after Christmas, I can only thank Him for our lives & the relationships, which we’re still enjoying. I would often need to hold back tears reading about children losing parents and parents losing children because I can’t imagine myself going through that.

I just received an email from a friend and was telling me how he wanted to achieve “American” dream before settling down with his girlfriend. Again and again, I’m being told of people wanting to chase after what seems to be endless to me. I told him that it’s not a good excuse to continually defer his settling down.

SL and I are really excited as we approaches the day when she will proudly be a homemaker, though it’ll be 1 more year to go. She often talks about how she could spent more time serving in whatever ways needed in BLC or other places.

I continue to thank God for my job, which has very much stabilized as compare to the 1st year I started. I begin to have more time for family, for ministry, etc. In fact, I’m so satisfied with it that I think “I shot myself in the foot” when I attended an interview 2 weeks ago. The interviewer asked me what is the reason for me to leave my current company. I said there’s no reason and I’m very happy with my current work. I even asked for an exceptionally high expected pay that the interviewer said it’s the only problem he is having with me. I said I have to give myself a good reason to leave when there’s no reason at all. So, as my time spent in my job stabilizes, my hope is to be able to use the rest of it for other purposes which I’ve yet to know. But definitely for something beyond myself, ourselves, because for God to bless us this way I believe He wants us to move beyond self-centeredness.