Saturday, January 24, 2009

Farewell To Our Friend



Today, we said farewell to our dear friend Aaron L, who's going to Perth to study at an anglican boarding school. Term starts on 4th Feb and he left to KL to spend CNY with his family and then onwards to Perth. A few of us planned to go send him off at the airport so this morning, Jenny, Rachel, Hannah K and I got up early (ooo.. we were joined by one of our old gang, Waltson who just came back from KL last night) to have breakfast first. Halfway to the airport, Hannah received a sms from Aaron that his flight was delayed, so we turned back and bummed around at my office until it was time again to leave for the airport. Hannah told him that we were all busy to send him off so we could surprise him.. and when we got to the airport, we hid behind the stall waiting for him to get to the departure gate..

There weren't many words as we said our goodbyes, although there were some tears and advice. It's always hard to say goodbye to a friend. Distance may separate us, but our friendship will continue. We will miss him sorely. So Aaron, study hard, enjoy the experience, don't forget us, and until we meet again, God bless, take care. May our good Lord bless your ways, watch over and protect you and may you continue to walk closely with Him.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Cure For Home Sickness - The Bad & The Ugly

Sorry if it has taken me a few days to continue this series down memory lane. I have been thinking what kinda stories I wanna tell. Some are disturbing, I mean, this is the category of the bad and the ugly after all. Maybe this post should carry a remark; 'reader's discretion is advised, disturbing scenes may follow?'.. you be the judge..

Cheap Thrills
There used to be a lot of mini buses plying KL roads and they were all painted a ghastly pink. Seeing them zipping around just made my head spin sometimes. One bad thing about these mini buses is that the bus conductor will pack everyone in like sardines, sometimes even telling you how you should stand so that they can put more people in. Safety and comfort of the passengers... what's that? It was in this kind of condition that I took a bus ride from KL to PJ one hot and steamy Saturday afternoon to a friend's place to stay overnight so I can attend church on Sunday.

It was already packed and uncomfortable when halfway through the journey, it started pouring (those of you who've been in KL would surely have experienced the thunderstorms there before) and all the passengers started closing the windows (no air-con lo this.. natural air got lah) and suddenly bus ride became free sauna! Wait.. it becomes worse.

So imagine this, packed, stuffy, sauna, haven't arrived at destination when suddenly, I felt something poking me at the back. I turned my head to see this elderly uncle pushed up against me. That something poking me? That ain't his umbrella ok? OMG! Can someone save me from this? If it wasn't pouring so heavily, if I was familiar with PJ, I would surely have gotten down. To this day, I still think the uncle was having a cheap thrill and rather enjoyed the sardines condition! Lousy uncle! Arggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........

Having to wait for the buses were really a pain in the neck, especially during rush hours. One time, I had waited for ages when the bus finally lumbered up. Of course everyone rushed for the bus. Oh ya, I should mention that when you rush for buses, you have to stay far far away from old people. No, not because they are fragile and deserve respect (well, they do lah) but because they do not care if they poke you in the eye, or step on your toes or elbow you in their haste to get a seat. So by the time I let the elderly and the whole world get on the bus, I was left with no space.. but rather than waiting for the next bus, I got my foot onto the step, put my hands on the handle bars and hung on for dear life! My backpack and I were hanging out the bus. Talk about cheap thrills!

Movies
Like all students, we go watch movies when the tickets are cheap and that means afternoon shows. I normally go watch shows alone (I love my own company, hehe) so one nice afternoon, I bought a ticket, got in the cinema and settled down to enjoy the show. About 15 minutes into the show, I had that feeling that someone, or something was looking at me. It took my eyes a while to adjust to the darkness to look around and find the source of the bad feeling. Suddenly, I saw a pair of eyes looking at me from the row in front of me. Oh, the eyes were real, they belonged to a creep looking for cheap thrills (I should categorise this under Cheap Thrills huh?). I quickly moved seats. CREEP!

Another time, another movie, a guy was on the next seat. I was enjoying the show and didn't pay him much attention when suddenly I realised something heavy was near my waist. I thought my backpack had fallen to the side so I moved my hand near my side and touched a hand.. not my own! Another creep! I flung his hand away and I should have shouted at him when he just got up and rushed away.. Believe me, I couldn't sleep that night thinking of his hand on me! Shudder...

Bad Move
Being a girl has its disadvantages, especially when it comes to personal security. I went to an evening service once and I took a short cut, walking through a dark lane, over the train tracks with the surrounding area full of lalang and deserted. Even though it was only a short distance, so many things could have happened. Once I got through that path safely, I scolded myself for taking such risks. That was the last time I ever walked that path.

Another time I had gotten out from the LRT station and decided to take a short cut back, again through the side lanes. Normally there is a light there so it wasn't that dark, but that time that I walked through, the light was switched off and I walked in darkness. Another bad move.

Conclusion
So there you have it, the good, the fun, the bad and the ugly of my time away from home. I must say there were many occasions when I could have fallen into danger, but I thank our God for His protection and care, and I'm left with happy memories of my time in KL. In all my time there, I never fell in love with KL. It was just a place I had to be in and I tried to make the best of it.

Like I said earlier on, we may not like the place we're in right now. Whether we are studying/working near or far, think about those who are not able to afford an education, think about those who're jobless and be grateful that you are where you are. Suck it up, strengthen your resolve, pray harder that God will give you strength to endure through this season, build your character, enjoy the scenery, enjoy the change, live life to the fullest as how God intended it so that at the end of your life, you won't look back with bitterness and regret.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Cure For Home Sickness - The Fun

I could go on and on about the good food there, but I think I'd keep getting hungry, so I'll talk about the fun stuff that happened there.

Rats ~ Now, because of the restaurant downstairs, it's obvious that we'd get rats. So one time a rat got into my room. My cousin and my bro tried to get it out and after much jumping and huffing and puffing, we finally banged it and gave the rat a concussion. Obviously no one wanted to touch it so in the end, because he's the youngest among us, my cousin had to put the rat in a plastic bag. Instead of putting the rat down the rubbish chute, we decided to throw the rat overboard.. I mean over the balcony. Did I mention I lived on the 3rd floor? So.. with much laughter, we took the dazed rat to my bro's room and "bombs away!" But would you know it, as the rat fell, the plastic bag opened and became a parachute for the rat! We groaned and thought "rats, the rat escaped" as the bag drifted gently onto the ground. Just as we thought the rat will escape, it fell into the cluthes of a cat, who had obviously seen the rat as it parachuted down and pounced on it. Ah.. all's well that ends well. Hahahahahahah..

Yet another rat story, there were a lot, you see. I caught a rat in the cage one day and decided to kill it. Don't squirm, nobody catches a rat and lets it go, believe me, that only happens in movies. So I went to the kitchen to boil water in a saucepan. Would you believe it, rats have brains, because as soon as I poured the boiling water on it, it started running around the cage, and because I thought my aim was very good, I didn't boil a lot of water. My water was finished, but I'd not done the 'job' correctly, I'm left with a half scalded rat and an empty pot. I had to go boil some more water to finish the job, I didn't know whether to laugh or to take pity on the rat. Hai...

Rubbish ~ One time I decided to throw rubbish from the balcony to the other block's rubbish bin. Rubbish as in in a bag, not a sweet wrapper. So we switched off the lights, took aim and lobbed the bag about 20 feet into the air and it fell sweetly into the rubbish bin.. yeah.. I scored! Then another time I tried again, same protocol; switched off lights, took aim and lobbed the ammo.. and BANG! The rubbish fell onto the roof of a shoplot on the first floor. Ooops... sorry.. we scurried for cover..

My smart bro decided to throw some cardboard down the rubbish chute but unbeknownst to him and everyone else, including the tenants downstairs, it got stuck inside the chute and as a result, all the rubbish piled up inside. After 2 weeks, I noticed that as I threw the rubbish, it didn't fall down to the basket below as it normally did. So being curious, I decided to investigate and found that the whole chute was full of rubbish till the 2nd floor! My goodness... I found an iron rod and managed to free the load of rubbish and boy.. I lost my iron rod in the downpour of rubbish bags. Haha.. imagine diarrhoea? Ah.. u get the picture. I stood there laughing at the amount of rubbish raining down.. and pity the DBKL workers who had to collect them.

Music ~ One of the downside about staying in shoplots is the din that comes from your neighbours. The guy staying directly under my brother's room would always blast his stereo on loud every night and it gets annoying especially when we're trying to sleep. So my bro would always bang on the floor with a metal bar to shut him up.

My cousin came stay with us once and he started talking on his handphone on the balcony at 12 midnight, disturbing our neighbour on the opposite block with his loud chatter. In anger, our neighbour, the next night, played his Boney M (who? you're wondering, right? It's ok, hehe) cassettes very loudly and we had to put up with his 'One Way Ticket' song blaring for ages! Ooooo.. payback ah uncle?

to be continued... The Bad and the Ugly still to come...

Cure For Home Sickness - The Good

The fun stuff about being in KL? There are many things to write about, especially being there in 46C Lorong Merbau.. let me weed out the uninteresting and boring stuff.. read on..

Food
The food there is the absolute best (is that even correct?), let me start.. the corner shop at our block has the most amazing chicken rice/char sau/sau nyuk, sau ap and I find my feet going in there automatically most days. And you know you are a regular customer when the guy chopping up the roasted meat greets and asks you, "the usual?" (which happens to be chicken and char sau rice ~ what can I say, I'm predictable). When I was extra hardworking and studied till 5am, I can hear the guys opening the shop and then the smell of those roasted meat would come wafting up to my room.. what agony to have to wait till lunch before tasting it! Then, every Wednesday, and only Wednesdays, the other stall sells Wong Chiu Gai rice. I'm drooling as I write this.. it's the best! Now, being a student, our sleeping/studying hours are all topsy turvy and it's nothing extraordinary to sleep at 2am and wake up 12pm and beyond, right? Now, every Tuesday night, I gotta set my alarm clock to wake up at 11am.. just so I can buy wong chiu gai rice on Wednesday, it was that laku!

Talking about waking up early, if I have a hankering for Nasi Lemak, I gotta wake up even earlier, at say 9am to get in line to buy the Nasi Lemak from a stall outside 7-11, located at the next block. Woooh.. I tapau 2 packets and I gotta lick the spoon, it was that yummy! (Oops, crap, did I just reveal more than I should?). Just beside the Nasi Lemak stall, is a shop selling economy rice, I think called Tian Tian Restaurant. Why do I remember that place? Cos their food is nice, a lot of variety, cheap but portions are little, and everytime I eat there, the wife will be scolding the husband (you good for nothing, useless bum, waste my money... you get the picture) and she doesn't care who hears that. So I learnt to tune out those unsavoury stuff while eating, or learnt speed eating, although I can't beat Vincent lah.

Now walking further down, there is this Ngiu Chap stall beside the Multi Purpose Hall (heck, I didn't even realised it was a multi purpose hall from all the years eating there, it was always the Ngiu Chap!) which had minced beef at the top, served with black chopsticks. I don't eat this that often cos it wasn't cheap. Across the street was a Bubur Cha Cha stall manned by a guy with 2 wives. The younger one helped him with the Bubur Cha Cha, the other one manned (or should I call it wo-manned? haha) the kin-chi rice stall. Bubur Cha Cha was a favourite on Sundays, when we splurged out.

So, Sundays, we'd go to the Pasar Malam for some Tiufu Fa.. and the Kap Piang. You gotta get the right stall since there are 2 stalls there. Kap Piang.. when we first got there, we asked the locals there where can we get that.. no one had heard of it before, until we realised it was called 'Chin Loong Pau (Cantonese)'... Kap Piang by any other name is still Kap Piang...

Hahaha... oops.. the good is always about food huh? Don't worry.. I'll continue on some other fun stuff besides food... to be continued. p/s I'm starving after writing this...

Cure For Home Sickness - 46C Lrg Merbau

Yup, that was the address of the place I called home in KL for years. Now, why stay in such a crummy place? Well, the rule that applies when you try find a place to stay; location location location. Firstly it was just off the main road called Jalan Hang Tuah so the bus stop was just a 3 minute walk away, it's another matter waiting for the non-existent bus sometimes. Secondly, if the blasted bus doesn't appear, either due to the bad traffic jams or the bus driver resting under some tree, I could take a 20 minute walk to college, passing some iconic monuments of KL, namely Stadium Negara and you can also see the KLCC Towers at a distance. Thirdly, you could say I stayed right in the heart of KL, cos it's 5 minutes by bus everywhere.. 5 min to Petaling St or 5 min to Lot 10/Sg Wang assuming there's no jam la, of course. Then in the later years, they built the LRT station just 5 min walk from my place. So.. location location location was the only reason we stuck it out there.

Now, less you think I cried everyday while in KL, I didn't. Sure I cried on the first day, not just because of the place, but because I was away from home, and it took me a week to get used to the place. But after that, I had to adjust, don't I? Those of us who were away from home, or who are still, you have to adjust and get used to the place. You might not like where you are right now, but you gotta get used to it, else you end up being miserable and time will really slow down and I think that will make things worse.

Next.. the fun stuff in 46C Lrg Merbau... to be continued...

Cure For Home Sickness - The Tour

Doug asked me write something about home sickness and that got me thinking.. what can I write about that'll help him overcome his home sickness.. I can't think of anything except to relate my experience being away from home.

I went over to KL study at the time when my 2 brothers were already studying there, so I got a room in their apartment. Actually, I shouldn't call it that, apartment. It's more like shop lot .. like those you see in Segama. So, first time I walked up those dark steps, with its grimy green walls, I didn't have a good feeling about it. The front door opened to reveal more grimy green walls, and green tiles too! Aiyo.. I can't even begin to describe how it was like.. but I'll try ok? You all gotta use your imagination here.. think shop lot.

You open the front door to see the living room, with sofa and a big tv that doesn't work. There are 2 rooms off the living room, one which houses 4 working ladies, and the other a guy. The doors are green (what's with the green colour anyway?). Then you turn the other way to a corridor about 30 feet in length. The first door on the right is the kitchen (the only room that ain't green) which looks grimy, 2nd and 3rd rooms on right are the toilets (one has a shower, the other a water storage tank) and the 4th room, was my room (guess the colour.. yup.. green) and I shared that with another working girl. She's very clean and I must say I enjoyed having a clean room cos she'd mop the floor daily. Then you continue walking the corridor to the last room which was my brothers' room, and the biggest and nicest one of them all. It has a balcony there which looks out to the back lane and the next block of shops. That's the tour of the place.. Now.. along the corridor is where we hang our washing and we can see our next door neighbour at the next shop lot. It's an empty space that allows us to chat and greet our neighbours.

So that was the place I was going to call home for the next few years. I burst into tears...

to be continued....

Monday, January 12, 2009

Our Rector Writes - 11 Jan

I was recently reminded that the secret of making an organisation or a church's Vision to Reality is to continue casting (repeating) the same vision until there is a total buy-in. In other words, there must be a constant casting of the vision to the whole church until everybody understands and moving in the same direction.

Therefore, for the next few weeks, I will be sharing with you the DNA of Christ Church Likas. This is what the leadership of Christ Church (PCC) has adopted in 2007. This is our vision and goal as we grow beyond 40!

Acts 2:42-47 - they (believers) devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Everyday they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The above passage has been the ministry priciples of the early churches. Though different methods and strategies were developed over the centuries, yet the core values of woship, discipleship and evangelism remain the pillars of every growing and healthy church. Likewise, Christ Church Likas will build her ministries around these core values.

The focus must be an Inside-Out approach of Discipleship and Churchmanship. It starts with the core of Prayer and Worship and grows towards a strong structure of nurturing, equipping and evangelism and ultimately fulfilling the Great Commission of Global mission and community service.

CORE: WORSHIP AND PRAYER
Acts 2:42-47 - they (believers) devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

We seek to be a church strong in worship and prayer especially in our Sunday services. We aim to build a strong atmosphere of faith and the preaching of the Word of God. We seek to be a church with godly worshippers loving and worshipping God and support the work of the church wholeheartedly.

We also seek to be a church with members strong in their prayer life both privately as well as corporately (publicly) in Church Prayer Meeting. We want to see our Church become a strong prayer hub where prayers are lifted up to the Lord and testimonies of answered prayers and miracles become the way of life.

(To be continued, The Backbone of CCL)

Our Rector Writes - 4 Jan

(Taken from the church bulletin, which I thought is great reading for all of us who belong to Christ Church Likas!)

Another year is dawning! Dear Father, let it be,
In working or in waiting, another year with Thee;
Another year of leaning upon Thy loving breast;
Another year of trusting, of quiet, happy rest;

The words of this hymn echoed in my mind as we enter 2009. Another year has dawned. And it is not just another year – it is a very significant year. We are 40! In biblical perspective, the number 40 is unique. The Bible recorded rain for forty days and nights in the days of Noah. It also recorded the forty years of Moses leading Israel in the Wilderness. Moses and Jesus fasted for forty days and night. 40 years also signifies one generation.

While we do not wish to read too much into the number 40 lest we get ourselves into all kinds of error and flaky ideas, it is nonetheless commonly accepted that the number 40 has been deemed as a period of testing either by trials or prosperity. It is also a period of chastisement (not judgment) and ends with a period of restoration, revival or renewal.

What I wish to share with you are my thoughts of the significance of 40 from the perspective of one generation. Christ Church Likas is now 40. One generation has grown up and now plays an important role in the life and witness of the Church. We must now begin to look for a new generation for the task ahead. The present generation must intentionally identify and train the younger ones to love and serve the Lord and to take leadership roles. The present generation must serve as a model and mentor to the new. This is the principle of multiplication as seen in 2 Timothy 2:2 - And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

Let us ponder together the significance of 40. Like the hymnist Frances Havergal aptly wrote:

Another year of service, of witness for Thy love,
Another year of training for holier work above.
Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be
On earth, or else in Heaven, another year for Thee.

Happy 40 Christ Church! May the Lord show us His favor and bless the works of our hands!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Riot of Colours

While the New Year background was nice, I thought it didn't have the lasting impact, so I decided to change to this. Red because Chinese New Year is around the corner, and Love cos Valentine's Day comes soon after CNY, so hey, kill two birds with one stone. And the colours are really a riot, bright and colourful colours befitting a youth blog!

This being the first week of school I know many of you will be very busy. Of course those who finished their SPM or STPM are 'goyang-kaki' lah, which can get quite tiring isn't it? It's not easy doing nothing, is it?. Haha. Our youth meetings will start this Saturday 10 Jan, and we have a guest speaker from Down Under! So you must all come attend k? Your contribution is needed!

Have you guys set your new year resolution yet? You know, something or an aim that you want to achieve, either to get straight A's, get a bf/gf (although I'd advise you to wait till you finish your studies), start reading the Bible regularly, pray more often, less Dota (ahem!), don't fall asleep during sermons, or don't talk during sermons (a bigger AHEM!).. ah, these are all things you can think of if you don't have any ideas on new year resolutions! May this year be a riot of colours for you all!