Pray for Budi's father

We were in the midst of Church Retreat when this happened.
It was around 11 pm (18th May), when we just finished a fun time of fellowship, a get together between 20 or so young adults with 20 or so senior members of the church.

Preacher Budi received news from family that his father caught an accident. Initially the condition seems to be okay but later on he vomitted blood and was hospitalized. He was admitted into the ICU immediately.

Preacher Budi rushed back from Johor back to Sg to catch an early morning flight to Jakarta. But then when he reached, the doctor said that the risk to perform the brain surgery is too high, it has only 1% chance of survival.

Not long after, the updated news says that the patient is already brain-stem dead. The doctor predicted 1 week maximum. Budi has been by the bed side, telling the father of Jesus' love. We all pray that the father will somehow respond, and trust that God is merciful. Budi's brother will reach Jakarta this thursday and hope that he can make it.

Continue to pray for Budi and family that they will be strong to face this event.

Disaster Update: 20 May 2008

Myanmar

Thank God that Myanmar has agreed to let International help flow in through Asean countries. At the current moment, other than Salvation Army and World Vision, many Asean countries have sent their teams and aids to Myanmar. International help will be coordinated through Asean, and although not fully unrestricted, will be able to reach the location.

China

Deathtoll has risen to more than 40000 people as updated by the govt.

More than 200 hours have passed since the disaster. Give thanks that there are still survivors being found.

The large number of casualties is accused to be the cause of corrupt government and poorly done building projects. Bricks could be easily squashed using hand, and building walls can collapse with just a strong push. This is especially the case for the school buildings and is the main reason for the high number of casualties in schools.

it is officially reported that there will be a strong tremor, of rather strong magnitude up to 7 Richter scale. This disturbed the people and many move out of the disaster hit towns or camped in open fields.

Pray that:
1. God will be merciful to soften the forecasted earthquake tremor
2. Pray that international help will continue to flow in
3. Pray for the safety of the rescue workers. Many have died during the rescue because of tremors.

Disaster Update: Myanmar

Junta govt has given a new official release that the deathtoll is over 70thousands, Red cross estimation remains at over 130 thousands. Another 50thousand or so are still reported missing

The situation is not getting much better, as the place is hit by another tropical storm.

Thank God that WorldVision International is allowed to work in the place, and right now, they are preparing to deliver a kind of drinking water powder solution to the disaster hit area. The powder in packets will be able to neutralize the polluted water and kill the bacteria, and make the water drinkable. WorldVision is committed that they will be able to deliver the aid to the location themselves (that is without the govt)

Continue to pray for them!

Disaster Update: China Deathtoll risen to 22000

Update on 16th May 2008

Official report that the deathtoll has risen to over 22000 people. over 100 hours since the major earthquake of 7.8 Richter scale and now the rescue team has to face with more pressure, since the possibility of survivor after being buried for so many days has become lesser and lesser. All over the place, the smell of rotten bodies, whether still buried or already surfaced, can be felt.

The pain is felt for all, those waiting for their families to be rescued, as well as those who has been rescued, because of the death of family members. For a county population of over 120 thousands people, over 22000 death means that out of every 5, there is one death.

Many of the survived needed to be amputated one or more of the limbs. They suffer physical as well as psychoemotional loss of their lost ones.

Pray for more help from the china central govt, international helps to be deployed on site, as well as the badly needed medical team. Some of the amputations needed to be performed due to slowness in medical response.

There was a tremor quake of 5.7 richter scale, and further affected the condition because transportation links and roads were damaged. Pray that God will be merciful.

Disaster Update: Myanmar and China

China - Si Chuan Province - WenChuan County

The deathtoll has risen to more than 12000 people. Around 25000 reported lost or still buried. It is speculated that the deathtoll may raise to up to 50000 people. 58 villages are isolated because of communication and transportation breakdown.

Prayer item:
1. Pray for the rescue workers and soldiers who are working continuously to save those trapped under the debris. Pray for the trapped will have strong will to stay alive.
2. Give thanks for 130000 soldier sent by the china central govt to the disaster hit area
3. Pray for international help to be sent too. Give thanks that Japan has sent their first team on site

Yes, this is a great disaster, but I want to give thanks to God that He is merciful. Should the epicenter is shifted a little bit souther, and that will be the heavily populated city of Cheng-Du.


Myanmar - Yangoon

According to the government official report, the death toll is over 30000 people. But International Red Cross said, that the actual number is more likely to have exceeded 120000.

Even at this current situation, the Junta govt released a report, that they will be able to handle the situation without outside help. WHO warns that a second wave a death toll may happen very soon as the disaster hit area are lacking of water and other basic necessities.

Pray that:
1. The Junta govt will come to their senses to allow the international help to flow.
2. that God will be merciful to the people
3. that the organizations and countries which are rejected will not be discouraged, that they will still find way to help
4. That the Christians in Myanmar will use this opportunity to show genuine love to those who suffers.

Class Gathering and Farewell Party

It is tuesday and one of our japanese classmate has invited us to her house for lunch! Naturally, when it comes to food, all of us said yes to come.

At around 1 pm, we reached her house which is just beside bukitbatok natural reserve. The house is owned by a missionary, who is currently in US. They are all OM missionaries and the rental payment is not according to market rate, and the best part is that all tenants are paying according to how much they earn or have. I thank God, that this is surely a good stewardship of what God has given or blessed us, to make it useful for others.

We were treated with many sumptuous dishes, cooked by our hosts. Japanese rice rolls, philippino fish and chicken, pasta, miso soup and many others. If I have time, I will upload the photos of the dishes later.

One of the roommate S, is leaving singapore for good tonite and going back to Japan. So, this meal is like the farewell meal for her.

On top of that, a lecturer Dr. Clive Chin who has been teaching us for the past one year is also leaving us to teach at Moody Bible Institute. so, you can say that is a double-farewell.

We ate lots of the food until we cannot take it anymore, afterwards we proceed to chit-chats and have a quite enjoyable time of sharing.

As friends and fellow workers of Christ, I believe that moments like these are rare and should be cherished. It is this kind of fellowshipping that is enriching and able to give some rest to the soul. When we go into mission field, we may not have such kind of fellowship again.

Intersemestral Greek begins

As I have said before, there is absolutely no rest for me after the exam week.

Monday, we started our lesson on intermediate Greek, a continuation from the basic Greek that we had for the past two semester.

We said good bye to William Mounce, and started to use Daniel Wallace (hey, if you combine the two, you get William Wallace :))

The classes will be conducted monday to friday for 2 1/2 weeks, from 9 to 12, and if you apply the same university equation, for every 1 hour in class you have to spend at least 2 hours outside the class, that means everyday we have to spend 9 hours for this Greek... Gosh.. I don't think anyone of us can make it..

The quiz will be conducted on the 27th May, tuesday at the end of the course, and the exam date is not yet decided.

Well, the bad thing is this, I have booked the air ticket to Bangkok for family trip with 3 of my brothers from 22nd to 25th of May. That means I will miss 2 days class, a total of 6 credit hours out of 30 credit hours for the course. That means my attendance is less than 90% and I should fail the subject.

Thank God, I have that issue resolved. I have booked my air tickets much earlier, prior to the schedule for the Intersemestral greek was decided. And for that reason, the dean and the lecturer allowed to grant me the leave. I only need to work doubly hard to study those that I will miss and prepare myself for the exam.

Disaster and more disaster: Myanmar and China

Pray for Myanmar, for the government to soften their heart, so that international helps can flow freely into this military controlled country.

Recently the Cyclone Nargis has hit the city of Yangon (Rangon) quite badly, and although the official government report a death toll of 20thousand+, independent sources revealed that the death toll could be more than 100thousand at the moment.

What is worst, due to the bad condition, weather, and lack of water, sanitation, the cholera outbreak can happen any time. Experts predicted a death of 1.5 Million people should the government continued to prohibit the overseas help to come in.

Report shows that the dead bodies are piled everywhere, no place to bury, and the bodies were left as it is or thrown into the river. Drinking water are contaminated.

The military government is willing to accept the help, on condition that they will claim that they are the one come out with the money/resources to help the people. They want to take all the credit, and that is not agreeable to most charity organizations.

Pray that they will change. Pray that during this opportunity, christian organizations can come in. Pray that the Christians will not abuse this chance to evangelize, but rather to show true love and care for the people in need.

Secondly. I just heard from the news today, that in Province of Sze Chuan, China, today's afternoon has been an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 Richter scale. The quake hit WenChuan county where 112000 people lived. 80% of building collapsed. more than 7800 people died. The death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are recovered.

Pray that China government will be able to act fast and send down troops to help recover and rescue trapped people. Pray that christians in the area will be able to show care and love to the affected victims in the region.

SBC Graduation and Global Day of Prayer 2008

Exam is finally over, and graduation has come!!! Yes... although not for me yet.. but it definitely is a moment of joy for many of the students in SBC who have finished their studies and ready to venture into the real world and practice what they have learned so far.

I received a request from a fellow student, whether I can help him as usher at Boonlay MRT, to help guide the guests to the location where a shuttle bus is ready to pick the people up to NTU Auditorium. And so, after lunch, me and Lambie went to Boon Lay to get ready.

My lambie reminded me to give a call to mom. Hey, it's mother's day remember? I updated mom on the end of school and what I intend to do. Glad to hear that everything is fine at home. My second brother maybe coming over to singapore, I hope that it will be during the time when I am available, and not away doing my mission trip in Kalimantan jungle.

Ok, after that, I met with a staff from SBC who was supposed to be there. I was handed a sign, pointing in the general direction of the bus shelter. And there I was, standing, accompanied by lambie for the next one hour.

I was glad to be there as well. My class mate is a Naga, and he can only speak english. I can speak 3 languages and manage to guide quite a number of people to the location.

And now, the unexpected thing happened. You see, I was supposed to help, without knowing how the school did the coordination for the bus. Only at 15 minutes before 4 pm (the time when the graduation ceremony starts) I was shocked. Firstly, I was shocked to see that there were about 80 peoples queuing for the bus. Secondly, there is only one more trip to make. Thirdly, the bus' capacity is only for 15 people.

To be honest, I was rather annoyed. Why don't ask the people to go and get their own transportation, when you know that there are not enough seats available? Why let them come late to the ceremony? It seems that they did not foresee that there will be so many guests coming over.

After appeasing the crowd and encouraging them to take taxi and bus to the school, we finally managed to get to Nanyang Auditorium through the last bus. Squeezing more than 20 people in a 15-seaters is certainly not so enjoyable.

When we reached, we realized that there were no seats left. So, I offered myself as the tour guide and led lambie from North Spine to South Spine. It was nice to wait outside too, 1. we get to move around when things get bored, 2. we get to eat the food first when the ceremony finished.

6.45 pm, and we were ready to board the bus leaving for Singapore Indoor Stadium, for the Global Day of Prayer. and hey.. surprise.. only Mr.Zhang is in the bus, which Zhang? the Zhang over at the factory haha.... and so we waited, ... and waited... and waited...

This is another mess done by the school. Just as they were unprepared for the number of incoming guests, they did not even put the PIC of the bus to be on site. The bus driver are confused as to when to go. No body knows who can decide. And the clock keep ticking. It was only at 7.05 I told one of the student who seems to be helping out. I said, look, it is already 7.05, if we don't leave now, we are going to be late. the timing is set to leave at 6.45, we have waited for 20 minutes. If someone wants to go after we left, he/she has no right to complain, because they should know that the bus is scheduled to leave at 6.45. He agreed, and I commanded (in my suit) to the bus driver to go....

We arrived at Indoor Stadium at around 7.45, 15 minutes late. The crowds filled up most of the seats and we get to seat at the balcony level. We sit through the first two section of the programmes, heard the sermon by Edmund Chan and David Lim, and prayed for Myanmar and Bangladesh. We decided to leave at around 9.30 pm.

On our way out, we were offered a bag, with a flag of another country for momento and to pray for it. Mine was 'singapore'. I said, can I change this with another flag? the usher said, sure, which country I was looking for? there are the boxes containing all the flags on the floor, I can collect as many as I wanted. and so I grabbed more than 20 flags from different countries.

We took bus no.16 and stopped at CityHall. Lambie took the train up to Sembawang and I took the train west to BuonaVista. It was a long and tiring day for both of us, but we enjoyed it. We are together for more than 12 hours... and isn't that awesome? I hope that the time will come when we are with one another for 24 hours everyday :) love you lambie...

Handy n Limei's wedding

Today is the day of challenge, choice, and commitment for one of my dear friend...
yes, it is the wedding day of Handy and Limei :)

Handy and Limei have been together for so long. They are two of the most shy and calm people. But that doesn't mean that they are not good okay? In fact, Handy is one of the most loyal, faithful, hardworking, honest people whom I have met.

I remembered the time when I recommended him to my manager, to work for my company then. Thinking of saying something good for him, I said, "to be honest, I don't know about his technical skill. But if you are looking for someone who is hardworking and faithful, willing to learn and honest, there is no better person that I can recommend for the company" And thankfully, he joined the company and became one of my best colleagues for many years. He seldom grumble, if he ever did... when he is stressed, he always try to solve the problem by himself...

Well, two heads are better than one.. and one this fateful day, the two heads, or rather ... the two bodies are going to be joined into one :) Handy and Limei... I wish you all the happiness that you may have, and all the power to face the problems that you may face, all the wisdom to solve all conflicts, and more love to each other.

The wedding was held at BBPC. And guess what, I am honored to be entrusted with the task of a translator for the holy matrimony. I was the co-emcee with Bayu, whose speech I translated into English (bayu spoke Indonesian). Later, during the message by Preacher Budi, I translated the message into English also. This is my first time, and to be honest, I really was quite afraid. I thank God that through preparation, I was able to pull through... even though Rev Ayub tried to 'saboh' me once hehe...

Love.... is such a wonderful thing in this world... indeed, without love.. life is meaningless...
and it is even more meaningful and happy occasion, to see the love transformed into a lifetime commitment of a marriage institution. I hope that my love for my lambie will have such a beatiful ending as well ...

end of the semester - closing chapel

Today is the closing chapel for the second semester.

but prior to that, we have a short (repeat) quiz for one of the subject.
the quiz is about the theme of the Pentateuch according to 2 scholars, T.D. Alexander and David Clines. Why is it a repeat quiz? well... quite a number of students failed the quiz the first time, and the lecturer is generous and gracious to have this second quiz. The questions will be different of course! However, I have confident that I performed better

In the closing chapel, the principal dr. Albert Ting, reminded us of the need for us to rest and make us of the holiday for fruitful reflection, rather than just laxing around doing nothing. Indeed, through the busy studying period, sometimes we are lacking in time to reflect, be it on the subjects we learned, issues we faced, relationships we encountered, and only during this time can we really reflect.

The 'rest', however, will only be truly experienced by me after 12th of June. Why? starting from monday, I am taking intermediate greek for the next 2.5 weeks. Following that will be the time for the mission trip to West Kalimantan.

One of the special event after the closing chapel is the jumble-sale. I managed to purchase 8 plates for 50cents each, a box of band aid for $2, 3 books for $1 each, and many others.. it is a good buy really. I hope that I can make good use of the stuff I bought though :)..

time to rest... tomorrow i will be busy to help out in a wedding to be a translator. I hope I can do the work satisfactorily.

So... I am a racist?!!

I have touched someone's nerve today...
accidentally of course...

When I was having dinner in the school today, one of the student from I country refused to drink the Bak Kut Teh that is supposed to be his share. I plainly commented, hey, it is good, and it fit you .. dark colour... that's it!

He reacted in a way that is rather shocking to me... saying that I am so racist, always talking about colour (do I?)... said he has observed me from the first day in school and I was really a racist...

I am rather confused, and other classmates are confused as well... I was making a plain joke, but somehow this 'plain' and 'harmless' joke, which is harmless to everyone, is not so harmless to this one person.

To be honest, I bear no grudge whatsoever against his country. If you are asking which is the country I hated most, it will be my country, or secondly the country where I am staying now. I have no intention to insult anyone, much less in this school community. but still, the damage is done.

Well, lesson learned is this: You must be tactful and blameless to ALL people. No matter how good you are in how many occasions, one single act of mistake can undo all your good deeds.

Second Semester in SBC

Time to blog again.... especially after the busy weeks in SBC

I have to say, that the past 3-4 weeks were my toughest week in SBC.. so far
why?

Almost all subjects have an assignment or two due.. and all of them were falling more or less during the same period of time, not to mention the other quizzes and discussions ... I was literally living moment by moment, moving from one deadline to another deadline...

Because of this, I am deeply grateful for Dr. Calvin Chong the dean of my school. You see, earlier this semester, I was tempted to take one week leave to visit Davao at Southern Philippines to witness the Bible Dedication ceremony of 4 newly published bibles there. The planned trip was about 2-3 weeks prior to exam, which is, yes, the toughest period that I mentioned above. Should Dr. Chong not reminded me on the criticality of this period, I would have suffer alot.

Bible dedication is about the publishing of the full or NT bible in a new tribal language, for the use of mission in that place. It is rather important for me, since that is more or less the career path that I am going through in the future. I may missed it this time, but I am glad to find out, that Bible Dedication ceremony, although rare, was not that infrequent. I am sure that in the years to come, I will have plenty more opportunity to attend one.

Anyway, back to this semester. This semester in SBC is also one of the longest semester, because of the one week mid-term break and one-week chinese new year break. On top of that, Immediately following the closing ceremony this friday, on monday I will have intensive class of Intermediate Greek for 2.5 weeks. That adds up to 5 full months of study.

Overall, how do I fare so far?
1. OT Studies : a big question mark, because most of our term papers are not returned yet
2. Building Strong Family: one more research paper due by end of this month
3. Greek: the Quizzes were better than last semester, but the final exam was not that perfect. I may not be able to maintain an A, but should be able to retain an A-
4. NT Survey: all the projects, and quizzes are marked. If my calculation is not wrong, A-
5. Asian Church History: The overall result should be around the region of A-

Actually I have more difficulty studying in this semester and for the next semester I am going move in to the campus to have more 'conducive' study environment. Conducive, yes, but hotter and humid, yes also. I guess, I have to do that as a means of sacrifice. In order to study better, learn community living, save travel time, I think that will be the right move.

hmm.. time to get back to my notes, need to prepare for the quiz this coming friday.

blessings...