Archive for October, 2008

Global Leadership Summit ( GLS ) 2008

{ October 29, 2008 @ 2:56 am } · { Myself }
{ } · { Comments (6) }

It was a wonderful experience being given the privilage to attend this conference , and I didn’t expect things to come so powerfully and it hit me really hard over the past few days. I never expected that the things we hear can be so hurting and it really tore me up inside , and its like bleeding with despair from the very core.

Just to give some insight on myself before I proceed on with my post, I am a Christian leader and have been a second generation Christian since I was a kid. Now I’m 18 years of age, and serving in the youth committee, music ministry and teaching children. I have always been regarded as a leader, though sometimes I don’t even know why so. I always expected to lead, whether in church, at school or wherever I am. Everytime there is a role where  leader is needed, my name will be up . I find it pressurizing at times, because it takes up energy and I feel there’s a lot of expectations  when one is  leader.  Anyway, from my Christian leadership, I have been going through a rough patch, ( I’m sharing this not to gain pity nor criticism, but to show impactful GLS was for me) I felt I was losing it, I was failing in many ways, I wasn’t carrying out God’s will, and most of the time I couldn’t feel God. I felt I was alone, leading and relying on my own strength. I was lost and alone.

However when GLS started , everything came one fast but yet clear and I was like taking bullet after bullet into my heart. We had 7 different speakers speak to us, and I can’t blog about all of them, so I’m going to blog about those that really really hit me. One of them would be Gary Haugen. Gary is a lawyer and he founded IJM -International Justice Missions. It is a organisation where they bring justice to the injustice in various parts of the world. If you see the suffering of the children and people shown and spoken of by Gary yr heart will just shatter. My heart did. One of his points that got me was, ” If you want your leadership to matter, lead in the things that matter to God . ” You may wonder, what are the things that matter to God ? Justice for the injustice is one example of what matters to God. Just something that Gary said to ponder on , ” Jesus came not to make us safe , but Jesus came to make us brave ” By hearing this, I myself am ready to follow God beyond what I can control.

Another speaker was Pastor Efrem Smith, he is a pastor who works with people multirace,multicolour, and multinational. His point was to say that we as a church must learn to accept everyone as the same. The same in rank , position and as a family of God. What I want to highlight from this speaker is that he said we need to be confessing leaders. Many a times, We as leaders do not admit our wrongs. We make it as if leaders don’t have downfalls nor mistakes, but in actual fact, leaders make mistakes, we have failures and downfalls as well. So I learnt we need to confess our wrongs and move on thereafter.

On the second day, Craig Groeschel shared about IT. But for me I could relate more of when he spoke about failure. How we leaders do encounter failure, and have to shake it off , and move forward. We NEED failure to learn better. I was moved by this as many times, failure has made go backwards and downwards, rather then upwards and forward.

The last speaker of the second day was Pastor Bill Hybels. Bill is the pastor of Willowcreek and who is what started the GLS . Anyway Bill spoke in the first session on the first day, and the last session on the second day. On the first day, one of his axioms used was , ” This is church “. As he shared I couldn’t help but think when can I actually say this is church ? And immediately thoughts started to pour in. At Poh Keong and aunty Siew Get’s funeral, I could say this is church. Working with kids with special needs and having a camp for them this year by TGCS, this is church. There are so many times we forget , ‘ this is church ” Church is not all about everyone being the same, and only mixing with the ” right ” things and only being with our fellow Christians, but its about going out there showing love, support and showing others what ‘ this is church ‘ actually means.

During the last session Bill taught, I was breaking inside. The past few sessions I have been trying all my best to keep my emotions in tact and trying to swallow the despair and hurt inside, but as Bill shared about Mother Teresa in his last session i couldn’t hold anything back anymore. His message came on fast, and I didn’t have time to brace myself for it. He told Mother Teresa’s life story and what are some of the things she held on to. And these are the three sayings that she said with no doubt or second thoughts.

” To refuse nothing from God “

” To love God and serve Him even when you don’t feel Him “

” I will love you today, like I’ve never loved you before ”

Those are Mother Teresa’s words. And the words ” I will love God and serve Him even when I don’t feel Him ” was said and held on to during her spiritual dry spells, and I weeped inside as I had been going through that.

After that a powerful convicting video was shown and I couldn’t bear it anymore, all my emotions were let lose, and as Pastor Bill ended with a prayer that we were to only follow after if we have no doubts and sure that we believe in, I  was  so emotional I couldn’t even say it out loud properly, but after much effort I was able to say every single word without doubting myself.

This summit has shown me young or old, whether we feel God or not, whether we thinkwe are capable or not, despite having to face the hurts , pains, despair at times, but I am still capable of serving God.I have to know His will and stick to it to the very end.

So fellow Christian readers, please do pray along with me. I have commited my life to God , but I’m still unsure of where His leading me. I pray that I can be used by Him in a great way, and I feel I cannot just sit where I am anymore, but I need to go and make a difference. ” Lord, here I am send me ! “

Licence to fly ???

{ October 23, 2008 @ 8:51 am } · { Announcements }
{ } · { Comments (6) }

As some people have put it, now I have the licence to fly !! Wow sounds like I just became a pilot :-) Well pilot on the road, or as ppl say , ” mamat ” but since I’m a girl , so ” minah ” ??? Hehe anyway, I got my licence officially at 1pm, which means I can drive a d !!!! Hahaha though I look horrible in my licence picture :-(

Anyway, getting this licence has indeed been a miracle and its so hard to put into words, but let me put it as, God really answers prayers, and he helped all the way right to the final day of testing. Praise God !! well if any of you have any idea where the test route for on the road, test, well one would know that the road is so busy and its bustling the whole day round, no matter which time of the day there is always lots and lots of cars, huge sand lorries and long big tankers ( as there are factories around there) Then there is this crazy roundabout with 5 points!!! Dunno who invented it also, roundabouts are usually 4 points but this one has 5. Anyway so I failed the first time round on the road, so I had to re-sit again. Well alot of friends I knew asked me to pay the bribe and definately I will pass without  any more hesistance. Well I don’t believe in bribing, and holding on strong to my faith in God I declined to bribe. A lot of people told me that if I don’t bribe, I may fail again even the second time retaking. So I just told God, I am not , and never going to bribe. So even if I take forever to pass I’ll go through.

So on Monday morning, I headed off to the test school, and met my schoolmate there, I was happy to have a friend to talk to. I didn’t have to wait too  long, about and hour and a half only, then my name was called. While waiting I was getting nervous, ( for those who don’t know, I get nervous very very easily and get allfrozen up physically when I’m nervous. ) So I prayed hard, then I resorted to singing one of my favourite memory verse songs , ” I can do all things, all things, all things ! , I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4: 13. ” I sang in my heart all the way till my name was called.

Before I continue my story, I should tell you guys what I said in my prayer. It was really talking to God in a very serious note, I prayed  ” Dear God, well you know I need my licence to drive, I can’t always depend on others, and God if  don’t take my P now, my L will soon expire and I have to renew it, and God I don’t have the money to do so anymore, and neither do I have money to re-sit this test again, so God can you please help me pass, well if you do want me to pass. I know I can do this with yr help, and maybe Lord you could just clear the junctions and roads for me please, and the roundabout and U-turn too,help it not to be congested. And one last thing Lord, give me a nice tester, that wouldn’t scold me and will be very patient. Thank you Lord and whatever maybe after this is in yr hands. Amen ”

So that was my prayer, I was asking for so much and yet God is gracious and still granted me what I wanted. SO I got into the car and was greeted in return pleasantly, then I adjusted everything that I needed to , and still singing in my heart I can do all things, I started off driving. The first junction to hit the mainroad is usuallly packed with cars, but when I reached it it was totally clear !!! I was so happy I did the necessary and continued driving. Then came the roundabout, there were quite a number of cars in front of me, but when I reached the roundabout and it was my turn to go it wasso clear. You wouldn’t believe it. All five points had not a single car coming out from it, I was sooo happy I nearly burst singing , ” Lord you are good !!! ” . Anyhow I managed to control my excitement, and couldn’t believe it even more at the U-turn there were no cars, and I had to change lanes twice, also no cars, I was so happy.  I had a near miss going back after the rooundaaboout as I was changing lanes, the car was overtaking at breakneck speed I nearly swerved right into it, as I was changing lanes, but thank God i didn’t and He helped me through. I thought I failed already coz of that, but the tester was gracious and gave me allowance and said I did well and passed me :-) I was so sohappy !!

So God doesn’t just answer the big problems prayers, but simple ones such as keeping the road free of congestion and bulies, He also answers to. God is good all the time, and all the time God is good . Amen .

Testing…Testing…1,2,3 …haha

{ October 13, 2008 @ 2:06 pm } · { Myself }
{ } · { Comments (7) }

Leaderboard
Create your own Friend Test

Hi all I was getting curious with this friend test thingy and thought I’d try it out too !! So please do take the test and enjoy yrself. Remember this is not to show who’s the best or knows me the most :-) its just for fun. Who knows maybe you’ll learn a new thing or two about me ..Okay so relax and enjoy !!!!!
Hmm I have one rule :
1. YOU are ONLY allowed to take the test ONCE ( heehee we don’t need high scores here k…just by taking the test it tells me a lot :-)

FAILURE … Can I deal with it ?

{ October 13, 2008 @ 7:40 am } · { Myself }
{ } · { Comments (4) }

Well I think this are words that always have a terrible effect on me personally. I must admit I am afraid to fail. Though I’m not paranoid and not willing to try my hand at something just because I’m afraid of failing, but I find it very hard to deal with it. Academically and even in other form of activity I get myself involved in, I find it very hard to take when I fail. The result of it ? My own body and health gets battered up, coz I honestly give myself a hard time . I’ll stress myself up to the maximum level and if I don’t perform as well as I expect to, then I’ll give myself a hard time.

Today was a special day for me, as I went to take my driving test. I was excited and woke up early this morning to head off for the test. After waiting for 2 and a half hours, my name was called to take the 1st part of the test, which was the parking, going up the hill, and three-point turn. I got into the car and did what I have been practicing . I passed with flying colours and was so happy. Without God I wouldn’t have been able to do it :-)

Then it was another long wait for the 2nd part of the test which was on the road ( jalanraya ). So finally my name was called at about 12 something nearly 1pm. So I headed to the car and wished the ” tester” and started going through all the procedures and headed out driving. The traffic was heavy and a lot of cars were on the road, and the tester found many faults in me. He kept on scolding me all the way, and he was a very young man, not over twenty-five to my rating, but I would say he has terrible manners and he scolded me with no mercy at all, adding in all the salt to make thw wound worst. Anyway I continued to drive and do everything I was suppose to. However, I failed the test.

So next week I have to take another one again. Just for the road only. So what’s the conclusion of all this ? Well I have to learn to deal with failure and take it as a step to gain success. Without failure there won’t be success. Am I right ? So I trust I can do this and pull through just fine. I think I should stop being upset and move one and believe in myself and trust I can.

Hmm so maybe something to ponder on, do you dare fail ? After going through today and talking to a friend about it, I say I dare to fail , and would work even harder to make myself successful in whatever I do. May you all be able to do the same to my friends !!!

Wall-E …..At Last !!!

{ October 4, 2008 @ 1:58 am } · { Myself }
{ } · { Comments (6) }

Wall-E was released some time ago and I’ve been wanting to watch it for so long and hearing from most of my dear friends that its quite nice, I decided I had to watch it. Suprisingly after so long a release it was still showing in cinemas , and I decided over my one week of holidays I have to go. So I asked around and some of my dear friends didn’t watch yet, and after much discussion we made a date on Friday :-)

So yesterday, we went for Wall-E at The Summit USJ , for the only show , at 12.10 pm. ( Haha I still couldn’t believe it was still showing so much so that I had a dream on Thursday night, that we arrived at the cinema and there was no more Wall-E :-(   ) Anyway, we all arrived safely and got our tickets and headed in to the cinema…..and guess WHAT ?????? … continue reading this entry.