Recently in God Category

I was just listening to a Brian McKnight album named after our common star sign, Gemini. Then I realised one track was about Jesus’ crucifixion. Wha - ? An R&B track entirely about Christ?

So I Googled it and found the lyrics which I shall reproduce here. Hope you had a happy and meaningful Easter.

“Me & You”

[Verse 1] In the garden spoke to His Father for the last time (Yeah) And Satan tried to trick Him Said He didnt have to die Jesus said Father not My will but Your will be done The Messiah Jehovah He knew he was the one

[Chorus] So it pleased them all to bruise Him They beat Him in ways you never heard And they kicked Him and they spit on Him And He never said a mumblin word But Lord forgive them, Lord forgive them For they know not what they do And they nailed Him to the cross And He died for me and you.

[Verse 2] To the disciples he said whom say ye that I am Elijah the prophet from on high or am I the Son of man Surely thou art The Christ The Son of God who reigns supreme he had to die thats why he came he came to set men free

[Chorus] So it pleased them all to bruise him They beat him in ways you never heard And they kicked Him and they spit on Him And He never said a mumblin word But Lord forgive them, Lord forgive them For they know not what they do And they nailed Him to the cross And He died for me and you.

[Bridge] My Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice It was the reason why He came The Lord said that He had to die But He would surely rise again

[Chorus] So it pleased them all to bruise him They beat him in ways you never heard And they kicked Him and they spit on Him And He never said a mumblin word But Lord forgive them, Lord forgive them For they know not what they do And they nailed Him to the cross And He died for me and you.

A couple weeks ago in church, we were told that a special speaker was coming to preach at the 6pm service at a certain date on ‘The Worthy Woman of Business’. I perked up. That might give me a better sense of what I should be doing with myself, post-MBA. I jotted down the date in my Sermons notebook but forgot to key it into my iPhone. I then totally forgot about the date.

But fate, or more likely God, intervened. Firstly, on Saturday evening I had a V-day date with R. Which meant that I could not meet with my Strategy Execution groupmates then. The only time slot we had left was Sunday morning. Nooo! That clashed with my regular church time! But to be fair, the others compromised for me on Saturday night, so I thought I could skip the 10am service this time and attend the 6pm one - and cover all bases.

But on Sunday I nearly felt like skipping the 6pm service as well. My morning and afternoon was spent on 2 different sets of groupwork, plus I hadn’t even read up for tomorrow’s classes yet! I felt really bad. It made me re-assess how I saw my own relationship with God. Why was I unhappy about giving 1.5 hours of my time a week? So I grabbed the car keys and headed off to church.

It was unusual being in the same church building but with an entirely different group of people. They were a bit younger than those in the 10am service. They were around my age. I felt comfortable. At one point we all had to greet each other and so I chatted to D, a Kiwi guy, and L, a local lady who normally went for the 8am service! I told her I could feel the difference switching from the 10am service (couples, families, middle-aged folks) to the 6pm service (more youths) - and surely switching from 8am (the most conservative service with Communions; the choice for seniors) was an even bigger jump for her!

She said she only came for this 6pm service because of the topic, “The Worthy Woman of Business’! Then I realised that the speaker, Craig, was only making an appearance at this slot! I felt it was God’s plan that everything fell into place, and what I thought was an inconvenient rescheduling was really a prod in the right direction, removing my other options so I had to show up then and receive His message.

I listened hard to the sermon, recorded it on my iPhone and took notes. So let me share a bit of it with you (especially to my Christian sisters). Hope my interpretation of the sermon is accurate:

We learnt that Craig and his wife run an organization that helps people in poor countries find jobs. This was the basis for the theme of his sermon - that we all had the ability to make other people’s lives better. He said back in his home countr, one might balk at the current 7% unemployment rate - until you visit third-world countries that have perenially 50% unemployment. In short, things may sound bad on your side, but many other people elsewhere are doing much worse!

The scripture readings were Proverbs 31:10-31 and Colossians 3:22-4:6. We focused on Proverbs. This was about ‘a wife of noble character’ who managed her domestic affairs. But it wasn’t just about domestic work. She was likened to merchant ships bringing in food from afar. Craig said that was the kind of work that created jobs for people.

He briefly mentioned Abraham, calling him an ‘agricultural entrepreneur’. Who’d have thought of that! Abraham once rounded up 318 male employees in his household to form a militia. That indicated he ran a large enterprise. (it was amusing to hear of famous bible characters referred to in modern business terms, but I got the point)

We were told that many Christians have the wrong idea of business - that we shouldn’t be out to make money. The current financial crisis doesn’t help the image of business either. But we forget that profits are a blessing from God, too. And we have the power to create jobs - sustainable employment for many.

So instead of looking down on profit, what’s more important are these 3 questions we should ask:

1. How did you make the profit? Was it honestly or dishonestly?
2. How much profit should you make?
3. What is done with the profits? We learnt of a woman who obeyed her pastor’s request and gave all her business’ profits to the church. Later, in hard times, her business had no savings and went bust, causing 100 employees to lose their job. Was this a good testimony to them?

Craig’s answer is that we should keep aside some savings, return some to investors (it’s Biblically mandated, apparently), and give some to help the poor.

And as an MBA student and a Christian, this point stood out for me: Our business is not just to maximise shareholder wealth (the key point we learnt in Finance class), but to serve as a blessing to community. We should demonstrate our Christlike behaviour to colleagues, clients, vendors, suppliers, the Government…

The message I got for myself was not to keep looking down on business-oriented practices. I’ve been grappling with this concept for a while, having worked for years in Government with some colleagues who are altruistic, and getting a high when I feel my work has raised awareness levels and possibly improved someone’s wellbeing. Knowing how greed, corruption and the repackaging of financial debt has caused great misery to people, I’ve often thought, how can purely profit-driven businesses ever add this kind of value to society? But now I’m reminded that having good business sense also helps society. Create and protect jobs. Improve your employees’ wellbeing and raise their standards of living. This is social entrepreneurism at its best.

And lastly don’t just talk about what we believe in - demonstrate it! God will give us opportunities to take action. I think this is preparing me for my study trip on Social Entrepreneurism to Cambodia in a couple of months’ time… may it open my eyes to an entirely different world.

Right now, I’m just thankful that I was guided back onto the right path this evening at 6pm.

Just as I was about to drive home from school today, I received a missed call from an unfamiliar number. Normally I do not return such calls, as often it’s a case of ‘wrong number’. But this time I decided to call back.

The voice at the other end of the line called out my name immediately. It was a lady. She sounded familiar although I couldn’t place a name straight away. The caller introduced herself and I recalled who she was - someone at church whom I counselled years ago.

Yes, believe it or not, years ago I received some training in counselling and one of my jobs was to help newcomers fit in at church. This lady had some issues and so I found myself driving to the other end of the island to visit her when she was feeling very down.

She told me she had just thought of me and wanted to thank me for all my help. I had a memory flashback…

The last time we communicated was probably over 2 years ago. It was remarkable that she remembered me. I said I was glad to hear from her. When we last met, she had already moved to another church and was seeking help there instead. She was going through so many tribulations - losses in every aspect of her life - that I feared she would kill herself, but she assured me she wouldn’t. One thing she still had was God.

I told her I was thankful she had called me, just as she was thankful for my help over the years. I have been feeling like a hot coal taken out of the fire and left aside for too long. It made me wonder: Did I actually do things like that a few years ago? What’s happened to me now? Did I turn work into an idol and commit so much time to it that I neglected caring for others? And now, have my studies (and related fears) been turned into an idol?

It made me remember the times when I gave back to my church community, mostly with my time, helping then co-leading groups and working on two versions of the website. I actually had a few hours to spend quality time with people I wasn’t particularly close to, but whom I got to know better in time. Even if it took up lots of time, I’d do it. If you asked me to do the same thing now, I wouldn’t.

During our conversation, another fear crossed my mind. Was she calling everyone she knew to thank them, and then kill herself??? I didn’t ask her that question directly but throughout our conversation she said she was feeling better and wanted to keep working at it.

This incident also made me ask myself what I’m really looking for in life. Sure, it’s cool to be in a famous business school with lots of parties, but at times I meet so many people at once that I can’t remember all their names, let alone hear them properly (in a crowded club), nor learn anything interesting about them. I would rather be in a one-to-one session with someone, or in a small group, in a saner place where I can hear what they’re saying. Maybe I’m more introverted than I think I am. Yet I like public speaking.

In any case I am thankful to God for prompting this lady to call me, because it’s certainly given me some food for thought into my past, my present and my future.

I learnt that over the past week, my church website was hacked with the image of a flaming monkey on the home page. That image was quickly removed.

This morning I was informed that our Joomla templates were messed with, and as a precaution we’ve taken the site down temporarily.

I’m not particularly upset that MY work was gone, because I believe it is just giving back to God what He has given to me. What I am sad about is that someone would decide to attack our site, and more than once.

We’re probably seen as target practice. We’re not a big, high-profile church. We’re not even the headquarters of our denomination. So the hacker obviously isn’t out to get major attention. I’m not even sure if it is the same hacker - maybe we’re just sitting ducks.

The hackings may happen more times but I pray that it won’t. This is a totally unnecessary act. I don’t know much about counter-hacking as I’m more a designer than developer, but I hope we can put up some safeguards to prevent this from happening again.

Today’s sermon was the last in the series on Ecclesiastes. It’s a sobering book which can sound pretty depressing, summed up by the phrase “Everything is meaningless!”.

This tone of despair sounds strange as it comes from King Solomon, who you’d imagine was the smartest, richest King of Israel. He realised all his accomplishments would come to nothing in the end. However, as our guest speaker Rev Doctor John Benson (former St George’s vicar) noted, it all makes sense at the end as it reminds us that these things are meaningless… without God.

Rev Benson had some good take-home points. He mentioned Stephen Covey (author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) who encourages us to begin with the end in mind. When we die, how would we like our eulogy to be made - by family, friends, colleagues, community? What legacy would we like to leave behind?

For us believers, he added a 5th person - God. Because the first 4 types of people may not know all the terrible things we’ve done, and even if they did, they wouldn’t say it at our funeral. But God would know everything.

So how would we re-prioritise our lives, based on these 4+1 people?

I have come to a realisation.

Through God’s grace over the years, my work has been featured in the press. That has in turn made it easier to gain support for subsequent new media projects. In a very small way, I hope that will lead to a ripple effect as we all endeavour to open up and allow for real conversations to take place with our audience.

For that alone, I am thankful.

However I’ve realised over the years that this attention has created a more important impact, beyond work. Long-lost friends got back in touch with me. Some who didn’t know me, but were seeking, found this blog and my testimony, and were encouraged enough to write to me.

Today I received an email from a former colleague. We were occasionally in touch after I moved to another job, but we caught up again more regularly over the last 2 years. I asked her to join Alpha and this started her on her journey back with God. I was very heartened to hear this. I was grateful to be a vessel to help others. Again, only by God’s grace could this all happen.

Then I realised that there were Angels all around me, too. In human form, not just the dazzling lightning-type beings you read about in the Bible.

There were the Angels who got me to take the step from simply attending church, to helping out with the website, then joining Alpha and getting baptised. Thank you Ricky and Janice, Sharon and Brian.

Thank you Michael and Esther for guiding me as I found myself at a difficult period in my life. Even though I didn’t enjoy it at the time, it had to happen to make me stronger. Roy and Pei Chin, for making me realise that God can be a great matchmaker. Queenie for being there for me when nobody else was.

Beyond that, I thank Gareth and Teresa for helping me understand myself and my loved ones better. And I thank anyone in future who’ll take me in to their house group (I’m still looking!).

Then I realised that Angels weren’t just in a church setting, but everywhere else, too. Like colleagues PW and CC who guided me on handling media interviews, and the management who trusted me to say the right thing and never restricted me. And to those whom I’ve shared special moments - LSD for alerting me to this job and settling me in, RL and VT for hiring me, CG for comforting me when I was sad, VU for those wise words. And now AA is keeping my spirits up. HIS hand has been in everything.

This is not to glorify myself or anyone else, but we are all placed on this earth to do something. I am glad I’ve realised that now. It helps to put my life back in perspective.

Thank you.

(If you feel encouraged, why not also write a note to the people who’ve been Angels to you?)

I just realised today’s 6 April. I was baptised 5 years ago, to this day. And it’s also a Sunday today!

Baptism is the outward sign by which I show my commitment to Christ. However it is what’s inside that is more important - not how many ceremonies you’ve gone through.

My journey so far has had its ups and downs. Not surprisingly, it’s when I myself am feeling down, that I am closest to God. The past two years have been emptier for me but I hope to be able to commit more time to learning His Word and helping people again.

I recall inviting many friends to witness my baptism, like Van Heng, Queenie, Kristen and Mark (wow, this was just before they got married!), Shins, Denyse, Gwen, Alison… thank you all.

God last spoke to me at SXSW07 regarding His plans for my life partner, but I am waiting to see if it is coming true! You can help me by asking Him for a confirmation - I can furnish trusted friends with more details. I don’t subscribe to false hopes, but let’s say the only other time He announced His matchmaking plans to me was when two new bible study mates, Pei Chin and Roy, met for the first time and shook hands… and now they’ve been married for a few years. So I am taking this seriously :)

I will be reading in church this Sunday. I hope my cough clears up by then. I just received the passage and it's one I've often referred to when addressing those who expect miracles to land at their feet in order to believe that there is a God. Tactfully, of course ;-)

Matthew 12:38-42

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."

He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.

The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.

This question was asked by Rev Mervyn Moore during our Carols by Candlelight service. Listen on for rather amusing responses from the children.

We had our Carols by Candlight singalong session cum fundraiser for the Missions to Seafarers last night. I’d say only by the Grace of God did we get our act together! :P

So many things happened that could have jeopardised the entertainment:

1. The guy who was supposed to set up our band equipment, was hit from behind by a taxi as he was driving to the church. So he came late and we barely had time to set up everything. Fortunately he and his wife were OK.
2. Because things were set up late, we could not have a rehearsal! Plus, we were all playing together for the first time. Luckily I had an earlier session with Marv so at least the piano and saxophone parts were worked out. Also I had sent MP3 recordings of our session to my bassist Richard T so he knew our style.
3. It started to rain. The organisers foresaw that and moved the event to the back of the church, where there was a roof and a makeshift shelter. However, water rolled off the roof and dripped onto our equipment, so we moved the band stuff further back and put the mic stands further up.
4. At the same time we were supposed to rehearse, the main church choir was also rehearsing, using the drum set and electric piano that we were planning to use. As there was little time left to move the piano, I settled for a lighter Roland keyboard which I’ve never played before. Fortunately it had most of the sounds I needed.
5. We were playing in relative darkness, because it was Carols by Candlight! Duh… so we attached clip-on lights to our music stands so we could read the notes. Still I had to peer at the scores and on one occasion, misread a note because it was not bright enough!

I really wanted to put in a good performance especially as this was for a good cause, and felt I could’ve done better. My self-critical summary: I started right, sometimes missed stuff in the middle but ended right. More importantly, we kept on going, and ended with a good, big coordinated jazzy bang. And most importantly, we served our purpose. The audience was singing and the children were entertained.

After the event was over, we all stayed back to pack up equipment and got to know each other better. All proceeds went to the Missions to Seafarers and I hope they raised a decent amount of money.

I was going to meekly leave and not volunteer my services again, but I received some positive feedback from people who usually don’t praise me. I was also invited by our professional drummer Richard K to jam at a pub … so overall it must’ve been OK. I learnt 16 songs in a few days and my bassist had even less time so I’m not going to beat myself up about it anymore.

I also realised I should not expect to do everything in my own strength. At the start, I was concerned that we didn’t even have time to rehearse, but I said a prayer in my head and asked for things to turn out right. When you play long enough in bands, you’ll get used to the dynamics more quickly. When I felt my keyboards were getting too loud or clashing with the sax, I’d tone down.

It helps also to play with more experienced members who know what to do in impromptu moments - like a ‘baddaboom’ from the drums when Rev Mervyn Moore made one of his trademark jokes. We had a few of those!

Communication within a band can also be silent. Just a knowing look at the beginning or the ending of a song speaks volumes. I was amazed at how I would look at the drummer and we would end at exactly the same time. When I lifted my hands off the keyboard, his cymbals would stop sounding. Can’t beat playing with a pro.

We also have to be flexible. When Rev Moore saw so many lovely children dressed up for the Nativity scene, he asked us to play Away In A Manger first, which we did. When we started playing, we realised the children were singing at a different pace, so we made adjustments and guided them back to the tempo.

There was also a lot of humility, which helped. There should be no prima donnas in church bands. We were quick to say, “My bad” and move on from there, no grudges held. Think of the song Heart of Worship, which says it all. Overall, considering all factors, it was great teamwork. Amen!

I was checking my personal email this morning and saw a prayer request from my church. We seldom receive such emails but this was for someone that the whole church would know about. Our missionary and Reverend MWM's wife MH has stage IV cancer and I cannot bear to imagine the intensity of the suffering for them.

As I read the details of her condition, I started to cry. Not exactly from a sense of utter hopelessness because I know it is not this physical world that we should be concerned about, but just from the sense that she and her loved ones must be going through such a trying time at the moment.

Apart from praying for the specific requests all I can say is God's will be done. Through my relatively short life I've seen other good people go (though of course we all fall short of His glory), and while I no longer ask "WHY?" I still feel sad about it.

Hope isn't lost yet, and either way it is all in God's plan. But don't mind me if I look a little subdued today...

It's launched! See www.stgeorges.org.sg. It was much harder than I thought, but it's wonderful to see it live. We announced it to the congregation this morning.

[My sister shot a video of our website launch and speeches ... it needs editing before being uploaded here]

I have to thank the rest of the team for pulling through this together. Individually:

Chrissy - The best project manager I've worked with. In the face of deadlines, she kept her cool throughout. She reminded us nicely when things were due, and she was really prompt with meeting notes and deliverables. She also stepped in when things didn't make sense. Thanks for praying for us all.

Tony - The mild-mannered guy who edited all the copy and got everyone to submit their content in time. If you've ever been in a project involving lots of people's inputs, you will know that is not an easy thing to do. He laid down the 'no more than two clicks' rule for our website to improve usability.

Carson - If you think me being a law grad turned self-taught web designer/new media person is unusual, try an investment banker turned Ruby on Rails developer, among other languages. Also self-taught. Respect! But I think this is the last time we'll ever use Joomla as a CMS. We made a lot of phone calls to each other to sort out funny things, had debates over screen resolutions, colours, layouts... but it was a good experience.

Gordon - A reliable and familiar face as we both worked on the previous website together. Initially it hurt me a bit to hear people dissing the old site, which looked OK when it was launched 4 years ago but was left untouched until our new Vicar arrived. Gordon spoke up for my efforts then, and was also there to provide the IT know-how throughout this project.

Our Vicar, Philip Sinden - The whole site was planned based on his vision for the church, that the website should not be about the church as a building but about the church as a community. That certainly put us on the right track and we bore that in mind throughout our project. His humility shone through, but he was also decisive and firm when he needed to be. He's a great guy.

Annette, Brenda, Vanini, Cynthia - all the church staff who helped us sort out the content and publish pages. It was a team effort and I admire their efforts to learn how to use Joomla when they normally use Office. Thanks to Annette for updating the old site in Dreamweaver for the past 4 years. She learnt fast.

Thanks also to the Parish Church Councilfor their feedback and content contributions. I am still tickled by that meeting with them, when we realised they were not old fogies but very Web 2.0 savvy!

What do I remember most about the project, as a designer?

I remembered why we should pray to God for all things. After the initial excitement, I started treating this like any other work project and was feeling inadequate at not being able to figure out why the stylesheets were disobeying me (yes, it was starting to get personal). Suddenly I realised I had not prayed for help! After that I kept asking the Lord to guide me. I even put prayers at the start of my rebellious stylesheets. Not so coincidentally, a few bugs which were, erm, bugging me, suddenly became very obvious to me and I fixed them. After that all the styles fell into place. Amen!

As with the previous church website, as far as I could help it the site does not have any colour codes with the numbers #666 (mid-gray). I changed it to #777 which is a close match - but don't the numbers look more assuring!

Web standards police - please go easy ... at first our templates were perfectly validated and I was positively gleeful. However as more of us started pasting text in and creating new modules, the ampersands and other things got out of hand. It seems that Joomla changes whatever valid code I've written into invalid code again! It also generates mystery span and div classes not in my stylesheets. Oh well. If it is good enough for God's word to be accessed by members and newcomers, I will leave it at that.

I wrote previously of the passing of Sue, a member of my church. This is to inform those who are interested that a memorial/thanksgiving service will be held on Friday 2 Nov 2007. Her husband Marv sent some of us more details and I have his permission to place it on my blog. Check out the details and maybe I will see you at church on Friday.

Truly, as we know where she is now, we should be giving thanks.

After weeks of feeling things were out of control, I said my prayers and my eyes were opened to all the bugs I had missed previously. Now most of the design elements are working fine. As of 20 minutes ago I managed to get the site to validate. Every page tested so far is perfectly valid and looks great. At least, in Firefox. Har har. It's mostly the same in IE, shoudn't be noticeable but I'll see if more can be done.

The problem can, of course, be resolved if the world were to come to its senses and stop using IE. I wish.

I've had mixed feelings working on this project. During conflicts of opinions at meetings, I felt like retorting, "Who's the designer - me or you?" but held myself back. It made me remember why I stopped working as a web designer by profession and started managing vendors. It is tedious work. The designer is not always appreciated or noticed - until something goes wrong. Usually it is not something plain 'wrong' either but somebody didn't like the look. It's very subjective.

Some things I had planned to do were changed, after I had done them. I felt it looked like I was delaying the project as I made the extra changes that weren't planned. Also, I hadn't planned to spend so much time on the project as I had other work to do. Spiritually, it got me feeling down for a while and I didn't feel like going to church anymore. I actually skipped the previous week's service, but it was also partly because I was unwell. I haven't skipped a church service in years, apart from the times I was on holiday.

4 years ago when I designed the current church website, it started off difficult as people didn't know I could design - until I just went ahead and designed the site. Then they cut me some slack and we got things done quickly. This time round, we started off well, but then things got almost impossible for me. While moving to a CMS is definitely a step forward for us, I don't want to look at another Joomla template in a long, long time. I am not a programmer, and never claimed to be. I prefer building my own code from scratch, not starting off with someone else's multiple stylesheets. It's been a messy affair especially as everyone has a say in the design I'm working on. The team's nice; we just have very different ideas at times.

Still, ultimately we aim to please God and not men. I hope everything turns out for the better and we can look back on this and learn from it.

I hope to wrap up this project soon and get on with other things. I have too many ongoing commitments and too little time to myself. The little time I have left, I blog. Sleep is usually sacrificed, like what's happening right now.

Signing off...

We were deeply shocked and saddened to hear that Sue Hixson, a long-serving member of my church, passed away suddenly. She was travelling back to the US to be with her daughter, who was expecting her first child. She didn't get to see her granddaughter, who was named after her. It must be a difficult time for the family.

While I didn't know Sue well, she was a familiar face, often helping out at church activities. Her husband Marv has been our resident saxophonist in the Worship team for years, and we've played together before. He's a great guy. I can only offer him my condolences and keep him and his family in prayers.

A local American paper has a more detailed obituary on her passing. It mentions that Sue was also a docent at the Singapore Museum, travelled with Friends of the Museum, and also lectured at the Singapore Heritage Council. She did her part to promote breast cancer awareness too, writing textbooks to help people understand the condition.

Thank you, Sue. We know you're in a better place now.

[Update: For those who are interested, Sue's Memorial Service will be held at St George's church on Friday evening, 2 November.]

[This post may disturb some readers. Christians may continue to read on. Don't worry, it has a happy ending, just like Harry Potter, or so I heard :)]

I had a very engaging conversation with my younger cousins over dinner - boys I seldom talk to for more than a couple of minutes. They have become Christians on their own choice - their parents, like mine, are not Christian. I thanked God inwardly for giving us the chance to share our experiences with each other.

One of them, B, told me of a recent dream where two strangers tapped him from behind and one of them asked him to go somewhere to buy something. The other drew out an ugly, evil face on a piece of paper, and B woke up feeling very uneasy. B has a bible study mate who sees a tall dark shroud staring at her from a corner in her room, during the 7th month. I suggested his group pray in her room together, and that she should play worship music, which seemed to work in driving away the creatures which used to disturb me in the house before it was renovated. But I warned that they should never take things upon themselves - the power isn't from us but from God.

Our church website development's picking up, and I've proposed another new look as some felt that my other design was not colourful enough. Hope this time we can get everyone's approval and proceed without making further changes to the design.

Another thing we're planning to have, is blogging. I think it is absolutely cool that my Vicar is going to blog. I just found Blogs4God, a Digg-like website for church blogs. However, not all the external links are working. Also there aren't many votes for each item.

An online resource I've known for a while is Heal Your Church Website, which gives practical advice that can also be applied to other work. It suggests, for instance, having RSS feeds for sermons, which is a great idea. The new site will have RSS feeds covering updates to every web page. I've tested it and it works already.

The only thing is that the website can sound overzealous at times. For many things, I'd prefer to look at the intention and not just the outcome. For instance, if it's a small church with no budget, and the person designing its website is a beginner at web design, don't be so hard on their website.

As noted in my SXSW 2007 coverage of the Spirituality Online panel, there was also a Godblogcon in 2006.

I used to support eBible for its Web 2.0 features, but find that its code caused my browser to hang. Youversion looks more promising. Will try it out when it's ready.

Any of you have other links to good Church 2.0 resources?

• The Digital Sanctuary
• Wiredchurches.com
• Faithable - lots of resources here

Got back from Kevin's talk, had dinner and started working on the new church website while listening/watching some "TV" on Joost.

A few weeks ago, and up to a couple days ago, I was quietly freaking out about configuring Joomla 1.5's default template designs. Yes, the default templates are standards compliant, which is good. However, grappling with 5-7 different stylesheets on each template is no joke, especially when it's someone else's work. And despite Joomla being a popular open source content management system, I found it tricky figuring out where to go to change something. "Is it a module or a category? ... How do I search this thing?!"

Fortunately I've picked up along the learning curve and sorted out most of the styles. I'm thankful to various members for praying for our team, and even specifically for me and the developer as both of us are not too familiar with Joomla and we've been trying to produce something decent for our presentation to the church council this Thursday evening.

I must say it has been a most professional team so far, considering we're all volunteers. We've had a detailed project schedule drawn up, several bi-weekly meetings, and Minutes are written for each one. We even presented a paper to the council, detailing our plans.

This time, God called very specific people, each with different abilities. Of the people that came forward, we had exactly one web designer (me), one web developer (from the US), one copywriter, one project manager (I think they're Australian). Occasionally helping us out are another IT consultant, another writer/editor (UK) and a photographer (Australian I think). Of course we have our very kind, patient and wise Vicar (Australian) advising us as well.

The combination of different skills and backgrounds is brilliant and I see God's hand in this. It's my second experience working in an international team but this time there are more people involved so the viewpoints offered have the potential to be even more diverse. I love this kind of interaction.

What's been keeping us at the project despite our own heavy work schedules and family commitments, is TRUST. If I received an ultimatum to complete the design by a certain date, I'm not sure if I'd feel so committed to the project. Instead, they listened to my concerns, prayed for us and believed we'd be able to whip up something in time.

I believe the soft approach works better in the long run as it makes people feel more committed and responsible in a positive way. I'll continue fine-tuning the design until it's showtime.

Before you read this post, you need to know this background information regarding my testimony.

Yesterday morning, I sent my Nissan car for servicing at Tan Chong Motors along Bukit Timah road. As I had to go back to work (in the south), I crossed the long overhead bridge to the other side, so I could catch a cab going in the right direction.

As I was crossing the bridge, I saw a number of buses passing by on either side of the roads. Then I wondered, Would I still be able to tell if the 174 bus is coming soon? After nearly 4 years of not taking this bus to work, I wouldn't expect the Holy Spirit to be obliged to prompt me any longer.

Before I reached the end of the bridge, I was prompted that the 174 would be arriving in 1-2 minutes time. It was nearly 8.30am already and from previous experience, the service would become less frequent around this time. Anyway, since I needed to catch a cab, I stood along the main road, a bit further up from the bus stop, and kept an eye on the bus numbers that were turning up.

Well, I couldn't catch any cabs because they were all flying past me on the first lane, but within 1 and a half minutes, the 174 did arrive! Someone else hailed the bus, so it stopped, then on the spur of the moment I decided to board the bus too, since it also was on the way to work. It was a nostalgic moment for me!

And no, unlike my previous trip last year to the service centre, I didn't have anyone new approaching me for help!

The whole point is not that God can help you catch buses, but like what I learnt many years ago - that you can approach him for small things and He will listen (if it's in His will).

In over a decade of worshipping at St George's, I've never seen it so packed before. Some people were standing in the aisles and doorways until the children moved off to attend Sunday School.

Of course, the church tends to get more crowded during special occasions such as Christmas and Easter, but I was moved nonetheless. I'm actually sniffling as I type this.

I believe God has heard our prayers over the years and has blessed us gradually with all the things we need to run the church and draw newcomers and old members alike.

It has been a while, but you can feel things are moving in the right direction.

Happy Easter to all Christian readers!

To use an analogy, I'm like a lump of coal that's been out of the fireplace for a while. Apart from church on Sundays, I haven't attended any classes for the last few months. My prayers and resolutions for this year are to find myself more time to focus on what is important.

Thus, I decided to reschedule my car servicing this morning (it can wait another week) and attend a talk by Right Reverend Dr Paul Barnett. Hope I got all his titles right! He has his own brief Wikipedia entry! He gave a talk on Luke and how it was pieced together based on others' testimony and historical fact. Even secular and anti-Christian historians acknowledged the existence of the state of affairs at the time, i.e. the names of the rulers and the persecution of Christians later on.

I learnt that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were to a good extent based on the first Gospel, of Mark. The Gospel of John is an entirely different matter. Curiously, Rt Rev Dr Barnett also mentioned a possible 'Q' draft gospel which the Gospels of Matthew and Luke could have made reference to. However, he clarified that he wouldn't stake his life on it. Some preliminary research I've done on the net, also points to the same conclusion.

After the talk, I was approached by a member of the Worship team who's been asking me to play for them again. I feel pretty bad because I've been turning down his requests for the past year. My existing commitments at work and my jazz band make me feel like I'm already taking on too much. The other issue is that the worship practice clashes with my jazz piano lesson which is difficult to reschedule. Still, I feel called to return to the team and will probably do so one day.

In the meantime, I will continue serving through the website team and by reading passages occasionally. My next reading may be on 15 April, if I replace the original person who is currently unwell. That is when our former Discipleship minister and fellow blogger David Ould is preaching, so that may be a nice arrangement!

Update for readers who used to attend St Georges: We aren't just using digital slideshow software (Powerpoint?) for our lyrics. For the past 2 Sundays our new Vicar Rev Sinden has used the new system to insert verses and images to illustrate his sermons. This is so much more effective because I don't miss any verse numbers anymore. He also puts his main points on the screen - one by one so there's no overcrowding. I've actually started to take notes for sermons again.

Under this new Vicar, the prayer rail has been re-instated, meaning you can once again come forward to the front with a confidential prayer request. Hurrah!

We were confused several weeks ago when the order of wishing each other 'The Peace' was reversed. Previously the Vicar (or his deputy) would wish the congregation the peace, then we'd all wish each other in the pews. Now, we have to wish each other first before we can wish the Vicar. I realised this did make sense, because we are supposed to make peace with each other before we make peace with God (and presumably his Ministers in church, in God's presence).

I'm having a pretty good feeling about things.

Have you Christians ever realised that Christmas is actually a big birthday celebration? It's the time we celebrate God's birthday in his earthly form. Nobody really mentioned that to me over the past few weeks but suddenly the simplicity of it all, just struck me. In his sermon this morning, my Vicar warned us not to get caught up with the trappings of Christmas celebrations and forget the real meaning of Christmas.

My sister and I were planning to attend the midnight service on 24 Dec but couldn't make it because we were hosting the clan dinner. But then I wondered, hey, if today's Christmas and Jesus was born in the evening... if we wanted to be precise shouldn't we be celebrating this evening instead!

I pity church workers and clergymen at this time of the year, because they have to work overtime on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day itself, not to mention the rehearsals before that. Which could be a reason why our morning service had a number of small errors.

For one, we would not really sing a song like "Come and join the celebation", which was on page 2 of our Christmas service sheet. I was so amused with the typo. Like we'd all want to get ordained as monks and nuns!

And, for former members of St Georges who read this blog (all one/two of you), I have good news! We have finally stopped using the overhead projector! Welcome us out of the Stone Age! However, the new slides seemed to have been prepared in a hurry, as we were missing one page of lyrics, and so could not sing the final verse of a song. And, for another song, someone had inserted a verse in the middle of another verse. I'm sure these kinks will be worked out in time. This is all in the name of PROGRESS!!! Maybe a few years from now, we'll start doing podcasts just like other churches, instead of saving sermons to an audio CD. I've tried to talk about podcasts but maybe my suggestion hasn't reached the right ears yet.

[Update: Hey, even Queen Elizabeth II is podcasting her annual Christmas message now. Isn't she the head of the Anglican church as well? ]

I have one more thing to say about our Christmas service this morning. Today, we all had Communion. Communion to me is something that can be shared with all believers. However, many years ago before I had decided to become a Christian, I attended church in Bristol sporadically and once was told by a more experienced Christian friend that I should not have taken Communion. I felt bad after that and remembered not to break that 'rule' until I got baptised. When I got baptised, I took Communion again. However, several months ago during my Confirmation (which in the Anglican church is the next step after Baptism) I was surprised that another member of the Church shook my hand then said, "Congrats, now you can take Communion too."

Did that mean I couldn't take communion even after getting baptised and I had done something 'wrong' again? Hurh! There are so many rules made by human beings that confuse me. In any case, today I caught myself behaving like my aforementioned friends, expressing concern that the guests we brought to church today were going to take Communion when I knew some were not believers and all were not Baptised yet. Where should I draw the line? In the end everyone just went up and took Communion anyway. I don't intend to impose my own conceived rituals upon anyone, but wasn't sure what was exactly the right thing (not) to do, in terms of man-made rules. Bleah! God, why do we need to complicate things like this?

Anyway, today we had a great clan lunch, then some of us enjoyed a 5+km workout at the Botanic Gardens where I used my Nike+ gear, which syncs wirelessly with my iPod Nano. More techy details in a later post.

Happy Birthday, Lord :-)

Technorati Tags: Jesus, Christmas, church, baptism

'Started playing around with eBible again as I've got some Christianity Explored homework to do. They have some useful resources. As I can't link directly to the search results page, here's a meaningful extract on the topic of Addiction:

Just as the Israelites worshiped the work of their hands (Jeremiah 10:3–4, 8–9), don't many of us today worship the work of our hands? Haven't the process and product of our careers become virtual gods for some of us? In fact, hasn't work become an addiction for many, the controlling center and defining identity of their lives?

Moreover, work is an especially respectable idol in our society. A person can sacrifice everything else—family, friends, even personal health—on the altar of work, and actually be praised for it, actually be rewarded for showing commitment, determination, and the “right stuff.”

That is a profound tragedy. Work was intended by God to be a wonderful means of serving Him. He Himself is a worker, and He has created us in His image to be His coworkers. But work was never meant to become an end in itself, and certainly not an idol. Likewise, our work may express who we are, but it was never meant to become who we are.

Despite having a hectic schedule, I make it a point not to work on the Sabbath but to spend time with loved ones. I pray we can all do the same each weekend.

My most-used word of 2006 (and probably 2005) is "Busy."

Some Christian preachers call it "Being Under Satan's Yoke", which is quite plausible if you treat work or other commitments as an 'idol' (ie, worship it) and rank it higher in your priorities than God. Things get a little greyer when you feel you're doing a public service, or helping family members out, and have to give some God or church-related event a miss.

Previously, my abandoning family/social events, and forgoing concerts and courses just to attend regular bible study classes made me feel miserable. In the eyes of non-believers, they felt, "What religion is this, that it can be so inflexible?" I had plenty of explaining to do, and even more internalising within myself. I was a young Christian who was torn in between.

Alternatively, when we forgo God-related events, we may say, "But I had no choice! I was ordered by boss/family member/girlfriend/boyfriend" to do it!" In many cases, refusal means losing your job or pissing off other people who are important in your life. Or you actually feel that your presence is so needed that everything will fall apart if you aren't involved in it. Strictly speaking, you do have the choice but it is very difficult to reject people's requests because it will give you a load of trouble in future.

We have to strike a balance between the things of this world and God's things. I believe that sometimes God intends for you to spend time with others and not have to adhere so rigidly to a schedule that you lose all sense of relationships with other people. On the other extreme, there is also the danger of idolising the ACT of worshipping God. This can be a temptation especially when playing in a worship band, where you focus on the technicalities instead of focusing on God. Or when administrating a team of people, where you get lost in politics and forget the real reason why the team was formed in the first place.

This year, I've postponed numerous meetups with old friends, and missed at least three friends' baby showers (note: these are fairly good friends). For the first time, I missed a dinner appointment with a group of old friends, and it made me feel really crappy and irresponsible. That's not the end of it. I will not be able to help at my good friend's wedding later this month, because I have very heavy family commitments. The family commitment is even more important - it's my grandpa's 80th birthday and it will be one super bash, entertained by yours truly. Singing, dancing, slideshow... rehearsals... you get my drift.

Don't even get me started on my jazz band. My drummer quit. He didn't tell me formally or respond to emails or sms to confirm the fact, so I could at least stop waiting around and actively search for a new drummer. The band's my lowest priority now, sorry to say. My bassist and second keyboardist have been angels and they don't deserve to get stalled in this situation. We've found a talented drummer but he too is in a few other more happening bands so there's no guarantee he can stay for the long term. (Is it a trend among us younger Singaporeans to be perpetually busy?)

I've over-committed myself in my work and social life, and I'm not afraid to admit it now as that will help you understand my constraints. Because I've spread myself out so thin, little quality time is spent with people and that sucks. Performing acts of service for people feels like an obligation now, because there is so little time and so much to do. Quality time and acts of service are not my languages of love but I realise for some loved ones, they are. I'm not showing the love. I have to say NO to many things now. No, No and No. I'll look bad now but at least I won't pull out halfway or end up doing a shoddy job.

Also, I miss being free. Free to think. Free from the 'slavery' of obligations which strike dread and fear within me. It's when I'm free to think that my real ideas come out. Somehow out of nothing I have to carve out some quiet time with God; to read new books and reflect on everything.

Technorati Tags: time management, God, work-life balance, friendship, family, Christianity

We've been waiting for over a year for a new, full-time Vicar. The day was today.

I was glad to see Rev Philip Sinden in person, because he wasn't the big burly Australian I imagined him to be, but tall but slender with a most humble demeanor. Even without knowing him, a strong feeling welled up within me to the point that I was actually moved to tears when our acting Vicar introduced him. Then they sang Amazing Love, one of my favourite songs, and John 3:16 was in the Scripture reading.

It all comes at a difficult time. Most of the people I knew in church, who brought me to God, have left. I have contemplated leaving on a number of occasions, but stayed back due to familiarity, proximity, family reasons and the fact that they still need me to provide support for the website and be a backup pianist for the worship team. Also, I have yet to find another church I'm comfortable with.

After the service, I shook hands with the new Vicar and told him I did the current website (which is long due for a revamp, structurally and code wise) and to let me know when he's ready to make any changes. At work, I no longer design big websites myself, but for God's work I am prepared to put in my time and skills for this.

Well I hope that good things come out of this new start. Pray...

Those who've seen me on MSN lately should know what's been on my lips - Thank you God.

He lifted me out of the darkness over two years ago and gently guided me back to what I like doing best.

He put me with the right people. He made me wait, to learn patience. Sometimes we have to start something new and live with uncertainty, not knowing if we have done the right thing.

Well I hope some of us can breathe easier time now, what with the directions set a week ago. Things are definitely moving the right way.

New visitors are reading about me and looking at my posts on God. Maybe that is part of His plan. Whatever I am, He has made me. Whatever I have, He has given me. I cannot thank Him enough for that.

Amen.

[If you haven't read the first part of my story, go here first. ]

I sent my car for servicing this morning. Then I crossed the overhead bridge above Bukit Timah road, wondering if I was still blessed with the knowledge of when the 174 bus would arrive. It's been over three years.

As I walked across the bridge, I had a feeling that bus was coming fairly soon, but not immediately. I could see two buses coming up, but neither of them were 174s. As I started to climb down the stairs, the 174 arrived and I hopped on.

I got off the same bus stop that I used to embark from, those special mornings when I would be prompted to "Run! Run!".

As I walked briskly towards my house, I suddenly recalled the instructions not to go so fast... to walk like I normally did, because someone would need my help again, before I reached home.

In my field of vision, all I could see was a Merc doing a three-point turn at my gate ... and a Falun Gong protestor sitting outside my neighbour's house, facing the embassy. She was an old lady who was meditating. I have nothing against peaceful protests although the presence of one, two or up to three protestors on some days, with the presence of police cars at times, makes the neighbourhood a little uneasy.

I thought there was nothing to my recollection of the instructions (besides, it was a variation from the original words). So I walked on.

As I passed by the old lady, she raised her hand and waved at me. She said something in Mandarin that I couldn't make out, due to the roar of the passing cars beside us. I thought she wanted to tell me about her religion, and I was thinking, 'No thanks, I already have my own faith.' So I shook my head and tried to walk on.

Then she pointed at her watch, and I realised she wanted me to tell her the time. She said her old watch wasn't keeping time properly. I told her in Mandarin that it was 12.30pm. She thanked me. Then I reached home and immediately went to the computer to type this out.

Up to this morning, I hadn't played at a church worship service for over three years (not counting Alpha day aways and weddings).

Since our Worship minister retired about four years ago, the church choir has depended on volunteers to lead the team every week. My old piano teacher and I decided to join the choir together, but we both felt a little unwelcome at first. Later on, as we observed the dynamics around us, we wondered if some of us were there to worship God, or worship our own abilities in singing or dominating the rest of the choir. Finally, when they were short of a pianist, I offered my services. On the day itself, most songs went well, but I slipped up on one piece, got a severe glare from a choir member, and never dared to play again - despite getting positive comments from more experienced musicians.

'I'm just not good enough', I thought.

However, after I left, things began to soften up a little. I sorted out some issues I had about the faith, by attending Alpha. I battled demons. I got baptised, attended Bible study classes and healing courses. At the same time I started learning jazz piano, then was made leader of a band, and pianist for the company choir. The past three years taught me a lot of things and helped me regain confidence in myself.

In my journey as a Christian and musician, the most important realisation I gained was that it didn't matter if we put up an imperfect performance, as long as we gave God the best we had.

Last week, I was asked to stand in for another pianist, who was supposed to play this morning. It was an emergency. I agreed. It was a bonus to learn that our best worship leader and drummer (in my opinion) would be playing with me. And a full choir certainly helped. In three years the dynamics seemed to have changed, and those who were once harsh are now much more forgiving and appreciative.

And one more difference was that we prayed - and it felt more sincere to me now. We decided that it wasn't about us. We prayed for the band and choir to be invisible to the congregation, that they would look past us and focus on Christ instead. Spot on for me. Isn't that what worship is really about?

Three years ago, I was so nervous I couldn't even listen to the sermon, let alone understand it. This time I felt like I was still part of the congregation - until it was time to sing. A lot of things have changed, and so far they seem to have changed for the better. Thanks be to God. Amen.

I received a copy of Nicky Gumbel's Searching Issues several weeks ago, from a family friend. It's a slim book, easy to read and good for those interested in the faith. However, I already had a copy of my own.

Still, I felt an urge to politely accept the gift, because it could always be given to someone else later. I knew it would.

A few weeks later, a new member joined our Alpha group and told us how a certain verse in the Bible moved her such that she accepted Christ. The next week (I think), I felt like giving her the book, to help further her understanding on issues. However, I forgot to bring it along - what's more, we learnt it was her birthday the next day.

Last night, I flipped through my own copy of Searching Issues, and noticed her favourite verse on one of the pages. Like it was speaking out to me. It was a second hint. So I gave her the extra copy tonight, telling her how I felt this book was meant for her, and she happily accepted it.

A very recent event has unveiled a root problem which I still face: Guilt.

Knowing that something's out of our control, yet I still ought to be doing more to help a situation. Being thankful that God probably allowed the best outcome, in the best environment, with the best expertise and care, yet feeling obliged to worry, as if it's expected that I have to behave in such a way.

Having come back from a week of holidays and watching the red (new) emails piling up, faster than I can handle. Trying to finish all my work under self-imposed deadlines (which are tighter than they need to be) while at the same time, taking on a new responsibility outside of work (arising from the situation which is out of our control).

Missing two emails which weren't very important, yet feeling intensely guilty and ashamed that I could have not noticed them in the sea of red. Like I staked my self-worth in the office on my promptness, and it had 'tarnished' my self-image indefinitely. My logical side is screaming, "Get a hold of yourself!!! It's not a big deal!" but right now the rest of me still feels like wallowing.

Explaining to people why I've had to dash off and cancel meetings. Leaving work earlier than I normally do (that's still like an hour AFTER official working hours anyway) and feeling weird, like I haven't done enough work.

Updating people who do know what's happened this week, all at different times. After a while, I don't even want to speak to anyone because I'm so tired of saying the same thing again and again. I've begun to understand why others would want as few people to know as possible. Not because they don't want sympathy in itself, but because after a while it's more fuss than they feel is necessary.

Cancelling my music lessons because I simply don't feel like playing anymore. At least for this month. Because my absence from home could mean something. What if something happens when I'm not around? What if I'm not dutiful or watchful enough?

Today I felt as if I didn't deserve to eat. Or at least, eat well. If others can't, why should I? I didn't do anything wrong, yet I feel I deserved punishment, to suffer together. There's a part of me, since my youth, that has been very severe on myself and I don't know exactly why it's lingered in me for so long, rearing its ugly head in times of trials.

I'm not even writing this so that people can ask me what's exactly happened. I'm not going to say anything. I'm not supposed to say anything. I don't want pity. I just need to express my self-observations and let my friends know I'm not in the most sociable, or stable, of moods right now. Grr. Sob.

Over the weekend, we collected the new car, a white Nissan Sunny which I now have the privilege of driving every day.

This evening over Alpha dinner in church, I was having a discussion with elder R (another Christian geek) about a particular Bible software program for Macintosh which he highly recommended, called Accordance. I had checked out the website and was so impressed with its features, expandability and ease of use, that I told him I wished I knew Hebrew and Greek as well, just to make full use of the software.

Of course when I did my research on Accordance I warned myself not to get carried away with the technology and the process, neglecting the true substance of the Message. But this evening a message confirmed it.

Nicky Gumbel's video talk this evening was about reading the Bible. He told us the story of how difficult it was to get Bibles into Russia (it was illegal). Then he used another analogy which spoke right out to me.

He said something along the lines of, Say you have a new car. A white Nissan. And the car arrives and you're all excited. You get into the car and you see the Nissan Manual! You read the Manual. You start memorising bits of it by pasting them over your shaving mirror. You look for others just like you, so you can form a Nissan Club. You even plan to read the manual in the original Japanese!

But the key purpose of reading the Manual is so you can learn how to drive the car. Just as the purpose of reading the Bible is to apply its teachings to your life. [This is the point where I make the obvious pun about the 'Purpose-Driven Life'.]

Oof. A white Nissan - that jolted me all right. What a timely reminder not to get carried away with the process. Because it is vintage Vanessa Tan.

This is the person who would know every online legal resource in the UK and could dig out reports that other students would never be able to find. The person who knew how to use every kind of software and produced the most well-designed lecture notes, which others would borrow to photocopy. Yet at the end of the day, others less IT-literate would score higher marks because they answered the questions better (I didn't realise it at the time).

This is the person who spent a small fortune on home studio equipment, learning how to use the software, even starting a Music blog - only to end up stalling and not producing anything new for weeks (I didn't realise it at the time but towards the end, reality dawned on me).

God knows me pretty well and even though I caught myself a number of times getting too involved in technology for technology's sake, He probably thought He should just make sure I got the message loud and clear this time. I didn't get the feeling I was not supposed to get the software - in fact I had a slight feeling of encouragement. Just that I shouldn't get carried away with it and ignore the true meaning of His Word. Amen.

Something prompted me to visit the Zondervan website for the first time. Then I saw some pretty amazing news which I absolutely have to share here.

Last month, a woman was taken hostage by a man who had overpowered the authorities, killed a few people in an Atlanta courtroom and escaped. To quote the website:

"I asked him if I could read," Smith, 26, said in recounting the ordeal to reporters outside her attorney's office March 13. "He said, 'What do you want to read?'

"'Well, I have a book in my room.' So I went and got it. I got my Bible, and I got a book called The Purpose-Driven Life. I turned it to the chapter that I was on that day. It was chapter 33. And I started to read the first paragraph of it. After I read it, he said, 'Stop. Will you read it again?'....

You can read the rest of the story here.

Excerpt: This is meant for believers and/or musicians to read. It occurred to me only last night that I had several years of spiritual blockage in one aspect of my life. Read on to find out exactly what happened and how I realised I was being tricked by my own pride, into glorifying the Other.

The Catholic Church, and the rest of the world, lost a great leader today. I think the Pope did the best he could in a world of turmoil, as a faithful servant of Christ. Now we have to wait and see who the new Pope will be.

My Vicar announced he is stepping down from our church. Came as a slight surprise to me. We too are waiting to see who the new Vicar will be.

And I've officially left my Bible Study group. I think I'll take a break from any sort of bible study gatherings for a while. Anyway I'm busy three days a week with Alpha. I had great memories of my first Alpha and I hope this time will be as good - no judgments made, everybody welcome, no pressure, we'll try our best to answer your questions but ultimately, it's entirely up to you.

Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, but this time I'm really feeling the brunt of it. Giving testimony and being asked to help at Alpha just upped the pressure - don't think I'm any 'better' than any one of you, because I still have my 'down' moments and I'm experiencing one right now. It also doesn't help when you see your fellow Christians judge and criticise others as though they had authority to do so.

[13/03/05 at St George's Church, at around 10.35am. This was an abbreviated version of my actual written testimony, which you can still find here.]

Good morning everyone ...

An interesting thing happened to me three years ago. At that time I hadn't committed myself to Christ yet - I was a 'bench-warmer', who'd listen to the sermon every Sunday then go home.

One day, one of the messages of the sermon was that you don't have to ask God only for big things - you could ask Him for small things, too.

Hmm, that was new to me! At the time I did believe in a God, and I sort of acknowledged that Jesus did exist ... God to me was a powerful, all-seing being and you don't disturb him for small things.

I thought, I'll give it a try! So I prayed.

I said, "Lord, I know this is a very trivial thing, and it's partly my fault for not getting up early in the morning, but the next time you see me walking to the bus stop, and you see my bus coming round the corner, tell me to run!"

(slight chuckles among the congregation)

You see, every morning I'd take the 174 at the Tanglin Police Station - and let me tell you I am NOT a morning person! - so I'd be walking up the pavement, fuzzy-headed. And sometimes I'd miss the bus by seconds and I'd be late for work.

So that was my prayer. The next morning, as I was walking to the bus stop, I had this urge to run! (more amused sounds from the congregation)

And I ran. And caught the bus just in time!

The next few months the same thing kept on happening to me ... and I kept on catching the bus on time. It got to the point where I became blase - I'd get the urgings to run, and I'd say [holding up my hand], 'Thanks Lord, but I'm too tired to run today ... I'll catch the next one!'

(more chuckles)

[more serious tone] All this while, I never doubted who it was who was helping me. But almost as if to confirm it, another thing happened.

One morning I woke up SO late, that Holy Spirit or not, I RAN. And those of you who know me well, will know what I'm like when I'm in a hurry. I have this scowl on my face, and I bet anybody walking on the street that day would have avoided me. (slight chuckles)

But as I was halfway to the bus stop, a voice - the Lord - spoke to me. It was loud and clear and in my head.

"Don't run. Walk.

"Because, before you reach the bus stop, somebody will come to you, who needs your help."

That was how I remember it was phrased ... and it was so clear, I stopped running immediately. I started walking. I even told myself not to behave out of the ordinary, looking around at people as if they needed my help - just in case I spoilt God's plan!

Then as I walked further on to the bus stop, I thought, "OK, I have to help someone, but what if I miss my bus?" (chuckles)

Yeah, my kiasu mentality. The Holy Spirit spoke to me again!

"Don't worry that you will miss the bus. After you help this person, your bus will arrive."

Wow. That was TWO [holds up two fingers] clear messages, all in the space of 2 minutes.

And sure enough, just before I reached the bus stop, another bus arrived and a China-Chinese boy got out. He was in his mid-teens, tall, fair, with spectacles and a backpack. And he was in a hurry.

The first person he saw was me. He asked, (in urgent tones) "Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the Chinese Embassy?"

And I was glad he spoke English because my Chinese really sucked! Immediately I turned away from the bus stop, and walked down a few paces with him ... "Walk straight down, cross the road, and you see that white building? That's the British High Commission... the one after that is the Chinese Embassy."

He said thank you, waved goodbye to me and went off. I waved goodbye to him, turned back to the bus stop ...

And the 174 arrived ... and stopped right in front of me.

I thought, wow... The Lord not only answered my own prayers but He could have answered the boy's prayers too! For all you know, something could have happened to his family and he was sitting in the bus, praying, "If there's a God, help me find the way to my embassy" and God was listening! I don't know. But it felt really good that God used me to help someone else!

But you see, a relationship with God isn't just a one-off miracle - we certainly don't face miracles every day of our lives. Instead, it's an ongoing thing. And despite what happened to me there were still many other issues I didn't agree with about Christianity. In fact it was still pretty topsy-turvey for me.

Until a church friend of mine said, Why not try Alpha?

Now I had been sitting in church for two years listening to people talking about Alpha and I'd refuse to give it a try. I didn't know anybody there!

But this time I thought, why not give it a shot. At least I can say I tried attending the first session!

So I did. I actually enjoyed myself, and my group was very lively and we talked past the 10 o'clock mark! The bell was ringing and we'd still be talking (OK as I type this, I can't remember if it happened in the first session but in subsequent ones I do recall we had loads to say!)

So I decided to go for the second session! And then the third ... and then ... I attended all the sessions (chuckle) and they gave me an attendance award for doing that (louder chuckle).

It was a pack of M&M's or something (small chuckle).

Then a few more things happened to me - too many to explain here - (this was when I got spiritually disturbed in my bedroom and I didn't want to confuse the listeners with too many stories) but it re-affirmed my faith in Christ. In the end, I gave my life to Jesus and got baptised. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Alpha.

Thank the Lord.

(I step down from the podium.)

My priest has asked me to give testimony at St George's Church this Sunday at the 10am service. I've agreed. I think I know roughly what to talk about - what story to tell the congregation.

Pray for me.

This morning I awoke, knowing that I had nearly forgotten to attend a meeting to prepare for my church's forthcoming Alpha course.

I didn't really want to go. In fact I'd never have volunteered myself as a helper if my priest hadn't put my name on the list. I was honoured when he asked, but soon my old selfishness came into play. I knew most of my morning would be 'gone' and I had so many other things to do. Of course I'd keep God in mind but sometimes I just wanted to do things my way. Just like I disliked being interrupted by personal phone calls when I was at work, or being told it was time for dinner when I had a tune in my head - my flow of thought was interrupted!

Discouraged by the turnout at the last Alpha I helped out at, and remembering how some of us were chastened for not being hospitable enough, I only wanted to think of the good times I had at my own first Alpha - when participants came from all over the world and viewpoints were diverse and conversation was exhilarating - often going past the 10pm mark.

While I grew closer to the community and immersed myself in activities, I didn't want to know what church politics was going on in the background - but I would hear about it often enough to make me uncomfortable.

I joined a cell group after Alpha and had mixed feelings about it, largely because attendance was mandatory and it was implied we weren't devoted enough to God - when sometimes I really had other things on that evening that were difficult to get out of. As a new Christian it was extremely pressurising for me, especially when the rest of the family wasn't Christian and felt I was being unfaithful to them when I didn't join them for dinner! There didn't seem to be a soft option - nobody seemed happy with me, whatever I did.

So I spent most of my early days as a Christian, immersed in feelings of guilt, unworthiness and frustration, doing things I didn't really want to do, and pretending that I wanted to, because I didn't want to appear unfaithful to God.

Demoralised, I turned inward. I was a zombie in Church, absent in mind when the sermon got boring. I did not want to tell many people, especially new believers and freethinkers, that I was weakening spiritually. At night my prayers were asking for forgiveness and guidance and for the re-filling of the Holy Spirit. On good days, I'd testify to people with the Good News and give thanks when something good happened. Other days I'd just keep quiet because I did not want to discourage other people, to taint them with my cynicism.

In the darkness of all this, I headed off to church this morning, slightly late as I had for the first time misplaced my car keys. Part of me didn't want to go, wanting to use my absent-mindedness as an excuse to not show up. But it was a duty I was given, and I respected my priest too much to renege on my promise.

However the moment I stepped into the room, already filled with the sounds of worship singing, I felt different. These were good people - those who were trying to hold things together, who fought to put Alpha back on our church roster, who were trying to book better rooms so participants wouldn't get bitten by mosquitoes like the last time...

I joined in the singing and listened to their discussions, chipping in every now and then when I had something useful to offer. They were so experienced and well-meaning - how could I possibly be worthy enough to help out in Alpha? I was a self-centred workaholic who couldn't remember people's names - and now I had to know enough about each participant to pray for their individual needs? I couldn't possibly do that in a way that glorified God!

When it came to the end of the discussion, we closed with the usual prayers, open to anyone in the group who felt led by the Spirit to say something.

Now usually when I'm with elders I never dare to speak because their prayers are so wholistic, holy and mature that mine would pale in comparison. No, it isn't about using big words, but many times I felt insincere, above all, and knew that God could read what was really going on in my heart. I'd often be thinking, "Oh get on with it, I need to go home / do some work / write some music, and why can't we manage our time better, you said it would end at 10pm but it always drags on to 11 or midnight..."

But this morning felt different. After several people prayed, I felt so strongly compelled to burst out with what was really going on deep in my heart. For the first time, in a group of elders, I spoke out in prayer.

I prayed first for protection against the Evil One, be it spiritual or physical, as illnesses or distractions at work and at home. Some people said 'Amen' in support.

As my eyes were closed I started to see a light, a strong flickering light. This is the light I always see when certain people (like GT) pray. I last saw it at my house blessing last December. This was the first time it appeared when I prayed and I knew it was because I was finally praying from the bottom of my heart. (No, I was not facing a window)

The light got stronger and stronger as I continued praying - for the protection to extend to all members of our church, and that our church would be united again. The 'Amens' were so loud and unanimous I could almost detect a voice of triumph in them, that someone had finally acknowledged it openly.

Tears were flowing down my face, uncontrollably, and I wiped them off with my hands. A couple more people prayed, and after that I went to wash my face. I was overcome.

And now I feel a little different, lightheaded perhaps. I no longer feel weary from the little sleep I had. I dared to pray aloud, and I dared to openly talk about issues that were disturbing me. Like a pent-up dam that finally broke forth - represented by my sudden wash of tears.

Have a blessed day ahead of you.

I got confirmed today - this time in Church, by our Anglican bishop. Fortunately he didn't ask us any trick questions! I feel confirmation is more a man-made tradition, so I was less excited about it than my baptism. Nonetheless, I learnt more about the church's history and practices in catechism class.

Anyway I won't be posting much because of studio 'work' and also because the server's acting up. It's time to do some housecleaning - both physical and virtual.

Skeptics, don't ask me where I got these messages from.

Message received by senior church member during our house blessing: The fish in our Koi pond shall grow to have unusual patterns. Everything that lives in there, shall flourish. (I am logging this down so we can keep track of it when something happens)

Message I received while praying about the Tsunamis earlier this week: Singapore shall be protected.

While the death toll mounts, I feel numbed. We've sent in our donations, we've said our prayers, and that seems like all I ought to do. Perhaps there are too many things on my mind at the moment - too many things happening all at once. Each day passes in a blur, and I never seem to have enough time to finish whatever I'm doing.

Today, two friends were baptised in church. They were the couple who met at our Bible Study session, where I felt the "This is it!" sensation from the Holy Spirit.

Over a year has passed since then, and they're planning to get married already. This morning I was very happy to share in this joyous moment with them as their sponsor (not that I did anything much).

Occasionally, especially in the earlier stages of their courtship, I could sense there was a light shining between them. I have never actually 'seen' it but I can feel it. It is difficult to express this in words. I've tried to recapture this in visual format every time I take photos of them - especially if they're outdoors and there's a bright ray of sunlight passing between them. I haven't quite done it yet.

Maybe these moments are special and private and don't really need anything else done to them, because I know God's blessing is upon them.

Today a year ago, I was baptised. This was my testimony.

Time flies when you're having fun :-)

I just watched The Passion. I felt detached from most of the movie, probably because people had been prepping me to expect much blood and violence. Also, the knowledge that there was a Resurrection at the end, filled me with hope, not desolation. I did not cry or run out of the theatre, nor get a heart attack or stroke. I also did not think it was particularly anti-Semitic as there were many other good and kind Jews who did not want Jesus to die.

I was unshaken enough to take some notes (gasp). Here are my thoughts, in chronological order. [spoilers ahoy]

My church group and I are finally watching The Passion this Thursday. I don't think I've ever felt so enthusiastic watching a show full of gore and violence. It isn't for the faint-hearted; already two people have died (a woman and a minister) of a heart attack from watching it.

Interestingly, watching The Passion has prompted a 21-year old Texan to confess to a murder he commited in January.

Some of you may have started receiving emails about how a certain young man was horribly maimed in a robbery, found God, had plastic surgery and became a world famous actor who has now produced 'The Passion of the Christ'.

However, before you forward it on, it is only an urban legend. Mel Gibson did get his face bashed up in a fight, but he didn't join a freak show. I'm sure however that his conviction led him to produce this movie.

Today marks the first year that I have wilfully NOT visited the family temple and graves, for ancestor worship and burning paper money.

Last year I thought I'd tag along just to help clean up the weeds and sweep away the dirt on my great-grandparents' graves. However I soon realised that everyone who was going was also expected to help burn paper money. On the way to the cemetery I started having second thoughts, and prayed silently for God to forgive me for whatever I had to do.

We nearly lost our way, and when we turned into a small lane leading to the graves, we found our path blocked by a huge rubbish container. So we made three right turns to get to the other side.

Just as we stepped out of the car, it poured suddenly. Stubbornly, my relatives tried to set fire to the paper, sheltering each bundle with our umbrellas. A few bundles started to catch fire, but most were put out by the rain. One clump of burning money got swept up by the wind, and landed smack on top of my left hand! I panicked and shook it off. Surprisingly I wasn't burnt or marked at all.

The graves visit last year was, in short, a washout. After that, I swore never to do anything related to ancestor worship again. Amen!

As Christians who are also Chinese, we face certain conflicts between tradition and religion. Also, when we refrain from performing certain rites, we risk alienating or prejudicing other people as well (though of course it is not the affairs of the World we ought to be concerned about). Where do we draw the line?

Now I am reading through a book, titled 'A biblical approach to Chinese traditions and beliefs'. Written by Daniel Tong, an Anglican priest in Singapore, it addresses issues I've started to become more aware of ever since I decided to believe in Jesus. The book offers alternative approaches for grey areas, but in obvious cases which would result in us undermining our faith, we still have to resist it and not be afraid.

We're watching the movie, the Amityville Horror, on TV now. My thoughts as the movie progresses:

Okay, they move into a cheap house, knowing that people have died in it. What do they expect? Then again, who knows what sort of history any plot of land has had - perhaps, the title deed could indicate previous owners' names. People living in brand new apartments have been attacked - nobody is safe. You have to hold on to your faith.

In the movie, church people get driven away and injured as they try to bless the house. All the more, I'm glad that we survived our own house blessing and drove a few little imps (Guai Zai) away. God's presence is far stronger than the Devil's; I just wish that the mass media would demonstrate this more often than making it sound like evil wins most of the time.

Doorknobs turning with nobody behind the door. I walked off when this scene occured (OK, I've jumped the gun as it turns out it was a kid who opened the door in the movie), because that was what I saw in my own house many years ago. And I heard my toilet door knob turn when nobody was there. I think I might be more daring should it ever happen to me again, but still, that's not a thought you'd want to go to bed with. Extra long prayers tonight.

Dogs barking at nothing in particular. This has happened to another friend of mine who later discovered Chinese charms embedded inside the wall of her kitchen, when it got demolished. We're getting a dog when we move back in, I think.

Dark, whooshing sounds behind you. You turn around, but it is too late - you see nothing. That happened twice - once, along the corridor (yes, the famous corridor, which is now demolished with the rest of the walls), and once in my sister's room, shortly before we moved out. But I could feel darkness. Some of us sense these sort of things more than others do.

And the priests and nun definitely felt it. They should have said a prayer at ONCE. I think everyone should have a special prayer they can recite (with sincerity and faith of course) when they are in trouble. I should learn one. Reciting Psalm 23 saved my cousin who awoke paralysed, feeling two paws on his chest but seeing nothing. The unseen beast leapt off his chest when he said in his thoughts, 'I shall fear no evil'.

More screaming from the living room as I type. Why do we subject ourselves to this? Haven't we had enough?!

To be continued...

God has a sense of humour. And matchmaking skills, to boot.

A few months ago, a new church mate joined my Bible Studies group. We hadn't met her before, but a few of us had seen her singing in the choir. She was either referred, or felt drawn to, our group, perhaps because we were in the same age bracket. A sweet girl.

So anyway, the usual introductions were made all round. A couple of guys came in slightly late. One of them was another fairly new addition to the group, someone's ex-colleague from another church. A decent bloke.

What felt mighty unusual was the point where the guy and girl shook hands. Maybe it was their personal mannerisms that seemed similar to me, but at the point where their names were exchanged and their hands met, I distinctly heard a triumphant cry in my head, "This is it!!!"

The voice was familiar. I think I heard it at a bus stop before.

I was baffled. I thought out, 'Huh? You mean, they're going to be together?'

Whatever the case, I felt very positive vibes. In time they learnt that their jobs involved similar knowledge, even though they were in different professions. They seemed to have loads to talk about.

But nothing else seemed to be developing. (Patience!!) I talked it over with another Bible Studies mate, who - amazingly - told me that she had also experienced the same message. We waited, and waited ...

And the lovely couple have finally announced that they are together. What a glorious day!

I went for the Alpha talk at Fullerton Hotel to see Nicky Gumbel. He was good. Funny. Took photos with new phone. Don't have laptop, so can't beam it, and am too tired to take out the multimedia card in my phone and connect it to PC, so no photos for now. Realised that if not for Alpha, I'd have quit Christianity. Was planning to leave the Church a couple years ago. I never totally believed in it, anyway, and I felt what I stood for was not condoned, and I wasn't going to surrender my own notions of life to suit God's purpose.

So, Alpha was good because it turned me around. In Alpha they don't talk down to you or force you to accept God, and amazingly, it isn't boring. So you don't feel unworthy, or unwanted, or unloved. If the facilitators don't know the answer, they'll say they don't know. They won't make things up along the way, or point fingers and say, 'YOU are a sinner!' (we all are, anyway). You may also get to meet very nice friends.

So if you've heard of Alpha, why not give it a try. It's non-denominational (though started by an Anglican), and it won't cost you a cent. God bless and goodnight.

Last night, after starting, my computer detected new hardware. Strange, because I hadn't inserted any. It was my ethernet controller. Hmph, I thought, maybe it was loose and got reconnected again. Anyway, my internet connection was up and I didn't give it another thought - until this morning, when the hardware in question decided to conk out. I unplugged and replugged the wires numerous times but to no avail. It was down the whole afternoon, despite numerous reconfigurations and rebootings.

I was vexed. I had research to do, and an interesting thought about a Psalm in the Bible that I wanted to make notes on, and additional church webpages to update, so I had one last resort: I got down on my knees, put my hands on the CPU, and prayed for the hardware to work so I could do God's work. I was filled with absolute certainty that my request would be granted. Naturally, after praying I leaped up, opened up my browser...and the connection was still down. Patience! I told myself. When did anything I asked for, happen a split second later? 'In His Time' ... I'll reboot, and wait.

I came back a while later, and found that the hardware was functional again, and I was once again connected to the Internet. After nearly a day of trying to fix things myself! So I'll be working on my promises to Him now. He's just amazing.

Does this happen to you, too? Your relationship with God is like a cycle. There are periods of intense closeness (highs) - You feel a warmth in your heart, and there's a bounce in your step. He may even speak to you, as He did to me one and a half years ago with the Bus Incident. Then there are excruciating periods of lowness, where you feel you have slipped into a chasm and sometimes it seems like too much effort to claw your way back to the top.

Many people have been asking me about my future in the working world. I hesitate to give definite answers, because there aren't any yet. There are possibilities, but I do not wish to speak about them at this point in time.

As a Christian, I believe that God has a plan for each one of us. It may not be clear to us, but it is clear to Him, and what we want may not always come easy. Neither do we always know what is best for ourselves.

For myself, I do not pin my expectations to any sort of job, in any organisation. If I get the position I want, that's great; if I don't, well, failures make me a stronger person, and maybe I was meant to find something more suitable for myself - that may, in the big picture of things, also benefit other people.

That's all for now.

So, the battle has begun again. I have reason to believe that we have been followed onto the new premises.

Just an hour ago, I put on a Christian music CD. Everyone else was fast asleep in their rooms. My Sony CD player has lasted for twenty years and does not usually stop by itself. Tonight it has stopped at least three times, each time when I was not in the room. It was put to 'repeat all' mode every time. The CD is clean. Other non-Christian music CDs played perfectly fine before that.

Now some of you might laugh at me for being paranoid. Well, try getting spiritually attacked in your bed, a chill creeping up your legs, and hearing the door knob turn and a woman's gasp from the nearby darkness and finding out it wasn't your mother or sister, who were both fast asleep. That happened to me nearly a year ago.

Still think I'm paranoid? Try telling that to my maternal grandmother, who saw a tall dark shroud standing beside her as she slept on my bed, while I was still studying in Bristol, a few years ago.

What kept me going was that my prayers for help that night were answered, and I was filled with the warmth I'd attribute to the Holy Spirit, which pushed out the coldness. I once received warning signs - strange urges to check my rear view mirror, and loud roaring sounds in my head, before I nearly reversed into a hole in the ground that I could not see at night. And I remember how I avoided the accident just two days ago. Thus I know He is watching and protecting me.

So every night since last December, sleeping has been a challenge for me, a real test of faith. Not only am I distracted by the computer, I face certain obstacles when I sleep. Prayers, faith and music keep my sleep peaceful. Tonight I pray for the Lord to bind whatever is with us, that it may not disturb us in our slumber. Amen.

On my way home, I was on the leftmost lane of Zion Road, at the junction of the Blue Cow pub, waiting to turn left. Traffic was heavy and the cars in front of me were edging onward to the junction while the light was still green.

Suddenly, I heard a crunching of bumpers. The car directly in front of me, had run into the car in front of it. I was going at a snail's pace myself and kept a following distance of about three feet, so I was able to brake in time along with the other cars behind me.

Since we were on the ONLY left-turn lane, and since the two cars involved in the accident were also the first in the queue, the rest of us were stuck waiting as the drivers got out, surveyed the damage, exchanged numbers...

Soon, the cars behind me (having more maneuvering space) edged their way into the next lane and bypassed the scene. I, unfortunately, could only watch the rest of the world go by, and slowly reverse myself away from the cars in front of me so that I too could change lane.

The drivers were still busy talking. Even pedestrians next to the pub had engaged in conversation and the pointing of fingers at various parts of the vehicles. More cars which arrived behind me, realised what had happened, and started to horn at them. The men scurried back to their cars and re-started the engines. By which time I had just eased myself out of the leftmost lane. Doh!

Anyway. I said a little prayer thanking God for keeping me safe, and went home feeling vindicated for all the times impatient drivers tried to cut into my lane or tailgate me, because the incident this evening proved that on the road, it is safety and not speed that matters, above all.

It was raining again, for most of yesterday. And I neglected to buy enough parking coupons to last me the whole day at work - only until lunch time. I picked up some new coupons near the office, but as the rain was still going strong I decided not to brave it back up the hill to the car park.

I kept on wondering when would be a good time to go back to the car, because the rain wasn't subsiding. I decided to do it later. Lunch time was nearing - I'd have enough time to walk to the car.

After a quick bite, I took my umbrella and walked back to the car park. And was I glad I hadn't left any earlier. Big branches, as thick as my arm, had fallen off two trees and had smashed into pieces, on the exact path I'd have taken to the car park.

I shuddered to think of what might have happened to me, had I left earlier. Thank God for that!

After a packed itinerary this morning and afternoon, I went home with the intention of doing some work. Now I seldom, if never, bring my work home, because I believe that if I organise my time properly there'd be no such need to do so.

This time, however, I thought I'd better make an exception because I had a tight deadline to meet. But it was not meant to be. My files wouldn't transfer to my PC (yet another configuration problem). So I was at home, by myself, and suddenly I had nothing to do. I was tired. I didn't want to fix my laptop. I didn't want to revise my IT notes. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I had to do something. I even tried to sleep, but couldn't.

I felt empty. And unbearably lonely.

Then I picked up my Bible. The book was open at James, which we're now covering at Bible Study class. I left it untouched for days, too busy with my own selfish activities. If nothing else will heal me, God will, I thought.

I started to read where I last left off.

I kept on reading. And as I read, my life started to make sense to me again. And though I've known it for some time, I needed a void to make me realise for myself that nothing can substitute God in my life. He has given me renewed hope, at a point in my life when nothing is for certain.

I say nothing is for certain, in the spirit of James 4:13 (Do Not Boast About Tomorrow), because we cannot assume that certain things will happen tomorrow. It is only by God's will that it is so. Taken further: I should not be angry at the helpless situation I often find myself in, because it is man-made, and therefore temporal.

Thus, I can only trust in God to lead me on to new heights. His presence has guided me and some close friends for the past week, and I believe He does have a purpose for me. We shall wait and see.

I'm listening to Larry King's CNN talkshow at the moment. The topic? Angels. We have guests Max Lucado, author of a book 'Next Door Savior', Father Michael Manning, Syvlia Browne, who is an authority on angels, and Mattie Stepanek, a young boy who is 'battling incurable illness'. I felt some speakers, namely the author and churchman, were forced into giving opinions on a subject that is still very much an uncertainty, and I empathise with how they on one hand want to give hope to people, yet ensure that what they believe in is the truth.

Anyway, lots of people have been calling in to ask questions. Now, it's all very nice and well for people to share their experiences on how angels have appeared and saved people and their loved ones from illness and danger. I think that is something worth rejoicing about. I believe in angels and the good things they can do. Angels appear in some important parts of the Bible.

But let us not forget who sent those angels. They are messengers of God. Some angels may have great powers vested in them. But it is not they whom we should worship. The story doesn't end just by seeing angels.

There are angels in churches. If you look at Revelations, there were angels in every church, some of whom pleased God, and others who did not. In the Bible, Daniel (10:13) mentions how an angel who was sent in answer to his prayer was delayed because he was held back by a dark 'prince', and only with reinforcements from Michael, one of the 'chief princes' (on the good side) could he complete his mission.

Angels are not completely infallible. Satan himself is a fallen angel, and he has his own angels, who will be in the end of days, cast out (Rev 12:9):

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

So let's get this all in perspective. The presence of angels should remind us that the Lord cares enough for us to save us. (Why not everyone gets saved by angels is an issue far beyond my authority and comprehension to speak about.)

Let's not forget about the Holy Spirit either, whom we should turn to in the physical absence of Jesus (until He comes again). Why don't they have a talk show on the Holy Spirit too? I know people who are full of the Holy Spirit, even of a woman who was lame, and then got up and walked, after she was prayed over. Maybe because we as human beings still turn to things that can be seen, rather than things that are unseen.

I would like to thank the following family members for coming:

Mum and Dad, for supporting me despite not being Christians themselves. Thank you for not questioning my faith or throwing me out of the house, which happened to another good friend of mine when she got baptised. I won't take that for granted.

'Mama, for bringing me to this church for nearly ten years and letting me make my own decisions. And for praying that I would come to know Christ (See - another prayer answered!).

Auntie Eve, Uncle Hooi Hwa, cousins Sheryl and Stacey, and Grand Auntie Lee Leng (whose birthday is also today). I am so happy to see our extended family come together for this occasion.

I would like to thank the following friends who made it to my church:

My best pal Vanessa Heng, for being there for me (real early too, at 9.20 am)and supporting me in everything I've chosen to do. For having the guts to drive halfway across Singapore, into unfamiliar territory, to sit in a Protestant church by herself >:-)

Queenie, for walking together with me, and for all the insights you've shared with me as you've grown in His light; Wanxi, for standing up against adversity, for listening to me for the last several years without judging me; Gwen, Denyse and Shin Dee, for being there for me, and for the gentle encouragement you've shown.

My old friend and colleague, Alison, for surviving the mission trip, bringing me along for Bible talks and showing me the ropes.

Church friends: Newlyweds Kenneth and June, soon-to-be-wedded Kristen and Mark, Christine, Ricky and Janice, Michael and Esther, Auntie Linda, Uncle SQ and Min Yen, and everybody else who was somewhere around whom I didn't get the chance to speak to. Vicar Loren Fox for guiding me through baptism.

Some of you have seen me through my darkest moments, when I rejected the Light, thinking I could carve out my own destiny. Temptation haunted me, causing my life to spiral out of control. But I now know the true path, and I trust in my Shepherd to guide me through the Valley of Darkness.

To the dear friends I've invited to witness my baptism: If you're concerned about SARS, you don't have to attend the service this Sunday. I will understand. One old friend is unable to do so precisely because she works in a hospital handling SARS patients.

And it's time I made my testimony. I've decided to place it online, which you can read here.

10 days to my baptism. I haven't worn a skirt since Peranakan Night, I think... and that was actually a sarong. I have a decent white blouse. Erm, that's really it. Oh, shoes. I should be able to balance on heels. They aren't too high. Plain Jane shoes from good ol' Marks and Sparks.

It's a strange feeling. I knew it was going to happen but I was always telling myself, ah, I have a couple more months to go ... and suddenly, you realise there are only two Sundays left and your good friends are asking you how to get to your church.

In the meantime, disease is on our doorstep, and the battle is still raging on. I read Revelations and sigh. Christian organisations are offering their interpretations of war and plague - but at a price. US$29.95 to be exact. But how do we know for sure that it's going to be true? And do we really need to know everything, anyway? I think I'll leave it to God, not the punters.

A new edition of the Bible Code is out, but I'm not buying it. I recall another expert decoder - was it Simon Singh? - who disproved the first book by showing that 'Mickey Mouse' or 'Donald Duck' was also in the same jumble of alphabets where 'Lee Harry Oswald' was. Regarding the assassination of JFK, of course.

Instead of getting caught up with conspiracy theories written by human beings who may themselves be biased, I'd much rather read the Bible itself, and focus on His word. Isn't it obvious?

The church website is well on its way. I received a tonne of content to add in over the past few days, and have been duly overwhelmed.

It took nearly a year to get everyone to agree on what to do. We got caught up in font types, background colours, programming jargon, server issues, budget discussions .... (you get the idea).

As a result, I spent most of the time designing, redesigning and re-redesigning the website - not just as mockups but real HTML pages, only to find out that the purpose had changed in the meantime and the simpler layouts couldn't cope with the added content. It was a case of having too many cooks.

But now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! So: this new site won't be very colourful. So it won't have lots of eye-catching animated gifs which move across the screen. It won't have midi music that plays immediately upon loading, and I dare say every page will now look consistent and have a nav bar. Working on it now makes me happy.

In fact, this is probably the only worthwhile thing I've done for the whole year.

I was really glad I went for Alpha this evening. Not that the previous sessions weren't any good, but this time a few of us decided to be frank, and asked questions we hadn't dared to ask before. What was the verdict on couples living with each other before getting married? And what about homosexuality? How strictly should we interpret the Bible's commandments?

One of our Alpha counsellors pointed out that Jesus approached a woman at a well, despite knowing that she was living with a man who was not her husband. I also recalled that He dined with tax collectors and befriended prostitutes. So essentially, He saw their faults, but still reached out to them.

So I don't understand why some Christians behave like the rest of the world owes them a living. Sure, they may have attended church all their lives, and don't possess a single drop of deviant blood in their bodies. But I've also seen self-proclaimed Christians backstab and deceive other people like any 'pagan' would. And it was painful, being met with stony silence after I told certain devotees of my attempts to know God better through Alpha.

But right now, I don't really care what they think of me. I'm having such a good time at this course that I now find myself wishing that the bell won't ring so we can have more time to hammer things out with each other. In all honesty.

If you've noticed, I've altered the name of one of my favourite bands, to express what came to my mind - after attending my introductory Alpha course at St George's church this evening. Nicky Gumble (the guy who started Alpha) is an amazing speaker. He raised this question: do you possess everything good in this world, and still feel empty?

After watching the video, we bowed our heads in prayer after my vicar, Loren Fox (an American), looked at his watch and reminded us of the significance of the moment. I then realised that this was about the time that the two planes crashed into the WTC. A chill went through me as I realised that EXACTLY a year had just gone by.
[So I guess I do have something to write about Sep 11.]

Anyway, my first Alpha course begins next Wednesday. Hopefully I'll be able to meet up briefly before then to run through the latest developments in the church website with the web team and vicar.

Featuring:

Peter Stead
After completing a degree in music at the University of Exeter and a PGCE at the University of Cambridge, Peter Stead worked as a musician and teacher in the UK... He has also worked extensively as a conductor and musical director. Credits include Musical Director of the International Festival Chorus, Musical Director for the Singapore Repertory Theatre's productions of Godspell, Into the Woods, and Sing to the Dawn and Chorus Master for the Lyric Opera Company.

Vanessa Tan
Resident web designer, alto and occasional church pianist.