Sony Xperia PLAY!

My Razer Abyssus mouse wheel suddenly stop working! There was a 'click' sound and it became loose :( I think I still have warranty though.

On the much brighter side of life, my mum came to me one day asked me if I wanted a new phone. She bought a Mio package for our new house broadband, and the Singtel guys threw in a Sony Xperia Play. It sort of rang a bell in my mind, but I didn't know what it was, or how good the phone was.

Later I found out that its reeaallly good Andriod phone! More than that, it's the Playstation Phone for crying out loud! =D

Music, Games, Social Media, Touch Screen and a Funky Gamepad? Whatchu know about Smartphones?

Check this video out:

Man that mechanism feels tight! LOL

I'm still configuring the phone and getting used to it. Have yet to transfer the 300 plus contacts over to the new number, so I'll be using my old phone for quite a while.

Thank God for this new awesome phone! I didn't even ask for it. All I wanted was an iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S or something similar. Well this is it, with a Playstation gamepad chucked into it underbelly. God is good!

Sony Xperia PLAY. Smart.

Anecdotes and Musings

Loads has happened since I last posted. I couldn't find time to frequently post cos I'm back in camp, so I'll try to summarize the series of events...

Met another CHC guy in camp again.

Was waiting for the shuttle bus one day again, and this dude, a little plump, wearing specs, and donning no.3 (Clerk uniform, same as mine) walked towards me, STARING intently at me, as though I'm some fascinating specimen of human lifeform. It was really awkward, as he was staring at me with a "hey didn't I see you somewhere before?" look - for like 10 seconds. When he finally reached me he said:

"I've seen you before."

"Do I know you?"

"You're an usher right? In church"

"Where did I meet you?"

"In church la!" (yea, I realized I asked the obvious :X)

So I found out that his name is Joel, also from service 1, and he's in choir. Hmm. I guess people notice you even when you think you're not being noticed. They're everywhere...watching your every step... Okay spooky talk aside... :P

-------

Shortest. Leader's Meeting. Evar.

We had games, praise, worship, prayer, admin all in 1 hour! Amazing! Must be a work of God! Weiren said something about more time for Monopoly Deal- I mean godly fellowship.

Tan Jin + Chimpy!

Jin shaved to support some cancer movement, but he says that his head will feel cold in school. Thus, he brought Chimpy to warm his head. Chimpy is his pet soft toy, like how Polar is mine hahas :P

Chui has many fans! (no pun intended)

This awesome contraption has 3 fans that can blow at different directions!

Reminds me of airplane engines.

Table of fellowship.

Samuel :O

Sam and Brandon.

People.

Me.

Jin really looks like a chimp here XD

Chimp on a bigger chimp.

Brandon poked Chimpy's nose.

Raymond and Jeremy (Kuang)

Cheesy Fries.

Most awesome Bar Chor Mee!

无与伦比.

Actually I'm not sure if I can use the 词语 that way, but what the heck.

Jay Chou is incomparable nonetheless.

-------

One word from the Father,

and my life is never the same.

Was going through a season of darkness and discouragement, largely due to self-disappointment and failure. But thank God that He spoke to me, while I was in camp! Was alone at a desk, feeling terrible and thinking about these bad events, when suddenly I felt God say "It's okay, I love you and I want you to try again."

IMMEDIATELY, my bitter feelings of sorrow turned into joy, and all the heaviness was lifted.

I'd like to believe that physical discipline was partly the reason why God spoke to me; I hadn't gone on a run for a week, but firmly decided to run 8km that day. Encouraged myself during the run with the song "Free" by Planetshakers playing in my head.

There's freedom in the name of Jesus,

Freedom from all shame.

There's freedom in the name of Jesus,

Freedom from all pain.

There's freedom in the name of Jesus,

Freedom from all sin.

There's freedom in the name of Jesus,

Freedom in the name of Jesus.

Weiren invited me to play for his Bible Study class - thank God for this privilege. Thank God that I could hear the word about Hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit. Thank God for a great DG, and an awesome sermon on the Fatherhood of God by pastor Kong!

Deeply touched by that sermon. In fact, it's my favourite lesson in Christian Lifestyle!

Gotta go now, hope I'll have more time to post in the future!

God Answers

As many of you have heard, God blessed me with a freelance project worth $3,000!

I was praying to earn an extra of $600-$700 per month, as I wanted to give more to the building fund. Thank God for answering my prayer and exceeding my expectation!

Robin gave me a job to program a firefighting simulator, along with many other people. The project duration is 1.5 months, so technically I'm earning $2k/month :)

My desire is that everyone of us will desire, ask and believe God for His blessing, even as we have the right motives - to build Him a great house, and to prosper as a Prince/Princess of the great King!

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Matt 7:8)

Fellowship with NYP CHC Frens!

'sup guys!

Went to Fish and Co to meet my Nanyang Polytechnic friends who are also in City Harvest on saturday night :)

We're celebrating Evangeline's 21st birthday so I was "obligated" to go wahaha.

Had to leave W406 at Vivo though :'(

Wanted to spend more time fellowshipping with them but oh well...

It was an awesome time of godly fun and laughter! :D

We were practically disturbing Evangeline the whole time by making indirect comments about her and Chang Han.

When a love song was playing, Rickson commented: "Wah nice song ah... let's sing to your neighbour"

Finally it was time for the birthday celebration! The Fish and Co. staff played very good birthday hosts! The manager told the whole restaurant "We have a birthday girl tonight by the name of Evangeline!" and brought in the cake as well as a Sparkles stick O.o

They requested Evangeline to stand on a chair and handed her the glowing Sparkles stick. Then they broke into some birthday cheer! What a surprise haha XD

We also got a 10% discount for our bill 'cause of the birthday! Whee!

Front row: Carrisa, Evangeline, Chang Han

Back row: Eugene Toh, Mark, ME, Rickson, Oliver, Paul

After singing an exuberant birthday song and attracting a lot of attention, we got Evangeline to give the traditional birthday speech.

"What are your goals this year?"

(Evangeline talks about spiritual goals and rising up)

"That's great, but we'll like to know more about the natural goals, you know, like any social goals?"

"Ya, like going up to the next level of breakthrough in the areas of your relationships with other people"

:3

It was great to see Mark after quite some time! God answered his prayers for NS, and he's now in Police! He's getting a rather good pay too :)

Someone made a comment that those who came tonight were those who were committed to NYP prayer meetings. Rickson said that when we pray together, we connect spirit to spirit, and our relationships with one another are strengthened. He also said that's why some guys ask girls they fancy "Can I pray with you?" LOL. I'll remember that XP

It got me thinking - never despise small things like prayer meetings. Although we didn't get many friends saved during our time in NYP, the prayer meetings forged friendships that last.

Rickson is making inspirational films for his company in NS!!! Wow what a great way to practice his skills while serving the nation XD

He made some funny video about "chao keng" that went something like:

Sergeant: "Hey you go clean the place!"

Soldier: "But I allergic to dust!"

Sergeant: "Don't chao keng la!" (and hands him the broom)

Soldier takes the broom and starts foaming in the mouth...

Sergeant: "Hey you go run in the field!"

Soldier: "But I allergic to sunlight"

Sergeant: "Don't chao keng la!" (and drags him to the field)

Soldier starts fainting and foaming in the mouth....

HAHAHA super funny! Rickson says "You must have a creative mind!"

What do you see in this bunch of letters?

GODISNOWHERE

Some people see GOD IS NOWHERE.

Others see GOD IS NOW HERE.

Rickson sees GODI SNOW HERE.

Lolwut?

He also shared a familiar passage with us:

And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”

(Mark 4:37-38)

He said he was reading this verse when he suddenly noticed the word "pillow". Whoa I've never really noticed that before!

He was saying maybe Jesus wanted to annoy His disciples even more by sleeping comfortably haha. I was thinking more of armorbearing - the disciples probably gave Jesus the pillow to serve Him :D

Yay thank God for an awesome fellowship with NYP-CHC and also W406 at Vivo!

1st Zone Meeting of 2010!

I went for Zone Meeting last night! Totally love Zone Meetings! The atmosphere is always full of joy and love! Everywhere you turn, you see smiling and laughing faces! It makes you feel so at home, like you're in heaven =D

I'm believing for the day our cellgroup will reach this level :)

After a time of worship Weiren began to ask everyone to prophesy. He first asked Jasper to come to the center and got Raymond and Johnathan (I think, can't really rmb) to lay hands and prophesy over him. Weiren also prophesied over him. Jasper was very impacted and later told me what they said was very accurate!

So this process repeated a few times with different ppl each time! So awesome to see everyone moving in the gifts of the Holy Spirit!

I was prophesied for last, cause I was playing guitar haha.

Tan Jin, Eugene (Tay) and Brandon took the step of faith and prophesied over me, but after the meeting, Chui Laam, Cindy and Jasper (can't rmb if there was anyone else) also had a word for me, just that they didn't share it during the meeting cos they were already 3 people who gave the word.

Wow I'm super encouraged! Especially what Cindy said:

"Your pure heart for God and love for people will draw people to God"
(or something like that)

It didn't get a chance to prophesy though, hope there'll be another opportunity :)

Kinda sad that Enyun couldn't make it cos of work. Since I'm the only one from w406 there, I got arrowed to collect O level results hahahaha. Weiren shared the following verse:

But God shall shoot at them with an arrow;

Suddenly they shall be wounded. (Ps 64:7)

Super funny! Thinking about it makes me laugh hahaha! Alright till next time!

2010 New Year Herald

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a NEW CREATION; the old has gone, the new has come!"

(2 Cor 5:17)

Praise the Lord! Happy New Year all!

2009 was an awesome year, but 2010 is gonna be greater!

I believe God spoke to me that the areas of my life that I wanted to change in 2009 will change in 2010! This means all the bad habits and disappointments in 2009 are past, and I will have victories in 2010!

2 Areas I believe I will breakthrough:

1) Passion for God: the same or greater passion that I had when I was a young believer.

2) Faithfulness: Being faithful to God, faithful in the little things(like punctuality :X).

I guess that if I have these 2, the rest will follow - financial blessings, joy, ministry promotion, etc. Thank You Jesus!

Let's take a look back at some of the cool stuff in 2009:

Awesoments of 2009:

• "Boomz" and "Shingz" added to the Singaporean dictionary
• Left 4 Dead - Awesome Multiplayer shooter
• Fireflies - Best Song (In my biased opinion)
• Dark Knight - Best Movie (Again, in my biased opinion)
• Windows 7 - Best Windows OS (Now that ain't biased)
• Jay Chou - Best Chinese Celebrity alive! (This ain't biased either!)
• Most Retarded YouTube video:

MUST WATCH!

Achievements of 2009:

• 1st time being a cheerleading flyer!
• Read finished Harry Potter series!
• 3 Polar Bears in my room!
• Learnt cheng yao dance
• Learnt Sorry Sorry dance
• Attempted to cut Show Luo's hairstyle
• Listened to the radio (hey, that's a big achievement for a guy like me :P)
• Completed Call of Duty 4
• Drank about a bottle of Heineken
• Drank beer with Sprite
• Ate 5 meals a day for about 2 weeks
• 75 posts
• Kept a Blog alive for more than 3 weeks

Good and bad happened in 2009, but I'd rather let go off the bad and thank God for the good :)

So here's some things to thank God for...

1) Graduation! (12th March)

Wow! Time does not just fly - it soars with jet packs on! Thank God that my last year in NYP was a most fruitful one, as I worked with Bryan Yeo and Robin Chia, the Top and Second of the entire Digital Entertainment Technology cohort!

Graduation!

These 2 buddies are not only awesome in their work, but also fun, helpful, and great people to work with! We made the best Final Year Project evar! =3

So yeah, I ended up with exactly 3.5 GPA! Thank God its not 3.49 wahaha.

2) 20th Birthday! (10th April)

2009 marked the end of my teenage years(sadded). Anyway, the 10th of April was incidentally Good Friday, and our church had our Easter Celebration during my birthday! I had lots of fun celebrating my birthday together with W406! I remember we had lunch at some Chicken Rice stall near Raffles City (imagine that!).

Thanks, W406, for the new jacket!

After which, we went to Esplanade and did all sorts of random stuff. Took plenty of photos and did some cheerleading stunts wahaha.

But most of all, want to thank God for saving Sheryl, Melody and Zining! That was the best birthday present evar! Thank God that they brought Jolin later and she too got saved! XD

3) Faith Camp (June 2009)

My 1st ever Church camp! It was loads of fun, and the sessions of seeking God were awesome!

Indeed we are the next generation of leaders, to take the baton from pioneers! Thank God for this privilege!

4) Game Programmer Job (5th July)

This job was really God-given. My elder bro told me to pray for a job specifically, so I did.

I prayed for:

- Work as a Game Programmer

- Salary of 1.6k-1.8k

- Nice boss

- Get the job in 2 weeks

My workplace in Johor.

That's right, its my boss' house.

I sent out like 2 or 3 applications, 1 of which went to my previous lecturer at NYP, who had his own game company. Bryan Yeo, Robin Chia and I made the best game project for the module which my lecturer was teaching, so he was willing to hire me!!! Praise the Lord!

Screenshot of the game I worked on

So I got a job as a Game Programmer, had a monthly salary of 1.6k, a friendly boss whom was my lecturer - all these within 2 weeks. God indeed answers specific prayers! Thank you Jesus!

5) Revelation of the Word of God (August)

I was in one of my most down periods around this time, but thank God that Weiren shared about the Word of God! He said that if we live by the Word and believe it, nothing can shake our lives. Not trials, not testings, not temptations. Our lives will ALWAYS be fruitful, NEVER having a dry season.

¹ Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
² But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
³ He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

6) Callings: Armorbearer & Leadership (August)

During this season God began to reveal to me 2 great callings in my life:

a) Be Weiren's armorbearer.

This means to serve him faithfully, anticipate his needs, refresh his soul, protect him from enemies(critics or whatever), stand by him during tough times, honor him, and to help him fulfill his destiny.

At least that's what the Armorbearer book said.

b) Grow the connect group to 200. (O.O)"

Wow okay, I'm glad I posted this - it reminded me of my callings. God only gave me the vision to grow my connect group after the calling to serve Weiren. The saying that God will only give you your destiny after you help someone fulfill his destiny is true.

Looking at this 2 callings, there's only 1 thing I can say: I can't do it.

No wonder Pastor Kong says that the dreams God give you are so big that you cannot accomplish it without God.

7) God's grace in NS (September-December)

I just can't believe the amazing grace that God has given me during the whole course of my army! God answered my prayer for 9-5 vocation, so that I can serve him! Throughout these 3 months, I have been under good and lenient supervisors! (Or at least much better than I imagined NS supervisors to be)

8) Risk game with Weiren! (30th December)

Played Risk for the first time in years on the 2nd night of the Chalet! I never really liked Risk cause:
- it seemed like more of a luck game than strategy

- the game lasts for hours

Weiren revolutionarized that! He taught us how the play Risk properly with various strategies and tactics. After a trial game, all of us became very "jian"(cunningly sinister)!

It was a pretty exciting game, which enemies became allies and allies became enemies, which the weak overcame the strong, which lasted for 3.5 hours. XD

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Wowzer that was some long post! Thank God for an eventful 2009! However we've entered into a new decade, a new era of breakthrough!

Madness? This is Christmas!

Man this one TOUGH week! Christmas + End Of Year Service + Chalet! Madness!

But it was pretty fun as well XD

Booking seats for Christmas was really warfare - rushing for the seats, negotiating with the ushers, defending the seats at 2 sections, finding alternatives when seats got taken, remaining calm and urging others to be calm, and making the new friends feel welcomed. Woot!

There were lots to plan for our CG Chalet too - logistics, getting forecast, cost, food+stuff for barbecue, games. We were also practising for the Chalet performance(which didn't turn out too well, but it was fun dancing to "Sorry Sorry" wahaha). Thanks to everyone especially the CGCs who made (and are making) it happen! Thanks to Chong Hui for his help with the dance :)

Me and Tan Jin

Nice Christmas Trees

Ultra long queue!

In MRT lift!

Awesome Red Shades.

They belong to Kenneth, Isaiah's friend haha

Our Jurong West Building is so beautiful!

So glad that many of our friends were saved! :)

On friday night, we went to play Left 4 Dead 2!!! It was super fun!!! Love the new special infected! Love slashing zombies with a katana! And the rates were pretty cheap - $1.50 per hour :)

Left 4 Dead 2 rawks!

Dad brought home turkey! You gotta love the stuffing+cranberries+sauce :)

Yep. We ravaged the turkey. Muahaha.

Weiren also treated the CGCs to Imperial Treasure on sunday!!! Thanks so much Weiren!

The Xiao Long Bao, Wanton and Dumplings totally rocked! When you bite on one, the delectable juices spill out, tantalizing your taste buds with its uh.. savoury... uh... deliciousness-ness-ness.

Check out the spread!

I ordered "Red Oil Beef Ramen"!

It looked extremely spicy but it didn't turn out that spicy - even Tom Yam is spicier, if there's such a word haha. The beef is cut into lean slices, with each slice being unbelievably soft yet springy, not to mention ver-ry flavorful.

After which we went to Starbucks to stone-I mean to relax and grab a cup of coffee :3

Yeap, I feasted a lot this Christmas Season, but honestly, it was really tough getting things done. Sometimes it kinda feels like I gotta take the initiative to do stuff cos no one else is doing it. I guess that's the life of a leader.

Anyway, we started our Chalet yesterday! Whee! Will update my blog after the Chalet is over! =D

4 Hours In Heaven

Thanksgiving on Sunday was the BEST service in the whole of 2009!

Yes, I stole this picture from Felicia's Blog :P

So glad and honoured to be there!!! XD

Initially, I didn't feel very excited about the service cause, Weiren told us its gonna be a 5-hour service (it was 4 hours, but if you count the buffet dinner it'll be 5 hours plus) and I wasn't doing spiritually well.

Thank God I didn't miss it. In my opinion, its even better than 20th anniversary service!
Why? Because of Sun!

Sun Ho
International Pop Singer

Indeed, behind every great man is a great woman.

I once thought that Sun was a great woman of God. Now I realize she's incredibly, amazingly, awesome woman of God.

She's such a caring and loving person, always sacrificing for God and others. She remained obedient to God's call even in the face of depression, criticism, stress and tiredness. Even with all these internal struggles and the need to take care of Dayan, she still loved and counselled people who were going through tough times, breaking marriages, etc. She stood strong in her faith in God, always praying, worshiping and reading God's Word. She kept reaching out to the lost, kept loving the broken, kept helping the needy.

There's still a lot more that she ought to be praised for, but I guess some things should be kept within our church family. One thing is for sure though: she inspired me to lay down my life for Jesus and to love people more.

Brothers!

Sisters

We also had an phenomenal time of praise and worship. Without tight time restrictions, we sang 5 praise songs and spent lots of time worshipping God. It was through this worship that I was ministered to. Praise God!

What could be up there...
wait a min, this place is underground!

The meeting started out with a "dance lesson" and the whole church was dancing to "I Got A Feeling" by Black Eye Peas. Woots!

There was a prize-giving ceremony the great cell leaders, zone leaders and the Heroes of City Harvest. Hearing their testimonies were heart-warming, often bringing tears to our eyes.

Weiren got tweet-ed

The meeting ended with all us singing Hero and some chinese fellowship song(I dunno the name), with our arms over each other :D

United!

Lots of "Thank You"s were exchanged, bosoms embraced and pictures taken. I like to imagine heaven being like this when we get there. Thank you, God, for giving me this privilege to be in this meeting together with my family!