A New Year, A New Day

128 emails from Facebook on the 10th of April! Astronomical! Almost like the 1,900,000 dislikes on the Friday MV!

Thanks everyone for all your well wishes, on Facebook or otherwise! Appreciate every single thoughtful word! :)

It was really nice of the whole CG to sing me a birthday song at JTown Cafe, albeit embarrassing and spontaneous. I didn't expect so many people to make my day! I simply wanted to claim a free cake to share with Jeremy Goh haha.

To W406: I really love the presents, thanks so much!!!! Thanks Enyun, Zoe, Adeline and Hexing for picking out such nice clothes (I don't have much fashion sense)!

I really thank God for all of you for celebrating my birthday, and for His goodness towards me. He gave me the chance to work on another game project, after the previous one ceased a couple of weeks back. Praise God! I thank God for such a generous, honest, helpful and genuine friend like Bryan Dismas Yeo! He introduced me to the job, and was willing the cut down on his salary for my sake. Like wow.

Also I thank God for the work He is doing within me. I will be a better person by the end of this year! :)

A wish I made was for God to continually revive my heart, the hearts of W406, WR, and CHC. May His will be done. Revival is here!

Thanks for an awesome 22nd birthday!

Anyway, the beautiful song currently on my playlist is a new remix of an old hymn by Owl City! There are very few songs in the world which lyrics express my thoughts in every single line. This song is one of them:

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
And make a wretch His treasure 

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory 

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers 

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished 

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection 

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Ciao!

Satisfied soul!

A healthy soul life leads to a healthy spiritual life.

Proven in my life.

After certain events in my life, I felt that I can't be successful game designer in the future.
Feeling discouraged and down, my spiritual life couldn't progress much.

But after hearing the word of God from Weiren, things changed for the better.
God came to give life and life more abundantly. (John 10:10)

God wants me to prosper and pursue my dreams! :)

Weiren also said that all men and women greatly used by God experience immense pain and hurt in various points of their lives.

This set me free, knowing that the pain I experienced is not just a failure, but it's ultimately to change me to a mature person, to increase my capacity, and to sympathize with other experiencing the same things.

After my soul life is satisfied, my spiritual life also improved. When I read God's word, I could understand it more clearly with revelations from God.

Thank God for His word!

September - New Season

Finally Out Of Sungei Gedong!
Feels like ORD! Actually, being there was pretty slack, and the food is not so bad. People are (generally) friendly. My only issue is the *&%$^ travel distance!

Long travel distance = wake up very early = less sleep = sianz!

Neways, it's Nee Soon Camp for me on the 1st of September, which is TMR! Well I ain't that excited really... today's my last off day (Z.Z)

---

Went to Hexing's house yesterday.
Had a great time worshipping + praying + fellowship! Plus lotsa singing after that!

The awkward part was starting praise & worship. Usually there'll be Weiren or someone to kick start it. It was rather spontaneous and informal (I ain't got my chordbook) but we got it started with a "Through you I can do anything..."

We didn't plan the songs or anything beforehand but we just wanted more of God. Thank God for His presence! All glory to Him!

---

Recently, I have been thinking
"Why am I anointed?"
There are times when I hardly feel the presence of God when ministering, or I feel like I didn't play very well. But people would come up to me in say "Israel, when you play the guitar, the presence of God was very strong!" I would answer with a surprised "Really?" (Which also shows that talent does not equal to anointing)

Looking back at all these years, I don't think I had this anointing when I first became a CG guitarist. So how did it come about?

One reason (there are others) I realized is because of the prayers of W406! Every week you would pray for the CG worship in your sync prayers! I sincerely appreciate every single prayer! Thanks guys! Wanna thank Weiren especially for always praying for the anointing upon me all these years!

Most of all, I thank God, for every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights. I don't exactly know how it happens and I know I can't do it on my own. It must be God.

---

September - New Season
Not sure what's in store, but things are gonna change.
I'm changing camp.
The News will be out.
I'll be exactly 1 year in army (and 1 year from ORD).
And I believe that my spiritual life + maturity will grow.

There might be persecutions, there might be victories.
There might be an exodus, there might be a revival.
There might be tears, there might be laughter.
But no matter what, my source of strength, my source of hope is Christ alone.

A Servant's Heart

This is the Chinese Version of Hati Hamba (仆人的心)



Love this song! It really expresses the heart of worship and servanthood.

Like me, she plays open chords haha!

Open chords = easier to play than "barre" chords, and sounds nicer. imba.

She plays also triplets, which I don't because I can't do it well haha. Oh well, gotta practice.

Anyway, I'm posted back to Sungei Gedong, and I have to go back tmr...

It's a very sian piece of news, but I believe all things work together for good to those who love God. I believe God is working in me to change me into a more discipline and confident person. His will be done!

1st Zone Meeting after Asia Conference! (Part 2)

Moar pictures of the Zone Meeting! Took- I mean stolen- I mean despicably retrieved them from Chui's Facebook :P

Awesome!

Happy Fellowship!

Next generation leaders - Mad people!

Weiren and Cindy.

Raymond. All smiles :)

Sweet Temptation

Birthday babies Xue Jun and Jasper!

"And they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart..."

nV(>_<) 

Jeremy! Special thanks to him for serving us the coke!

Weiren plays his harp!

Choir performance by Bahu Boys. Man were they hyper.

:D

Enjoying the show.

Desmond and Jasper!

干杯!

Thanks to the CGLs for the Pizza, Coke, Garlic Bread, Cake and Bahuuuuu! :D

1st Zone Meeting after Asia Conference!

We had an really exciting Zone Meeting last night! A wacky and hyper game + good worship + powerful prayer + funky fellowship = woot!

We also celebrated Jasper's and Xue Jun's birthdays!

Man, I know 4 people whose birthdays fall on the 15th June. Leroy's one of them :)

CGLs ordered pizza!

Took a photo of Eugene taking a photo of us.

Samuel and Tan Jin

Waiyin

Erm...

Weiren with cake.

Jasper, Eugene, Brandon

Pioneer Pizza Partakers - Jasper and Xue Jun.

I has eated teh cake ^^

The Bahu Boys (BHB in short),

eating the Bahu Pizza.

Someone named them the Bahu Boys after they kept calling "Bahuuu......" in earnest expectation of the pizza.

Jin playing with blu-tack

Samuel rockin' on.

Cool dude with Blu-tack shades

Combined Zone Meeting is going to be awesome! Every single time our Zone meets up, its always full of joy and fun, as well as having strong presence of God, ministry and powerful word! Woot can't wait!

A special shout out to Leroy: Happy 21st Birthday!

Holy Supper

Last night, I met Amos to pass him something, and we went for supper. Thank God for a great fellowship!

Amos is an army friend of mine, and he is a fervent Christian from another church. When you're in the army, it's comforting to have someone whom you can share about spiritual things, especially someone who is like-minded and mature. It seems that every time we have a private fellowship, we always talk about spiritual things.

So we talked about stuff that I normally wouldn't with many people around. Some of the stuff we shared about were civilian-army life, marriage, the kind of girl that attracts us, money, studies, our future, serving God, church, maturity, our weaknesses etc.

Thank God for a brother like him, I feel a lot more joyful and free (like a load of my chest) after supper with him. Even though he's not into the charismatic, and we don't agree on some doctrines, its completely okay, cause we both don't mind our differences. And although he's not into some of our church doctrines, he has a teachable and humble spirit, and does not mind me talking about it :)

Recently we (W406 and CHC) seem to be in a season of building relationships. May we continue to be a united family, that we may be ready when the crisis has fully arrived :D

P.S. I know, the title of the post is very flaky :P

Imago Dei

My, my, my... wow! Asia Conference was wonderful!

Due to much busyness and work, I was unable to update my Blog for a while. It carried on to Asia Conference, which was tiring! It was like.. report at 7am for usher ministry, serve until lunch break, do my work until evening, go back and serve for night session, reach home at 12am-1am, sleep for 3hrs, wake up at 5.30am, report at 6.40am for usher.... and it goes on.

Thank God that I made the prudent decision of serving only 3 days, and spending the last 2 days with my beloved W406! Longevity for the win! In either case, it was really fun serving God as an usher, together with Enyun, Ernest, Min Yee, Jing Yuan, Sunthari + group 11 and 12!

Thank God I was granted leave just a few days before Asia Conference.
Thank God for catered food! :D
Thank God for Tan Jin, who accompanied me to do my work on the first day, who helped me find a power socket (we went all the way to Foyer 1).
Thank God for Enyun, who gave morning calls. (Oh yah, I think I still owe her money for cab fare)
Thank God I could attend all sessions, except the "Cai Qin" one which we decided to skip to queue up earlier for Grand Finale ^^
Thank God for strength during the stressful and down moments.
Thank God for awesome preaching of the Word in every session!
Thank God for wisdom and anointing to serve as an Usher.
Thank God for turning things around, when things couldn't get worse.
Thank God for Pastor Kong's word about reaching the Youth and the spirit of love + unity after the preaching.
Thank God for getting into Hall 8 for the last 2 days, when I'm not serving.
Thank God I recovered my lost Bible and notebook.
Thank God for an awesome Asia Conference experience!

On the second day, I was posted to guard the back door of Hall 10 during the session with Dr. Bernard. I stood between the extreme cold of the air-conditioned auditorium and the scorching heat of the sun. Was a weird feeling, like a balance between Yin & Yang.

Guess who I met?

The C3 Band!

That's Joe Pringle on the right of me, and Ryan Smith besides him.

The lady singer joined in :)

Yay! Joe Pringle shook hands with me, and even asked my name haha. He was then complaining about walking to hall 8 under the sun. He said something like "But you guys are Singaporean! It's too hot for me!" lawls.

However I was getting agitated as Dr Bernard started preaching, and I was still guarding the door! I wanted to hear him preach! Nevertheless, I kept speaking to myself, to serve with a right attitude, as unto the Lord. It was hard to keep out those negative thoughts.

Finally when I was told to stand down from guarding the door, all the negativity sudden disappeared. :)

Thank God that I could get into Hall 8 for the last 2 days.
On the 4th day, my brothers and I arrived at 3.40pm while the rest of the CG met at 10am to queue. We may not be able to get into queue, much less to Hall 8. We tried to walk into the queue in Hall 10, by an Usher stopped us, and directed us to the front seats of Hall 10. However, we managed to get pass the Ushers, and walked all the way into the end of the queue.

I prayed with my bros for the service, and asked God that we can get into Hall 8, to experience and receive from Him in a more tangible way, and not so that we could get "better entertainment". I felt a sense of peace that we will get into Hall 8, without the need of cutting the queue.

So when Josiah said "Why the queue stopped moving? What if we can't get into Hall 8?",
I replied "We will get into Hall 8, don't worry."

In the end, not only did we managed to get in, but we could join W406!

On the last day, my bros, Chong Hui and I took the shuttle bus that my brother Isaac hired, and we reached Expo at around 8am. There was no Hall 10 for overflow, so we may not be able to attend the session at all. Thank God that Pastor Stephen let us in through the back door!

However the Ushers had a second line of defense - we needed to show our tag, and I believe they were looking out for the "Guest" tag. None of us had a "Guest" tag, we only had the normal ones. And I forgot to bring my tag. By God's grace, I pushed through with the crowd, past the frantic Ushers who were shouting "please show your tag!", and all of us made it to Hall 8! :D

Pastor Bernard's message in the Grand Finale was awesome! It really renewed my mind, about how I viewed myself. We were originally made in the image of God, and Christ restored us to that image when we received Him as our Saviour.

"Now if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Cor 5:17)

Our new man is really the Imago Dei - the Image of God. And the Image of God has the attributes of God - holy determination, undaunted confidence, creative, full of wisdom and capacity, etc.

That Word really inspired faith in me - I can be a relentlessly determined person, because I am created in God's image!

5 days of John Avanzini = much sowing of seeds.
非常期待 the harvest!

Praise the Lord!

跨时代 The Next Phase

Hey people. Sup. NDP 2010 Website is officially launched!

My pals and I were working on it the night before the launch, and we stayed until 2.15am...

Missed Zone Meeting because of that! :(

Captain Allan, Aaron his secretary, and Marc the boss of Design Prodigy were with us also. It was tiring but fun experience, but I'd rather go for ZM to worship God and hear Weiren preach.

Anyway, I was hungry so I bought supper...

Mc D's!

Me outside Design Prodigy.

Bryan wanted his Double Cheeseburger to be without pickles or ketchup, but I forgot about it. Felt a little bad about it. Oh well... was tired anyway.

It was nice of Captain Allan to drive all of us home :)

I slept for like 2 hours and woke up at 6am to get ready for the Official Launch Event.

It was held at City Hall building (nope, not the MRT). I would have reached there on time, but I couldn't find the place, and was wandering around town area for like 30mins. I checked the map before going, and I knew it was near Padang and the Supreme Court, but I couldn't find the words "City Hall" on any building. I asked 3 different people, and they didn't know what is City Hall building. I went as far as Fullerton Hotel. Nice hotel. lol.

I called Bryan and he checked the online maps. Lo and behold, it was the building beside the Supreme Court, behind Adelphi. I had passed it by, because I thought it was the Supreme Court.

Bryan and I helped to set up the laptops, install different browsers and stuff like that. He did most of the work cause I came late haha. Clarence Nai from CHC-NYP-DET was there too. He was part of the organizing team.

That day, I saw a different side of NS, much to my surprise. When it came to big events, they were people of excellence. The power cables/adapters of the laptop made taut, with the wires being duct-taped to the floor to ensure that no one would trip over it. They were given to details. Cool.

NDP 2010!

Using Century Gothic font, as designed by Torrance. Yea I've been working a lot on the website to know stuff like this.

Breakfast was catered by Old Chang Kee :D

Thus, the event commenced, and our Chief of Armour, Col. Benedict Lim, gave a good speech. (Not trying so suck up here; I really felt it was good)

Torrance later took the pulpit- I mean stage to explain on the NDP 2010 logo design.

Just for those of you that don't know (which means everyone I guess), while working on the website, we were either at Design Prodigy in Chinatown, or FARM in Waterloo Street.  We worked under Torrance concerning the look and feel of the website.

The crowd.

Torrance from FARM.

Torrance posing for the camera.

We ended at around 12noon, had catered lunch, and we were dismissed at 1pm :D
I went to church office to deliver Qiming's baptism form, and went shopping at Suntec!

Guess what I bought?

Pre-ordered the Special Edition of Jay Chou's New Album!

The album, 跨时代 or The Era, is Jay Chou's 10th album, marking a step into the next decade (as the chinese name of the album suggests). The released date is pushed back to the 18th. This is the first Jay Chou album that I have bought XD

Now that most of the work for NDP Website is done, I'm moving on to work on the Game Project under Robin. Thank God for seeing me through the release of the website, and praying that the game will be a resounding success!

I know this was like 2 weeks ago but...

I'm officially accepted into the 2-Year Degree Programme!

Praise the LORD!

成人礼 Adulthood II

Here's part 2 of the birthday post!

I wanna thank W406 for making my birthday a joyous one! During that period, I was under a lot of stress due to NS and work, but every SMS and well-wish brightened my day! Thanks guys!

(Special thanks to Jeremy Same Goh for sending the first SMS at midnight)

Min Yee and I.

Me and sistas.

MY and WY.

Me with Weiren :)

We went to NYNY! Thanks to Weiren for the dinner treat =)

Weiren's Watch.

Yea, I have a fetish for taking random photos of inanimate objects.

Yufen and Joanne.

Candid Shot.

Okay fail shot.

Lol the rest turned away :P

Woot! 2 shuai ge's

Fried Food. Woot.

A more mouth-watering close-up.

Cotton Candy.

Fluffy! I like this shot :D

Zi Pai.

Thanks W406 (esp En Yun and Wan Yi) for the shirt!

Initially I wasn't very excited about the shirt, seeing that I got a $250 CA tee :X

However, I totally love it after wearing it for a day!

It fits perfectly and it looks really smart :)

Next, I would like to appreciate my NYP-CHC friends for sacrificing their time to celebrate my birthday! We went to JustAcia at Dhoby Exchange XD

Mark and Kwok Leong.

I really appreciate Kwok Leong for coming; he's not from NYP, and we met only a few times, yet he came to celebrate my birthday o.O

KL, Oliver, Vincent, Evangeline, Moi.

Valerie, Carrisa.

Awesome People!

The customary shot of my food.

Rice + Fried Chicken + Salmon + Kimchi + Miso Soup + Ice Cream + Drink

lol they placed the candle and lit it in front of me.

Make a wish...

Anticipation.

Evangeline is dangerous haha.

Nice camera angle.

Big boss.

Godfather.

Yay Brothers!

love them so much!

Me with S.H.E.

Gay Pic #1

Gay Pic #2

Unwrapping...

Wow super nice watch!

Thanks Mark for helping me put it on.

Awesome Dude.

Celebrity advertising for watch =)

Kwok Leong :)

God has been so good! Here are the blessings I received:

- $250 Christian Audigier Shirt

- White T-shirt

- Slick Formal Shirt

- Suave Watch

and last but not least...

- A place at the 2-Year Degree Programme at DigiPen!

I also want to thank God that Ernest was shortlisted for an interview for his desired course - Medicine at NUS! Praise the Lord!

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked;
for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
(Gal 6:7)

I've been giving to many building funds apart from tithes and offerings. God has blessed me a little here and there, but that hasn't been any major financial blessings until now, and I believe that this is only the beginning. I just want to encourage everyone to continue sowing, even when you don't see the results right away. It may take years (like in my case) before the reaping overtakes the sowing.

Don't let anyone and anything deceive you - God will not allow His name to be tarnished! He will ensure that you'll be blessed after you have sown!

Thank you Father!