17:44.

I just got back from a pastors fellowship where about 14 pastors from churches around a KL district gathered.

A colleague and myself were there to "promote" the two ministries we are serving - To extend invites to the launch of FCCI, which is launching in Malaysia on Sept 14 and to tell the pastors about WorldTeach and hand out our catalogues. We had a small slot of time so both plugs were fairly short.

Still, I did feel some nerves at the thought of having two informal and quite impromptu mini-presentations when the audience are pastors.

The last time, when I presented some stuff at our WorldTeachers' Mtg, there were prob five pastors and two elders present among around 14 or 15 attendees and God took care of my nerves very nicely. Kind folks that these pastors and all were, they gave me kind words at the end of it all when we were mingling too.

Just now though, I reckon I did less well. I'm not kicking myself, but next time, I do short presentations - big or small - I need to mental note myself not to pass out stuff before I'm done talking.

Once I got my colleague to pass out the materials just now about a minute into my er, "talk / spew/ er, words", it was like watching dominos fall - How the heads just went down to read the materials from the left to the right.

Golly.

Note to self, note to self, note to self.

God made the nerves suddenly disappear but once domino effect kicked in, I kind of got kicked off my flow. Did the job, but no, it wasn't my best one.

I have a lonng way to go, man. I need all the trial runs I get before the next step.

Makes me thankful really, that I have had these chances to try. I want more :)

We were supposed to just go to the pastors fellowship, do short presentations and then go but about two hours before we were due there, we suddenly were going to have lunch with them too. Then during the meeting itself, 'cause the hosting pastors said that the other pastors can ask us questions "later during fellowship", we felt obliged to stay till the end.

But despite the slight am-I-imposing-here feeling I had, at the end of it, I was really glad we stayed. The worship was a great time-out, the prayer was on fire and hearing some of the pastors share and update about their work was simply a privilege.

Hearing about conversion among the M a l a y s, hearing update about the L i n a J o y case, hearing about two female pastors work among the sexually broken (as is their church and their specific call).

One testimony stuck to me.

A pastor shared how he was at the mechanic's and his M a l a y mechanic (let's call him A) asked him what he does. He said he works in a church and A asked if he works full-time and wanted his namecard. When the latter saw the "pastor" on his namecard, he looked around, leaned over and whispered that he is a convert!

Now, they are good friends who meet up regularly.

This is what hit me: A - who is apparently from a prominent M a l a y family here - attends church regularly and he is DISAPPOINTED.

Disappointed 'cause he gave up his faith in I s l a m, went through hellfire and brimstone objections for... this? The watered down, non excited faith churches demonstrates?

He's going to start a church, he said, and placed on a signboard outside: "Here, we preach 100% Christianity".

Does that not make you feel ashamed? It did me.

We are so comfortable in our churches we no longer see the fiery, life-giving and changing nature of the Gospel that saved our souls. We heard these phrases so often that we are jaded and lost. Lost in church, how sad is that. We are lost with our feet firmly planted at the pews, with languishing eyes and heart, stuck in the struggles of the mill....

Imagine how a M a l a y feels when he goes to our church and see our golly, "excitement". Imagine how he or she feels in our CGs, when we share about what often sounds like very defeated lives.

I feel rather chastised and yes, embarassed. 'cause I know we are ALL meant to live more empowered lives than we know now. And I type this in earnest belief, not up-down but sincerely.

The other week, Ray and I attended the night sessions for a conference at here. Nick Reese and Danny Gug from Adelaide were key speakers.

First night we went - Ps Nick preached right to my spirit.

"Stuck In A Moment" was his sermon's name. Here's the two things that make you get stuck in a moment.

First up is Past Disappointments. No surprises there.

But next up is Past Successes. And in that moment of divine clarity, I see my attachment to Melb clearly. Loving the land and people and life are real factors, yes but see - There I had a moment, I was perfectly in the right place at the right time and I was moving with God fluidly, serving the Body cheerfully, having sweet fellowship in the House of God... to me, that's success, not the high-flying journo or corporate world. That's good mentality but see, it's not good if I get stuck in that moment of success.

That's one reason, honest. And I've moved out in obedience and moved again from Sg to Msia in obedience but as I wait for my next level, it can get so mundane and unexciting that I look back to the land I left where I lived success.

Sounds familiar?

I refuse to do that any more. I've said so before and again, I declare my allegiance to the Almighty and my Spirit-empowered resolve to let it go.

And I know I'm not the only one who needs to do this so come on, you know who you are.

We are meant to live adventures. Every day is part of this adventure. But you know, even Neo or Indiana Jones had periods where they were just walking, spent sleeping, nothing particularly unusual or exciting... but it's part of the adventure.

Just don't give up on it.

And rem the testimony of our M a l a y brother - And live lives that shout His Name. Louder. Clearly. And ever more Larger.

09:29.

Poor Pluto.

This is so odd. We distinctly grew up learning there are nine planets in the solar system. And our children are going to grow up learning there are eight. 'cause ya knw, Pluto's an oddity drawf planet with a weird orbit.

Poor Pluto.

From NYT here:

Once Muslim, Now Christian and Caught in the Courts

By JANE PERLEZ KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 19 —

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 19 — From the scant personal details that can be pieced together about Lina Joy, she converted from Islam to Christianity eight years ago and since then has endured extraordinary hurdles in her desire to marry the man in her life.

Her name is a household word in this majority Muslim country. But she is now in hiding after death threats from Islamic extremists, who accuse her of being an apostate.

Five years ago she started proceedings in the civil courts to seek the right to marry her Christian fiancé and have children. Because she had renounced her Muslim faith, Ms. Joy, 42, argued, Malaysia’s Islamic Shariah courts, which control such matters as marriage, property and divorce, did not have jurisdiction over her.

In a series of decisions, the civil courts ruled against her. Then, last month, her lawyer, Benjamin Dawson, appeared before Malaysia’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to argue that Ms. Joy’s conversion be considered a right protected under the Constitution, not a religious matter for the Shariah courts.

“She’s trying to live her life with someone she loves,” Mr. Dawson said in an interview.

Threats against Ms. Joy had become so insistent, and the passions over her conversion so inflamed, he had concluded there was no room for her and her fiancé in Malaysia. The most likely solution, he said, was for her to emigrate.

For Malaysia, which considers itself a moderate and modern Muslim country with a tolerance for its multiple religions and ethnic groups of Malays, Indians and Chinese, the case has kicked up a firestorm that goes to the very heart of who is a Malay, and what is Malaysia.

Her case has heightened a searing battle that has included street protests and death threats between groups advocating a secular interpretation of the Constitution, and Islamic groups that contend the Shariah courts should have supremacy in many matters.

Some see the rulings against Ms. Joy as a sign of increasing Islamization, and of the pressures felt by the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi as it tries to respond to the opposition Islamic party, Parti Islam Semalaysia.

About 60 percent of Malaysia’s 26 million people are Muslim, 20 percent are Buddhist, nearly 10 percent are Christian and 6 percent Hindu.

Malaysia has powerful Islamic Affairs Departments in its 13 states and in the capital district around Kuala Lumpur. The departments, a kind of parallel bureaucracy to the state apparatus that were strengthened during the 22-year rule of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, run the Shariah courts.

“Malaysia is at a crossroads,” Mr. Dawson said. “Do we go down the Islamic road, or do we maintain the secular character of the federal constitution that has been eroding in the last 10 years?”

In rulings in her case, civil courts said Malays could not renounce Islam because the Constitution defined Malays to be Muslims.

They also ruled that a request to change her identity card from Muslim to Christian had to be decided by the Shariah courts. There she would be considered an apostate, and if she did not repent she surely would be sentenced to several years in an Islamic center for rehabilitation.

Mr. Dawson said Ms. Joy had been interested in Roman Catholicism since 1990 and was baptized in 1998 at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Kuala Lumpur. Because she considered herself a Christian, Ms. Joy did not believe the Shariah courts applied to her. In an affidavit to a lower civil court in 2000, she said she felt “more peace in my spirit and soul after having become a Christian.”

Because of the death threats, including some calls to hunt her down, Mr. Dawson said, he could not say where she was, and could not make her available for an interview, even by telephone.

Similarly, her fiancé, whom Mr. Dawson referred to as Johnson, a Christian of ethnic Indian background whom Ms. Joy met in 1990, had received death threats and was not prepared to be interviewed.

Last month, Prime Minister Badawi appeared to side with the Islamists when he ordered that forums organized around the country to discuss religious freedom must stop. The forums, run by a group called Article 11, named after the section of the Constitution that says Malaysians are free to choose their religion, were disrupted on several occasions by Islamic protesters.

The chief organizer of the Article 11 forums, a well-known human rights lawyer, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim, received a death threat this month that was widely circulated by e-mail.

With the heading “Wanted Dead,” the message featured a photograph of Mr. Malik and said: “This is the face of the traitorous lawyer to Islam who supports the Lina Joy apostasy case. Distribute to our friends so they can recognize this traitor. If you find him dead by the side of the road, do not help.”

Mr. Malik, 36, who presented a brief in support of Ms. Joy to the Appeals Court, said he was seeking police protection. “We must not confuse the crucial distinction between a country in which the majority are Muslims, and is thus an Islamic country, and a country in which the supreme law is the Shariah, an Islamic state,” Mr. Malik said.

Conversions of Muslims to Christianity are not common in Malaysia, though most converts do not seek official approval for marriage and therefore do not run into the obstacles Ms. Joy confronted. One 38-year-old convert, who said in an interview at a Roman Catholic parish that he would provide only his Christian names, Paul Michael, and not his surname, for fear of retribution, described how he led a double life.

“Church members know us as who we are, and the outside world knows us as we were,” he said. He was fearful, he said, that if his conversion became public the religious authorities would come after him, and he could be sentenced to a religious rehabilitation camp.

One such place, hidden in the forest at Ulu Yam Baru, 20 miles outside the capital, is ringed like a prison by barbed wire, with dormitories protected by a second ring of barbed wire. Outside a sign says, “House of Faith,” and inside the inmates spend much of their time studying Islam.

Paul Michael said he and other former Muslims moved from church to church for services to avoid detection. They call themselves “M.M.B.B.,” for Malay Muslim Background Believers. “It’s a group of Malays who are no longer Muslims,” he said.

16:09.

Creative gets US100mil for iPod patent deal.

10:12.

"I want to spend my days in Your presence Lord
bow before Your Throne
In the House of GOD is where I want to be
Is where I find my home"
- Home, United

I have been frequently pondering about home - Singapore, Melbourne, Malaysia. Not incessantly devoting thought space or time but 'cause the topic occupies heart space, it tends to flit upwards like hot air into the brain. Or maybe the ancients were right and it's the heart that dicates intellect while the brain dicates emotions.

I've become more appreciative of my homeland than I have been in my life, I reckon. No more arrogant snubbing of my homeland because in my teenage, angsty, conceited dystopia, I have to believe somewhere else is better, any where but here.

Older, wiser, having had arrogance rubbed away by God and living in two other countries, I don't undervalue the awesomeness of knowing I can walk home alone after midnight and still feel safe, or that the Sing dollar is strong enough to buy me value (cars and property don't fall under this category though) and that though the environment I grew up in contributed to my apolitical generalness, the education system I have been through has prepped and shaped my mind to work very well.

Then there's Melbourne who I still love. If God calls me back there one day, I would - with all the usual apprehension of any move - be happy but I did my pining and have put Melb on the back burner now.

It was a wonderful year, and it's a wonderful place. The food, climate and general lifestyle fit to a tee, me. But romanticising it as a promised land of milk and honey doesn't help any one. We were there as students and we were blessed enough to be good students too - Who enjoyed the essays and nocturnal lifestyle, who found the intellectual challenges enough to be simulating and not too much to be killing, who thus had time to meander and have fun, to laugh and shop without too many demands on our mind or the need to work to line our pockets and so to enjoy an accomodating new land. We could give our hearts to things (and people) freely in the extravagant youth that premeates our friends and it seems, even the air itself.

But you see, the strength of her magic was in that moment. Where all the factors worked out well for us. And if we forced it and stayed when we were not meant to be, we would have brought in the bitterness, jadedness and despicableness only we are capable of, as you would have found out by now.

I guess that brings us to Malaysia, where I am increasingly sure is where God has called me to for now. And as long as my time "now" is here, Now's un-quantified period just have to be dealt with with faith.

Sometimes, faith does not make the most sense. But always, underlying it, is a stronger logic that defys the world - The time-tested, eternal, Spirit-burned knowing in God's character and how He is greater than any thing the world or yourself can throw at you.

The other day, I was staring out of my balcony door, mind flitted to ideas of home again and He just quoted, quoted and said at the same time to me one phrase.

A phrase sung and words I've declared with joy and sorrow separately over the years, a phrase I've said with pride and found comfort in but now, in the living out of it, forgotten.

The Almightly reminded me, "This world is not your home".

And I was promptly humbled, with just a tiny little speck of *pout*. From loving the languish of romanticised misery, He has brought me over the years to see the enemy present in that. It's the same idea of master your money, I guess, 'cause though it is not bad at all, it can master you if you allow it.

The same juxtaposition and aid in at place in focus - It's good to know yourself but if you keep looking only at you, you are screwed. You need to be focused on the Almighty.

I'm learning and relearning at the same time that life is a lot about Ultimates.

Ultimately, what's important? Ultimately, who's your boss? Ultimately, what do you want? And does that something fit into the Ultimate's plan?

Ultimately, God will always lead me and watch my back as I follow Him and serve Him faithfully. Ultimately, among every thing I want and really want, what I really really want is to live a life that's rooted in Truth and fulfill my God-given purpose and calling in my time here.

Don't get caught up in stuff. Not that lovely lifestyle of Melb so much you yearn for it and miss God's point for your "now", don't get stuck in the lovely financial empowerment of being economically independent so much that you have to say no if God calls you out of it.

Somewhere inside, we are all pilgrims yearning for Home. But somewhere on the way there, we get stuck in Vanity Fair and Me O Bog and the other interesting offerings of our world. But don't cut off that little protesting voice inside that always tell you that all you know don't quite scratch that existential itch. Something inside hurts for home.

"Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is"
- Walk On, U2

16:47.

4.47. If you add up the first two numbers and plus it with the difference you would get from subtracting the third no from the first answer, you would get the no. of hours of sleep I was supposed to get.

Have been down with fever and cold (sore throat subsided, thank God) for the last two, three days and last night, I obediently went to bed at ahem, 10pm (well, I intended to get back to work today) and guess what, this is as insomiac as it gets - I slpt at prob 430. Tossed and turned and tossed and turned, I stopped myself from getting frustrated.

My mind was wayy too alert for and I spent too much time contemplating on randoms and many thoughts that are worth some thought.

Any way, I am back in the office today and though I'm still nursing a cold, I am better than I have been over the last three days.

Later on, it's CG. And I'm leading worship.

Who knows that having a cold and potentially having to blow your nose frequently when you are a worship leader who's playing guitar is not a good thing?

*hand up*

Said, I believe God will heal and keep me and use me. So it's all good.

Btw, it was a good weekend last weekend. Came back on Thurs with two friends and former colleagues and alternated between spending time with them and doing unusual stuff (as in, not weekly/ regular affairs) like the whole CG going for street ministry, helping out at a soup kitchen in a back alley in KL and going for the first church course I've done so for, Finding Your Fit.

All said, I reckon weekends are good time. And it was nice having company too.

Have a good weekend folks.

I do get a funny out of Agnes.
copyright/ amadeo

Agnes, Math-hater, is about to be sent to Math Camp.








And this is while she's in camp. Heh.

I really need reminders that all these are worth doing. And when I remember and look up to see Him instead of me, I know all these - and more - are worth doing because Jesus is alive and because He lives, I live. And because He loves me, I can love.

Do not fret. Do not fret. Do not fret. These words appear from the Bible in various scriptures I keep coming across. I'm learning, learning, learning, so much that my inability to comprehend clearly seems to crack my head open.

I'm getting stripped bare of things I need to let go of - Pride and career and finances and respectibilty and stuff, stuff that were never meant to be my shield or armour. I hold onto You.

"Your faithfulness never fail
Your faithfulness, You lead me with Your Hand
Unchanging love sets me free
Unchanging love, everyday, You're the same

And all I know is with your arms around me, Your Face is all that I see
Your love and grace picks me up and hold me, You alone are holy

For You alone are great in power
You have set my heart on fire
And I'll give my heart and soul to worship You alone
You alone are my strong tower
You have set my heart on fire
And I'll give my heart and soul to worship You alone.

And I. Will. Follow. After. You.
For. You. Are. My. Desire.
Oh Jesus. My. Heart. Belongs. To. You."

- Planet Shakers

21:03.

"Wait
for the LORD and keep his way.
He will exalt you to inherit the land;
when the wicked are cut off, you will see it."
- Pslam 37: 34.

17:57.

Ming Joe and Cheryl's proposal in the papers! :D

Read, read!

10:38.

Tony Bennett is releasing a duets album soon, purportedly next month.

I've not been buying albums for rather long... can't quite rem the last album I bought either. Oh, of course there are many desired ones. But prudence is wise to keep me from spending without ahem, prudence. And I'm thinking of The Beatles' song Prudence nw, gee.

Any how, the duets album - iWant too.

0955.

Last night, we were privileged to witness a friend propose to his girlfriend of 7 (8?) years. Yeah, M i n g Joe flew in from Adelaide to propose to C h e r y l. He booked the whole skating rink at this shopping complex called Sunway Pyramid and told us to be there by 1140 and to bring cameras. It was all very sweet. Just really nice to see people in love. And hey, this is the first time I ever witness a proposal so I think I was uncharacteristically gregariously cheery abt it. Hah. Any way, it's not about us. Here's the happy couple's pix. Congrats!


Awwww....
copyright/ amadeo


The dude actually arranged for a video crew to document everything. And what the vid crew missed, the dozen other amateur cameras captured.
copyright/ amadeo


OCF reunion? It was good to see the familiar faces again.
copyright/ amadeo