The Beach is Ours

A day when only the moments and the sun matters

Had a great time with mum and dad cruising around empty lands, snapping photos and making wild explorations. Love you guys!

To the Children of God

Differences, a word that is so beautiful, yet very often misused.

We are all made different, no two person on Earth is completely identical. This gives us the beauty of uniqueness, and individuality which offers us a variation to appreciate. I used to think that saying everyone is special only makes everyone normal but no, each person is actually very special, unique in their own way, because everyone is different.

But like the thousand times i blogged about differences, despite differences, we can't be completely different as well. You can bring a native from Sarawak and someone from the White house and despite their difference in race, social standing, background and religion, the truth is they are both creations of God, and they both belong to Him. Even if the former finds satisfaction in catching a boat-full of fishes and the latter is to be the President of the country, they both will find true satisfaction and the best things in life when they know God, which is of no difference through out the whole universe.

I really felt led to urge the Christians in my school or all around the country to look beyond our differences, to stop drawing lines just because we're different, to not submit to one another just because of our denominations. Truth is, we are forever different, we are made that way, but we do know our God is the same Almighty One, Our God has the same heart for each and everyone of us whether you're a Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, Prespretarian, or "no denomination" as how i would usually say. Our God looks beyond our differences and He wants to reign in our life, marketplace and wherever we are despite how different we are.

I believe all of us have experience how great and awesome Jesus is! However, above enjoying Him and having a great God to ourselves, we know there is more than that. We know there is more than keeping our God as our personal provider that "whatever we ask and believe, we shall receive," we know that He is not just our personal Healer that died so that we may pray for ourselves or just our family and friends. We know that God's heart is for His people and this people are all around us walking by our lives everyday not knowing of this great God that loves them as much.

I understand that our comfort zone is truly comfortable if not it would not have been called that way but these few months i just know that there is something happening in our college, our area and this country. The whole spiritual atmosphere is changing and it is literally tangible! The great news is i believe Revival is gonna hit this land real hard and real soon! So i do encourage everyone us to take that step of faith out of our comfort zone because out there, there is where the true fun begins :D !

People called me "crazy", or "over" and at some point of a time i do feel discouraged, but the truth is, who do heck cares! We know what and how it feels like to walk in His will and its way beyond persecution. I have been constantly praying with a few brothers and sisters outside the hostel for more of His presence to filled our land and each time we do we know we're drawing closer to God and He is answering our prayers for sure.

I don't care if people don't read my blog no more cause i'm too Christian, i don't care if people think i'm showing off, what i do care is that if you're a Christian and you're reading this, i really hope you will have the fire for God to reign in our land, to pray and cry out to Him to shower down revival upon this place, that "all knee shall bow and all tongues shall confess this Jesus Christ is Lord!"

I may not have the best words here to share with you about what God can do in your life but let us just "boldly come to His throne of Grace" and let Him transform us into Christ-minded Christians, to ask for a compassion for the lost and a hunger for Him to show up in our campus, to pray like never before because without prayer nothing can happen but with prayers all things are possible!

Brothers and Sisters,

Let us invest our time and strength in seeking His kingdom and not spend it to save our lives because "those that love their life will lose it." We have a purpose on Earth, and to really think about it, what is our purpose on Earth? If we know God to go to Heaven we might as well die now, if we know God to ask for blessings then why can't any of those be brought to our everlasting home, and if we know God to be called Christians and go to church, would that be even close to purposeful.

Our purpose on is to be the light and salt to this world, to not go to Heaven empty handed seeing our dear ones not coming with us. We might all already have it planted in our head but how much is this purpose really burning in our hearts and our actions?

I'm really sorry if this post sounds cocky or whatsoever but you have my word that that's not my intention and i really do HOPE that we would all live out our purpose and to pray till Revival fall on this place. Try googling or check on wikipedia about revival, its just amazing and i can't wait for it to happen.

So if you're heart felt led to pray for revival, get a few friends and start seeking Him and praying for your area, 10 minutes a day for a start. (I was truly amazed when i found out that my form 5 brother and a few friends started a prayer group in their high school and pray from 6.4 5am till 7am every morning!) or if you're from TAR College you can join me and a few others which are praying outside the hostel gate where the buses are parked at 11pm on most nights. We're not promising great prayers with powerful preaching but all we know is, God is always there :)

God bless all of you!

Let the flames begin!!!

916

The sixteenth of September. I never really gave much thought to this date when i first came across it on my sejarah book, which has a picture of the "Jalur Gemilang" at the bottom right corner of that page. Few pages back was the independence day of Malaysia with the well-known "Merdeka" picture of black and white with Mr.Rahman lifting his hands up high that marks the significant date of August 31st. The date 16th of September was not mentioned much, just a light brush across.

Growing up in this country, one would never be foreign to the criticism and complains of the country. If it was the first thing that i learn about Malaysia it would be that its people did not like the country. Doubts and grapevines of politicians, stories of corruption from the highest to the lowest of society, the labeling as a developing country, the constant comparison with Singapore or any other countries, the list goes on and on.


But to pull myself out of the chaos of mouth battling and grandpa whining about the country, it is actually a horrible joke to see the citizens and locals of a country knowing nothing but criticism for their own country. Japanese fought till death for their nation's pride, American's are born to live up their national flags, people in Indonesia call themselves Indonesians, and even though having the size of just an island, Singaporeans love their country. And yet we Malaysians are a funny kind, who admire every part of the world except the land we're sitting on right this moment :)


I might not be the extremist which literally curses my homeland, but i wasn't a lover of my country as well. With a dream of going overseas all the time, i never bother to find out who's my local MP or what budget 1990 to 2009 says. I didn't know the legal age for voting cause i most probably won't be voting and i literally ignored the names of all our Agong's which can only be found in the uniqueness of Malaysia's ruling. ( I did memorize it for SPM essays though, gosh that's pathetic)


But i repent.


While in KL, i've came to know groups of people that gathers and pray for Malaysia once a week. My first reaction in mind was, nothing. I had no respond to what they were doing and have no conviction to do the same. Malaysia seems to be not even at the bottom most of my prayer list.

However, as time grows, i realize Malaysia is my country. I'm born here, not by accident. That statement does not just mean i have to live here because i'm born here. I am a Malaysian, and Malaysia is my country! I guess i need to repeat that a few times to truly grasp what it means. My generation may not have went through the war against independence so we never knew how to appreciate the country's independence. But of everything the country has gave me the least i can give back in return is to love this country.

Malaysia is our land, we might not have to fight in wars to protect the country's identity, but i think we should definitely uphold it with pride and gratitude. To be proud of our country isn't to deny its weaknesses and live with it, but i believe we can accept them and be a part of improving it instead of complaining as if we're not Malaysians. Talking bad about the very place we are born into is just bringing shame to ourselves.

Yes there is a lot of holes in this country that are yet to be filled, there is corruption in everyday life, there is poverty and unfortunates in areas all around the country, there is racial sensitivity that till now still remain a dilemma. I too wish they could be solved. But instead of creating a catastrophic bomb out of all the holes we can start being a part of solving it. To be deeply unhappy with our status quo and yet doing nothing about it , isn't that foolishness? ignorance?

Our young generation needs to snap out of the continuous adoration of United States or Korea or Taiwan and start living like you're actually in Malaysia. (we are actually living in Malaysia!) To stop criticizing and have a low-class mindset of Malaysian brands or artist or ministers, (you see we never discriminate Malaysian food, that's a good start :) To stop being ignorant and ungrateful for what this country has made us into. Think about it, we are unique! We speak at least three languages and some could even write in all, we never had a serious natural disaster and we have been heavily subsidized in petrol all this while. Our education is free and our poverty rate is going down year by year. We can have cross race marriage that could make babies of funny "mix race" like Ci-ban,Ci-dayuh, Melayu-Cina, Baba Nyonya and the newly booming race of Bananas.

A few months back, a few hostel mates and I met up and started a prayer group to pray for Malaysia. We were all blunt and confuse at first because the love for our country was so dried up that a simple act of praying for the country felt so distance and unbelievable. But as we went through prayers and prayers, God gave us a heart for our country. To love and not discriminate. Praying may have very different definitions to different people. The general meaning would be to seek God for help and for Him to intervene. But to be able to just start the simplest act of faith of praying for the country and to be able to put Malaysia in our heart, a revivalic change for this land would have begun. The heart to accept and embrace the country would have been sown into our hearts when we put Malaysia into our request to a Higher Authority.

Friends, Malaysia was formed in 16th of September 1963 where Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah joined Malaya to form MalaySIA. Without this date, we would not be called Malaysians but Malayans, which is slightly less cool. So give thanks! And let us embrace this country and be a part of changing the country.

"If my people who are called by my Name would humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways and seek my face, then i will hear from heaven, and forgive their sins and heal their land"- 2 Chronicles 7:14

I am proud do be a MalaySIAN, are you? :)

*outside my house, in Malaysia :)

Raining in Hostel

Thinking Right

Its exam season and as I was helping out some juniors with their subjects, i realized that most of them were aiming for a pass because they know their capabilities with academics. I didn't give much thought to it as they are thousands of students in my college and there ought to be people that are better off with academics and the not so well-offs. But as i ponder on it, i began to think that it is not always necessarily true, to aim for what we think we can and not think above that.

I remember someone told me a story about grasshoppers. Well obviously the best think they do beside being green is that they hop. If someone were to catch a grasshopper, place it in a box, and place a cover over it, the grasshopper would start hopping in means of freeing itself. But as it hops, it hits the cover, and it continues to hop and hit, hop and hit. After some time, when that someone frees the grasshopper, it will start hopping at a height lower than when it was in the box with the cover because it thinks it will hit the cover again. Which is way below what its full potential could ever be, but sadly, it doesn't know.

Like the words in the photo i took in an art exhibition, the artist knows very well of her ability and capabilities. She knows there's things she can imagine and draw; there's also things she can imagine but cannot draw;

"but could I draw things I cannot imagine, that interest me greatly" :)

Don't put a cap over yourself, if you dare to think above what you can or cannot, who knows what could happen?

:) Cheers!

Look At The Birds

"...they do not sow or reap or store away barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feed them

Are you not much more valuable than they?" :)

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

Who of you, by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

Mathew 6:25-27

"我是一只小小小小鸟", it's a nice song, but not really meaningful at all! Its exam season again, and i shall constantly remind myself how different i am compare to a bird :)

and btw, Happy Birthday Roselind! :)

pigeons beside a sushi shop by the road :)

Free Fallin

If it wasn't for the urgency of things,

If there wasn't that heavy demand to rush through everything with you,

I would take things slow, as if time doesn't matter,

and get to know every bit of you, you're past present and plans of tomorrow,

just to let time pass us by, and indulge in our intimacy

*&#@!$%!!!

Dare to Believe Above The Imaginable

The call to fervent prayer, the call to power evangelism, the call of planting churches, the call not just to go to church but BE the church, the call to love, the call to creativity, the call to purity, the call to excellence, the call to be willing to lay down our lives for the will of God to invade Earth.

ANSWER IT!!!

I was slapped in the face again through the realization that we TRULY CANNOT perceive or understand things with our own understanding because the things we understand are limited only to things we've learned or experienced. There are great things out there that we've yet to understand but that doesn't mean its not true nor should it shun us from experiencing it!


Am truly inspired by Jaeson Ma of his willingness to lay down his life and pray till God shows up and start doing great signs and wonders! Thank you for opening up my eyes to many things that I've limited it through my understanding and thoughts. Being in an environment where revival is not present does not mean that it should not be a status quo that we look forward to! Believe in greater things, greater than you can even imagine!

Your kingdom come, Your will be done!

Overdue Post

Was cleaning my camera this morning for the weekend's trip when i realize that a lot of my photos are kept in nicely in the small yellow folders of my computer storage drive without acknowledging them to nearly anyone. I guess it caught my mind that it would probably be a waste of time to snap photos and just keep them till Kingdom come. So here's a tiny fraction of my hundred Gigabyte of photos of Melbourne :)

Melbourne has a vibrant, up beat and multi-cultural city which is strategically located in the middle of Victoria state. The brilliant architecture is one of the many aspects that really got me excited besides the very efficient transportation, colorful people all along the streets, performers and rallies, the wide choices of food, as well as the bustling people that always held a smile on their face :)

That is the Eureka tower, the tallest building in Melbourne accessible to the public for breath taking views of the city. and guess what, i did not spend RM36 to go up there :D

i took this photo standing in front of

Federation Square! with art galleries, short film screenings, exhibitions, festivals and cafes. Told you the architecture over there kills.

and opposite Federation Square is

Flinder's Station. A main train station hub in the city. Bet you love the looks of that building :)

Going around Melbourne wasn't very confusing, not only because the whole city is a rectangle box with intersections in it, but many thanks to the company i had which brought me along familiarizing the streets and good restaurants :p I hearts Japanese food!

One of the many includes:

Christopher Bong

The only Bong of its year in the whole of Victoria State.

and

Ling Yien Yien

who was once writing on this blog as well, long long time ago

Both of them are friends from Kuching which i sort of grew up with. I knew Chris since i was 7, and Yien, 13? Both are lucky enough to be studying in Melbourne University, which was where i once wanted to study architecture so badly. But all is good, being there as a random visitor thinking of the "what if's" and "what could've been", i'm happy and contented to say that i am glad i stayed in Malaysia, which made me who i am right now :)

Melbourne University

they're sort-of-canteen

what cha looking at brother

yeap, that's in their university

they're everywhere

what a way to promote school events! Bet is more environmental then giving out flyers or printing banners, you think so? :p

ah, melbourne :)

Am heading to Ipoh with mum this weekend,

pray for a GOOD time and that God will show up non-stop through the days.

Oh, and pray that i will not keep the photos of this weekend to myself :)

Take care!

Cause its You and Me

You and me, we're actually very much in common. We are all given the natural talent of appreciating the beauty of sceneries outside our window, we have the ability to enjoy breathing in that first lung-full of air every morning when we wake up from our dreams, we all have sophisticated taste buds that has the capability of lighting up the whole room whenever we have a big mouthful of the food we love, how marvelous it is that when certain things interacted with us, could create such wonderful magic.

College has been really good to me. The cafeteria at the pool side is serving well-fried hash browns and scrambled egg with coffee. I still find photography and singing irresistible which both gives me the tingling's despite their subjectivity . Studies are piling up but I've decided to get work started so that last minute late nights would not be as dreadful. Even though my pocket is rather empty, i was surprise to be be able to visit the cinema twice last month despite vowing to myself not to at the beginning of the month. And i found love for a new sport which gets you dirty and sweaty but still, very happy :)

We do share a lot of things in common. We like to relate with people, people that we are able to relate with especially. We enjoy good company, which makes you forget about time and the fact that class is 8am the next morning. We like to receive personal text messages that reminds you of people that love and care about you. Sometimes, we take interest and get excited as well over things that make people around us jump on their feet. How beautiful it is to love our family which we're born into and sealed with the knot of blood and love. Its an amazing thing that we humans can have so much to say and feel about the sparkles, fire-works, shooting stars and butterflies that we have for each other although all of that, are just a small fraction of how we can describe the chemistry we have for human beings.

To love or not to love. I am glad i grew out of it and understand why i should love others as much as i do for myself. What a great feeling it is to see great things in every person and to love them without expecting benefits, any hourly basis consulting fee or even appreciation. Maybe i should appreciate them even more for teaching me patience and character. Relating with people is such a great adventure. It is not limited to how you can describe about steam burgers or football playing, it gives you the tingling's way more than what the material things can. I'm glad i take joy in meeting people, which gushes unlimited vibrant emotions which are as indescribable as how i felt trying to avoid a chocolate-selling-fund-raising-friend in the canteen but ended up finding it a nice gift indeed. Ain't that indescribable? haha

The greatest thing in common about you and me is, though many times kept unsaid, we have deep hunger for many things we can't see. Assurance, peace, satisfaction, sense of belonging and acceptance to name a few. In fact these are all the really matters at the end of the pursuit of all there is to pursue. We crave for them and seek to find it in different places with different ways. We want to know that we are appreciated, honored, blameless and loved. Yes, we all want to be love disregard of how independent, strong and tough we can be, we want to have someone exclusive to love and be love by, we want to be full and not empty. But as much as we try to rule things out optimistically, why is there always that something missing? Like how buying insurance does not really insure your heart with true assurance.


After stepping into the 3rd year of college, days have been drastically different as the past two years were literally packed with different societies and juggling different positions in each of them. Yea it helped me in lots of ways be it personality developing, CV building and network widening. But i've decided to stopped all of them and be only an active member for a local church. I won't say church is not packed, but it just seem to have a higher significance. Why, or how you may ask? Well because apart from the first two wonderful encounter we can have with the materials and the marvelous people around us, there is actually another greater phase of experience. An experience that not only satisfies our body like how hash browns and pop corns at the cinema does, or like how interacting with people and lovers saturates our soul, this phase has the highest nature of satisfying ALL that was said about the needs and wants of us. Assurance, peace, love, faith, they grow and mature as we deepen our understanding in this amazing person that made all these accessible. Someone that has a radical love and the ability to make miracles in every difficult situation. And once a person knows how much he or she is loved and treasured, everything's different. To look back at the years like pages of a diary, the true satisfaction, joy and life about college is to come to know, understand and grow in knowing Jesus who was God and yet came to Earth and died for us so that as a result, anyone that would respond and just acknowledge of His priceless love in return will have no needs unfulfilled!


You and me, we're actually very much in common, we need the excitement and the variety of ice cream flavor to choose from (can you imagine Baskin Robbins selling just one flavor?) We need different people in our lives at different times to make life interesting. And yet we also need God in our lives because it is only through Him that we may enjoy and reap the "unseens" and find lasting satisfaction.However of all three needs and experiences we have in life, the latter is actually the greatest. Because we can have the best food and entertainment and have no joy; we can have the best lover and have no peace and assurance; but if we put God first above all these, life can be truly fulfilling and every second (including this very one as you read this) is worth enjoying :)