Nepalese Christmas Party

Hubby and I are involved in the Nepalese Ministry in church. It was started about 6 years ago by our friend Kelvin Yong who now heads the ministry. There are hundreds of thousands of Nepalese workers in Malaysia and they mostly work as security guards or factory workers.

Over the last 6 years, we have met many nice Nepalese friends, some of whom we have visited in Nepal after they returned to their country. Every year, we organise a Nepalese Christmas Party for them. We had a fabulous time and the Nepalese danced and sang their hearts out that night. Here are some pictures :)

Me, Umi and Julia

With our missionary friend, Heike

Nepalese food every year

The ministry leader, Kelvin

Christmas!

I'm feeling sad because Christmas is over already. Its my favourite time of the year. This month has been really hectic in church and I'm doing my best to enjoy December while it lasts.

I went for a Japanese buffet dinner with my family on Christmas Eve... that was nice. Woke up at about 6 something on Christmas morning to go to church. Of course, it was a working day for all church staff. We had 2 services, then off we went to Fui Ping's house for a Christmas lunch party.

Hubby and I had a Christmas party at our condo poolside with his cell group at night, and we had fun singing carols and just having a feast.

I started opening presents around midnight... what a long but wonderful day! Here are some pics :)

At the poolside

The delicious fruit cake that Stephanie baked
The pretty presents Fui Ping made for us

The presents (comprising lots of chocolate and candy) under the Christmas tree in church

The fun crew who served on Christmas Day

Busy December

It's been a busy month with the Christmas concert and video productions for the end of the year. Since I don't have much time to write, I will post some pictures I took recently.

Below: We keep ourselves occupied by taking photos when our subject needs to read up on his script during our video shoots.
Below: Spottie and Bully yesterday. I do miss them a lot and look forward to seeing them on my off days once a week. Here they are relaxing together :)

Bully is panting happily because dad just spent some time playing with him :)

Spottie enjoying mum's pretty garden :)

Taken minutes before the Christmas concert started. The picture below was taken in the Media Control Room... I have spent countless hours inside.
The crew for our Christmas Concert - 'God Came Near'. It was a simple yet fun production. One of the more stress-free productions we've done.

Have A Little Faith

I've just finished reading Mitch Albom's latest book, 'Have A Little Faith.' The book tells the true story of two persons, a Jewish rabbi and an African American pastor who used to be drug dealer.

Being a Jew himself, Mitch had known the rabbi since he was a young boy. However, Mitch was never really interested in matters of faith. One day, the rabbi asks Mitch whether he would be willing to write his eulogy. Mitch honours that request. Thus began a beautiful 8 year friendship between the two of them.

Mitch also tells the story of Pastor Henry and how his scepticism of this pastor turns to admiration as he hears stories of what this pastor had done for his church members - fed and clothed the homeless and even opened up his own home to them.

I liked how Mitch ties everything together with wonderful gems of true life stories and excerpts of the rabbi's sermons. The theme that resonated throughout the book was that there are times when we can't see a miracle happening, but it is happening. Sometimes we cry out in desperation, and God hears. Although we can't see Him, He's there. And we have to put our faith in Him.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

Christmas is here again!

I love Christmas! It's my first year celebrating Christmas in my new home so I've done some Christmas decorating and I'm enjoying every bit of it. As usual, most of my decorations are from Ikea :) I try not to overspend so I'm pretty choosy with what I buy. We don't live in a big place, just about 800+ sqft but I believe that a cosy home is what we make of it.

Elephant Conservation

Last weekend was hubby's cell group retreat. I went along and 11 of us (and a baby) headed to Selesa Hillhomes at Bukit Tinggi. My favourite endeavour whilst on the retreat was visiting the Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre in Pahang.

We arrived at about 1:45 pm, just in time to see the elephants having a good shower followed by meal time. We brought along fresh sugarcane that we collected at Mr Ooi's (hubby's colleague) plantation in Bentong.

I was pleased to see the elephants in healthy condition, a few of them looked pretty well-fed. I saw 1 baby elephant that had been rehabilitated after being rescued from poachers. He was missing a tail. Another elephant had lost part of his front leg but was still able to walk around slowly, limping. Although I felt sorry for these elephants, I'm glad the conservationists did a wonderful job in rehabilitating them.

It is heartwrenching to know that our precious wildlife animals are going extinct because humans are irresponsibly taking away their habitat without relocating these animals. Elephants are being killed for their body parts and simply because humans feel threatened by them. Elephants have been forced to raid plantations because they are starving from habitat loss.

Currently, there are only 40,000 wild elephants in Asia and 1,200 in Peninsula Malaysia. These animals face extinction unless we take more serious measures to safeguard them.

More details can be found at www.wildlife.gov.my

In Complete Honesty...

I have discovered many things about Christianity after being a Christian for 27 years and working in church for 5 years. Here's what I found... in complete honesty.

Christians are not above the rest. We're the same as everyone else. Not smarter, richer or more talented. Christians can be hypocrites too. Christians face temptations and fall into sin like everyone else. Christians hurt one another.

Sometimes we pretend that everything is nice and rosy but they are not. We go through difficulties, pains and all kinds of sufferings. We cry when people or circumstances break our hearts. People fail us and sometimes we want to run to a place where no one will judge us anymore.

So why am I still a Christian? The answer is Jesus. In the midst of all the problems I have faced, Jesus has been there for me. He sends people to encourage me, he changes circumstances miraculously for me. He has never failed me. He has loved me unconditionally. He picks me up when I fall. He has blessed me beyond measure.

The reason for anyone to become a Christian should not be on how beautiful the church building looks, or how eloquent the pastor speaks, or how good Christians treat us, or how important it makes us feel serving in the church..... because when one of them fails, everything crumbles. The reason for our faith should be Jesus. Only Jesus can forgive us of our sins.

Although Christians are to be perfect like Jesus, they cannot ever replace Jesus... no Christian is perfect. Christians are human too. But Jesus is God and He is perfect in every way.

Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38

More Animal Photos!

Found these beautiful pictures on the internet. Cute animal pictures always makes my heart smile :) Reminds me that God is incredibly creative and humourous. Hope you enjoy them too!

The harp seal pup. Unfortunately, thousands of them are killed by commercial fishing nets and hunters each year.

Human beings must learn to get along like these two.

Polar bears. We must work together in dealing with climate change, pollution, industrial activities and poaching to prevent these beautiful creatures from going extinct.

Smiling bull terriers. How sweet :) I think bull terriers are widely misunderstood. Many think they are vicious dogs, but having one at home now made me realise they can be really sweet if you love them lots.

Queen Ant

I recently discovered a queen ant living in my anthurium plant! The smaller ants are feeding from it. I don't know how long they've been there... but it must've been since I bought the plant from Ikea months ago. The ants have not seemed migrate to any other part of the house so I have not done anything to them.... yet.

Update: I did some research and discovered that this plant requires insects to climb the spadix and bring the pollen from male flowers to receptive female flowers to pollinate the plant. The authurium spadix also provides a rich food source for the ants. Plants which attract ants are known as myrmecophytes.

Wow..what an interesting discovery from my own garden!

A Black Kitten

The interesting things in life are the surprises that come our way. On the way to lunch last Sunday, Julia suddenly screamed while I was about to make a u-turn. She startled everyone in the car and it took us a few seconds to realise what was happening. Right in the middle of a busy road was a tiny black kitten... and cars were still zooming past! All of us screamed in unison. The kitten would be squashed in no time if we didn't do something. So I stopped, Oli and Julia quickly got out of the car and grabbed the kitten from the middle of the road.

We continued our journey to the restaurant, now with an extra passenger - a black kitten, meowing its heart out. We were all 'dog' people, and didn't know what to do with it. At first we thought it was injured, but after awhile we realised it had no bruises and could walk properly. We tried feeding it water and some meat at the coffee shop, but it didn't seem to know how to eat that way.

As it was a Sunday, all the vets were closed. The sun was already setting so I simply left the kitten at a safe place in church. I went home feeling a little guilty for just leaving the kitten there and prayed that it will survive the night. My friends assured me that cats have 9 lives anyway and strays should be pretty tough.

To my relief, the kitten was still around today, and it seemed to have already explored the area and found a nice cosy corner to sleep in. I bought pet milk and a bottle to feed it. With Tracey's expert advice and experience on cats, we finally got it to drink some milk.

I realised that God really does take care of animals, and we have to do our part too. We cannot turn a blind eye to a living being in need when we have everything it takes to help.

Oli has named it Dewie because its our first Dew Crew animal. Haha. Do contact me if you want to adopt it.

Animal Photographs

Want some professional photos of your pet? Here are some animal photographs from Olivia Oon, a very good friend of mine and a professional photographer too. Oli has an extensive portfolio when it comes to photo shoots - weddings, product shoots, portraiture, corporate events and lots more!

No, Oli didn't ask to be featured here (she probably doesn't like me advertising her... haha) but I wanted her to put her animals photographs on my blog. Animals make great photo and video subjects, they are just so natural, unpretentious and beautiful :)