World Cup Fever (11 June to 11 July 2010)

World Cup is here again...Every 4 years, it would give me panda eyes, other than the one held in South Korea & Japan in 2002.  South Africa is 6 hours ahead of us, and therefore the matches in Singapore time are 1930Hr, 2200Hr, and 0230Hr.  And after the Round 16 stage, the matches are mostly 2200Hr and 0230Hr.

World Cup 2010 is quite a joke for Singapore.  In 1998, our PM then said that it is Singapore dream for Singapore's football team to qualify for the World Cup in 2010.  Now that we are in 2010, not only that we did not qualify, we almost did not get to watch the World Cup!!  Then we will be one of the rare few countries in the world, along with a few 3rd world countries in the world that cannot watch World Cup..

Having said that, still thankful that we got to watch it.  And i have a Vuvuzela to support the teams, flew all the way from South Africa.  Now i need to practice it!

Coming matches:  Brazil vs Netherlands; Argentina vs Germany.
Hope to see a Brazil vs Argentina, a mouth watering final :-)

What is Love?

I read an interesting article on papers few days ago, written by Lee Wei Ling, the daughter of Singapore's Senior Mentor, Mr Lee Kwan Yew (LKY).  She shared with us the love story of her parents.

She said that "Love at first sight is romantic but may not hold a candle to love that lasts a lifetime & is for better or for worse".  For better or for worse, something that we hear commonly in wedding woes, but how many really live up to it?  Heard & read so many cases whereby the man or the woman abandon their spouse during crisis.  There was also an interesting research done in US last year.  Results show that men are more likely to leave spouse who has cancer.  Researcher found that the rate was nearly 21 percent when women were the patients compared with about 3 percent when men got the life-threatening diagnosis.  This could be contributed to many factors, such as men are naturally not good care taker by nature etc..

So when I read the article of LKY, immediately i respect this man.  Other than he is a great man that has built the nation, his love for his wife is so touching.  His daughter described the love as unconditional love.
One of the example that she wrote:
"After my mother's second stroke in 2008, she became bed-bound and could no longer accompany my

father on his travels overseas or to social functions here. Every night after returning home from work, my father now spends about two hours telling my mother about his day and reading aloud her favourite poems to her.
The poetry books are rather thick and heavy, so he uses a heavy-duty music stand to place the books. One night, he was so sleepy, he fell asleep while reading to my mother, slumped forward and hit his face against the music stand. Since the music stand was made of metal, he suffered abrasions on his face. He cursed himself for his carelessness but still carries on reading aloud to my mother every night."

What made it more valuable is the status of LKY.  Given his busy schedule, he still devote a lot of time to take care of his wife, especialy when he is the first born son of a Peranakan family, whereby men are treated like kings, and of higher status compare to women.

One of my friend said that this is the true mark of a man, to love his wife and win the respect of the children.
To me, what LKY portrayed is True Love.  Not something that you feel good at that moment, not something like big bang or something spectular, but unconditional giving & loving.  What is love to you?

Happy Birthday!

Today is the birthday of a dear friend, a dear mum, someone who has been very patient with me, love me, guide me and teach me all these years.  I have not been at my best behaviour, especially last year and this year, and thank God that she did not give me up.  Happy Birthday.  May God's blessings and grace be with you everyday of your life, let his love and goodness follow you always, and may He strengthen your faith each day as you walk with him.  Amen

Changes in church

I went for my networking meeting today, only to receive a shocking news, on the reorg of the church.  To cut long story, Senior Pastor is going to reorg the church such that there will be mixed cells (Now cells are homogenous), and under his immediate LN network (Now called team), it will have to be lead my married couples.  Because of that, there are some single pastors, or pastor whose spouse are not serving at the same level are being "demoted", and SP "promote" a few spouse of the Pastor, to be at the immediate LN team.

Because my pastor is one of those who is affected, I am asked to the meeting.  This really shocked me.  Suddenly a pastor who i respected and love a lot is no longer in leadership, only to be replaced by someone less competent.  Of course one can always argue that God can use anyone, and in the Bible, He did use people who are seen not as competent.  Understand, i totally understand.  But i just cannot accept the fact that some joker will be at the same leadership position, who was once filled by someone that I respect so much. 

This is bad.  I thought following Jesus should be the simplest thing.  One God, one Bible.  Why did it become so complicated?

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Sunday! 

Ever wonder why such a holy day which marks the resurrection of Jesus after his Crucifixion on Good Friday became a day where we have the Easter Eggs and the Bunny?  Where did the bunny come from?

To me, Good Friday & Easter Sunday are days to remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross, his grace and his blood that was shed for us.  Sometimes I think that we do not deserve it, and God should let us die instead of sending His son to save us.  John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"

We had an event to conduct this Good Friday, is called Thank God is Friday (TGIF).  Each cell have to have at least 2 TGIF events.  We are to invite our prebelievers friends, to watch a DVD named "The Best Bet" which is a testimony of a compulsive gambler, and to have simple sharing and food, it will be about 2 hours, and in a house setting.  My cell had 7 members including the cell leader.  One of them is new, one of them is always missing in action, so in reality, we had 5.  And I was really pissed when one of them, supposedly the co cell leader, did not participate the event, and her reason is that she is going for a dive trip!
She claimed that in the dive trip, she can reach out to 9 pre believers, so she went for the trip.

To me, it is plain excuse and crap and simply not respecting the church's direction.  It is just another excuse to have fun, since she is new to diving, and logically diving will be a more interesting choice than to skip the trip and to stay behind to do the TGIF.  The part which I was totally perplexed is she seems totally righteous about it which made me more bewildered.

Anyway, I had the event, not very successful since my cell member who was supposed to do did not invite anyone.  Nonetheless, I am happy that I did my part, and my friends saw the DVD and heard the testimony.  A seed planted, hope to harvest it one day.

Sad news - Friend's mum deceased

Received a sad news this afternoon, that my friend's mum has passed away this morning, after battling with cancer for about 6 months.  I remembered that i was very shocked when i received the news on 15 Aug 2009 that her mum has been diagnosed with cancer, terminal stage.  Her mum has been always healthy, and there has been no signs of cancer. 
I remembered her mum as someone very bubbly and zesty.  When my friend's sister celebrated her birthday in Lunar, her mum was also very sporting to join in the celebration.  That was the last i saw her.
Even when she was been diagnosed with cancer, she was not angry, neither did she ask why God let her have cancer.   She said that if it is God's will that she pass on this way, she will accept it. 
I pray that she is happy in Heaven.

Indispensable & work of excellence?

I had a very interesting discussion with a friend today, let's called her A.  Some background of the story.  A is your typical employee that most boss will like.  She will not draw boundary, as long as she can do and the boss asked her to do, she will do.  For eg.  If A is a retail assistant, she can be helping at the loading bay, or clearing rubbish, or helping out at the display, or checking stock, anything, as long as she can do it!  So typically A works late night, because she will be doing everybody's job.

And the discussion came about because A was sick, quite seriously sick, running a high fever too.  But she still insisted to go to work, because she thought that the office will fail to function if she is absent. 

Part of the conversation goes like this
Me:  "You are sick.  Why are you still at work?"
A:  "Because the programmers are doing a system upgrade"
Me:  "Oh, i didn't know that you are a programmer!"
A:  "No, i am not"
Me:  "Err..then what are you doing in office"
A:  "To make sure that the programmers do their job, so that the system will work on Sunday"
Me:  "Do you know IT?  Have IT background?"
A:  "No"
Me:  "Then you should wait til the UAT"
A:  "Yes, i will do the UAT, but now i need to be here to make sure there will be UAT"
Me:  "So you think you are indispensable"
A:  "I need to ensure work of excellence"
Me:  "Why don't you just ensure your area?"
A:  "Then how to have work of excellence?"


???!?!?!
I was totally bewildered.  Never know that someone can have so wap idea of indispensable & work of excellence.  So if the CEO need to ensure work of excellence, he will be monitoring all issues, from minor to major ones.  How to cope as a CEO??
Anyway our "debate" goes on, but i will not go into details.  Just thought that it is a very strange thought to think that one is so important and indispensable...The earth will not stop turning because of one person, isn't it?  A person will be missed, but definitely not indispensable...