Happy Good Friday

I feel confuse and lost. It is Good Friday, the day when Jesus was crucified at the Cross. His sacrifice allowed us to be redeemed from sin that we may be forgiven and have eternal life. God took our place on the cross and beared our transgression. As I am reminded of this event, I feel so guilty thinking about the sins that I commited both in the past and present. I feel so unworthy to be called a son of God, a royal priesthood. There are many things that I can think of that does not qualify me to be called a Christian, or a follower of Christ. My life seems like in a mess. I can hardly focus on becoming the man that God has intended me to be. Each time I try to be, I fail. I succumbed to temptations because my spirit is weak. I try as much to seek Him daily yet many times I compromise. The foundation in which I stand remains weak. It would soon give way. The notion of giving up passes through my mine. What is the use of trying when you know that you would succumbed and fall? It seems my mind is lopsided. At one end, I believe that God is giving me a second chance every time I fall. A second chance that seems to be infinity. I fall and He live me up. The process repeats itself. I wonder whether should I stay on the course or give up on the promises that God has blessed me with. A faint whisper seems to come from the other end. It calls to me to just forget about God's promises because I would never be able to obtain it. It seems that I am not worthy to receive this blessing. I am confuse. Who should I listen to?

Distractions. I believe it is. How do I differiate what this distraction are? I am reminded of the message that Doreen brought to us in the previous CF. We need cut down on the things that we do and use the time to spend time with Him. Am I not spending enough time with Him? I believe so. Is it affecting my faith and how I deal with decisions in life? I guess so since I am struggling with myself most of the time. It seems a hyprocrasy at times when people looked up to you at times for the things you do yet do not have a hint about who you really are and what you are going through. At times, I project myself as a holy Christian. I attend church regularly every week and participate passionately in things pertaining to CF. At times, I feel joy serving and doing all things. Sometimes, I just feel empty because of the struggles I face within myself. How do I remain consistent in my faith so that I do not loose focus on the Cross? I know I can't. I go through phases in life when at times I am at my high while at times I fall into the low zone. It seems like a sinusoidal wave. I have heard many people say that it is all part of life. Is going through the high and low in life part of life or is it just an excuse that we give ourselves in order to escape reality? Many times I get so fed up with my life that I questioned my reliability. I want to always be on a high consistently but it seems unattainable. I can only asked Him to teach and guide me. There is so much fear in me. Fear of myself falling again. The fear of God giving up and remaining silence just like in the scriptures. Fear of loosing the blessings and the blessings turning into curses instead. I fear of loosing His favour. I am reminded constantly of my experience with loss and I do not want to experience it again.

As I ponder on my life and reflect upon this week where we would be commemorating the death and ressurection of Christ, I asked God for only one thing. I asked that He would help me sacrifice my life to Him so that I may rise above the circumstances in life and be able to remain at a place where I would be able to experience love, joy and peace all the days of my life. I need to get back on my feet and stand before God so that He would guide me through each and everyday of my life. Its no point believing in Jesus or say that I am a Christian if I do not even reflect Christ in my life both in my public and private life. I need to be serious with this life that He has given and focus my attention on Jesus. I am weak but He is strong. Oh God, where would I be if not because of You. I could sing of Your love forever. Happy Good Friday. A good and happy day because Christ died that we may have life and life abundantly.

Phew!

It has been almost ten days since I last posted anything here. Alot of things had gone by, alot I had wanted to pen down. However, I could not find an available time to sit and write down my thoughts and experiences. It has been a busy few weeks as I was up and busy trying to get my FYP to work and working my way in writing a thesis for it. Writing the report was not the difficult part but editing it was. I took such a long time setting up the page with the specific measurement, justifying the report, aligning the tables and figures, and correcting the tenses in order to omit any usage of "I", "you", or "we". The worse part of it was doing the contents as I needed to go through the report and check the pages for the written chapters and also the list of figures and tables I had included with it. Time was passing so fast without me realising that it was almost time to hand up my report.

I thank God for bringing me through this whole ordeal as without His intervention, I do not think I was able to hand it up in time. I must admit to a certain extent that it was due to last minute work. However, I thank God for His grace. It was half an hour before submission time. I was still in the process of getting my thesis printed. Fortunately, I had brought down the laser printer from home to help me out with it. As my eyes were darting to and fro from the clock, I realise thereafter that time was running out and I had barely finish printing. I could say "Jesus Help me, Jesus Help me!" throughout the whole time as I knew I really could not hand up in time at 5pm. This was because I needed to travel from Shah Alam to Cyberjaya which would take around 20 minutes, and to find a shop to bind the two copies of report. I picked up the phone and called Terry.

"Hey dude, you in campus?" I asked.

"Yeh. In Electronics lab. Just handed in the thesis." he said.

"Eh, what time the lab close ah. I don't think I can make it in time. I can only be there around 5.20pm." I answered.

"The guy said he can wait for 15 minutes." he replied.

"Do you think you can ask him to hold the lab a little longer?" I asked in a haste.

"You better come here as soon as possible." he said.

The time was 4.45pm.

In a haste, I grab a shirt in the cupboard and rush out the house in my shorts and the two report in hand. I drove all the way to Cyberjaya in a short span of 15 minutes, exceeding at times the speed limit of 90km/h on the freeway. There was also fear in me that I may be caught for over speeding especially near the second toll gate from my place where police would usually turn up with their speed gun. As I reached into Cyberjaya, I quickly made my way to the art shop at Street Mall for binding. Looking at the time ever so often, the guy at the shop seems to be oblivious to my urgency and took his own sweet time to bind my report. The pressure at that time was intense but I kept my cool. However, I was fortunate enough to get a discount from him and paid RM9 instead of the early quotation of RM10. The time was 5.15pm.

I rushed into MMU and quickly found an empty space to park my car. Then, I began to race to the FOE building with the report in hand and was fortunate to find a lift there waitiing. Inside of it, I saw two of my batch mates who seem to be in the same situation with me. We quickly hurried out the door and found the lab where we needed to hand in out thesis. Of all the three labs which was there, one was still open. It was the lab that I was assigned to hand in my thesis. The time was 5.20pm. Inside, I saw a group of people sitting at the lab.

"You're number three." said one of the guys whom I recognised as Jian. " Don't worry, we are still waiting for one more to come." It seems I was not the last.

"Wah, not bad ah! You still able to make it." said Susan.

I took a deep breath of relieve. My pace began to slow down. I took my time to reach the table at the back of the lab, place my report a pile of other reports and sign my name in. I turn around and gave a hugh "Phew". The only thought that came to mind was, "Thank God". I couldn't describe the feeling. I felts so blessed at that point of time. Terry called me thereafter.

"Hey dude, how is everything." asked Terry
"I managed to hand it in. The lab is still open and I'm not the last one. There are some people holding up the lab for their friends." I answered.
"Mian, you are one lucky guy." he replied.

I did feel fortunate enough to be able to hand in my report. In my mind, I knew I would be able to finish it earlier if I had decided not to go for CF the night before. But, I did and enjoyed myself even knowing that hand up date was the next day. I guess I learned alot of things in just one ordeal. Never do last minute work and call out to God in your distress and He will hear and help you.

A Jewel In PD

During the weekend, my sister and I decided to fetched my grandparents to PD for his Association for the Disabled weekend getaway. It has been quite a long I have travelled down to PD let alone drive along the old road to PD. There was many changes along the way that I hardly could recognise especially the sudden developed town of Lukut. We made our journey all the way to the 14th mile to locate a place called Eagles Ranch Resort Sports Paradise. As I drove into the road that lead to this resort, my eyes began to open wide with amazement of the sight that would soon meet me. I was totally captivated to find such an interesting place as this to located in an undisclosed area. A jem of PD.

I had first heard of this place in the papers when the Star BRATs came here for their writers camp a couple of years back. Besides that, I also came to know from the pictures on the notice board that Explorace paid a visit here for one of their episodes. Its no wonder why they decided to come here considering what a beautiful place this is. Here are some snippets of this beautiful place.

The Entrance

The Open Air Front Desk

The cafeteria where we had our tea. The disabled people are in the background.

The Go-kart track

The entrance to the chalet that my grandparents stayed.

The front porch of the chalet.

More chalets...

Checkout the interior of the chalet. A log cabin?

Is this a mystical cave? No, its just the toilet.

Is there a fountain in the garden? No, its a shower in the bathroom. Coolness. Plus, its open air.

A table and chair on wheels?

When Joe Met Dewi

The other horses at the stable.

The swimming pools.

Orang Melayu houses on stilts.

The view of the Orang Melayu house adjacent to the tepees. The what?

Tepee. Home of the American Red Indians.

The inside of the tepee.

Log cabin style dormitory.

This place certainly reminded me a bit of Sarawak Cultural Village. Its one of the most idle place for one to have camps or just a weekend getaway. Thoughts were brewing in my mind. This could be one of my stops during my Road Trip around Malaysia. Hhhmmm...Well, if you want more information about this place, do visit this link.

Excited for Missions

I had my Advanced Microprocessor test on Friday. It was not a easy subject to study as it covered 4 chapters. I was feeling pretty uptight over the test as I was worried that I would not be able to do the question after taking a look at last years midterm. The time had come and I went into the exam room feeling worried. However, I was glad that I manage to answer most of the question although there were some blanks here and there, not forgetting some silly mistakes as well.

After the test, I made my way to Serdang where a group of us would be meeting to discuss on the mission which we would be goin from 18 - 26 June. There were some new faces who came namely Joash, Su Chen and Szu Li. The intention of this meeting was to update one another on the price of tickets, Pastor Joanne who would be following us on the trip and a rough idea of what we would be doing for the trip. There were many aspect of trip where each of us would be put in charge. I volunteered myself to be in charge of sketch as it was something close to my heart. Each and everyone of us soon got our respective task that we would be in charge of. However, one of the things that all of us had to come up with was to prepare a testimony or sermon in Bahasa Melayu or Iban. Its a pretty daunting task for most of us considering that most of us seldom use the national language to converse. As I began to sit through the meeting, I was pretty much excited of the outcome and can't wait to get on the plane and fly to the land of the hornbills.

Things Learned Today

There was so much to learn today. It was not learning by the book but by meeting with people.

I had a meeting with some people today to discuss about some CF related issues. It was quite an unexpected outcome at the end. I had previously discuss about it the day before and somehow came to a conclusion. However, I thought about it and decided to not support either. It soon change when I came into the meeting and heard the response from both sides that I decided to support the other as I was convince that it was a better idea, in the long run.

It was hard to make a decision and I felt uneasy as well. I hope that by making such decision I did not hurt anyone in return. The reason why I had change my decision is because I came to the meeting open minded and wanted to hear what the others have to say and at the end of the day I was convince by my decision. However, I was worried for those who did not really agree to it but yet followed the majority. I could see disastifaction over the outcome of the meeting as it was written over their faces. It seems to me that some of us came with expectation or with a fix idea of what the outcome may be. I find it quite normal for us to stand on our grounds in our decisions. However, this may lead us not to be open to other people's opinion and thus make conclusion beforehand. I just hope that whatever decisions made today would be for the benefit of the CF and not of our own.

As I began to think about today's meeting, I was asking myself whether I do change my decision at times. I do agree that I had made numerous decision in support or against the idea that had been proposed. This was because of the limited understanding I had and also because there was more tendency for me to follow and support someone's decision. It did occur to me how easy it is for us to allow others to affect our decision at times. Was I caught in such of a scenario? I wasn't that sure. However, I was hoping that I did not make any false promises or decision regarding about this issue before and had given the idea that I was turning against the decision that was made. Its hard to say whether what I did was right or wrong but I was clear that it was for the benefit of the CF.

CF have been going through some issues lately. Meetings have been made to decide on what is best for the CF as a whole. This has brought about some agreements and also disagreement due to different views and perceptions. Sometimes the meetings can be quite relax, some could be quite pressurising. Going for all the meetings although not being able to participate fully, I have been able to learn alot from it. I have learn about how to address an issue properly and not to take what is said too personally, learn about how different people respond to different situations in different ways and also had a chance to learn more about myself especially in my shortcomings.

One of the things I realise about the meetings is the length of it. It seems the meeting take ages to finish and sometimes I wonder why so much time is used for it. Most of the time I realise is we talk of other things more than the real issue itself. This will indeed drag the meeting further and I feel at times it is unfair for those who would wish to go home and spend some time with themselves or studies. Mom was pretty mad over me having to come back from meetings at 3am (others actually ended at 7am). I did see an issue at first but realise after that that the meeting could have been alot shorted if we were more focus. "Parliament meeting also not so long" This was mom words and I later understood what she meant. I feel too much time has been put to meetings that at times I feel the time used for it could be put to good use by doing something practical.

At the end of the day, met up with a friend for dinner cum sharing. I was surprise also to receive an SMS from a friend I had hardly kept in touch. She was going to US for 2 months and I was delighted to hear that and quickly grab my phone and called her. It was great to have friends who remember you even when you don't at times. I guess this are what I call friends and I am still learning to be a friend.