a gift from heaven

i want to shout many many thanks to God for blessing me with a new handphone - samsung i780! :D i am totally thrilled, excited and happy about this gift. as we are on a save and scrap campaign, roy and i prayed together for a new phone for me a month plus ago. it was really tempting to buy it 3 weeks ago when i saw the hp deal at a pricing. however, i decided to wait and not spend the money on it. till last sunday, we casually walked past PS Starhub and was given the samsung promo flyer. the phone that i wanted was on sale for zero dollar without any trade-in. i know this is it. haha. debbie accompanied me yesterday to get the new phone. i was prepared to pay for the sim card charge, but later realised that the sim card charge was wavied off, as part of the promo deal! wahhhhh... God is really kind to me! deb and i went to makan at ajisen. roy joined later, great company, great hp. hoho! i'm quite a noob, as roy helped me with the contact list transfer. thanks roy and deb!

many faces of win

newflash all over singapore today: F1.
i managed to catch the entire F1 race on tv last night. its interesting how locals get all hyped up abt F1. it brought back old memories like the hype of how Hello Kitty was once THAT popular that people formed long queues in the morning outside Macdonalds. well, in recent days, news were quite gloomy due to the $ falling and spoilt milk. F1 race was quite a happy thingy.
i, seriously, am not a F1 fan. my knowledge of it only started, much thanks to the publicity and information on papers. the only faint memory was me playing Daytona in arcade during my sec sch days. it was thrilling, i remember.
though a 2 hour race, 61 laps, it sounded boring to me initially. however, after the first mishap happened to Piquet, i realised a F1 race can be very unpredictable. i watched on with much anticipation. after the race, one scene that still stay in my mind was the fuel line attached to Massa's Ferrari while he drove off when flashed green by automatic digi-light. in less than a sec, one of his crew fumbled forward but thankfully, managed to stand up quickly.
the importance of teamwork struck me. in many situations, when things get urgent or busy, how do we respond to our team players? and when mishaps happen, do we start to pin-point fingers? or we pull together as a united front to face the problem and handle the mishap with care? when the mishap happened, i could almost imagine the many thoughts that flew past Massa's mind- what happened just now? did i clearly see the green light? is one of my team members hurt? how many cars have drove past me? am i the last one in line?
winning is just a one moment glory, but it also came with many months of toil and hardwork together as a team to put the vehicle together, device strategy plans on pitstops and functions. the win belongs to everyone in the team, who work hard together towards the goal.
well, i do not know much about Massa' team after the race, but i believe that the one of the beautiful wins belongs to you who still believe in the best of one another that we have worked hard for it and therefore, celebrate the hardwork together as a team.

joy in little things

soon, weekend's here again. before i put on my partying shoes, i want to thank God for the joy i found in little things this week. i started my week with a goal: to find joy in little things around me.
i had another yummy home-cooked food at my darling aunt jane's house on monday evening. she is currently trying the tai tai life at home and getting her hands on new recipes too. her double boiled soup rocks. after a long day of work and meeting on wed, i had a good train ride with my 3 girls, voon philo jia. we were chatting while philo is on her drawing sketch. after a dinner with nicole and zinc, i trained home with my shepherd. i always wish serangoon station dont come so soon. another happy thing was that i bought 2 bags at a good price in a spree. cant wait to get my hands on them.
i really wanna give thanks because i know its a personal breakthrough for me. i dont want to be drown into the routine life of work, but i want to find joy in little things around me. experiencing small victories like this always give me the "yes!" feeling.
recently i've been feeling girly or maybe the girly feeling suddenly struck me.
haircare, facial care, nailcare, contact lens...
better stop snacking, hit the pool or road soon...
on a side note, i cant wait for sunday night too. (^^)

the Sim family

red roses, 8- course dinner, red velvet curtain.
yesterday annie got married to craigven at intercontinental hotel. annie is my eldest cousin in the sim family. my mum was the 4th daughter in the sim family.
ever since mum passed away years back, we seldom visit them except for big events like cny and weddings, most of them live in the west side of the island, particularly clementi.
whenever i see my cousins and relatives, it is a nostalgic feeling. i have fond memories with them when i was young. mum's eldest sister is also my godmother and i was babysitted by her during my first 2 years while my mum returned to workforce. during primary school holidays, mei and i would packed our clothes and stuffs in our tiny disney luggage bags and spent close to a week at my godmother's house. we played together with our cousins from morning to evening. sometimes, there might be movie treats from my xiao yi.
the sim family is a closely knitted family. since young, i always long to go together with them on family overseas trips, but because dad work shiftwork, we were always not able to join them for it. all i could gathered from their experiences were looking at the photo albums of the various countries they been to. through these years, our relationships are that of a distant relative type. each time whenever i go to visit them, i'll feel abit out of place or "mo sheng".
it was the same for last night too. yet, i went ahead to enjoy the dinner and also to initiate catch ups with them. God is good and i enjoyed my night. caught up with my cousins who were mostly just a few years younger than me. also met some long- distance relatives from malaysia too, when i only met them when i was a baby? well, afterall, my grandparents had 10 children. *gasp*
we will gather again coming dec for annie's brother, zhen hong's wedding. am looking forward to it. deep down, i hope to know them more once again as i know God is guiding me and has his plans for me to be in the sim family.

from left: mei, shuz, nicole, ada, nowell, serene (cousins)

live to praise Him

another sep birthday, mr phua! :)
happy birthday bao! we went to eat at ministry of food during the weekend and the desserts there are thumbs up! good! :D drop by a visit to try their red bean cum green tea ice cream dessert! others desserts are nice too. sharing the same birthdate as bao is seng too- happy birthday seng!
a big shout-out to my one of my long time girlfriends, evelyn- happy birthday too! enjoy your holiday trip k! :)

During the weekend, roy and i went for our mpc breakout session. i was pretty looking forward to it, wondering how will it be like. together with us, Joo, Gavin and Pearlyn, we went to our hosts' humble home at tampines. david and alice, our hosts from the family group, are married for 7 years with 3 lovely preschool boys. they met when they were serving in the adults group and now they are leading a cg in the tampines area.

upon reaching their place, we sat down in the living room. just like typical Hope setting, we quickly settled down in a circle seating. it is also the couple's first time to host the mpc breakout session, thus, the initial start was alittle raw, as we do not really know one another well. alice came along with drinks and snacks to warm up the session. well, this session is supposed to be a Q&A kind of session. we can ask anything about relationship, marriage and family and share our experiences. our conversation ranged from financial planning to staying with in-laws, from goals in a marriage to handling kids. there was one thing i was particularly very excited and convicted about. during the conversation, i actually had a question to ask the couple about church planting, little did i realise roy also had the same question in mind. it was then, a question about the couple's goal and direction for the family was asked. david replied that they have plans to move to toronto in 2 years time. i was delighted to hear that because honestly speaking, as i see their family, it is a comfortable place to be in and their 3 kids are young. yet, something greater has captured their hearts to do. i was very encouraged by their desire. after the whole time, roy and i talked more about this and we both agreed that it is so important for God's vision to lead the family. david and alice are one of the many families we have who are inspiring in their lives. i look forward to our second session together.

anyway, a thought i had today: time waits for no man. i want to learn as much as i can and apply the learnings. yesterday's ulm teaching was quite a long one. we listened to john c maxwell's Lifting others up. okays, all my thoughts are in a web. need to sort out first. till then :)

roy and i went to fetch his parents at airport yesterday. we headed out earlier just to spend some time talking and relaxing. believe it or not, now i begin to understand more whenever books/ instructors mentioned about communication between couple. as familiarity sets in, its often hard to find time to really talk during the routine- daily- stuffs. unknowingly, we might just find ourselves, yes talking, but content of the conversation is mainly about informing each other of schedules and other meetings or just exchanging information for ministry needs. halfway through a current book i am reading now, i began to take a deeper look into our conversation life.

i really appreciate each time roy initiated a walk or just ask about my day and how am i doing in my life. i appreciate that he gave me an airtime. its not just about finding out my schedule or other meetings only, but he hopes to know me more. i appreciated last night alot, its just less than an hour, but it was fruitful. we talked about our ministries, work and the recent things we learnt. one of which that i am encouraged by was on outreach: church planting derives from a constant life of outreach. it kinda blew my mind when he said that. how can i say i wanna go plant a church when my outreach life is dead? or not frequent or not consistent?

as he went on to share, this thought was stuck in my mind and i prayed a prayer to thank God for his life and being an example to me. recently, God also helped to inch his friendship with a friend closer. what blew me off also was the deeds that coupled with what roy believes.

the little steps of obedience not only build up our treasures in heaven, but more importantly, it builds up the character of a person.

She has a king charles

mei is also born in the month of september. we celebrated at 2 chefs, a zi cha place somewhere in commonwealth last sunday. 4 full tables, it felt like a mini wedding? haha. it was indeed a surprise for mei as she didnt expect that many people. well, a greater surprise in store still... we kind of need to stall time so we took pictures. thanks Junming and Merv.

its really great time of catching up with these sisters.

only on mei's birthday, she is taller than everyone of them!
mei's cg

mei wondered what's the present...

this is such a cute pic! of course, the cutest is the sweet little thing in es' arms!

Dear meimei,

happy birthday! i decided to write my birthday greetings here. every year i kinda run out of ideas in term of cards and gifts... hehe. so this year's on my blog.

so much for an intro. haha. i just want to thank you for all your love and care for me. sometimes, you seems stern or strict in facial expression, but actually you have a tofu heart. your way of encouragement has a unique style- you say only a few words and thats it. haha. and you leave the person to ponder on the words. in this year to come, i pray that God will continue to deepen your conviction about things you are passionate for Him. Trust in his timing for the things you do.

i pray for a verse for you, Luke 8:8 "still, other seed fell on good soil. it came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than what was sown."

what kind of fruit we produce in life depends on what type of soil is in our hearts :)

Love you, Jie

Happy Birthday, Jus

as always, september is a very fruitful month, a few of us celebrated Justin's Birthday last wed at sushi tei. we had our fill and lots of fun with jus's cam. we took many pictures, here're some of them, enjoy :)

SIM Convocation

29 August 2008 was my Uni Convocation. took a halfday leave to attend the 3 hours event. it was quite a long wait in the hall. dozed off a few times. hehe. dad and aunt jane were invited to see me receiving my cert on the stage. its a good time to catch up with schoolmates too.

took a pic with dad before the ceremony starts
dewen came too!

i love both of them alot

he's winston. we did most of the group projects together, great pal he is. *winks* heys, must invite me to your wedding k? ;p

a serious one

my marketing project mates, Diana and Kelly.

aFond

it was a good relaxing time at aFond. Happy Belated Birthday, Kong Kiat!

Roy is 26!

Roy turned 26 last saturday. It has been around a year and seven months since we got together. God has been very faithful and gracious in our relationship.
Roy is really a big big blessing to me. trust me, we do have our fair share of ups and downs together. come to think of it now, i better appreciate my leaders when they always share that courtship & marriage is a commitment. whenever we squabble/quarrel, it really take a whole lot of me to decide to do the right thing which is- to communicate with him despite the overwhelming emotions rushing over me (girls would better understand this. hehe) yet, roy is really patient to wait for me to respond to him and begin to share my thoughts.
i really admire roy's humble heart and soft spot towards God's word. there was once where i was surprised by his question. he asked me whether sometimes do i miss God. sometimes he was busy with work and things around him that he misses God, he misses spending extended time and unrushed moments with God. i was deeply encouraged by this and it also set my heart ablaze to seek God deeper and more in my life too.
through this stage of our lives, i have learnt and experienced God, the lover of my soul. i have come to better understand God's love for me whenever i relate to roy.
i always think like this: if God can give us love to love each other, man.... His love is even much more than what humans can give to one another.
through many incidents, i can see God's love at work.
Happy Birthday, Roy!