Malaysia 12th General Election Results

First of all, thank you for everyone who has prayed for this election and be a part of it in some ways. Especially for my foreign friends, thank you so much for supporting the event in prayer as well. For those who are interested, here's a summary I found from Crystal's blog.

A Historical Day: 8th March 2008

MALAYSIAN GENERAL ELECTIONS RESULTS

Parliament Seats
BN: 137
Opposition: 82

State Seats
BN: 305
Opposition: 196
Independent: 2

States
BN: Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu, Perlis, Pahang, Johor, N9, Malacca.
Coalition: Selangor, Perak, Kedah, Kelantan, Penang.

- Federal Territory was dominated by the opposition
- BN formed a new government by Simple Majority
- BN lost power in 4 of the 13 states

Read more:

Full election results
Malaysia’s Leaders Suffer Setback - Time
BN wins federal govt but opposition takes five states
BN forms govt with simple majority

Winds of changes can be good and sometimes the boat needs to be rocked least we are all lulled to sleep. More than ever, I hope the people will remain sensitive, both those who won and otherwise. The results are decided and now it is time for some to reflect and some to act.

The people have make their choices and may the new and reelected leaders justify that by proving themselves worthy of this mandate and trust from the people.

and No, please no Napoleon the Pig (from Animal Farm) Oink!

Lord, may your goodwill and favor continue to rest in this nation.
Thank you Lord for carrying us thus far, please help us to walk in ways that pleases You that we may continue to prosper and enjoy peace and growth.

Brickthru

My heart is burning. There is so much so much beyond all that I can ever dream or imagine.

Since that very first YC camp, Extreme Camp 2001 and through the years, I seem to see my life, my energy level, emotional and spiritual fortitude in relative to that. I measure and evaluate my days by ‘how YC camp?’ it is. Perhaps it is not a bad way to score, after all it is better to bring your everyday up to the level of the mountain top as it should be, rather than to lack the faith and believe that days should be ordinary. It is worth mentioning that what I mean by YC camp is not just being all spiritual and ‘floaty’. YC camp is a time of exhaustion, pushing to the limit, building tenacity, embracing passion, not holding back, giving your all, having the faith to believe in the impossible and more, a time to lose yourself completely and to soar on the strength and dreams only He can endowed.

My days have been quite YC camp these days. It is good. I think it is only right that it should continue to be more and more YC camp. The burden placed upon me should grow and so long as I live, new challenges will come and with each hurdle, my strength and maturity should also expand. Specifically, I don’t find my days here in Bristol a walk in the rose garden. I’m trembling doing assignments. Well, trembling from excitement that’s it!

Somehow, more and more I feel that life is a grand narrative. It is a definite story penned by One whose love overcomes the cross. This story has a beginning and it also has a definite end, a definite destiny and purpose of why it is told. I see the connections in circumstances, how one thing is leading up to another. Each new day is not every other day. It is a culmination, a fulfillment of yesterday, a closer step to that definite end. The things that happened today are a continuation of the things that happened yesterday. There is a sure continuity. Yesterday happened, because of today; yet today is possible because of yesterday.

When I talk or think about Destiny, I find it hard not to relate it to YC. I feel the 2 is the ‘same’, that Destiny is a direct continuation of what God is doing with me in YC, it is not a ‘new’ story, just the next chapter in the very same book. Without YC, I wouldn’t have been a part of Destiny and yet in Destiny I find the work God started in me through YC coming closer to fulfillment (still as far as the east is from the west, but a wee bit closer).

I wish that by the end of this (camp) we will all be good friends. ~ Bernard Ong.

Thank you Bernard, these powerful words stayed with me since that afternoon in Gotong Jaya on the way back from Unlock’07. I wish I can always live up to it that in everything my attitude should be about relationship and people. What are more important than the task we will undertake are the relationships and friendships we will build. It should radically affect how I approach every day.

The Brickthru!

Talk about experiencing new things, I’m sure not every international student get to experience bringing the wall of a sturdy old English house down. First I need to thank Pastor Mike and Lois as well as everyone else for this opportunity to be a part of this operation.

From crawling below the floor boards with Pat, ripping the carpet up, working above the ceiling, watching the wall being brought down to positioning the support structure up in the ceiling space, all these are great new experience for me. I don’t think words will suffice to describe the experience, it is exhausting, dusty (I can pour sand and pieces of concrete from my shirt’s pocket), exciting (especially when you see the wall come down and visible progress is made) and fulfilling at the close of the day.

Rather than describing the process, I can only show you pictures of these wonderful people.

The demolition team of the day during lunch.

Pastor Mike and Lois' new house in Western-Super-Mare.

The junior demolition team members, Patrick and Adelaide.

The gorgeous view from the house's backyard. You can find ponies, horses, cows and sheep on these pastures, not to mention the gregarious seabirds.

How everyone from young to old worked hard on this project and the sense of true fellowship that exists is very attractive and encouraging to me. The way they let Pat knock the wall down speaks volume of the spirit among these people.

One of the things that particularly resonated with me most is looking at men do ‘manly’ jobs. I felt there is a clear hierarchy where the oldest is the most experience and the strongest. The finesse and expertise of the older ones are inspiring. By being there, I wish to become like them when I grow older, to take their place in that order of things. The maturity they demonstrated, physically and otherwise makes you want to ‘be a man’.

I really look forward to see how the house will be when the renovation is completed.

Randy Pausch Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Awesome stuff that I find extremely encouraging. If you have the time, please listen to the full lecture, it is worth it. (76:26 minutes)



Here is a link to Carnegie Mellon Randy Pausch's site
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

And I want to especially thank Nina for sharing this very, VERY Inspirational clip on her blog.

Oh De'a'r

When the sky is blue, most likely the day is not.

I’ve been far too trigger-happy today, accumulating quite a trove of photos to sort through. Among the pile, few do justice to what my eyes saw. I have much to learn on improving my photography skills.

Contemplating Clouds

Between the gloomy oppressive titans and the carefree cotton candy buds, there are other kinds of clouds – one that is not too far, yet distant enough to appear like silent observers of human affairs, not intrusive at all and oddly reassuring.

I went Shooting Deer

While walking in the red deer park in Ashton Court, I managed to catch the deer going to their pool to cool in the midday sun.

The congregation at their mirror-like sacred pool.

Here is the close up of the stag in the preceding picture

This is the alert one that came closest to me.


Homesick?

Perhaps deeper down inside this berserk snapping spree was spawned by none other than the desire to be pleasantly distracted. In trying to capture the surroundings it awakens a sense of wonder and appreciation for the present place. In narrating the place here in the blog, I gain a certain psychological ownership of the place.

Emotions are fleeting things. There are many places that evoke a strange familiarity as if I can immediately locate it as an equivalent to the familiar places in Malaysia. Often, in a good way you feel as though here is where you have lived for all your life. Sometimes it feels so vain to clutch onto the memories of home and faraway people. Memories can be as distant as I am geographically removed from their associated places. Time zones away, at worst your homesickness is but a hollow attempt to miss something for the sake of missing.

Do I wish to be at the graduation ceremony? If I say no would be an outright lie. Do I miss old friends? I would feel like a fool to say yes in an age when people are only a phone call or email away. To think of it, the world is going further under the rolling pin. On such a pancake earth, perhaps what people miss isn’t so much the people or the communication with the person but rather the convenience and contempt in taking each other for granted. And in the same way, what people miss more might be the familiarity and convenience of a place taken for granted rather than the true value or attachment to the place. It is as likely that a sense of attachment to something and the tendencies to take it for granted are often Siamese Twins.

To open your eyes each day with childlike wonderment is perhaps a trained practice. Seizing the day is an acquired skill. Maybe it is not too far to say that keeping oneself childlike is an individual responsibility and a prerequisite for the promise of living to the max.

And to conclude this post, it is fitting to end with the promise of Spring.

The glorious cerulean sky by the river.

People are enjoying themselves in Brandon Hill, basking under the setting sun.

The very same tree I took 3 weeks back is in full bloom now.

Wintertides

Let's begin this entry with an early morning spectacle - the gulls lining up on the river bank. I suppose this is their regimented roll call before the day.

Timeless blue - these are taken at the big green field outside the Filton Community Center, the place where DestinyUK is held each Sunday. Many people, ranging from teenage soccer players, old men walking their dogs to young family with children roam the field week after week. It is also common to see flocks of gull congregating here, dotting the emerald sea with white.

This is what I saw on my way to campus today - After all the perfect sunshines, azure skies and summer green grass, finally a scene that befits winter!

Not an inch of grass as far as I can see is not blanketed with white.

A close-up - reminds me of the frost-like icing on a cake.

A country road through the winter woods.

This is the very same farmhouse I posted earlier, now under a much different atmosphere.

I will end here with how the cityscape look when the (not necessarily unpleasant) gloom of winter looms.

Sunday Counting Time

These are amazing days.

Yesterday's quiet time, randomly brings the verse Ephesians 4:1-6, Elder Ang's Thanksgiving admonition for 2007.
Today's service, during the offering message which touch on the point of God's provision, Mark 10:46 is mentioned.
Mark 10:46 talks about Blind Bartimaeus Receives His Sight, and is actually the very first sermon I've heard, in the very first YC Youth Camp, the Extreme camp that I went, and on the very first night I become a child of God.
The message for today by Pastor Mike Radcliffe is 'Make Time Count', the very first post of this very blog. Reflecting back to the very first sentence of the very first post here 'Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year' by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
And it has been a while since I have it in my heart to compile a list of verses particularly on the issue of Time. But here it is given today!

I'll put the compilation of verses and quotes I manage to catch here,

Psalms 90:12
Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalms 139:16
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

We are meant to be here
for a reason, not a season;
to thrive, not just to survive;
to live a destiny, not just to make a living.

Psalms 39:4-5
"Show me, O LORD, my life's end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man's life is but a breath.

This is not a warm up for life, this is Life

Psalms 37: 25
I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

You can't maximize potential if you minimize time.

Ecclesiastes 3:1
A Time for Everything:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven

Ephesians 5:15-17
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,
making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.

Proverbs 9:11
For through me (wisdom) your days will be many,
and years will be added to your life.

Ecclesiastes 7:10
Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?"
For it is not wise to ask such questions.

Lamentations 3:23
(God's love and compassion) They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Psalms 23:6
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Tough days don't last, but tough people do.

Psalms 118:24
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Hebrews 3:13
But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so
that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

No time like today.
The best is yet to come.

These amazing days, unmistakably, he is speaking and it feels like He is drawing me somewhere.
It feels like a call to return to the First Love.
It feels like standing before Jordan once again.
So many times, He leads me there.
I can only wait for Him to part the water and lead me through to where there are giants to slay and milk and honey to savor.

At first I did consider if I should name this post Sunday Blue.
Somehow, I think for someone like me I'd long to just forge ahead. To take time to go to church on Sunday is very damaging to the momentum.
It feels like taking the pains to accelerate and stopping abruptly on Sunday, almost wasting all the efforts of building it up.
It takes away all the comfortable illusions and false sense of security that I've ever gradually accumulated throughout the week.
It reminds me how small, weak and helpless I am in the Grand Scheme of Things apart from Him.

But deeper down.
It is wise to stop regularly and to take a look at where I'm heading.
Am I traveling the road he marks for me before time? Am I walking the way I'm made to walk?
It is blessedness to realize where I've failed to live up to my destiny, when God is using whispers rather than bricks.
It is of paramount importance to make little corrections frequently enough to avoid catastrophe.

Now, if only the Lord will bless me with a long enough and 'unselective' enough a memory to remember these all the days of my life.

Here's a link to the podcast of the message (should be up in 2 days' time)
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=151963783&s=143444
A link to Destiny UK
http://www.destinyuk.com/

The First Week

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love,
endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
~ Ephesians 4:1-6 (21st Century King James Version)

On the last day of last year before the clock strike 12 and 2007 is history, these are the very admonition given by Elder Ang. And now, here I am, face to face with these words again, talk about divine appointment.

Once more, let my heart be still and allow these words to sink in.

The first week of classes, how is it? Great. And with 'greatness', pain is promised. For how can you expand but to stretch forth and reach out, straining your muscles and will at that very direction your destiny lies? After all, a relaxed body goes no where.

But above all. Be still my heart and know that the Lord is God.

Acknowledge now, His benefits.
Be reminded of His grace and compassion.
And may goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life!