In Motion

To provide you with some context, this parable was told by Jotham in protest of the coronation of his evil half-brother, Abimelech, who had killed almost all his other half-brothers in a bid for the throne. "Once upon a time the trees decided to choose a king.      First they said to the olive tree,      ‘Be our king!’   But the olive tree refused, saying, ‘Should I quit producing the olive oil      that blesses both God and people,      just to wave back and forth over the trees?’   “Then they said to the fig tree,      ‘You be our king!’   But the fig tree also refused, saying, ‘Should I quit producing my sweet fruit      just to wave back and forth over the trees?’   “Then they said to the grapevine,      ‘You be our king!’   But the grapevine also refused, saying, ‘Should I quit producing the wine  ...

#1 Older people who are still faithfully serving the Lord. So Jia Wern and I were looking to serve with the Summit's Kid's Ministry since a month ago, so we were given opportunities to shadow in several different age groups. Of the three age groups that we shadowed, two age groups were led by couples in their 50s - 60s. It's just amazing to see them lovingly interact with the preschool and elementary school kids as grandparents would. I asked one couple how long they've been in the ministry, and they said two years. They serve three Sundays a month, and would even prefer to serve four Sundays if they could because "the kids can get scared of strangers and a lot of change", but the administration wanted them to take a week off. It's just wonderful to see older couples so joyfully serving. I've always imagined myself as an old, tired lady by the time I hit retirement age, but these people are still bouncing up and down happily as they teach the child...

What do you do when you're locked inside a quadriplegic's body and can only communicate by blinking one eye? How do you retain your humanity and perspective? This book spoke to me because there are times I feel useless, insignificant and lonely here. A job would provide me with a sense of purpose and productivity, but take that away and it can be challenging to define my worth. This real-life memoir of a paralyzed man is inspiring because his spirit never dies and his imagination soars to beautiful places even in the midst of trying circumstances. It also challenged my perspective of wasted time - if I don't make a significant difference in the two to three years I will be here, will it be wasted? Because if it is wasted, then the lives of quadriplegics and human vegetables are technically wasted as well. But we know nothing ever goes to waste in God's economy, and His ways are higher than our ways. Brings to mind a worship song: God I look to You I won't...

Baking is exciting. It's exciting because whatever you throw in the oven usually looks and smells nothing like the final product, so quoting Ariel, "It's like magic". It's also the very nature of its unpredictability that makes it so frustrating sometimes. I doubt anyone enjoys wasting ingredients (2 cups of flour, hey!) on a failed baking endeavour which may have been caused by forgetting an ingredient, improper mixing, over-beating, not knowing what the jargon means (folding? What's that ?), and various other factors (*cough* the lack of a state-of-the-art oven *cough*). So here I present to you the pros and cons of taking up baking as a hobby: Pros : 1. It's exciting. Magic is exciting. The smell of baked goods is exciting. And you never know what's gonna come out of the oven. 2. It's fun. There's something fun about measuring two cups of this, one tablespoon of that, three teaspoons of this, and two eggs into a huge bowl and s...

I had an amazing weekend with Jia Wern. Technically speaking, all my weekends are amazing because I get to spend a lot of time with him. But last weekend felt magical. I know it sounds corny, but you know how it feels like when you just have a lot of fun spending quality time together? The beautiful surroundings helped, too. ;) This post will be about our weekend because it was sooo awesome. =D On Saturday, we went to Northgate Mall and had a lot of fun shopping/window shopping. It's always fun to find pretty things at great bargains, so much so that we spent a good two hours there mostly in the same shop. Jia Wern claims that he had fun, too, but I bet I had more fun than he did since I'm...a girl. We're talking costume jewelry so yeah. =P This whole thing for only 5 dollars! Even after conversion, it's cheaper than  Malaysian prices. =P After that, we went to explore a grocery shop, which happened to be on Ninth Street. The grocery shop wasn't THAT exc...