For Mark

Life is unpredictable. I received news two days ago that one of my former colleagues had been diagnosed with sarcoma and was given only two weeks to live. After the diagnosis, he opted for palliative care. I was gutted because he is a very nice soft-spoken gentle man who is a joy to be around with. I was passed his hospital ward details and had already decided to visit him during lunch the day after I received the news. Unfortunately, his family informed my former boss that he wished for privacy and time with his family because he was very tired. He is now heavily sedated and wearing an oxygen mask. I did not visit him in hospital but told my former boss to keep me updated. I had wanted to go there and speak Psalm 91 to him. Mark, I'm praying for you.

My Refuge and My Fortress

91 He who dwells in athe shelter of the Most High

will abide in bthe shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say1 to the Lord, “My crefuge and my dfortress,

my God, in whom I etrust.”

3 For he will deliver you from fthe snare of the fowler

and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will gcover you with his pinions,

and under his hwings you will ifind refuge;

his jfaithfulness is ka shield and buckler.

5 lYou will not fear mthe terror of the night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

8 You will only look with your eyes

and nsee the recompense of the wicked.

9 Because you have made the Lord your odwelling place—

the Most High, who is my crefuge2—

10 pno evil shall be allowed to befall you,

qno plague come near your tent.

11 rFor he will command his sangels concerning you

to tguard you in all your ways.

12 On their hands they will bear you up,

lest you ustrike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread on vthe lion and the wadder;

the young lion and xthe serpent you will ytrample underfoot.

14 “Because he zholds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;

I will protect him, because he aknows my name.

15 When he bcalls to me, I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will rescue him and chonor him.

16 With dlong life I will satisfy him

and eshow him my salvation.”

Teach me to know your ways

Sissel - Lær Meg Å Kjenne


Lær meg å kjenne
(Traditional)
Arranger: Jørn Dahl

Lær meg å kjenne dine veie
og gå dem trøstig skritt for skritt
Jeg vet at hva jeg fikk i eie,
er borget godt gods, og alt er ditt.
Men vil din sterke hånd meg lede,
jeg aldri feil på målet ser,
og for hvert håp som dør her nede,
får jeg et håp i himlen mer 


English translation:
Teach me to know your ways
and to walk them trustingly step by step
I know that what I own,
are borrowed goods, and everything is yours.
But if your strong hand guides me,
I will never see the wrong goal,
and for every hope that dies down here,
I will receive a greater hope in heaven.


Norwegian soprano Sissel related a story in concert of how this song was written by a man on a pilgrimage coming home to find his house burned down and his family dead. This song being included on the album "All Good Things" was something of an accident. Sissel and her producer Jørn Dahl were only doing a sound check in the recording studio when Dahl asked Sissel if she knew this song and started playing it on the piano. The resulting song, recorded in one take was so good, they decided to include it on the final album.

Developing a heart for God

I had the opportunity to hear David Yonggi Cho preach at a City Harvest service two weekends ago. Cho is senior pastor and the founder of the Yoido Full Gospel Church in South Korea, which is the world's largest congregation with over a million members. He's also instrumental in the early revival Pentecostal and prayer mountain movements in Korea. Before he shared his message, the screen flashed an introductory video on him, which was a broad brush of his 54 years of ministry with revival rallies both at home and abroad, including in Africa and Europe. Throwing in a personal anecdote, I recalled quite healthy demand for his books at my auntie's bookstores when I was there helping out during term breaks. 


Below are some sermon excerpts: 


Key bible reference 
Proverbs 4:23 
Keep your heart with all vigilance 
For from it flow the springs of life 


1. The heart should be developed first 
References: Psalm 23 and Psalm 91 
Visible change begins with change in the invisible heart. Only God can deliver us from hearts of darkness, disorder and discouragement; from sin, from despair and from sickness. Behold, the old has passed; the new has come. God's Word - the Bible - offers a solid foundation in transforming our minds and our hearts. We're to saturate our minds with the Word of God and our hearts with the redeeming grace of Christ. 


2. We need a clear vision and goal in our lives 
Reference: Genesis 12 
God will plant visions and reams in us before we can be effective for Him. We need only prayer and the Holy Spirit in order to have visions and dreams. The foundations of our ministry for God will be built on these because the Holy Spirit will come in and work through us. For example, Abraham received his vision when he was 75 before he did anything for God. We have the inventor and creator God in our hearts and we will grow by inspiration, not by striving. In so doing, we preach life instead of preaching culture. People need life; people need hope; people need Jesus. 


3. Have faith and believe 
Reference: Mark 13 
God says give me your mustard seed of faith, and I will move mountains. The devil comes to us and says we have 99% of doubts but God says to us that we focus on the 1% of faith because with that, we can move mountains. Everybody has doubts but let us focus on faith. It shall be done according to your faith. 


4. Active confession 
Reference: Romans 10:9-10 
We have a gold mine in our hearts but when we bury it, it will go straight to our tombs. Speak the Word of God over our lives. Release our faith through confession of our blessings. Speak blessings to our families. 


 All this will enable us to be change agents for God in this world.

Love laid bare

It was a bitterly cold Christmas eve in Korea in 1952. A pregnant young mother, Bak Yoon, hobbled through the snow toward the home of a missionary friend where she knew she could find help. Tears of sorrow froze on her face as she mourned her husband. He had recently been killed in the Korean War, and she had no one else to turn to. A short way down the road from her missionary friend's house was a deep gully spanned by a bridge. As Bak Yoon stumbled forward, birth pains suddenly overcame her. She fell, realizing that she could go no further, and crawled under the end of the bridge. There, alone, under the bridge, her baby boy was born.    

Bak Yoon had nothing with her except her heavy, padded clothes. One by one she removed all pieces of her clothing and wrapped them around her tiny son, still connected to her body by his umbilical cord. Then feeling exhausted she lay back in the snow beside her baby.     

The next morning Miss Watson, long-time missionary, drove across the bridge in her car to take a Christmas basket of food to a needy Korean family. On her way back, as she got near the bridge, the car sputtered and died - out of gasoline.        

She got out of the car and started across the bridge. Through crunching snow under her feet she heard another sound - a baby's faint cry. She stopped, unbelieving, and heard the cry again. "It's coming from beneath this bridge!" She crawled under the bridge to investigate and there she found a tiny, bundled baby, warm but hungry, and young Bak Yoon frozen in death. With a knife from her tool box she cut the cord and took the baby home with her. After caring first for the child, she, along with some helpers, brought Bak Yoon's body back to near where she lived and buried her there.She named the baby Soo Park, and adopted him. He was strong and healthy and so grew up among many other orphan children that Miss Watson cared for. But to her, Soo Park was special. She often told him, "Your mother had great love for you, Soo Park," and about how she had proved that love. He never tired of hearing of his beautiful mother.      

On Christmas day, his 12th birthday, snow was falling. After the children had helped Soo Park celebrate his birthday, he came and sat beside Miss Watson.    

"Mother Watson, do you think God made your car run out of gasoline the day you found me?" he asked.       "Perhaps He did," she answered. "If that car hadn't stopped, I would not have found you. But I am so glad it stopped. I love you and am very proud of you, Soo Park." She put her arms around him.        He rested his head against her. "Mother Watson, will you please take me out to my mother's grave? I want to pray there. I want to thank her for my life."       "Yes, but put on your heavy coat. It's very cold."       

Beside the grave, Soo Park asked Mother Watson to wait at a little distance. She walked aside and waited. As the astonished missionary watched, the boy began to take off his warm clothing, piece by piece.        

Surely he won't take off all his clothing! she thought. He'll freeze! But the boy stripped himself of everything, laid it all on his mother's grave, and knelt naked and shivering in the snow.        

She waited one minute, two minutes. Then she put her gloved hand on his snow covered shoulder. "Come, Soo Park. Your mother in Heaven sees how much you love her. I will help you dress."        

Then in deep sorrow he cried out to the mother he never knew: "Were you colder than this for me, my mother?" And he wept bitterly because he knew of course, she was.        

Jesus stripped himself of his royal garments to come and live among us. Was he that cold for us? Surely we never have to wonder if he loves us, or even how much he loves us. He demonstrated that to us nearly 2000 years ago. Celebrate in his love.     

From The Short Circuit, a student publication of Asbury Theological Seminary, Volume 86, Dec. 6th, 1986, No. 11

Have a blessed Good Friday

The loneliness of the Christian

A.W.Tozer

The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone.

The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.

The man [or woman] who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens.

He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.

It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else.

Life lessons in a single Whatsapp chat

The following is courtesy of a BFF who works with autistic kids. My younger sister also works with autistic kids, and she also shares with me some stories of her kids. To me, it's humbling and such pure joy to know that they have such a passion to help these kids and they love them to bits. They really love them to bits. :-) 

The BFF shared with us about some stories told by a wonderful Canadian therapist, who was training her and her colleagues.

Story 1:  The therapist did some work with streetkids some years back. There was this particular boy, the meanest fellow, who came in for six hours every day. He just sat there and said nothing. She was thinking like "okay, I better say something." So to fill the silence, she talked to him about everything except his life. She told him about her childhood, her dreams, her family and so on. Five years later, she saw him again. She tried to remain calm and walked towards him. He called out to her in a low voice "Blondie". She acted cool and said: "Yes, how are you?" He said: "I'm alive. Those five months every day in your office; those were the only times I felt safe and didn't want to put a gun to my head. Thanks."

Lesson learnt: Unless you try, you never know what kind of an impact you may have. 

Story 2: The therapist once led a group to see the Inuits. They are nomadic with no nationality. The group went to see this woman, who was not at home. At the back of the house, there was a fence and in the middle, there was a stick and tied to the stick on a leash was her son. And there was a dog guarding the child. "Child abuse!" "Call the cops!" Far from that. It's about survival. The woman was a single parent and they lived in the wilderness. That method was the only way she knew to protect the child whenever she was out begging for food.

Lesson learnt: Suspend judgment until you have heard the full story.

Story 3: The therapist shared that once she took Temple Grandin to a steakhouse. Temple loves cows - the animal, not the meat. When she reached the restaurant, she thought "oh dear, Temple's going to throw a tantrum." But Temple regulated herself and ordered a salad.

PS: Temple Grandin has Asperger's Syndrome. She designs livestock handling facilities to minimise stress for animals. She is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. 

Lesson learnt: Autism is a life condition; it is not a life sentence. 

Most importantly, the therapist shared that kids with autism are never going to be typical kids. Even when they go into mainstream education, they will always carry a part of that with them. And she meant what she said in a very accepting and non-judgmental way.