Article 1: Be nice to Ma - she's lonely

THE GIST: Discusses about how we as children, need to learn to appreciate our parents.

PONDER-WORTHY EXTRACTS:
1. "Sometimes, I wonder if we are fair to our elderly parents in the way we respond to them.
When our children call us umpteen times while we are at work, do we complain? Most of us are unlikely to do so.
But when our parents demand our attention, we can't be bothered to give them the time of day.
To many of us, our children come first, and our elderly parents, last."

2. "Just like our children, our parents also need a listening ear, and our time."

3. "One day, we will be like them too."

THOUGHTS:
Of course, you're not yet a parent. You have got no kids. But you do have friends, and your parents. So this applies to us as well. Especially shepherds, when our sheep are in need, we would give them our fullest attention, no matter what time it is. This is because as a shepherd, we learnt that we need to be sacrificial and be there for to meet needs of our people (under us). But, where do your parents stand in importance in your life?

Personally I feel that it is a cruel act that most people mistreat or ignore their parents' presence. They deserve much more!

Yes, true, they can be irritating to the core. Calling us every now and then, trying to strike tiny conversations which you think is wasting your time... etc. They may be doing this, maybe, because they really really really lack attention in the family? They love us. Which parent do not want to see their kids at home after work? Sometimes I feel bad also, that for the entire week I reach home after 10-11pm, which causes me to be unable to mingle around with them.

And yes, true, they may not be as hip and cool as your friends, but we cannot neglect them! They are human beings, they are YOUR parents, people who brought you up from a baby till where you are now.

In their eyes, you're probably still a baby that needs protection and lots of care. Even though you are tall, pretty and independent already. Just reflect, on how they shower you with their care and concern, in ways you do not know.

I am of course, not talking about psycho-maniacs who kills their children.

I believe that all parents, love their children. And, I can tell you, not everyone is a pro when handling a family. And, it is NOT EASY to bring up children. You will know the extreme difficulty next time, haha!

They love us, and we ought to love them back.

EA1, we do not only consume our time with friends, classmates, CCA mates, caregroup, church people, but spend deliberate time with your parents.

I'd like to challenge you to:
- Write an encouragement card to them
- Ask them out for a meal (dinner?)
- Don't always run about with friends, especially on days they are at home (Sunday)
- Watch TV with them (let them have control over the programmes)
- Play family games/activities with them (Monopoly, Risk, fishing etc)
- TALK to them (ask them how they are, how's work everything; they just want you to be there)
- Listen with loving patience
- Avoid quarrels
- Buy them gifts (elderly loves food!)

I have just got too many thoughts in my head... Basically, be nice to them.

VERSES:
Exodus 20:12 (NIV)
12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Deuteronomy 5:16 (NIV)
16 "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Matthew 15:4 (NIV)
4For God said, 'Honor your father and mother'[a] and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'[b]


One day, you'll be like them too. (:

Article 2: He Saw the Light

THE GIST: Mr Mani Maran, once a drug addict, has turned over a new leaf with help of Pastor Richard Martin and Reverend Dr Edward Job from Christian Care Services Singapore.

PONDER-WORTHY EXTRACTS:
1. "My friends and I did drugs. I enjoyed it and didn't think I was doing anything wrong."

2. "I now regret my actions. I feel I've let many people down. I gave young people access to drugs."

3. "Sermons, cell group and prayer meetings strengthened his Christian faith."

4. "He said of the support and counselling he has received: Pastor Martin and Reverend Dr Job really motivated me to turn over a new leaf. Now that I'm here, I value my life. Before that, I couldn't care less. Because of the kindness they've shown me, I can't let them down."

5. "If you think good thoughts, you'll do good and you'll be good."

6. "Now he is determined to recover from his addiction, wants to be a counsellor and to tell youths about the dangers of drug-taking."

7. "Asked if such a moral change can stick, Dr Job said: People change when they accept who they were. We motivate them, guide them and walk the path with them. We change their lives one day at a time."

THOUGHTS:
It's a cycle. It's a planned cycle of struggles, overcoming, victories, and passing of the baton.

Personally am very encouraged when I read such an article on the newspaper. I thought it was very PRO-christianity. Always thought that news with pro-religion messages, though subtle, wouldn't be allowed to go on print. Nevertheless, I am very happy it managed to pull through!

If you had faithfully read through all the points I extracted above, I guess it's pretty obvious that knowing Jesus, doesn't stop there and then when we said the sinner's prayer, but it's got to be more than that!

Just like Mr Maran, we have all been through that stage of loneliness, uncertainty, lack of confidence, lost, insecurity etc.. The things that we do, we don't know why also, and sometimes as we look back, we regret. "I'm such a failure! Why did I do that?"

Or also, we don't realise the severity of our acts, that we keep on doing, not being aware of the future consequences we have to deal with. In Mr Maran's case, not only did he have to face much health issues and to deal with his thoughts about disappointing his loved ones, he also 'gave young people access to drugs', which means being a rather bad influence to society. He pulled many others down with him.. Not forgetting, the pain and struggle he had to go through to get out of the drug addiction! Takes only a minute or so to get addicted, but takes you 'donkey-years' to get out of it..

Thank God, God came into his life. What a timely intervention!

It's not easy, really. Like any addiction, computer games, watching unhealthy things off the internet, TV, smoking etc... there's no overnight solution to it. I'm very sure he was tempted to go back to drugs sometime or another. Do you have an addiction you need to get out of? Every sin, big or small, known or unknown, an act of disobedience. Every act of disobedience to God's Word, will lead to consequences..

"Sermons, cell group and prayer meetings strengthened his Christian faith"
Are we going to service, caregroups, prayer meeting with expectation and desire to know more of Him, to be more like Him? I want to encourage all of us, that every time we attend such activities or events, don't just seek the fun of it! Don't just seek fellowship with friends! Don't just go to fulfil CG roles! That's not enough, but build and establish a deeper fellowship with Jesus! Also, be regular. Frequency is really important! I don't think Mr Maran went once for each, and his faith went up like, till enough for eternity kinda thing.. It's so important, that we ought to be committed and try our very best to be regular in all these, and to be in the presence of God and His people whenever possible.. I'm not promoting attendance, because activities do determine our walk with God, but the essence and bring-home-pointers-and-applications, that's what will bring us forward to be more like Christ.

But of course, your daily prayer devotional time and worship, spiritual habits got to be ongoing as well. (: So, let's have a positive change in our attitude and spirit ok?

"If you think good thoughts, you'll do good and you'll be good"
Are you ready? Watch out! Because Mr S.A.Tan will come knocking on your door, very soon, or even, now! When you have decided to consecrate your life, be set apart for God's Kingdom, our relentless enemy, will try all means and ways to drag us to hell. It will invade your thoughts, probably bring people around you to influence you and tell you things of the world.

"Wow... they are indeed really attractive. Just once, it's okay, right?"

NO, it's a big NO. Reject, say: "Sorry, busy with Jesus right now. Byebye!"

It all starts with a thought. It will eventually lead to behaviour, be it in actions or speech. Keep praying for a pure heart and mind! Remember, what God places in your life, you have the potential to overcome it. Remember, your purpose in life. Remember who you are, a child of God. (:

"Now he is determined to recover from his addiction, wants to be a counsellor and to tell youths about the dangers of drug-taking"
Now that we've experienced God's faithfulness, know of His reality and goodness, tasted so many blessings of abundance... What's next?

Mr Maran is still in the midst of fully recovering - a life of consistent repentence and thanksgiving.

He wants to be a counsellor and to tell youths about dangers of drug-taking - bring the gospel to the end of the world! We got to share the good news, bring light and hope and salvation to the lost. We too, were once lost, but now found in Jesus!

The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20)
18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Let's do this together girls!

"Asked if such a moral change can stick, Dr Job said: People change when they accept who they were. We motivate them, guide them and walk the path with them. We change their lives one day at a time"
Whether you're a shepherd or not, you are a living testimony to the people around you - friends and family members. You have the Godly authority to speak into people's lives! You can make a difference to the world. You gotta tell the world that Jesus lives and show them the truth!
Walk with them.

VERSES:
Acts 2:42-47 (The Fellowship of the Believers)
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Proverbs 11:21
21 Be sure of this: The wicked will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will go free.

John 11:25-26
25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

1 Peter 5:8-9
8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

Philippians 4:8
8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

1 Peter 2:9-10
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Ephesians 5:8-9
8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

Quoted from Cheng's blog:
"Can you imagine with me? Walking for half an hour (to somewhere where we don’t even know where we were heading), it was all dark, we have to by-pass a dead pathway that has nothing BUT some insect’s sound in the night. I was scared to the the extent of holding unto blackie’s hands and it was so quiet that i had to whisper to communicate with her. We went from places to places to find that farm, we met stray dogs barking and following us, endless mosquitoes bites. "

It's really coooool to walk in dark alleys, not knowing where you will end up, but just follow seemingly endless road ahead, knowing you won't get lost on this red dot. I may sound perverse, but I love the silence thats occassionally broken by the barks of dogs and chirping of crickets, especially walking side by side with your spiritual 'parent'. I would consider this as uniquely rare quality time. I don't realise how many mosquito bites I got bitten, because I can't differentiate them from my already rashed up limbs. HAHA!

This outing was kind of pre-planned, yet last minute as well. We have always wanted to go prawning since nong-nong-time-ago, but never got the chance! Only that afternoon, realising that both are free, and Cheng really sounds desperate for it (HAHA!), we decided to go ahead with the idea just that fateful night. How impromptu! Exciting!

More quoted from Cheng's blog:
"I think my sheep is smart cos we only spent 26 dollars altogether! Catching prawns are so FUNNNN and our experience over there was like a commotion for the others who are fishing and all. Example(s):

1. Florence tried to “copy” how the Indian man catch the prawn without getting bitten by putting 2 slippers on top of the prawn’s “kiup-er”, but little did we know that in the end, the prawn’s kiup-er caught florence’s slipper. HAHAHAHA. It was really funny!!!!!

2. When blackie caught another prawn, she swing the rod and guess what, the prawn used its kiup-er to hang itself on the lamp post and refused to come down!"

HAHAHA. Thanks Cheng, I know I'm alittle smarter than you. Whee.

Other stupid things are like when the Indian man tried to help us remove the prawn from the hook, it took me awhile to realise the rod I was carrying on was resting on the Indian man's head... so stupid! And we were making the most noise there, like 2 mad women, who never saw prawns in their lives. HAHA! This ChengKee ah, keeppp on apologising whenever the prawns got away. It's not your fault! But poor thing, after awhile we see prawns floating. They died. I believe those are the ones that we managed to hook, but they successfully got away, but still, die in the end. Probably due to loss of "prawn blood".

Here's photos I grabbed from Cheng's Blog.. See how happy we were!

I think overall we did acceptably well. Though it's a mere number of 8 prawns within a time span of 3 whole hours, good job to us! Hey, it's Cheng's first time giving a shot at this! *Clap Clap* Thank God for the boss who drived us out of the deserted place to the nearest bus stop. How sweet and helpful of him to do that.