YEH!

One thing we realised after we became parents is that we are so much more aware of God's love to us...afterall, we are fashioned after God and if we feel a way towards our child, wouldn't God feel the same to us?

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'Isaac, do you love Daddy?' Sze asked looking into Isaac's eyes.
'YEH!', Isaac responded enthusiastically aloud! (Isaac can't pronounce 's' very well at the moment, so his 'yes' often turns out to be 'yeh'!)

'Isaac, do you love Mummy?' Sze asked, her eyes still gazing into Isaac's.
'YEH!' Isaac responded once again, this time noddng his head too!!

We know that Isaac is sincere when he responds to things like that, 'cos if we follow up by asking him 'Isaac, do u want to have your hair cut?' Isaac will immediately respond by shaking his head violently! He can differentiate between a 'yes' and a 'no'.

I thought to myself:
Sometimes, when we sense God asking us whether we love Him, we might hesitate and be a little 'cautious', knowing that after we say 'yes' to Him, we might still be tempted and fall into sin. So we hesistate to respond to Him...

But the fact of the matter is that what He desires is our true worship....if at that moment we really love Him with all our Heart and Mind and Soul, and continue to work towards holiness for Him, we shouldn't hesitate and should instead just respond to Him with a resounding 'yeh'...just like little Isaac!

We are well aware that whilst little Isaac may say 'yeh' to us at the moment, we know that he would inevitably be his mischievous self again a few moments later and do all the little forbidden things. However, does that make us less appreciative of that resounding 'YEH' from him when we ask if he loves us? NO!! Our hearts continue to beat with Joy when we hear that....

God too continues to delight in us when we worship Him with all we have, even though He knows that we are not perfect...

So go on, and give God our 'YEH' today!!

I love you God, YEH! :)

...

"ONE THING I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple." Psalm 27:4

Being a Teacher

Thought this is quite a funny picture...it was shot during the church camp and YL was supposed to guess "who he was" based on the clues that his team mates gave him...

He's always had the nurturing heart so it was interesting that he's actually supposed to guess that he was a 'teacher'.

Currently, apart from his work as a research scientist, he has also volunteered to impart some of his physics knowledge to his old secondary school via giving talks and inviting the students to come and take on short internship at the defence science organisation that he is working in... he's also currently mentoring some NUS High School bright sparks....

so the 'Teacher' koyok is very apt hor?? : )

Church Camp at Malacca (15-18 Jun 07)

We had a wonderful time in Malacca for our church camp. It was Isaac's first trip overseas and we drove there, ferrying amongst many things his little 'potty'.... u can imagine the details we went to in planning the trip at our family level for him!

Isaac obviously enjoyed himself, having many of the church kids to entertain and play with him...in fact, he had so much fun that he was overly stimulated and at night we had a rather hard time trying to get him to fall asleep!

It was a good time of bonding for us with the fellow church members and we were ever so touched and appreciative of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who were ever willing to help us watch out for the little one! Apart from chewing on God's words together, we had a fun time makaning together, jalaning around in the Malaccan town, drinking teh terek and devouring the wonderful Malaccan chendol, as well as feasting in the wonderful buffet spread that Mahkotah Hotel had provided us! Apart from the gourmet feasting, we had a hilarious time playing the various games that we had planned for and both adults and kids had several memorable moments laughing with and at one another!

On a spiritual level, it was a really good time for us too. The title of the Camp was 'Intimacy with God' and we had a really good speaker, Pastor Kay Chong from the One Thing Ministry, who used to be our NUS pastor. Given that there was quite a huge group of NUS sheeps whom he had pastored in the past, we were both pleasantly surprised that Pastor could still remember the two of us to be amongst his sheeps (that was about 10 years ago!). The messages and sharing were inspiring and I was particularly touched by his sharing of how Jesus was ministering to Peter when Jesus asked Peter whether he loved Him. It causes us to really appreciate God's love to us and spurs us to want to move into a deeper level of intimacy with Him, to know His thoughts and to walk in accordance to His plans for us.

Separately, Pastor also released some words relating to YL and how God can use him in worship...something for YL to ponder and pray to God about.... : )

Incidentally, it was Father's day that weekend. Apart from remembering the love of our earthly father, it was a good time for us to corporately give thanks to our Abba Father for his awesome love for us too! : )

Praise God for a wonderful retreat at Malacca!

Isaac - West Coast Park (2 Jun)

Labrador Park on May Day

Late post - Some photos to remember of our visit to the Tunnels at the Labrador Park on Labour Day (1 May 07)....

Tribute to my Gong Gong

My Gong Gong (Grandpa) passed away on Sunday afternoon. He had been struggling with Parkinsons' Disease, kidney problems and heart conditions over the past 4 years, so i think it is a relief for him that he has gone home with the Lord so that he no longer needs to suffer. I recalled that when I first saw him upon my return from UK in 2005, it pained me to see my previously burley jolly granpa who had loved to eat, to be reduced to a bed-ridden grandpa who had to be tube-fed.

I remember my Gong Gong with much fondness, and i think my brother would agree with me that he is a wonderful Gong Gong:

He loved to eat and could often eat more than two bowls of rice during his prime days. His favourite food included turtle soup, which he never failed to buy two packets for us kids (because we love it too) whenever he patronised his favourite stall at Macpherson market. He loved pepper crab too as well as Yong Tao Fu.

I remember that my Gong Gong also loved his beer. However, he drank beer differently from others. He would ask for lots of ice cubes and pour the beer over the cubes. There's probably more ice cubes than beer in terms of density ratio...i supposed he liked his beer diluted...

I remember him bringing me and my bro to sit the SBS double decker bus when it was first launched! It was such an enjoyable excursion where we could for the very first time travel on a moving object and have such a broad view of the Singapore roads...those days, there were no aircon buses, and i remembered the wind blowing through our hair and us chattering with glee, as we excitedly moved from one front row seat to the next at the 2nd deck of the double-decker bus.

I remember that my Gong Gong loved to play chinese chess and i remembered him playing with my bro.

I remember him using the abacus to calculate his monthly expenditure as he used to be in charge of the operating budget in the huge household of my extended family

I remember that he used to smoke quite a bit before his heart condition came up and there was once when the burning cigarette butt accidentally fell on my arm and i screamed in pain. He looked frantically sorry and immediately snuffed out the cigarette.

I remember that whilst my Gong Gong loved his grandchildren, he sometimes seemed rather harsh at his sons (its another story with his only daughter, the youngest of his seven children, whom he obviously doted upon). He would have low level of patience with them and would often chide them "Cao4 Huai3" ("smelly little fellow" in Teochew), when they made him angry over little things, like making him wait for more than 10 minutes before picking him up for dinner outside! But his anger quickly subsided at the sight of good food on the dining table! He personified the term "a hungry man is an angry man"!

I remember that my Gong Gong was also short in temper to my Ma Ma (granny). However, whilst they would often bicker, i remember their deep love for one another. When one was ill in the hospital, the other would stay up with him/her. We celebrated their 50th anniversary of Golden Wedding about 16 years back, and i remember the satisfied look of joy on their faces when we took the family photo at a studio...together with all 7 of their children, 7 of their children's spouses and 15 grandchildren. To date, most of his grandkids are married, and he has 3 great-grandchildren (one of whom is Isaac).

I love my Gong Gong. I had actually already started missing him 4 years ago when he was sick. But thank God for the hope of seeing him again in Heaven one day. Rest in peace, Gong Gong.