I’m back!! I have decided not to make any apologies for being the worst blogger in Malaysia. No excuses to redeem myself for not taking the trouble to write anything for ages. This entry was planned over a month ago but it looks like I could never find that spot of time to rattle on about what was happening in my life. To be honest, I did feel a pinch of guilt for those who faithfully clicked on my blog to see if Alan bothered to resuscitate it out of its state of stupor. I have a hunch that some would have popped over from the link through Team Miracle Mile‘s website. 🙂
June 09 was supposed to be prepatory month for the long awaited Standard Chartered Half Marathon. My training for this event started a few weeks after a very dissapointing showing at Pacesetters 15km run in KL back in the middle of May. Actually, I decided not to blog about that run due to the mental torture I endured before and throughout the race. Not recalling the events of that entire weekend would save me some stress. HEHE!!
However, my running plans didn’t material (yes.. again) as I was invited to teach at the Gospel Literature Outreach (GLO) school in Taiping, Perak for the entire week, starting a day after the supposed run (29th June – 3rd July). After some consideration, I knew that if I wanted to give my best to the Lord as a young lecturer, running would have to take a back seat for the entire month to prepare myself spiritually and also to fully concentrate on studying the Word of God and preparing lecture materials.
It was a lovely experience lecturing for the first time on a subject that I ‘previously thought‘ I knew well due my years of involvement with “Youth Ministry“. In fact, this was the very first time I’d ever been approached to do something like this. It was very different from the small youth camps I’d taken in the past…this task was really much more daunting to me personally. I was indeed thankful I had God fearing people such as my twin brother (Adrian) and Chew E.H. (JIC) to go to for consultation and prayer support as I mulled the invitation over. I felt led by the Lord to take up the module in the end and called Uncle Thiran to say ‘yes‘.
In my preparation, the Lord indeed revealed to me the need to re-examine ministries in the light of His Word and to see how one could faithfully apply the New Testament principles to govern ‘youth ministries’. I found myself extensively reading loads of materials that many youth workers in churches currently operate with, purchased from the local Christian bookstores both in Penang and KL. This was to update and examine the many thoughts of others circulating in ‘christendom‘. To my dismay, I found much of these materials based on over pragmatism and seeker friendly concepts instead of using the patterns and standards that were set forth in scripture. One of the findings I came out with, was that ‘youth ministries’ of today were being run like ‘parachurch’ organizations within churches, thus leading to bigger issues of being unable to build scripturally solid and effective New Testament churches for the Lord. A significant problem many churches of today are facing is the inability of young people to communicate or serve alongside older people and vice versa. This led me to direct my study towards seeing how we could trustingly use the scriptures to bring us back to the pattern that the Lord would be most pleased for us to follow, since Christ Jesus is indeed the Head of the Church. 🙂
Oh how we need to seek the Lord’s direction from His precious Word, to guide us in our decision making and to trust Him to do His part in adding souls to His fold. I quote unverbatimly Brother Andrew Cowell in one of his famous sayings, ‘Man does the work of man, God does the work of God. Man cannot do the work of God, while God will not do the work of man.‘ This divine partnership between the church and the Lord requires obedience and complete trust on our part in His power and wisdom. Some trust in man-made ideas and embrace marketing concepts and methods … but we must preach Christ crucified to the ultimate saving of their precious souls from eternal seperation from Him, that is our God mandated duty.
To spare some readers the agony of reading my discoveries, I would not make further comment on the truths I found in scripture. I shall only respond or give insight into what the Lord revealed to me if asked individually. 🙂
It was a really lovely opportunity for me to escape the busy schedule at work, in which I sacrificed 5 solid days of my annual leave for this stint in Taiping. Laura and Jojo came along with me and we had a wonderful time together when it wasn’t lecture hour. The little room that we stayed in at the Taiping Gospel Hall church site was really cozy and it was a really cute experience doing everything in there with my little family for a week. Jojo went around telling everyone that the room was our ‘Taiping House‘. HEHE!! Although I was busy re-looking and preparing lessons and notes throughout the week, just listening to the laughter and chatter of my wife and son behind me as I sat at the study table gave me great joy. It’s little moments like these that etch the best of memories in life.
The Lord helped me pull through the entire week together with the 4 very dear students who attended all the lectures. Oh yes.. Laura and Jojo also actually attended almost every single lecture, which made it all the more sweet (so that was an added 2). Jojo came armed with his story books and color pencils. Uncle Kha Kooi, my church elder from Penang drove down to attend Thursday’s morning lectures to give me the encouragement, together with his wife (treating us all to lunch later). To be honest, all the students were older than me except for 1, so I was really thankful to the Lord that I was actually taken seriously and given the humble task of sharing what the Lord had impressed upon my heart for this topic. 🙂 A note of thanks to all my family members who were upholding me in prayer, my brethren in Sg.Ara Gospel Hall and a special mention for the following people, Adrian (again), Chew E.H. (again), Laura and Jojo (who is still praying for ‘daddy’s message preparation’), both side of my parents, Joseph Lim, Bing Hwang, Uncle Alistair King (CGC), Theam Wah, Amar and Sudhir.
All in all, it was a lovely time spent there at GLO Taiping. It was not all lectures, bible study, message and notes preparation alone because I managed to slot in some other outer activities. The most notable one was going out for supper almost every single night with my little family and Bro. Theam Wah, the GLO assistant coordinator. This dear brother was the perfect cheperon to this little town he now knows pretty well. We managed to slot in a visit to the Night Safari for Jojo’s experience and that was a bit sad. When we first arrived there at 8.00pm, we thought the zoo was closed. When we went in.. there were less than 15 people sitting in the train waiting for the only tour tram round for the night. In fact, when we arrived at the ticket counter… we saw a rather furious ‘gentleman’ ranting at the reception demanding for a full refund as he had waited for 15 mins without the train moving. He left the zoo after having paid for his entire family…probably to ‘save his face’ of having to apologize for his poor behaviour. The train left once we boarded about 5 minutes later. I really pity the zoo management actually, as its tough on them to finance an entire zoo with income from 15 visitors on weekday nights. There were some really fun animals to see though, such as my favourite Kong Kang (Slow Loris) and the usual nocturnal animals such as owls. I also realised I have aged quite a bit. The driver kept pointing out the animals in their night habitat and I was always asking ..”‘mana, mana encik?“. Laura and Jojo were happily accomodating the low light conditions while their daddy struggled like a bat. HEHE!! I recently heard that carrots don’t improve eye sight but instead spoil our eyes if taken in excess, so don’t pass me any to try and solve this foreseeable long term handicap. 🙂
Jojo and mummy at the zoo!
Jojo and daddy
Well, as I slowly edge out of the age category of ‘youth’… (or am I already out of it?), I’m reminded that every juncture of our life is to be lived to the fullest for the Lord. There is so much in life that needs to be done but the only thing that really matters in the end is how we lived it and ran it for Him. As for me…it’s God that gives me the joy to age gracefully and it is He who gives me purpose in service and also real perspective to life.
I’ll put some photos up for you guys to catch a feel of what I did. Most of them were posted on my Facebook account, so this is the story behind those photos.
GLO Administrators, Students and Visitors
Together with Amar & Theam Wah
My cheeky little monkey!
My little sunshine!
Run! Alan! Run! 