Dave in Australia

back at home...

2006-09-12T01:02:00.000+08:00

After a 27 hour door to door trip (and 40 hours without sleep) I am back at home... the flight was ok, I slept a little bit here and there... I'm too tired to do a proper post now, just sticking some photos I took in Perth on saturday night... but in the next couple of days i'll get on here and review and sum up the summer...

thank you anyone who has been reading for your interest and thank you especially to those of you who have been praying for me this summer...

i'd also like to thank all of my friends in malaysia, i now have my photo album again so i have your email addresses so i'll try to get in touch with you soon, love you all... thank you...

post mission apathy...

2006-09-06T13:32:00.000+08:00

sorry for the wait... been finding it hard to get on and write on here... don't let the title of this post fool you, i've been having a really good time here with jonny in australia... we went to a place called margaret river for a long weekend and had a great time there seeing a bit more of australia... here is what we did:

on thursday when we arrived we braved the wind and rain and went down to the beach for a swim and jonny did a little bit of surfing, but the waves weren't the right type so he couldn't catch any

on friday we went on a bushtucker winery tour... we went to three different wineries and sampled their wines... we had lunch at one of them and tried some bushtucker... including a grub which i ate... after lunch we went to the cheese factory the chocolate company and a brewery... we managed to exercise some self control at the wineries and the brewery but i'm not sure if the same could be said for the cheese factory and chocolate company... all in all it was a really nice day

on saturday i hired a surf board and wetsuit and we went to the beach for the day... we both got pretty battered by the waves (you learn very quickly to have some respect for the ocean) but we also both had a few moments of success... i managed to catch quite a few waves and even stood up for a small number of them...

on sunday we hired some scooters/mopeds/motos... and drove about all over the area to see various different things... we stopped off at an aboriginal settlement to learn how to throw spears and boomerangs... we found ourselves once again at the chocolate company... we went to maragaret river town, to a couple of beaches and by the time we got to the famous caves there they were closed so we went for a little drive through the forest...

on monday morning jonny braved the stormy weather to do some more surfing and i stayed in the hostel and watched rambo with a guy from manchester called sam... we got the bus back and are now in perth once again...

now to the main point of my post: "post mission apathy"

since arriving in australia i've been finding it difficult to spend time with God, that is through reading the bible and prayer, praising and worshipping Him through listeningto/playing music or just by the way i live my life... so i've been finding this hard...

last night we went to hear Don Carson talk from Revelation 12 (click here) and also on the parable of the weeds - Matthew 13 v 24-30 (click here) it was a bit of a frightening talk - he talked about how, for the Christian, optimism is naive (that is the condition of the world - physical and political - isn't going to get any better) and pessimism is atheistic (there is no place for cynicism in the Christian mind) ... leaving us wondering what we should be thinking, the world is moving towards an end and we can be neither optimistic that it might no happen, nor pessimistic, feeling that there's no hope...

God is in control, He know's what is going on... Carson talked about how we need to be aware of the spiritual battle going on... that Satan and his angels have been defeated and kicked out of heaven, and whilst he knows his time is short, satan is displaying his fury against the Christians on the earth... doing this in obvious ways (the persecuted church in china and the middle east) and subtle, deceptive ways (false teachings and post modernism in the west) the 20th century was the bloodiest ever witnessed and there's no reason at the moment to believe that the 21st won't be worse... he brought our attention to the parable of the weeds... God lets both the weeds and the good crop GROW, ready to be sorted when it comes to the harvest... when taking a serious look at it its not hard to see that the world we live in reflects the world that is predicted by the bible about 2000 years ago...

What are we to do then in this seemingly dire situation? 1. we overcome satan by the basis of the blood of the lamb. 2. we overcome him by bearing good witness to who Jesus is again and again and again and finally 3. we overcome him the simple willingness to die for Jesus, as Carson said, what can the devil do to the Chtistian who's not afraid of death? Kill him?!

Anyway, all this hepled me realise why i had been feeling so apathetic, I had such a purpose in Malaysia, I knew why I was there, what i was meant to be doing (loosely) and everyday counted... since arriving in australia I had been kidding myself that I no longer had this purpose... but I'm fairly sure that when Jesus gives us the great commission (click here) He's not only talking about when we're on short term mission trips to a far off land... life is our mission trip, please pray for continued devotion to Jesus, and passion for evangelism even though my time in malaysia is over... in four days my mission trip is headin back to England...

hello from australia...

2006-08-30T20:08:00.000+08:00

Only seven people I think requested that I keep blogging here, but I thought i'd do it anyway (although not that often as jonny pays for internet as it is used) as I've become accustomed to it...

Having a great time, very different to Malaysia, very Western... we've been eating a lot, but thankfully doing a fair bit of sport (swimming and tennis)....

We went to a big park in the city today called king's park, which was very nice... it was myself, jonny, and jenny (another leicester friend doing the same thing as jonny)...

We're going away for 5 days to Margaret River which is to the south for a long weekend of lazing on the beach, surfing, wine tasting and bush adventures...

Photos below are of the chapel in the college here, first one is a big of an exposure experiment by myself, and underneath that is how it actually looks...

normal view...

time to go...

2006-08-27T13:09:00.000+08:00

I've just finished packing and I leave for the airport in about an hour... had a really amazing time here... I went to the mosque in Shah Alam this morning, which is the biggest mosque in malaysia... it was very peaceful (probably because I was one of a small handful of people in the massive building...)

I've had three people tell me that they wish me to keep blogging for the next two weeks in australia, however i'm not entirely convinced that this is a high enough number... leave a comment if you want me to... if i get up to 10 i'll definately do it :-)

Just enough time to say that i love Malaysia and will hopefully come back some time... (I tried to work out last night if i can save enough in the next year (without having to get a job!!) to come back next summer... but sadly I don't think i can... maybe i'll have to seek paid employment...

farewell...

2006-08-25T10:26:00.000+08:00

At alpha last night we had my farewell party... similar to Todd's last week... it was a very nice and memorable occaision... although it has made me begin to realise that I am actually going somewhere... which, when i think about it, makes me feel a little sad... not so much because I' m leaving... as I've left places before and I know its not the end of the world... I'm also heading down to australia for two weeks to see jonny, which I'm very excited about... but sad more so because I feel like I may never see my Malaysian friends again... as i said last night the guys in this house have been like my family for the last six weeks, and its not nice to leave family... the reason for the photo (mr bean's teddy bear) is because this is my farewell gift from Bih Kai and the other guys... Malaysia is absolutely crazy about mr Bean (in fact when Dave Irvine was here they all thought he looked like mr Bean..!) and as a result i've really enjoyed re-living childhood memories of watching mr bean at my grandparents house whenever my sister and I went to visit them...

Among the things I will miss about Malaysia are... Todd... the crazy little bucket shower thingy! If you don't know what I'm talking about you can read about it in an earlier post ("the most unusual shower and breakfast").... the collectivist culture (a refreshing change from the individualistic west)... the guys in the house (who like i said have been my family here)
... my student friends... Keng Yin (and her passion for giving and serving)

All this being said, despite the fact my bags are already packed, I still have a couple of (busy) days left so I might find the time to post again before I go... also... my mum has asked me to keep blogging in Australia... I'm not sure whether or not I will, it depends on my public... If you wish me to do so, please leave a comment to tell me you do....

final week...

2006-08-23T16:15:00.000+08:00

I'm halfway through my final week... with only four days to go (busy days though which is good)... I'm going to work my way backwards to bring you up to date...

...so today (wednesday) Chuen Hoe and I have just got back from having lunch with Siaw Chian and Ching Siew in campus (in the Science faculty cafe - which i hadn't eaten at before - good stuff). It was a fun lunch as we ate slowly and chatted lots... we talked about some of the stuff we went over last night in English Class and we talked about why we like to study our respective degrees (Ching Siew and Siaw Chian - chemistry, Chuen Hoe - Engineering, Myself - psychology)... I'm glad Chuen Hoe came with me as it would have been a little strange meeting people on my own without Todd I think...

Earlier today kelvin and I marvelled at Psalm 73 (possibly my favourite... click here) and how relevant it is to our lives... verse 28 is actually going to be our vision verse in Leicester Uni Christian Uni until next easter... we also talked about different issues and temptations that we face as students in our differing countries... I told Kelvin that the writer (a guy called Asaph) goes through three different thought processes in the pslam - envy, bitterness and thankfulness... After reading through it Kelvin corrected me and informed me that there area actually five - envy, bitterness, acknowledgement of guilt, thankfulness and desire to tell others... all in all a good study :-)

Last night I had my last English class (but not the last english class, Keng Yin has found someone to teach after i leave... Praise God for this as we weren't sure what was going to happen) and although I had to lead it alone (as Todd has gone) and although it was a little frightening... it went really well, we had 15 people including myself and had some really good conversations... I invited everyone along to alpha on thursday, please pray that they would come...

So my time in Redang... redang is a paradise island, and in the opinions of a lot of people I've spoken to, the most beautiful island in Malaysia... we (me and JR) arrived at about 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, and all of the tiredness of the sleepless night on the bus was forgotten as we both got very excited to see the white sand and turquoise water... we checked in and went for a swim... then got ready for our first snorkelling trip (as it was a package deal there were organised trips)... so we went to a place on the boat and as there were so many people (95% of wholm were Chinese and were wearing life jackets as they were not so confident on their swimming) we headed away from the group and swam out to sea a little bit... the coral itself was fairly amazing and there were so many fish, far more exciting than any i've seen when I've been snorkelling or scuba diving anywhere else... but the first really exciting moment happened when a shark swam underneath us... not sure whether to feel excited or scared we both kind of shrieked and smiled at each other... it was about maybe 3 or 4 ft long and not very far away (we'd been told that the sharks there were relatively harmless so we followed it for a while before it got away from us)... we swam further out and saw loads of clown fish swimming in and out of the anenemies... some of them were frightened of us and some came out to meet us and even nipped out hands with their little mouths... JR and I somehow got separated on our way back to the boat and we each swam different things... he saw another shark, this time quite a bit bigger than the previous one... and I was swimming along and saw something and thought "wow, that's a big fish" I then realised it was a turtle so I swam quickly to catch up with it, swam along with it underneath me for a while and then realised i was heading out to sea, so i let it go and returned to the boat... I realised back at the boat that we'd both swum about a mile and a half... which was good as i've not had any excercise since they stopped letting us use the gym for badminton a few weeks ago...

When we got back I went for another swim around the "house reef" and saw plenty more sharks, these ones were a lots smaller though (about 2ft)... not surprisingly at the end of my swim i was pretty tired... in the evening we had a massage, which was actually pretty brutal, but afterwards i was so relaxed I went back to our room and fell straight to sleep (even though it was about 10) so it did its job.. I also slept through my alarm so I failed to get up to watch the sunrise at 6... I was up at 8 though and we went for some scuba diving... JR did a discovery course and because I'd done it before I did a refresher (effectively the same thing, except JR was looked after constantly by his "buddy" who controlled his boyancy etc. whereas I was free to swim alone and my buddy just swam about 3 metres behind me... it was really nice and relaxing and we saw more sharks and clown fish amongst other things... as soon as we finished we had to get our kit off (scuba kit that is...) and join the second snorkelling trip to the marine park... where we were each given a loaf of bread to feed the fish with... it was amazing as they were not shy at all, and we swam about constantly with hundreds of fish accompanying us waiting for some food... they ate from our hands allowing us to stroke their sides as they ate... which was pretty cool... there was also a missive eel about 8ft long which came up to see us... was a little scary but i gave it a stroke as well... when we got back we checked out and I walked around the beach taking some photos... then fell asleep in a hammock for an hour or so and then it was time to leave...

todd has gone...

2006-08-19T14:05:00.000+08:00

Todd left this morning... which means i'm here alone... it has been amazing opportunity to serve here alongside him and we both fully believe that God had it all under control as we've got along so well... I could have been here with anyone in the world and we could've experienced all kinds of problems... but there were none :-) praise God for that!

We've had another answer to prayer in that I really wanted to visit the east coast of malaysia before i left, and it was looking like if i wanted to do that i would have to go in the last week and cancel the english class and the alpha course... which was beginning to pose a bit of a moral dilemna... thankfully God has found a way and JR and I are setting off on an overnight bus tonight to spend two days at the Redang Island beach resort (search online if you want to see what its like) before getting another overnight bus back on monday night, leaving plenty of time to rest and prepare for English class on tuesday evening...

Big blessings on Thursday night (and Tuesday actually) as attendance was really quite high at alpha, we split into two large groups after the video and were able to have interesting discussion about why Jesus had to die...

Please pray for:

alpha and english class next week
a safe journey home for Todd
a safe and enjoyable time for me and JR at the east coast
two girls (ching siew and siaw chian) who we bought bilingual bibles for yesterday
continued bible study with kelvin and chuen hoe even though todd has gone

glory...

2006-08-16T17:25:00.000+08:00

so i couldn't just leave you with photos form the weekend without giving my God some glory...

He took us up there last weekend and kept us there safely and brought us home safely... that's the basics... that's what i prayed for when we left really late on friday and it looked as if we wouldn't even get our bus... that's what i prayed again when we hurtled up the winding mountain roads... this is what I asked for from my God but He blew my expectations away...

I have friends here... i suppose i had friends here anyway, before the weekend, but now i feel like i have friends, people who I aim to keep in touch with for a long time... this happened I think when we began to move past talking just about the cultural differences between England and Malaysia, and stepped into areas that are closer to our hearts, talking about family, friends, dreams, ambitions... conversation comes naturally now... people are beginning to ask when I can come back next...

To take it to the next level in thanking Jesus for our weekend... I was asked to play guitar for the group... and to be honest I was terrified... not just at the thought of playing and singing in front of people, but more importantly that this was (for a handful of the people) the first time that they would have experienced any kind of Christian praise... and so I felt nervous from the outset... I prayed a silent prayer that God would still my thumping heart and help me glorify Him and God delivered... we had two sessions of worship over the weekend, and for some of the students they sang along.... and others listenend and (hopefully) took in the message of the songs... they were heard to be singing songs such as "the message of the cross" and "consuming fire" to themselves over the course of the weekend... so we praise our God... with no shame and no embarressment as to what people might think of us... please thank God for this...

By this point I hope you have smiles spreading across your faces... but it gets better... we had many "sharing" times over the weekend... in which we explored the meaning of life, and life's values... we were asked questions such as "what our purpose for living?"... giving us ample opportunity to begin to introduce the saving grace of Jesus... the friendship that can be had with the only perfect person to step on our earth... people here began to question life... began to ask some pretty big questions... please pray with me that they will find their answers in Jesus... in His Word... and in His Love...

So I asked Jesus to keep us safe on our trip, to do this He came with us, and stayed with us and came back with us... please pray for some more seed planting before we go... and for continued meaningful friendships with: moon, pei jun, ching siew, siaw chian, kai yit, kelvin, chuen hoe and the other guys in the house

Some things to pray for:

Continued whole hearted seeking of Jesus is my life each day
A safe journey back to the states for Todd on saturday
thank God for English Class yesterday - biggest attendance yet and I got to share what I thought was the purpose of life
Siaw Chian said last night at English class that she doesn't know her purpose or a good example to follow... please pray that one of the Christian ladies here will follow this up and introduce her to Jesus
We've got a hectic schedule for the rest of this week as people want to see Todd again before he leaves, please pray that the time spent will be effective and glorifying to God
Alpha is looking to be well attended this week as its twinned with a farewell meal for Todd, please pray that God's word would reach people there
Me after Todd leaves

crazy week...

2006-08-15T11:15:00.000+08:00

it has actually been a crazy week... by that mostly i mean its been really busy (hence the lack of updates) so I've actually scheduled time into my day today to write on here as I've found that just waiting for a spare moment isn't working for me...

I suppose i'd better pick up where i left off, and I apologise to those of you who may have found these posts to be a little bit long, but this is going to be another long one as I have more than a weeks worth of stuff to tell.... the reason for the length is as I want to share experiences with you, and not just tell you the things I've done... here we go...

At last Tuesday's English Class we had a blessing in disguise... when time for class arrived... only one guy had confirmed he was coming... so Todd and I discussed the idea of showing him the alpha video "who is Jesus?" rather than going ahead with the planned class... we prayed and decided to go for it... the guy, Kai (far right above picture), has been a good friend of ours for a couple of weeks now and we see him fairly often, he's also very clever so he didn't seem to have too much trouble understanding the video, although he did struggle with Christian jargon words such as "blasphemy" and "baptism"... we also had quite a long discussion about sin... it seems that for Chinese people, something is only considered to be a sin when it is really bad, such as murder or other things like that... so it prooves to be quite difficult to understand the biblical concept of sin: God's standards are set a lot higher, and as a result we all have sinned, but thankfully God gives us a chance to be given a fresh start and a clean record, through believing in His Son, Jesus... as you can see, having Jesus as part of your life does not seem to be a necessity if you don't feel that you have sinned... so it seems that it is really important to talk about the other positive effects of knowing Jesus...

It was a good chat and we met up for lunch with Kai and a couple fo his friends the next day and have seen him again since then, so it appears that we've not scared him off...

Thursday was a really crazy day, it was the date of chuen hoe's konvokesyen (graduation) and so we went onto campus to greet him after the ceremony, it was really good fun and he was really proud and happy, we took lots of photos and also took part in the UM tradition of picking him up (six of us) and throwing him, as high as we could manage, into the air and somehow managing to catch him on his way back down... it was a really special occaision and an honour to be able to be involved in it...

We had alpha on thursday and once again our faith was tested as no-one confirmed that they would be attending... we went through those uncomfortable motions of deciding whether we needed to cancel the evening to do something more productive with our time, or whether we would go and setup and make food etc. in faith that God would bring some people along... thankfully we did the latter as 4 girls came, we also persuaded Kelvin to join us... we broke down into a girls group and a guys group and todd, kelvin and I had a really great chat about what its like to be in a daily relationship with Jesus... I'm aware that the girls spent their time talking mostly about the video translation as they found it difficult to understand the english, they said they would like to come next week...

On thursday evening after alpha I had a go on Kelvin's moped... which was really exciting, after a short brief on how to start and control the thing i set off into the night... well... I actually over-revved the first time and accidentally pulled a wheely and set off on one wheel, only for a second though, before the front wheel came safely down and i drove slowly and in a rather stuttery fashion around the block twice before getting off as Abby had arrived...

Abby is a medical student at Leicester University, and is also from Malaysia, she has a government grant to study in England, I've known her for approximately two years so it was really nice to see a friendly and familiar face... we (abby, myself, kelvin, todd and some of abby's friends) ate mamak (indian food i think, or maybe malay food) and chatted for a long time... it was really really nice to see her... also one of her friends interrupted our conversation midway through and asked me what i thought our purpose in life was, and after praying a short and silent prayer I explained that I believed our purpose was to have a relationship with the God who created us and that this can only be done through knowing Jesus... we talked about other ambitions such as making a lot of money or being famous and hopefully he could tell I was sincere in saying that knowing Jesus personally is what satisfies us, rather than more material ambitions... we also talked about what it meant to invest in what life there might be after death...

As i was having this conversation the singapore team arrived in malaysia for the weekend... but i have to go to campus now so I'll write another long post about our second, and most successful trip to the cameron highlands (including lots of photos) when I get back this afternoon...

we did other stuff throughout last week... but right now I can't quite remember all of it, if I do I'll add it it...

cameron highlands photo blog...

2006-08-15T10:18:00.000+08:00

ok so its taken me soo long to upload these pictures that i'm just going to write a caption for each one, rather than describe the whole trip in detail (pictures may not be in chronological order)

Me and Ching Siew with some furry green bean moustaches

JR jumping in the fields at the tea plantation

JR and Kelvin enjoying a stroll down the hill

Kelvin with a strawberry from the only place in Malaysia that they grow

Moon, Todd and Pei Jun at cactus valley

Dave and Todd doing the newly invented "monkey dance"

The group at the tea plantation

Peter (the son of some missionaries we met who went to school in the cameron highlands), Kelvin, Chuen Hoe, Moon, Pei Jun, and JR

Chuen Hoe and Cha Lun

Every guy there (except Todd) sitting on top of Chuen Hoe (from front to back: Alan, Tim, Me, Dave, JR, Cha Lun, Geoff, Bih Kai and Chuen Hoe)

Macrae and Chuen Hoe

Chuen Hoe and Cha Lun

Walking through the tea plantation

Another group photo

Stunning views of the tea plantation

How our much loved tea is made

Quick trip over to England with Chuen Hoe, Siaw Chian, Ching Siew and Cha Lun

Trying some dried strawberries (left to right: JR, Cha Lun, Siaw Chian, Ching Siew, Pei Jun, Moon and Dave)

Me

Group photo at cactus valley

Chefoo Methodist Centre - our home in the highlands

One of the many awesome views on the way up to the highlands

kuala selangor...

2006-08-06T19:46:00.000+08:00

Time is moving so quickly, it doesn't seem like very long at all since i was last sitting here at this computer checking my emails before we headed off for the weekend... but now i'm back almost in the blink of an eye... had a really great weekend though... this is what we did:

We drove to Kuala Selangor (i think there were 20 of us in total) shortly after lunch time on saturday, and after a night of little sleep on friday (my own fault i stayed up late playing a game with Chuen Hoe) I was fully expecting to sleep in the car like I usually do, and I was tired, but I was also fascinated by the scenery so I strived to stay awake and watch as we drove past forests of palm trees (specially planted to obtain palm oil) and rubber trees... also a fair few sizeable mosques and temples...

We arrived at a quite little town past Kuala Selangor where we were to be staying and got out of the cars... but no-one seemed to know what we were meant to be doing... so we just kind of wandered round a bit, some people disappeared to get bags of cendol (like green jelly worms, served with beans in an ice cold brown sugary drink - very refreshing) while todd and i had a look in a truely awful souvenir shop... after this little stop came to nothing we got back into the cars and drove to our appartment (a deceptive place, on the outside it didn't look like it would house us for the night, however on the inside it was more than adequate with five bedrooms and two bathrooms, it was a little crowded but we got by fine). We played a couple of games to ensure that everyone was aquainted with each other (the kind of organised fun that makes me cringe... I realised pretty early that I had to swallow my pride and join in and we had a good laugh!)

We had tea in a seafood restaurant (Kuala Selangor has a huge river running through it so there is seafood aplenty :-)) and split our group into two tables... I sat next to a guy called Kai Yit who we met in the first week and comes to english class, he's a really nice guy and I had a great time chatting to him while we ate... we had all manner of different seafood... including something called bamboo clams (look a lot like small sticks of bamboo, but with little worm things living inside - yummy!)... after this we got lost driving around and then made it to the firefly park...

This was an experience to be savoured, we split into groups of three and four, clothed ourselves in life jackets and got into little canoes... and a guy standing at the back rowed us up and down the river, which in itself was superb, the river lit only by the moonlight stretched far into the distance and was lined with silhoutted palm trees... to add to the experience the trees on the river banks were lit up by the glittering of thousands of fireflies flashing their lights to attract mates... altogether quite a romantic experience... (just fitting for me and todd and big guy to share!!)

The next day - today - we went drove about some paddy fields (fairly boring as we missed the harvest so they were essentially just empty fields) and stopped at a mango orchard and asked the man tending it to sell us some mangos, which he did... they weren't quite ripe so were pretty hard and also quite sour... but were about 3 times bigger than any other mango i'd seen before...

We then headed to another seafood restaurant, this time a place on stilts over the edge of the river, where we could watch boats sail by and there was a cool breeze making for a very pleasant lunch... a similar experience to the night before... we sat round a table and they brought out a plate of rice each and then filled the centre of the table with aquatic delacacies... which everyone just kind of piled in on, and there was enough for us to eat our fill... new foods from the meal today: little shell fish - not sure what they were - a bit like muscles, and crabs (i've had crab before but not this fresh and not crab accompanied by a set of hammers and nut crackers to get into them - very messy, in fact i managed to make a claw explode all over my shorts!)... Just after we finished the people at the table next to us ordered a big plate of snails to shell (sea snails) and a man noticed todd and I looking on with a mixture of curiosity and disgust.. he reacted to this by pulling a snail out of its shell (with a little stick) and offering it to us, we thanked him discussed who was actually going to eat it before agreeing to split it and both give it a try... intially it tasted quite sweet and had a kind of chewy texture, but once you got through to the middle there was a taste which wasn't that pleasant and remained for some time... we survived the ordeal but I'm not sure that I'll be ordering snails again in a hurry!

We got back in our cars and I once again kept myself awake so that I wouldn't miss anything on the ride home

I think I'm getting a cold, please pray that it'll leave me alone fairly quickly as I'm really having a good time and don't want that to spoil it...

salvation...

2006-08-04T16:49:00.000+08:00

From The Pilgrim's Progress:

Thus far did I come laden with my Sin;
Nor could ought ease the greif that I was in,
Till I came hither: What place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the Burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!

thoughts...

2006-08-04T15:40:00.000+08:00

At some point since I've been here I've looked over at dan hames' blog (click here) and I came across a post that has been a real help to me in Malaysia, and will surely be a great help when I get back, and possibly even for the rest of my life...

Dan simply posted a quotation from John Piper's book Future Grace...

Sin is:

"... what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God."

So I've been thinking about this a lot... and whilst here... there has been a lot of temptation, especially when I've been feeling really tired, to think about things that are not Glorifying to God.

To explain - Jesus said the greatest commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your mind and with all of your soul and with all of your strength" (Matthew 22 v 34-40 click here) this is a command from God, disobeying a command from God is considered to be sin... How little then are our hearts satisfied with God then if Piper's thought is true?

Sin begins in the mind, we see this in James 1 v 14-15 (click here) "but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." Serious business then.

Back to Matthew 22 v 34-40. Our minds and thoughts are precious to God. Psalm 37 v 4 (click here) has also been of inspiration. The verse says "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." It can be seen that God is not wishing to punish us by dominating our thoughts.. He will is to bless us, to enable us, as Jesus put it, "have life to the full" (John 10 v 10 click here). This is good news, we learnt in alpha that the word "gospel" means "good news".

It is often so hard to delight in the Lord, and think of Him and His glory. However it is referred to again and again in the new testament so I feel it is safe to say that it is an important practice. We these instructions in Paul's letter to the Colossian church "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ... set your mind on things above, not on earthly things" (Colossions 3 v 1 and 2 click here).

Its not a new thing, just for people of our generation, to find this to be hard. I've started reading The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, which was written in 1678 and was interested by this short poem conscerning Christian's effort to climb the Hill called "difficulty":

"This Hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The difficulty will not me offend.
For I perceive the Way to Life lies her:
Come pluck up Heart, let's neither faint nor fear;
Better, though difficult, the Right Way to go,
Than Wrong, though east, where the End is Wo."

I feel that this poem encaptulates effectively (once you can get past the old English) what I'm aiming to communicate. Jesus also didn't cover up the difficulty encountered in the Christian life: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7 v 13-14 click here).

We can take comfort in knowing though (if we do indeed know Christ - if you're not sure about this read this) that Jesus is with us every step of the way. "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Jesus speaking in Matthew 28 v 20 click here) also see Psalm 73 (one of my favourites!) verses 23 to 28 (click here) He is continually with us, holding our hands and guiding us with His counsel :-)

I'm thinking back to Psalm 37 (see above), and thinking of how good God is (for an in your face example of God's love click here and here) that He would wish to bless us and give us the desires of our heart, all the mores so that He would wish to know us and have a relationship with us despite what we've done and how many times we've broken that most important of the commandments. When I catch myself thinking of the things of the world I'm finding myself asking "why am I not satisfied in God right now? What is there I could want that He can not give me, either now or at a time and in a circumstance that is much better for me?

When I was in Southampton for the orientation day for this trip I went to a church there and the man preaching said "So often we pray that God would change our circumstances because we are not entirely satisfied with them, rather than asking God to change our hearts" God puts us through tests to refine us and to help us grow to be more like His Son Jesus, who certainly didn't have an easy and comfortable life. Please pray that I would learn to delight myself in my Lord, and I will pray that you will too...

Our thoughts matter

melaka... etc...

2006-08-02T22:46:00.000+08:00

I've just spoken to my mum on the phone and she said it would be better if I updated here little and often rather than in really big occasional stories... I'm not sure if this is going to work... as quite a descriptive person, i find it fairly difficult to tell stories (as many of you will be all to aware) briefly... to single out the important points and stick to them... ensuring that the focus of whatever i'm trying to say gets across to the listener (or reader)... also as I write this blog I get excited that people are actually reading what I'm putting on here, and as a result of this excitment i don't want people to feel like i'm selling them short, so i try to cram in as much detail as possible...

however, in spite of all this, I'm going to try to update everyone on the events of the weekend as well as what we've been doing since, briefly and concisely...

so we (myself, todd and a guy called JR who is from the phillipines and currently doing a masters degree in engineering at UM) set off for melaka on saturday morning... we encountered a strange thing at the bus station, we got a certain type of ticket for the bus, which whilst really cheap... seemed to be a bit of a gamble... if there were spare seats just before the bus set off then we were allowed to occupy them... and if not, then we didn't and had to go and buy new tickets (we only found out this is how they worked after we payed for them)... as it happened there were three seats left as the bus was leaving (that's right! the perfect number for the three of us!) so we took them gladly, rejoicing in our thrifty good fortune...

I'll spare the details of the coach journey except to say that it was during the trip that I saw my first wild monkey, just sitting at the side of the road... it actually made me feel a little excited...

Melaka is a very historical city so we walked about in blisteringly hot heat looking at historical stuff, we saw the malaysian independence memorial, a dutch and a portuguese church, the ruins of the church of st paul (in which was a local busker, singing a fairly good version of Hotel California by The Eagles)... we had lunch, which was Malay food, unfortunately it was too spicy for me to eat on such a hot day, after lunch we walked about some more and saw some more really cool stuff... we had our picture taken with a massive snake, which was both scary and fun... reducing the three of us to nervous giggling throughout...

We were crossing a bridge over a river and looked over the edge and saw a collection of absolutely MASSIVE lizards either on the banks of the river or swimming about in it, I didn't even realise they existed that big, but there they were, totally wild, swimming about...

We went to a really cool night market on a street called "jonker street" which is famous for its antiques as well as its night market... there was so much brilliant stuff so it was a good opportunity to do some souvenir shopping... we also saw some stalls selling pet scorpians and tarantulas...

The next morning (we stayed in a questionable hotel, suffice to say that we had no window in our room, and although it advertised having television this was questionable as the television didn't actually work) we went to Christ Church Melaka (as it was Sunday morning) ... its a Anglican Church and the service was thoroughly enjoyable... encouraging us all...

We went to a replica of the sultanate palace, then had some lunch (the famous chicken rice balls - which we agreed that we weren't quite sure why they were so famous here, only to be told later that we got them from the wrong place)... it was so hot though and we'd seen a lot that we decided to get the bus back to KL and have a look round there in the afternoon when it was a little cooler...

KL was pretty uneventful as it was raining... we rushed through china town and then had a quick look round the central market but we were all pretty tired so got a bus back to Millennium Court (where JR lives) and then said goodbye to him and got a lift back here...

I realise that wasn't really that brief and yet I somehow managed to miss out a lot of stuff that we did (for example i didn't explain the differing interiors on the coach down to Melaka and the coach back up...) sorry mum...!

I'm tired now so won't explain what I've done since the weekend... although English Class went very well last night and the number of people attending doubled from two to six :-) Thanks for your prayers!

Hang on a second... I got my hair cut on Sunday evening and I have to tell about it...

The place was pretty cool... while you waited you had headphones and could pick which of 4 different televisions on the wall you wanted to get the sound from... The guy had a little difficulty knowing what to do with my thick, curly hair so in the end he just shaved it off... when he finished he got out a hoover (vacuum cleaner for our US friends) and proceeded not to hoover the floor but to hoover my head! and... my face! very strange! Then (which I found a little wierder)... he got out a big, dry, yellow, car sponge and wiped my head with it, I really couldn't tell you why... finally he showed me to a self-service hair washing station, which i managed to use quite successfully without getting my clothes all wet!

lessons from alpha and some unexpected ministry costs....

2006-07-31T16:19:00.000+08:00

as time moves on here, we're getting steadily busier, and as a result I'm finding less and less time to get online and blog about what we've been doing...

So the last you heard we were preparing for the first alpha session... which was a bit of a learning experience... we invited over 40 students and had strong hopes for a few of them... we prayed a lot, asking God to do something big and we waited for responses to come in... of the 40 or so that we sent messages to, we got replies from somewhere between 5 and 10 of them, all of them apologising and saying that they couldn't come... this made for a nervous and uncertain wait... thinking thoughts like... "what would happen if no-one came?" and "does this mean that we're failing in our purposes here?" or "will Keng Yin be ashamed and feel let down if, after so much prayer and effort getting us over here, we can't get a small group of students to an alpha course?" Obviously these thoughts weren't demonstrating great amounts of faith, so we continued to pray, and ask God to help us stay faithful regardless of what happened...

As it turned out, we had a group of four students arrive, and two ladies who are friends with the people from the old navigators group (the one we're aiming to get up and running again). The students had to leave before the start of the video, which whilst it was a shame, meant that we were able to get to know them better and share and enjoyable meal with them... hopefully they'll come for the whole thing next week... The two ladies stayed and seemed to enjoy it, but they chatted more to Keng Yin and the other ladies there so i can't be certain (they did both fill in the cards saying they had not yet decided if they'll return so please pray for them)...

I think the experience is helping us realise that things aren't always going to be really easy here, and that we need to involve God in it more and more, we can't expect people to want to come to alpha just because we stand out here and invited them along... we need to be constantly seeking God, and also seeing people as individuals, and getting to know them....

A rather odd and expensive mistake happened before the alpha evening. That afternoon we were playing with todd's baseball and baseball gloves out in the front garden... we were all getting pretty good, and it was my turn to play with Cheun hoe, after a few throws I was getting more and more confident, and threw the ball really pretty hard... which he caught well... I figured I should maybe slow it down a bit... to be on the safe side... so i threw the next one a little softer and as he reached to catch it, it bounced off his glove, then bounced off the top of the garden wall... and finally bounced off a car windscreen as it drove past, the car kept going so we figured it was ok and that the ball had slowed enough not to do any damage... so we set about hunting for the ball which had made its way, rowling down the road... a few minutes later, just as we found the ball and were heading triumphantly back to the house the car reappeared, sporting a rather large crack running across the windscreen, we apologised profusely to the young girl driving and offered to pay for the damage we had caused... unfortunately the car was a brand new import (possibly from Japan) and so its not going to be particularly cheap to replace the broken window, although Cheun hoe did a bit of research and found a place that will put a new one on for considerably cheaper than the price she had originally suggested... as much as its a dissapointment to incur such a cost, we do thank God that noone was hurt as the situation could have been a lot worse...

We're also hoping that the girls who were in the car are students so that maybe, when they come to collect some money for us we can perhaps invite them to something or tell them why we're here... as I'm sure you've been told before, God works in mysterious ways...

please pray:

thank God for the guys we're living with, for their continued hospitality and kindness
thank God for the students we've met so far
for continued good health
for the building of relationships with those we have met
for the Bible study times with Kelvin, Chuen Hoe and Bik Yih (B. E.)
for good personal time with God for myself and Todd

thank you

some photos...

2006-07-28T16:14:00.000+08:00

I've got a bit of time on the computer so I'm going to try to upload some photos for you all to look at from our trip to KLCC (the centre of Kuala Lumpur - we learnt quite quickly that saying we've been to visit KL and expecting people to understand exactly where we've been and what we've done is a bit like telling someone that you went to visit London and expecting them to know where you've been and what you've done). We went with Kelvin and three of his friends (from left to right in the first photo: TY, Elsie, Todd, Car Leng and Me - Kelvin took the picture)

That will have to do for now, I've been sitting here for ages and I'm getting a little bored... I'll put some more up when I get the chance (click on the photos to enlarge them)

alpha...

2006-07-26T21:19:00.000+08:00

I haven't really got time to write much (this time i mean it)

It's the first alpha tomorrow (Thursday) night (again if you don't know what alpha is click here) and todd and I are praying that God will do something big... we're not sure what this means exactly but we'd like you to join with us in praying...

If you want to type a prayer to encourage us please leave it in the comments section at the bottom of this post, this would be really helpful :-)

the alpha evening starts at 7.30pm Malaysia time, 12.30pm UK time, and 6.30am US time, if you can, please make a note of your local time and pray with us for this occaision...

one week in...

2006-07-23T18:53:00.000+08:00

Hello again...

Firstly, forgive me if this post is a little short... I know we're due to go out for tea soon but I'm not sure when... I'm not expecting to have time to write much....

Secondly... I plan to write a post at some point when I get the time about my friend and team mate todd, please remember him in your prayers...

Ok... so I've been here for a week now, well I've been here (in Malaysia) for 6 days but I set off from the UK a week ago... how's it been going? ... pretty good... we've seem some really big blessings, but are also encountering some challenges...

The main challenge has been coming to terms with an entirely different culture... you may have encountered me complaining about not being able to sleep or it being too hot if you are a regular reader... on the surface and in isolation these kind of things seem a bit trivial to me... but when they all come at the same time and you don't have anyone with you who you feel you know well enough to show weakness to and be really honest with it gets pretty hard... This has been teaching me a great thing, something I suppose I should already know... to rely on God...

1 Peter 5v7 says "cast your anxieties on Him (God), because He cares for you" I've been realising that when God says He cares for you, He is not merely offering friendly words to temporarily boost your morale, He means it and He acts upon His care... for example one time this week I was feeling a bit worn out (physically and emotionally) and so I asked God to comfort me, soon after Todd asked if we could pray together for a while, we did this and shared scripture with each other... all of a sudden, the comfort of God's words broke through the worry and apathy and rejuvinated me... I thank God that His Word (the Bible) is living and active...

Another big challenge is not knowing how much, and it what way we can speak to the people we meet about our Lord and Saviour, the author and perfector of our faith (Jesus). For example, after we made the brochures for the SPICE program Keng Yin (the navigator lady) and Big Guy (the navigator guy we live with) went through and took out any mention of the word "Christian" or "Jesus" or "Christ" as this might cause us problems... at first i think we felt a bit discouraged, I felt a bit like i was being dishonest, or deceiving people to come along to something other than what it was...

I think its clearer in my mind now and I'm beginning to understand that explicit Christian language might cause us problems if it gets into the hands of an authority figure, also it seems that we can talk to people about our faith but giving them literature are different things here and to be approached in different ways... I'm still not sure that I understand... Today I was talking to a Chinese girl about Religion and saw what would usually (in England) be a clear opportunity to present the gospel, however i am still uncertain of the "rules" so I kept the conversation at a less personal level... this felt a bit odd... but i think in the situation i did the right thing...

Another challenge is that we have a day (or two maybe) to meet people and get them along to an English class we are teaching (we are being taught how to do this later tonight) which starts on Tuesday... please pray that God would surpass any of our expectations...

A big blessing has been the kindness of the guys who we are living with, between the seven of them, there has always been someone about to help us out whenever we needed anything (food, transport etc.) Kelvin taught us some chinese today, which i seemed to pick up pretty well and was a lot of fun...

I suppose the major blessing of the first week was the Bible studies we have been doing with Cheun Hoe and Kelvin, we've done two now and i think it has been really good for them, and for us... please pray for them :-)

Todd and I have also be been blessed by spending time each day praying together... please pray that we will continue to see this is a necessity, and that we will continue to place our work here in God's hands...

We went to Kuala Lumpur today with Kelvin and three girls from his course (TY, Elsie and Kar Leng), it was good fun, I'll post about it (including some pictures - hopefully!) another time :-)

Thankyou so much for your thoughts and prayers

ups and downs...

2006-07-21T16:51:00.000+08:00

Please pray for some sleep for me!! I managed to scrape together about an hour (maybe two maximum) last night and its really beginning to drain me, i've been feeling a little under the weather today due to a lack of sleep (I've only had one night of more than 3 or 4 hours and I got here nearly a week ago)... so that is the down, when you're tired it's hard to be really enthusiastic about things, and its been making me feel a little homesick today

On a more positive note we did a spontaneous bible study with a couple of the guys in our house today (Kelvin and Cheun Hoe). Which was really cool as they'd seen us reading our Bibles and asked if they could join in with us... so we did a study on the first 18 verses of John's Gospel, they asked plenty of questions and it was really good... Kelvin went away and wrote down everything that he had learnt once we were done and said (despite coming from a Christian background) no-one had told him before that you could know and experience God personally, as well as knowing about Him intellectually... we're starting an alpha course next week and they're both going to come :-) and hopefully bring some friends :-) please pray especially for these two guys.

I have managed to learn a few Malay words. By asking the guys what street signs and other things say (For example Jalan means "street" and Selamat Detang means "welcome"), but that's about it... also the guys we are living with are chinese-malays and spend most oftheir time speaking to each other in mandarin... which is pretty hard to pick up... they all speak at least four languages (mandarin, cantonese, malay and english), which is pretty impressive... sometimes they speak them all at once, which would make it impossible for us to follow, even if we spoke a bit of each...

We went for a drive around the campus last night and it was absolutely HUGE! There are 11 colleges (halls of residence) inside the campus (and one outside) each housing about 900 students... also every subject has its own faculty area, each with many buildings, there are also sports facilities and many other things... we might have a little trouble getting into the campus as two months ago some people walked in and stole $2m worth of equipment, so they are really tight on security right now, please pray that God will find a way in for us. The SPICE club is really taking place, and we will have a fairly busy weekly schedule starting next week:

Monday - sports night - maybe badminton, ping pong, swimming or football
Tuesday - English class - Todd and I will be teaching a conversational English class to help improve confidence
Wednesday - night off to spend with our friends
Thursday - Alpha course (if you're not sure what it is, click here)
Friday - another sports night

We are also planning two weekend trips, one on the weekend of the 5th August - to a Rice Plantation in Kuala Selangor (click here). And another on the weekend of the 12th August - to a Tea Plantation in the cameron highlands (click here) hopefully the Navigators Singapore team will be joining us for this trip... This afternoon Todd, Cheun Hoe and myself made a brochure for the SPICE club showing all the activities, so that we can give them to our friends to invite them along, hopefully i'll get a picture of the the guys on here

a trip to the malaysian police...

2006-07-20T14:28:00.000+08:00

We've been here for 4 days now and our team leader, James, leaves todd and I today, never to return!! He's got to go and check up on the singapore team, and also on the team in the philapines, then he's heading back to the US for the rest of the summer. This was a little bit of a surprise for us when we were told the other day, as we both thought he would be here for the entirety of our trip. However we are feeling ok about it as we had a meeting two nights ago, to decide what our objectives were for our time here...

Todd and myself are aiming to have a bible study group each started by the time we leave, hopefully with Christians, who will continue after we leave. We are also putting the finishing touches on an evangelistic programme called "SPICE" which stands for:

- Spiritual discovery
- Physical development
- Intelligent development
- Character building
- Emotional quotient

The program will be aimed at university students and recent graduates, and intends to help students develop important life skills, whilst having fun together and being challenged about the truth in the Bible, they are hoping to run the programme for the next 3 years at least so we will be working on fine tuning it...

So at the moment we are still adjusting... especially to the time difference (I stayed awake until 5am last night and then fell asleep to be woken at 11.30 to go and get breakfast), its also an adjustment getting used to eating Chinese food for every meal...

This morning Todd and I ordered our own food for the first time, which was a very positive step, I ordered "Chee yok fan" which is Pork noodles, and Todd ordered "big pau" which is a kind of dumpling filled with meat and egg...

We then set of to get mobile phones for ourselves so we can keep in touch with our friends while we're here as the student culture is to organise themselves using text messages (which for me is the norm, but it is not how it is done in the US so it is a little harder for Todd), when we got back to the car an old man was reversing into a space and reversed into the back of our car! The old man refused to accept responsibility and so, after a bit of an arguement (between Chong, who was driving, and the man) we went to the police station to report the incident. It turned out to be fairly uneventful as the Malaysian Police are not very helpful, Chong thought that having a couple of foreign guys present would cause them to act, but this wasn't the case, so we left without any success...

please pray for:

sleep
adjusting to food
adjusting to the heat
and thank God for our housemates
and also for our new friends: Laun, and San (most spellings of names are my guesses from how the name sounds!!)

It takes a long time to upload photos so they are going to have to be a rare treat, also as we haven't really been to any tourist spots yet we haven't taken many pictures...

Thanks to all those who have left comments, it is really good to know you are thinking of me

the most unusual shower and breakfast...

2006-07-18T11:33:00.000+08:00

after another night of little sleep (please pray that my body adjust quickly!!) I awoke to another hot day...

firstly, sorry about the lack of photo, I'm going to try again today...

I'm living in a student house with 7 malaysian guys and todd (a navigator from the US), their names are:

Chuen Hoe
Kelvin (who is the same age as me and is also studying psychology)
Bik Kai
Thompson
William
Jun
Bik yih

The shower here is a little different, its basically a big container of water and a little tub, which you pour over yourself... water is lukewarm, which is welcome relief as its so hot here... I fellt a little naughty as you get water all over the bathroom as there's no special area to stand in, but that's the only way to do it... Malaysian people tend to wash at least twice a day, which is understandable in the heat and humidity...

Last night we were told that its actually cheaper to eat out than to buy ingredients to make food at home, so i expect that's how it will be here... so whilst at the night market we went to a hocke (probably spellt wrong) store and i got some noodle soup and a glass of sugar cane juice (like sugary water)...

This morning we set off zooming off on the back of the guys mopeds (this is looking likely to be our main transport.. don't worry mum, we all wear helmets!) to another food court style area and had pork noodles and wan tons with pepper sauce... along with a soya bean drink (like very sweet milk)... and then for pudding (that's right, pudding at breakfast!) we had some little cakes that were filled with chicken...

Still not sure what the plan is for today, spent a lot of time chatting with Kelvin and Todd about the UK, US and Malaysian school system... there's also been another Tsunami, this one in Java in indonesia, we've been reassured that it won't effect us, but please pray for the victims, you can read about it here...

The photo is the view from the balcony, and the house we are staying in is fairly similar to the one that is on the picture... i'll try and get some more photos up soon...

Oh, we've also been told that, Mr Dave Irvine and his colleagues may be coming to visit for a few days at some time during our stay, which will be great...

safely arrived...

2006-07-17T19:28:00.000+08:00

I've been here for about 3 hours :-) its a little toasty... that is... its very hot, and very humid... I had a fairly uneventful flight, although i didn't manage to sleep until about 10 minutes before we came into land... met a friendly newlywed Christian couple who are here for their honeymoon (congratulations to them if they should read this!!) I'm living in a student house with 7 malaysian guys and an american for the next six weeks... Met the lady who we're going to be working with, whose name escapes me at the moment... Sorry but I'm going to keep this brief as we're just off out to get some food...

If you're praying for me, give thanks for a safe journey and my friendly new housemates, and please ask God to help me get a good night's rest as we start working tomorrow (when i say working... i think we're going to the university to meet some students... nothing too difficult) and please pray for myself and todd that we adapt quickly to the culture here...

By the way the picture here is the view up the road from our balcony

how am i feeling?

2006-07-15T03:41:00.000+08:00

I'm immensely looking forward to stepping off the plane and walking (or stumbling after a 12 hour flight), hazy eyed into a scenario that I've never been in before, I'm looking forward to meeting the other members of my team, James Kang and Todd Bradely Suave (awesome!)... but even before all this I'm looking forward to that exciting moment of arriving at heathrow on sunday afternoon... taking my place on the plane, hopefully sitting next to someone pretty cool, who is willing to talk when you want to talk and will leave you be if you just want to chill and rest...

I love sleeping while i travel, not sure why, i just do... I fell asleep in the car today, good stuff... so in my mind i'm dividing my flight into three different blocks of about four hours, one spent listening to the music i'm loving at the moment (I really hope that Malaysia has some interesting and unique music to offer...) and reading (I hope to finish the book I got from my housemate ben for my birthday: D. L. Moody by John Pollock - paints a superb picture of a man who inspires you to keep going and going) a second block of time spent chatting with my new found aeroplane friend (possibly two of them, you never know) and a final block of time spent sleeping... love it!

I'm going to be sharing a room with someone, although I'm not sure who though - I know its going to be in a satellite township about 30km from KL called Petaling Jaya... the arrival address i've been given is Block L 1-2, Happy Apartment - you got to love that! By the way I arrive at about 2.30pm on monday I think (Malaysia time which is +8hrs), I have no idea what I'll be doing when I arrive which is pretty exciting... I've also been told that if you go to the check in looking smart you have more chance of being upgraded so I'm going to give that a go, I'll let you know how I get on...

I think I'll leave it there... can't wait!

who am i?

2006-07-05T02:26:00.001+08:00

Some of the people who read this (assuming there are any) will know me very well, some may not know me so well, some may have never met me and know nothing about me at all, for the benefit of the latter two this post will give you an idea of who i am and the things i like...

I'm going to do this via a rather strange medium... a good friend (dan hames) started a craze, well he didn't start it, it came about through a sermon he listened to (by Steve Davis of a church in Leicester) in which he (Steve) suggested that, as Christians, we should be able to give, at short notice, a list of 150 things that we are thankful to God for... so I'm going to give it a go, and hopefully it'll be a fun way of allowing any readers to get to know me a little bit...

Here goes (by the way, these are in no particular order of preference)...

1. The Gospel (not sure what this is? click here)
2. My mum and dad (thanks for having me)
3. Ben (who i'll have known for 10 years - my longest standing friend - in September)
4. Nathan
5. Jonny
6. The hope that as I get older and more mature willies and farts will continue to be funny
7. That I have good relationships with all four of my grandparents
8. That God has provided for me to go to Malaysia for six weeks to do His work
9. Psalm 73 (click the link to read!!)
10. Leicester University
11. My Psychology girls (Holly, Indi, Sarah and Tish) - a group of girls who live up the road and I study psychology with - who I love to bits
12. Being able to naturally use the phrases "by proxy" and "liase with" in conversation
13. Football
14. That football is enjoyable to watch as a neutral - meaning I can continue to watch the world cup now that England have been knocked out
15. Superlatives
16. My sister (Rebecca) and brother-in-law (Michael)
17. Radiohead
18. Lad's nights
19. Steve Bawden and Dan Hames - a delight to know
2o. Christine "Beeee" Burroughs - one of the most inspiring people I know
21. Loud Rach (Rach Webb) and Noisy Rach (Rach Wray) - noisy = loud + annoying
22. Newcastle United FC
23. My ipod
24. My guitars
25. James Pearson - a very gifted friend
26. Chris Turnpenny - another very gifted friend
27. Tennyson Boys (past, present and future)
28. When Pete spontaneously bakes for us
29. That Jonny is going out with a nice young lady (Anneli)
30. The library gang (a group of people who I spent much time revising with before my exams this year) - Myself, Steve, Charlie and Sara
31. That Charlie always looses when we play games (and is a gracious loser - at games, not in life generally, that is... she is not a loser in life, not that she is a loser in life, just not a gracious one)
32. How competetive she (Charlie) gets
33. The things we did on our revision breaks - and managed to do something different every time
34. Long conversations with beeee
35. Playing guitar
36. Writing songs
37. Playing pro evolution soccer against nathan
38. Playing pro evolution soccer on the same team as ben, and trying to win a world cup together with England
39. Real ale
40. Going to the pub with dad
41. John Steptoe
42. John's family - who have looked after many of us students at leicester since we arrived
43. Our holiday last year to Munich, Prague and Budapest
44. Drawing
45. Michelle - so much fun to spend time with, talk about Jesus with and paint/draw with
46. Evangelism with people you don't know
47. Evangelism with people you do know
48. Answered prayers
49. Finding out you've encouraged someone
50. The Cross of Christ
51. Different Cultures
52. World music
53. Talking about music with my dad
54. The Mighty Boosh - hilarious and wierd english sitcom
55. Alan Partridge - another hilarious english sitcom
56. The Office - another hilarious english sitcom
57. Swimming
58. Giggling in public places with Ben (like recently when we were on a train opposite a business man and were doing a crossword and realised the first five letters of a word were "e, r, e, c and t")
59. That I'm going to Malaysia with an American guy with a much cooler name than mine (me - david andrew panting, him - todd bradely suave)
60. Steve Coogan - comedian
61. Hymns - especially when I can understand what they're getting at
62. Andy Upton - pastor of my churh and a very big man
63. Jenna - one of my best friends from the second year of uni
64. Anna - another friend from uni who is lots of fun to talk to and spend time with
65. Hitting a half decent shot when I play golf
66. Playing football in the rain
67. When I score a header
68. The pub (specifically the one down the road from our house - the "horse and groom")
69. Food
70. Steak - I like mine done between medium rare and rare
71. Girls who either like football, or like that I like football
72. People who think I'm funny (especially John Steptoe - he's soo easy)
73. A good Pizza
74. Christmas Dinner
75. The Christmas Eve service at our Church (Great Sampford Baptist Church)
75. Knighton Evangelical Free Church - my church in Leicester
76. My gap year - spent doing sports ministry with Ambassadors in Sport
77. Hebron - the Scripture union camp i went on for 8 years and will probably go back to one day
78. Confusing and thought provoking films
79. The Parole Officer - fantastically funny film
80. The boys from uni - James, Liam, Mark, Andreas, Rich, Adam, Paul and Fiona (not really a boy, but in that group of friends)
81. John Piper's sermons - which you can download here
82. Our family home
83. My beds - both at uni and at home
84. Being able to drive in all circumstances
85. Leicester University Christian Union
86. Jo Lacey
87. Late night conversations with Nathan
88. Spending time with Jonny in any situation at all
89. Being on the CU exec as evangelism secretary
90. Writing songs with Nathan
91. Being in a car with either John, Dan or Joe
92. That I'll be living with Joe Guilford next year
93. Word Alive
94. Graham Beynon - pastor of a church in Leicester
95. Anyone who came as a guest speaker to the CU
96. Lee Nicholson - my youth pastor as I grew up
97. Clever television adverts
98. Muse
99. Jenna's housemates - Rach, Bine, and Emma
100. Learning a foreign language
101. Durham City
102. Durham Cathedral
103. Friends from Durham who I've not spoken to for a while - Rob, Sarah, Kirsty, Chris, Mandy, James, Amy, Jenny
104. Ali Wickam
105. The Navigators
106. Bernard Dishman - the king of the leicester navs
107. Being a little naughty - obviously in the name of good fun
108. Good practical jokes
109. Playing Uno with my family
110. Ian, Fiona and Joseph from next door
111. Dan's singing voice
112. Steve's guitar riffs
113. That we live round the corner from a 24 hour spar
114. That we can be fully satisfied in Jesus
115. Being able to wear flip flops with long trousers
116. Annoying Rach Wray
117. That we (me, jonny and john) got to see radiohead live in blackpool
118. Shpongle
119. Jazz
120. Learning to play the drums with John
121. Upper Tichbourne people - a group who live near us in Leicester, who were so welcoming and encouraging in our first year at uni
122. Hedge and BB
123. Ruth Clarke - the exec link to da street
124. My new friendship with Chloe
125. Bumping into friends I've not seen for ages - for example when I bumped into Paul Loosemoor at the CU leaders training weekend
126. That I'm going to see Jonny for two weeks in Perth, Australia (not Scotland) when I'm finished in Malaysia
127. Spending time with Jenna and Ruth Shepherd
128. My evang team - Amber, Liz and Joe
129. Swimming in the sea
130. Skiing - haven't done it for ages, absolutely love it
131. That the bible condemns eating cucumbers - well... kind of... - in Numbers 11 v 5 - read the whole passage, and think about what Paul says about going back into slavery after being given freedom from sin
132. Alan Shearer, Robert Lee, Warren Barton, Temuri Ketsbia, Nolberto Solano and Michael Owen - Newcastle Players (past and present)
133. Delirious? - although I'm still not too sure about their latest album
134. Curry
135. Chinese food
136. Mexican food - possibly my favourite after Christmas dinner
137. Trying new food
138. Trying new things in general
139. Scuba Diving
140. The Sermon on the mount (Matthew 5)
141. Psalm 63
142. Huw Miles - half welsh leicester legend
143. Fish and Chips
144. Greece - including greek food
145. Crosswords
146. How caring Jonny is when I'm ill
148. Play fighting
149. Anybody who reads this and leaves a comment
150. Finally, and most importantly, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the hope of heaven

There you go... I hope you know me a little better now, in my next post I'll be writing about why I'm going to Malaysia and what I'll be doing there

some information...

2006-07-03T01:53:00.000+08:00

This time in two weeks i will be gracing the skies with my presence as i travel towards my summer destination... I'm looking forward to using this space as an outlet for my experiences, as well as information for anybody who wishes to pray for me... as I'm not there yet, here is some general Malaysia information....

Climate

The temperature fluctuates little throughout the year. Average temperature is between 21 C and 32 C. Humidity is high. Click here for the current four-day weather forecast in Kuala Lumpur.

Clothing

As Malaysia's climate is sunny almost year round, light clothing is ideal. It is advisable for ladies, when entering mosques and temples, to wear long sleeves and loose pants or long skirts.

Time

Malaysia is 8 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Etiquette

To avoid "cultural offenses," here are some tips:
- Remove shoes when entering homes and places of worship.
- Dress neatly in a suitable attire which covers arms and legs when visiting places of worship.
- Handle food with your right hand.
- Do not point your foot at someone.
- When giving or receiving money gifts to/from a Malaysian, do so with your right hand.

Here is an exract from a www.geographia.com:

"Once you have overcome your jet-lag fatigue, step into the real heart of Malaysia--the citizens of the country. You would be pleasantly surprised at the warmth of Malaysians. For deeply entrenched within each of the different races is the engaging charm and traditional hospitality for which Malaysia is renowned.
Malaysians enjoy meeting people from other lands. So, do go right ahead and strike up a conversation. After all, the whole point of travelling is to know other cultures.
When greeting a Muslim, offer your right hand then bring it towards you, fingertips lightly touching your heart. This is the traditional Salam or 'greeting of acceptance'. Hindus greet with a Namaste (in Hindi) or Vanakam (Tamil). Both palms are brought together as in prayer at mid-chest level. With a Chinese, you may shake hands. If you are really unsure about all the different forms of greetings, just smile and nod your head slightly when introduced."

Here are some fast facts about Kuala Lumpur from lonely planet...

Full Name
- Kuala Lumpur
Area
- 243 sq km/94 sq miles
Population
- 1,800,000
Languages
- Malay (official) - Known as Bahasa Malaysia
- English (other)
- Tamil (other)
- Chinese (other)
Currency
- Malaysian Ringgit (RM)

getting ready to go...

2006-06-21T05:53:00.000+08:00

It's less than four weeks until I leave England and head to Malaysia. I've got my tickets, passport, insurance and all that kind of stuff ready, i've still got to get the usual things like some clothes that will be more suited the climate, and I'm getting a new camera so that I can (hopefully) post some pictures on here, as well as sun cream etc etc...

When I get a moment in the next few weeks before i go (which is on the 16th July) I'll post and give a breakdown and description of who I am and what I'm doing in Malaysia for six weeks...