The reflecting theologian

Is there not a cost in serving God? Is there not a cost in wanting to do great things for God? Take a look at this: lliot and Fleming arrived in Ecuador on February 21, 1952, with the purpose of evangelizing Ecuador's Quichua Indians. They first stayed in Quito studying Spanish, and then moved to the jungle. They took up permanent residence at the Shandia mission station. On October 8, 1953, he married fellow Wheaton alumna and missionary Elisabeth Howard. The wedding was a simple civil ceremony held in Quito. Ed and Marilou McCully were the witnesses. The couple then took a brief honeymoon to Panama and Costa Rica, then returned to Ecuador. Their only child, Valerie, was born February 27, 1955. While working with the Quichua Indians, Elliot began preparing to reach the violent Huaorani Indian tribe which were known at the time as the Aucas. He and four other missionaries, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and their pilot, Nate Saint, made contact from their airplane with ...

Singapore is a multicultural society. In a tiny population of around 4 million people, we see a medley of different languages spoken, a mixture of different religions being practiced. We see people of different skin colours and different hair style, with different tastes of clothes. We observe different religious ceremonies... or do we? I was just reflecting on a particular incident in the afternoon. My grandmother asked me if I go to church. As she was speaking in hokkien and I'm not very proficient to her level, I couldn't make out what she was saying and thought she was saying something else and answered 'no'. She had asked me earlier why I never go down earlier to offer joss stick in our annual CNY ancestor worship. I honor my family's freedom to worship and so I shall not comment on that any further. But I was just wondering if I had been able to make out what she was asking me earlier, what would I answer? She was asking me about the 'church' (教堂)... a...

On a Saturday night several weeks ago, this pastor was working late at Almighty God Tabernackle, his church, and decided to call his wife before he left for home. It was about 10:00 PM, but his wife didn't answer the phone. The pastor let it ring many times. He thought it was odd that she didn't answer, but decided to wrap up a few things and try again in a few minutes. When he tried again she answered right away. He asked her why she hadn't answered before, and she said that it hadn't rung at their house. They brushed it off as a fluke and went on their merry ways. The following Monday, the pastor received a call at the church office, which was the phone that he'd used that Saturday night. The man that he spoke with wanted to know why he'd called on Saturday night. The pastor couldn't figure out what the guy was talking about. Then the guy said, "It rang and rang, but I didn't answer." The pastor remembered the mishap and apologized for distur...

I like to blog about my cg. Front row (from left to right): Hanes, myself and Shuyi. Second row: Zelanie, Lee Yang, Zhixin, Seok Min and Angelina Third row: Nick, Jansen. This is my beloved cg.

How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will sing How great, how great, is our God. Worship. What does it mean to worship as a Christ believer? Recently I heard that people have questions about certain forms of worship (eg, jumping blah blah blah). I look at how people worship. Buddhists in Singapore tend to go temples and chant scriptures, Chinese syncretists tend to go temples and offer joss sticks, some hindus would observe thaipusam and observe the ceremonies. These people worship their gods in their different ways, observing certain rites. How about Christians? Surprisingly, the one verse in the Bible that talks about worship explicitly is in Roman 12: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and a...

I was just reading my late friend's blog late in the middle of the night. Strange as it seems, this is not a friend who is very close, and yet his death seems to affect me more than the others of my friends. I remember there are at least 3 friends of mine who passed away besides this one. The first one was my classmate who passed away just after we got back our J1 common test result. It was a shocking news cos the previous day we got the news, I was still talking with her happily. The second one came in the middle of my signal training during my NS days. This is a very good friend of mine in secondary school. I received a call in the middle of training and got to know that he passed away because of heart disease. This was a very good friend, cos I remember playing soccer and fooling around in class, getting into trouble in our math lessons, and teasing him about Liverpool (he's a Liverpool fan). The third was a senior from council. He's the valedictorian for his batch, and ...

I never thought that one day I will receive an invitation via Facebook to my friend's wake.... I got a shock when I receive the invitation, it's sent by my friend to attend his wake, apparently his family logged into his account to send out the invitation as well as inform his friends... I wonder one day if I just passed away, would my family do the same thing?