April connect!

yo~ today's cell connect is to celebrate for the april babies~! We had our dinner at Swensen's... hmm... jealous? haha.. hmm.. somehow the pics uploaded are in the reverse order.. oh well.. introducing our april babes!

Thanks Mr D for getting the lovely & yummy cake~ Happy Birthday ladies~!

Having dinner Swensen's~ what's an enjoyment after a long day of work! envious? join us for cell group then! =D

poor lawry who finally made it in time for dinner~ any preheat service?

cheeze!

pressie for ade~ 1st birthday girl to receive her present~

2009 CNY makan

2009 Cell Lunar Dinner - Steamboat!

After service at 7pm, most of us were all ready to eat as much as we can! heh... This year's makan location~ Novena! Here's few photos we took while preparing to eat~ *after that, the photographer was too busy eating =x *

the steamboat for this year was quite special... allowing us to have 4 types of soup base in 1 steamboat~! =D *it was nice nice nice~*

After eating for 2 hours~ *i think* some of them still wants.... ICE-CREAM~ so, haha.. here we are... pampering ourselves.

*opps~ where's lawry's ice-cream? forgot to take a pic~* oh well, but after all the food, here's a group photo.
oh~ btw, if anyone wants a bigger size photo, let me know.. i re-size all the above photos for fast uploading, so it can be abit... too small to see more details..

Connect Week- Southern Ridges

Yoz~ we had a lovely connect week on the 1st oct morning, accomplishing the southern ridges within 3hours. Here are some of the photos taken, erm.. many other photos are with others (cos i was not the official photographer.. hee..) for more photos, pls hunt thru those with facebook or the hikers themselves.. muahahaha...

we met up at 8am, Buona Vista MRT, then took a bus to Kent Ridge Park. Photo below taken at the start of kent ridge park.
The orderly hike at kent ridge... oops... i got left behind somehow.. (to snap a shot)
The nice view of kent ridge park facing the sea.
At the arrival of Hort Park, where plants and trees are pampered and well groomed.
hehe.. hf in the wonderland... disturbing the poor lion~ After some exploring at hort park~ cheers! time for the next destination- Alexandra Arc..
Our fast hikers reaching the arc before everyone else.
traveling across treetop trail... look straight! if you're afraid of heights~

This is why... look at the height~ you can actually look through the walkway you know...


The famous henderson wave finally approaches.. oops.. only the backside of the wave.. someone pls contribute photos on this area~ (^.^)

Entering into the forest walk..
hohoho.. end of hiking photos.. cos i got too tired to snap anymore pictures.. some brief summary after the forest walk.. we reaches mount faber, where the cable cars are.. then we had a short little break, then enter to the last trail, the marang trail which finally leads us to Harbour front MRT/ Vivo City! LUNCHY!

Here's where we had our yummy lunch~ a HK-style cafe and guess who's birthdays are we celebrating for this month?
Our beloved brothers~ ooh... btw, they are september babies~ (^.^)
Thats the end of the 1st half of our connect week~ the 2nd half was kinda splitted for homeward bound and shopping craze. hey guys, pls also post some of the interesting pics from your cameras~ mine are mostly ad-hoc snaps. =P

Dear Koinonia,

I'm very happy to do my 2nd time blogging,

I would like to say something before we go right to the photo elaboration.

Firstly we want to thank God for the weather!

it was a very cooling that day, and we enjoyed the walk to the Cafe.

Btw Rachel was late (1 point accumulated for her)

We made a reservation @ Max Cafe,

it's just opposite the school I studied called NAFA (stand for Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts).

We really like the food here!

Many of us could afford it because it is very cheap!

Here are the list of food we ordered:

Lawrence ordered  FISH

Clark ordered BEEF

Adeline ordered  LAMB

Rachel ordered  BEEF

David ordered  LAMB

Desmond ordered  CARLSBERG

Huifen ordered  CHICKEN

Huiping ordered  CHICKEN

Audrey ordered  BEEF

Desmond ordered VANILLA COKE

Okay, NOW let's move on to the photos.

As you can see, Clark & I could feel the heat!

The food was just next to us!

As you can see Adeline was very happy to hold

the knife before the food is here!

As you can see Desmond is also late! (1 point accumulated for him)

Look through the glass panel!

That was where i studied.

NAFA (stand for Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts).

YUMMY!

CHICKEN!

My food is here! Can't wait to eat!

Desmond has finish his Carlsberg!

Delicious!

The cake is from BreadTalk with a funny name G****

Can you spot the LIGHTER?

Can you spot the VANILLA COKE BOTTLE?

Can you spot CLARK?

We are gathered together to celebrate

Audrey Loh,

Clark Loh and

Lee Huiping's

birthday!

and we sang a few birthday song for them!

Happy birthday to you guys!

We love ya!

Okay!

Now the second part of our ConnectWeek.

We went over to The Cathey to eat ice-cream at Ben & Jerry's

We ordered our favourite scope of ice-cream flavour,

and are very happy with our choices.

Take 1

Desmond not ready....

Take 2

image blur...

Take 3

forgot to put on the hood...

Take 4

We have finished all the ice-cream...

God has given us siblings,

it is a gift from God and we are to cherish them always!

Our lovely group photo!

Thank you for viewing this post!

Hope you have enjoy yourself!

Lawrence Wong

Stewardship

Hi guys! sorry about not being able to come for cell today. >.<
i've prepared some side info actually for today's Word. Oh well, thank God for our cell blog.

1 of today's prayer pointer is about stewardship and i've found a website containing some interesting and refreshing information about stewardship and being a generous giver, so here's the urls for detailed reading.

===========================================
Questions about Generosity
http://generousgiving.org/page.asp?sec=43&page=412#601

Questions about God’s Ownership and Man’s Stewardship
http://www.generousgiving.org/page.asp?sec=43&page=586#211
===========================================

^^ have you checked them out yet? hohoho~ the lengthy text might have scared you, anyway, i've summerized some of my personal learning pointers from the websites, and i hope it helps to strengthen & encourage us not to fear or doubt in the area of giving specially when it's within our means.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
what i have learnt on this area
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. What i have belongs to God
-Everything i own (money, things, time, talents, skills, etc..) comes from God and still belongs to God. Its not a matter of how much i should give God back (all belong to God) but how much i have reserved/withold for myself, my personal usage. (Am i spending on myself only?)
- End of the day, we're accountable to the Lord on how we handle his stuff in the time we had on earth.

2. God is not impressed by the number of digits I can drop into the offering bag.
- God measure according to one's capacity & the attitude in giving (the motive behind giving; please God or please man)
(e.g. old widow's coins & rich men's temple gifts)
- to give (specially to the needy & the poor) is equivalent to lending to the Lord.
- careful obedience is not enough, like the Pharisees who tithed but forgotten the poor, the needy, etc..

3. Other than money-matters, stewardship also includes
- the earth [Genesis 2:15]
- our bodies [1 Cor 6:19]
- our talents/skills [1 Peter 4:10]
- the gospel [1 Cor 4:1]

4. How do i manage God's resources better and where should i use it on?
- the poor and the oppressed [deut 10:18-19, James 1:27, matt 25: 34-40]
- religious workers (missionaries, pastors, etc..) [1 cor 9:7-14, 1 tim 5:17]
- needs of our immediate families [1 tim 5:4, 8, 16]
- civil authorities (e.g. taxes) [romans 13:6-7]
- our enemies [romans 12:20]
- give to the kingdom of God in every opportunity to show love of faith & share gospel in word & in deed

Mission trip to Tanjung Pinang

Hi ppl~ last weekends (24th and 25th may) 4 of us went for a short mission to Tanjung Pinang~ Here are some of the pics ^^

we were having "breakfast" (after 12noon) after we collected our tickets at tanah merah ferry terminal. Discussing on the ice breaker games for the night's cell meeting.

Outside the rented building used for church services. There's pastor Jason in purple shirt.

Here the youths gathered for cell group, learning to play "Big Fish Small Fish".

2nd half of the game~ guess what we're playing? hehehe~ double wacko! the youths are so amazingly sportly! (except for the forfeit portion) and there's Richard (holding the wacko baton), our winner forfeit-er in both games~ :D

After the games~ we had worship session, although all the songs are in english, they aren't much hindered to worship God. Later on, the group was splited to 2 groups, 1 on leadership taught by hf, and the other group on general topic, taught by me =PNext morning, we went to another combine church service in Chinese, and the (above) photo of the church building which is very very new.

After that we went for the bahasa service, where Pastor Jason was preaching.

And then we had some phototaking with the youths.

after attending 3 services (chinese, bahasa and hokkien), we've decided to go to the children's sunday school.

aren't the kids adorable? hey look! who's that pretending to be a student? hehehe~ the kids were singing and dancing with their teacher.

So that mark off the last event of our visitation~

A scene taken on our way back at Tanjung Pinang ferry terminal. Doing some reflections, God is indeed a loving father, showering love to all, regardless of what we have and what we do not have.