Many things have happened recently. Time has just whizzed by and making entries like this one affords me a moment to step away to have a go at looking at things from the outside.

 

Catch up with an Aunt.

 

My auntie Swee Har and Uncle Shu came over to our house on Saturday for dinner. Tress and I each cooked a couple of dishes and A Swee Har brought an egg sambal dish. There was a lot of food for the 5 of us but what I enjoyed even more was the catching up.

 

We talked about different family members.

 

My Grandma

 

Ah Ma is well, much better than she was this time last year. The anniversaries of Uncle Teik Jin and my father’s passing had set off an episode of depression, which was turned around only a couple of weeks before Joy’s wedding. She is well now. She looked well in the photos of her recent birthday bash. We’re all so grateful for that.

 

We also talked about other uncles and aunties, as well as cousins and their families.

 

Snatch thieves affecting many

 

Auntie Swee Lian is also well. However, recently she became a victim of snatch thievery, long a rampant disease in Malaysia. She became a little fearful as a result and arrangements have been made for her to maybe live with her daughter, for a while.

 

This plague of snatch thieves has affected so many. My mum was a victim. So were many others. It is trite to say the Malaysian government is either clueless as to a solution or they have long ceased to care. When we were in Malaysia earlier this year, we were constantly told not to carry anything with us, to avoid these scumbags. We don’t even take our wallets out, just enough cash for whatever we went out for. My mum had told us then, of a neighbour who was also a victim. She was an elderly lady, very slight in build. These ratbags held her up by her feet and shook her, because apparently they had difficulties reaching into her pockets. It was traumatic even for my mother – can you imagine what it must have been like for that lady? Yet if you went to the local police station, you’d be faced with the most appallingly don’t-care attitude.

 

Photos of family

 

After dinner we continued to talk about family. Uncle Shu has been showing us photos in his camera. We then decided to try to view those photos on the tv set. We inserted the SD card into our DVD recorder and voila it worked! Uncle also had some fantastic shots of the mini resort in Bukit Tinggi, where the family spend some time together as an extended celebration of Ah Ma’s birthday. He also had really good shots of  the twin tower in KL.

 

They left just after 10pm, and after a quick wash up we stretched out on the couch and remarked how relaxing the evening turned out to be. Maybe it was more relaxing for me than for Tress, seeing it was great for me, to be able to catch up with my Aunt Swee Har and Uncle Shu and to talk about family members.

 

Great Sunday but uneasy worship

 

The relaxed evening before made for a very well rested night and so Sunday morning I felt great. I felt rested. The worship session started out well and again maybe because I was well rested the night before I enjoyed it a whole lot more. Towards the end of the worship however, things started to happen which caused me to just switch off. Reference to obscure experiences, coupled with an excited elderly member’s actions, made me withdraw instead.

 

The over cajoling and pushing may have been well intended – to make the church worship differently maybe – but it had the opposite effect. My worship was suddenly disrupted and I decided then to just pray silently on my own and ignore the incidents around me. That lady was running around making everyone hold hands with each other and then she let out a shriek and collapsed onto a pew.

 

I don’t know why this form of worship is preferred. So often the worship leader or an elder would try to coax everyone into a more excitable form of worship. This is often referred to as a “higher level” of worship. I don’t know why that is though. If I jumped around and uttered phrases at the top of my voice, does that make my worship a higher form of worship to someone who chooses instead to be quiet and reverent instead? Why attempt to have everyone worship in the same way? Why not allow for whichever way a believer is most comfortable with?

 

Jason, one of the 3 elders, did the preaching and he was really fired up. He resumed his topic of Joshua. Emphases on obedience, sacrifice and unity were the order of the day.

 

Kiddo’s new toy

 

After church Tress joined some ladies for lunch and kiddo and I went into the city. After stopping at home for a quick lunch, we drove to Blackburn station and caught a train. She had sold her ipod nano a few days earlier and we decided to get her a classic, with a whopping 160GB of memory. It certainly looked a whole lot more substantial that her previous ipod.

We got the ipod from Myer, walked round the block to JB Hi Fi to get a casing for the classic and thereafter walked back to Melbourne Central to catch the train home.

 

The ride into and out of the city and the walkabouts in the city gave us plenty of opportunities to just talk and catch up. I was really happy with that. On the way home, I had to make sure I told her to finish whatever homework she had before setting up her new gadget. She looked really happy. She had, for a day or so, suggested maybe she will just do without it. She had already sold the nano by then so we weren’t sure if she was certain. It was all to do with a message of sacrifice she picked up in church with the youth group but we soon sorted that one out. There was no cause for that sacrifice. I haven’t asked her if she has loaded up all of her collection yet, but I hope she manage the new thing well.

 

An email circulated recently, amongst the youth of our church. It came from a leader. He’s a great guy and I’m very grateful for his work with the youth. Kiddo has benefited heaps from the work of people like him.

 

There is a danger however, of teachings which to me, are dodgy. Look at this:

 

·   The very thing that Jesus walked the earth with was raw power. It was His heavenly power, signs and wonders, miracles and power of the Word, that drew people.

 

And then this:

 

·   The difference between Jesus and us is NOTHING except for this: “How dependent are we on the Holy Spirit?”

 

All emphasis are his.

 

Surely it isn’t true that there is no difference between Jesus and us. There is a whole gaping difference. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and is Himself God,  We on the other hand, are adoptive children of God.

 

I have heard the above statements many times before, from preachers/teachers of a certain bend. The idea behind this is that we can be like Jesus and can therefore perform signs and wonders. We can heal like Jesus healed and raised the dead like He did.

 

This is a dead wrong teaching. There is a HUGE difference between Jesus and us. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God (John 3). We are the adoptive sons of God (Romans). Jesus was Himself God. We are not.

 

These statements further suggest the reason we can’t heal like Jesus healed or raise the dead like Jesus did is because we are not dependent on the Holy Spirit. That is also wrong. We ARE dependent on the Holy Spirit – not so that we can heal and perform signs and wonders, but so that we can be obedient to the Father like Jesus was. The Holy Spirit is to help us grow, so that we become more holy and sanctified. Increased holiness and sanctification is not proved by an ability to perform miracles and signs and wonders. The proof is in a changed life, a life which is more obedient. Galatians 5 taught us what the fruit of the Spirit should look (taste?) like. Paul didn’t even hint at signs and wonders. It is character building. Holiness isn’t about signs and wonders. I’d say it has nothing to do with signs and wonders.

 

It is the continuing emphasis on signs and wonders, on “expecting great things from God” which make us latch on to bad teachings like this.

 

Tress’ parents left on Saturday. Tress and I drove them to the airport a bit after 1pm. We helped them with the whole process and we left the airport and got home just a bit after 4pm. We had a dinner with some old Klang church friends that night so on our way back we stopped to pick up a cake to bring along with us.

When we got back, we tidied the house a bit, fixed up kiddo’s room for her to reclaim use – she had so generously insisted that her grandparents should have the benefit of her double bed and more spacious bedroom and she had slept in the guest room – and generally put the house back in the condition we had been used to, before Tress’ parents arrived.

Of course, Tress’ parents were not the least unwelcomed in the first place. Their stay made the home even warmer (literally!) and although it meant extra work and more required more detailed attention from us, it was all great stuff. I enjoyed it.

This time around, they went to Canberra, Werribee zoo and mansion, a single trip to the city and that was it. They also made a couple of trips to Point Cook, where KJ and his family live but apart from that they were mostly at home with “soirees” to the local shopping centers and restaurants only (Chinese, of course). So it was a bit more relaxed than their previous trip. I think the only factor affecting their rest was the cold. Although it’s a bit warmish, it is still a bit too cold for them, especially for granddad. I have had to fill up water bottles and turn the heater up for them.

Tress’ mum however has been great in the kitchen. She whipped up fantastic Malaysian fares. She had Hooi and Marloney over with their kids and our house had a festive mood for a couple of nights with free flowing laksa, mee-hoon-kuey and pak kuo – wonderful stuff.

She also made acquaintance with Tress’ hairdresser and in the space of 2 weeks, went to have her done twice. I’d say she likes his craft… I have teased her a couple of time about making more appointments for her to visit Melbourne so that she could have her hair done.

I think they enjoyed their visit, and I know I did. I hope they come again soon, or maybe my mum would.

Last Friday I kept looking up the ASX website, fearing the end of the world is nigh. Of course, it isn’t. At least not just because our money is disappearing a lot quicker than it was made. It has just been an unrelenting downward spiral. I looked at the steep downward slope of the chart at the left hand side of the page and remarked to a colleague that it has been a while since I saw anything like that.

I recall hearing about the Oct 87 crash, while in Uni. My economics lecturer tried to joke about it but few laughed, not because we were all too shocked but because unlike now when information is so widely available, in 1987 Uni students didn’t have a clue about what was happening in the real financial world, until well after the event.

In 1997 however, the Asian Financial Crisis was in a different context. I was in a bank in Kuala Lumpur, so I was close to ground zero. Information flow was much more efficient then, especially for those of us who knew where to look and who subscribed to different forum which disseminated information which wasn’t available in the mainstream media. The bank I worked in pioneered online trading systems so online monitoring of news on markets and their participants flowed freely right onto my desk. PAL and MGG were my main sources, just like many in KL at that time. The late MGG Pillai was the pre-cursor to the present day RPK. While you had to sift through stuff which flowed through his forum, it was stuff which wasn’t available elsewhere. His “sangkancil” forum was something I followed closely, even contributed to.

11 years later and a few things are evident. Firstly, economic turmoil does come in cyclical mode, almost 10 years each run. I have now experienced 3 rounds. Secondly, information is crucial and those who seek it will indeed find, especially with technological advances. Nevertheless, that is a plus only to those who seek it. Most of my colleagues didn’t seem to be bothered that there was a bloodbath going on. Thirdly, when a financial disaster hits, it affects everyone whether or not you are a direct participant. The good book is therefore spot on to teach that we are not to lay up treasures on earth but to lay it in heaven. I say we shouldn’t hoard whatever God has blessed us with, and give it away as much as possible, especially for charitable causes.

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I’m now trying to follow what’s turning out to be an exciting last day of the first test between India and Australia in Bangalore…