"I just called to say i love you" by Steview Wonder

Dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am sharing this wonderful experience i had with my father this morning ... i just sense the Lord doing something more in my and my father's life which i don't know what it is.

Well, this morning, my father messsaged me, as usual asking me about my life and situation in Singapore. I just updated him that i came back from the Malacca from the Set Free seminar and then he replied me sharing with me his courtship days with my mother in Malacca back in 1978. In fact, just before I left for Malacca, my mother was sharing me the same thing and she told me the times when they were both holding hands together and people back then were damn weird la ... they were both looking at my parents holding hands together; thinking my parents were weirdos ... after that, i replied him that "ya ... it seemed to bring you back a lot of memories and all."

And then, this is what he replied me via sms, "It sure brings back all those memories which i am so afraid of. Only this morning, i cried when i heard Stevie Wonders's "I just call to say i love you..." it's the song that i know you love and saw you singing so happily when you were just so young. Remember? Now you know why I said i am so afraid of remembering my past. It hurts so much that everytime this happens, i need to pray to God to forgive me for what i have done to you both."

I am glad that he's repentant about what he has done and i believe God has already forgiven him. In any case, I have written him a long long letter which was long overdued since Good Friday. It was on Good friday that he told me he had a beautiful experience of the our loving and merciful God and he broke down so much during the whole service during Good Friday. I always wanted to follow up from there since He's in New Zealand and actually wanted to ask him to go for one of the Schools in ICPE - New Zealand so that he could grow more and more in his faith journey with Jesus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pblg2fuxl4M&mode=related&search=

Do check out this song... I believe some of you might know this songs ... oh yes ... this song really brings me back a lot of memories. This is one of the songs that my father and i really like it. I use to see him as my role model especially when he sing songs like this .. there are actually more songs than this but i could not remember most of them. I remember him as my role model ... especailly when he helps out in the family with those carpentry and repairing work ... just like a relationship with Joseph and Jesus... i mean it man ... the last work i did with him before my parents divorced was when he did with me my O Level Design and Technology Project - i got an A for that ...

Come to think of it ... he actually taught so much skills when i was young .. but i never actually continued from there as i have forgotten much of it.

With Love,
Your brother in Christ,

Colin Sng

This photo was taken with Fritz and Diana Mascarenhas (their youngest daughter) from ICPE India (http://www.icpe.org/MC_Home.php?MCID=8) @ the Set Free Seminar in Malacca - Good Shepherd Seminary. So privilege to take photograph with them. They are really a role model to me man ... I just pray that one day I would be like them if God ever willed to be a couple ICPE Missionary. They are such a wonderful inspiration to me especially when they shared about their journey towards marriage and they literally surrendered their whole lives to God our loving and perfect Father. Can you believe it ... Fritz did not even pursue Diana ... what he did was he surrendered all His Plans to our Loving Father - complete trust.

For those who are not aware, this Set Free Seminar, to me was super good for young adults. It covers topic on relationships, friendships, boundaries, human sexuality, and sex. The topics covered are so essential in our growth towards marriage especially those who think that their personal vocation is a call towards marriage ...

Anyway, there might be a possibility that Diana might be organizing a similar session (Set Free) in November 2007 in Singapore itself. She came to Singapore in November 2005 ...

"God of Relationships" - Set Free Seminar

Dearest BASIC,

As you all know, I went for a weekend retreat @ Malacca by Fritz and Diana (Couple Missionary) from ICPE - India. It was known as the "Set Free" Seminar where it touches a lot on psycho-spirituality and human sexuality. How psychospirituality can really affect our relationship with God and the people around us ... One of the important lessons i learnt over e weekend is that psycho-spirituality is about this .. that we uses psychology to understand ourselves and also the relationships that we encounter in our daily lives. HOwever, we can't just simply depend on psychology as it will just stop at understanding but forgetting the importance of the Divinity of God .. hence, psycho-spirituality is also about allowing the Holy Spirit to heal that area of our relationship so that we could move on to be a much more wholesome person ... to be set free from our bondages that we are not even aware of. So the goal of healing is about allowing God to make us to be whole once again ...

In any case, I would say it is quite a handful for me .. there were so much thoughts in my mind that i did not really had the opportunity to jot down and to internalized my thoughts until last evening when i was with the Men-to-Men Fellowship session at Coffee Bean (S'goon Gardens)... there are 13 of us there. It was when i started internalizing and sharing that i got the whole big picture of what is God telling during the weekend. And again, He is challenging some more now ... after so much of Divine Experiences on His Divine Providence.

Well, before I began, perhaps, I would like to give a summary of what we actually went through over the past three days. One of the topics we dealt with was on Erik Erikson's personality theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson). Diana was the one who presented the topic and she gave quite a number of examples. It was when she spoke about young adults on (Intimacy vs. Isolation) and then she go on sharing about one particular example on promises. During that period, I felt the Holy Spirit was really speaking to me - this is really the time when God intervene into my life. I broke down when Diana mentioned about promises and waiting and it was exactly when i remembered the time when I was really young i kept pestering and asking my father when he will be coming back. I was waiting and waiting but to no avail. He promise that he will come back but he did not. I remembered how I have this deep belief that the family that prays together stays together so I was actually literally waiting for him to come back so that we could really pray together as a family that was what i really wanted at that point in time.

And then, the Lord shared with me more stuff over the next two days where it was really written in the Scriptures that those who says that He love the Lord but does not love his neighbour is a liar. It really hit me as well. I really that i could really relate to God of Providence so much especially after so many experiences i had with the Lord in the area of providence. It then dawned upon me that i could trust in His Divine Providence but could not trust Him in terms of relationships. For those who have been journeying with the Community long enough would probably agree with me that most of my mistakes that i have made in the past are all related to relationships. I realised that i had this tendency to cling on to people very easily as what Diana/Fritz would put it ... co-dependent relationships. That is not a healty relationship .. and all these are due to my deep insecurity in me hence, causing so much of mistakes especially in the area of ministry. I have fallen so many times because i was not able to trust in the God of Relationships. And this also applies to my struggle with the people within my family and even Janice. I could not trust Him enough that the time will come when He will provide me with the right person in my life. With regards to the Divine PRovidence, well i guess I was able to trust Him in the area of providence simply because I was provided much when i was very young before my parents were divorce especially since i was the only child. Whatever i asked for, I was practically given but of course, they know their limits and they would provide me what is really important for me.

I felt the Lord is really challenging to accept what has happened in the past of my father not promising what he promised and to move on. But i do admit that i have move on in the area of my anger towards my father in a lot of ways but there are still some areas that God is going to move me more and more. But i guess another message that the Lord was telling me was my relationship with my mother. What i felt was that i was able to relate to God the Father so much that i have neglected my relationship with my mother and the people around me such that i have isolated myself . In fact, I was pretty aware of how much i have isolated myself from the rest of the people through using the laptop or the computer in my office to shut myself off from the people. This isolation i felt was so much to do with the many hurts i have been through due to the mistakes that i made as i cross many boundaries of others and not learning to balance to take a step back when it's necessary. I was fearful to create a healthy relationship with others hence this isolation has been so evidental lately within my family and hence, the Lord is really challenging me to come out of my comfort zone which is really a big struggle for me.

But i believe that i first need to accept myself more and more and also to accept that situation that happened many years back when my father did not act on his promises which affected my situation now.

So i pray that God will heal me more and more and to set me free from the bondage of being isolated from the people around me.

Thanks.

With Love,
Your brother in Christ,
Colin Sng

Do we forgive to have faith or have faith to forgive?

Rem i shared about my relationship with my mum some weeks back?

well, one week ago, i quarrelled with her. in the tense situation, i took the opportunity to really say out my true feelings to her, about how hurt i was in the way she treated me, about how unappreciated i felt. i thought it would end up in a bitter cold war, but thank God it didn't. the good thing was, becos we both were full of pride, i put a challenge before her :"since we are both at fault, i am willing to change. are you?" thank God she said yes. dunno what i'd do if she said no. so well, cos of my pride, and my big mouth, i have to do wat i said: change. maybe it was good too. costhe days that followed, i could see we really did put in effort to give in to each other, even tho it was in the tiniest things. but it was a good start.

during those times, i prayed so much about it for the grace to want to do something about it. didn't expect God's grace to come in this form. but i was also very awe-struck when there was one day that i read the daily mass readings and there was this passage about faith and forgiveness. i was wondering wat has faith got to do with forgiveness? and i realized how GOd spoke to me.

rem in my previous post, i didn't believe in God's love for me, that was about not having the faith in God's love. and this issue is about forgiveness. so do we forgive in order to have faith or have faith in order to forgive? during one of the weekdays, i went for novena noon mass, and it was so "coincidental" that it was they were having the divine mercy devotion (forgiveness). the priest spoke about how we never think too much about all the planes that land safely in the airport but once there is A plane crash, it becomes the headline. we have focused too much on the negative things and have not looked at the positive things enough. when we really look at the numerous blessings/help/miracles/providence/goodness that God has given me in my life, i will have the faith that "Yes God does love me afterall". when i'm convicted of God's love for me, i believe in His mercy for me too. If God has mercy on me, can i (an imperfect being) not have mercy on my mother too? perhaps it may sound very cliche, but i guess mere words will never be able to fully express the tangible experience that i felt and went through.

I truly praise GOd for this wonderful, healing experience and encounter. i can actually "see" the effects of this transformation taking place, manifested in having more peace when talking to my mother (forgiveness), and believing more and more that i can be loved in my relationship (faith in God's love thru my relationship). Thank you dearest Father, for healing me! I love you too!

Lynn

Prayer is like using hair conditioner

My oh my, it's been ages since i last blog cos of exams, post-exam activities, marking, etc. i'm finally here today to pen some thoughts, in fact many thoughts have come and gone.

i rem slightly more than a month ago (Labour Day), i was struggling with relationship, with the insecurity and the need to constantly feel important to someone. felt frustrated to the point that i became very stressed and tired of this insecure feeling. took a break from relationship for awhile. and realized that i was too overly-attached to the need to feel important all the time. perhaps it was becos i felt small and insignificant all the time, so i needed to feel important all the time to counter the sad fact of my insignificance and unimportance.

came to realize that i was not at all convinced of God's love for me at all. i recall having this realization last year in dec, think during the retreat. over the months when school started, i just conveniently forgot about it, swept it under the carpet, and now it's here to haunt me again. my need to feel important before God manifested itself in my need to feel important in my relationship, needed to be treated like a princess (haha), needed to be given priority all the time. i say yes, u better dun say no. i say left, u better dun say right. made me feel very self-centred.

over the short time away, i was really looking for a breakthrough. i really wanted to be healed of this once and for all. i really didn't want this thing to bug me anymore, it was too tiring. so i really made the decision to pray daily, for the first time. though i've been in ministry so many years, how ironic that i never made the effort to pray daily, even though i preach about it at every camp that we do. this time, i was serious. i figured my freshest time of the day would be immediately after a bathe. so almost everyday after my bathe, no matter what time, i would fix the next 15 minutes after bathe time for prayer. since i hated monotony, i would require a prayer that changes everyday. what better prayer than to pray the daily mass readings, Word of God. so i did.

first 5 min: thank God for any moments i felt His presence and help, as well as to offer up that prayer time to God. i realize asking God to sanctify and purify our time to God is crucial in really making the prayer time productive and enriching, becos in maintaining prayer, it's never just about using our human strength, it's always a collaboration with God, so how can we not ask God to help us, even if it's just asking Him to keep us faithful and focused in that 15 min. next 5 min, read the first reading, the responsorial psalm and the day's Gospel, slowly as though i was reading at the pulpit for mass. last 5 min, reflect and dwell on any part of the readings that i like, or that struck me, or that i dun understand. end off with a glory be. this 15 min daily prayer has kept me going till now.

i came to learn that building up our prayer life is like using conditioner for our hair. the very first time u use a hair conditioner, you would not be able to tell its effect. only when u use it consistently over a period of time, then can u tell if it's a good conditioner or not. similar, if u stop using the conditioner just for one day, it would not affect your hair quality very much. but if u stop using it for a few days, you can actually feel that your hair is rougher and less manageable. same for prayer. if we only pray 1,2 or 3 days, we would not feel the peace and guidance of the Spirit in our lives effectively. only when we consistently keep to a prayer routine, then can we feel God's wisdom and strength consistently. and even if u stop prayer for one day, it's fine as long as u pick it up again the next day. the danger here is that once u stop for one day, there is a higher tendency to stop the second day. this is where the real danger lies. i noticed that same effect with taking my thyroid medicine, my vitamin pills, even in relationship.

Consistency is the word here.

Lynn

MSC! (:

hello!

as i was walking down from church today, i was just thinking about msc, and realising that this is such a blessing in my life! (: haha. and i was blogging and thot it would be quite good to post it here too! (:

being in msc really amazes me sometimes, amidst all the teasings and fun
and laughter we share, and all the seriousness, the quarrels, the struggles,
the busy-ness and high committment level of things, the long meetings and the
prayerful mood sessions, the friendships built and the deep sharings between
people, the special hanging-out and ado sessions, the starting of a new
beginning, new ministries and new cell groups......

sometimes it can be so overwhelming when i see everything slowly unfolding to see how God is leading us all the way esp how far we have come, sometimes so upsetting when i feel left out and sometimes feel so happy cos i feel so integrated in it all. this whole myraid of feelings just shows how much msc means to me, too much to ever want to be without it ever. (:

you all are really such a special bunch of people in my life.

so really, i thank God for MSC, and for all of you for being a part of it. (:

The only thing to treat evil is with Love of God

Hi peeps! i had so much thoughts during class just now. so glad to see shireen and darren there... i thought i will be the only one la!


anyway what I gonna talk about will have no link to the title above. The above title was just some thoughts triggered off in the afternoon. Jude shared with me once that God does not treat evil people the way we will want them to be treated. cos he wants the most evil person to return to him

which ties in with mass today, when father said that we should not worry bout the wrong things we did yest, but think about how to lead a christ like life tomorrow. which is also in line with today's class on how even Saul, the person who persecuted the early disciples became an instrument of God.

ACTS 10:15
what God has made clean, you have no right to call it profone

ACTS 10: 28
God has made it clear to me that I must not call anyone profone or unclean.

simply, we are not to talk bad about other religion, race, country or colour. It is so easy today to blame people for the wrong things which happen around us which breeds evil. For me, a good example will be simply saying foreigners are not religious people, raise academic standards and thus I don't like foreigners. which breeds devilish thoughts(sins in me)... something i need to reflect on.

Guilty of anything??? anybody?

because what we eat is never unclean, it is our words, actions which may be unclean


& jean thanks for coming! so sorry for the erm.. know u were tired and u had to come out of the car... sorry for the carelessness! my mind was still on the lesson!
It left such an impact:

read ACTS- 9:1-30 on conversion of Paul

In experience, Paul discovered Jesus. In discovery of Jesus, he discovered God.

After the explanation of the whole ACT, i reflected on it and really become part of me and suddenly, lots of inspirations just keep running thru my head.


The series of events Paul Went thru:

God's experience
persecuting Jesus.
believe in risen Lord
believe in risen Lord
go on a mission

What is our God experience? when and how did we exp Him

each of us have our own God experience, that is the start of us knowing our Christian life. By our life experience with God, we are chosen instruments, witness of Jesus, to spread the catholic faith by actions, words, and not by bugging ppl to become one.


Acts 7: 2-53-
we are witness to God's grace, who saves us. (salvation history)


I was reminded once again of the word Commitment.
what is our mission?
what is more important in our lives
why do we struggle?

correct me if i am wrong, it has been something i have been praying about these few weeks since my return. Then was revealed in class to me today. My jaws literally dropped

It was response to a question I asked Jude a while back.
-why we struggle

Stephen the deacon, the 1st martyr-an example for all disciples to follow. he lives his life according to the word of Jesus, reached out and touch people's life, faced struggles along the way, every disciple must do the same.

many parallel can be drawn between Jesus and Stephen:
-proclaim the good news
-strong faith
-got in trouble for proclaiming the good news
-get trialled
-get condemned
-executed
-die same way as Jesus

because the end result is all that matters:

"But Stephen filled with the hol spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right on the father. 'I can see heaven thrown open' he said.

Acts 7: 55

Stephen, with the grace of God, power of the spirit, saw his glorification,

and we disciples are all called to glory



In summary:

In times of evil, what do we use to counter evil? evil can = war, materialism, internal fight with masturbation, stealing, so what do we use?- weapons, words, weak points of people?
Simply God's love though the use of the only "weapon he gives us"-our brain
the best and most dangerous weapon of man- the human brain!
Through history, Arts, music, plays are expression of oneself, reflection of one's culture, that is why we can't lose them, or take them for granted. Its is the fundamental that keeps us grounded

Each of us have our own God experience.

We are the apostles of today, we save the lives of others, not us, then who?

For me, the homework for today is to reflect on the struggles i face. For now, i only can think bout troubles like balancing faith and school work, helping the poor-like Christians are to help the poor right, but how to carry it out and how frequen?(I really wonder if giving 10cent to every little boy and gal doing cip is counted), struggles with how I should treat people(simple things like not being angry with drivers on the road, people digging nose, burping in front of me to things like lying???) in summary- guess its struggle with putting God in perspective in my lifestyle.

But I guess there is more to struggle. so that explains the homework!

shireen, darren! what is your take for today

praise Lord for our cell group! i feel so inspired to write because I know there will be a lot of response. right collin, eve, kenny, cons?

Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God PART II

Hey friends,

A months or even a year ago, ... can't remember exactly when ... i read this testimony by a couple lay missionaries from ICPE. And i was reading this article, i realised their story is similar to my with so much surprises ahead in my life ... it's so real la!!! And towards the end of the testimony, he mentioned about "Seek ye first the Kingdom of our God ... everything will be given unto you!!!" Praise be to God!!!!

http://www.icpe.org/Testimonies_Detail.php?TestimonyCriteriaPass=&ResultRow=4
ICPE -Testimonies

Check it out ... May this inspire each and everyone of us to seek God first ... seek His Heart and everything will be given unto us.

With Love,
Your brother in Christ,
Colin Sng

Yours Truly

Hey!

Ok there are lots on my mind now, so i guess i have to blog!

Today, I attended evening mass at OLPS for my rites of acceptance.
Father GReg started the homily with the story of the oprea "Madam Butterfly"

Madam butterfly is a famous opera which was in Singapore 2 yrs back. This yr is at its 100th yr running.

Anyway father was preaching about the origins of the opera. The opera was initially written by Giacomo Puccini, but half way, b4 he could finish the opera, he died. At his death bed, he asked his disciples to continue on with his work.
His disciples, whose lives were greatly inter wined because of his work and Puccini as a person, continued his work.

when the opera was showed for the 1st time at broadway, half way into the play, the orchestra stopped playing. the actors stopped at their positions and became solemn,
his disciple who was leading the orchestra, turned around, and told the audience," this is where my master-Puccini stopped at his work. The rest of the work was continued by me as he had wanted." With that, they observed a min of silence before continuing on with the show.

At the end of the show, the audience said that this show was extraordinary and left a deep impact in all of them. It wasn't because the author walked onto the stage at the end of it all and they felt it was a good show, it wasn't because the story was beautiful in the first place, was the humanity shown by the disciple, the love he showed to his master which brought the audience deeper into the opera, giving them a whole new experience.

After this story was told, I had a picture of Jesus and his mission in my mind.

How we are the apostles of today, its us and no one else, how we are called to carry on the Lord's work.

and this phase struck me:

he come, he died and he conquered

he come, he died and he conquered!

During the past week, I was trying to bringing life to the video, trying to get this message across- about how we are called to carry on his mission. I had many visions in my mind, many skeletons, but no matter how i try to change the flow of video, sounds, it still seem so dry. I wasn't satisfied with what I do, cos I wasn't able to bring out the whole experience of it all. That was when I decided to put in a voice over to it. Till today, I was super vexed over the video besides other things, and during morning mass i was trying so hard just to convince myself to leave the video in God's hands. he will take care of the rest.

After a day of events, I realized that I have missed the point. To portray carrying out his mission will be just impossible to do. Because it is showing a process of realization a person has to go through, to have transformation of heart, to experience the healing process himself, to become a llving testimony of God's love.

End of day, it is the realization that Jesus is the only way, its only through the Father that we find real happiness, to be living testimony, and we portray this 'joy' of realization to the people around us, how our lives were changed that we spread the 'love'.

And that is why it starts with me

it starts with my own inner healing, my own prayer time, my own walk with God before I can know more about God which will eventually lead to reaching out to others.




And I really praise Lord for this cell, for this blog. As I look through my past entries, in fact all the posts of everyone, I realized how much I/We have all grown along the way. And I realized how community has indeed changed my life just by the posts. I looked back on my entry on how i had issues with the community and today- It is such a vast difference. I think one thing really struck me today was how Collin approached me and we had so much to share about. prior to the blog, I will have felt that we have anything in similarities, that he won't understand the things i go through. Its only through the blog that some dark areas of our lives were surfaced, I know about his life, and through his courage in listening to the Holy Spirit that made me ponder more about the mysteries of God.

I thank God for this cell and blog. sadly and excitingly, it is going to be June soon! Before we bid this cell group farewell and spread our love and blogging fever around, lets have a meet up!!


i think we should do something for a change.

and cons, kenny, colin, eve, darren so super tired after work n need something to energize!( me and shireen bumming ard hahha) i getting fatty legs already, lets go canoing!!! (so cons, don't go out w guy no time for us hoh heh!!)

East Coast Park
SAT 26 May / 2 Jun
$10 per houf


or

ROCK CLIMBING!!!

very fun. I have all the equipments.very safe, very easy to learn. sure to enjoy.

Climb Adventure
tanjong pagar
$6 per person
same dates


ORR

K la, if all else fails, lets just chill at some place.

discuss on Tag k! see which day good for everyone

Ok take care everyone!! hear from you soon.

anyway I just injured my finger just now. same finger same hand as evelyn k...haha.and i couldn't stop thinking bout what eve said bout pointing the middle finger at her students, sub consciously i was showing it at the doc hahaa

Steven