Exams, church merger & medicine

Dear Friends

It has been quite a while since I last wrote on my blog.It must have been the climb at Mt. Kinabalu that has taken out all my energy and stimina for which I am still recovering from it:-the knee injury. It is much better now.

Exams has once again hit the Hoon family. My younger daugther has started her 'O' Level exams. She was initally the concern of both my wife and I as she tends to get quite excited about the exams. So excited that she might not get  enough sleep because of it. But praise God, she is nearly half way through and she seems to be holding up well. Of course the other worry is if she can get nto the school of her choice. For that we will have to pray hard. Just a thought about exams, I wonder when will the government do away with the exam thing and be like the IB program that provide them with class projects instead. However, I heard that it is more work this way, not less.

Church merger is another of those things that has been occupying our minds. Light of Christ City Church has been merged with Christ Church Woodlands to form Light of Christ Church Woodlands. So  far so good even though we have some initially disagreements and adjustments between the two congregations. The good thing that came out of this is that we have more resources to do more work in the school and the community. Oh! we even got a newly renovated chapel and office. For a change, we need not use second hand stuff for church  or office.

As for Medicine, my older daughter has started her course in the School of Medicine in NUS. She is enjoying her study and occasionally even shares with us about her  study. She is staying later in the campus and has formed a good group of students that she studies together. Hopefully something else can develop in the study group.

Oh, finally, as the year comes to en end, we are hoping to drop over at the most populous nation on earth. Yes, we are planning to visit the mainland of China by the commercial tour. I think it will be fun. We hope to visit our friends who are posted there for work. It has been our dream to stand on top of the Great Wall of China and see the land that so many have been raving about in the past years. That's all for this blog. Cheerio!

Finally Mount Kinabalu

Dear friends at my blog

Well it finally came to past that we eventually managed to climb to the top of Mt. Kinabalu on Wed

4th July 2007. It came after nearly 6 months from the day after our failed attempt in early February 2007.

On that trip, one of our members had a very bad cramped thigh. He turned around and decided to

call it a day.  With time not on our side and our determination diminishing, the rest of our team decided

to go back with him.

For our 2nd hike, only those who had done a fair share of the training were allowed to join the team. 

Altogether we would have been training for almost 8 months since the beginning of the lst trip.

We have seen a few wild life including the clouded moniter lizard, the sun Skink, the squirrel, many

monkeys and birds. The fellowship with the fellow colleagues had been very sweet.

About the 2nd hike, I almost did not make it as I had a bad knee pain just on the first day of the trip.

The pain came suddenly on that Monday morning. It was an the old injury on my right knee. I

hobbled around wondering if I could make it to the summit. In fact I even entertained the thought

that I would remain in the Parks HQ to have a time of retreat while the other two team-mates go ahead

with their climb.  But I was glad that I persisted and finally went with some intermediate goals in my

mind.  My aim was to target first for  Laying -Layang  (4 km).  If I could reach there, I would then

aim for Laban Rata ( the launch point for the summit).  If I was still alright, then I would climb to the

summit.  I believe this to be a good plan to encourage myself to press on. Inspite of the knee pain, I

pressed on against all odds and reached the summit on 4th July( Wednesday). What  glorious day

when I saw the sunrise on this bright beautiful day.

So much about the climb. A few lessons remain: first, at 51, I am encouraged that I can still do arduous

climb. My mindset has been changed and I think I can do whatever I put my heart to do.The second

lesson is to have a plan.  I was planning to do 6 difficult things in the next 10 years. I made the list on

my 50th birthday. I am glad that I can now put a check on the first of the 6 things. I have also planned

to have a few check points for the intermediate goals.

Finally, our team and I have decided to keep up with our physical fitness and who knows sometime

in 2008, we may attempt something else or we may start a movement for the motivated among our

colleagues.

Three cheers for the three musketeers! Glory to God!

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Good news! Church camps, bits and pieces

Dear Friends

Hi there. I have not been writing for a while. Actually I got good news to share. Just did not get to

write down. I remember that it was the night that I was coming back from a meeting (18th May).  My

hand phone buzz and I saw that there was a message for me.  It says 'S got into medicine'.  Hurray!

My heart just filled with gratitude to God for the gracious gift He has given to my daughter.  I

immediately stopped the car and gave thanks to God. Then I wrote some smses to my closer

friends to share the joy with them.  Just the other day, again I felt a heart of gratitude to God for the

answer to my prayers.  I remember that I have brought this up as one of the prayer items during

my silent retreat earlier in the year. Thanks be to God!

The other thing I would like to share is about our church camp. Actually there were two camps that

I participated in.  One was in Desaru.  It was the camp for one of our churches. I was to be the

retreat speaker.  I shared on the contemplation lifestyle. Thanks be to God for a very encouraging

response. One of the small groups even planned to have a retreat on their own!  I am seriously

thinking about how I can be of service to the body of  Christ in this aspect.

Our own church camp came next. We had it in one of the very few local camp sites in Singapore. It

was held in Chua Chu Kang. A splendid place for  the youth and some not so youthful ones like us

to gather. Even though only 32 of us actually came to the camp, we did have a great time. We have

Benny Ong to be our speaker and he delivered the goods. At the end of the camp and when the

altar call was given, four or five of the pre-believers went forward. Two were clear salvation.

Others were re-commitments.

Well, yesterday was also the day we bade farewell to our brother Pastor J and his wife G.   They

have been with with the church for the past 5 years. As they leave us, there is in some ways that

a part of our number have been taken away from us. Yet, it is the will of the Father for them to go.

We do what we can to ease the pain, but nonetheless there was the pain. They move on to bless

an extended body of Christ.

Lastly  a little story about changing of pastor. As the old pastor were shaking her hands with the

parishioners for the last time, many members said niceties to him. As the standard answer, this

pastor said  "It's alright. I am sure that they will send a better pastor to you after I am gone."  The

parishioner immediately shot back,"That's what  they said the last time."  Hope you enjoy the story.

After this week I will have some more thing to write. Cheerio.

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Short trip to Indo-China

Dear friends

It has been a very good trip to visit our language centre in Indo China in the last four days. Initially I thought the trip may not happen because of the amount of work back home and the response of those who are suppose to come have been lukewarm. Finally, one of our committee members decided to come and one of our teachers from our School, decided to come and see together with his colleagues.

I am glad the trip went well with the team from the School who have the intention to recce the school and to return in June to do a painting job. I finally got the agreement of the manager to fetch us and the team to do the recce trip at the school about an hour from the centre. He even agreed to release one of his staff to assist us in finding an interpretator to assist the school team when they go in June

As for me, I find it a joy to catch up with the various team members of the centre and hopefully be a source of encouragement to them. We even thought about having a retreat for the leaders in the near future and hopefully it will come into fruition sometime in October.

Finally it is really good to have a break from the regular work and have sometime to just talk to people in the field. Oh I got some work done  during the trip as well and bought some tipbits for the children at home. It was a good trip! Oh I also got an interesting book from the airport about one of the Vietnam war victims (the very famous napalm bomb victim that came out in the Time magazine in 1972). So much for the trip.

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Visit to U.S.A.

Dear blog friends

How are you? I am really glad to be able to have a chance to visit the U.S.A. in the last week. After travelling for 27 hours,We had an experience to visit this mighty land that has been such a influence to the whole world. We were there to participate in a conference on missions.

Here are some of my reflections on the trip:

(i) America is a great country. Everything is so ...great. The meals are great. The place is great. The people are great. The program of the conference is great! Wow! we really enjoy the whole trip expeciay the weather.

(ii) Missions conference: It was suppose to be a conference for the Episcopal church. This is especially helpful taking into consideration that the church is undergoing such a tremendous pressure to succumb to the pressure to conform. The folks at the conference enjoyed the devotion by our bishop and I believe some of the workshops conducted by our leaders.

(iii)  Meaningful conversations: I had such opportunties to have meaningful conversations with a number of the American christians. I really enjoyed finding more about the church there. The biggest Anglican church is about 3500 members. The smallest is about 30 members. We hear so much about the trouble in the Anglican church, now is the time for us to walk alongside with them..

(iv) Our purpose: we were there to promote South East Asia to recruit American to come over to help us. May be there might be some responses. We hope to continue the fellowship with the believers there. As as matter of fact, I will be writing to some and start corresponding with them.

On the whole, it was as good time for me because of what had happened the tne last few months. It is refreshing for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed ths trip. Hopefully they can pay a return trip in Octber 2008 and then the relationship will be seared with them.

We left on 15th and then on 16th April, the fatal shooting took place. What a tremendous pain it is for the church n U.S.A.What an aweful esperience for the church there.

 As for me now, I will have to concentrate on the building up of the church here.. Until then...cheers.