christians are weirdos

As a Christian in this world, you cannot help but feel like a bit of a weirdo. Most things that non-Christians love to do, we view in a completely different way or at least strive to do so. And likewise, most things that we as Christians love, just seem strange to a non-Christian. You just need to contrast what each would do on any given weekend. They are two different kinds of people. But somehow, as Christians, we become the weirdos. But hey, I'm fine with that y'all. :D

Tomorrow, my Sunday School lesson is on Loyalty, and one of the things that i will try to discuss with the kiddos is being on God's Team. It's a hard lesson to learn - because when we choose to be on God's team, we will stick out from the crowd. There's no way we can be on God's team and still be on the world's team at the same time.

This all reminded me of a great quote from AW Tozer:

A real Christian is an odd number anyway.

He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest, and happiest when he feels worst.

He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, and knows that which passes knowledge.

these are a few of my favourite shoes

two kinds of people...

At the anniversary dinner on Sunday night, I was reminded of a phenomenon that I have only really come to notice as I have dined out in Chinese restaurants.

There are two kinds of people - Jup-wasters, and Jup-savers.

For those who do not understand my romanised Cantonese, or who have no idea what Jup is, prepare to be enlightened.

Jup is the sauce from a dish (usually of the oriental variety, though gravy on the Sunday Roast would also be classified as Jup - to me anyways. It's white-folk's Jup... Or Gwai Loh Jup if you prefer).

Now that we have that cleared up, please let me explain. When dining out in a Chinese restaurant, one is usually provided with a bowl, chopsticks, a Chinese tea cup, and a plate. This is the bare minimum. The essentials. But there are little additions along the way as well (the more there are, the 'classier' the restaurant - if you could call a Chinese restaurant classy - kind of an oxymoron in most cases). These could include any of the following: a soup spoon, a paper sleeve for the chopsticks, a serviette, or a reusable serviette that has been folded into the shape of a fan or a swan, a sauce dish, wine glass, a paper place mat (now we're talking true classiness right there), a little thingo to rest your chopsticks on when you are not using them so the table cloth or paper place mat does not get stains on them from your chopsticks.

I digress.

So you gay-tow (pray in my Romanised canto again), you get your rice, and then you start getting some food (some 'soong' heheh my Canto is so bad I just have to laugh).

Where do you place your food?

A. On the plate
B. In the bowl (on top of the rice)
C. Eat it straight up

If you answered A., then you my dear reader, are a Jup-waster. If you answered B., then you, my like-minded and totally cool reader, are a Jup-saver. And if you answered C., you have no manners and would probably be shunned by your Asian relatives - however, if you are non-Asian, all power to you because you don't have to worry about shaming your family and losing face.

It is a simple test and I think it reveals a lot about one's character. Jup-savers are awesome. Jup-wasters are not. Period.

If you are a Jup-waster, don't be alarmed, you CAN change. Just resist the urge to waste precious Jup, and put your food in it's rightful place - on top of the rice. You will not only give your rice the precious flavour it deserves (and, let's face it, NEEDS), you can also utilise your plate for it's rightful purpose: storage for the wastage - bones, phalanx and cartilage from the chicken feet (if you're at yum cha), or shells from your crustaceans, unfried prawn cracker bits, paper sleeve from your chopsticks, patty pan from the Dan-tart, leaf from the lo-mai-gai.

Please people, be good stewards of your Jup.

juls has been blogging

Little Julsies has been blogging!

She has shared so many of my little secrets and the stupid things I have done... She has also used a lot of my photos too... *cough* copyright infringement *cough cough*

Hehe. In all honesty, it was actually quite cool to read back on all the stuff that has happened in the last few months/years - from my favourite FOB's perspective :D (FOB = 'full of blessings', not 'fresh off boat'). Thank God for my daggy rice-blinged up sister!

so gangster

As we were at the checkout of the local Asian Food store, there were two fellas on the other checkout. One reached over and put a 1.5 L bottle of Aloe Vera juice on the checkout. Normal enough. Then the other guy replied 'Wah man, so gangster!' like he meant it. Did I miss something? Has Aloe Vera juice become a new criteria of becoming a gangster? So perplexed...

the man who was dying

There are moments in life when, as you're sitting there, you know will become one of those moments that you will remember - for a while at least. Today, I met a man who was dying - like few-weeks-to-live-dying. The conversation started normally, and then I asked a simple question (I can't even remember what I asked, because I was too distracted with the answer) and he told me he only had a few weeks to live.

He then explained to me that palliative care was commencing next week - two nurses were going to come over to his house and assist him with preparations for dying. I don't know why it affected me so much, but it did. It was not like he was young or healthy and the impending death was unexpected, he was just an old guy who had abused his body. He had it coming.

He explained his situation very matter-of-factly, like he was reading a story about someone else. This man had a terminal illness and was in a great deal of pain. But not once did he complain. Not once. I kept sitting there expecting him to either get upset or angry, but he continued with his emotionless state. It was intriguing. I just kept thinking, if I was this guy, I would either be in tears or really angry that i had to sit through a lousy assessment even though I was in pain and only had a few weeks of life left.

It didn't cross my mind until after he had left that maybe I should've tried to pass him a tract (something I could get mega-busted by my work for, but something this guy really needed). After some quick encouragement via email (thanks Truc!), I ran out into the crazy weather to try to find him, but he was gone, never to be seen again. I definitely regret not thinking of it earlier.

All I can do now is hope and pray that one day, hopefully in the next few weeks, someone will talk to him, pass him a tract, or he himself will be prompted to read the Bible and invite the Lord into His heart.

jigsaw lessons

After a few months, I have finished my $1 jigsaw puzzle.

While doing it, I have realised that sometimes things aren't always the way you think they are supposed to be. OK I learnt that a while ago, but it was a good reminder.

Sometimes I would look at a piece of the puzzle and think - dude, it's totally gotta be red bit up, and I would then go looking all over the place to try make it fit into a spot where red would be at the top. I would then sit back and think, man, this piece mustn't be part of the puzzle. And then I would go back to the same piece, turne it 90 degrees clockwise, and then it would slot perfectly into place with the red bit to the right.

Random post, I know. But it just goes to show, things aren't always what they seem.

On a side note - aw crap, there were two missing pieces in the jigsaw in the end. Oh well, thats what you get for $1 I guess.

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

You can feel it in the air, you can see the preparation in the shops, boots are coming out of hiding, scarves are swishing their way back onto necks, umbrellas are peeking out of cupboards, coats are edging themselves slowly out of wardrobes, extra blankets are making their way onto beds...

Winter is coming!

A lot of people don't like Winter because it is too cold and wet, and because the lack of sunshine can be depressing. But in the gorgeous city of Perth, we are much blessed by mild Winters - not too cold, just enough wet, and still more than average sunshine - which makes it much easier to love.

This morning was 6 degrees and man was it hard to get out of my warm bed. The only thing that made it easier was knowing the sooner I could get into my warm winter clothes, the sooner I would be nice and warm again. It was pretty hard to find something to wear amongst the mostly summery clothing, and I was reminded of the need to make space in my wardrobe to re-introduce winter clothes to the daily clothing rotation.

I feel a clothes-swap coming round the corner really soon...

kayaking

I went kayaking for the first time ever today. It was like nothing I have experienced before serene, relaxing, enjoyable, yet tiring (due to my fitness levels - or more like unfitness levels hehehe). It was just cool seeing things through a whole new perspective.

I am seriously considering getting a kayak now. With such beautiful river systems in Perth, unlimited free access all year round, and beautiful weather to enjoy it with, I have a lot of internal encouragement to start researching :D

procrastination

I'm sitting here writing when I should be prepping for my Sunday School class. I had a strange sense of deja vu back to my student days where I used to think of the many things I could be doing that weren't what I was supposed to be doing - studying, or in today's case, Sunday School preps.

It's been like this all week. I tried to start on my preps earlier, but got distracted and forgot. Now, the night before, I sit thinking about all the things I could be doing - cleaning my room, searching for campsites, blogging, listening to a sermon, reading, working on my jigsaw, listening to music, painting my nails, installing programs into my computer, chatting on msn, practising piano, playing guitar, youtubing, sleeping...

So bad hey? It's not that I really want to do those other things, because if there wasn't something I was supposed to do, I don't think I would want to do half those things. Stupid procrastination.

prayer

I noticed the other day that when it comes to talking about prayer, I don't have too much enthusiasm. Many christians out there will read something like that and their internal spiritual-radar/back-sliding-alarm will go off in their head, but I'm just being honest. Don't get me wrong, I do pray and have had many blessed times of prayer with God - but there have definitely been other times where I felt as though I was just going through the motions and pray-reading through a shopping list of prayer requests.

So last night we had an audio-sermon (by that I mean someone reading out something written by John Bunyan back in the day), though I found it hard to focus with a weary mind, I thought the definition of prayer was quite good.

Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God hath promised or according to the Word, for the good of the Church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God.

That pretty much covers it all huh?