Travels

16 Jan 2008

Dear Prayer Partners,

1. Thank you for praying for us! I have been buzy with reading and writing my assignment for my Doctorate program. And I have not been unable to complete it! I really need God’s grace and mercy this round.

2. I am leaving for Klang Valley, Malaysia this week for several preaching engagements. Pray that I will be able to minister the Living Word so that the various congregations will rise up to worship, serve and obey our Divine Master.

3. Many doors have been opened up and I want to use them to challenge the believers to worship the Lord through studying His word, doing His Great Commission, and valuing spiritual matters.

4. Pray that the people will fall in love with Jesus more and more, rather than the riches and wealth of this world that the prosperity preachers are peddling. I keep running into groups of believers that want

the blessings more than the Blesser,

the healings more than the Healer,

the deliverances more than the Deliverer,

the intellectual knowledge of the Bible more than the Author of the Bible,

the music about worship more than the One that should be worshipped forevermore.

5. I want to proclaim Jesus and He alone, as He is the One who has lovingly and powerfully died for us. Pray that I will not hinder the HS in anyway to bring glory to Jesus (John 16:14) but allow Him the freedom to touch many lives.

6. As I pray and plan for this year, I am receiving conflicting directions. I sense the need to spend more time studying the Word and developing materials to teach. But I also sense the need to travel more to various places to minister the Word. Pray for wisdom as I work through this contradiction.

7. Pray for Anastasia. She has gone to playschool (3 hours a day) since the beginning of the year, and she looks like she is enjoying it. She is a real social person. Pray that she will grow up trusting and serving Jesus all the days of her life.

8. Pray for Jessie as she faithfully works and takes care of Ana, her mom and me! Without her sacrificial life, I would not be able to serve the Lord in a full-time capacity. I know she will receive more in heaven than me. Further, with the spiraling cost of living in Singapore, we need to trust the Lord for His continued provision. He remains our ever faithful Jehovah Jireh!

Thank you for your prayers and encouragements!

Charles Stanely once said that he believed that most Christians in most churches have never worshiped God. We go to church, but we don’t worship. We sing songs, but we don’t worship. We listen to sermons, but we don’t worship. All of these things are elements of worship but they are not worship in and of themselves which means that you can do all of them and yet have failed to truly worship God. We Christians often mistake the means of worship for worship itself.

"ARE YOU BLESSED?"

If you own just one Bible, you are abundantly blessed.

1/3 of the world does not have access to one.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness,

you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment,

the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation,

you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death,

you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep,

you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace,

you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married,

you are very rare, even in the United States.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful,

you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder,

you are blessed because you can offer God's healing touch.

If you prayed yesterday and today,

you are in the minority because you believe God does hear and answer prayers.

If you believe in Jesus as the son of God and as your Saviour,

you are blessed as being part of a small minority in the world.

If you can read this message,

you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you,

and furthermore, you are more blessed than over 2 billion people in the world that cannot read

at all.

Rise in hardline Islam in Malaysia.

Malaysia court halts Islamic burial in religious row

Posted: Saturday, January 5, 2008, 12:07 (GMT)

A Malaysian court gave an ethnic Chinese man a temporary order to prevent an Islamic affairs council from taking his wife's body for burial, in a dispute over whether she converted to Islam, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The row over the body of 53-year old Mong Sau Lan is the latest in a series of racial and religious incidents that could hurt support for the government ahead of expected snap elections in the coming months.

In the burial matter, snooker centre manager Ngiam Tee Kong was informed by a hospital which had his wife's remains that he could claim the body to perform Christian rituals but must hand it over to the Islamic council for a Muslim burial.

The 52-year old Ngiam said he had received a letter informing him that his wife had converted to Islam and this had been authorised by a religious affairs official, according to the report published in the Star newspaper.

But Ngiam said his wife was a Christian before her death on Dec. 30, and asked that her body be handed to him as the legal husband.

The court has set Jan. 18 to hear the application.

Disputes over religious conversions and complaints about the authorities' demolition of churches and Hindu temples have fuelled worries about a rise in hardline Islam in mostly Muslim Malaysia.

Politically dominant ethnic Malay Muslims form about 60 percent of the population of roughly 26 million, while the ethnic Indian and Chinese minorities include Hindus, Buddhists and Christians.

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