John Leow.com

Man U vs Malaysia

Touched down at Changi Terminal 1,845pm, after 3 days of Malaysia Truly Asia. Actually, the main highlight of the entire trip was just to catch Man U vs Malaysia’s national under 23 team. When TTL and I arrived at Bukit Jalil, nearly every angle we turned were red devil jerseys and polo tees screaming out stuff like “Berbatov 9″, “Pride of the North” etc… Reminds me of our NDP, except that they all support the devil (just joking if you happen to be a Man U fan..figurative..:-)). Although I don’t really watch EPL, nor support any club, I couldn’t resist the temptation to buy one of their latest polo tees. And it is official merchandise from Man U, not some fake one.

Anyway, TTL told me that after the match, I would be converted into a Man U fan. But I walked away from the match converted into a Malaysia fan..3-2, ManU vs Malaysia!What an achievement it really was you know. When Man U played Singapore in Jul 10, 2005, it was a disasterous 1-8, and that lone goal from S’pore was widely regarded as a complimentary goal that Man U  let Indra Sahdan score.  I must say that i was very impressed with their star striker who chipped the 1st goal over Van De Sar, and the stupid mistake by Ben Foster in the 2nd half that let him steal the ball into the net. And it’s interesting to see that Malaysians really love their national team, because when they scored, the red jerseys also cheered for them.. Malaysia Boleh!

City Church KL

Then on sunday, we were off to visit City Church Kuala Lumpur on the outskirts of KL. The church is located at Sunway College, behind Sunway Lagoon, and their services start at 5pm every Sunday. But the experience there was AWESOME! Right up from the time we stepped into their audi till the end, we both felt as if we were in our home church, and the spirit and atmosphere of that church is eeriely very similar to Cornerstone and our new church plant, City Church Singapore! What’s more, they have a children’s church called CityKids, which is exactly the same name City Church S’pore children’s church is named too!Their worship is tremendously anointed, creative media is world class for a small size of about 300 members, and their senior pastor, Mark Varughese, is an exceptionally anointed communicator and teacher of the Word! And their congregation, though mainly international, are really very warm folks!I really miss those guys, and if you do have the chance, drop by to visit City Church KL when you’re there.

A RC Heli that cannot fly properly

Lastly, I decided to give RC helicopters a try! But it was the lousiest purchase spent during the entire trip.  The long story went like this: We were shopping at Berjaya Times Square, and I saw this shop with RC helis whizzing around in the air. During my N.S days, I remember watching a sergeant playing with one such, and after that I told myself:”I must get one myself!”. Over the course of the next 1 year, I chucked that ‘want’ aside, only to have it revived when I passed by that shop. It was only $90 Ringgit(or $32 SGD), so I thought “This is it! Your chance! Confirm cheaper than S’pore. You must buy it!”. Happily bought this heli you see on the left, but when I turned it on in the hotel room, that stupid heli kept flying upwards and rammed the ceiling, shut its power, and crash landed to the hotel floor. The seller claimed it was made of aluminum, so it would not break down that easily…I wish.Repeated the same sequence, and then finally it just wouldn’t power on. So I rushed down to Times Square again, showed the seller, and found out that the problem it would not turn on was due to insufficient battery power in the controller. He changed it FOC, and tested  it. It flew! I excitedly rushed back to the hotel, and this was where it was funny. TTL told me “you sure anot will work..I think cannot work one lah”., to which my reply, “you shall see!”. I turned on the controller, and there was no more battery again! He kept laughing away, and said that it was cursed. Wouldn’t give up, so I ran across the hotel, got new AA batteries, and had to embarrass myself by asking the hotel technican to help me change the batteries as I had no screwdriver. This time round, the copter worked.Then because of poor control, the copter crashed again, and this time round, a part of its load balancer BROKE OFF!

TTL laughed harder this time, and I was now super frustrated with this low quality contraption. Anyway, on the last day, we wasted about 30 mins just going from shop to shop at Times Square again to find a repair service, and thank God we found one, but i was charged $30 Ringgit for the repairs. So total cost: $80+$30=$110 Ringgit(or about $44 SGD) -_-” Perfect condition right? When I got home, I flew it once, and then it accidentally hit my bedframe, and horror of horrors, one of the chopper wings got badly cracked!

The lesson I really learnt here, even though it was quite a hilarious yet ridiculous one: If we can go great lengths of hasssle and trouble just to repair a worthless, low quality product, it is an analogy of how far Abba Father was willing to go to pay the price for my and your salvation by sending Jesus His precious Son to die for our sins on that cross! We are worthless creatures, full of depravity, that do not deserve His love. We are just a speck of dust in this universe, yet God chooses to call us the ‘apple of His eye’, and make us his royal sons and daughters.How gracious our God whom we serve amen?! The question now is this, as Pastor Mark Varughese also preached, “How much of ourselves are we willing to surrender to God daily, so that according to the extent of His power in us, He can then do do exceedingly abundantly and above all that we can think or ask for(Eph 3:10)?” The measure of the extent of His power in us to carry His presence, do miracles, is directly linked to the measure of surrender of  our lives. God can only move in our lives as much as we allow Him to. It’s that simple.

God gave us His all. Now He only asks us for one simple favour: “Let Me come in and dwell in you.” What is more exciting in this life than letting our everloving, powerful Father live with us?