More Concert Pictures

Concert #1 Grace Chinese Church, Singapore



Concert #2 Queenstown Baptist Church, Singapore



Concert #3 Fairfield Methodist Church

Concert#4 Pasir Pinji Baptist Church, Ipoh



Concert #5: Emmanuel Baptist Church, KL



Concert #6 Kepong Baptist Church, KL



Concert 7&8: KL Baptist Church, KL

updates & pictures

From Margie's record, we had ministered to over 2000 people during this mission tour, 43 people accepted Christ and 35 rededictated. pls pray for the follow-up work there.

Below are more pictures of the people we encountered during each concert as well as the pastors and lay leaders who you can pray for.


Concert #7 & #8 KL Baptist Church, KL (9:30am, 11:15am):

many young adults rededicated during the first service




Concert #6 Kepong Baptist Church, KL (8/19 8pm):
see pictures posted in the "Tonight concert 8/19" entry below

Concert #5 Emmanuel Baptist Church, KL (8/18 8pm):
see picture taken at the condo complex which was posted in the previous post below


Concert #4 Pasir Pinji Baptist Church, Ipoh (8/16 8pm):

the youths there were very friendly and fun!

Concert #3 Fairfield Methodist Church, Singapore (8/13 2pm) :

most were elderly at Fairfield Methodist Church

we were touched to see these older brothers and sisters worshiping God so energetically

most people responded to the calling made by the pastor

Concert #2: Queenstown Baptist Church, Singapore (8/13 9:30am)

a picture taken with the pastor, lay leader as well as our host (Grace) in Singapore


Concert #1 : Grace Chinese Church, Singapore (8/12 7:30pm) :

a picture taken at Grace Chinese Church, Singapore with the pastor and the lay leaders.

Mission trip withdrawal

woke up at 4am this morning. maybe i got used to having just 4 hours of sleep now! :) i was half-asleep and wasn't sure where i was. i thought i was still on the mission tour. i wasn't sure if the person sleeping next to me was Allen or Ophe! :P i started thinking of what kind of songs i need to sing and the testimony i need to share for the next concert. then when i finally realized that i'm back home, i had a very strong sense of disappointment. :( i definitely miss our time there. and i really wish that it was longer as many of us agreed. yes, i got no home-sick this time as i usually do when i get away from home for just a few days. this is once again a reminder of where my heart should be... the kingdom of God. when i'm doing His will and serving Him, i don't miss too much of the things on earth. pls pray that we can all continue to focus on doing God's will when we get back into our daily routine here.

arrived home safely

3gut, allen and me arrived SFO tonight at 8pm. we had a pleasant flight. got a few hours of sleep on the plane. but i'm sure i can still sleep well tonight cuz i miss my bed so much.... pls pray for 3gut and allen as they are going back to work tomorrow.

pls con't to pray for the rest of the team. Margie is coming home tomorrow night. Ophe and Dickson stopped over in HK with us today but they are staying for another week. Ophe is coming back next Sunday and Dickson is coming back on Monday.

below are some recaps i wrote on my way back to Singapore on Sunday. enjoy!


8/20/06 4pm
We are on our way back to Singapore from Malaysia. Yes, we are on the luxurious bus again! Some of us are napping, some are too excited to sleep. Even though I had only 5 hours of sleep last night, I’m not that sleepy. Maybe I still got the adrenaline in me… Finally, we have finished all of our 8 concerts. As Margie said, “Music in Mission” accomplished!

Here is the recap for the last few days… I’m going do a back-track, so I’ll start with the 2 concerts we had this morning.

K.L Baptist Church (8/20 9:30am; 11:15am)

Since the church is under renovation, their services have been held at a hotel in Time Square for the past 2 years. We were invited to sing for 2 services today. This first service was for the English congregation and it started at 9:30am.There were about 500 people and 1/3 was young adult, the rest were older. Their worship team first led the congregation in singing some songs to start the worship. Their worship team was pretty good. Its members were young adults and they had a full band. Afterward, they turned the time to us and we had a one-hour program which consisted of mostly English songs and sharing. Margie did the calling. 1-2 people accept Christ and close to a dozen of people rededicated, many of them were young adults.

The first service over-ran a little so we only had a 5-10 min. break before the 2nd service. The 2nd service had about 200 people, and they were mostly older. We had a one-hour program again but it’s different from the first service since we sang all Chinese songs and sharing. From that service, 3 people accepted Christ, 5-6 people rededicated themselves to the Lord.

We feel so blessed to be able to minister and share with the brothers and sisters in this church and to bring a revival among them. The work we can do here in Malaysia is limited and we need the local people here to carry on with this mission and continue to do God’s work in His church and in Malaysia.

Kepong Baptist Church, K.L (8/19 8pm)
This church was 45min. away from our hotel so we got there around 3pm and started rehearsal. This church has a very interesting tradition, people have to take off their shoes before coming into the church (Yes, we performed on stage without shoes!!) My first impression of this church was very warm. By taking off my shoes made me feel like home. On another hand, I was reminded by the time when Moses met God in the bushes. God told him to take his shoes off because He is holy.

The program started around 8:25pm. We found out that S.E Asians are not really on-time! :P We were told that this congregation was mostly Christians and we found that to be true. We had a 1.5 hrs program. Margie did the calling and 7-8 people rededicated to the Lord.

Emmanuel Baptist Church, K.L (8/18 8pm)This event was held at a condo complex. There are 6 buildings in the complex. There’s a swimming pool in the middle of the complex and a roller-blade rink. Our concert was held at the roller-blade rink. So it was outdoor and they set up a stage as well as some canopies. On that day, there was thunder-storm around 2:30pm when we went back to our hotel for some rest after lunch. It was the first time we witnessed thunder-storm in K.L. We thought it was interesting how there’s a thunder-storm on a day when we had to perform outdoor. We weren’t sure how it would affect our program, yet we had faith. And God was faithful, as soon as we left our hotel at 3:30pm, the storm stopped. And when we got to the complex, we saw that the shower was a shower of blessings since it was more breezy after the storm. But nonetheless, it was the hottest performance we had...to be continued...

tmr

we'll have our last 2 concerts at K.L Baptist tmr morning at 9:30am and 11am. pls pray for our health as we won't be getting too much rest tonight. it's almost 1am. Allen and 3gut will have to help out with transporting the sound equipment at 6:50am! pls pray for Dickson as he is getting sick...

our tour is coming to a close but i'm sure it's only the beginning for God's work here in the S.E Asia! pls con't to pray for the hearts of the people we met here.

tonight concert 8/19

about 7-8 people (those who are standing up in this pic) redecicated themselves to God tonight!




this was taken tonight at Kepong Baptist Church with Pastor Yau and his wife

we managed to squeeze some time out for sight-seeing in K.L - the twin tower

More Pictures (Ipoh)!!

the house behind us is the one we stayed at during our stay in Ipoh.




having some local food (bean sprout chicken ho fun) for lunch with Pastor Law and his wife



Rehearsal at the church in Ipoh on 8/16

this was taken last night after the concert at a condo complex.

recap

finally, i have internet access in our hotel room. here are the updates for now. will try to write more tomorrow morning. it's already 1:30am. rest is very very much needed during this trip. so goodnight and enjoy reading the blog!


8/14/06 1:18pm
On the bus: we have just entered Malaysia by bus!! 4 more hours to go before we get to K.L. The bus we are on is NOT like Greyhound. It's like first class on the plane! Lots of legs room, seats are comfy, personal T.V (allen is watching Once Upon a Time in China II), meal being served! Lily was right, it's better to take the bus then flying to Malaysia from Singapore. She told us that the duration of the ride is only 1 hour more than flying (including going through customs and claiming luggage) and it's 1/5 the price. After being on the bus for a little more than an hour, I understand why Larry, Lily's husband, (Lily and Larry are the Board of Directors of BCA who live in Singapore now), joined us on the ride instead of taking first class by flight for his business trip in K.L tonight!! Not only can he enjoy the same luxury as flying first class, he can be with his lovely wife, Lily! :) how sweet!

Anyway, due to the busyness of the past few days, we have not been able to write any updates. But as promised, here are the recaps:

First Day (8/12 Sat)
We had 2 rehearsals in the morning, one at Queenstown Baptist Church (9:30-10:30am), another one at Grace Chinese Church (11am-12:30pm). Afterward, we had lunch with brothers and sisters from Grace Chinese Church. They took us to have dim sum at the hotel next door. Singapore dim sum is pretty good. Even though the table was full of stacks and stacks of dim sum, in no time, we were managed to have the table cleared and a full tummy.
At 2pm, we had rehearsal at Fairfield Methodist Church. Afterward, we went home. Margie told us not to nap for too long since we have to get back to Grace Chinese Church at 6pm for final sound check for the concert happening that night. But how can we nap when there are still lyrics to be memorized, dance to be choreographed and testimonies to be prepared???

First Concert:
Our first concert of the tour went pretty well. There were about 200 people, ~20 people were non-believers. After the concert, we got a chance to mingle with the brothers and sisters from that church. Everybody really appreciated our sharing and songs. LOTS of people asked for our CDs. Margie, the Executive Director of BCA said she might consider that possibility.
From this concert, we saw how God really used our sharing to bless some individuals there. A brother approached Margie after the concert. He shared about a couple who the wife is pregnant but found out that her husband is having an affair and that they are going through divorces. And for some reason, the husband, a non-believer came to this event. Through Margie’s sharing, both the husband and the wife were really touched. During refreshment, the husband was willing to talk to the brothers and sisters there. Please continue to pray for this couples and pray that God will continue to do His amazing works in their marriage.

8/14/06 3pm
Still on the way to Malaysia, after writing the previous blog , I attempted to nap due to having the first sign of a cold. All of us are still very weak physically due to the lack of sleep and the fully-packed schedule.. I only had about 4 hours of sleep each night for the past 2 nights due to jet-lag. 3gut lost his voice yesterday and could not sing at all. Dickson had stomach problems last night and this morning. Pls continue to pray for our strength to accomplish our missions here in Malaysia. We still have 1 concert in Ipoh and 4 concerts in Malaysia for the next coming week.
Anyway, back to the recap:

Second Day (8/13 Sun.) :
Our team’s slogan was born…
As mentioned above, 3 gut lost his voice and we had to rearrange the program for the 2 concerts of the day . Dickson volunteered to sing one more song and share. 3gut felt bad since Dickson is still not comfortable with sharing his testimony. 3 gut said that it would be unfair to Dickson by giving him such last minute notice. Dickson responded with such a sincere and honest look on his face and said: “there's no such thing as fairness, we're a Team.” Having said that, there was silence in the room. Everyone who heard his comment was in awe and felt so touched, especially since it came from the mouth of Dickson who rarely makes any firm comments! And that became the slogan of our team now. Everything we do for one another, there's no such thing as fairness cuz we ARE a team! How blessed!

Frantic search for taxi:
That morning, we had a concert in the morning service at Queenstown Church at 11:15am. We found out from the maid of our host that it’s harder to get taxi on Sundays so we left the house quickly and found that to be true. We had to walk out further toward the main street and got 1 taxi. 3gut, Ophe got on the taxi and we decided that Allen should go to church early as well since he had to set up sounds. That left me and Dickson to catch another taxi, we had to walk out to the main street and waited for 5 more min. til the next cab come. Right before we got to our destination, we realized that both of us have no Singapore dollars on us!! We got frantic for a few seconds and then we saw allen standing in front of the church waiting for us with the money! He actually remembered that me and Dickson got no money as soon as he got on his taxi. And from that incident, we know that we can’t put all the eggs in one basket as we did.

Sunday morning service at Queenstown Church (11:15am):
Since we had no time for rehearsal nor warm-up, the first half of our concert was our warm-up!! The sound was being adjusted during the first half. Despite the fact that we were not at our optimum, God still did His amazing work. After our concert, the pastor gave a brief sermon and share 6-8 people rededicated, 2 people accepted Christ as their Savior.

The brothers and sisters were very nice and got us some “Hoinan Chicken Rice” for lunch. But since we had only 1 hour to rush to another church for the next service, we didn’t have lunch until 4pm. Nonetheless, it was a very very good, especially since we were soooo hungry.

Sunday afternoon service at Fairfield Methodist Church (2pm):
2 sisters from Fairfield were nice enough to pick us up from Queenstown Church and drove us to Fairfield. We got to Fairfield around 1:30pm. The congregation was mostly elderly people. The service was started by singspiration led by someone from their church. We were all amazed at the songs they sang. One of them was “Praise You, Hallelujah” by ACM. Not only were we amazed by the songs they sang, their enthusiasm and love for God was seen by their singing. They clapped and raised their hands so joyously and freely. We were so moved by them. The concert went well, the pastor gave a very good sermon on God’s love. He explained the meaning of the chinese character “Love” is. It means to open up your HEART to RECEIVE God’s LOVE. At the end, the pastor asked all the people who wants to receive this love from God to stand up. A lot of people stood up. Even though we didn’t know how many received Christ as their Savior the first time, we felt that the Holy Spirit was among us and God was doing His work behind the scene.

8/17/06 Thursday – 7am (Ipoh)
Can’t believe it’s already Thursday! We have been so busy after getting to K.L. Plus the fact that I’m on the verge of getting sick made me unable to write the blog. Last night, I only got 4 hours of sleep again. Hopefully, I can get some rest on the way back to K.L. today.
We will be leaving Ipoh around 11:30am this morning. Pastor Law will pick us up at 9am for brunch. Pastor Law and his wife have given us such good hospitality. We have been fed like PIGS!!! They took us to have some local food and asked a sister at their church to made us some barley dessert to sooth our throat. During this trip, we all agree that the blessings we got has been WAY more than what we gave out! All the brothers and sisters we met have been so loving and generous to us. We see that God has used them to shower His love on us. Our housing here at Ipoh is wonderful. We are staying at a fellowship center type of house. There are 4 rooms and we got the whole house to ourselves. The best of all, we got A/C in every room! J Last night, we gave Ophe a surprise party at midnight since today is her b-day. We asked Pastor Law to get a b-day cake for us and we sneaked it in after we got home around 11:40pm. 3gut purposely asked Margie to have a meeting after we settled a bit to evaluation our concert last night. So we called everyone down right before mid-night and turned off the lights and brought the cake out. Ophe was very surprised because she didn't even remember her own b-day!

leaving Singapore

we are leaving our home in10 min to take the bus.

i can't believe we have been here for only 2 days. it seems like we've been here longer since we have done so much. i find it impossible to write during this trip since we are out during the whole day and i am usually exhausted when we get home and i just want to crash. but as allen said, we'll try to write on the bus.