Last day for january 2011

It's been a month already since the new year 2011 started. In a few hours time, the new month would begin and without reliasing it, it'll be the end of the month again...


I was at KL when this new year and month begun and here i am at my indo home writting a blog at the end of the month. Here i am looking forward to go back to sydney but at the same time i dont mind staying here a bit longer too because i want to spend more time with friends. I thought i can get away with this kinda feeling. Feeling of wanting to be at sydney and jakarta. Clearly i can't get away with that feeling as i am feeling it now. I dont even know whether i would be able to get away from those feelings but oh well, its just something that i have to go through in life.


I woke up today thinking that in 3 days time i wouldnt be able to see my indo friends till i come back sometime at the end of the year or early next year. Sad but at the same time im glad knowing that i'll be back in sydney in 3 days time.. I wonder why do God let me feel this way.. again i questioned why!!


But after a few moments i realised that i am such a lucky kid. I get a chance to get both my indo and sydney friends to be part of my life. Its harder to hang out with my indo friends because we are so far apart but i get the chance to hang out with them this holiday at least even for a short period of time.
Saying goodbye is always hard and never easy but the fact that i get to spend time in both cities and i enjoyed them is something that i should be thankful about not complaining.

One village near Merapi

I visited a village near the mount merapi with church people 2 weeks ago. We were told that there would be no toilet but phone reception was awesome!! The first thing that i wanted to do when i got to the village was to pee (how inconvinient) but thank God we found a few houses that have closed toilets inside their house..hehehe :D:D
Even though closed toilet was rare, I enjoyed every moment i spent in that village. I spent most of my time interacting with the kids because I was helping out with the children's program that my church held in the village. Another reason was because they are the ones who are able to speak indo while with the older people I have to talk in javanese as most of them dont know how to speak indo...

The kids love to sing more than games.. They sing and dance too, not a big and fancy dance but just a little movements. They made me enjoy singing with those little movements and they taught us (my friends and me) a couple of sunday school songs in javanese. I only remember how to sing one song which i have to be honest i love the song :D:D As far as i can remember, I've never enjoyed singing sunday school songs as much as i did in that village.

One thing that amaze me most from that village is their hungriness of God's word and i want to be as hungry as them in my spiritual life. For me it is easy to forget God and to put him aside but those villagers taught and encourage me to not forget God and to keep trusting him whatever condition i am in.

Image and Pride

I am one of those people who try to live up to people expectations. What people think and say about me are very important to me and I dont want people to say bad things or think bad about me whatever it is.
It comes to a point where im tired to live up to people expectations becoz no matter what i do, i can never live up to their expectations. The reason being is becoz they keep raising their expectations once i meet their standards. All of a sudden, i become a failure becoz i can never make people happy.

As the time goes by, i realised that regardless of what i do, i am a failure anyway becoz of my sin. My sin would always cause me to fail becos the nature of sin is to make people fail.
As a christian, i am not a failure anymore because i am no longer bound to sin. I am free from sin because Jesus sets me free from sin through the cross.
My image and pride is no longer depend on me now but depend on Jesus which is far better because I know that Jesus is certain unlike me who keeps sinning and sinning and uncertain!!

Gone in a second!!

I visited a place that used to be a village or combined villages near the mount merapi. The village (s) that used to be there is there no more!! It was destroyed by the heat clouds during the eruption of the mountain. Nothing was there apart from dead trees, huge rocks, sulfur smell, huge empty space covered with dust, and endless memories of pain and tears.
It was heartbreaking to see what happened to people over there. To wake up one day and found themselves had to run for their lives. To wake up and saw that their house and everything that they had was gone with the heat clouds. To wake up and found that their loved ones were not with them anymore.

Life is very short and noone really knows what is going to happen to us or the people around us. Wouldnt it be a waste if we build/ live this life for some thing that will not last for eternity?? something that will fade away as the world fades away.

Standing among those remaining villages makes me ponder about the purpose of life.

What is the purpose of you life??
What are you building your life on??

Snorkeling with a Life Jacket

I am currently on holidays with a couple of my friends and went snorkeling a few days ago. The thought of snorkeling scared me even since one of my friend suggested it. I am paranoid with waters but i thought to myself, just deal with it this time plus i would have friends around me anyway so i ended up going snorkel but it didnt last long.

After 10 minutes being in the water, i decided to go back to the boat and stayed there not wanting to go snorkel again because i was struggling to breathe and i just couldnt do it!!

My friends told me to have a second go but i refused because i was traumatised. So, everytime my friends went snorkelling i would just stay on the boat looking around and taking pictures...hehehe, i still enjoyed staying on the boat though ;);)

We spent 2 days and a bit in Mabul Island (the place where we went snorkel) and on the evening on the last day i finally decided to have a second go but with a life jacket. I felt like a little kid who is learning how to swim but i didnt trust myself enough to swim out in the sea without a life jacket. I would rather feeling like a little kid and look like a little kid than feeling insecure. Not the best thought to have i know but i couldnt help it!!

There was even a little kid who jump multiple times from the wharf to the sea and i was sitting on the wharf stairs amazed by the braveness of that little kid :D:D

It is a bit ironic because my nickname is ikan (fish) but i get paranoid of waters and just learned how to snorkel with a life jacket... oh well, i had a good time and enjoyed everyone company...

Christmas Gift

I know that this is late for a christmas post but I am going to write the post anywayy :D:D

Coming up to Christmas everything is about last minute shopping to buy christmas gifts and there were so many discounts around for the last minute shopping... (being an asian, i was excited about the discounts bit but the excitement stops there :D:D)

I dont grow up in a christian family so christmas is never about giving or receiving present from anyone, so i dont really think much about gift (s). I grew up knowing santa and gifts but because my parents dont know much about it either hence they didnt really talk much about it!! i only saw santa's decrations at shopping centre and thats pretty much it!! I never really see christmas as a season for presents.

But I was reminded from the christmas that just passed that christmas is all about Gift. It is about receving gift MORE than giving gift though, let me explain...

Christians get the ultimate gift for Christmas and that gift is JESUS... Jesus is the greatest gift because he is incomparable with any other thing that this world has to offer. God who give us the gift (Jesus) didnt just give us a normal and impersonal gift but he gave us HIMSELF in Jesus!! complicated?? i know, but this is the awesomeness of christmas for christians that our gift giver gave us the ultimate gift which is himself :D:D

Now that i have jesus in my christmas, christmas' excitement is not about big discounts and christmas shopping anymore but because i was given the ultimate gift which is JESUS :D:D

A gift that is better than any gifts i received and will receive because Jesus will last while other things will eventually fall!!

I hope that everyone had a meaningful christmas and not one that was just a tradition or a celebration without knowing or understanding the real meaning to it!!