Home Sweet Home

What went through your mind when you come home after a vacation. Is it "home sweet home" or "back to reality?" How about what your children are thinking? A number of my friends went pulkam (pulang kampung 0r back home) during the last 2 weeks of the holiday season. I wonder whether going back to their childhood home is really as good as they describe it.

It's not very difficult to make a home sweet home for young children. Fewer harsh words, more praises, cookies, hugs, and Wii should do it. How about for your adult children? When they come home, do they feel accepted, warm, safe, secure and nurtured? Or do they feel the impending judgment where they feel compelled to make an accounting of their accomplishments and justify the life they are leading now?

I hope my children, when they are grown ups, will find my home, wherever that may be, a safe heaven where they can relax, and recharge. Like a spa maybe. An emotional spa. A place where they can find solace, reassurance, and rest from the turmoil of life.

Spot the Indonesians

How to spot an Indonesian vacationing in Singapore? Look for the following signs:

1. Chubby children in tow. Usually more than three of them.
2. Cheerful and lively children.
3. Bling blings on both men and women.
   
4. Big Prada handbag with the "Prada" facing front.
5. Big hand phones on the hip of the men.
6. Men clad in boldly patterned shirt.
7. Women with big hair.
8. Shinny bright belt buckle on men.
9. Unabashed curiosity on people. And when caught staring, they look shy.
10. Quick to say, "I'm sorry."
11. Tendency to be overdressed (for Singapore at least).
    

How was your Christmas?

"Are you ready for Christmas? How was your Christmas preparation going? You must be busy preparing for Christmas. " These are some of the questions/statements I heard over the week leading up to Christmas. Why do you need to get ready at all? Isn't Jesus in our hearts at all times? What does it mean: to be ready for Christmas? Here are according to my imagination.

1. To the Tai-Tais in my church back home, it means that you have bought a new dress for each Christmas event in the church that you are attending: the Christmas Eve service, the Christmas Day service, the Christmas celebration of each division (there is women ministry Christmas, Sunday school Christmas, church activist Christmas, and many more). And you have made your appointment with your hairdresser secured for that special occasion.
   
2. To the church activist, to be ready for Christmas means that your troupe (dance, choir, nativity pageant, skit) are ready for the big Christmas show (I'm not sure if they still do that, having children perform a dance number on Christmas Day), that the church is decorated, and that the souvenier calendars are printed, and many more.
   
3. In the US, it means to have all the Christmas presents for friends and relatives bought, wrapped and delivered to the recipients. It also means to have your refrigerator is filled up with the food you are going to serve for Christmas dinner. It is essential to prepare to the minutest detail because on Christmas Eve, at 5:00 0'clock pm, everything closes down. The only place still open is the fire station, the police station, and the hospitals. If you are out of salt, that's it.
   
4. In Singapore, it means that you have bought presents for all your colleague and your significant other, and made reservation at the restaurant for that decadent Christmas Eve dinner or Christmas morning brunch in a chic restaurant, preferably in a place sky high, with your current significant other. Or if you are celebrating at home, the turkey, ham and leg of lamb are ordered.

For some people, it can be burdensome. Others are plagued with guilt when they don't deliver "Christmas." How did Christmas become so burdensome? Why things has to be just so, or otherwise its not Christmas? Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with making an effort to plan a memorable Christmas for your friends and family. But I dare you all to do something dramatically un-Christmas next year while still keep the spirit of Christmas, which is Jesus himself, alive in our hearts. May be have an up-side-down tree? Stuffing-out turkey?

Keeping Family Tradition Alive - Part 2

Keeping Family Tradition Alive-Part 1

Since the December holiday of 2004, every year my children and I bake Christmas cookies, especially the gingerbread boys, and decorate them with royal icing. The picture on the left is the very first Christmas cookies baking we did. We often invited their friends to add in to the fun, and share the cookies with our neighbors and friends. My children consider such time precious. I enjoyed how they applied themselves in the process. We had gingerbread boys and girls in swim wears, ties, dresses, and sun-glasses. We had one legged gingerbread boy, Pochahanta gingerbread girl, Tarzan and many more. When my daughter was asked to submit a story about her family tradition for a competition, she chose to write about the Christmas cookie baking tradition.

In the years past, we usually had people in mind who we want to give the cookies too. The first year it was the teachers at Pat's Schoolhouse, Claymore, where I used to work and also their former kindergarten. By then, I had stopped working for one year, and they had not been there since. This year, I intend to give out the cookies to the children who sing in the choir at GKY Singapore. There are nine of them, and I thought the rest could be shared with other children who come. Sadly, for the first time after fours year of cookies making, they are not interested anymore. As with the day of Christmas tree trimming, they were busy playing games or chatting with friends. I ended up decorating all the cookies myself.

I believe it is not the last family tradition that they want to shun occasionally -at least I am still hoping that this year is just an exception. I promise myself to keep my cool. At least for now, I can still take comfort that they value having family dinner together. They are so riled when their father is still on the phone after I make the final call for dinner, and he said, "You guys go ahead and eat first." They'd much rather that we are all at the table from the start.

How to Attached Value to Someone's Hospitality?

Recently, a friend has inquired, how much it cost to rent an apartment during the holiday season. You see, I have two mutual friends, one in Indonesia, and one in Singapore. The one in Singapore is going to visit her in-laws in Budapest, Hungary for two weeks. The one in Indonesia, would really like to rent her place while she was away. The friend in Indonesia asked me, what is a fair amount of rent. My friend's condo in Singapore is a 1200 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms unit located near MRT and only 1 MRT stops from the Central Business District.

These are some number crunches I did:

• Rental value: $5,000/month (for a 2 years lease)
• Utility: $300/month
• Cleaning: $500/month
• Management fee: $400/month
• Service and maintenance: $50/month
• Total: $6,300/month

So I told my friend in Indonesia, the place at cost to the owner is $210/day, therefore offering $250/day will be sufficient. Considering during peak season, hotel charges upward of $300/night, $250 for a 3-bedroom condo is a good deal indeed. In the end, he decided to stay in a hotel around Orchard. He got a good deal of $250/night for his family of four.

The question remains, how do you bring something like this up? In my friend's case, both are aware of the possibility but neither is willing to be the first one to open up the subject. I guess between friends/relatives, it is difficult to quantify the value of hospitality. Undervaluing or overvaluing it can cause strain in the relationship and change it for good.

No Room at the Inn

When I first moved to Singapore, I was so upbeat and happy to play the host. However, after a couple of unfortunate visit by rude relatives, I got really fed up.

The holiday season is the time when relatives will be looking for a place to stay in Singapore. Some of them just want to safe money and get a free accommodation. Some genuinely want to spend time with my family and to know us at a deeper level. I am always delighted to have these relatives staying with us. The worst were those who asked us to let them know when we're going on vacation so they could make use of our home for free. Well, actually that was not a bad idea either, but when we did let them stay while we were away, instead of a family of 4 staying in our place, they brought in 6 more people whom we don't know, without telling us.

I am always reminded of the story how Mary and Joseph couldn't find a place at the inn. It's peak season in Singapore. It was peak season in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph really couldn't find a place they can afford. Whether or not you could afford a holiday in Singapore, here is my advice for those of you intending to stay with relatives:

1. If you have lost contact with your relatives for more than a year, it's probably better to get in touch and have a couple of exchanges via email or phone call first before you even brought up the notion of staying with them.
   
2. Be clear for yourself, what the purpose of the visit is: visiting relative and/or vacation. Spend your time accordingly. If you are doing both, make sure you spent ample time with your relative. If you just want to sight see, stay in the hotel, and make a short half hour visit to your relative or arrange to meet for lunch.
   
3. Inquire if the dates you selected is convenient for your relatives. Better yet, before choosing a date, ask your host what is a good time for a visit, and choose the date together. After all, you are putting them at a great inconvenience.
4. If you are not direct relatives, accept the fact that your prospective host must give priority to their siblings and parents first.
   
5. If you are visiting during a holiday season, try to stick with the agreed plan. After all, your host is banking on spending their holiday time with you, if you cancel, then you'll screw up their plan as well.

Have a pleasant holiday, and be a good guest whether you are staying in a hotel or in a relatives' home.

My Little Angel

The latest addition to our Christmas tree is this angel. This is to remember what an angel my daughter has been this year. This is what she did to deserve angel-hood:

• She shows a lot of forbearance in dealing with her pesky little brother.
• She helped out here and there especially when I am busy with work and school.
• She is a good listener.
• She shows appreciation to what others did for her.
• She bought me a bar of dark chocolate on the way to school for my birthday.
  
• She shows different opinions without being nasty. We can finally agree to disagree, and still be friendly to one another.
• She has learned the value of money, and she is very mindful about spending her parent's money.

The list can go on and on. Basically, the angel is to commemorate the year my little brat become an angel.

Confusion at the zebra crossing

I finally figure out what's the cause of confusion at the zebra crossings in Singapore. Click here for previous entry on the same topic. Look at these two pictures. The first picture is a picture of a zebra crossing in Singapore, while the other one is from a city in the US. Can you find the difference? That's right,it's the stop sign. In the US, it's mandatory for all motorists to stop first before driving over the zebra crossing. Pedestrian right of way is made clear by the presence of the stop sign. While in Singapore, it's not clear who has the right of way. I am sure traffic law states that pedestrian has right of way. However, the lack of street signs bring about major confusion on the street.

Keeping Family Tradition Alive-Part 1

Keeping family tradition alive is especially an uphill battle when you have tweens and teens in the house because they tend to want to do their own activities and resent being brow beaten into do anything that distract them from their preferred activities such as keeping up with facebook, watching favorite TV series, x-box games, chatting and etc.

I have a 13-year-old, and an 11-year-old. Putting up the Christmas tree had always been something both my children look forward to. Our tree is 14 years old, and 7 feet tall. It has moved with us from Colorado, Florida, Indonesia and Singapore. It has stood in all the 6 homes we lived in during those years. Our Christmas ornaments also bear the marks of history. Except for the colored balls, each has its own unique story which bring back lots of cherished memory of good friends we have cross path with in the past. Some ornaments are also reminders of difficult times passed through. Some ornaments are the kids' kindergarten projects. Each year, they are both delighted that I still kept them.

In the past, the moment I took out the boxes from the storage, my children could not wait to attack them. In fact, I had to restrained them so I could get the items organized to avoid breakage. Last year, my cleaner, thinking that I would appreciate her help, put up the tree for us while we went out and left the boxes sitting in the living room. It outraged my daughter. She thought it's sacrilegious that this cleaner were handling the precious ornaments. I calmed her down, and reminded her none were broken and that there would be more Christmases to come.

Yesterday was the first Advent Sunday and also the day my 13-year-old daughter returned from an 8-days overseas trip. I took out the boxes with all our Christmas decorations. They are now strewn all over the living room. I was hoping that this morning they would be eager to get started. Well, my daughter is busy catching up with friends online after 8 days without her hand phone or laptop. My son is busy making sure that his quota of game time is met. I was tempted to either brow beat them or do the decorating on my own. Then I thought, hm... let me see how long they will let the boxes sit around without doing anything.

It certainly remind me of the book On Strike For Christmas I read back in July.

I certainly would not want to engage them in any battle over keeping tradition. It does not do to get them to develop resistance. They have to want to keep the tradition, or otherwise it's a lost cause and every year, in the years to come, it will become an issue. We'll see how it turn out.

Robert Kiyosaki and Suze Orman on Money

Robert Kiyosaki is coming to Singapore to speak. I wonder how many people in the past years has been under the influence of best selling author Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad rather than Suze Orman. Judging from the current credit crisis in America, I'd say many has fallen under the spell of Kiyosaki instead of following the conservative advise of Suze Orman. I have not personally read the Kiyosaki book. All I know about Kiyosaki I heard second hand from my husband who listened to his audio book. The following are just some of the flawed principles I recalled to have heard that is directly relate to the credit and mortgage crisis happening in America:

• When buying a home on the upward market, max out on the credit the bank is willing to give because the bigger the investment, the bigger the gain.
• Money can make you more money when invested properly. Employ money to work for you. In another word, do not use your cash for purchases. Buy on credit if you can and invest your hard earned cash instead. Return on cash investment can be higher than the interest you incurred.

Robert Kiyosaki's book maybe more comprehensive in laying out all the principles, the pit falls, and the danger. Many people, however, either did not read the whole book or selectively remembered only what they liked to hear.

I watched the Suze Orman's show several times. She, on the other hand, always advocates the following:

• Use money to take care of your people first, safe a portion for retirement, and spend what's left.
  
• Get a mortgage size that suit your income (mortgage payment should not be more that 30% of your income after taxes, if I remember correctly).
• Buy on credit only for your residential home and college education. The rest buy only if you have the money. But make sure you take care of your people and save a portion for retirement. She often says, people first, then money, then things.

I don't claim to be a financial expert but I am not comfortable with Kiyosaki's reckless abandon way in investing. I also believe, Orman's conservative principles may not suit others. But so far, her advice has help me secure our family's financial future while still allowing me to sleep well at night.

Cherie Blair to Michelle Obama

In Strait Times, 28 November 2008, it is reported that Mrs Blair gave Mrs Obama an unsolicited advice. This is what was reported she said,

"My advice for Michelle Obama: Learn to like the back seat.... Brace yourself for a big letdowns in your life as First Lady.... You have to learn to like the back seat, not just in public, but in private. When your spouse is late to put the kids to bed, or for dinner, or your plans for the weekend are turned upside down again, you simply have to accept that he had something more important to do.... It is something of an irony that in these days of pushing for equality those of us married to our political leaders have to put their own ambitions on hold while their spouses are in office and keep their view to themselves."

It strike me that the same advise can be bestowed upon the wives of church leaders and church pastors. Sad to say, the church organization can sometimes be very political with different political parties playing the field. A wife who doesn't subscribe to the husband's political allegiance can cause embarrassment to the husband. Is it a wonder why many wives of "majelis" choose to be uninvolved and keep themselves invisible?

Advance Medical Directive

There has been discussion on the Strait Times on the issue of Advance Medical Directive (AMD), Euthanasia, and assisted suicide. In the recent years, taking care of our parents has been an issue faced by a number of our friends. One friend's mother is at the final stages of cancer which originated in the gum, he moved her to his house and his wife took care of her every need. Another friend's mother is in coma after a massive stroke. She is on life support in a nursing home. Living in a different state, he and his siblings took turn to visit. Another friend's father is suffering from a severe case of emphysema, and has been going in and out of hospital for the past 12 months. Lucky for him, he has 6 sisters, they all chip in to help with the care. Another friend's father is having lung cancer that's spreading to the brain and he is asking his wife to quit her job to take care of him. Another friend's father is on dialysis and need help with breathing, the father has substantial saving so he is in an elite nursing home with 24 hours private nurse caring for him. Two friends' parents are suffering from colorectal cancer. The list can go on and on, it's depressing sometime. There is no question, we should be prepared for this. It is an unpleasant interruption to one's life. The financial and emotional toll is high on the family.

While assisted suicide and euthanasia is wrong, how about AMD? Certainly, I don't want to be a burden to my children, but who are we to be the decision maker in what is to be part of life's lesson. Adversities and difficulties is God's way perfecting us, euthanasia and AMD may get in the way of God's plan.

This blog by Lorri Curto tells a story how God works in mysterious ways.

Confusion on the Zebra Crossing

In Singapore, neither the driver nor the pedestrians seem to know what to do at the zebra crossing. There seem to be a disagreement between motorists and pedestrians. There are several types of pedestrian.

The first type is young people between JC/Poly age. They are usually confident of their right of way. They are so confident that sometimes they don't bother to stop, look and listen, and just make an abrupt turn to cross and often never look up from their hand phone. For these, drivers really must be on the look out. Cars would stop, sometime at the nick of time with the driver cursing the pedestrian

The second type usually is an elderly, an obese person, a primary school child, or anybody who can't walk very fast. They usually will stand at the mouth of the zebra crossing, and waited for the car to stop from both direction, or waited until they don't see any car from both direction. These people do not have confidence that the cars will stop for them.

It is for these pedestrian that drivers often do not stop and here is why. Let say you are a driver, and from far away you saw a pedestrian at the mouth of a crossing. In the driver's opinion, the pedestrian could have made a save crossing even before the car reached the crossing. But this pedestrian is the type who only cross when cars from both direction already stopped or no cars can be seen. The driver in turn thought that maybe he/she did not intent to cross at all, so the driver did not stop the car. The pedestrian then thought, "Feuh ... good thing I did not risk my neck, see this driver did not stop."

Where my children are concern, I told them to never assume that cars will stop. But I also to instruct them to give a clear signal that they need to cross by raising one hand and look at the driver in the eye.

Breach of confidentiality

Should Pastors and other church workers be called to account for breach of confidentiality they committed? To date, I have not heard of any Indonesian church who asked its pastors and bible teachers to sign a confidentiality agreement. Meaning that any information that they hear from counseling session with church members, formal or informal, will not be divulged to anybody without the other's consent. I believe it is time that the Indonesian churches have some sort of guidelines for its pastors and workers. It is unethical to tell others personal problems that they hear from church members. It is even worse when a pastor uses it as an illustration in his or her sermon without permission.
In a sermon I heard, a young couple who were about to be married were mentioned. Although the said couple and I lived in different countries, and we did not know one another, enough details were given that I could somehow connect the dots and pin-point which couple the pastor was referring to with some degree of precision. The illustration, unfortunately, painted a rather unfavorable picture of the couple as spoiled young adults from rich families who don't know how to count their blessings and are whining over something that others would have rejoiced over.

Why did the pastor do that? Was it unintentional? Was he clueless about how inappropriate he was? Or was he smarting over not being asked to officiate the wedding?

At any case, guidelines should be established. It does occur to me that maybe others don't share the same opinion on the issue. Maybe, I have lived too long in a western world and my mindset is just too westernized. Maybe, it's because confidentiality is a big issue in the helping profession I am in so my level of expectation is skewed. What do you think?

Hear no evil, see no evil and say no evil

For the past 21 years, I had been on the fringe of the church community. What it means is that I was not part of the inner circle of the church. I attended the same church service week in and week out. I contributed financially. I contributed my time and service on the fringe.

Things change when we started to attend GKY. I am trying to stay on the fringe but it is getting harder and harder.

Why I prefer to be on the fringe? On the fringe it is easier to hear no evil, see no evil and say no evil. As a child, my family was the "church royalty" sort of speak, part of the inner circle. I saw and heard too much that it's a wonder I did not rebel against the church.

My attitude I realized, however, made it hard to have close connection with others in the church. It is well received, ties between two people are stronger once the two started to share confidences. In a church community sadly, the confidences shared is confidential information about other people instead of personal. It's difficult to resist. I may have fallen into the trap a couple of times. I think I'd better get one of these 'see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil' figurine as a reminder at the door before I leave home.

Clergy Compensation

How much should a clergy be paid. How much is too much? It so happen, a number of my friend from IBC left the church because they thought that IBC overpaid the previous pastor and seem to be continuing the policy, in their opinion. Christian clergies are not required to take a vow of poverty like clergies in other Asian religions. However, in Asia especially, Christians frown upon clergy who are well paid and are not living a frugal and modest life. It is almost expected that they follow other religious leaders, like the Budhist monk, the Hindu priest, and the Tao priest, and live like a poor man. How much is too much?

In Singapore clergy pay is tied to his/her qualification, i.e. education and experience. A clergy's pay is at the same pay level of an academia. It so happen, Singapore is one of those places where its university professors are among the highest paid in the world. Thus clergies with doctorate degrees can assume at least a six figure sum. And I believe this is a good practice.

In Indonesia, clergy's official pay is not very high. However, clergies do receive various in-kind gifts and red packets from various church members. I personally believe this is a distasteful practice on the giver part. Church members who think that their pastor is not paid enough should use the official channels to push for higher clergy pay package instead of giving cash gifts to their pastor. I'm not sure how clergies feel when they receive a cash gift, but here is my experience.

My husband and I have a personal experience receiving cash gift (we are not clergy). In 2000, after working for two years, the company my husband worked for gave him a bonus enough for the down payment of our first HDB flat. After paying the down payment, minor repairs on the flat, and other fees, we only had $500 left in our bank account for food and transport until the next pay day. We used our credit card to the limit to purchase necessary appliances like refrigerator washing machine and moved into our flat with no TV or sofa. Our family gave us some money which we use to buy a sofa and a TV. We needed the money, however, the gift from our family left us with a bad taste. It felt like a charity. My pride was hurt.

When a cash gift come from an employer, the recipient feel a sense of pride and that the gift is reward for a job well done instead of a form of charity. Pastors and evangelists in Indonesia deserve more than they are getting. It is disrespectful to pay them so little that they are made to swallow their pride and receive cash gifts to boost up their income.

So, how much should a clergy be paid? Enough so that when they go to dinner with their member at a restaurant, they too have the economic power to pay for the dinner, said a pastor I personally know.

A phoney, a megalomaniac and a genuine article

What is the difference between a phoney, a megalomaniac, and a genuinely kind good person. Not much apparently according to several behavioral scales. All three will show high scores on the social desirability scale as well as the lie scale. Generally, a liar, a megalomaniac and a religious person will show the same profile on both scales. The question is, is that how Christians who genuinely try to lead a godly life are perceived: as either a phoney or a megalomaniac? Probably. What are Christians to do then to dispel this perception? Not much but it is important to look inside your heart, and see who is sitting on the throne. Yourself or God? The rest should be taken care by itself.

Finally Found the Nerve

I finally found the nerve to publish my blog entry on Seranggoon Garden. Click here to read it. I hope it will not get me in trouble.

Occupational hazzard

Being a student of human behavior has its hazards and advantages. One of the advantage is I can analyzed behavior with some degree of precision. After all people like me are trained to notice both verbal and non-verbal communication, overt and covert behavior, and make hypothesizes base on them. This grounding is especially emphasized this semester as I have to submit video tapes of myself administering psychological assessment. I did well on most areas such as accuracy in administering, scoring, statistical analysis, report writing accuracy, and attending behavior but I lost 2 marks for not picking out and recording some non-verbal cues.

Too much acuity can have its drawback. People like me can over-analyze situation and come to the wrong hypothesis or conclusion. I can also be overly sensitive -something my husband mention quite often. It doesn't matter how accurate or how off base I am, understanding too much can get in the way of social life. This is especially true when I demand authenticity and sincerity from my relations.

In the past few weeks different people came up to me and said that I looked so much like so and so who was a prominent figure in this particular community. This person also happened to be a non-blood relative of mine. I also know that she is not the most popular figure in certain quarter. In psychology there is a theory called transference (click here to read about transference). I wonder whether I will notice some transference.

Meeting my benefactor - Part 2

My benefactor, he is a changed man. Eighteen years ago when I told him that Fuller Seminary School of Psychology offered me a place in their Marriage and Family Therapy PhD program, he laughed and said that's a second rate program from a second rate school. He told me I should aim at Clinical Psychology program at UCLA. Well, as you know I ended up not going to any of the several graduate schools I secured a place in.

We got to talk for a little bit, but I sense, now that he is in retirement, he is focusing all his energy in full time ministry equipping future bible teachers. He is passionate about ministry to the mainland Chinese people, and he is also passionate about lay people being equipped with solid biblical teaching.

Had I have the chance to tell him that my major accomplishment in the past 18 years constituted only in bringing my two children to Christ, he'd have been proud of me.

When I look at his past and present, I remember my favorite passage from Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest, February 5th and 6th entries which says,

"It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism. but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people's feet ... 'Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.' The altar means fire-burning and purification and insulation for one purpose only, the destruction of every affinity that God has not started and of every attachment that is not an attachment in God. You do not destroy it, God does; you bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do."

He is binding the sacrifice with cords unto the horns of the altar.

Meeting My Benefactor

I am meeting my benefactor this coming Sunday for the first time in 14 years. I owe my education to him indirectly. He is the who convinced my father that I should be allowed to go to Calvin College. He also helped pushed my application through an already closed deadline. When I heard that he is coming to preach this Sunday, I feel that I will be called upon to account for my accomplishment since I graduated. It's not that I have not accomplished anything. But I felt my accomplishment is meager compared to the opportunity I have been given.

In my ideal world, I would have liked to show him my Phd, and may be my thriving private practice. Of course I'd also like to keep the family that I have now: a devoted husband and two beautiful and intelligent children who in their immature ways continue to do things that's pleasing to God.

If the idea of meeting him has this effect on me, what would it be like meeting Jesus, my biggest benefactor to whom I owe my life. With much trepidation I can only wonder what he would say. That really put everything in perspective, doesn't it?

Supervision for Junior Preachers

I always feel that Indonesian full time bible teachers (guru injil) or pastors are heavily burdened with preaching duties. It was mentioned recently in the 23 September 2008 blog entry of this blogger. His entry really got me going for days. I have to write something to get it out of my head. I may offend some people. Please accept my sincere apology.

In Indonesian church life, preaching is part of prayer meeting, women's fellowship, youth fellowship, housewarming party, thanksgiving, business opening, casket closure ceremony, consolation service, pre-funeral service, grave-side ceremony, wedding, malam widodaren (Indonesian version of bachelorette gatherings) and many more.

My first concern is whether the congregation ever felt preached out sometimes. Secondly, whether the preacher has ample time to prepare for his or her sermon. And thirdly, with so many sermons delivered, are there any supervision for the junior preachers?

I believe there should be less sermon delivered on a weekly basis and each sermon delivered (especially by juniors) should be properly vetted and supervised to maintain quality and faithfulness to biblical teaching. In my line of work as an Educational Psychologist, my first 1000 hours with my clients has to be supervised. Practically, my first 250 to 350 psychological reports has to be vetted and co-signed by a registered psychologist. Why not evaluation and supervision for new preachers who are doing important work as God's mouthpiece? Evaluation and supervision is important for the following reasons.

First, sermon text should be vetted for correct teaching to ensure that nothing that's contrary to the bible is inserted. I recently cringed over a joke delivered in a sermon by an ordained pastor. On writing it doesn't sound funny but his delivery made people laughed. In the joke he related to a question by a youth, "Pastor, can a Christian go to night clubs?" He said he answered the youth by saying simply (I don't remember word by word), "If Jesus returns or you die today, is that how you want God to find you?" I was waiting for him to provide explanation of what his point was or was not but it never came. There were several things inferred from that illustration. First, that God only sees the external, and not what's in a person's heart. Secondly, there is greater weight placed on to our last act than the rest of your life. The pastor sermon overall was easy to listen to and his delivery was pleasant. But that little speck really bothered me.

Second, vetting of text and evaluation of delivery is important for the preacher's own personal development. I heard another pastor preached. He was a very senior one, and I cringed. This pastor liked to use "saudara saudara" excessively in his sermon to the point that it was distracting. In fact I was so distracted I started counting how many "saudara saudara" he used. I counted the rate per minute for 5 minutes and I counted 13-15 "saudara saudara's" every minute. That means there were a total of 650 to 750 "saudara saudara's" in his 50 minutes sermon. This debilitating habits could have been dealt with if during his junior years he was properly supervised. Now he is so senior that I don't think no one's evaluation is going to be received kindly.

Third, sermon text should be vetted so that it's worth (in delivery time) could be decided before delivery. If a sermon worth only 20 minutes of the congregation time, then the preacher should not spent 45 minutes. I often suffered through sermons which main points could have been delivered in less than 20 minutes. But because of inexperience or insecurity over delivering a short sermon, junior preachers often just padded his or her sermon with fillers to make it twice longer. Good preachers usually know when to stop preaching and they do not pad up his sermon with meaningless words. Good preacher words are insightful and succinct and overall sermons are usually is shorter.

On a side note, the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church of B0ulder, Colorado was equipped with a built in digital clock. I was told that the clock would blink at certain time to remind preachers that they went overtime. I thought that was hilarious. Maybe in all pulpits, there should be a timer so that preachers know when they have spoken too long. I believe the length of the sermon is not the issue. The issue is when a sermon went over 30 minutes and nothing insightful of new is being said.

Junior preachers can learn a lot from good senior preachers. They need to have their content and delivery style evaluated. A good evaluation should point out the things he/she did right as well as areas that need improvement.

Getting published

I have been on occasion sent my comments to Strait Times writer. Sometimes I received a reply but most of the time, there was none. This week I sent another one and Strait Times wanted to publish it. Here is a copy of my comment on "High-crass service" publish on Sunday Times, 14 September:

" Sigh... sigh... sigh...
I totally shared your experience. I am technically an Indonesian, but I don't look or act like one. Over the years, I have often acted as a buyer/procurer of branded handbag for my sister who lives in Indonesia. I have made quite a number of purchases over the years in various locations such as Taipei, Denver, Boca Raton, and Singapore. I don't own one myself. When I walk into a store, I usually has a model and its number on hand. I don't even pretend to make a choice. But even within that short period of time, I can sense when I was regarded as an interloper. That happened exclusively in Singapore. Here, it seems that salesperson are trained to assess the potential of making a sales when a customer walks in. The message they projected about their opinion is loud and clear. Sigh... sigh ...

Poor service is not only in high end shops though. It happened usually in apparel shop like Samuel and Kevin, Giordano etc. When I walked in, no one greeted me. But the moment I touched the neatly piled clothes to find my size, some one jumped in to stop me and ask what size I needed. They even put their hand on top of the pile as precaution some time. I usually would say, "o good that you came in time. I was going to make a big mess of your neat pile. " Sigh.. sigh.. sigh...

Some nice changes I observed recently since a number of Filipinos sales person are in retail sales force. Bossini and Esprit hire quite a number of them and it made shopping there much more pleasant."

I didn't give much thoughts and I did not give permission to publish with my name. So unless they really need a filler on Saturday's mailbag forum, the most likely will not publish it. Why I don't have the nerve to have my opinion published? I guess I am a chicken.

I know of one person, Michael Loh Yik Ming, who make some world record of have the most number of letters published in the newspaper within a year. He had one letter published almost every day. What a nerve. I guess I am not Michael. In fact, there is one blog post on the Serangoon Garden workers dormitory which has been sitting as a draft for some time. I am too afraid to publish it because it implicates the Ministry of National Development of Singapore. When I get the nerve, I will publish it, I guess.

Choosing a church

Somebody told me a while back that one should choose a church for its teaching and fellowship. In the past I chose the church I worshiped in based on the quality of its music and sermon. Is it wrong? Good music and good preaching make worship enjoyable. You hardly had a need to check your watch and the service usually ends before you feel bored. I left the first church we worshiped in during our first year in Singapore because the music and the preaching were simply awful and the fellowship was not happening. I truly felt that the hour and a half I spent in the church was not time well spent.

Many say that the church is not in the business of entertainment so one should not expect to be entertained. Is it my attitude that I expect to be entertained during a worship service? Is it too much to expect a modicum well thought out sermon and well chosen songs? I guess I should make it my priority every week to pray for the people who are going to preach and to lead worship service that God will bless and make perfect the preparation they do.

Foreign workers in Serangoon Garden

Recently, there is an issue regarding the government plan to set up foreign workers dormitories housing 1000 workers in the old Serangoon Garden Technical School. I attended the school for several months years back. I know it is located right in the heart of residential landed properties. Needless to say, the residents of Serangoon Garden are very unhappy. The polemic in Strait Times has been revealing. On one hand, there are those who sympathize with home owners and on the other hand there are those who are disgusted by the discriminatory and intolerant attitude of these homeowners. The politically correct people chastised home owners for its intolerant, racist and elitist attitudes. While it's true, many Singaporeans has a long way to get over their xenophobia, I can't help myself to feel there are elements of injustice toward the homeowners and inconsistencies on the government part at play here.

One of the argument set out by homeowner is the loss of property value. Without a doubt, the value of those premium landed houses in the immediate vicinity and possibly in the whole Serangoon Garden neighborhood will suffer a drop and may not recover so long as the dormitory is there. Considering that the home is a single most valuable asset a Singaporean most likely to own, the loss in value is going to have significant effect. One solution is to compensate homeowner with a higher plot ratio (click here to understand plot ratio) assignment for their landed home which will immediately boost up their property value at no apparent cost to the government. No one has propose this so far though.

Many, from government officers to private citizens, including Strait Times editor, has called for greater tolerance and acceptance of these foreign workers into Singapore society. However, governmental policy all along has made the call sound off key. You see, government policy all along forbids local Singapore citizen or permanent residence to be romantically involved with foreign workers including foreign domestic workers. In fact, if a foreign domestic worker became romantically involved and got herself pregnant, she would have to be repatriated even if the man responsible is willing to marry her. Future return of the mother and child to join the Singaporean/PR father of the child is almost impossible. Foreign worker policy is such that businesses are allowed to pay them so little that there is no way for them to be fully part of Singapore society and participating in the wealth they help create. In fact, with the amount they are paid, they can barely subsist in Singapore even with the cheap housing for foreign worker.

If you look at selection of foreign talent or people who are accepted to be permanent resident, it is no wonder, the citizen of Singapore is choosy in who they want to have as neighbors. To be considered for permanent residence status, you almost need to have a degree, or some sort of financial investment in Singapore. If you are poor and uneducated, you can't get a PR status even if you marry a Singaporean who are also poor and uneducated. The message is, if you are poor and uneducated, you are welcomed only as long as you are useful i.e. willing to do jobs that no Singaporean is willing to do.

It's not my intention to argue that current immigration policy is not good or vice versa. In fact, it is precisely this policy that allows stability and survival for Singapore. However, in light of this, let's not be too hasty to name call Serangoon Garden residents as racist, elitist and intolerant.

To Serangoon Garden residents, you have my sympathy. I know not all of you are xenophobics. I wish you speedy resolution to your plight.

The lack of preparation for the influx of foreign workers is an oversight on the government part. After all it was never the government's plan to use old Serangoon Garden Technical School site as foreign worker dormitories, is there? Both parties, the government and the homeowners need to find a solution acceptable to both.

9/11

On September 11, 2001, America was changed. But unbeknown to many, a little boy's life in Singapore was about to be changed as well. My son was a little over 4 years old at that time. His favorite TV show at the time was Barney. "Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination...Barney can be your friend too if you just make believe him," goes Barney's theme song. The program teaches children to use their imagination and to make believe things. One night the boy was afraid of the monster under the bed. We told him that there is no monster. It's just in your imagination. Like Barney, it's not real, we told him. Then we suggest to pray and ask for God's protection. After we pray, he asked, " Is God real? How do you know that he is not just our 'in-magician' (imagination). He doesn't feel real to me, you know." I immediately went oh oh. Bells were ringing in my head. I had a skeptic or possibly an agnostic to raise. Being trained to use his imagination by Barney didn't help at all. In the end I told him, "The Bible says so, and the Bible is never wrong" and it seemed to satisfy him.

Several weeks later, 9/11 occurred. He saw the images and we talked about it. Suddenly, my son at 4 years old realized how fragile life was. I didn't know how much he was effected until several months later. We were preparing to go to Indonesia by plane. Usually, he was delighted with the prospect of getting on an airplane. Weeks before our departure date, he mentioned several times how he wished we didn't have to go. It wasn't until 2 days before the date that he told me his fears. His fear was simple. At the bottom of it, he was afraid that if he died suddenly, God in heaven will deny him entry because he was a stranger to God. He understood that we didn't normally allow stranger into our house. So on that day I explain to him what he needed to do to become one of God's children. Then I said a prayer introducing him to God, and also helped him to say a prayer to receive Jesus Christ.

Whenever the anniversary of 9/11 comes around, I always remember how the event set the wheel of change rolling in my son's life. Daniel doesn't remember anymore how he became a believer, but he knows beyond a doubt that he belongs to God.

Honeymooner rental flat

I was reading an article in today's Sunday Times about a couple who temporarily rented government flat for low income people even though they don't seem to fit the profile of rental flat dweller who are usually older people, single mother, and destitute. They claim that they used to live with one of their parents and it's not working out any longer.

I believe, one of the reason why couples delayed getting married is housing problem. Many don't have saving for a down payment of a flat plus the cost of setting up a household. The idea of living with one of the parents are just off putting. Renting a condo is expensive. If the Singapore government want more young couples to get hitched, maybe it's a good idea to make government subsidized rental flat available for honeymooner for a period of one or two years of their married life so they can safe up for their own flat. Imagine you are a fresh graduate just beginning to work. Each of you make $2000-2500. How many years would it take to save up around $40,000 to $100,000 to set up your own household? At least 2 years depending on how much of your income you saved.

So, if the Singapore government want young people to marry earlier, sort out immediate housing issue so that planning a wedding doesn't have to take so long.

How black is Obama?

I have been watching the Democratic National Convention. It's very interesting although I am not an American. I kind of hope to capture some historic speech life as it is being delivered. But I found none comparable to Dr Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech.
In one section, Senator Barack Obama's life story was presented. It strike me that he is so white after all. Here is what I mean. He was raised by his white mother with the support of his white grandparents and no doubt white extended relatives. It's not likely that he experienced the feeling of self doubt, low self esteem, despair, helplessness and anger toward prejudice and injustices that many African Americans who grow up in the inner-city experience. Yes, his skin color is black, but inside, he is white with a mindset, determination, positive attitude and ambition that are typical of the a white American middle class from the heartland. Obama himself practically said (may be not exactly in the following words) that his Kenyan father was just a sperm donor to him.
This does not mean that he had an easy childhood. I am sure it's not easy to be without a father and to be of different color skin from the rest of your family. I am sure he had to field a lot of questions regarding her parentage. May be that's what made him who he is: resilient, clever with his answers, good natured and all the rest.
It is not my intention to undermine the value of his candidacy in the American history. However, the wow factor would have been greater had he been a descendants of an African slave. America can't truly claim victory over its past yet. The debt to the slave descendants is still a specter from its past. It is not fully paid even if Obama is elected as the the next president.
This is my impression. Correct me if I am wrong.

Missing in translation

Singing English songs that have been poorly translated is such a let down. I often wonder whether it is possible to translate a song lyric without missing both the artistic value as well as its semantic value and still matched it with the melody.
In one song I sang last week, "I sing for joy at the work of your hand" is translated "kubersuka atas perbuatanmu" I think it should be "Kubersuka atas karya (atau ciptaan). Kubersuka atas perbuatanmu sound like what a parent will say to a child had done something good.

The digital age

What happen when a child of digital age encountered an old relic such as an analog video camera? He didn't know that it's disastrous to tape over a recording. The concept that once you tapped over, the previous recording is gone forever, was foreign to him. You see, with a digital video camera, the new video clip is never recorded over old ones. A new file is always created until the disk is full. Even then, the camera will not just record over.

After taping a 2 hours of IQ testing session with a teenager, I rewound the tape and left it unattended nearby to watch the news. Suddenly I heard my 11-year-old son shouted, I took a shot of you eating chips and watching TV mommy. The bottom of my stomach just dropped. I knew he tapped over my recording session. I lost some 10 seconds the rapport building part of the IQ test. It took me a while to explain to my son that he had almost obliterated my work. Of course once he understood what could have happened, he was very sorry.

I guess, I'll have to explain to my lecturers that my son ate my homework. A small part, but nevertheless, it's the critical part of IQ testing: gaining the cooperation of the client through rapport building. I hope the penalty will not be severe.

Unwanted Newspaper

In the place where I live, Today Paper (by Media Corps) and My Paper (by Singapore Press Holdings) are delivered free whether you want it or not. The papers are usually dropped off casually on the floor in front of your door. Some times they just strewn in front of the lift lobby. I have tried to contact the publisher to stop delivery of these unwanted items to no avail. I finally lodged a complaint to the condo manager and he instead asked the guard to relay a message to the delivery person. Since the unwanted paper still comes, I called the night guard myself and this is how the conversation went.

Myself : Hello, this is Mrs K___ from Block ___ Unit ___. Can you write down what I am going to tell you? Do you have paper and pencil? (There were noises indicating he was whispering to somebody)

Guard : Ya ya what is it mam?

Myself : Once again, my name is Mrs K___ from Block ___ Unit ___. Could you please tell the free news paper delivery person, that I do not want any free newspaper.

Guard : Ok mam no problem.

Myself : Did you write down what I said and my unit number?

Guard : Yes mam don't worry.

Myself : Could you please repeat what I just said?

Guard : (Sounding annoyed) That free paper, you want it. I'll tell them to give you. Don't worry lah.

Myself : NO NO NO! I do not want any free newspaper.

Guard : What mam? You dowan ah. All the paper.

Myself : NO NO NO! Only the free ones. I still want the one not free (Strait Times).

Guard : Ok mam, what your name mam?

Myself : Mrs K___

Guard : Your unit?

Myself : Block ___ unit 04-01

Guard : Unit 05-01

Myself : NO NO NO! Not 05. It's 04.

Guard : Oh 05-04

Myself : NO NO NO! Listen carefully its unit 04-01

Guard : Which block again mam?

Myself : Block ____

By the time I finished the phone call, needless to say I've woken up my husband and probably my neighbors. After all that, the papers continued to come. In the end, what I did was to wake up very early and intercepted the delivery man myself.

What am I trying to say here? I guess, if you want something to happen, you can't rely on others to make it happen. You gotta do it yourself. It's easier and faster.

Free Sunday morning: this and that

It's Sunday, and I am skipping the English worship at IBC. This the second time so far that I opted to skip going to IBC and go to GKY instead. It means I have one hour more time to read the whole Sunday paper, attend to my plants (not that they need much attending to, but I like to stop and look at them sometimes), read some blogs, play scramble and make blog post. The question is, is that pleasing to God. I'd be more sure of God's approval if I am using it for longer prayer, longer devotion time or writing encouraging emails to my missionary friends.

I used to spend my Sunday afternoon being an AWANA leader. AWANA will start again soon. I've decided not to return. Women Enrichment Ministry (WEM) at IBC will resume next week. I want to bring a friend to the WEM so I guess I'll still be a part of it till end of the year.

My extra one hour is finishing soon. Not much time really, but a lot of IBC happening missed out. My friend Susan Mai is supposed to give brief testimony on her mission work today (I'll get a personal and a more intimate testimony next week, so it's ok). This is the first Sunday before American School reopens, so many of my American friends are back again after a summer of home leave. This week is also AWANA registration week for kids and volunteers.

Hmmm... all this rambling is a bit like the experience of someone who has just going through a divorce, isn't it? I guess, in a way. After all, I'm trying to leave IBC, am I not?

Working mom vs stay at home mom

There has been some heated exchange at Strait Times' forum pages recently between stay at home moms and working moms. At the center of the exchange was workfare bonus given out by the Singapore government to working Singaporeans. Being left out from this periodic ang pao from the government was the stay at home moms. On one hand, stay at home moms felt that their sacrificial acts to raise future Singaporeans are not receiving a well deserved appreciation. On the other hand, the working moms felt that stay at home moms did not contribute to Singapore economy hence they did not deserve the workfare bonus. The exchange can be quite nasty sometimes with allegations thrown at each other. Working moms alleged stay at home moms squandered their education for something that can be outsourced to the maids. Stay at home moms of course baulked at the suggestion of letting their children be raised by foreign domestic helps who might impart the wrong values and incompetent in nurturing growing children's mind, body, and spirit.

These debate is so unnecessary. Being a stay at home mom or a working mom is a personal choice. There are many push and pull factors faced by each individual mom. Certainly, Singapore economy will not be sustainable if all working moms were to quit and stay at home. The impact of having so many of its young citizen raised by foreign domestic worker is still not known. What is a mom or mom to be suppose to do? Make your own choice based on what one can live with, and what will work for the family. And when you have to outsource child rearing, ensure close supervision and open communication with all parties.

All this will be less of an issue if Singapore corporate culture encourages flexi-work hours and job sharing so that more moms with school going children can opt to work part time. Sadly, part time job is almost non-existence. It's all or nothing.

What did I do? I got it both ways but not without biting some bullets though. You can't get your dream job if you only want to work part time in Singapore. You are stretched to the limit. You are doggoned tired every day. What do you get in return? Satisfaction that you had done what's best for your children and you also contribute to the family's finances.

Free gifts

This months I have refused to claim free gifts offered. OG department store often offered free gift of a pen. But is it really free? They ask you to collect the gift at a special table. At the table is a sales person making sales pitch on certain products. Usually before you can claim your free gift you have to listen to a brief sales pitch. The pen itself is not of a good quality.

When I was teaching, parents often gave gifts on Teachers' Day. I always suspected the extravagant gifts especially when it came from parent of a child with discipline and behavioral problems. It made me feel so cheap and bought. Usually these parents were more reticent in cooperating with teachers on discipline matters.

Sometimes parents' gift was in recognition and appreciation of extraordinary act of service I had rendered such as spending extra time in remedial lessons for the child. In this case, it was nice to have your hard work appreciated by this token.

Are there truly free gift in this world. Gifts that are given without expecting anything in return in any form? Yes, it is usually a gift given purely as expression of love or charitable gifts. The following are gifts I received in the past which were purely out of love:

• Mothers' Day cards made by my children when they were in preschool. I had helped my own students making Mothers' Day card, and I know first hand that these young kid's expression of love to their moms are at the purest and most innocent. They only wanted the best for their beloved mommies. Alas as they grew older, that blind devotion became nonexistent.
  
• Gifts received during courtship.
• A set of pearl earring and necklace my hubby bought while I was on a long visit to Indonesia. He said he missed me so much that he had to buy something to give upon my return.
• The gift of life paid by another's life: the gift of Jesus, paid in full even knowing that some may reject it and trample it on the ground.

Pander - 2

I'm still on the subject of pandering. I can't seem to let it drop it since several days ago. How about pandering to God? Can you pander to God. I think that's not a possibility if you believe in an infinitely benevolent God. I believe God will not want his children to pander. After all, God holds back nothing from us. There is no reason to pander. Whatever we do, it should be a pure expression of our love, gratitude and devotion. If despite of all God has given to us, we still display a pandering attitude, it is sad indeed.

I acknowledge, however, we are often influenced by our Asian heritage. In Asia, it is widely practiced to give offering to the gods to appease them so that no calamities befall those who give. Isn't that another form of pandering? This bring me back to the case of Cain and Abel. Did God rejected Cain's offering because of his pandering attitude?

What about pandering to one's husband or wife? I know of wives who pander to their husbands for a new Louis Vuitton/Channel handbags or jewelries. I also heard of husbands who pander to their wives with branded bags and jewelries for sexual gratification. In fact, many couples are still together because they dance to this tune so well. It's a give and take relationship they justified. Gifts giving and sexual intercourse which should be an expression of love become a token of exchange.

Life is full of pressures I suppose. There are pressures from parents, in laws, children, bosses, teachers and others. How are Christians to guard ourselves? By first offering our hearts to God sincerely and wholly, and the rest will fall into place.

The rules for Christian households given in Colossians 3:18-24 is summarized in verse 23 which reads "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

On Strike for Christmas

I didn't get to write Christmas in July letters, but I found an entertaining book titled On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts. It's about a group of women who felt their husbands took them for granted. These women refused to do anything to facilitate family Christmas celebration (American style of course). It reminds me of the time I went on strike myself and refused to cook as long as my family cannot fully appreciate other people's cooking. I must say it worked wonderfully in my household.

Panderer

Panderer is one of the word I found while playing scramble on facebook today. It meant "to cater to the lower tastes and desires of others" (American Heritage Dictionary). What kind of people pander? Politicians often pander to their constituency to get votes. Parents often pander to their children to get cooperation. Subordinates pander to the management to get the next promotion. Young adults pander to the wishes of a more controlling parents for extra spending money. Adults pander to their rich elderly relatives for bigger inheritance.

Pandering is such a negative term because it often involves sacrificing ones principles, ideals, and deviating from good practices. It also involves being insincere. A panderer personally benefits from the action, though may not always, but sometimes at the cost of others. Is it wrong to pander?

Is it wrong to play nice? Of course not. In fact it's rather smart, isn't it, to pander to the right person. But can you live with yourself after that? How about self respect?

Some people sometime take pride in sticking to their ideals and principles. Unfortunately, while doing so, they do it rather in disrespectful manner. It take someone very special to be able to play nice sincerely hoping make the other person happy even when at the cost sacrificing ones ideals.

Private Practice

Talking about the way of "the birds and the bees" is not always easy. My daughter and I have been watching TV together especially when she is watching program that's not rated G. By watching together I can tell her what's immoral, what's against Christian best practice, and what's not likely to happen in a real life relationship. We have been watching 4 episodes of Private Practice now. There are a lot of adult content in it so the rule is she is not to watch without me present. I am surprise that by watching together, I encountered quite a number of teachable moments. Since the TV brought it up, she's more receptive. Here are some of the issues.

• Basic woman health issues
• Abstinence and protection: any form of protection does not provide 100% coverage.
• Vaginismus
• Sexually transmitted diseases
  
• Teen pregnancy and teen sex
  
• Infatuation, obsession, and love
• Premarital sex
• Infertility
  

I hope the show continues to present a balance view, the good and the bad. If any of you had problem to start "the talk" with your children, the show can provide a good opening. Watch it together with your older kids and start talking.

Guinea Pig

Who wants to be a guinea pig? No one, especially a guinea pig to a psychologist in training. You do not want to have these pseudo professional messing your head. They might not know how to put it back together. It was through sheer luck that we located a husband and wife couple to take the temperament analysis last year. I wonder if we had messed up their life.

As an Educational Psych tract student I need subjects for IQ tests and literacy tests. It's not easy. I wonder how the Counseling tract people are managing since they have to administer MMPI, the diagnostic tool for mental disorder. Scary. I wouldn't want to take MMPI. What if it reveals I am a borderline neurotic and psychotic. After all, I believe in God and that Jesus' blood shed on the cross more than 2000 years ago can atone for my sins. I also believe that God continue to speak to me through the the holy spirit. I happen to believe that the devil's work on earth is real and it is prowling around like a lion ready to devour Christians who are not alert.

End of holiday

My holiday is officially over tonight. Tomorrow is the first day of class. What have I done during the long break? I didn't get to do the literature research I promised myself to do for my thesis. That's the biggest failure of the season, I guess. But I've done plenty:

1. Pampering my family with daily chauffeuring services.
2. Home cooked lunch and dinner almost daily.
3. Five days of cooking for 600 VBS kids and volunteers.
4. Scanning my children's pre-digital photos. Yea ... all done.
5. Learn to export and import (files).
6. Migrate to gmail.
7. Went to see a doctor for health check (1st time in 11 years, uugh dreading that for years)
8. Made a simple scrapbook for Daniel.
9. Hosted Women Enrichment Ministry's Summer coffee at my house.
10. Hosted luncheon for my former cell group mates.
11. Went for long coffee with Chihiro.
12. Going to airport to pick up and send relatives (How many times? Lost count already)
13. Be a part of the new GKY in Singapore.
    
14. Redecorate the balcony with new plants and new upholstery.
15. Survive 1 month without a part time cleaner. (Found out that Natasha can iron her own clothes:) and Daniel doesn't care much about ironed clothes)
    
16. Went out for lunch with Leony and Kevin.
17. Spent the whole morning talking with Elly (a friend who is visiting from Indonesia).
18. Had lunch with Elly.
19. Brought Lilies and her two interesting daughters sight seeing in Singapore.
20. Read lots of trashy novels.
21. Read Scott F. Fitzgerald's "The Rich Boy" and "The Popular Girl" (I hope someday my kids will read these)
22. Increase my level of intensity on the treadmill. (Incline at 5.0 yea..)
23. Come to terms with some life issues.
24. Watch lots of FOX news and Hallmark movies.
25. Birth day party for Daniel (today!)
    

So you see, I did plenty after all. Including the VBS participants and the ladies who came for coffee and luncheon, I'd say I had touched at least 650 people with goodness and graciousness. Ha ha ha... what a nice way to say I've done nothing much for almost three months.

A link to the past

One of the thing I gain by going to GKY is a link between the past and the present. It's something I did not have for the past 21 years. Many of the people in GKY Singapore are so interconnected to our past. Here are people we met that can link us back to where we came from.

• There is a young lady who is my youth adviser grown up daughter. In fact, 20+ years ago, we lamented the adviser resignation because of the impending birth of this girl. And now I get to see the baby that cost us a great mentor.
• The son of the man who gave my husband his first job is also attending the church. The boy's father come over for visits from time to time.
• Another young man is a brother in law to our friends from Semarang.
• An old family friend came for worship while visiting Singapore.

I don't know how many more connections I'll make but the bottom line is, at GKY making connection is effortless. There is nothing wrong with the desire to connect to other people. But should that be the main criteria in choosing a church? I chose IBC because of it's children and youth program. It is for the same reason my children will remain there. What now?

Where I belong

Recently, the church my husband and I were associated with in Jakarta started a church in Singapore. My intention was to just visit the church once in a while. Maybe once a month so we can drop off some offerings to support the ministry. We have been going to the church every week since its inaugural service. We are now torn between two churches. IBC has been where we have been worshiping and serving for the past 9 years. It is also the church where my children came to know Christ. There is a lot of memories there. It is true though, that despite the number of years we spent there, we somehow failed to develop fast and lasting relationship with another Christian. The cell group I belong to, has disbanded. The women bible study group I was in for 2 years remain just that: people you see once a week for the duration of the class. In short, we never feel truly belong.

These past month of attending GKY gave us a sense of fellowship. The people at GKY truly gave out the message of "Hey, you belong here. Come, join us. You are one of us. " You are never brushed off and made to feel like an interloper.

Why the sudden attack of deep sense of not belonging? Why, after 21 years overseas, the need to belong become stronger? I have lived in Michigan, Colorado, Florida, Taiwan and now Singapore. All along, I never considered going to an Indonesian church. Local church is my first choice because that's Christians should be able to overlook past our differences, shouldn't we?

One of the thing that weigh on my mind is that until now I still don't know whose name to write for emergency contact. When emergency or disaster truly strike, where would help come from? When at Calvin, I had room mates, dorm mates, and inter-varsity fellowship friends. In Boulder, I had the Lumbantoruan, Marianne, Jill, Marcia, and Monna. In Florida, we had Stefanus' colleague and Kelly Meo, our neighbor. In Singapore, we had a bunch of acquaintances, but none that we are close enough to call upon in time of need.

Is it because in the past 10 years, we have been too wrapped up with ourselves? Not so.
Is it because we have not engage in self promotion that we've become forgettable personalities? Maybe.

I sometimes wonder if it is God who is at work, making me acutely feel a human need I have never bothered to consider in the past 21 years because he wants us to be part of GKY's ministry. It's possible.

Am I giving up the idea of a multiculturalism in the church? It will seem so if I leave IBC. What a defeat.

Is it time to move on?

For the past 9 years, my family has been worshiping at IBC. My involvement was in a small way here and there. I made casual friends. The friends I made certainly are not the kind I could call for to help me move house or drive me to the airport. After nine years, I still cannot use one of my church friends as emergency contact. You know, one of those "in case of emergency and you cannot be contacted" space you need to put in when you fill up forms for your doctor, the hospital, children's school and day care? I always put in my family in Indonesia. My heart is screaming. This is not right. We have lived here for 10 years now. Nine years of those Sundays spent in the same church, but we still have nobody that we can call upon in case of emergency? Something is definitely wrong here.

It is one of the reason why I am giving GKY a try. May be in this church, where everybody is some how connected to GKY, things will change. It is sad though, isn't it. I am a firm believer of one body of believer under God. I see the beauty of worshiping God with people of all nations and tongues. Of the 21 years I've lived overseas, I've always avoided going to an Indonesian church. I am all for pluralism. I do not approve the segmentation of churches along racial, ethnic, and nationality lines. Is this the defeat of pluralism in the church? What is God's desire for his bride, the church?

What went wrong? What did I do wrong? I certainly will ponder upon these questions
from now on.

Brothers and sisters

One of my favorite show is Brothers and Sisters. This is what I think is great about the Walker family.

1. I like the way they fought. Among themselves there's no hold bar. They voiced whatever were in their minds. In my family, things are left unsaid in the name of preserving harmony. Things unsaid fester over the years and become toxin.
2. They celebrate one another. None of the brothers and sisters rejoice in each other's misfortunes.
3. In time of need, they close rank and support each other. In some family, in time of need, the rest flee.
   
4. Have a super glue that hold everyone together in Nora Walker.

My family could learn a lot from the Walkers.

A multi-ethnic church

I am currently attending International Baptist Church in Singapore (IBC). Many have expressed, the fact that people of all races and tongues worship together make it so heavenly. Indeed. worship at IBC is very lovely. Pastor Alan, the worship minister and Pastor Ben, the preacher know what to do and say to make worship enriching to the soul. You leave the church on Sunday feeling that you have received something of value. However, do the different races and nationalities at IBC truly blend together seamlessly?

My experience after 9 years testifies that the bond that glue people together is not clear cut. Which will foster stronger bond, the bond of nationalities or the bond of race. Neither race, nor nationalities is prominent. The chinese ethnic is an example. At IBC there are the local chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, Taiwan Chinese, Mainland Chinese, South East Asian chinese, American Chinese and global-local (glocal) chinese. Each seems to be ill at ease with the other. The same holds true with the American. There are Chinese American, Korean American, Texan American, Urbanite American, Heartland American. At IBC, they seem to form their own sub groups. Is blending the different groups of people an attainable goal? Or should that be the goal of a christian fellowship?