What I LOVE about HOPE BRISBANE CHRISTIAN CHURCH July 3, 2008

 

• our VISION – to reach out to the lost. Bible based and definitely worth living for. Our vision is to help fulfil the Great Commission by building strong, biblical people to plant strong, biblical churches around Brisbane, Australia and all over the world.
• our COMMUNITY – a community where everyone is genuinely loving, willing to give each other a hand, will encourage each other and live in unity. It’s awesome.
• the COMMUNITY WORK – build Unidus – I can’t wait, when it’s built, it’s gonna be so good – so many lives are gonna be blessed by and through this project. Christmas for Kids – speaks for itself. Last year over 1000 children were blessed at Christmas time through the Christmas event put on by Hands of Hope.  Blessing the community is such a powerful way of showing God’s love in a practical way. Actions always speak louder than words. This is the start of MISSIONS.
• our LIFE GROUPS –  a caring, life giving community. Literally. For real.
• the WORSHIP – we are so lucky to have soooo many awesome & decent & up and coming muso’s amongst us. We are so blessed! It’s always great to have good music and good sound – this is one factor which draws many people to God – the music, the worship. WORSHIP also as a lifestyle – the way people in our church live – with passion, with a purpose, with conviction in all they do – it’s absolutely amazing.

Elevators: Argh! July 2, 2008

When a friend nearly dies it really makes you remember how short life can be. How sometimes we go about living it without meaning, ambling along like an armadillo, just going through life coz … you do. I’ve been guilty of that - of losing sight of the purpose of my life and having a real ‘whatever’ attitude to situations which may come my way. And what did it take for me to snap out of it this time round? An elevator free falling from Level 7 down to between Level 2 & 3, in the middle of the night with a close friend inside. Then being trapped in that small elevator, with the emergency phone button not working, yeah NOT working, for nearly two hours.

Made me think:

What if the elevator hadn’t stopped at Level 2/3?
What if it had gone SMASH at the bottom?
What if there was not enough oxygen?

WHY hadn’t I taken the opportunity - actually, many opportunities - to share the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ with my friend?

You never know when things like this could happen. You never know who they might happen to. Every day we hear about accidents, people dying, etc etc, but how often does it affect us? It affects us a whole lot more when we KNOW the person that was involved. It shouldn’t take a near death experience to remember that life is precious and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Every breath we take, every decision we make should be with purpose, with meaning.

We are: Created for Something Greater

Matthew 28:19-20
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

THANK YOU God for Your protection!

In love with Amber June 15, 2008

Amber’s beautiful. She looks great, feels great, smells great, plays great… Oh, Amber is my Maton 808 (acoustic guitar) which I bought in Melbourne at the start of the year. And YES, I named my guitar. Anyway, it’s exam period for uni students at the moment but I was lucky enough to finish last Friday. Which means I’ve got heaps more spare time now… So since I’ve finished early, and Semester 2 Uni doesn’t begin until end of July… my holiday goal is to learn at least six guitar songs, and (try to) play them (fairly) well.

BUT - I need to pick songs… anyone know any awesome sounding guitar songs that’d be cool to play?

My list so far:

1) Indescribable (Chris Tomlin)
2) From The Inside Out (Hillsong)
3) Hosanna (Hillsong)
4) ?
5) ?
6) ?

So Blessed May 25, 2008

“So blessed, I can’t contain it, so much I’ve gotta give it away…”

 

Lyrics to an old praise and worship song called One Day. It’s a great oldie…

 

Ever have an absolutely crazy week? The last few weeks have been crazy. Full of activities, going about my daily business, the days just fly by. Whooooosh…. It’s like… “What happened? What have I been doing all this time?” So, today I took a break from everything, said STUFF YOU, ASSIGNMENTS! (only for today!) and relaxed. Been thinking, really… took a step back and looked at my life. Realised once again how good my God has been to me. How loving and caring He is, how He never fails to provide for me. Realised that I have everything I need, and much, much more. I’ve been so blessed with a wonderful family, awesome friends (that’s YOU), the best job of teaching kiddies piano, health, security, a good future… so much to look forward to. 

 

God’s blessings are for a reason. Not so I can go “Hey, look at meeeeee I’m so goooooood, I have everything…” haha… I believe God’s blessed us so we can be a blessing to others. It’s great to have so much, but it’s far greater to be able to bless others with what you have and what you can do. Giving of your time, energy, and resources to help others out……very rewarding.

SMILE – You can make a difference! May 8, 2008

Do you wanna be a millionaire by the time you’re 30? Do you wanna be a CEO of a major company? Do you wanna be rich and famous? Perhaps you want to make an impact on the people around you? Do something important? Something meaningful, that will change your life and the lives of people around you?

 

Have you ever thought, “I’m only one person - what could I possibly do to make a difference in this big wide world?” You can make a difference… John Maxwell found that an average person affects 10 000 people in their lifetime, both directly and indirectly. What kind of an influence do you want to be on the 10 000 people you affect?

 

It doesn’t take much to positively impact someone’s life – give someone a smile, it can brighten up their whole day. You don’t have to be a famous speaker or VIP – just be yourself. Start with the little things and know that you do make a difference at home, at school, at work, on the bus, at church… wherever you are. Who knows where your effortless act of a simple smile may take someone?

Letting Go… May 6, 2008

One of the hardest things a person will ever have to do, is let go of someone they love. The pain can be almost unbearable at times. Initially, you have all these thoughts clouding your mind 24/7, you’re unable to concentrate on anything else – it feels like your world has fallen to pieces and you have absolutely no idea what to do. So how do you get over these feelings? How do you learn to let go?

 

When you lose someone you love, you go through the process of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It is only after the first four stages of grief that letting go actually begins. It begins with accepting the fact that your situation has happened, and choosing to deal with it. While it may take a while to actually get to this point, when you do, you must make a conscious choice to deal with it. The saying ‘just give it time’ has been heard countless times, but that’s only half of it… Time may pass, but what really counts is what you DO within that time. So what can you do with your time?

 

That depends on what you WANT to do. Do you want to be constantly thinking and dwelling upon your situation which has already past? Or do you want to get past this situation and move forward with your life?

 

Take a look at yourself from an outside perspective. Imagine watching your life as a movie. Not only your actions and the things you do, but take a look at your thoughts. What’s going on? What are you thinking about? Scrap the unnecessary, depressive and destructive thoughts which come into your mind. Take them captive.

 

Think about what you’re thinking about.

 

It makes all the difference. A lot of the battle is in your mind, and you must constantly make an effort to keep focused on constructive thoughts. If you find yourself thinking again about your situation, focus on the bigger picture. Try and change your perspective. Everything happens for a reason – through hardship and struggles we become stronger people. Each of us has a unique plan set before us, a plan in which you will prosper, a plan which will give you hope and a future. Think of this stage as character building – you WILL get through this.

Four months, five days later… May 4, 2008

So, F, I’m writing this 4 u…it’s totally random!

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was a sweet, happy girl whose smile was contagious. Whenever she smiled, her whole face would light up; she would giggle with glee at small things which amused her. Every Saturday morning, the girl would race to the park around the corner to see her friends. Her friends would eagerly await her arrival, and as they waited, they discussed enthusiastically the various things they would get up to that day. Everything was beautiful. The grass was lush and green, birds chirping and the brilliant sun pierced through the clouds in the sky. The weather was perfect for playing outside with her friends. As she raced out of her house, down the road and around the corner, the lovely smell of cooked toast began to waft past her. She inhaled deeply and smiled and giggled. Toast with peanut butter and jam was her favourite thing to eat with her friends on a Saturday morning. She was nearly there. Only a few moments later she would be in the company of her friends, eating peanut butter toast and enjoying herself, as she did every week. Saturday was her favourite day of the week. Who could know that this would be the last Saturday she would ever spend in the park?

What now? I’m stuck…

 

CrAzY sTuFf!!! (What I did today…) December 29, 2007

Scorching 40 degrees today… gonna be 41 on new years eve!!

Bathed a hamster… i mean guinea pig - his name is Snowflake - looks like a white mop with 2 red dots as eyes, seriously!

Ate the BEST Pho EVER for lunch! Man… Viet here is soooo much nicer (am I imagining things? Maybe it’s just the MSG)

Spent 45mins attempting to iron clothes… Joyce hates ironing

Bought an EBG 808 CL Maton for myself! Woo hoo…  i’m soooooo in LOVE with it!!!

Christmas… December 25, 2007

Christmas is finally here… these past three days have been so long. Sunday, Monday… it’s only Tuesday…Santa didn’t come this year…Spending time with family and friends is always awesome (what would I do without them?!)… though I have to say, I think these last three days have been the loooonnnnnnggggessttttt three days of my life…Merry Christmas people…

Two days more.

Stuff i wrote but never got to post… November 3, 2007

Saturday 27^th October  

Weee ooooo weeeee ooooooo …. Ok, so I don’t know how to spell alarms going off, but I BROKE INTO SCHOOL AND SET OFF THE ALARM! Kinda… Saturday at like 3.30 in the morning I realised I didn’t have my headphones for listening to music or watching really cool downloaded TV series on my laptop. So I went back to school at like 7am to get it. Got out my key to the music room, grabbed my headphones and realised OH CRAP, ALARM! WAS THAT ME?? It was… silly me, I didn’t stop to think that there would be an alarm. I fully panicked! I called the security company but they couldn’t do anything coz I didn’t have the code. Tried calling the school, the principal, my work boss and lots of other people to no avail. So while I was standing there panicking with my phone, I prayed for God to get me out of this situation and not let me get into trouble! 2 minutes later one of the teachers from school drove in then said lightly, “that was you, was it?” He said it was no problem and not to worry about anything after I apologised profusely.  

Drove to Forte for work after that with a sigh of relief. I got presents too! Apparently it was World Teacher’s Day on Friday. I didn’t know about it… but I got a cute humongous paper clip, a nice necklace, pieces of fudge, and a smiggle pencilcase! Hehe… one of the many upsides of being a teacher. J   

After that it was off to the airport. After check in I was the lucky random person to get frisked searched… lol, haven’t had one of those before. Now I have. Anyway, here’s an email I wrote to you guys but never got to send: 

Good morning from my grandpa’s house in Kuala Lumpur!  

How are you guys doing? How was WUSH, Lighthouse guys? While you guys were WUSHing away, my dad, mum, aunty and I were in the middle of a 5.5hour drive to KL from Singapore. We landed in Changi airport yesterday night. Flew one the new Etihad airplane… I was surprised at how good it was (promotion for Etihad Airways lol). Apart from the squishy seats which Justin would NEVER have fit into (you’d probably get bumped up to First Class, Justin!), the service was great, the 74 movies they had to offer were great, and the food! Mmmmm the food, cheese and tomato risotto and strawberry ice cream… the most delicious aeroplane food ever, I ate it all (except the mushroom)!   By the way, don’t watch The Invisible if it comes out… it’s boring!  Anyway, we spent the night in Singapore before driving to KL yesterday. I swear we passed about 20 tolls from yesterday until today. They’re absolutely everywhere and I was sitting there thinking “What! Another one?!?”

Eventually we reached KL where my grandad, uncle and his family are staying. They’re all doing well. Kenneth and I have 3 cousins in this family… but it’s kinda hard to talk to them coz their English ain’t that great, and my Chinese is virtually non-existent, but anyway! They have two gorgeous doggies! Arghh they are so cute!! Played with them for ages – they’re equally as cute as your doggies Jimz!  

Well, that night was another cousin Sascha’s birthday. Sascha’s a boy. Lol. He’s turning 7 and had a Halloween Pool party with his little buddies. Everything was really well organised by my aunty Janet… after the kids had a play in the pool, we had dinner then games. You should’ve seen the kids bash the poor Piñata to death. And when the lollies came out… woahhh, never seen kids move so fast! One second the kids are standing nicely around the piñata, and the next second they’re screaming in the middle scrounging for lollies to put into their lolly bag! It was quite interesting to watch   Sascha’s 2 birthday cakes were awesome too! Yup, he had 2! One was a tasty chocolate cake, the other one was a layered jelly cake, with a haunted house picture on the top, made out of jelly! There was seriously like 20 thin layers of different coloured jelly on the cake, it was so pretty I didn’t want to eat it… but I did! Muah haha..  

Anyway tonight’s my grandad’s birthday party at some restaurant at sometime… Lorene, I don’t know where and when coz it hasn’t been organised yet! I’d better stop typing now before it gets too long, I know some of you don’t like long emails.  

Talk to u soon!Joyce 

Oh, the weather details… the weather is good. Not too hot, pretty rainy actually. Umm…  yeah… I’m going shopping, Bye!