God loves each and everyone of us!

My Story (2)

2006-08-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

My name is Faith.

I'm a very busy woman and I have things to run.

It's all work and no play for me. I'm literally married to my work. I own a big company and I can't afford to make any mistakes.

A small mistake can mean my tombstone.

Anyway, I'm proud to say I'm a Catholic. But I just don't have any time. But I DO still go to mass every Sunday.

I do not agree that I'm a Sunday Catholic. I still attend camps and lessons, though I'm 33. But sometimes I can't concentrate and have to think about my work.

Then I attented a camp organised by my church. A 3 day 2 night camp.

It was when I was sleeping when Jesus came to me.

All at once I'm 10 years old, and I'm in Jerusalem at Golgotha. And Jesus is on the cross in front of me.

Then He says to me:

"My child, I had time for you even when I died, can't you even spare a few days for me?"

My Story

2006-08-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

My name is Grace. I live in Jerusalem. My house faces the hill where daddy said men go to Heaven.

It was that day when daddy and me went to buy vegetables for dinner. Daddy saw that the road was very quiet. I ask him why. Daddy say something must be happening. Then I saw a lot of people shouting and screaming. They were saying things like "get up" and "move".

Daddy said I shouldn't see. But I really want to. He says I'm too young to look. But I'm already 10, why can't I understand everything he can?

I followed daddy secretly to the crowd. Then I saw the man that daddy said he loved a lot. But he looked so horrible. He had a crown of thorns that pierced through his head. There was blood all over. I almost wanted to cry. He seemed to be in pain. He was carrying something like a gigantic cross. Why is he carrying it? Is it so important? Then why is he feeling so painful?

I followed the crowd to the hill where people go to Heaven. I ran to daddy and hugged him. Daddy looked so surprised. I asked daddy if the man was going to Heaven. Daddy kept quiet and just looked at the cross.

When I looked at the standing cross, I saw the man nailed to the cross. He was crying and raising his head to the sky. Then he said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

I wanted to cry. But then the sky turned dark and daddy and me ran home. When I turned back to look at him one last time, he looked at me and smile very brightly.

Then I saw daddy crying.

Why did he have to die? Was it something he did?

Was it because I had been a bad girl?

USE YOUR TALENTS!!!

2006-08-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

What's keeping you from God?

2006-08-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

A story about........

2006-07-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

THE PENCIL PARABLE

In the beginning, the Pencil Maker spoke to the pencil, saying, "There are 5 things you need to know before I send you into the world. Always remember them and you can be the best pencil you can ever be."

He told it:

You would be able to do great things, if only you allow yourself to be used in someone's hand.

You would experience a painful sharpening from time to time, but this is necessary in order to allow you to become a better pencil.

Remember, you would always be able to correct whatever mistakes you make.

The most important part of you is always be what's inside.

No matter the condition, you must continue to write and leave a clear and legible mark no matter how difficult the situation.

The pencil understood, and went into box fully understanding its Maker's purpose.

Now replacing the pencil with you, always remember them and you can be the best person you can ever be.

You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow yourself to be held in God's hand. And allow other human beings to access you for the many gifts you possess.

You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, by going through various problems, but you'll need it to become a stronger person.

You will be able to correct mistakes you might make or grow through them.

The most important part of you will always be what's inside.

On every surface you walk, you must leave your mark. No matter what the situation, you must continue to serve God in everything.

Everyone is like a pencil...created by the Maker for a unique and special purpose.

By understanding and remembering, let us proceed with our life on this earth having a meaningful purpose in our heart and a relationship with God daily.

You were made to do GREAT things!!!

I have been Inspired...

2006-07-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever knew him, believed in him should not perish but would have everlasting life.

John 3:16

The fear of the Lord is the begginning of all knowledge.

Proverbs 1:7

Pray continually.

Thessalonians 5:17

It's been such a loo00o0o0oo0oong time since YES! camp and I'm feeling all groggy and stuff. But I know that the Lord has always been by my side. So many things have happened since YES! camp, such as trying to evangelise among my 'die-hard don't belive-there's-a-God' friends. It's just so hard to get a distinction when God throws you a test but remember: OUR WHOLE LIFE IS A TEST.

The quotes above there are just some quotes i drew inspiration from. Most of them obtained from YES! camp.

Back to the topic: how did God play in my life???

It all happened on a sunny day in Chong Boon Secondary school when I tried to evangelise but my friends mocked me. I, well, sort of condemned them.

But on Sunday, I was reading a Bible passage and there was a line that struck me, It goes something like this:

Condemn others and God will condemn you

Give to others and God will give to you

Show mercy on others and God will show mercy on you

Something like that.

As if that wasn't enough, God allowed me to meet my Church's father, Father Robertos and he sort of asked me to write a short story of how Jesus entered my Life.

This REALLY DOES sound more of a coincidence, right?

Anyway, God comes to us in MANY different ways. Your existence here means something. It may not change the fate of the Iraqi war but it may change someone else's life.

Here's a story:

There was an old man who was blind. He was a devout catholic and always obeyed the Lord's commands. One day, he went for a healing session to cure his eyes, he was very confident that his eyes would be healed but it didn't happened. He was utterly disappointed but carried on praising the Lord.

He went for another session five years later but again, nothing changed. But this old man continued to give thanks to the Lord.

Then, ten years later on another session. He went with his non-believer grandson, who said that science could prove every miracle. But on that day, his eyes were healed and the boy believed

Remember my story, I have to go now.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always

Life after the mountain is tough! But God is good!

2006-07-07T00:47:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a month since the YES camp and it's hard to feel the Spirit anymore!

At the end of the camp it seems that nothing was impossible for us to accomplish for God. Today, I can barely hear Him, if at all, and wonder is He still there? Was all that I felt and seen in the camp for real? Was everything that happened just a case of mass hysteria?

All too often the transition from the safety and structured format of a retreat/camp to the real world is like stepping out from a room with a nice fire going, into a cold wintery night. At first we still feel snug in our winter gear which still keeps us from feeling the cold, but very quickly the cold begins to creep in and we don't remember the warmth any more, and begin to wonder if we were even next to a fire to begin with.

How do we keep that warmth within us after the camp? How does one prevent that fire that has been lit inside us from going out, with the winds that blow around us, seeking to bury our spirit?

STRENGTH (and WARMTH) IN NUMBERS
Our spiritual walk was never meant to be solo one.

A strong supporting community that shares our faith and beliefs in a Real and loving God, that is active in our lives, will help us remind us of the reality of a relationship with God. They keep us warm in the cold winter that surrounds (as penguins gather together for warmth against the antarctic winds).

The different members of the community are given different gifts and varying extents of the gifts to help sustain our fire of faith, and even help re-ignite it if we ever lose our footing and fall.

We also learn to re-start our own fires through the community, knowing that there are times that we must go it without the community. But at that time we know how to speak with the source of our fire...and get Him to be with us, sustain us and even light our way.

STARTING OTHER FIRES

"One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty." (Proverbs 11:24)

The key to progressing beyond just sustaining our little fires, is to spread it.
As a little lamp generates only so much heat, so too is our own fire if we keep it to ourselves.

But when we learn to share the fire with others and setting them alight for God, we are soon joined by more people who will burn with us for God. In the process our flame burns brighter.

And with the warmth of all the lamps burning together, it gets quite warm, and when that many lamps get together, WATCH OUT! An explosion of wildfire is bound happen!

KEEP YOUR FIRE BURNING
Give your fire what it needs to keep burning. It's fuel.

Spend that Quiet Time with God.

Let Him refuel your lamp, let him re-light it if it's gone out.

Can't connect with Him? Find the community to help you reconnect.

Don't ever give in to the winter's cold.

DOOMED TO FREEZE?
As you are reading this, you may be wondering, we are doing our bit to keep from freezing to death.... but the odds are stacked against us with a seemingly very unwelcoming and unreceptive environment.

But remember who is the one that is on our side. Pray for Him to lift the winter, and let His sun shine into our lives, and the lives of those we want to set on fire. It's so much easier to start a wildfire in summer than in winter! And He will do it! We need only ask as a community.

The world is looking for warmth, if you let your fire show, they will be drawn to the warmth. Ask God for the Summer to open everyone up to the fire! And let the fire burn!

God Bless,
Bernard

Blessed be Your name

2006-06-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

Hey People,

Life is pretty much back to normal yet, thought I drop in a testimony, main purpose is to let other browser know how great is our God, second to remind the participants of some moment that they might have forgotten, third to affirm all the facil for Jesus was truly working in all of you, hope you guys will keep that engine running. Last but not least, as a prayer to our almighty Father.

Ok enough of those stuff, I am going to keep this testimony short else there will be no space for the other participants. Actually I wasn’t planning to come for this camp, just so happen that the neophytes (people who are baptise and not confirmed) of CTK are involve and so decided to go together. I guess God really has a wonderful way of calling people to him. Before this I was slack in my prayer life and my relationship with Jesus has reach this stage where I know he is there looking out for me and I will pray lying on my bed and the next thing I know it was time for school. My bible started to collect dust sometimes I can’t even find it.

For this I can truly say that God's graces found me, on the first day of camp, I discovered why I am called to this camp, and it is to renew my relationship with Jesus. In the entire camp I did not get rested in the Spirit, nor did I get any charismatic gift, even my gift of tongues seems to me like it was from me. To me, I went home with something much more, I truly felt the love of Jesus, and this experience is truly mine and no one else. Nobody can tell me how much Jesus loves me because I have felt it and it truly is my experience, it is the closest experience I had as a catholic.

It happened during the third day when I was praying for Jesus to touch me and renew my relationship with Him, when I went up to Daniel to be prayed over, Jesus was truly present in Daniel connecting to me. For that moment there was a lot of comfort and love. After that I just remembered me singing with joy and proclaiming How great is our God, raising my arms and dancing with Joy. Indeed today we can boast of our God.

The strange thing is that when I came back for the follow up session on Sat, when we were worshipping in the upper room, when I saw this picture it reminded me of that moment that Jesus touches me through Daniel. I shared this moment with Daniel over the msn and it was really very exciting to know how God reaches out to us and I know this experience is going to last me for a long time.

Life is back to normal down the hill but still the excitement for God has not ended, my bible is no longer on the shelf collecting dust and my prayer life is restored. I know that when school reopen and when I start to get busy I may fall back into the same trap but this round I know I am equip the whole armor of God and with the Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.

Special thanks to my group facil Angeline and Jerry, I know the both of you sweat blood worrying about the group but at the end of the camp, I guess the fruits of your labour can be seen. Really want to thank you guys for putting in the effort to share with us and to always take care of our needs in the camp. Of course the rest of the facil, and most of all our beloved God who has provided for us.

Amen

Coming down the mountain....

2006-06-24T01:43:00.000-07:00

Hey guys.... yes it was a wonderful 4 days that we had. But now its time that we come down from the mountain.

Haha... I must agree with Dillon in his earlier post that God does send messengers. However, whether we wanna listen to His messengers or not it really depends on us.

We are faced with temptations everyday in our lives and we really got to listen hard to the Holy Spirit.

So i pray that God would continue to open our eyes so that we can see, open our ears so that we can hear and open our minds so that we can understand.

Yup.... so let us continue to praise God with every move that we make! I'm a fool for Christ! :)

Charmaine :D

These four days of life-changing experience which nothing in this world can give!!!!

2006-06-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hello People, Andrew speaking to testify for "His Love"

Hellos, I hope everyone of you all have enjoyed yourselves in this camp!!! I like to thank everyone, every single one who was there for the camp. Yes including our own logs team(Ryan and company) and those who are helping out in intercessory and our beloved facils and session givers. And not to forget our individual participants who helped out one another especially when we are cleaning up the area. The love you all have shown to one another is ... indescribable...

I would like to share with you all. I personally felt nothing, not like the mighty force that I have experienced in the many previous YES/LISS/YISS camps that I went too. No feelings at all. My first LISS, I was healed so I could praise the Lord(you can ask any of those who went for the 2003 LISS, I was a Pai Ka a.k.a crippled, pple like clem, daniel, Joel, Mel Netto...) the second YISS I went for was so filled with Love. I cried like I never cried before, because I did not knew that I was loved and valued so much in the eyes of our father. This camp, was different. I felt nothing

But the beauty of this YES camp was that I felt nothing. The very reward of coming to this camp was to be part of his plan and witness the lives of so many people changed. He invited me to sit and witness his power, love and healing touch as he moved like a gentle breeze among the congregation. Lives touched were never the same again. And thats the wonderful thing, I see more witnesses standing up to testify against the work of our enemy. The very seeds that he has planted into our minds as we journey through life.

For this enemy is not Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, or any terrorist or political leaders whom some of us hate. But the spirit that resides in their hearts, the spirits of evil, spirits of hatred, spirits of pride and prejudice. And all the other spirits that belong to the evil one. These very spirits influenced our very thoughts and our actions. I invite you all to bind these spirits in the authority that Jesus Christ has given to each and every one of you. And to once more invite the Holy Spirit to reside in your lives. Let the spirit of love dwell in you, and let every pore and cell of your body be filled with this love such that it will be outpoured to others
And they shall know that we are christians by our love

I invite all of you all to open your hearts to God's love. To not just treat this camp as a spiritual high and down the road forget about it. But keep these things and ponder them in your heart, like Mary did. Start to bring out ur dusty tomes(a.k.a bibles left in the cupboard untouched for years,months.....) and turn these dusty tomes into tomes of life and wonders. For it is in God's word that he speaks to us. And let us cultivate this personal relationship with Jesus our Lord. talk to him every day, "A simple hows your day Lao Pei(addresing to god the father), or yo brother!! This words that u keep in ur heart and say to him, he will know. For he can read your very thoughts and know what you are doing.

Haha and lets not end our camp here, but let the Spirit of God that is strong in us be brought forth and testify to all.

In his love and mine

Andrew

sin is failure to love...

2006-06-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

well hello there, people of God! haha! its bonggggg blogging right now. like whao right, like its bong actually blogging in the yes camp blog. hurray! thanks wilfred for giving me the password, cause it never occured to me that anyone could just put their testimonies up here. thats brilliant i think. so praise the lord for that! like, what's there not to praise the lord for, right? alright, so i think i'm supposed to be flung back into the incredibly hectic world, with a new spirit. apart from learning to put up with paul's incredibly 'soothing' singing at night, i learned a great deal. i suppose the bottom line is that love should take the place of everything else. you can wipe out hate with love. after all, it was love that created all of us anyway. yeah, there's so much to love now. i mean, what's there not to love, right? yeah! im not an angel now, but, whatever! haha! Jesus loves me, and he loves you too!

Alright, this has been the second time i went for that camp, and this camp is for us catholics to experience the very real, tangible and loving Holy Spirit of God. yup, something like that. heheh. okay so this time, instead of being all yippie doo dah and spiritually high and all that artificial happiness/love that instantly gets wiped out as soon as you go back into the disgusting world out there like i was last year, i got something much more. much much more. i think it was more of a realisation than anything else, a reaffirmation of my faith and therefore, reason for my existance, and yours as well.
love really makes the world go round. love creates and love saves.

to me what the yes camp taught me was that we are living now for our future in the spiritual world. i could say im a changed person, because of this deep understanding of the reality of the spiritual world and ultimately, God's beautiful love. God loves you, whatever religion you come from because God gave us all reason. its so much better than the depressing, selfish, simply dumb reasoning of man. because in God's reasoning, there is a little thing called love involved. loves creates, love makes the world go round. love people! see! all religions somehow spread the word of love. i cant think of any religion that says you cannot care for your brothers and sisters. there's no religion that tells its people to go around killing others, raping, destroying things, and so on. because we are all God's people. all the muslims, the buddhists, everyone. all religions promote love. so, yeah you get my point. sin is failure to love. happy living and happy loving, all you people of God. bye!

ps. lengthened version of my leetle testimony at my blog. http://bongatron.blogspot.com if you please!

okay bye!

- BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

2006-06-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

Hi,

YES camp was Great as God's Great. He has indeed answered my search for God's Love. Let me share with you my story to be a testimony that God Loves Us All ..and we are indeed immersed in the Love Of God ..as it would be a sin if I did not testify to glorify His Name.

As those who helped out in the Sec 2 camp recently, remember the time where all of us were running all over the place shouting "Where's the Love ..Show me the Love ?" It did not occur to me that this was my inner desire. Upon reflection only did I realise that, He told me so wonderfully through Daniel that "My Love for you is abundant through our families".

Originally, I did not want to join the camp due to the 'age' constraints as those I've spoken to before the camp would have known. He then sent 5 messengers (you know who you are) inviting me to this YES camp and so I decided to join. Throughout the camp, as I have shared with my group, God revealed his Love through so many people and so many ways I cannot describe. He was so worried that we missed out that night on His Love, he sent messengers through means of the Internet even before YES camp started & SMS the evening before the baptism through a participant of the Sec2 camp as God works through people. All these came apparent to me through the reflections made before & during the camp.

When we do P&W, let me testify that we indeed join all the Choirs of Heavenly Angels praising our God and it is pleasing unto Him. For He is so Majestic and yet so Loving and so Kind. He is indeed the source of all internal life and God's very nature is LOVE. That night during baptism, we were all indeed at the foot of His Throne worshipping Him together with all the angels and saints. God's Majesty is worthy of all our praise. Let every living creature sing praises to The Lord Our God. His Spirit lives in each and everyone of us. I have to testify to this so that everyone may believe that our bodies are truly the Temple of God and we are all called to do His work. And I agree with Kevin when he says "No one can ever outdo God in generousity".

Thank You each and every single one of you from ZJ for the faith renewing experience and Praise God for He has indeed answered your prayer to be wonderful stewards of Our God to "Bring others closer to God, & God closer to others". To make those who seek God realise that God is indeed in no far of place but He is actually all around us.

Once again ..Thank You.

DiLloN

2006-06-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

SAY YES TO JESUS!

we are beautiful in every single way.

we're indescribable in his eyes

AMEN?!

each and everyone of us is the Lord's favourite child.

If God wanted today to be perfect he wouldn't have invented tomorrow.

Some people pray just to pray and some pray to know God.

You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

"The values we live by are worth more when we pass them on...."

Love, Lynn Adele Chng.

Amen.

2006-06-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

GOD is everywhere!!

God loves us personally!

do continue to seek God in our busy life after the camp yea?! hope u all will pen down how u felt during the camp.. wad have u learnt and wad impact u got after the camp..

a phrase for everyone:

all things happen for a purpose. someday you will see the light. all HE asks is the trust in HIM for we walk by FAITH and not by sight..

with love,
alison