His Faithfulness Endures Forever

Many a times as a Christian we may have forget His goodness and blessings towards us. Spending our days busily everyday with the cares of the world.

At times, we have experience certain blessings like a certain promotion or even having a happy and blessed family. Yet with all of these goodness that God has shown us, we are still indifferent, taking things for granted, not appreciating it at all. We take things for granted, thinking that the high moments of life will go on and on.

However, life is not always a bed of roses.

When we are struck with a crisis or some difficult moments in life (eg. family difficulties or retrenchment), do we turn back to God and ask for help. Humans are like that, ignoring God at times of comfort and coming to Him in times of difficulties. It is no doubt that He will help us in whatever, we are going through (Just like the guy in the story "Footprints in the Sand"). However, it is after the crisis that accounts. Are we more devoted and sincere in our relationship with Him? Or are we indifferent and ignorant still? We should all be appreciative after experiencing His providence and goodness.

If we can't...we should at least try. You never know if you can unless you try.

Well, I won't say that I am not part of this group of people as at times I take His goodness for granted. For example, in the recent postings, I was posted to a vocation that I am happy to be in. I was happy initially, but it was short-lived. After a few days, I forgot all about it...the time spent praying for a good vocation and NS life. But it was only today, Sunday, where my father told me to keep an eye on my spiritual life did I finally realise one thing...that we (including myself) take God's blessings for granted. So if we can, we should at least spend the first few minutes of the day thanking for His providence and goodness.

Psalm 117

Let All Peoples Praise the LORD

¹ Praise the LORD, all you Gentiles!
Laud Him, all you peoples!
² For His merciful kindness is great toward us,
And the truth of the LORD endures forever.
Praise the LORD!

Amen

Tags: Christianity

The Brainteaser Test

Are You A Mastermind?

Well you can take the same test here and find out :)

Tags: Quiz

Guard Duty

Lol...finally, after 6 months in NS...finally it's my turn to do guard duty. I was not excited over it as mine was on a Friday night (yesterday). This means that my Friday night and morning would be burnt.

Nevertheless, it's my first guard duty experience. I would say that it's very boring and tiring.

We assembled yesterday at 5pm after our drawing arms. We marched to the guard house and were briefed on the procedures of being a guard. There were 2 groups of guards, each group would have 2 prowlers and one sentry. So there's a total of 6 of us. My friend from my group volunteered to be the first group on duty. I don't know if that was a good idea.

So we went to our stations. I prowled with my friend G while the other guy, Y Y, went to do sentry. The first thing that we saw as prowlers was very disheartening...we saw our company mates booking out for the long weekend that they are going to have...how depressing. They can go out and play while we are guarding the camp...lol. We continued on our prowling route. Prowling is not that bad as at least you have a friend beside you whom you can talk to when you are bored. Time pass by very quickly as a prowler.

After completing one round, we swopped, I did sentry while G and Y Y did some prowling. Sentry is so much different from prowling. I stood there by myself, looking out for any suspicious characters. After awhile, my legs grew restless. But I was not given the privilege of moving about as there's a small red box painted on the floor which indicates the area where you are suppose to stand on while on duty. So you can just imagine, standing there on a square of around 60cm by 60cm for 40 minutes...lol...it's not an easy job.

When the sentry on duty is sleepy, strange things can happen. For example, he would start to see "things". I have this friend...who had a strange experience while on sentry.

My friend, after being tired out from the day's training, was unlucky enough to be choosen for sentry duty that night. So it was expected that he was sleepy on the job. This was what he told me:

"I was doing my sentry duty as per normal. It was dark at night, about 2am like that. I was very sleepy from my duties and all that so it was tempting to steal a nap. However, just as I was about to close my eyes, I saw a shadowy figure in front of me...about 20m away. I grew frightened. I heard from some other friends that they also saw "things" no duty not because they are tired, but because the camp is haunted. So I waited. But it came nearer and nearer to me. So base on the SOP (Standard Operational Procedure), I shouted "HALT!". The figure stopped moving and became aware of my presence. However, after about 5 seconds or so, it started moving again...this time it's moving towards me. So I shouted "HALT!" again. Yet the figure ignored my command. So I started to panic and comms back to the guardroom from the phone near my place. When I turned my head around...the figure was right in front of me.

The figure was actually the sergeant on duty."

Luckily, my friend was not punished or whatever because of this. However, from then on, he refused to do night duties anymore.

As the night grew darker, prowling was much more eeries as there are certain checkpoints which seemed creepy. There was this case where me and Y Y were prowling and we walked past the dog house. This was the conversation that we had.

Me: "Eh, just now while I was doing sentry, I could hear the dogs barking. From there I knew that you and G were already halfway through the route." (There's a dog house halfway through the route).

Y Y: "Yah...but you noticed something? That time, the dogs were barking very loudly. This means that...this means that...this means that they saw "something"."

At this point of time, we were already tired...and now this. For me, I am not scared of ghosts or whatever, but my friend seems to be affected by it. In the end he scared himself...lol.

Luckily, there are two groups of three. So we that we can rotate among ourselves, we would do 2 hours of duty before passing on to the other group which would do 2 hours of duty before passing on to us. While they were doing their duty, we were allowed to rest :)

This series of sentry...prowling...resting lasted from 7pm to 8am. that's like 13 hours. And I can tell you that it's really taxing on the body and mind. Interrupted from your sleep to prowl is not something fun. Resisting the temptation to sleep while on sentry is very hard. But nevertheless, everyone manage to do it in the end.

Hence I am now here writing this after coming back home and waking up from a long sleep in the afternoon.

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Leadership

Have you ever had the experience of being the leader of a group but the group has no respect for you? It's tough. Especially when your boss expects results from you as a leader.

Well, there's this poor guy. I'll just call him @ in my Company. He was our IC since Day 1. He is a Corporal, the highest rank among us Trainees. Hence he was appointed as the IC. However, his drills and commands are not very impressive. That's the main reason why no one seems to respect him. Furthermore, when I ask other people for their opinion on him, they say things like "He is very wayang (acts in front of superiors)" and "He claims credit for other people's work". For these comments, I am not very sure whether they are real or not. But one thing I know. That is he needs to really improves on his drills, commands and even his turnout.

I have been a leader before and I know that it is not easy for people to follow you. Not only must you set an example for them to follow (lead by example), but you must also show care and concern for your men under you. It can be disastrous if your men refuse to follow you, or worse, go against you. Maybe @ has not been an IC before. Or maybe he has not been exposed to regimentation before. Or maybe he is just being nervous commanding 100 Trainees. Giving him the benefit of doubt, I think we all should support him instead of jeering at his mistakes. He is only human, just like all of us. To err is human, to forgive is divine.

Today is Day 3, the worst Day for @. He made mistakes and was pumped in front of us. Sad case. I just hope that nothing bad will happen in this course. Hopefully everyone will understand the difficulty that he is going through and give him the support he needs.

I guess a successful leader is not all about the leader. It is about the men under him too.

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Father's Day On Sunday

Today is Father's Day so it was no surprise that the sermon today was about fathers.

The text was taken from Luke 15:12-28. It's the passage about the prodigal son. The one preaching talked about the father figure in this passage. I will just summarise the points that he touched on.

1. Luke 15:12

He is a wise father in that he allowed the son to go. This is to allow him to make mistakes and learn from them.

2. Luke 15:20

He is a patient father. This is so as he is always waiting outside...waiting for his son to realise his mistake and come home.

3. Luke 15:20-22

He did not blame the son for not listening to him. Instead he forgive him and held a party for him.

4. Luke 15:28,31

When the eldest son became angry, he went out and entreated for him to come and join the party.

Well if you have not noticed, we also have a heavenly Father above. So it's good that we should have some quiet time and think of all His goodness that he has shown towards us.

By the way...the one preaching was my father :)

Tags: Christianity, Father's Day

Chinese Name

My Chinese Name

Well...this is my chinese name on paper. Sure took a long time to finally draw it out. It's not Chinese Calligraphy standard but hey...I tried my best :)

In hanyu pinyin it's zhèng ēn róng. It means God's grace and glory. My name is derived from 恩典 (ēn diǎn - grace) and 荣耀 (róng yào - glory).

Note: I like my chinese name :)

Tags: Personal

Weird English

My father read out the words at the back of the medicated plaster he was using and we all laughed.

It reads like this:

FUNCTIONS AND INDICATIONS:

Dispelling Wind-evil and expelling Cold-evil, relaxing muscles and tendons, activating the flow of qi and blood in the channels and collaterals, subduing swelling, alleviating pain, treatment for arthralgia, pain and soreness in waist and back, sprain, ecchymoma and chronic arthrits.

(The paragraph above is an exact replica of what was printed)

Tags: Funny

Idea

Idea

Again another "art piece" done when I was bored. Used coloured chalk on a black piece of paper. It looks kind of pre-school-ish to me.

Tags: Arts

Colours

Colours

Did this when I was bored. Looks nice to me.

Tags: Arts

Posting Results

Well, finally the results are out. And I must say that I am quite happy with it :) My buddy also got what he wanted. However, some of them did not get what they wanted.

Hm...I guess it's now a new phase of NS.

Tags: National Service, Singapore

ElectroGift 4

At ElectroGift international users are able to get free gifts just by completing one offer and referring friends to it. So far this is the only website that offers such a service to international users when other sites normally serve US and UK citizens. Isn't it great? Especially for international users like me :)

So what are you waiting for? Click here and win!!

Tags: Others

Postings

Tomorrow will be a very exciting day for me. At 1000, the result of our postings will be out. Whether we are posted to Armour, Artillery, Signal, Medic, Guards...etc, will be known tomorrow. Hopefully my friends will get what they want - OCS (Officer Cadet School). For me, I don't aim high. I hope that I will be posted to a 8 to 5 unit...or even better, a 9 to 4 unit...lol.

Anyway...all the best for tomorrow!!

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Teddy Bear

I was cleaning up my shelf when I saw this bear. Lol...it was given to me by my senior Wong Ee Jin. Haha..."Serious Steph"...and I thought I was lame and funny...lol.

Is it just me or does the bear look really serious? Maybe it's just blur.

Tags: Friends

My Meal In The Chinese Restaurant

My meal in the Chinese Restaurant : "La Mian" with Beef Brisket

Tags: Food

Joke In A Chinese Restaurant

It was my birthday and my family and I went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate. After the meal, my mother went to take the unused wet towels on the table, thinking that it was free. When we went to foot the bill, my mother realized that the wet towels she took were included in it. Upon realizing that, she returned the towels back to them and asked for a new bill, much to my embarrassment. By then, I could here giggles from the tables around us.

Tags: Funny

Word Power

How's your Word Power? Go here to find out. Hope that your would enjoy it as much as I did :)

Tags: Quiz

Are You Happy With Your Life?

Well this is the result that I have from the poll. So it looks like about 50% of the people are happy with their life (could be due to them visiting my blog...lol) and about 25% of them being just ok. The remaining 1/4 or so are sadly not happy with their life. Anyway, I took a sample size of 100 as it's much easier to reach then 1000 or 500.

I hope that this poll result has been informative for you :)

Tags: Surveys

ElectroGift 3

There's this site called ElectroGift. Here international users all over can get free gifts by completing one offer and referring friends to it. So far this is the only website that offers such a service to international users. Other sites normally serve US and UK citizens.

So what are you waiting for? Click here and win!!

Tags: Others

Numbers...Digits...Numerals...Integers...

Recently, I realised that numbers are so important to our life. I knew that long ago...but it was only when I was bored and started to stare at the numbers on the clock did I fully appreciate its importance. I am going to list a few ways of how numbers are important to bring my point across...

1. The address we have consists of numbers.
2. Handphone and telephone numbers.
3. 4D and TOTO results for Singaporeans.
4. Our PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) result.
5. The money in our bank account (the number of zeroes at the right place makes a lot of difference, eg. $100.00 and $10.00).
6. Interest rates offered by various banks.
7. The number of children per family (very important for countries with a decreasing population).
8. The number of friends you have (the more the merrier).
9. The number of enemies you have (you won't want to score high for this one).
10. The numbers on price tags.
11. The days you have left before enlistment day.
12. The minutes you have left before lights-out.
13. The number of days left before book-out day/POP.
14. The number of seconds left before you collect your A Level/O Level/PSLE/4D/TOTO result.
15. The figure shown on the meter when you take a taxi (especially so if you have just book-out and you are taking a taxi back to Jurong).
16. The number of days you have on your MC.
17. The number of days you are on Attend B.
18. The score for your live range.
19. Your IPPT score (to see if you qualify for a Gold, Silver or Pass).
20. The number of days you have for your annual leave.
21. The number of people you need to give/receive your red packets on Chinese New Year.
22. Your debt that you have not repayed yet.
23. Your monthly salary.
24. Shares that you have bought (whether they went up or down and by how much).
25. The amount of sleep you get every day (7 hours is the optimum).

Feel free to contribute to this list of "How numbers are important in our daily life".

Tags: Others

Lion's Trail (National Education)

Today our company went to 3 different places for our Lion's Trail. The first is Changi Museum, second is Johore "Monster Gun" Battery", and the last is the NEWater Plant.

Changi Musuem:

The first of our 3 stations. The place looked solemn as our tour guide tells us the history of how Singapore fell into the hands of the Japanese. We saw items such as memos and letters written during that period by the POWs. Some of them were were written with hope and faith while others were written in despair and anguish. Then there was this section where they showed the various ways on how the Japanese tortured the POWs. Trust me...their methods are gruesome and inhumane. Next was a shop where we can buy items or momentos. Here...I noticed something ironic...or should I say weird. In front of me are two Japanese tourists...I was like, "Huh?!". Here we are, looking at how the Japanese have tortured many innocents and in front of me, and there in front of me are two Japanese smiling. Weird huh?

Johore "Monster Gun" Battery":

This is the most boring section of the whole tour. We saw the "Monster Gun". It was very long...about a bus' length. According to the tour guide, it takes 1 full hour to turn the barrel 360 degrees. The shell itself weighs about 800 kg to 900 kg. Its maximum range is about 30 m. However, its killing distance is about 20 m. The "Monster Gun" is used against any invading ships. The shell is armour-piercing...able to pierce about 90 m of armour. So it was no wonder that the Japanese soldiers were able to get to Singapore...the "Monster Gun" is ineffective against soldeirs. It is only effective against ships. Furthermore...the guns were placed on the east, west and south of Singapore. Sadly, the Japanese came from the north.

NEWater Plant:

This station is the most interesting one. Here we learn more about NEWater and the processes that results in it. First is a process known as Microfiltration, followed by Reverse Osmosis, and finally Ultraviolet Disinfection. There were games to play and video presentations to watch. We even got a free bottle of NEWater to drink. I gained quite a lot in this station, especially the various processes that I have just mentioned above.

After everything had ended, we were dismissed at Pasir Ris Interchange and I went back home.

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Kevin, Me And Ryan

Kevin, me and Ryan

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Esmond And Me

Esmond and me

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Scenery In Tekong

The scenery along the coastal road...looks dark and gloomy right? It sure is for the new enlistees.

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Shaun And Me

Shaun and me

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Me, Matthew And Wei Jie

Me, Matthew and Wei Jie

Tags: National Service, Singapore

CSM And Me

CSM and me. So where's the solar system?

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Storeman Hui And Me

Storeman Hui and me

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Scorpion Coy - Platoon 3

Aidil, Swee Fong, Pompidou, Ser Hwee, Me, Jun Yuan, Zhao Zhi, Tony, Ying Jie and Alex

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Me, Zhao Yan And Benny

Me, Zhao Yan and Benny (also from Mohawk previously)

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Wayne And Me

Wayne and me

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Emanuel And Me

Emanuel and me

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Meng Yee And Me

Meng Yee and me

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Me And Lewis

Me and Lewis

Tags: National Service, Singapore

My Parents And Me

My parents and me :)

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Parents And Recruits

Parents coming down to see their sons

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Excitement!!

The excitement after the throwing of our jockey caps

Tags: National Service, Singapore

POP!!

POP loh!!

Tags: National Service, Singapore

Scorpion Company

Scorpion Company (the company I am in) marching off

Tags: National Service, Singapore

The SAF Band

The SAF Band playing for us (I wanted to join them initially...but they require me to downgrade first...sad huh?)

Tags: National Service, Singapore

All 8 Companies Ready

All 8 Companies ready for the Parade

Tags: National Service, Singapore

8 Companies Marching In

8 Companies marching in

Tags: National Service, Singapore

POP (Passing Out Parade) Day Falls On My Birthday!!

Haha...finally...my birthday is here. And it falls on the same day I POPed!! Sure is exciting as I think I am the only one to have such a "unique" birthday.

Anyway...I will post some photos on what exactly has happened on my POP day...

Tags: Birthday, National Service, Singapore

ElectroGift 2

I checked ElectroGift again and was very surprised...happily surprised when I found my country...Singapore!!

Now I can get that iPod Mini that I want!! Yay!!

You can also register for a free account and get your free gifts.

If you want me as your referral, you can click here.
However, if you don't want me as your referral you can click here.
(I hope that you will want me as your referral)

Tags: Others

Seven Colours Of A Rainbow

I woke up today feeling much better from the fever I had yesterday. I was entering the kitchen when I spotted a rainbow formed on the floor. So I immediatly took the camera and placed a piece of A4 paper as a background for the picture. After a few adjustments here and there I took the picture. So here it is right now. The seven colours should be easily spotted.

Truly a wonderful sight to start your day :)

Tags: Others

Fever

I was not feeling well on the 30th of May, Monday. However, I continued on with the program we had for the day. The program consists of a run through of the SOC (Standard Obstacle Course) in clean fatigue (This consists of our long four and rifle only). After that we had our IPPT (Individual Physical Proficiency Test) re-test.

At the end of it all, it was already about 1945. It was then that I found that I had a fever of 37.9. My platoon mate, Jun Yuan, also had a fever of 38.1. So we decided to report sick. By the time we reached the Medical Centre, it was already around 2045.

After seeing the doctor, we waited for our medication and status slip. This was when the problem occured. We waited for almost three hours before our status slip was passed to us. Furthermore, our status slip was a MC (Medical Certificate) for 2 days (300505-310505). However, the medic there told us that we could not go back home to rest as the last fastcraft had already gone! (Our camp is in an island so we need a fastcraft to go back to the mainland). My platoon mate and me were frustrated! There was only 3 patients in the centre, including the two of us, and 8 to 10 medics! They didn't even know that we had seen the doctor or whether we had our medication and status slip already. And mind you, we were both having a fever! That made the three hours in the centre very long.

In the end, the two of us slept in another bunk so as not to infect the others as they have the SOC test the next day.

I could not sleep the whole night because of the fever. I tossed and turned...tossed and turned...and still could not sleep.

Sad.

The next day the two of us book-out to rest at home. We checked our temperature again. My friend got 39.5 while I had 39.0. It was then that I realised that I had some serious infection.

Upon reaching home, I slept immediately as I was very tired. When I woke up, I checked my temperature and to my surprise, it was 39.7!! My parents decided to take me to NUH (National University Hospital). When we reached there, I was immediately confined to a small room.

The doctor asked if I had gone overseas. Probably she wanted to know whether I got bird flu from China or some other stuff. I told her the only "overseas" place that I went was Tekong, the island where I had my military training. She just kept quiet.

What followed was an extraction of my blood for tests and a chest X-ray done.

After everything was over, which lasted for around 3 hours, I was sent back home. I had MC for 3 days. So if my fever does not return, I will go back to camp on this Friday (030605).

I hope that my platoon mate is doing fine.

Tags: National Service, Singapore