Nice weather for a morning 21Km run with Garmin Run SG2024!
Monday, October 14, 2024
Garmin Run Singapore 2024
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Alpha Ministry @ Breakthrough Mission
Leading discussions during Alpha ministry to our Breakthrough Missions brothers is something totally new to me. Most of the time, they preferred to be quiet, no participative or ask any questions.
This is my first time volunteering and reaching out to people in need of love and acceptance. We came to bring God's love, as I always say before any discussion begin. Being new, they always wonder what my motive is for coming.
"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." Reaching out to people who are in need of help is all about empathy, love and practical help. It is not about how much knowledge and theology about God and the Bible. Sharing Biblical truth is good but must always be back up with practical help, love and care. That is my approach in every sessions.
Last night was our eighth session of Alpha. We are using the Chinese version film series: https://asiapacific.alpha.org/preview/cafs-tc/#
We started these sessions of Alpha on the 20th August 2024, every Tuesday. The sessions usually starts with a group prayer, worship service, then watch a Alpha Film (in Chinese with English subtitles), follow by a group discussion. We ended the night with supper with the brothers from Breakthrough Mission. The Tuesday night Alpha session is part of the curriculum for their re-habitation and attendance is compulsory for them. Alpha aim is to bring the Gospel message to them and help them to encounter God and receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Some of them are already Christians and we aim to help them grow in their faith journey.
Last night, we discussed on the topics of "Who is the Holy Spirit?" & "What does the Holy Spirit do?" I planned to shared about the 3 parts works of the Holy Spirit:
(1) Holy Spirit unit us as a family with God's love.
(2) Fruit of the Holy Spirit
(3) Gifts of the Holy Spirit
We started talking about being in God's family and how this relationship with God can be enhanced and grow with the help of the Holy Spirit - our Helper, comforter, counsellor. My emphasis is on "God is love". This is unique to the Trinity God who love one another. As we receive God's love, so we can love others. Which lead me to talk about how to grow and receive God's love - the Fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, Joy, ... (Galatians 5:22,23). It is important to be fully filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and I shared about the difference of (1) receiving the Spirit upon Salvation; (2) being Filled with the Spirit, (3) Baptism of the Spirit. Somehow, I stop short about talking on Spiritual Gifts. I felt a very strong restrain on me not to discuss on the topic of Spiritual Gift and speaking in tongues. I also shared about my experiences on receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit but was prompted strongly not to talk about receiving the gift of speaking in tongues.
As usual, none of them wanted to talked. I had another 2 volunteers who are involved in the discussion and 5 brothers from Breakthrough Mission. Both the volunteers are more experienced than me and one also served in the prison ministry for 14 years already. As such, she speaks with authority and has respected from the brothers, many of whom were helped by her during their lowest point in life. Here, I was very much humbled and need to gain their acceptance first, before they open their lives to share with you. I have yet to achieve that. There is one pre-believer in our group and we are encouraging him to put his faith in Jesus. Some of the brothers are in there for many years and repeated a few cycle of prison-re-habitation center. We pray that they would receive break-through and start life anew as in 1 Corinthian 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come."
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Dewy - Quality or Quantity of Life?
Collect Dewy’s ashes at Pets Sanctuary, 5 Mandai Road.
It is not how long you live but how fruitful your life
that’s matter. Dewy, our family rabbit may not live a very long life. She lived
with us since birth for six and a half years. But her life with our family is
very meaningful indeed. Taking care of her for many years has thought me how to
give and love without any expectations.
The saddest moment was I accidentally kicked her left leg as she ran into my path. This broke her left leg and we went through many weeks of sadness nursing her back after her surgery. She suffered greatly and had difficulty eating for weeks. Yet she persevered and determined to grow well. Through it all, she still grew closer to us, never once did she hide from us. We could feel her gratefulness for being part of the family.
Her teeth then grew worse, and she had to extract 7 teeth. This affect her appetite. Also, her face became asymmetrical and the vet told us that she had some internal health issue. Many times, she would sneeze profusely to spurt out the mucus inside her. We could see that she’s suffering greatly but still held on bravely, always coming to us for comfort and encouragement. During evening, she would come to me while I was cooking in the kitchen to get my attention. Often times, during dinner, she would lie down quietly hearing our conversation.
On the last week in July, she came to me quite often and ran around me. Sometime, she would gently tap on my foot. She showed a lot of gratitude. Perhaps, she knew… her time with us was coming to an end, and to say thank you and goodbye. Yet, she bravely bore her pain and suffering.
I believe she had a quality of life with us and the bond
with the family gets stronger by the day. Our time given to care for her is not
in vain. We learned to care and be grateful for unconditional love, like our
Heavenly Father caring for us and we did to Dewy.
Good-bye Dewy. We are thankful that you came into our lives. Your memory will always linger on ...
Thursday, August 1, 2024
Good-Bye Dewy ;(
Today, my family said good-bye to Dewy, our family rabbit. ;(
It a journey of love and care as we see her grow up and share lives as a family.
2019 was also the time she ate hay! Before loosing many of her teeth :(
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
The world lost a Running Champion :(
Just when we all (runners) are hoping that the Year 2024 would see a running champion completing the Marathon (42.195km) in under 2 hour, our hopeful runner - Kelvin Kiptum met a tragic car accident on 11 February 2024.
Everything was going well and as plan for him to achieve the world new Marathon record - a feat no man has ever done before. He was only 24 years old. Not even reaching his peak. Sadly, we heard that he and his coach passed away.
Sometimes in life, things can happen when we least expected. Even as we set our life goals and dreams, always remember that earthly pursuit can be destroyed by death. Hence, when we pursue earthly goals, we also need to be aware that these are temporal and can be snatch away by death.
Eternal goals, however, are never destroyed or steal by death. As the Apostle Paul asked: "Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? Cor 15:55)"
Thus, it is always important to know that safety and cautiousness in everything is of utmost important. Live to do it again another day. Don't give death an opportunity to attack: kill, steal and destroy.
Kelvin's passing kept me thinking the whole day. Sadly, for a young man with so much talent and bright future for himself, and his family.
May a new talent be inspired by him and carry on the legacy that he left behind....
Thursday, December 14, 2023
November 2023 Jogging Log
I happen to read my November Jogging Log, which ASICs Runkeeper send to me via emails monthly, but have shifted to the promotion in-box instead of the usual email in-box. (Wish I have discovered that earlier, so as not the miss the past few months of notifications).
Seem like I am doing an average of 151km a month or <40km a week, which is too little! I am missing my Thursday jog, huh. Probably because of the house cleaning. Tuesday and Wednesday are my favorite days. On Tuesday, I do a >10km jog (after 9am, which is a bit late and hot) and on Wednesday, I sort of do a short 5km recovery. Some Saturday morning, I do a longer run, if time permit's (starting at 7am)To have a better run, I need to do it in the early morning at about 5am. So, I will need to discipline myself and sleep earlier (before 9:30pm) if I am planning for a run the next morning!
Have sign up for the 2XU Compression Run 2024 on April 21 (Sunday)!
Ready for a run? Join me!
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2023
A good weather on the 3rd December 2023 Sunday morning, as we flag off the SCSM 2023. A delay of 15 minutes and the elite runners (mostly from Kenya) were flag off at 4:45am.
I started well as plan, with a 6:34 minutes/km pace. But I couldn't keep pace after the 15km mark and felt the need to go to a toilet to ease myself. At 18km, I walked for a short while (about 300m) and found a toilet to urinate. Thereafter, I jog slowly till the end point.
The finishing was weak, but I didn't feel any pain or loss of appetite as it would always happen after a poor 42.195km marathon run.
Some lessons learnt from this run:
(1) Able to run a good 10km or even 15km at below 6 minutes/km, doesn't mean that I can carry on a good pace or even complete a 21.1km. I need to really run the complete distance during training to be count worthy of completing. This is because I am not strong enough to extrapolate my running results at a shorter distance and add another few minutes to it.
(2) I need to consistently do more half marathon run or even longer for the next race. At least one or twice a month and a total of more that 4 before the race. My body need to adapt to the distance and pace at such a distance. This is unlike my younger days, when I need only to do one run at the actual distance and come race day, I did better than that run.
(3) Need to strengthen the body and rest well. On most run, the body is slow to recover and so it is lacking in power, which results in slower pace at the at of the race.
I already started some running, yesterday I did a 5km run. Today I did a 7km run at 5'48"/km pace.
Mentally, I need to be able to bear pain on the leg, abated to slow run if need to to avoid injury.
Overall, thank God for the SCSM2023.