Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Presenting to you our little Mary and Joseph. Hehe.

Today the kids got to meet their great grandparents, grandparents, grand aunts, granduncle and aunts! All eleven of them within one day. Or to be exact, within just 4 hours.

They’re all on a 3-week cruise (Princess Cruises) and the ship’s docking in Singapore today.

Ah. If only they could’ve stayed a little bit longer…

Anyway. It’s nice meeting up with them all. It’s been SO long since we last got together.

One of the nice things about blogging is the people you get to know from all over the world.

And one of those I’ve known and kept in touch over the past year is Talitha Loughlin.

Both Tali and her husband are preachers and were based in North Ireland when she first wrote to me (they now live in England).

With her background (in the house magazine industry as a stylist and writer for the London publications), she’s launched Living Stones Bookazine – a Christian home magazine – not too long ago.

It features really REALLY nice designer homes (gorgeous photography works!) as well as personal testimony of people and their lives after they’ve accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour.

[She’s mailed me a copy as a gift too! Thanks heaps, Tali!]

Anyway. Do go and check out the e-bookazine!

Today our Christmas drama musical was performed in both Indonesian and Mandarin services, and after the performance Rev. Stephen Tong delivered the Christmas message to everyone.

We’re so thankful to GOD for the opportunity, to be entrusted and involved in such a ministry.

And we hope everyone was blessed at today’s event too.

…

For God so loved the world that HE gave HIS one and only Son,
that whoever believes in HIM shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16

Time is linear, which basically means time goes on and we can never go back to a particular point of time in the past. History never returns and so does opportunity, once it’s forgone.

Unconsciously we often think that when we make a mistake (or fail) today, we’ll have similar opportunities to make amends tomorrow.

And with this kind of mindset, somehow we (unfortunately) tend to be less mindful of our words and actions today.

None of us are perfect beings. We make mistakes. In parenting our kids, at work, in building our relationships with our spouse, friends and families.

But I guess what’s more important is for us to not use the ‘we all make mistakes’ phrase as our ‘excuse’ when we actually make mistakes.

Because when we do, we unconsciously are ‘justifying’ our own errors and somewhat ‘minimising’ the weight of the mistake itself. And when we acknowledge our mistakes less, we somehow learn from our mistakes less too.

Personally I feel, when we make mistakes today, it doesn’t mean we’ve come to a dead end. We should carefully ‘review’ what’s happened though, introspect and continually remind ourselves to not do similar mistakes in the future.

Time is irreversible.

And since whatever mistakes we’ve done earlier are not reversible as well, let’s learn to watch what we say, do and think. All the time.

Anya and Andersen.
Our apartment’s void deck.
Just this morning.

Both Anya and Vai had their chicken pox vaccination today.

The doctor at our usual GP was apparently a stand-in doctor. He looked rather young and he did the jab on Anya’s ABDOMEN. Before he did it, I did ask if having it done on the tummy was okay (because usually it’s done on the arm, buttock or thigh), and he said it’s okay because it’s done to the skin, not to the muscle.

Anya didn’t cry during the jab. She was teary-eyed when he pulled out the needle and cried a painful cry afterwards.

I was NOT happy with the doctor because afterwards I saw him reading the ‘instruction leaflet’ and calling someone, asking about the jab! The doctor also said something on the phone insinuating that he did it at the ‘wrong place’!

After he hung up the phone, I asked him about what I’ve just heard. He said that it’s fine to have it done on the abdomen, but Vai’s case, because he’s much younger, he’d do the the jab on his arm instead.

Our usual doctor called us later that afternoon to ensure that we’re all okay. He did say that usually jabs on children are NOT done on the abdomen, because it’s just too plain scary for the poor kid!

Of course!

Anyway I learned something today :

if you’re not too comfortable with the doctor and the way he does things, do not let him carry out the procedure. Instead, postpone the appointment and see another doctor whom you’re more comfortable with.

Sigh.

If the weather hadn’t always been this wet everyday, I would’ve brought the kids for the jab on another day. But we just had to get it done today because we’re leaving for Jakarta in 8 days time and since our aunt just recovered from chicken pox, it’s best to get the kids vaccinated and ‘protected’ from it.