The Power of Your Love

I came across a forwarded email about this guy from Melbourne (Australia) called Nick Vujicic. AS shown in the pictures, he was born without limbs from a Christian family (his dad is a pastor) back in 1982.

"Consider it pure joy, my Brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Because you know that the testing of your faith develop perseverance" (James 1:2-3)

It's always easy to take the bible literally when the challenges and obstacles were mentioned, but it's always hard for us to have the "real faith" in Jesus when God really allows all sorts of misfortune to happen on us. Praise God that Nick and his family decided to confront with this lifetime obstacles and turn everyday from "Without Limbs" to "Without Limits" --- Life is never alone when walking with Jesus, he quoted.

He's now travelling to various places to preach to the youths, sharing his testimonials to the disabled and often bring God's love to the poor.

See more of his testimonials here.

World Tour

create your own visited countries map


The area shaded in red are the countries that I've been to so far. Well, I think I chose my word very carefully. These are the "countries" that I've visited, not "places". For instance, I only been to Hong Kong and Guang Zhou, but apparently that represents the entire China is shaded. hahhaha. Also, I have only been to Utah, Maryland, Tennessee and Washington DC in USA.

So say if you've been to places like Russia, Australia, China, USA and Canada, I bet you could have covered more than half of the map above.

Hmm...didn't realise that I have actually visited 14 countries so far, out of approximately 194 countries in the world today, it's equivalent to 7.2%.

I hope I can cover at least 70% of the world before I die. : )

I Will Sing For You

This is a lovely piece of song, created by the Praise Team, of course with the help of our beloved brother Dan Quan(a very gifted and professional composer)

This song is still at very preliminary stage, we are hoping to make a full record, if God allows.

There is also the London Methodist District Song Writing Competition, not sure whether we are putting this song into the competition. Again, we have to pray for this.

Praise team might have to stop their practising after this coming June, if I still can't find someone suitable to lead them. I pray that this song does not symbolise the end of the junior youth ministry, but the beginning.....

Please God, let them sing for you. Amen

A Letter to My Ex-Schoolmates

I've been keeping in touch with some of my secondary schoolmates recently and learnt that many bad news were happening around them, back in Malaysia or Singapore. On the other hand, I also feel joyful when I realised some of my friends are converted to Christianity a few years ago. I've decided to form a prayer chain within my Christian schoolmates and this is what I wrote to them (although now I feel I have overeacted, I hope I've done the right thing):

Dear Buddies,

First of all, this is not a junk mail. This is an email from your “long lost friend” --- This is Choon Ming, your secondary school mate!!! As if anyone of you could remember. : )

A brief update from myself, I’m currently doing my final year PhD in Chemical Engineering in Imperial College London in England and hope to finish everything by end of this year. Let me get back to the main issue that I want to address.

I have absolutely no idea what are you guys and gals up to at this moment, which part of the world you are in and what are you busy confronting with. However, you must have found one thing we all have in common, I hope --- our belief.

I was curious and came across with this fact that out of 57 names in our 4s1 yahoo’s address list, only 9 of us here are saved in the name of Christ, which is equivalent to 15.8%. I was also having this conservation with Siew Wai a while ago and we had nice sharing on our belief. We finally realise there are many sad things happening around our beloved chonghwarian classmates:

(1) Many of them are now professionals back in KL or Singapore. However, they live in a rat-race working life style without realising the purpose of life. Paying mortgage, study loan or debts seem to be the only concern and success is only judged by numbers in the bank account.

(2) We share the joy that some of the couples got married recently, on the other hand, some of them are facing serious relationship problem, some of them got hurt and wasn’t ready to get up again.

(3) Holiness – I think this is the main issue to be honest. Premarital sex with partners, cohabiting issue and probably adulteries don’t only headline the media, but these are seriously happening on our beloved close friends. The outcome of these issues is disastrous and often agonizing.

I hope we can all pray for them (whether or not you know the individuals) for the above issues. We pray that they will soon realise the only way, the truth and the life. We pray that one day they will be set free, we pray that one day they will receive the salvation, with the mercy of God. We pray that they will come to Christ soon.

This might sound like a ridiculous email to you. But deep in my heart, I think we should pray desperately for them. I seriously share the compassion of Apostle Paul:

Roman 1: 14-17
I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

I’m not sure whether I should use we are “obligated” to them. What I know is I once was lost, but now am found. If God hasn’t given up on person like me, why should we give up on them?

Let’s pray for them, the least thing that we can do.

Hope everyone is well.

God bless,
Ming

Response to the Da Vinci Code

I met many friends that enjoyed reading the Da Vinci Code, no doubt many of them (non-Christian) do believe and convinced by the facts in this book of Fiction. Over 80% of them have never touch or read a single verse from the bible before, that explains why they were so easily diverted and affected. What C.S. Lewis (my beloved Christian writer) said is very true:

"A person who cease to believe in God does not believe in nothing; he believe in everything." ---- Clive Staples Lewis

I visited my good friend's (Chee) blog and got a link that I wish to share with everyone. It's the Response to the Da Vinci Code, preached by Rev Niky Gumbel. It's the most comprehensive and biblical sermon regarding on this book that I've come across. I bought his cassette for £3.50 last summer and now it's available on the internet. Great !!

2 Timothy 4:1-5

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

提 摩 太 後 書 4:1-5

1 我 在 神 面 前 ， 并 在 将 来 审 判 活 人 死 人 的 基 督 耶 稣 面 前 ， 凭 着 他 的 显 现 和 他 的 国 度 嘱 咐 你 ：
2 务 要 传 道 ， 无 论 得 时 不 得 时 ， 总 要 专 心 ； 并 用 百 般 的 忍 耐 ， 各 样 的 教 训 ， 责 备 人 、 警 戒 人 、 劝 勉 人 。
3 因 为 时 候 要 到 ， 人 必 厌 烦 纯 正 的 道 理 ， 耳 朵 发 痒 ， 就 随 从 自 己 的 情 欲 ， 增 添 好 些 师 傅 ，
4 并 且 掩 耳 不 听 真 道 ， 偏 向 荒 渺 的 言 语 。
5 你 却 要 凡 事 谨 慎 ， 忍 受 苦 难 ， 做 传 道 的 工 夫 ， 尽 你 的 职 分 。

Our own desires, itching ears, great number of teachers ---- indeed these are the real issues that we are confronting, day in day out basis. We write a lot in our blog, read a lot from newspaper or journal, listen a lot to opinions, but we are never close to the "truth".

It's time to get yourself a bible --- a book that has sold 6 billion copies in contrast to 44 million copies; a book that has eternal value (unofficially highest impact factor ever I dare to say) compare to a book that will be forgotten (who the hell care about the "Holy Grail and Holy Blood" if Dan Brown hasn't copied it).

I also found some websites that defend the Christian faith against this book, they are in Mandarin and English.

Friday Night

Was supposed to join my badminton teammates for the last social activity --- dinner + karaoke in China Town. I didnt join them coz I thought I could stay in the uni and work longer. My experiment requires high manual intervention and I can only generate 2 sets of results at max per day. Actually I should have joined them, got a feeling I can't do much today, working overtime does psycologically make me feel I've worked hard enough, the overall efficiency is always the same, well at least for me.

My supervisor has agreed to let me go on October, which is a good news. This also means that I have to finish at least all my experiments by then and done part of my thesis. 5 more months to go, wish me luck !! I don't fancy working plus writing when I'm in Holland.

I can foresee myself to be super-duper busy for the rest of the summer period. At the same time, I feel like going back to Malaysia for holiday, kinda miss my family --- a very good reason for me to take a break.

Focus on the Cross

Please click on the picture above to see the optics effects, and follow the instuction below:

(1) Focus on the "positive" sign in the center of the image.

(2) You will notice that the circle of violet circles disapper completely and become a single green spot.

Lesson:

In life, if we focus on the Christ's Cross, the multitude of dizzying problems around us disappear and are reduced to that of which we can manage ... one at a time.

Shame !!

Haiii...I was following the news and just noticed that Malaysia was defeated by Denmark in the Thomas Cup Badminton Tournament semifinals, despite the fact that many experts had predicted that Malaysia stand a very good chance to win the tournament this year. The reality is they can't even get into final. What a shame !!

In my opinion, Malaysia have the best players in the squad so far since we last won the cup in 1992. I myself have the "faith" that they will out perform this year as well. On the other hand, I was also shocked by the achievements of Denmark in 2005. They were the World no. 2 and 3 in men singles, World no. 1 and 3 in men doubles. However, they have always been very low profile during the entire tournament, perhaps is because they were 7 times Runner-Up but never win the title before since 1949.

The media has been focusing on China to win the title this year. I was looking forward to see the opposite, coz I believe Denmark has put a lot of efforts in training their sportsmen in this totally different Western environment.

The thing is I don't really understand why Malaysia always seem to have many great opportunities in achieving outstanding results, but many times they were screwed up. Something is missing in this system, particularly in both Sports and Academics area.

Is it the culture or the attitude problem, the lack of perseverance or we have always been boasting to one another? I have to be frank, I was never impressed by the attitude nor testimony of many great sportspersons in Malaysia. Something has to be done to rediscover the reputation of "Malaysia Boleh".

I'm glad I have not chosen the route to be a sportsperson, coz I might be worse. : )

Time To Go

I was following the results of the local elections in England yesterday night. The main winners were the Tories, Labour came third in the polls, losing about 200 seats to the Conservatives.

It's considered a Good Friday to the Conservatives, in contrast to the Labour that had suffered a Black Wednesday last week, when all 3 of his righ-handed person were facing vital political crisis.

Tony Blair has no choice but to reshuffle the Cabinet after the party suffered from yesterday local poll losses. I particularly like a quote from the Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson: "A reshuffle would be like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" --- indeed, Labour is sinking.

I have recently started to be keen on the politics in Britain. Tony Blair is no doubt a very talented and debative speaker. I seriously admired his debating and defending skills when confronting with various crisis at the House of Common meeting. Afterall, what British needs is a wise and realistic leader that will improve on Education system, tackle social problem and security issue and the enhancement of NHS together with pension issue.

I'm sick of recent "statistical" style of debate, at the same time pointing finger at the failure of previous government before 1997 to show the significance of improvements. All these do not mean that current situation has reached the satisfaction level of the public.

Perhaps it's time to go Mr Blair...

Still, I admire the transparency of British politics when compare to my home country.

However, I'm embraced and love to be a Malaysian.

Book of Century

You are browsing at one of the most famous Signal Processing handbook in the next 50 years that contains the essence of complex algorithms in the Communication World. Published by a talented PhD student (Su-Lee Goh) from Imperial College London at the age of 26, she also received "Best Student" awards and numerous compliments from her publications and conferences in Europe and North America. More descriptions of this book can be seen here.

What are you waiting for if you want to stand in front of the technology edge, get the book now !!!


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Whoooaaa..I think I have over-market or embrace the author and the book. Just thought of publishing her thesis for fun actually. If you really want to get a copy of this book, just leave your email in the comment, I will send you a softcopy. :p

I'm currently thinking of some marketing strategies. How on earth can a fiction book like "The da Vinci Code" be the bestsellers (sold 40 millions copies in 44 languages, and upcoming Hollywood Blockbusters), at the same time claiming the uncovering of the conspiracy of Catholic church with all sorts of crappy nonsense but self-declared them as well research "facts".

Is it not all about marketing and how to impose a huge impact causing public awareness? How can I bring this book "COMPLEX VALUED NONLINEAR NEURAL ADAPTIVE FILTERS" to the press and make it well known to everyone, when nobody cares about how the ideas were evolved but treat it as "outstanding", "novel" or even "miraculous".

The world is getting more and more ridiculous and insane, indeed ---- gospel of Judas is the next issue...aiii...

Verse of the Day

I like today's Verse of the Day:

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrew 11:6)

Bible says "impossible", does impossible mean 0% of success or a low probability? In God's eyes, many things seem very digitally decided, either 0 or 1.

Either you are saved or condemned, either hell or heaven, either justified or sinner, either with God or with Satan.