First off, our beloved Ps Joel from Philippines was explaining to me the difference between bible colleges and cemeteries seminaries.


Gotta love Ps Joel. Would love to be his student one day. hehe~






Well.. It's been almost 3 weeks since Final Year Mission Trip '09: Philippines. The 20 of us (including Ps TKC®) are back in Malaysia safe and sound and a lil' sick'ish here and there. No worries, no one was infected with the AH1N1 virus or as I like to call it, Ahini.

Most of us have completed our studies and are now either have a job or are jobless. A few exceptions; the special few of us are still studying. We're slow and dumb.
/frowns

In any case, we came back to Malaysia exhausted from the journeying but yet filled, brimming with knowledge and experience. Ps TKC® said to me in the bus on the way down to Melaka (yea, i'm sitting next to her), "Now to return back to normal life and face the reality (of life)".

As much as we would love for this feeling, this energy to continue and last, life around us as we know it would tend to suck it all up and out of us and we would be no different from how we were before. Much like how we're energized in youth camps and later back to school, returning to the rascals that we are. But.. I guess for that to happen, it would only mean our initial focus and expectancy was wrong and/or the effort on our ptart wasn't enough. One-hit-wonders are dumb. This a journey, not a lottery ticket. Char Siew rocks.








Celebrated brother's birthday on one of the weekends at Sibaraku. No, we didn't eat at the teppanyaki. Instead, we ate at the sushi restaurant next to it. Same shop, different food.













I'm a firm believer and practitioner of good value-to-price ratio. The food was good but the price wasn't worth it. There's a missing picture of a sashimi boat with 9 slices of assorted sashimies and it costs more then RM30++. Atmosphere was good but that's just about all there is to it.

Since returning, I've been serving for two weeks in a row already and I predict many more weeks to come too but that's not A Bad Thing®. To serve the Lord gives me much joy after all. Good to see that the church is still in one piece. No explosions nor disasters happened.










Initially, my internship for Industrial Training programme was to start on the 1st of June but as I've decided to go for the FYMT'09, God opened doors for me to push my training date 3 weeks later and thus, I started my training on the 24th June which would mean that mine will end 3 weeks late too, on the 24th October. I'm currently doing my internship at Infineon (hopefully, God be willing, can get a job here in the future too). My department acronym would be IFMY IT OS DOA CS which stands for Infineon Malaysia Information Technology Operational Services Desktop Office & Automation Client Services. heh~




So yea, my department is technically first level support but is actually level 1.5 or so. We fix things the helpdesk people can't fix. As for me, I'm currently under Back Office & Projects, meaning coding, etc. Fun stuff, really. Working at Infineon is rather normal I guess..










I kid about the above. The pics were taken on 3rd July, Friday. There was a bomb threat. The police came and everyone evacuated the buildings and waited at the car park for a good solid hour. Imagine, a solid hour of baking under the sun. Crisp~!




Yesterday (Saturday, June 11th), my family went to another Japanese restaurant to celebrate dad's burfday which is on June 13th. So yea,


We went to one of my favourite high value-to-price, namely Sakura House. It's a house-cum-Japanese restaurant run by a Chinese - nice~
















The above sashimi costs RM30.. and it rocks. Hereby rated Some Good Food® due to its awesome taste and value-to-price ratio.

That's all I have for now. In this walk.. this journey of life that is ever straight and narrow, may God give us peace and grace anew all the day through.

Nite peeps~

This is the final post of our grace-filled trip to the Philippines. Reality here in Melaka has been sucking up most of my time so I apologize for the delay of the post - it's a lil rushed (need to wake up at 7am). Owh yea, this post is picture heavy so good luck ya? hehe~

Day 9. June 17, 2009. We headed to a part of town where a small community resides with most of its residents being muslims. Our purpose there; to bless the kids at the local kindergarten.













There's this rather cute kid, youngest amongst his peers (we're guessing) whom we dubbed, 'the stoner kid' due to his long-nonchalant stares and occasional random actions like trying to open the gate, climb the fence, etc. Kinda reminds me of a less active Shin Chan







Later we headed back to Bob's place to rest for a while and to help in their first house-church service. It was a nice and warm fellowship as everyone was friendly.




Later that evening, we went to West Baguio to bless their prayer meeting. There we met up with those who were serving fervently at Bayambang, Pangasinan.







Day 10. June 18, 2009. We returned to the kindergarten we were blessing the previous day. Unfortunately, most of the kids didn't come to school that day due to the rain. This time though, we brought gifts; bags with stationaries and notebooks, for both guys and gals. They were happy. hehe~













Since we're done early, we headed to the market to do more shopping and to.. well, chill. Tok Ne-Nengs were tasty. Syl bought me a book about God going to Starbucks and stuff. Went to SM City to eat Some Food® as per Ps Joel's recommendation.



















That evening, we went to the first CF of the semester for Cordillera Colleges at La Trinidad, Benguet. We presented a few songs and then Kee Weng shared with them a simple and impactfull message. We then had dinner at Rainbow Mission Church. More on them later.










Day 11. June 19, 2009. We rode on a Ferrari jeepney as Ps Joanne brought us to Baguio's Cathedral, right in the center of Baguio (i think). Spot the not on the 10 commandments. Winner gets a cookie.













The 2nd best thing about my Philippines experience is this lil thing at a restaurant called Sizzling Plate.




Here's the kicker; the conversion rate is around 1MYR to 13PHP.

What does that mean?

It means their most expensive steak, the Australian Porterhouse (similar to a t-bone) is only RM19.46!!!

I ordered a medium-rare Australian Rib-Eye which costs me RM16.69!!!

I must honestly say, this has got to be THE BEST STEAK I've ever eaten in my lifetime!




If When I go Baguio again for any mission/holiday, mark my words, "I'd definitely eat there almost everyday".

After lunch we met up and made our way to Rainbow Mission Church along with our loads of shopping goods amongst which were food stuff that one of the teams were going to distribute for the street feeding activity. We did an Evangelistic Crusade at the church.

























After getting a good night's rest, the two teams who were going to head up to the mountains of Bugias prepped ready. The Bugias team, led by miss Jessica were to leave an hour earlier than the Abatan team. The important things we kept safely and guarded by Julian.







What followed was truly the highlight of my mission work in the Philippines. Nothing I can really say would remotely justify what my heart truly feels serving up there.













After lunch, our host, Ps Alex and his friend took us to our first destination, a church down the valley. The 4x4 took us on a hour's journey to as deep as it could physically go. We had to hike down for more than 40 minutes the rest of the way.






















Soon we arrived at our first remote church. Most of its members had to hike up/down for an hour or so just to attend but when they arrive, they were smiling with joy and contentment for being able to come to church. And of their church? Well..



















After the short service we had to hike up all the way to the 4x4 and travel a couple of hours to Ps Alex's home. He built his own house and it took him two years to complete it. Real Men of Garr~










The next morning, Ps Alex's wife was kind enough to take us to the hot springs down the valley. We had to hike for around 30 minutes to an hour to reach. I couldn't recall because of the alluring view. Gomen.













Later we went to 3 churches before the Abatan Team called for us to return. My only regret is not having enough time to bless all of them to the fullest but I guess we did what we could.
















We met up with Team Abatan and rushed back to Baguio as we're to have one last dinner with the rest of the team as well as Ps Joel and his gang. Btw, what ever happened in Abatan stays in the hearts and minds of those who lived to tell the wonderful tale of profound beauty. *winks*










Went back to APTS at around 11pm and rested for a few hours. Packed everything we had and did some checking to make sure nothing gets left behind. Soon, it was time to say good bye to APTS, Baguio and Philippines.
















The drive to Clark Airport would take us more than 4 hours from Baguio and with that...













While on the plane, I reflected back on the entire trip. Even now as I type this, I'm reflecting back on all the blessings that was given to me by God throughout this mission trip. We went there to bless and we were blessed in return. So here are my thanks..













That's all I have for this blog. The rest shall be kept as fond memories and will be played back each time I serve Him, in any way.

Nitez peeps~

WontdieonE in the Philippines, salamat po~!

Day 7. June 15, 2009. The contrasts of view.







We've just arrived in West Baguio Baptist Church, the church that Ps Joel, Ralph and Kim (you'll meet her shortly) are serving in. Upon arrival we were greeted Amos, the resident dog. After a nice breakfast we moved on to our task, which was to paint the Sunday School classroom. Wayne was leading.










After doing the 1 to 16 ratio, we started to paint.... and that was the end of it. Job well done mait~!




Our next destination was the market in town. This was no ordinary market for it was in this place, 60 to 70 percent of our stuffs. Little did we know that we were gonna come back here for another 4 to 5 times.







It was also in this market that our guide Kim, brought the lot of us to eat the famous One Day Old Chicken (ODOC). ODOC is marinated and deep fried. Every bit of it can be eaten, bones; chew-able. Yoke sack, still intact in the belly. *do click the wiki link above

Taste? The best part is definitely the head. Seraiusly~

BEHOLD~!







Having nothing to do the rest of the day, we headed to the biggest, open-aired mega shopping center in Baguio City, SM City. We walked there from the market.. and it was slightly drizzling but that did little to dampen our spirits. heh~ There, we tried the various previously suggested food and found them.... nyeh~



















Day 8. June 16, 2009. The night went by and soon morning dawned..




Ps Moon Tee gave us a tour around APTS. Showed off the bungalows of the professors, the library, different blocks, etc. Most interesting thing would be the well preserved 100 year old hut of which they would bring along should they shift their location.










Later, we went to another bible college, PBTS (go figure on the acronym) where Bob and Celia took care of us. They brought us for lunch as well as the vocational program to make crafts as a source of income. Then we went to their house to watch a movie called End Of The Spear which was based on a book of the same name. The movie is based on the real life account of the 5 missionaries who went to Ecuador to try to save the Huaorani tribe there. The movie gave different names to the characters and the tribes and also added some... movie element to it too. All in all, it is a good film for evangelism and mission exciting-thingy but as for me, I'd stick to the documentary, Beyond the Gates of Splendor. *click for further reading
















Later that night, pastor wanted us to eat at a Mongolian buffet restaurant but she was unsure of the way. Cue the navigators to spring into action and surely enough, we reached... we... reached...




The basic principle is this. Choose your meats (chicken, beef, pork and chicken liver). Put in all the veggies you want. Put in the base seasoning (sugar water, soy sauce, oil). Put all the seasonings you want. They'll fry it all together and serve. Simple and delish~ (depending on how well you mix your seasonings)










It wasn't really something new to us as Malaysians but I guess it's worth a try, purely for phunnn~ Now I must retire with that bombshell.

I've forgotten to mentioned that while the guys were busy posing for art by the beach, the gurls were pampering themselves silly with pedicure and manicure. It was a bargain it seems and the dudette came all the way to Cesmin Beach Resort Cottages to do it for them.




Day 4. June 12, 2009. We headed to Full Gospel Fellowship, pastored by Ps Jerry Tadina. We're to do a Youth Service (mini-concert-thing) there. It was a small church along the red light district of the area as Ps Jerry mentioned to us. No, no one went missing as pastor held an iron grip around us to prevent us from Pulling Stunts®.













Despite the outward appearance of the church, the hall is very nice and clean. Tiled floors and decorated walls. We practiced a few of songs and get the sound checked out. Interestingly enough, they have no acoustic guitar at all. Just two electric guitars (and one would easily presume the people here would have an acoustic guitar in every nook). Soon it was time to eat dinner and for the concert.




Here's the funny part. We being Malaysians, have a preset idea of what a concert would be like. In our minds a concert would be... Oh, I dunno.. a 7 to 10 tracks worth and with that mindset we actually cooked up 14 concert songs and practiced them hard only to use less than half of it throughout the entire mission trip. hehe~ Nonetheless, the concert was good. The sketch was well played and the messaged was delivered wonderfully. All in all, a job well done.




The next day however, we're supposed to return to the same church to conduct various workshops from dances to creative arts to multimedia and to worship workshop. Julian, Wayne, Jennifer (Kae Lynn) and myself were to conduct the Worship Workshop. They were very shy. Maybe due to our Malaysian english and all but all in all, they were responsive and that's A Good Thing®. Unfortunately though, I didn't take any pics of the workshop. What I do have however, are pictures of Kee Weng and Lucius sleeping earlier that morning. Lucius sure has some weird sleeping poses..







Later that night, it would be our last night in Cesmin Beach Resort Cottages. After this we would be splitting up into two main teams once again and heading to two different places. What's more, our Philippino guide and chef extraodinaire, Dante; Real Men of Genius & GARRR~ will be no longer at our service. So as a farewell, he BBQ'ed for us Some Good Food®. In momento of him, I shall refrain from commenting anymore on the food.
















The next morning, June 14th. We were leaving Cesmin to Ps Ramel Tadina's church which is somewhere near the coastal farmlands.




Ps Ramel is Ps Jerry's younger brother. For no reason whatsoever, I've forgotten to take both their pics so just imagine them for now as we move along. Ps Ramel brought us to a special beach where rather than hearing the sound of waves crashing into sand, we can hear the sound of waves crashing into... rocks... pebbles and other nice looking stones. Yes, it's a beach of stones.



















Soon it was time for Sunday service. Ramel brought us to his church which consists mainly of farmers and the like, welcome to the Family Church.













Comparatively to his older brother's congregation, the people and the youths of Ps Ramel's church were more lively and less shy. Despite not being able to really communicate well in english, they were not hindered. It was kewl~ In any case, right after lunch, we headed back to Cesmin to grab our belongings and using public transport, we made our way to Baguio City: The Summer City of Philippines!

*cue adventure music, preferably non-MJ*










Once again, I remembered taking pictures of us eating the long BBQ'ed small intestines of a pig but somehow I'm not able to find it anywhere! I guess I'll just let your mind do the work for me. Soon, the president of Asia Pacific Theology Seminary (APTS), Rev Tham Wan picked us lost people up from the the middle of Baguio and brought us to our new lodging, the guest room of APTS.
















The whole place is simply.... breathtaking. It's hard not to be tempted to further one's studies to Masters degree over here where the place is always cool, the food is dirt cheap and the service is quality. The drinkable tap water and new towels every two days blew us away. We stayed in dorms with double-decked beds, each with its own set of towels and comforter. Students however, have their own rooms. Naish~

Later that evening Rev Tham Wan invited us over to his house in APTS for a get-together BBQ dinner with the rest of the lecturers there. Food rated SGF® for those who're keeping track.
















All in all, it was a very fruitful two days for us and with that, the end of this post. The next day, more mission work to be done..... I think.

Good nite peeps~

The dawn of day no. 2...




We awoken to an unbelievably cold Philippines morning. Cold due to us spamming the air conditioning away throughout the night (assuming the word 'spamming' is applicable to airconds). The previous night's dinner we had a Philippines equivalent of our Malaysian tom yam but without the spiciness; Sinigang. The following morning of day 2, we were once again immediately treated to an awesome breakfast by Ralph, some unknown Philippines pork sausage and their char siew equivalent.




Later hopped up into a jeepney. A jeepney is something like a jeep but stripped down and modded to be able to accommodate more than a dozen plus plus plusssss people. It's one of the main modes of transportation in the Philippines and quite an icon too much like our Malaysian trishaw except more practical and they won't eat your cash like you're some blardy tourist! heh~







Sorry for the inexcusable lame pun up there. As previously mentioned, the first two days (10th & 11th June) will be for us to get to know the culture before stepping into ministering it. Our first stop, Ps Joel took us to a Catholic church and explained a whole lot of theological stuff. I shan't bore thee with it. Just look the nice pics and go 'Oooooh~' and 'Ahhhh~'.







Next stop was..










This place is quite popular amongst the youth who want to loiter and scandal around too. Graffiti can be seen all around the pagoda, "(insert name) likes so and so and so", etc. Quite standard stuff though except for one particular statement that caught our attention.. almost near-prophetic-like words..










Next on the itinerary was the Botanical Garden of La Union (pronounced; La-Ooo-Neon). Nothing much to say about the botanical garden that what the name suggests.. its a botanical garden!































Next we went to Macho Temple where some bombastic-theology-word-that-i've-forgotten was exposed to us. It's a cross between the catholic and taoist so yeah.. pretty interesting stuff. Didn't take any pics of the inside because I didn't wanna stain my camera.




Went to a supermart that doesn't have much to offer or appeal to us. Bought necessities for the upcoming ministry.




Went to market later on to walk walk some more. Tried a few local bread and other delicacies but unfortunately, due to constant movement, I was unable to snap any pics of the awesome bread, deep-fried squid, etc.










The following day (11th June), we headed to the market once again to walk walk even more. This time though, I somehow didn't take any pics at all. But lemme describe the market to ya... It looks like Jasin but more bustling. It has lots of chap fan on the upper levels. Lots of cheap second-hand clothings but looks quite pasar malam'ish. So there ya have it; the market.




We headed back to the resort cottage and some of the guys decided to go for a walk along the beach. Cesmin Beach resort Cottages' beaches were similar to those in Melaka, except that this one has quite a few broken bottles strewn around. Lots of those iconic fisherman boats too. We found *Vain's boat too.













Stop here if you do not wish to see bunch of valiant attempts of taking kewl pics to put on facebook. Lets see if you can spot the man~












We headed to another beach after that; a much cleaner one too, I might add. Dante, our guide & chef, an supremely impressive man whose full of garr!, the same dude who took us to the market, brought us to the famed Jollibee. As Ps Joel says, when one thinks of Philippines, 3 things come to mind;










Joanne was throughly satisfied and that concludes day no. 2~ Another 10 more days to go!

Good nite peeps~ Gotta work tomorrow~


*names changed to protect the innocent

First off, I would like to gladly announce that we're all back safely in one piece. Nobody was lost, stolen or misplaced. Parents can sleep easy knowing that their little missionaries went to serve and to bless but returned being blessed so much more. This will be the first of a few posts seeing as too how I have an abundance of pictures to post and its near impossible (or I'm just too busy) to put it all up in one go. So lets just take one step at a time kay?

Here goes nuh-ain.




The one week of training was rather fruitful. We pooled our resources and ideas to come up with a whole bunch of things that we could do. Schedules were constantly being updated and we took the time to fellowship with each other. Lulu's got me saman'ed for overloading. hehe~







D-Day arrived and we headed off to the airport from Melaka at 12am midnight. Met up with the rest at 5am and checked ourselves in. We spent most of the waiting time in between with power naps of sorts. Flight was off at 7am++ and we reached Clark Airport, Philippines at 11am++. Nobody was quarantined. Our hosts were there waiting for us with vans ready to leave. Meet our two lovely hosts;




Here's the plan. The first day of touch down (June 9th) were to head to San Fernando, La Union and check in at our place of staying, Cesmin Beach Resort Cottages. Then the following will be two days (June 10th & 11th) of rest and preparation before starting our work.




The journey from Clark to Cesmin will take approx 4 to 5 hours so Pastor Joel decided it was best for us to drop by Philippine's SM Mall for lunch first. It was there too that he introduced to us Iglesia Ni Cristo, a church which believes that Jesus was but a mere man whom we should follow, not worship, like Buddha. This was one amongst many off-biblical and heretical teachings we encountered throughout our journey here in the Philippines.




After a nice simple lunch, we headed to Cesmin Beach Resort Cottages at Bauang. Wayne and I sat in the luggage truck with Pastor Joel and Ralph while the rest were travelling comfortably in their nice big van. Along the way we stopped by the market to grab some food for dinner.







On the first night itself Ps Joel, Joy (Ps Joel's sister) and Ralph felt it important to introduce us to the infamous Balut. What's balut? Rather than explain it, I'd rather you take the trouble to click on that wiki link and brace yourself for some testosterone filled 2-step action.




Honestly, despite being able to see the duck embryo covered in veins with its own yoke sack dangling underneath it, it tasted rather nice. We have come to a census and decree it to taste like essence of chicken. To those who ate it, you have just received Epic Status. Go make a badge and wear it proudly.




Well.. that's all for Day 1. I'm in need of rest as tomorrow I'll be starting my Industrial Training at Infineon Tech so, good nite peeps!

Outz~

p.s. what happened in abatan stays in abatan... or will it?

Why? Because I'm off to the Philippines to do some good ol' mission work.

Do keep us all in prayer~

Outz!