the heart connection

It's easy to ignore or rattle off the criticisms of someone you don't know...until you not only can put a face to this person who's so different from you, but your heart also connected with his.

I was just waiting for the bus one night and this guy sitting next to me asked me for the time. He had been scribbling notes on a scrap of paper and then tucked it away into his bag. He was dressed in a very neat and proper way. It's kind of Southern. He was waiting for his friend who was late.

We were both going to ask each other a question but somehow I got to ask my question, "So where are you from?" We realized that we had lived in the same state. Of all places in the world! He was the first American I met outside of the US who was from there. He still is.

We started chatting and he said he had been in the region for just a few years already and was looking forward to going back home soon. He said it felt very good to hear someone speak in a way he was familiar with. He sounded maybe more than a little homesick.

It was a really good five-ten minute chat. But when I asked him for his name, his face changed. It was just a short pause and his smile was gone in a quick hesitation. He showed me this plastic tag he had on his neatly pressed shirt that told me he was a Mormon. That would make sense, he was here for a pretty long mission trip.

I told him my name and I talked in a good way about some Mormon missionaries I met who wanted to reach deaf people. Soon after my bus came so I had to go.

I felt sooo overwhelmed on the bus. It was strange but I felt very strongly a flow of compassion coming out from me. It could only be Jesus doing it in my heart like the Bible's records of him feeling immediate love for strangers he met (Mark 6:34, 10:21).

I felt his pain strongly when he had to tell me his name since I asked. It wasn't really a name, just a last name that would typically be all the more generic in the polygamous family structure I think Mormons have. It was a faceless name that had no meaning to the personhood and wonderful personality God had given to this man.

I sensed that he was very lonely in his time here in a foreign country. He was thirsting for a friend who would appreciate him as a person, not as a faceless follower of a belief system. And religion seemed more of a big rock of burden than devotion for him. It seemed like we couldn't be friends now that he told me his name and thus his religious identity. He had to put on his missionary role now..after all, he is here as a missionary.

Now when I think of Mormons, I think of him. This charming man whom I feel pain for because he is defaced and caged in by religion. I was like that once...through my teenage years till I was 20 under the Christian religion.

Jesus, set him free with your truth! He's precious and charming just the way God has created him to be. He has unsurpassable value that you actually already died for him before he was born. Give him courage to find the real Jesus, break all the deceptions that has been bound onto him by Satan and others. Use your people to change his heart as he seeks you. Give him courage to leave his community when the time is right...into your arms and the love of your true followers!

David Choi

Over the weekend I've been checking out David Choi now that he's in Singapore (for the first time!) for a local musical festival called Baybeats. I have to say that I sure am inspired to do some things I've been holding back for fear of people judging me to be what I'm not. I'm being vague right here but something exciting should be coming up in the next month or two...I'm waiting for ideas from God. Right now there are quite a few playing in my mind as I get around to places every day..

(via Anthony, who flew down from Kuching, Sarawak to see David!)

David, Josh, Jack, Geri, and me after the Meet and Greet at Timbre Old School
Jack flew down from Bangkok just to see David too.

Heading out on the tram at the Night Safari!

The bunch of groupies who kind of chilled out at Night Safari with David.
Kind of because the safari was ok, but the company was great!

Geri, me, David, and Josh

David is incredibly honest and humble. It's easy to talk to him and cast away my image of him as a famous Youtuber when we talked. Like Geri said, it feels like you're just talking comfortably to a friend. I love meeting new people, and I love people like David who takes personal interest in new people, and have no qualms about talking about their own lives.

I'm not a fangirl, but inspired by his workshop about being a Youtube musician, I went to read his bio and the lyrics off his album By My Side. It's really great to know we share a similar vision, i.e. to make music that is meaningful and encouraging. So...I'm just waiting on God to know how I can serve him with my voice, maybe to a deeper extent that what I am doing now, which is basically just singing in my college's chamber choir for the semester, and jamming on and off when we're free..

I don't know. I'm just thinking..so exciting.

At the night safari, he said he would

RESPEKT

Washing dishes for 8 hours is quite a personal feat, not physically but spiritually. It can only be God who always makes it fun albeit tiring and sometimes boring. It is such good training to train my new self to be humble, and my proud old self to die like a squashed bug. Or in the words of my friend Denesh, I murder my old self.

I've only done it thrice so far. And the aunties do it every day!!! And the moms and sisters of some of my friends in the Philippines..for much longer hours and a pay much lower than thirty times of mine.

RESPEKT.

Maybe we attach too much stigma to dishwashing that people usually respond in pity or shock when I tell them about it. Except my mom, who aches that her precious daughter is literally cleaning up the mess but sees the value of doing it. So she trusts me and lets me do it...she is so amazing.

Washing dishes on Sunday probably beats going to a church service where I take much effort to be physically still and yet not snooze off.... :p God teaches me a lesson about humility and self-denial right there as I wash and dry the dishes, and clear the sink periodically flooded with brownies and fudge. Looks like a clogged toilet haha!

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

A genocide-leader-turned-Christ-follower to
our family in Ephesus (southwest modern-day Turkey), AD 62

This morning, my mom had just been feeding Kitty's mom. As usual the cat hissed, and the baby imitated her and hissed at my mom too! And my mom was melted away by its cuteness. It was just going 'om nom nom nom' while it ate the food.

When it got hit, my mom went down to check the situation. The baby's mom mewed at her and kept staring at her even from a far distance. How to help when death happens?

After the baby's body was taken away, its dad and mom came by and kept sniffing at where it got hit, bled, and died.

Just before it rained today, the baby's mom went back again and kept sniffing and licking at the baby's bloodstains.

My mom teared the whole day. She had seen the baby grow up, and she saw the car tire roll the baby over a good two times.

Most of what I've said..it's what my mom saw. She really cares and she's really compassionate.

So many thoughts in my mind right now, running down different lanes...like a highspeed maze.

Today's been a day of grief.

how did we ever start hating them?

My eyes are sore and tired from bawling and crying and tearing most of today. It probably burned a lot of calories because I felt so tired the whole day.

How did we ever start hating our parents? Thinking they are nags, earsores, and people who take away free time from us?

Somewhere along the line, we've let selfishness eat away at the absolute adoration and pure love we had for our parents when we were little. And we replace this beautiful, innocent love with ungratefulness, getting picky at them and dismissing what they say...all cunningly in the name of independence, self-respect, and privacy.

What a lie we've believed in.

The last time I felt I so safe and loved by my parents when I was hurt was almost 14 years ago. Why had I rejected my mom's hugs and tears when she ached for me when I was hurt ever since then..until today?

How did this isolation ever happen in my life? God, show me. I feel you are showing me these things now because you know I am ready for it. Not to say it won't hurt, but I'm ready for it.

waking up to death of a small baby

What a cute cat! We had a new baby around the block that looked like this. It belonged to a pair of strays in my area, except that it had blue-green eyes.

(via meejoebee)

When it was born a month ago, it was mewing and mewing while mom went out to find food the whole day so she could nurse it and its other one or two siblings. I never saw them personally until they were about a week-old, but my mom did. She would peer out of the window every day for countless times. When it was about to storm, her heart ached and went out to kitty's mom who hunted for space underneath a car safe enough for her one remaining kitty to play and rest in.

Kitty was one active and playful baby. Once when it started walking, its mom wanted to carry it, but it ducked so that it could walk. Haha! And its mom who had nursed many babies before it was careful to defend it from people. She made good effort to give a good long hiss at us even when we brought food or we just stopped by to look. She wanted as little attention as possible...I guess that tells you how much unwanted attention she's got from people.

And late this morning my mom woke me up to say that a car just drove over kitty. Like literally a moment ago. Kitty liked to play on the wheel, and my mom said Kitty's mom had meowed at it many times to tell it to come down cos it was dangerous. Today, what Kitty's mom feared came true..the wheel rolled over kitty who was playing right on it.

It was spasming in pain for a while and lay limp. Its eyes came out of the socket and blood rolled across the eyeballs. Its tongue was out in foam, and its hairs all stood up - muscle contraction symptomatic of physical death. Its mom licked it once in the tummy and it spasmed for a while, like a baby who jerks for a bit while sleeping.

When I rushed down to look (and my mom for the second time), the sight was more sad than morbid. Kitty's mom hissed at me again and I just looked from afar. The feeling of death.

It was so limp. Now I saw in detail its small paws, with the black paw prints on it. So small and tender, almost like a teddy bear. I couldn't bear to see its distorted face. Squatting and looking at it from its back, this baby looked like it just fell asleep.

Even with so much affection, I couldn't bear to carry the baby to a grass patch away from that parking lot. It was a baby, and it was dead. I felt so uncomfortable, as if the sleeping baby had somehow turned into a morbid body in my mind. My mom, as brave as she is, cringed. She tried to lift the baby by its limp and soft tail, but picked it up on its baby paws instead.

The cleaner in our area knew what happened, and I pleaded him to leave the baby there for its parents. But he came by after we left and dumped it in his trashcart. Its dad and mom were there and came over to sniff where it died to figure out what happened...there goes a month of its mom's intense loving care and protection, and two months of growing it in the womb.

Many kittens in urban areas die within five months of being born from car accidents or trauma.

Death, what a strange thing. Jesus, will there be cats in your new Kingdom?

with my bro and his dawgs

Jamming with my bro Tim and his army friends for the first time. Tim is the guitarist on my right! The sound quality is imbalanced, but it was otherwise awesome and super fun!

This is my first time jamming in a studio, my first time singing with a rapper. Props to Aloy who actually plays guitar, but decided to rap instead since we were covering these songs.


Love the Way You Lie, Rihanna ft. Eminem
(Camel, Tim, me, Aloy, David)


Airplanes, B.O.B. ft. Hayley Williams

P.S.: I was actually singing with a throat very sore from belting very low notes for fun before that (not gonna do it again T.T). Only God can make such a hurt throat function so well!