testimony

I have a great testimony to share with you guys!

It is something that happened recently which really put my faith to test and from this experience I learned the power of Praise and Prayer, the ultimate weapon.

Last Friday, my dad send an email telling me that my mum has a re occurrence of breast cancer. *Tips: Never jump into conclusion until confirmed by medical report.* It was the most dreadful moment as I read through the sentence over and over again, just to make sure I had not mistaken any words. I called my mum and she told me that she felt a lump at the same spot where she had the tumor excision few years ago. She went for mammogram and was still waiting for the result. It is so not true when people said studying medicine can help reduce fear because you know better medically. In fact you felt worse because you know the odds. The literature said re occurrence after local excision without LN involvement is 15% in the next five years. 15% might seemed relatively low but when you felt a lump at exactly the same spot, the human pessimistic instinct kicks in and amplifies it to 115% to the worst case scenario. My mum was optimistic however, she said it could be a fibroadenoma and she still believes that God has healed her 4 years ago. If just so happened that I came across the blog of an old friend who has lost her mum through breast cancer a few months ago. And another friend of mine who wrote on facebook how he missed his mum after she too had die from cancer few years ago. I did a few literature search on recurrence of breast cancer and most of them indicates increased risk if patient is obese and smoking, which my mum is not. I felt anger of how unfair this is, my mum tried all she can to stay healthy and yet she fall into that 15%. (Already, I am making up my mind towards that direction). That night, I have a really long talk to God (mainly the why why why). On Sunday, He gave me three words - faith, pray and praise.

"...if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

When Paul and Silas were imprisoned, they prayed and sang hymns. Suddenly there was an earthquake and the prison doors flew open.

I started to praise God and thank Him the healing that he already has done few years ago. Today, I received the news about the report of the mammogram. Apparently the lump is a surgical scar from previous operation. See, God is telling me to have faith even as small as a mustard seed because our God is a faithful God. =)

With everything, I'll shout forth Your glory

I believe in the Healer.
I believe in the power of prayer.
He is the God of grace.
He is the God of love.
Let hope rise and darkness tremble in the Holy ground.

Sometimes we never think of things that might tear half of your soul away until it happens. It never came across my mind until I read two of my friends' blog. It's distressing because I felt their pain. It will happen one day but I declare that it will not be soon, not even in the next 10 years. Because it is going to be a living testimony. The devil might try but my God is victorious. I will shout forth Your glory and praise You in the storm.

The Unprofessional

Guess what?!
I'm in a band! And the name of the band is *drum roll* The Unprofessional.
Ok ok, I know the name sounds lame but this is how it started...

One of my mate from class saw an advertisement about music studio to rent, $10 per session, max 5 hours. So we decided to have a jamming session. There's four of us, a lead singer, a bassist/techies, an electric guitarist and a drummer (me =DD). Apparently the 'music-studio' is a modified room in a student flat. But still we were impressed of how comprehensive the 'studio' is. They have up to 10 different type of music instruments including a grand piano, an acoustic drum set with double kick pedals, some traditional south american ( i think) woodwinds and percussion set, harmonica, and of course bass, electric guitars and amplifiers. The person in charge is either from south America or middle east.

"Hi, my name is Sxxxx (too complicated to pronounce). So you guys in a band huh?"

"Oh no, we are the unprofessionals".

"Oh, The Unprofessional huh? Cool."

I think he must have mistaken us there. But anyway, that's how the name of our band started.

We practised three songs in total. Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, To be With You by Mr. Big and Better Man by Robbie William.

We have a bit of trouble in the beginning because we really are the unprofessionals...sounded like a mess of cymbals, distortions from elec g, and the bassist was louder than everybody else. Haha, makes me appreciate the hardwork that canai had put in as music leader. Took us a while to get in sync to each other. We even videotaped our final run through. That was funky fun.

Had a massive beef burger at a Greek restaurant for lunch today. Very pricey for a burger too. The mocha was awesome. Turns out the girl who served at the counter is Anna from Studholme. I remembered she mentioned before that she is a Greek and that the restaurant is a family owned business. This is such a small world.

Living with big cats just a stone throw away

During the spring break, I went to the zoo, AGAIN. But this time I realised something interesting...
Right behind the 'pride rock' is somebody's house and back yard! According to the zoo keeper, the lions spend more than half of their time 'sun bathing' at the pride rock while enjoying the view of somebody's backyard. Well, apparently that's not just what they could see, from where this lioness lays, she can view the city of Wellington right down to the wharf. They might even be counting humans and cars during their bored time, which is pretty much every day. Somehow it just felt wrong. Cause they should belong to the savanna, counting zebras on top of a REAL pride rock, like this...
If you were a lion, would you prefer mountains and lands stretching beyond the horizon or somebody's back yard?

Home finally

There. I've make the click. I'm going home to Malaysia. Finally. On the 3rd of December to 29 of Jan.