December 5, 2011

11月27日傍晚从西马赶回来，那晚只睡了约四个小时，凌晨六点半就要赶到运动场主持蒙福欢乐家庭日。。。
拖着疲惫的身躯和半清醒的头脑，这不是很容易的一件事，我求神给我力量，能充满活力与兴奋的带领大家同欢乐！

I rushed back on the evening of Nov 27th from West Malaysia, slept for barely four hours that night, and had to rush to the sports ground at 6:30am to take charge of our Blessed Family Fun day…
Dragging my weary body and half asleep mind, it was no easy feat, I prayed to God for strength that I could be full of life and excitement to lead everyone to rejoice together!

老实说，要逼自己爬起来不是很容易的一件事；身体和精神都很累时，要兴奋起来也不简单。。。
可是当你抵达时，看到这些美丽的脸孔，你什么疲惫都会消失的无影无踪了！

Honestly, to force yourself to get up was not an easy thing; and to try to get excited when your body and mind were both exhausted was not a simple thing too…
But when you arrived there and saw these beautiful faces, all your weariness would vanish into thin air straight away!

我们教会可以算是“很忙碌”，很多节目与活动的教会。。。无论是给老人家、成人、青少年、小孩，我们都尽量举办一些活动让大家有归属感，有机会互相认识，开开心心成为一家人。。。
看大家天刚亮，就很兴奋的集聚等候。。。

Our church can be considered as one that is “very busy” with many programmes and activities… whether for the elderly, adults, youths and young people, children, we do try our best to organize some activities to make everyone feel belonged, to have an opportunity to know each other, and to joyfully become one family…
See everyone, at the break of dawn, gathering and waiting together excitedly…

 

有这样的教会，你能不感动而为他们努力吗？
With a church like this, can you not be touched and working hard for them?

December 4, 2011

那天，11月28日（星期一），教会老老少少一早就集聚在千禧运动场，大家为着蒙福家庭欢乐日感到兴奋。除了一些赛跑项目，也有各组游戏比赛。通常在这种日子，你会看到弟兄姊妹们一般上你看不到的一面，真的可以破冰与促进感情交流！

That day, November 28th (Mon), young and old from church gathered very early at Jubilee Ground, everybody was excited about Blessed Family Fun Day. Apart from some running events, we also had games competitions for groups. Normally during occasion like this, you could see the sides of brothers and sisters which otherwise you would not see at some other time. It was really an ice-breaker and it really fostered closer relationship!

这一天，我们注意到一个小英雄。。。
That day, we noticed a little hero…

 

四岁小男孩，除了长得那么可爱，还有什么其它东西那么特别呢？
让人很惊讶的，他竟然参加男子组800米公开赛！
有注意到他在那里吗？那些大人也真够坏心，竟然把他挤到最外面一圈！！
工作人员也很坏心！
Little 4-year old boy, apart from having a cute look, what else is there so special about him?
Very surprisingly, he actually took part in the 800m male open race!
Can you see where he is? How terrible of those adults to squeeze him to the outer most circle!!
The volunteer workers were also so bad!

 

开跑之前，他很专心的听哥哥的指示。。。
Before running, he listened very carefully to big brother’s instruction…

 

然后他就很认真的凝视着前方。。。你看他满脸的斗志！
你一定在想，他一定跑一下就停了，哪有可能跑完两圈！
Then he looked at the distance ahead with such seriousness… look at that determination on his face!
You must be thinking, he wold surely stop after running a while, there was no way he could finish running two rounds!

 

你可不要搞错，这不知谁家的小孩，他可不轻言放弃！
你看下面一张，他虽然落在人后，他还是追赶上来！
Make no mistake! This little wonder-whose-kid-he-is, has got real guts to not give up easily!
Look at the picture below, though he was falling behind, he was still trying to catch up!

 

请再看他怎样一步一步超越他前面的大人和大哥哥，那可是第二圈的时候！
哇，真的是太厉害了！
Please see how he overtook the adult and older kids in front of him step by step, and that was the second round!
Boy, that was so very impressive!

 

而且刚才指示他的哥哥已经跑到很痛苦了，他却还充满冲劲！
And the older brother brother who instructed him just now was already agonizing and yet he was still running full force!

 

最终他终于得着胜利和如雷掌声。。。
Finally he was triumphant and received thunderous applause…

 

当然马上有一群粉丝涌上来，争着要与他拍照。。。
可是我看得出，在这里，他很痛苦。。。
And of course immediately a swarm of fans fought to take photos with him…
But I can see, here, he is really suffering…

November 17, 2011

 

其实禁食，特别是长时间的禁食，并不是一件想要做就能做的事；其实我相信，按肉体来想，没有人会喜欢禁食的。
这一次，在神还没感动我和给我力量禁食40天之前，我无法想象那40天毫无食物的日子，甚至会“怕”上帝会不会再感动我禁食40天。。。
可是时间一到，这些顾虑都是多余的！不知不觉40天早已过去了，我们也已恢复正常的饮食生活。

Actually fasting, especially long period of fasting, is not something you can just do it when you think you want to do it. In fact I believe, by our flesh, nobody likes to fast.
This time, before God convicted me and gave me the strength to fast for 40 days, I could not imagine at all without food for 4o days, and actually I was also kind of “afraid” as to wheher God would convict me to fast for 40 days again…
But when the time came, all these concerns were really unnecessary! Without realizing, 40 days have already gone by, and we have also resumed our normal eating and drinking lifestyle.

 

我们这一次采取逐渐性的禁法，前面29天还可以喝汤和果汁，最后11天只喝白开水，但很多人过不了最后11天白开水的那一关。。。
就连我自己，最后3天才真正全然白开水，前面几天白开水里偶尔还会加一点葡萄糖补充体力。

This time we took the gradual fast approach, we were still taking soup and juice in the beginning 29 days, only the last 11 days did we take plain water only, but many failed the plain water only for 11 days test…
Even I myself, I only took totally plain water in the last 3 days as I still added some glucose into my water before that to give me some energy.

有时候我们禁食采取只吃素的禁法，就只吃蔬菜和水果，那时就会发现原来吃惯了的肉是何等奢侈。。。
然后我们有时候采取，不只吃素，也禁淀粉之类的食物如：饭、面类、蛋糕和面包等，那时就发现淀粉类食物真是何等奢侈。。。
若全禁食物，就发现蔬菜和水果何等奢侈。。。
只可喝白开水时，又发现汤啦、热饮啦、果汁啦，都是何等奢侈。。。

Sometimes for fasting, we take the vegetarian fast, eating only fruit ad vegetables, during such a time, we would realize the meat we are so used to is such a luxury…
Then sometimes we not only go vegetarian, we stop eating starchy food too like rice, noodles, cakes and bread etc, in times like those, we would realize starchy food is such a luxury…
If we fast all food totally, we would realize fruit and vegetables are such luxury items…
When it is only drinking plain water, we would discover soup, hot drinks and fruit juice are so luxurious…

所谓”奢侈“，是指那些对我们原本很平常的食物饮料，变成我们“得不到”的东西。。。
原来禁食能够让你发现，我们其实是活在何等蒙福及”奢侈“的生活当中啊！我们的“饿”是出于自己自愿的选择，时间过了，马上又可以恢复与享受我们“奢侈”的生活；可是这世界有多少人却是毫无选择的日复一日、年复一年的肚子，毫无终止。。。原来在很多地方，一杯干净的白开水何尝也不是何等奢侈吗？

主啊，让我们不再抱怨生活困苦，让我们学习感恩及享受你给我们的一切。。。

“并且人人吃喝，在他一切劳碌中享福。这也是神的恩赐。”
～ 传道书3:13 ～

The so-called “luxury” is referring to food and drinks that are so ordinary to us normally becoming something we cannot get…
Fasting can indeed make you realize, we are actually living in such a luxurious and blessed life! Our “hunger” is our own voluntary choice, and when the time has passed, we can immediately return to and enjoy our “luxurious” lifestyle, where as there are so many people in this world who do not have a choice but are hungry day after day and year after year without ending… In actual fact, in many places, a glass of clean water is also very luxurious to them!

O lord, help us not to complain about life being tough again, teach us to be grateful and to enjoy all that You have given us…

“That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:13 ~