Last Quarter 2020

It is the last quarter of 2020. In the beginning of the year I was fired up to preach about setting and achieving our goals for the new decade and coming to this final quarter, my enthusiasm has not diminished. My young teenagers' group is still going strong. My personal goal of writing another book is coming to fruition, though I am not sure whether I can get it published at the end of the year or sometime 2021. There are many considerations going into publishing a book in Sabah. As far as my book, Departure Points is concerned, I am truly glad for the feedback thus far. Within the last 12 hours, I received news from New Zealand and also a Singaporean friend who had requested a copy. He is good friend and only a few Singaporeans had opened their homes to me. When I went to visit in June 2016, he showed me his brand new 3-storey house with elevator and a swimming pool and other amenities that I have not seen in any house before. Yet a year ago when I visited Singapore, he took the trouble walking across from one MRT station to another to meet up with me for lunch. So gifting a book to him is just a small token of friendship. More blessed still is this early morning's message from former doctoral supervisor. More than a year ago I mentioned to him that I was writing a book on my ministry experience and he was very encouraging in my endeavours which at that time was just a dream without any certainty of publication. So glad tidings came as he told me that he had received my book after almost 5 months after I mailed it. The Covid-19 thing has affected everything in the world, including package delivery overseas.  

In this last quarter, my local church is having a series of meetings leading to the AGM mid-Nov when we will choose new deacons to form the Church Council for the next three years. It is in preparation for the District level AGM middle of next year and also the Denomination's AGM in Nov 2021. Sabah just elected new leaders and a new government. The church likewise needs to wise up but God's kingdom is not of this world and we choose our leaders differently. We will also know whom God has chosen if we pray long and hard enough as we see in the Gospels (Jesus prayed overnight before He chose the 12 disciples) and the early apostles did likewise before they chose Judas's replacement and also new deacons and elders everywhere as the Church expanded in the Roman world of the 1st century AD. As the Psalmist said, "You have spoken to your holy ones in a vision that I had exalted one, chosen from the people..." (Psalm 89:19).