Sukkot's Blessings

Since yesterday, despite my body's frailty in the past few days, my soul rejoices in the Lord for it is the Festival of Sukkot (Tents). I am reminded of how short this life is and how transient everything is and that our permanent home is not here and on earth we live only in tents as symbolised by the sukkah. In fact, literally I was ready to move again, despite not even fulfilling one Semester. If the Lord bids, I will go and follow closely behind Him. That's the only sure way to heaven for where He is, there His servant shall be. But before He calls, I will stay where I am as long as His presence is still here with me. In the book of Numbers 33, the Israelites' travels were summarised as "departure points" (hence, the title of my memoirs) with Israel stopping at 33 places and moving on, and then 7 or 8 more places still before they crossed the river Jordan.

Final Month of Lectures & New Courses for 2024

The month of October is the final month of lectures before exams in the final week and graduation the first Saturday of November. Students who are graduating take their exams early so that their grades could be submitted a couple of weeks before graduation. It has been a hectic three months of lectures and including the month of June where I relocated and prepared my lessons and now coming into my 5th month of work I felt I needed a long holidays.

There is a Time for Everything

It's never too late. God is never too early or too late. He is the creator of time and there is a time for everything and for every purpose on earth. I was looking at my blog's readers this afternoon and I came across two blogposts I wrote. One was on the 1st July 2014, the day after my 6-year tenure at TTC in Singapore ended and I was on my way back to Sabah on that day. In fact, it took me more than 3 months after that before I finally settled down in Sabah. But on the 1st July I was a free agent again, hence the title of the blogspot and I have lived a life of faith, trusting in the Lord. My appointment in Sabah only came on 1st Nov 2014 and my new position started 1st Jan 2015 in Ranau. A second blogpost with a photo of my church in Ranau taken perhaps in November but the blogpost was dated 2nd December 2015.

My Next Book could be on Leadership

I was driving back from home to my place of work in s rare excursion this noon and as I was driving and stuck in traffic jam I could reflect a best part of my ministry and what and which part of it bore much fruits or many fruits. What was the key and what was I doing then? It dawned on me that all the "successes" I could be proud of was due to me holding a leadership position directly in charge of the ministry that bore the fruits thereof. Hence, the key to productivity or fruitfulness is leadership. I remember a former church member spoke to me after a year I left my church in Ranau and she told me that I brought much welcome change during my one-year stint as pastor.

One Month Ago

Exactly one month ago, I began the task of compiling my essays and sermons for publication. I am pleased to inform my readers that everything is done and now it is in the process of printing which may take a week to 10 days before being shipped across the ocean to where I am now in Kota Kinabalu. It has been a whirlwind kind of work taking advantage of the one-week mid Semester break late August to early September. My not going to Korea with my colleagues has proven fruitful, as I never planned to publish anything this year with a full-load of four courses a week teaching from Tuesday to Friday. I look forward to the end of October when lectures cease with a couple of exams and then more marking of assignments which I will do in November, at least the first two weeks before taking a short break.

Book Manuscript with the Printers

It's done. It's a relief after more than three and a half weeks of hard work, many early morning hours and late nights, my Collection of Essays and Sermons is on its way to its printers and the printing process should only take about 10 days before being shipped across the South China Sea onward to Kota Kinabalu. I was told depending on the shipping schedule it may take up to 5 weeks, making it too close to call whether my book will arrive in time for the Seminary's graduation on the 4th November. Nevertheless, it is out of my hands now and all I can do is pray that the book will see the light of day by the first few days of the month of November. It's not just the graduation but my preaching ministry starts afresh in the 2nd week of November right up to Christmas Day on the 25th December.

Another New Book

In the midst of some of the most intense preparation for lectures and 11 hours of lectures a week I managed to compile a series of essays, four of which I wrote from 2020-2022 and the main essay on theological education in Sabah on the occasion of Sabah's 60th Independence Day within Malaysia that fell on Saturday 16th Sept 2023. In my essay I wrote about what I would like to see happen the theological education landscape for the next 10 years in time for Sabah's big 70th Malaysia Day in 2033.

Justice for Djokovic

I feel sports. I was filled with emotions when I watched the World Athletics in Budapest three weeks ago. But nothing beats this morning when about 7.40am local time, I found out that Novak Djokovic won the US Open for his 24th Grand Slam. I watched the Australia Open saga early 2022 and what injustice done to Novak and Nadal actually overtook Novak for the Grand Slam tally that year. But now Djokovic is two clear of Nadal and 4 clear of Federer. Justice for Djokovic. But this does not take away the beauty of the game. Some remarkable matches though I only watched the 3 min highlights produced by US Open organisers. Djokovic said that every day every week, he tried to do something better, to play better and to stay ahead of others. If spiritually speaking, do we have such desire to develop spiritually?

Cost of Printing Books

In the past couple of years, I had been praying that I would find a printer that is quick, cheap and reliable in terms of quality and delivery of product, namely the book which I want to print. I may have found the printing company, by God's grace. Though, the word, "cheap" only applies if one prints 1,000 copies which I will not take on, because I will print at the most 500 copies. I printed 225 copies of Galatians and all the books are sold out. I am planning to print another 200 copies, maybe early next year. But I need to finish this current project, a collection of essays and sermons.

A Nation is a Born in a Day & a Book is Produced in a Week

There is this prophetic verse that a nation will be born in a day. In fact, it is framed as a question: "Can a nation be born in a day?" Of course not! But with God nothing is impossible and the nation of Israel, in 1948 was born in a day. Can a book be produced in a week? Of course not! But with God nothing is impossible. I have worked easily 70 hours in the past week to edit my collection of essays for publication and I am ready to do so. All I need is to get two proof readers and I hope they can read my book within a week and return to me for further checking and then off it goes to the printers. Initially, I was planning for an early November date on graduation, but I might get it out before the teaching Semester ends by the third week of October. I do hope that some of my students will buy it for their holidays' reading. My friend just told me when people are about to retire, they tend to work less. I told him otherwise as I plan to work doubly hard in my last decade of working life into my 70 years of age.

One Week is Over, book is nearly Done

The past week has been one of the busiest times of my life. Yes, I am editing a book for publication - 6 essays and 6 sermons with only three sermons and one essay in English. It is a Malay book but I thought I include a sample of English sermons to encourage my readers to pick up proficiency in the language. For a whole week I read through all the essays and made corrections.