finally can take a breathe

well done children and teens for the sport day... i really share the joy with you all...:)


time flies and it's one month since i am here. this week is a terrible week bec of project, homework and test due on friday and i thank God that it's over. doing project with multi-national students are not easy...believe me...our team has from spore (that's me) - the kiasu one...from thailand (my buddy) - the blur one because she is weak in the course and due to language barrier she didn't contribute at all....from south africa - the talk much and do less...from columbia - the one who dont care at all. students are with different attitudes to study here. Because it's a summer course, some of the students just want a pass and dun really want to put in effort. As such, i end up leading and doing most of the work. i am not a 'natural' leader but God has always put me in many situations to lead. HE surely has a purpose for me but most of the time, the purpose is fulfilled in situation that we dislike:) Nevertheless, i put in my effort to complete the project regardless whether they wanting to contribute bec the time is really short. Finally, the subject is completed and i look forward to start another new subject in july.



life is still as peaceful as it is. We went to "Henry Ford" a museum on 'vehicle' tog as a class org by our lecturer. it's an interesting place... there's a part on history on chocolate (my favorite food) and i love it. we set off in the morning and drive through Detroit. Detroit is about 80% of south african american and the place is not comparable as ann arbor. On the way back, we saw one side of Canada just separated by a lake. Planning to visit toronto and niagara falls but hope i can go. next friday is a public holiday and so have 3 days including sat and sun, so hope that we can have a short trip:)

missed my family, my friends, my teens, my 'children'. May God blessing upon you all.

did we cry out for faith to believe

Not through work but through faith we receive our salvation. Where does faith comes from? Blessing from God...So did we cry out to God for this faith from HIM to believe HIM?

an unique experience in this tranquil town

ann arbor is an university town. when i first heard of uni town, i couldnt really visualise it until i see it myself. it's a small tranquil town with uni buildings surrounding almost everywhere. most of the people here are students and bec of summer, most of them are out of town. not much activities to do here but i like this place so far- peaceful and simple.

life has been good for me so far and i thank God for the blessing. though at time stress of assignments, projects and tests. it's interesting to have classmates from different countries. with diff background and culture, we learn to get tog and study tog. sometimes, we have joke out of the way we speak. my buddy is from thailand, a nice, simple and petite girl. she is definitely my lunch mate as we share our lunch most of the times bec the portion is too big. usually, we lunch tog with few other guys from italy, brazil, south africa, chile, egypt.

tonite, we went for a movie. it's kinda of surprise to me bec it's free seating. we took a bus, about 20 mins and we reach a 'ulu' place and have to walk a bit of distant to reach there. in spore, public transport is like one step away from our destination. the public bus is considered to be quite convenient and the timing is very exact. visited their largest shopping mall "briarwood", largest supermarket "meijier" (our favourite place to buy our groceries ), art festival, first Border bookshop, art street and my neighbourhood. it's a town here and have to lower down the expectation on malls, image their shopping mall is only like first floor of raffles city.

but students here have a different life style from us. early in the morning, you will see students playing freezbi, dancing infront of the libray, sitting under the tree under hot sun studying, chatting and sitting outside coffee shop to study instead of air-con library. see the contrast...

people here friendly too. usually they will greet you "how are you doing" or "have a good one" after you have bought something from the shop. "have a good one means have a good day". almost very where there's sign on "M" stands for Michigan and it's always "blue and yellow" the color of their flag. we dont see much export goods and most of them sell things printed with 'michigan'.

i'm glad with where i stay. about 5-10 mins to my morning class. the morning walk to class is nice. afternoon class again is about 10 min from my place. most of my neighbour are uni students and only a few in bec most of them back to their home town dur summer. clean and comfortable place to stay in but too dim and got to buy a table lamp. though it's still a bit dim but i think i have adapted to it.

the weather is unpredictable. it's been quite hot in the 1st week when i came but cold for the last 2 weeks. now it's hot again. my lecturer said that this is ann arbor weather but it's kinda of unusual to be so cold this year in summer. i'm surprise too bec temperature can be as low as 12 deg celsius in summer and for past 1 week, it's been raining.

people eat a lot of mexican food, sandwiches, burger and pizza. the usual western food. usu i will cook for my dinner - porridge with chicken and lots of veg or macoroni. if i'm lazzy then i would be having instant soup and pizza. there's few asian restaurant like korean, indian and japanese but they are not fantastic.

look forward to next fri going to a ford after test...but must study first for the test:)

Thank God for the wisdom, strength, protection, joy and peace. It's God who bless me with this unique experience in ann arbor and i am really thankful.

unique encounter

this morning i went to a church just a few blocks from my apartment. It's a congregation church, member of about 800. The communion started at 930am and so i went. It was held in a small chapel, peaceful with song played by a sister. I was surprised bec back in spore, all members came tog for holy communion. but right here, there were only a handful (less than 20) was present. Perhaps bec they have holy communion every sun. Nevertheless, it was a quiet time with God.

Then at 10am, we have worship and sermon. There were not many people, perhaps about 100. Today it's Father Day and there's an invited band "Cherry Hill Brothers". Again, the worship is not like one I had in Spore. Only 2 hymns were sang ("Faith of our Fathers", "Lord, dismiss us with blessing"). No one clapping, dancing or singing in holy spirit. But only standing and singing the hymns. Then, the pastor invites all the little children infront of the altar and they sing in circle (Children's Circle). The pastor has a short message "Be the light" with them. Telling them to be a light for Jesus and we as parents will support, love, care and help them to be the light. It was warm hearted. Short, sweet and memoriable moments for the children and parents. Afterwhich the children left for kids scripture school while we continue to worship.

The pastor pearched (not much) on Jonah. He asked us to ponder on "how we live in faith community? How marvelous and uncondition relationship we have from God. " He will continue to pearch on this sermon the next week.

It's a simple and peaceful worship. No special lighting, sound effect, videoing, dancing. No special need to purposely ask for holy spirit (anyway, it's always presence with us). No emotional stirring. But peaceful and loving, warm-hearted and quietly in the presence of God.