My Favourite Teacher

I was teaching in Sunday School yesterday. The lesson was about Jesus feeding the 5,000 hungry people.

There were 13 children yesterday and half of them are new, and the other half are the old ones.

It's difficult to "control" these children by myself! My assistant (LK) was away on a business trip and I am clueless how a teacher in scholl can keep a class of 30 to 40 small children (7 to 8 years old) in control.

Anyway, I let them play with word puzzle. Some of them are really serious in doing it by themselves and some of them gave up quite easily. They are proud when the have found one of the words in the list and imagine so many of them keep on announcing to me they are one step closer to completing it!

"Well done!" "Good job!" "Keep it up!" "Come on, don't give up" "Very good, try looking for the next one" "Here is the answer"...those are the words I said...

In spite of all these "noise and chaos", one girl came to me and said, "Teacher, did you know that you are my favourite Sunday School teacher?"

Wow...I'm so glad to hear that =) This little girl, I can still remember the first time she entered my class. She was so shy and was reluctant to come into the class because, according to her mom, I looked like her school teacher.

It made my day to know that I'm her favourite. And as I continue to teach Sunday School, I hope that I will in some small little ways make an impact on their walk with Jesus.


It's a great thing to serve the Lord;
WL

God, are you being funny now?

With that title, I am not complaining because it is a "nice" joke.
It thrills me, but at the same time, it is difficult to make the decision.

I prayed to God for something..
And so it was answered…and it was abundant.

After that, it was a waiting period…a long time waiting until I thought that things would be status quo. In between, the first prayer was still being answered when I thought that God has finished answering.

I was waiting for the next process to eventuate. It never came until today, when I finally get some response.

Today is the 2nd week of the financial month and it is the most relaxing week of the month. Not many people is around in office, so things are quite slow going and can be quite boring too.

My first half of the day is mundane.

Things started to get electrifying (I do get a lot of mini shocks when I touch metal stuff nowadays) after lunch. Second prayer is getting answered at about 2pm, and then still receiving 1st prayer answer!

All this is in the midst of a company crisis (you may have guessed what this prayer is about). I would say God's timing is so perfect, but now I need to pray again for the wisdom to make the right decision.

Prayer is really powerful. I just tell God what concerns I have and He has been faithful in answering them, though not immediately all the time.

LK is also my answered prayer. The main difference is that, God only send me one answer that time. And no delayed answer!

If there were more answers, it would be another problem!

Oh God, You are almighty, all powerful…and also humorous!

WL

Happy Chinese New Year!!

All the way from Linkoping, Sweden, Blessed Chinese New Year!!!

This year is suppose to be our first CNY together as husband and wife. However, due to work, LK has to come here and I tag along a little later.

So, today being the second day of CNY..it does not feel like CNY at all! Seriously, in Linkoping, there are not many asians seen around here. Except for some cooks from Hong Kong =)

Well, we'll blog more (I think) when we go back and we'll also put up some photos.


WL

Late Night Road Works!

As some might notice, there is usually a height barrier placed before entering a small tunnel, just to ensure your vehicle height doesn't exceed the height of the tunnel. It is usually a big piece of metal barrier. This afternoon/evening, something/someone broke the barrier near my place in KJ. My suspect will be a truck, which is too high, ramming into the barrier (rare but I've seen it happening).

Just a while ago (~1.15am), the road works people came and fix it. This is rather fast, as when the barrier came down on previously, it took them a few days to fix it.

Another new year has arrived

Should have posted this yeaterday, so that this post will be dated 1st Jan 2009.

Anyway, Happy New Year 2009!!!

We did not got for any countdown...just at home, but it was nice to be able to watch the fireworks right in our very own balcony!!

From our balcony, we can see many fireworks (sorry, we didnt take any pics) and each fireworks do not start at the same time. Some fireworks only started after another firework has finished.

Well, that is all for the new year's first post. Hope that 2009 will be as fun as 2008, if not even more fun and exciting!! Oh yeah, I can already feel the fun and excitement as I type this =)

WL

Wei Li's solo adventure to Glasgow - Part 2: Howzitgaun?

It's good to finally be in Glasgow after a long journey. The weather was cool...no, it was COLD...

The first thing to do is to get to my accommocation and park my luggage there. My sister and I went to the bus stop. Since we will be spending about 1 week here, we bought a weekly bus ticket that costs £13.50 per person for unlimited rides (for a week, of course).

The bus conductor said something to us, and I didn't managed to grasp what he said. Before I even replied "I beg your pardon", my sister already replied. Wow! She can understand the Glaswegian English accent?

We arrived at the Buchanan's Bus Station and being lazy to walk and wanted to maximize the bus ticket's worth we decided to take another bus that will take us right to our accomodation.

It was weird, after a while in the bus, we felt that we were on the way back to the airport again. My sister suggested that we get off the bus, wherever we may be and just to take the taxi to the hostel.

But when we alighted from the bus, my sister saw a familiar landmark..and thank God it was no too far away from where we were.



We saw Jury's Inn from far, and the place we stayed is Euro Hostel. This is a very practical place to stay for travellers. It's cheap, has a clean bathroom, comfy double decker beds (sharing with my sister) and pay TV.



Sorry for the unclear picture. It was taken with my handy camera phone at night in the hostel room. As you may have guessed it, the room is dimly lighted.

So, about the TV.. You need to put in £1 in the TV coin box compartment and your TV will turn on for 15 hours. If you decided to turn it off after 3 hours of TV time, then be prepared to say bye bye to the remaining 12 hours as well. There is no CNN, no Discovery Channel, etc, etc. It's purely 5 UK local channels and most of the programs does not interest me.

There is no need for an air cond, not a fan in our room. It was almost winter time in November 2008, so it does not really matter. There is heater in the room, but the heater is not strong enough..cannot control it either..But I am the kind of person who rather feel cold than to be hot =)

There is no fridge in the rooms, but residents are allowed to use the common fridge in the pantry. Yeah, there is a common pantry and hostellites are allowed to cook their own meal if they wish.



This is the common dining room and the pantry is not visible in this photo.

Oh, we did buy some of our own food stuff and we depended on the outside air temperature to "preserve" our food.



My favourite pure premium orange juice, some brussel sprout at the background...they didn't go bad at all!

So, this is so much for the place where I stayed with my sister. It's cheap, provides all the basic needs and is located at a strategic place. After all, visitors would spend most of their time outdoors and will only come back to clean up and sleep, yeah?

WL

Wei Li's solo adventure to Glasgow - Part 1: The Quest to find the Cheapest Ticket and on the way there

Mid of November 2008, I went to Glasgow to "bring my sister back"..hehe..

Actually it is a multipurpose trip. It's for me to go for a holiday in Glasgow (the last time I was in UK, I only sleep a night there and there was no chance to explore the city), for me to help my sister to bring back some of her things, for shopping (the best part of the trip!) and etc etc...

It's a solo adventure without LK =P

It was sort of a last minute decision to go to Glasgow, due to my health condition 2 or 3 weeks earlier. After making decison to "just do it", I was busy looking for the best priced ticket.

Glasgow being a less popular overseas holiday destination, there was no direct flight to Glasgow Airport from KLIA. I went to a few airline website to check for cheapest tickets (MAS, Thai Airways, KLM, AirFrance, SIA, Emirates, and a few others which I have forgotten the names). So, guess which one offers the best rates?

I did try to ask travel agents, but surprisingly, I found that KLM offers the lowest price. Bought my online ticket and also called the local KLM ticket office to ensure that my seat is really booked. I will be flying with MAS airline for about 15 hours to Schipol Internatiol Airport in Amsterdam and will transit for about 3 hours before flying with KLM to Glasgow International Airport.

During the flight to Amsterdam, it was a really pleasant journey. I get the whole row to myself and the flight is not even half full. I watched Mamma Mia for the 2nd time during the flight, as there were not many movies that interest me. I also try to catch as much sleep as possible as I will be arriving in Glasgow at about 10.30am in the morning.

During my sleep, I did wake up a few times due to dehydration and asked for some fruit juice. The outside temperature was the lowest when I was flying over Russia and the air inside the plane is really dry.

I arrived in Schipol airport at 5am plus local time. Malaysia is 7 hours ahead of Amsterdam. This is the only shot I took of the airport with my handy 2.0 megapixel handphone, "passed down" from LK.



How did I pass 3 hours? Window shopping, reading newspaper, listening to my MP3s... Then I was thirsty..Went to McD and bought a bottle of Lipton's Iced Lemon Tea for EUR 3! It's pricey, even for the locals I would think.

Before going to the departure gate, I went to the KLM's self check in kiosk, confirmed my check in status and reselected my seat. At the gate, there were so many people sitting around the walkway. There is no chair for passengers to sit before they are allowed to go into the departure hall. It's quite an eye sore actually..And there were so many people queuing up.

Thank God it was a short flight, and it was a nice one as well. When I was already in the terminal and was walking into the luggage collection place, I felt very cold. So I went into the ladies and put on another shirt. Thank God once again, my sister is coming to "pick" me and bring me a warm jacket.


WL