Rev 12:11 says this:-

"They overcame him (the enemy) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death."

God’s really been so good to us and we want to testify to that.

Firstly, we are so thankful that we got our NZ working visas in record time! Less than 10 days! It’s amazing. We were planning to submit our visas in NZ before we left for Vanuatu. However, when we went all the way to Hamilton (1 hr from Matamata where we lived) to the NZ embassy, they told us that they couldn’t promise us our visas in time before we left for Vanuatu and we needed our passports to travel, etc etc…. long story and finally James felt the Lord saying to wait so we didn’t submit it in NZ.

Turns out that it’s so much easier to do it back here in Singapore. In fact, on the NZ embassy Singapore website, I found out that they actually state that they understand the urgency of the visas and they try their best to get it proceesed in 10 days if all the supporting documents are in place. Singapre my homeland, I love how efficient we are! Also turns out that they needed more supporting documents etc Certificate of No Criminal Record (ya, we now certified we got no criminal record, don’t scared), Marriage Cert (which was stuffed somewhere in our backroom in our old house!) and even our DTS cert! Soooooooo thank God we did it here, if not, it’ll have been a hassle trying to find these documents while we were in NZ.

So yes! We got a three year working visa for NZ as missionaries! Woo hoo! Praise God!

Secondly, YWAM is a faith-based organisation which simply means it’s fully volunteer work and we do not receive salary. We have to raise our own support. Actually we learn to trust God to raise our support. So by faith, James and I decided to draw up a financial plan to work out how much we will need a month (minus our outreach fees which are one offs). So we came up with a figure C. We know that our rental income will provide us with figure A so we had to trust God for the remaining figure B (A+B=C). The amazing thing was as we were sharing with the church abt what we were going to do, they decided to adopt us as Missions Associates, as part of the missions department. In this scheme of support, they work out a sum to support missionaries with a sum for adults and a sum for children. When they gave us the acceptance letter and told us the amount, we added up the figures for 2 adults and 1 child, it was exactly, guess what?, figure B! It was such a God moment for us. God knows our every need and He who calls, is FAITHFUL.

We are really thankful for the signs that God is with us and He is going ahead of us. We are also so thankful for all the support from our family and friends in terms of friendship, prayer and even financially.

As most know, we’re preparing to return to Crystal Springs YWAM base in NZ to serve for a year. In fact, we leave tomorrow night!!! We’ll spend a week in Brisbane with my mum, bro n his family and sis and we’ll fly directly to NZ after.

We’ve been so busy doing stuff and meeting up with people that I haven’t had much time to write a significant blog post about this. I prefer to update our friends face to face so this post is primarily for our family and friends overseas.

YES! We’re going back to NZ!!!!

We really like it there and we wanna go deeper as a family in knowing and serving God.

We’re going to serve as staff on the next Family/Crossroads Discipleship Training School (DTS) this July and Family Ministries School (FMS) in Jan next year. In each school, the lecture phase runs for 12 weeks and then the outreach phase runs for 4-8 weeks. As staff, we’ll be required to be responsible for one-on-ones, small groups, leading worship and intercession and the usual work duties and base maintenance. Normally in each school, the staff to student ratio is 1 to 2. James and I will probably be assigned 1 or 2 students as one on ones. The base is very family friendly so James and I can serve at the same time while Sophie is in daycare in the mornings and occasionally in the afternoons.

Please keep us in prayer as we enter into this new season of our lives serving as a family. We are really excited. More stories in the next few posts.

For more info about Family DTS and FMS, look here.

This morning I made the greatest boo boo of my entire life as a mother.

Yesterday, Summer che che gave Sophie a Chupa Chup lollipop.

It was in my bag and I thought Sophie forgot about it when we got home last night……….and so, I THREW IT AWAY coz I generally try to avoid giving Sophie lollipops.

This morning, all of a sudden, Sophie asked,

"Where is the lollipop Summer che che gave me yesterday?"

Oops! Sigh…. can’t lie right? So I told her,

"I threw it away."

And she burst into tears and said,

"But Mummy it’s so special! Summer che che gaaaaaaaaave it to meeeeeeeeee."

And then I tried to come up with some stupid excuse and then she said the same thing again. It was at that point that my heart crashed and I realised that it actually meant so much to her!!!!!! Aiyoooooooo big boo boo. I thought she’ll just forget and it’s just another lollipop. Sigh… I had to make amends and offered to buy her another one but she didn’t want, she only wanted it because it was given to her by Summer che che. Sigh…..I felt so bad!!!!!!! But in the end, I still bought her one and told her that we’ll try to go to Summer che che’s house again.

Ok I think I really need to learn to RESPECT my little one. She might be little but she has big thoughts and big dreams.

Sophie and her godbro, Chris having breakfast. She’ll do whatever he does. He’s 7.

Dearest Sophie,

You’ve really been enjoying yourself being back here in Singapore the past month. You’re enjoying your grandparents’ love and attention, loving the food and hanging out with your old friends.

Some things that you’re going through this season:-

You’re going thru this funny stage when you are quite reluctant to say hi or bye to strangers and even look at them but you generally warm up after a while. It’s generally hard to get you to do things that you don’t wanna do unless we spent time talking to you way before hand. Oh and you don’t like us to talk loudly or laugh loudly with our friends.

You are not fussy about the clothes you wear and will wear what I choose but………….. shoes……….. oh that’s a different matter altogether…… You love your shoes and so far, we noticed that you are able to match them to your clothes! Haha!

You really love animals and are very gentle with them. You love to cuddle them, touch them and feed them. I hope at some point we can have a dog although that will be a great breakthru for mummy. But daddy and I think you’ll do well with a doggy so you can read this a few years later and make a claim for it.

You love babies too. Every chance you have, you’ll want to cuddle or hold them.

You love to sing and here are some videos (1 Sophie Singing Jesus Loves The Little Children in 3 Languages, 2 Sophie Singing On the Streets of China) to remember that in the future. You make up songs to familiar tunes and are starting to tell stories!

Here is the first story you made up entirely on your own and told me (5th June) -

Kulios the bear, jump jump jump, on orange juice muddy puddles, went home to tell his mummy that he jumped on the puddles and thump thump thump. Mummy said you can jump on the puddles.

So cute lah! It probably all started in Vanuatu when you got tired of listening to Jesus Loves Me before you sleep and started asking for songs about coconuts and flowers and Daddy and I had to make up songs and stories.

You are also starting to imitate our long prayers. Here’s your longest one on your own thus far (this is roughly what you said, not word for word): -

Dear Jesus, I pray for Auntie Wan Lin. Protect her. Please bless her. When she is in matamata. Help her. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.

We’re praying that the Lord will raise you up to be a mighty prayer warrior. Remember that the Lord listens to you and He will answer your prayers and talk to you.

Learning wise, Mummy hasn’t spent much time teaching you your ABCs and 123s in the past few months but we’ve no doubt you’ll catch up. You can’t really recognise the alphabets at this point. You are able to count up to about 6 things now but struggle to recognise the numbers. Funny to hear you negotiating with us when we say "Only 2." and you say "3?". Oooo your conversational Mandarin has improved leaps and bounds since we’ve been to China! You’re able to speak in sentences now. Very simple but we’re very happy about that. You’ve got a good grip on the pencil and I think you are able to some tracing soon. So fun!

It’s been great fun growing with you and teaching you about life. Our prayer is that you will grow to love people and learn to serve and care for them as your heavenly Father does. May the Lord widen your heart little one.

Love
Mummy

A photo for the season, Sophie loves her durians!

"You are the best daddy of the world!" Sophie said, with a little coaching…

Really, James, you are the best daddy ever, you never stop short of giving what Sophie wants or needs.

We love you so much and are really thankful for you. Happy Father’s Day!

P/s Sophie wanted to make handprints on the pillar and Daddy is always there to do whatever with her. He’s the BEST! And Daddy’s shoulders, she rests.

One thing I really missed was the zoo. I really really like the Singapore Zoo. The upgraded kids section called Rainforest Kidzworld just made it all the better. One thing that James and I always comment to each other about the Singapore zoo - It feels like we’re walking through the park with animals. It’s built based on a open concept. I got this from the zoo’s website:-

"The Singapore Zoo is a model of the `open zoo’ concept. The animals are kept in spacious, landscaped enclosures, separated from the visitors by dry or wet moats. The moats are concealed with vegetation or dropped below the line of vision. In the case of dangerous animals such as leopards and jaguars which can climb very well, moat barriers are not used. Instead, these animals are housed in beautifully landscaped glass-fronted enclosures. Oppressive cages which typify old zoos, are absent. The end result is a feeling of openness."

So armed with my mum’s corporate card which admits 4 for free, we brought Claire to the zoo! Gin and Wan Lin joined us as well.

We got to see the White Tigers which we missed the last time. Yes, the same tigers that killed a man last year! Ooo but they are so beautiful….

The other thing we did was to feed the giraffes coz Sophie really wanted to feed something.

Sophie also got to pat a miniature horse at the Kidzworld but she got a shock when it shook its head. But I think she has a thing for horses.

Most of all, Sophie enjoyed just hanging out with her best friend, Evan. Btw, this is the coolest buggy/stroller/pram for 2 (or in this case, 3) I’ve seen! Eli is on the other side sitting on the pram.

Sophie’s first ride on these things.

She normally just sits in these things but is too afraid to have it move and she doesn’t really like loud music but this time round, she saw someone else do it and asked to try. She enjoyed it and she had a go at it three times, once before dinner and twice after.

It’s really nice to see her enjoy different experiences but I’m glad she didn’t ask to go on the carousel at the zoo which cost $3! Hiak! Hmmm maybe if we get our own ride on machine on the base, we might even make some money! Idea!

Btw, what do they call these things? Ride ons? Slot machines? Tell me?

I was really sleepy one morning (yes, I was awake but still sleepy) and Sophie was playing with the playdough.

She came up to me and asked,

"What shall I make?"

So I didn’t think and said,

"Why don’t you make a car?"

And then I fell asleep (like really deeply asleep) on the sofa for I donno how long and suddenly she woke me up and said,

"Mummy! A car! See, I made a car!"

Wah…….. a car! Can you see the car doors? Hahahha…. how cool is that? I was truly quite shocked to see it when I woke up. I really didn’t expect her to do it. So cute lah….. Ok maybe I’m just biased, hahaha

This post will be in singlish. Not the the others have not been. But it’s so good hor to come home hor and speak hor to all my friends in singapore english and they actually understand me leh. Super cool. When I tell them shiok, they actually understand what I mean!

We’ve been back since last Thursday nite.

H1N1 Scare

We arrived at the airport with Sophie running a fever and having a cough and a cold. So scary, thought she kena honey (that’s what I heard Regina say! H1N1 = honey! She’s so funny man!). Anyways we prayed hard and she passed through the scanners. Fever went down pretty fast and it wasn’t really high. She just had a real bad cough. On her puffs now. Brought her to the PD and for the first time the PD waived the fee! All the fee! I was quite in shocked when we walked out the clinic. God this is amazing. Btw, we’re now labeled as YWAMers on her files.

Friend from Matamata

We’ve got a friend from Matamata visiting us and staying with my mum. She’s been picking up good Singlish. She’s mastered calling the women Auntie and the men Uncle. Vely good. Pass. We’ve been hanging out with her quite a bit going to places that we generally will not go to e.g. Chinatown.

Visit to our old Home

We went back to visit our tenant for the first time since we’ve been away. We needed to dig out our marriage cert from our store room to prove that we’re married for some application we’re doing. Alamak, show you our wedding pictures cannot meh?

It’s so surreal to see our home being occupied by someone else. Quite a funny feeling. Good to hang out at HV once again. I miss that place.

Eating, Meeting up with Friends, Paper Work

The rest of the time we’ve just been doing a lot of eating (beef hor fun, tim sum, nasi lemak, etc), meeting up with friends and running around trying to do different paper work. I actually had two buffets on Friday! I’m thankful for Singapore’s transport system, efficient front desk officers (relatively polite…) and clean toilets. More thankful than ever.

Wah vely shiok to speak in Singlish leh. Ok that’s it. We’ll be back for three weeks and then leaving again. Will update more as we go along!

Sophie sitting on a wooden stool at a mall in Kunming, refusing to budge…

Sophie has a fascination for kid sized chairs/stools, any type, plastic ones, wooden ones, bamboo ones….

When we were in Matamata, we went to Warehouse(similar to K-Mart) to find a doll for her (coz mummy me forgot to pack in her doll!) and we ended up going home with a S$6 bright pink plastic chair from China that she chose and played constantly throughout the past few months and had friends over fighting over it……

… while the dolly we chose got left under the bed next to a stack of other toys.

Lesson learnt - buy what she likes, not what I like. Sooooooo hard…..