Lamb of God - I Almost Fell!

One day, I was taking a break at the stern of the ship, a shipmate teased me that I was a good boy, and I would never dare to smoke a cigarette, without thinking twice, I asked for the cigarette and tried puffing. Praise Jesus, the Lamb of God's protection, I was not able to even get the cigarette lighted up.

After a few tries, I gave up.

After that incident, then I realized my guard was down and I almost fell into the trap.
I did not try smoking again till now. I learnt one lesson, sometimes it is worth to be a coward than a hero.

Oh yes, I mentioned earlier, almost all the 'full-timers' drank.

Once when we were at one of the ports (I can't recall the place) in Indonesia, we went out for dinner at a restaurant, they were drinking beer, Johnny Walker and other hard liquor, I was only on Coke, someone swap my glass with I think it was XO, it was at least half the glass was XO, I just drank it, thou half way, I realized it was mixed with some liquor, I did not stop and finished the full glass.

Not longer after that, I started feeling dizzy, I felt like sleeping on the table or anywhere, my friends started to talk, walk and behave in a funny manners, I knew we were drunk.

I recalled someone told me in order to overcome it, I need to keep on eating so that the food could absorb the spirit in the liquor or to take butter or cheese for the same purpose.

I forced myself to stay awake and kept on eating. And I was extremely quiet and busy eating.
It was tough eating while my eyes were closing and the desire to sleep right in the table was so strong.

After filling my stomach full of food sometimes later, I was feeling better though still a little dizzy. We left the restaurant.

I and some friends did not go back to ship but instead we went bowling.

Praise the Lord, I did not follow others to some 'places'.

Of course, I could not aim properly and all the bowling balls went to the drain.

And after that night, I said to myself I would never drink in the public and I would not like to get drunk. It was a horrible feeling. And who knows what will a drunk person do? He can't think logically, sensibly.

Hero dies young. You know.

I praise Jesus, the Lamb of God who was always with me, to protect me so that I did not fall into the traps of this world.


Yes, besides temptation, there were a lot of unnatural happening onboard ship..........



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - 'Jude Girls'

Onboard the naval ships, there were people signed a contract and worked this vocation as a career, we called them the 'Regular', 'Full Timer' or 'Signed On'.

Quite a number of these 'Full Timers' smoked, drank, visit 'fish tank' and some even had mistress overseas.
To them, this was life.

For new comers liked us could get influenced by them if we were not careful.

Every night when they were back, they always shared (or boost) about what they did, who they met, they even described their activities they did with their partner. And I could still remember the word they liked to use 'Jude'. For example, "I met this girl very 'Jude' man!". I did not quite understand what it meant, but later figured out it must be sweet, attractive and etc.

Slowly, I was also tempted to know actually what 'Jude' meant, how did a 'Jude' girl looked like?
But I always remembered, before I left for my overseas trip, my parents told me not to go to those 'dirty places', of cause I understood what they meant by 'dirty places' though I did not expect it to be a 'fish tank'. :o)

Because of their 'advice', I always resisted the temptation to join these 'old timers'. Praise Jesus, the Lamb of God for my parents 'advice' and trust in me........ hm, but there was occasion when I felt like just to take a look at these 'Jude girls' and not to do anything with them.
I am proud that I did not give in.

I think when we are fully guarded, I could overcome temptation, we were most vulnerable when we were less alert............. and this happened.



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - First Visit To The 'Fish Tank'!

I continued going to church with Charles but no new encounter though I found the experience pretty warm.

People I met in church were nice and friendly, very different from the people I met outside church.
Unfortunately, have not manage to get any girlfriend. :o)

I even invited other friends to join me for Sunday service, and of course, the selling point was not Jesus, the Lamb of God but pretty girls. :p

When I graduated from colleague, I went to the Navy for my National Service.

I was very 'lucky' with quite a number of my batch boys were Christian...... now I knew that was a blessing and the Lord preserved me.

We were onboard the same ship which went for overseas exercises quite often.

I remembered my very first trip was a 8 weeks trip visiting 5 countries.

When we reached our first destination country, we were allowed to go ashore everyday after performing our routine duties in the morning.

On the first day ashore, I went along with a group of old timers to a place they called 'fish tank'.

When we went in this house, I really saw a big 'fish tank'.
Instead of fishes, they were women sitting in the 'tank' holding a number plate in front of them.
And there was this guy asking us which girl we liked, and he would speak into the microphone mounted on the wall and that girl with that number would leave, and my colleague would disappear too.

Roughly, hm.... I knew what was that.

Two Christian buddies who were with me straight away pulled me away and suggested to go somewhere else.
We went to visit shopping centers, tried the local food and etc.

I thanked the Lord for His protection from temptation, and sending these angels to me.

And this temptation was just the beginning.............



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - My First Church Experience

Charles did not talk about his activities in church, nor trying to get us to go to his church.

In fact, this was something I like about him.

Sometimes I met people in the street whom I did not know them, they would just kept on telling me how good was his church, how good was to be a Christian and tried persuading me to join them in church. And my answer was always NO. I did not like to be pushed.

Because of the Hong Kong drama series, I started having interesting in attending church.

And Charles was the only person I knew whom attending church, so I found out from him about Sunday Service and anything about church.

Not long after that, I asked Charles to bring me to his church.
That was the first time I stepped into a church on Sunday.

That was a nice experience though my attention was not on the sermon nor Jesus, the Lamb of God but looking out for "Teng Teng".

Hey, I discovered girls in church were quite a different kind of people. Somehow, they looked different and behaved differently from those whom I knew.

I always hoped that Charles would introduce me some beautiful girls. Unfortunately he only introduced one to me whom was his "god sister" and she is much older than us.

Anyway, she was my first Christian lady friend I knew.



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - Beautiful Girls In Church!

After my good friend "Sun" left for another school, nobody talked about God to me.

God to me was just at every Chinese festival, my family would light up the joss-sticks, candles and sometimes, burn the paper offering to the "Gods".

To me, that was difficult to understand why my parents wanted to burn the money away.

When I asked my mum, she did agree too. So slowly she just did it for the ritual seek.

So 'God' only appeared in movie, TV dramas or fairy tales.

And I started to think that 'Gods' and 'Ghosts' are just superstition.

I lived through my school days without much concern about God.

When I was in college, I came to know of this schoolmate Charles through my classmat. Whenever we asked him to go for movies or games on Sundays, he was always not free............ he told us he had to go to church as he was the pianist and lead the choir.

Singing (I did not know that that was called worship)in the church, that reminded me of the movie "Sound of Music". I loved the movie, I have watched it for more that 7 times in the theatre.

I loved the songs and music sang in the movie, but I found the church in the movie was quite a boring place.

Anyway, during that year, there was a very popular Hong Kong TV drama series "Shanghai Beach" where the main character "Hui Mun Keong" fell in love with this beautiful lady "Teng Teng" who went to church every Sunday, and so he purposely went to Church to meet her 'accidentally'.

Hm...... that striked my interest in Church....... I could find beautiful girls in Church!!!!!! :o)



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - Life After Death

Hi,
When I was about 9 or 10 year-old, I started developing fear for death.

I knew nothing about death, what I knew was I would no longer be with my parents, sibling, friends, teachers and no more playing with my buddies, no more school.

Oh yes, what I fear was actually the separation.

One day, I asked my mum what happened if I died? What was it like when a person died?

Mum was very gentle, she told me death was like a person falling into a deep sleep, he/she will not know anything, he/she would not hear anything, nor see anything, just continue sleeping.

But, I ask what happened if I woke up?

I felt even worse because if I woke up and found myself in the coffin, caged by 6 pieces of wood, and I could not get out, even if I knocked against the coffin, nobody would hear me as I would be buried then. I was really scared.

But I always comfort myself by believing death is just like a peaceful sleep and I would not wake up again.

Now, I understand that there is life after death, there is heaven and hell.

But because of Jesus, the Lamb of God paid the price for us, we who believed in Jesus can be saved.

Thank you Jesus, for the salvation and hope.



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - Ghost Stories!

Hi,

Since my good friend "Sun" left for another school, nobody talked to me about God.

Anyway, I did know about something called "ghost" as there were so many stories and movies about ghost.

I remembered there was a radio program every Sunday at 9pm, it was a ghost story, before the actual story started, a piece of music was played.

The music was so scary. I was feeling frighten but yet like to listen to the story. Which child does not like to listen to story?

So every Sunday at around 9pm, my whole family including my parents would all cramped into their bed with the blanket covering over our heads while the radio played the music and the story.

Sometimes, I was so frighten, I dared not to go to the toilet after the program.

Hm...... whenever I asked my mum was there ghost, she always answered "NO, if there is ghost, all should become ghost and don't have to suffer anymore!".

Ok, although I still scare, I remembered the three words "Jesus, Help Me!".

I reminded myself if I ever faced a "ghost", I would shout out "Jesus, Help Me!".



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - The Three Words That I Never Forget Since I Was Eight Years Old!

Hi,

No, the three words are not "Lamb of God".
I came to know about Lamb of God years and years later.

Now, here is how my story goes..........

When I was at the kindergaren, I got to know this boy named "Sun", we became good friends and buddy buddy. That was his second year in the kindergarten. Not that he was retained but his parents chose to start his kindergarten 'education' one year earlier.

After one year in kindergarten , we went to the same primary school the following year.
We were in the same class for two years.

After the second year year end examination, he told me he was leaving the school and moving on to a more well known school, I was very sad and broken hearted.
Can you imagine, your buddy is leaving you and at the tender age, buddy is everything.

Before he left, he talked to me, as a matter of fact, he talked like a big brother.
"When you are afraid, when you are in dark places, if you need help, just call out 'Jesus, Help Me!', ok?".

And I always remember these three words 'Jesus, Help Me!' all these years. It just stays in my heart and Jesus is the name I never forget thought I still did not really know who was this Jesus then.

And of course, I did not know that He is the Lamb of God.



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - It All Started When I Was 6 Years Old!

Hi,
Greeting in the Name of Our Lord Jesus.

When I moved to Singapore from Christmas Island when I was 5 or 6 years old, my parents sent me to a kindergarten run by a Christian organisation.

I did not know anything about God or Christianity, I just remembered whenever it was snack time, our teacher would lead us to pray before I could start eating.

In fact, I did not understand what she was doing, we simply repeated what she asked us to say..... hm, I didn't even know that that was called prayer. Yes, now I know that is saying grace, giving thanks for His provision.

I could still remember, once during class, our teacher received news that one of our classmates met a traffic accident, and she immediately asked all of us to follow her to pray for our classmate's safety.

That was interesting to me.

That was my first time I knew that there was someone called God and His name is Jesus who could protect and save us. Of course I did not know anything about He who is the Lamb of God and what he did to save His people.

But this experience stays with me all these years since the age of six.



Lamb of God Gift of Faith

Lamb of God - Why am I writing these blogs?

Hi,
Greeting in God's love.

I am writing this blog to share with all of you how the Lord, the Lamb of God has been blessing me all these years, especially the last 6 years, and hope that you will be blessed in return and count your blessing from the Lord too.

Thank you and may the Lord bless you exceedingly, abundantly.

God bless.



Lamb of God Gift of Faith