Philip's Dream Team

Carol’s back for Christmas this year and that’s a real Christmas reunion.

Heather celebrated her 13th birthday with a steamboat dinner & a 4 Seasons cake which she enjoyed immensely.

Rain…& more rain. It rained cats and dogs on the nite of the Christmas parade. It was fun to bring the kids to walk around the city for Christ. Philip made lanterns for our family. After 15 years of marriage, I discovered my hubby has got some artistic flair!!!

Immanuel. God with us. This is His promise to us not only at Christmas but all the days of our lives.

Serene. Funnily enough, I feel great serenity in my soul & spirit this Christmas holidays eventho’ there are a thousand thots running thru my head daily.

Theatre. Our bedroom has been converted into a mini theatre. We have been watching big screen movies using the LCD projector. Movies all courtesy of Alex. We missed many movies when the kids were younger so now it’s catching up time.

Meals. Not telling how many meals we had during this Christmas season. Suffice to say that the waist line has expanded after all the turkey, lamb, ham, lasagna, cakes, chocs etc etc.

A+ . I rate this as an A+ holidays coz it’s the type of holiday filled with all the right stuff. Taking the kids out, meeting with friends & just having fun.

Celebrating Claire's birthday.
Enjoying the Chocolate fountain & carrot juice from test-tubes.

Jonathan dropped by one fateful evening and we had him do the limbo rock under the expert guidance of Alex and Philip.
We met Hannah Tan on Christmas.
All the girls (Alie, Gloria, Heather, Victoria and Hannah) are crazy about me !!!That's probably what Jordan is thinking.
At the Igloo !
Playing UNO. It can get VIOLENT !!!
Heather's 1st experience leading Praise and Worship with the youths.

Shalom. Peace to all our readers. The peace offered to us by God is the peace that surpasses all understanding. May you enjoy His peace throughout the new year.

As Christians we have to actively remember to keep Christ in Christmas. In recent years much effort has been made to remove Christ from the celebrations.

Carol & I were talking about how in western countries, various groups are actively working towards getting rid of Jesus in the Christmas celebration. Efforts include; no nativity scenes are allowed in Christmas displays, no mention of the Saviour’s birth in the songs played over the PA system in shopping malls etc etc. Just this morning I read that in the US, the lyrics of “ Silent Night” were completely altered to suit everyone who attended the presentation of a school play. Getting rid of Jesus is infact nothing new. Herod wanted to get rid of Jesus when he heard about His birth. However 2000 years on… Jesus is still alive & well.

I am glad that in Malaysia, we can still put up nativity scenes, have Christmas parades and go carolling in the shopping malls etc . Recently in KL, I heard carols proclaiming the birth of Jesus and I thought , “ Praise God for the privilege to do that.”

As Christians , we have to let others know why we celebrate Christmas. We also need to pass on this message to our kids so that the next generation and the next will not be influenced by the world system into believing that Christmas is only a holiday and nothing more.

And I do make a point to write CHRISTMAS and not X’MAS. To me “X’ is always the unknown factor as my math teacher once told me. For me & my family, we keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas coz HE the LORD OF LORDS , KING OF KINGS is NOT an unknown factor.

BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL.

FINALLY!!! I get to go somewhere during the school holidays.. I wasn’t expecting a trip to Sibu and Kapit after being told by mum that we were not going anywhere as we have already gone to Penang and Terengganu in August. So, this was quite a surprise. My grandparents were originally from Sibu & Kapit so it was good to see how those places are like.
I was excited to go to Kapit and Sibu coz I have never been there in my life.. So this was my chance. In Sibu, we (me, grandma, Aunty Jac, Nat & Fi) spent our time strolling thru the town, visiting grandma’s old friends , shopping & eating. The next day we woke up early and ate a big breakfast at our hotel before going to the wharf to board the express boat to go to Kapit. After 3 hours travelling upstream on the mighty Rajang river, we finally reached Kapit.
We were warmly welcomed by our relatives. After that, we went to the inn which was just across the road. It belongs to Uncle Paul .We unpacked and got ready to go for dinner in a restaurant with everyone. We had a DELICIOUS meal and then went for a ride up to the mountains in Uncle Paul’s car. We opened the sunroof and stood up with the cold wind flying in our faces. We also visited Uncle David’s sports shop.

The following day, after breakfast we went around Kapit. Kapit is actually a nice town …especially around the mountains where the air becomes colder as we go up higher.

At noon, we were all packed and ready to go back to Sibu with the express boat again. I just wanna say a BIG thank you to everyone in Kapit for making me feel at home.

The last few months have swept by in a flurry of activities. After Hari Raya, the school was alive again after a lull of fasting.

All the necessary programmes and report writing were quickly held and done before the school officially closed on 20.11.09 to the shouts of “whoopee” and “Happy Holidays”

Frankly speaking, I’m only beginning to feel a sense of holiday seeping through my pores on 30.11.09 at precisely 4.05pm ie. When the last EXCO meeting for the year was held.

The kids are already enjoying and into their holidays. No more sleeping or waking up early. We’ve been trying to keep them occupied with books. Heather enjoys reading but Jordan is totally opposite. Getting him to read is like asking him to eat medicine!!!

Last Sunday, we went to watch ‘Christmas Carol’ in 3-d version. Not bad at all.

With Aunty Lorna away in New Zealand, we’ve been “plundering” her mini orchard. We’ve been taking the kids fruit plucking. Actually fruit plucking sounds too mild. It’s more like “let’s give the tree a good whack”. A good whack can produce a rainfall of langsat. We have been feasting on langsat, rambutans, longans, oranges, durians… these last few weeks.


Philip took off with a few cell group members to hike to Waterfall No. 7 at Gunung Gading. He said it was ‘easy-peasy’ and thoroughly enjoyed it. He tried to get me to go but I was in no mood to be bitten by insects again. The trophies of spots I gained from my last trip are still very evident on my legs.

With 4 weeks more of holidays remaining, we intend to spend it as relaxing as we possibly can.