20110430 #4 :Panorama View !Ps 104 "Through it All" in Bali

The view from the parachute I was hanging in was great! FREEDOM!!

Can you imagine the bird's eye view - the panorama view I had at 360 degrees? It was a fantastic FEELING! Looking out of the plane - is NOT the same. Trust me - it felt great to feel the wind against your face as you take a good look around you!

Flying has always been my dream. Gliding was not enough. Wanted to fly a plane since I was in Secondary school! Joined the Singapore Youth Flying Club (off Holland Road) but was rejected due to the spectacles. What a let down then!

Watch this panorama view of Mt Everest!

http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html

Imagine gliding down this Awesome Mountain!! Reminded me of the movie "The Bucket List"!

Ps104:33 says "I will sing to the LORD all my life;

I will sing praises to my God as long as I live"

Psalm 104 ( a summary of what I felt when I was 'UP' there looking "DOWN" at earth!)

¹ Praise the LORD, my soul.

LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

² The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
³ and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
⁴ He makes winds his messengers,^[a]
flames of fire his servants.

⁵ He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
⁶ You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
⁸ they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.

¹⁰ He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
¹¹ They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
¹³ He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
¹⁴ He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
¹⁵ wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
¹⁶ The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷ There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
¹⁸ The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

¹⁹ He made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
²⁰ You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
²¹ The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
²² The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
²³ Then people go out to their work,
to their labor until evening.

²⁴ How many are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

²⁷ All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
²⁸ When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
²⁹ When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
³⁰ When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.

³¹ May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works—
³² he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

³³ I will sing to the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
³⁴ May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the LORD.
³⁵ But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.

Praise the LORD, my soul.

Praise the LORD.^[b]

20110430 #3: Bucket list fulfilment?

Ps143:8 :"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life"

I did one of my bucket list in Bali. Not exactly - but almost 95% fulfilled. ie I did a para-sailing for less than S$14 for that over a min or two experience. Not so bad compared with the S$89 for 90 sec at the I-Fly simulator which was newly opened in Singapore few days ago.

From the beach..the sea ...to the valleys...to the mountains and the rivers!

Well, well..Banana boat, Flying Fish, Rafting and Para-sailing! All done in a day! (just short of surfing!!)

20110430 #2 : GE 2011 & Bali's apes and baboons @ Uluwatu

John's specs with that silly monkey!



While in Bali during 30/4/2011 - 3/5/2011, we missed the highly charged rallies in GE2011 Singapore. On the first day of arrival, we went to Uluwatu. It turned out to be a BIG scare for us. We did not expect those monkeys or little apes were thieves and they grabbed whatever they could lay hands on - our specs, necklaces, scarves or even hand-hel wallets of cameras! We were warned by the tour guide to remove our specs before entering the premises. Well, one little ape did steal my hubby's specs. It was swift, agile and in a twinkle of an eye! We had to pay the retrieval lady to get the specs back later in a hostile negotiation deal by the exchange of fruits. Phew!!

^{1Kings 10: 22}The king had a fleet of trading ships^]at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory,and apes and baboons.

I was wondering why King Solomon mentioned about his ship returning not just with the gold and silver etc but also included the apes and baboons??!!! well maybe King Solomon wanted to train them to dance to his tune. He must have offered peanuts!

In 2000, an astute academic asked civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow : 'Tong Dow, what's your greatest problem at HDB?' Then he diagnosed it himself: 'Initially, you gave peanuts to monkeys so they would dance to your tune. Now you've given them so much by way of peanuts that the monkey has become a gorilla and you have to dance to its tune. That's your greatest problem.'

How true indeed! Those apes were ferocious. You gave in to them an inch and they became your ruler! Sounds familiar in today's context too.

Reflections of GE2011:

Like King Solomon, he had his splendor in the earlier days of his rule. But what happens? He had 700 wives and 300 concubines and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And in 1 Kings 11:11. The LORD tore his kingdom away and gave it to one of his subordinates. Nevertheless for the sake of David his father, God did not do it during his lifetime. But he would tear it out of the hand of his son. Yet he would not tear the whole kingdom from him but will give him one tribe for the sake of David his servant and for the sake of Jerusalem which he had chosen.

GE2011 in Spore was a watershed one. For the first time, a GRC was captured by the opposition party. King Solomon sounds like a minister in our nation of today? The generation to come does not forget the goodness the earlier forefathers had done. But change seems to be for the interest of this little precious red dot.

At date of this blog, the great Mississipi River is overflowing its banks in unprecedented history. All the 12+ casinos along the riverside had to be closed. This meant loss of USD12mio to the govt monthly!

Here in S'pore, we had 2 new casinos and an unprecedented highest record dry temperature of 35 degrees on Sun. It was scotching hot. Spain had an earthquake this morning too. Well, the whole earth is in distress. We pray for His grace and mercy in preserving our little dot despite the sins of what she had committed. No flooding of our little S'pore River or the Marina Bay. Man is forgetful - yes. But Yeshua remembers.

20110430 #1: Bali General reflections

7 years back in April 2004, our company staff went to Perth.

On 30/4/2011, we went to Bali, 7 of us.

From Kuta Beach of surfs, to UluWatu of the ferocious monkeys, to Ubud the padi fields in the valleys, to the mountains of the Kintamani and back to the Indian Ocean coastal beach of Tanah Lot and then to the sunset at the Rocks in Jimbaran, Ritz Carlton Ayana.

Bali- land of many idols and worship of the Indian gods. Never realised that the people are so paranoid in worship of many things. Predominantly Hindus and Budhhists, not muslims surprisingly. On our way back from Ubud, we saw a group of villagers prostrating themselves - blocking the single lane of the road entirely praying to the 'god of the road'. Amazing but true!
HARD TRUTHS.

HARD GROUND.