20171220-25 : Khao Yai Revisited! Rejoice and again I say Rejoice

20/12/17-25/12/17 : Khao Yai Again! Phi 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, Rejoice!

Photo by Dronnie from above!

It is about a year since I went to Khao Yai with loved ones (17pax) , leaving behind John who had to cancel that trip due to ailing dad.  So this year , given a chance to go ahead upon the invite of his classmate KY & A , we joined the 18 pax group (9 couples) .

Most were from Malaysia and so we flew our way up to BKK airport to meet the pack.

There were several similar places of interest in this trip : Palio, Primo, Chokchai Farm, a different sunflower field, MidWinter Green, PB Valley... What was the difference were the Bloom, The Hobbit (where all the ladies relish their childhood dreams by dressing up in the fairy tale costumes and the hubbies turned official photographers! Kind of cute just watching them parade around!)

The group intended to stay 2 days in KY and proceed to BKK for another 3 nites.  However, we prefered to linger in KY for another 2 days with a round of golf in mind before joining them back in BKK for Christmas.

One of the highlights in this trip was that our scheduled plan for the golf came to nought! Why? Simply because when we booked from Agoda, there was no mention of a golf tournament black out date for us! It was a learning lesson for us!

So we ended up biking around the golf course instead! LOL and planned for a day trip to Jim Thompson Farm (about 100km up north & then to Toscana).  The hotel GM Yim was pretty helpful.  He gave us a complimentary main course pizza upon hearing our disappointment of "No Golf" and also linked up up to a tour agent.

Jim Thompson - And they send to us a very young 21 year old guide- Banh!

Last year I did not manage to go into Toscana.  The sunflowers field which we took our photos from directly opposite of this Toscana were completely barren this time:(  This is a mini Italy!

Reflections

The sight of sunflowers brings great warm, cheer and joy.  Indeed an awesome sight to rejoice.  Hence I remember Phi 4:4.  REJOICE!

Perhaps one of the most memorable part of this trip was the eye opener dinner on our Christmas eve dinner at Tawadang German Brewery! This dining place was huge with live band performances.  Each table served by at least one waiter/waitress and they doubled to perform on stage towards the end! And Thais are generally good dancers. The meal for the 20 of us came up to about S$20 which was deemed reasonable as we stayed from 8pm till 12:30am.

Final Thoughts over Christmas in Thailand

We wanted to have a countdown to Christmas at this Brewery dining place.  However, we only came to realise that Thais do not celebrate Christmas as it is still predominantly a Buddhist country. There was no public hol for them on 25/12.

As Christians, we have the Lord.  His joy is our strength.  The Thais in this place as I observed may not know HIm.  However they seemed to be able to hang loose and enjoy themselves in songs and dance and movements. Perhaps it is the Thai culture of dancing as way of life? 

The Thais are unified group in terms of cultural language.  When it came to a band Performing "Sabai Sabai",meaning all is well or good in thai - many rose from the chairs and they sang and they danced.  We did likewise.  Cos it is crowd thing. LOL

And I fell in love with this song " Sabai Sabai"

As I look towards the closure of 2017, all is well all is well in Him. He is faithful always.  

If those Thais can be so joyful, how much more should we not especially for us who knows Him.  The joy of the Lord is our strength.  He that made our hands and legs and body, let us all give praise unto Him with thanksgiving as we bade 2017 goodbye?

20171218 - Harps Of True Worship : My first Harp Lesson

13/12/2017 Trying out a Harp for the very first time!

The above harp is a Rees harp with levers and has 26 strings.

And like Ps 150 - there are altogether 26 verses in this psalm.

"His mercy endures forever" is a phrase that contains such a beautiful picture of the harp in the bible!

The extract from this site:-

https://revelationofjesuschrist.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/the-harps-of-true-worship/

“And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.” ~ Revelation 5:8

The Bible often indicates that harps were used as part of the worship of God to express with joy and gladness their praise and honor to the almighty. The harp represents the happiness and the peaceful characteristics that are realized when people are in one accord, (as the true “heavenly Jerusalem”, the one true church,) to honor and worship God on the throne of their hearts.

There are many references to this in scripture:

“Of Jeduthun: the sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the LORD.” ~ 1 Chronicles 25:3

“Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.” ~ Psalms 33:2

Many of the psalms were written by David the harp player. His heart was so devoted to God in worship, that when he played, evil spirits would be driven away.

“And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.” ~ 1 Samuel 16:23

And so David expressed much of his praise while playing the harp.

• “Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God.” ~ Psalms 43:4
• “I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.” ~ Psalm 71:22
• “Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.” ~ Psalm 98:5
• “Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.” ~ Psalm 150:3

Note: to the contrary, when God is not being properly honored by complete obedience, and there is mixed among religious people: self-worshiping, self-agendas, strife and division. In this condition, worship cannot be truly joyful, happy and peaceful. The reason is that any true worshipers have been mixed with the majority that are nothing more than fake Christians. This is a spiritual condition described as a “Babylon.” No true heart felt harp playing can be done there.

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” ~ Psalms 137:1-6

The Jerusalem he is speaking of is the heavenly one, come from God out of heaven by the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. The true church of God.

• “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” ~ Galatians 4:26
• “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” ~ Revelation 21:2

“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” ~ Hebrews 12:22-24

This is why we need Jesus to be fully and properly honored in worship. Without being fully consecrated and submitted, as is shown in Revelation 5:8, there will be no Revelation opened by Jesus! There will be no playing of music or song from the depths of our heart in honor to him! And like as it was in Babylon, we will not be able to worship, and Jesus’ presence will not be felt. Jesus wants to commune with his true and faithful bride only!

Is your heart fully in tune with Jesus as a harp that is played beautifully? Is the place where you worship spiritually like a beautiful orchestra where everyone is playing the same melody in honor and praise to Christ?

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Reflection

It has been an honour and great opportunity for me to try out a harp on 13/12/17.

This so called chance upon meeting of a harper teacher was perhaps not a coincidence. From my niece carousell sale to this god-given chance to learn a new instrument.  Perhaps it was also a desire of my little heart.  I had always thought of those musical instruments like this harp and lyre.  What is the difference? How did the ancient ones invented such a beautiful sounding instrument.

Even Rev 14:2 mentioned about the sound from heaven.  The sound that John heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.  Oh my! I can only imagine!

So come 2018, I shall be taking up this new musical instrument for the new season!

A new season of worship of praise unto HIM! Amen! 

20171212:: Christmas in 12 days time..thinking of the SUN

Photo taken on 7/12/17 about 7pm. Farrer Drive towards Leedon.  

A beautiful sunset glow.

Ps136:7 To him that made great lights for his mercy endures forever

The sun to rule by day; for his mercy endures forever

In the beginning of Genesis, in verse 3, God spoke light into existence.

And today, we know the sun is the star at the centre of the universe system.

It is the brightest star by apparent visual magnitude. (150,000,000 km from earth)

It is big.  1,390,000 km in diameter.

It is hot.

It is of huge mass.

It is a hot ball of glowing gases.

Its gravity holds the solar system together.

It has strong magnetic currents.

Without the interaction of this sun and our earth, we won't get our seasons, ocean currents, weather, climate and the radiation. Hmm.....

Thanks to the sun! That made that beautiful sunset glow which caught my eye last week.  Walking over the overhead bridge, I could't help but to pause for a moment to behold the beauty of that orange glow. 

Reflections

Ps 136 is a psalm of "His mercy endures forever"

Merely 26 verses of "His mercy endures forever". Like the 26 alphabets, the alpha and omega-  the first and the last exalts us to give thanks unto the LORD (the God of heaven.. For He is good)  His mercy endures forever.

Indeed.To Him who made great lights, His mercy endures forever.

Decembers are known for her cool and rainy days.

But , without the sun, the days will be gloomy looking.

The sun rays are bright and gave us hope.

But alas, like all stars, the sun will someday run out of energy.

When the sun starts to die, it will swell so big and will engulf Mercury, Venus and  perhaps even Earth?

However, scientists predict the sun is a little less than halfway through its lifetime and will last another 6.5 billion years before it shrinks to a white dwarf.

When will that be?

For me, perhaps not in my lifetime.

I will probably be turned into ashes before this event of a diminishing sun.

Well, need to continue to look towards this Son instead all the time.

SO 12 more days to Christmas 2017. The Son of God, Jesus Christ - came for me some 2017 years ago.  We are the reason that He came and gave His life.

Guess, it is thanksgiving time.

For His mercy endures forever. Amen!

20171201 : JB Durian Adventure with JC classmates!

1/12/2017 : A JB Durian adventure with some of my JC classmates!

My classmate P was so efficient in recording this travelog. Here it is!

http://mytravelbooket.blogspot.sg/2017/12/a-day-trip-to-johore-bahru.html?m=1

Reflection

As I was reflecting on this trip the next day.

One of the questions that came ringing back to me was why the mini-bus driver LEE overslept for more than an hour of our scheduled pickup time! To me, that was irresponsible!

The decision for us to make the changes to drive in to JB in 2 cars instead was spontaneous.  Imagine we had already placed S$100 deposit with this driver.  The thought of trying to get back this deposit was on my mind.

However, he was given a second chance to 'redeem' himself.  We allowed him to pick up back at Jurong Point Mall as we took it upon ourselves to park our cars in the mall instead.  That cost us another $14 each for the parking fee:(

Being the organizer for this trip for my classmates, I wished the driver came on time!  He was recommended through another friend who had engaged him for a recent trip.  So it was a little unexpected to encounter an MIA situation! LOL.

Some thanksgiving despite this little HICCUP!

1. There were initially 11 of us.  But for some reason, 3 could not make it the last minute and hence we could drive in 2 cars (just nice 8 pax)  to JB still!
2. The Lord only allowed me to see his tagline "666 - Devil" in grey print behind his mobile number in the group chat after the trip! John was using an android so strangely this tagline did not appear at all. And I did not notice this until sat morning after the trip! (Think the Lord did not want us to see this earlier!...Despite the sluggish manner of this driver's response to our queries earlier before the trip, and for S$50 cheaper than other quotes, we had decided to use him! Oh my!!)  Freaky! Had we seen the tagline much earlier, we would not have engaged him!
   
3. Half way through the journey on route to Yong Peng, this driver Lee switched with another driver Wei! It was along the NS highway around Machap!  Why? Cos Wei's bus had technical issue and Lee was better in repairing the bus.  So we had to change the drivers! Oh My!  The police car was just behind the broken down bus.  Well, thank God for His protection over us.  Despite the change , we were kept safe and sound throughout ! Also, we felt that Wei was a better and nicer driver than Lee:)
4. We had a really SUMPTIOUS dinner at Peking Restaurant! Never knew that this place serve such seafood ! And it actually cost more than our whole day trip cost combined! LOL.  But for the fellowship we had on this journey, it was still great fun and revelation to know each other much better than we had ever known ! Garlics, onions....Hmmm

Till then....another excursion to bring back memories of our school days...some 30 years on....