Wednesday, January 30, 2013

When we gather together!

On the 24th, we had a fellowship outing joined by Higherground and Careach people. Well, some HG seniors were there together with us too! Also, we didn't actually care about the differences of where we're from. What's more important was that we wanted to be together in and with God. :)


It was a rainy Thursday morning, but thankfully we still managed to have it carried on well.
(Photo credits to Goh Yi Yeong and whoever who snapped them.)




Started off with prayer together!



















Worship session led by our guitarists, Yi Yeong and Raymond.
Thanks for the preparation!


















Breakfast at Hoi Yin
Had some time chit chatting around too :D


































Game session at TC again after our breakfast



















And there are actually a few more of us who aren't in these pictures, sorry :X




It is good when we gather together getting to know each other more. The focus isn't who attend nor how many will but why we will. Looking forward to more of these and we welcome you too!

Please stay tuned for more updates here!

God bless you! :)



Compiled by Hui Ching
Images by Yi Yeong

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Planetshakers - Run Into Your Arms



Proverbs 18:10 - The name of the LORD is a strong tower the righteous run to it and are safe.




He is Faithful

January 12th, 2013

I was raised and lived in the small city of Hobart. I lived in a non-Christian household. I always went to catholic schools so I had a basic idea of what Christianity was.

Even though my family seemed to be a normal, loving household I spent seven years of my childhood seeing specialists and visiting the hospital every three weeks. Two weeks before my eleventh birthday I was told that my condition had passed and I would never have to come back.
A few months later in the September holidays, my parents told us they were getting a divorce. Throughout the years I discovered many things that led to my parents divorce including several court cases. Both of my parents were battling through severe depression.

Soon after returning from those September school holidays my music teacher asked me to stay back after class. The next thing I knew the teacher pushed me up to the wall and did things to me. I ran out and never told anyone, I was so scared. Because of my parents situation I was alone and had no one to talk to.

My Mum and I started becoming distant. She began internet dating, sleeping around and letting all her anger and depression out on us kids. She would threaten to kill us ad would cut herself in front of us. My mum became a person I didn’t want in my life.
During my Primary school years I was constantly bullied. I was called fat, ugly, and worthless, that no one liked me and I was a waste of a human life. This eventuated into my high school years as well. It led to a form of depression and anxiety.
At the age of twelve I started becoming consumed with image and looks and as a result I developed bulimia, which is where one binges on food then forcibly vomits it up. But this was not just playground bullying, it came from my Mum’s family.  I started to hit rock bottom. As I went to high school became friends with the ‘Popular girls’ who saw getting drunk and being horrible to others was the lifestyle. I gradually became unstable and was put onto medication. Soon enough I was addicted to the pain killers, was overdosing and mixing them with alcohol. I started to become suicidal and cutting myself in between my legs. Most nights I would sit there in the bath and watch the water become red. One day I lost too much blood and was rushed to hospital on attempted suicide. I attempted suicide 3 times.

On my third attempt I saw one of my cousins who visited me and asked me to go to church with her. I was reluctant; I was not into the church scene. However I then began to see God work in my life and start opening up doors. On an Elevation conference later that year in June I first encountered Jesus. I felt as if I was safe for the first time in my life.
I began reading my Bible and found Psalm 18:1-3 which has been my foundation for my journey. It says…
I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer, my god, my strength in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy of praise so I shall be saved from mine enemies.
I still was struggling with depression in the early days of my journey, but with the grace of God things became easier.
After a few months of being a Christian my mum started to disagree with me going to Church. We started fighting and I told her the things I have been dealing with and what the teacher did to me and I also confronted her about what she was doing, but she didn’t believe me and kicked me out. Since then I have lived with my Dad.

Last year my Dad had serious health problems and became very sick he was told he might die. He had to lose at least 40 kilograms if he wanted to live. So my uncle and I decided to help him lose that weight, he did.  Last August I had a health scare, I was rushed into hospital as I had ovarian cysts which had erupted and I was going through the initial stages of TSS, Toxic Shock Syndrome.
Since then my mum and I started talking. In the last 6 months we have started becoming close again.
On December 16, 2012 my Dad was arrested and he might be facing a jail sentence which we are yet to receive and I will have to live on my own. But I am satisfied knowing that God is completely working in my life at the moment and that my Dad will receive the help he needs.

In the beginning of my journey, I read Jessica’s Story about a girl who went through a few of the things I went through. One thing she said was that over time God had broken me, cleansed me, repaired me and healed me and then built me back up again. I have felt God do this with my life and experienced his transforming power and feel so blessed to have been saved in his name.  Jesus Christ is my salvation, my redeemer, my fortress and everything in between.

Article source : http://www.testimonyshare.com/he-is-faithful/

Compiled by : Jared Yap



Friday, January 11, 2013

Karlo’s Testimony

January 7th, 2013

Hi My name is Karlo Wiesner, I am 28 years old.
My life has been one big mess, until I Found Jesus!! I don’t come from a Christian Home, I have a older brother and younger sister. We come From a Fatherless home. When growing up my mom had different relationships with men, most of them beating her up, I used to witness all of this and it did not do me any good. I live in South Africa. when I was 14 I left school to move to my Dad in England, thinking my life was going to change. It did Not. I started smoking cigrettes at 14 ,drinking and then also started to smoke weed. When arriving in England it got alot worse as everything bad for a person was very easy to get.

I started taking harder drugs now cause the weed was doing nothing for me no more, cocaine, crack even Heroin. I was really bad now , started to rob people so that i could support my habits, not good. I was arressted a few times now. I was 19 when my dad decided to kick me out. I ended up on the strets of England. I was very scared. I was on the streets for 2 years doing drugs, drinking and robbing people before i got arrested for the last time.

I hit a guy really badly to get money he ended up in hospital for 2months. I was sentenced to 4 years in jail. I only done 2 years as they gave me the option of getting deported. so I took it. When arriving back in South Africa my life was still not right drinking still and still smoking Crack. it was not until 2012 Jan 4, I went on a Christian Camp Called Camp David in Potchefstroom South Africa. where my whole life changed I met Jesus at this camp. Two weeks later I got Baptized, I am still involved with the camps. I am a leader in the camp. I also go and do missionary work to help the poor and go and share my testimony with the young, old and those who are in the situation I was in…. OUR GOD IS MIGHTY TO SAVE. I LOVE YOU JESUS.

Article from : http://www.testimonyshare.com/karlos-testimony/

Compiled by Jared

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

LIMITLESS!


With God by your side, fear nothing. Follow His words and have faith in him because He knows the best for you. With Him, there is no boundaries :D

Monday, January 7, 2013

George Abbott: Appointment with Death Cancelled

George Abbott: Appointment with Death Cancelled


By Rod Thomas
The 700 Club
George Abbott woke up one morning with severe stomach pain.

“I thought maybe it would go away, but it didn’t go away,” George said.

I asked him, you know, ‘well, what’s wrong?’ his wife, Cheryl remembered. “And he said he was in such pain that he couldn’t stand it. And for him to say that I know that it’s very bad”

Cheryl rushed her husband to a nearby hospital.  

“Well, they found gallbladder cancer,” George said. “This is a very rare form of cancer.”

Doctors performed emergency surgery to remove the cancerous gall bladder; but there was more bad news.

“When they did the surgery, the cancer had gone down into the liver bed,” George said. “And that, as you well know, basically the prognosis is that you’re not going to live very long.”

Their family doctor, Dr. McQueen, who is also their friend, feared the worst.

“His prognosis was poor,” Dr. McQueen said. “With the stage of the cancer being advanced, once it had metastasized to another organ, he is classified as advanced stage carcinoma. For George, his treatment options were limited. Not only were those options limited, the ones that were available to him, in many cases, will take your life.”

Facing almost certain death, George got a second opinion.

“Same diagnosis, same prognosis,” George said. “The only difference was that this doctor was a little more positive and he said to me, ‘we’re going to operate.’”

“He also said, ‘okay, this is in the upper part of the liver; but if I open him up and I find any cancer anywhere else in the liver, I’m just going to close him back up because then there’ll be nothing we can do,’” Cheryl said. “I just thought, ‘I cannot lose my husband.’”   

At the surgeon’s recommendation, George did not undergo chemotherapy or take any medication before surgery. Ultimately, he knew his fate was in God’s hands.

“I know that God heals,” George said. “But I’m also a realist and I know that the Bible says, ‘it’s appointed once to die, and then the judgment.’ So, I was ready to accept this - that if this is the time that God wanted to take me home, I was ready for that.”

As the surgery date approached, Cheryl prayed for God’s help.

“Our church got together and had a prayer meeting and one of the ladies in the church or maybe more than one, called The 700 Club and asked for prayer for George,” Cheryl said.

As surgeons performed the procedure, Cheryl got a phone call.

“I got off the phone and I just started crying. ‘The doctor said that his liver is perfectly normal; that there was no sign of cancer whatsoever.’ So we were just hugging each other and crying,” she said.

“The doctor said it looked like a normal, healthy liver. God had taken [the cancer], and I don’t know how He did it. I don’t know whether He just made the cancer go away. I don’t know if He gave me a new liver. It doesn’t matter to me. All I know is God is a God of miracles and he healed me,” George said.

“They believe in prayer and they trust in the sovereignty of God,” Dr. McQueen said. “There is no medical treatment or explanation for that type of result - absolutely miraculous!”

For the past two years, routine tests have shown the same result – no cancer!

“God really did heal,” Cheryl said. “I mean, when God does something, He does it right.”

“Some people today say, ‘well, miracles went out with the apostles.’ Well, I’m here to tell you that miracles did not go out with the apostles, that God is a God of miracles and He is a healer today,” George said. “He gave me a miracle - the miracle of life.”

Article from : https://www.cbn.com/700club/features/amazing/George_Abbott030209.aspx

Compiled by : Jared Yap

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Paula Abbott: The Love of The Father


AMAZING STORY

Paula Abbott: The Love of The Father

By Zsa Zsa Palagyi
The 700 Club

Paula Abbott was only a child, but she was suicidal.  “I was laying on my bed and I wrote a note that says ‘Why doesn’t my daddy love me?”  And I looked at the fingernail polish remover and drank the whole bottle because I didn’t want to live anymore where my daddy didn’t love me.  And my mom looked at my dad.  She handed him the note and my dad said, ‘You can take her to the hospital if you want to,  but I’m not going.’ And my dad sat down and he turned the TV on and he didn’t even look at me.”

All Paula wanted was for her adoptive father to notice her.  But the harder she tried to get his approval, the more he pushed her away.
Paula remembers clearly, “He said that I was worthless, would never amount to anything.  That I was not his.  We were all scared of what would make my dad snap.”
Simple things got Paula in trouble.  “I was making milkshakes for our family and I was 7 years old.  And we were all getting the same flavor and my dad wanted a different flavor, which meant that I would have to clean up the blender to make his special and I just sighed and said ‘Oh daddy.’  And that sparked something in him.  He was so angry that he jumped up and pulled his belt off and started beating me and yelling at me and screaming and told me “I would never do that to him.” And my mom had to stop him.
Paula’s parents divorced when she was a teenager, but she quickly got involved with an abusive man - who took advantage of her and got her pregnant.
“He controlled me and told me now that since I was pregnant with his child, I would marry him and I would be silent about what happened,”  says Paula.   “And he would take pictures of my face when he would smash it and said ‘This will remind you that I am in control.’ I begged for forgiveness because it was always my fault.  The reason that I got beat was because it was my fault.  It was something that I had done.  Just like with my dad.”    
Paula was afraid of what her husband might do to their daughter, so she gave her up for adoption. Soon the marriage ended.  Paula had two more children by different fathers— and she eventually left those men and her children too.
“These babies needed something so much better,” Paula painfully remembers.   “I was dead inside and felt like I was leading them down the wrong path.  I didn’t want to take them down the path that my dad took me.”
Paula moved out of state, hoping that would wipe away her past.  And in her mind, it did--- but only because she started using methamphetamines.  “It numbed the pain that I was feeling and it gave me a whole new outlook on life and I liked it.  I liked the feeling of being better than what I was.”
Soon, Paula was dancing at a strip club to support her drug habit and feed her need for validation.
“If it was just for a second or a minute of time, I would get to hear a man’s voice say you’re beautiful or oh wow, you’re good. I like this. I just needed some kind of approval,” Paula confesses.  “And then I would leave feeling so dirty because this wasn’t really what I was supposed to be doing.”
After living like this for several years, Paula wanted to die. “I would do as many drugs all at once that I could.  But the thing is that I was so scared of really dying. I would always tell somebody right after I did it, hoping that they would come and take this away and make it stop and that’s all I was looking for. I was looking for the pain to stop.”
Then Paula came across a sign.  She remembers clearly, “I was going to meet my drug dealer and I passed a sign on the side of the road that said “Cowboy Church.”  The church part did not catch my attention--that was not intriguing at all, but the cowboy part was!”
Paula found the church and heard a cowboy preacher talking about the love of Jesus for the first time.  “I had never heard the name of Jesus in a positive way,” says Paula.  “I’ve always heard it in a negative way.  I’ve always heard God’s name in a curse word.”
Paula wanted this love she heard about, but thought she needed her drugs even more.  So for the next two months, Paula was reckless—and she overdosed again.
 “I was so tired of living the way I was living and I just wanted it over.  And at that moment I screamed out the name of Jesus.  I said, ‘I need you. I need you.  I need you in my life.’  And for the first time right then at that moment I felt that my daddy loved me,” Paula weeps.   “It was the most awesome feeling and I felt like I was good and everything was okay.”
From then on, there were no more drugs and no more stripping. The only thing Paula wanted more of was Jesus’ love.  And a Christian man she knew named Toby stepped-in to help.
Paula says, “He started by teaching me through a children’s bible.  And I got so into it because I could relate to so many people in the bible and I was like… oh my gosh, look here.  Here’s me.  Right here.”
Paula learned about God’s forgiveness, “First thing is I had to receive the forgiveness of my lord and savior.  I had to know without a shadow of a doubt he forgives me for everything I have done.  And then I had to forgive myself.  I had to say you know what?  I can’t turn back time, I can’t turn back the past. I can’t change anything but what I can do is I can embrace the future and embrace what is given to me now.”
She even forgave her father, who recently passed away.
Since then, Paula has been re-united with all three of her children.  In spite of her extreme drug use, her body has been completely restored.   And while she married Toby, she says the only approval she needs now is from Jesus.
He is my everything and I put him above all,” Paula declares.  “I don’t have to make anything happen anymore.  I don’t have to power my way through it. All I have to do is live and love and love in the grace God has given me and I just stand there and let him do what he loves best -- and that is make my life perfect.”


 Article source :  https://www.cbn.com/700club/features/amazing/ZP83_Paula_Abbott.aspx

Compiled by : Jared Yap

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