Much has been happening our family the past few months…here’s a quick summary!

Lil’s mom has been staying with us off and on, since my father-in-law’s passing in November. The adjustment has been much better than I expected.. praise God!

ForeRunner’s latest artiste will go ‘on the road’ in a couple of days, with it’s 1st evangelistic concert at NUS this Wednesday! Click here for more details

We are headed to ChiangMai, Thailand for a week (fr Feb 5th to 12th)… for a homeschooling conference, and family holiday. Since January, Lil has been homeschooling Josh. It’s been quite an adventure. You can read her stories at http://lilcoolmom.multiply.com
pray for us to have a fruitful time of learning as well as relaxing family time.

And LATEST NEWS! Lil’s mom’s flat got gutted by fire today…. =(   cause of fire unknown, but we thank God she’s safe. The whole kitchen is gone tho’ – we just saw the 10pm Chinese news, and saw that the kitchen and actually the whole apartment was all black!
she had gone home to do some cleaning, and was actually preparing to remove & ‘sell’ away all her idols…

Pray for Lil’s brothers & family… as they help with the clean up. Pray also that the insurance can cover most of the loss.

We took Emily out for an outing.. to swimming actually to celebrate her 4th Birthday!
It was quite fun.. the weather was really nice.. and the kids had a ball.. =)

You can view some of the pics at these 2 links:
Part 1,  Part 2

Yesteday, I finally managed to go on a personal retreat.. First went to Jurong East Library, spent time thinkin’, journalin at the Galilee Cafe there. Then later went to Coffee Club at IMM for coffee and a Banana Butterscotch cheesecake! Yummy… =)

I requested for some chocolate sauce.. which they eventually obliged.. after the manager when to & fro the kitchen a few times =)

Then took time to read a new book I got on Worship.
Again, reminded of the many special things happen when God ‘shows up’ among his people. Reminded also of the priority of worship in my own life.

Thankful for the space and time I was allowed to process things, pray, think, relax etc.
It’s one of those things I love about this job!!

A friend recently commented that Christians often talk abt going into ‘retreats’…
when do we actually ‘advance’ against the enemy (in this spiritual war)?

sometimes, however, retreating as a team is so essential to finding our footing, so as to be able to advance more effectively and more strongly (against the enemy) !

over past few days, our team ‘retreated’, spent intentional time to connect with each other, with what God has called us to. I felt God met us, and that’s what mattered most. There was a tremendous amount of trust and love, as we shared our lives with each other, and I’m so blessed and thankful for it.

An appropriate, essential, and a very important start to working as a team for the new year… =)

Thanks guys for all the fun times, for the honesty, the vulnerability and the openness to pour out your lives to one another!

some more team pics here…

Today I did some ‘formal’ homeschooling time with Josh in the morning.
Lil had a women’s mentoring meeting, I was on off-in-lieu, so I offered to help. So I did 2 topics, Bible and History as instructed by the teacher! =)

It was quite fun actually…
basically, I just read thru the bible story with Josh (today’s was on Noah & the Ark). And then have him narrate back to, without seeing the text. Then it was History, takend 50 famous short stories or something liddat.. “The Sword of Domacles“. Interesting story abt this rich king, and peril of power

Josh did a fantastic job in narrating, he spoke fluently, and he can even remember specific phrases in the text. But used his own words when he can’t remember the exact words. Except that I found out later that he didn’t understand some of the words he had memorized. For e.g. ‘The servants were at the King’s bidding…’ He could say exactly those words, but he did not know what bidding mean. So I had to explain…

Yesterday, I also did an informal teaching on the concept of ‘volume’.
I had ‘accidently’ produced a cylindrical shaped apple core.. when I used one of these apple corers to cut some fruits for the kids. And I asked if you knew what shape it’s called.

From there I explained to him more about ‘cylindrical’, ‘circumference’, ‘volume’, ‘measurement’ etc. We searched the internet, we learn the spelling of the words. Josh spelt ‘circumference’ completely correct, without my help! (smile of a proud father!)

I can see in this boy a perfectionistic tendency, always wanting to get things right and to the dot. So much so that he may fear starting or trying to do if he know he can’t get it up to a certain standard.

We’re into week 2 of homeschooling… so far it seems quite good fr my point of view. Lil’s a rather capable and patient teacher.. =) But for Lil’s point of view abt homeschooling so far.. u gotta read her blog.

I’ve been posting most of my blogs on my Multiply site…
and it’s supposed to do cross-posting to my blogger site as well.. but it’s not been workin’ as well…

So for those of you who still visit here.. I suggest u go to
http://muffyn71.multiply.com/

here u can read my blog.. and also view my pics (if u sign up as a multiply user.. which is real easy!) =)