Beautiful Day

Friday, December 31, 2004

Happy New year!

I'm off to China tomorrow morning, and will be arriving in Beijing 11pm just in time for the new year celebration.
Please keep me in prayers if you can, I would greatly appreciate it.
I'm very excited, but also feeling sad, as I'm leaving the girls and Peter behind. Peter will take the girls to New Castle and Port Macquarie for some holiday. I'd love to take the girls, but I really can't afford it. I haven't been back to China for 8 years.
Anyways, happy new year and wishing you all a fantastic, superblessed new year!
love always...

As seen by Susan @ 1:02 AM

Monday, December 27, 2004

Our living room

As you can see, our living room is not quite finished. There's still entertaining area needs to be put in where the TV and bookshelf are at the moment. And of course, new carpet and curtains, as we're just using some temporary ones for the moment.

Living room

more

loungeroom

livingroom

My computer corner

Dining

As seen by Susan @ 10:11 AM

Happy Boxing day! --Hillsong teaching - Robert Fergurson

I thought it was gonna be Christine Caine today as it was advertised as the mighty women of faith month and I was all prepared for a full on evangelical type of preaching today. But unexpectly, Ps Robert Fergurson preached about the theology of the boxes as today is the boxing day.

He gave us three box laws:
1. Boxes are designed to protect the content.
Like Noah's ark is a type of box. It is to save the people and the animals and the future of the world. We need to concentrate the inside not the outside, the purpose not the means, the living not the dead. The ark in and out itself is not important.
2. Boxes without contents are empty of purpose.
No one wants to find out at the end of the query that the box is empty. Our lives are only with purpose when God fills with what He wants to fill.
3.Boxes are usually designed for safe keeping and safe packaging.
They are to move what is precious to Him to somewhere else. God is interested in your progress and your growth, not your religion. It is Jesus inside you that will bring purpose and fulfilment to your life.

Then he gave us 5 boxes to take into the new year.
1.The box that presents
Numbers 10:33 talks about the ark of covenent which is also a type of box, that represented the presence of God. We need to take God's presence into the new year, not the old tradition and religion.
2. The box of promise
The reason that Jesus rebuked the pharasees was because everything they did was for men to see. When we have the true life of Jesus inside of us, it will bring changes into our lives.
3. The box of worship
Mark 14 talks about the alabaster jar, the extravagant worship. It's the totally abandonment of ourselves. Jesus poured his life out for us, and we want to do something that's gonna cost us something. It's never a waste for Jesus Christ.
4. The box of generosity
God loves generous givers.
5. The box of treasure
2Cor4:6 talks about let the light shine. The body is a box of flesh. When Jesus comes to live inside, then suddenly it has purpose.
Boxes are to protect what is precious. Without Jesus, the body is an empty vessle filled with broken dreams.

As seen by Susan @ 1:59 AM

Understanding the reason for this amazing season -- Hillsong teaching -- Phi Dooley

I went back to Hillsong tonight as I'm gonna take quite a break from church after today.
During the worship I saw this vision of a lady in labour pain. She's tempted to walk away from this pain, but the reality is, this pain is going to bring about the callings of God into her life. I wrote another post about it below.

Phil Dooley raised two question in his preaching.
1. What is it that your seeking?
Jeremiah 29:11-13 Are you gonna seek Him only? Have you made your decision to step into the destination that the Lord has for you?
Luke 10 is about Matha and Maria. Matha is distrated from what's really important. Distractions can be good, but not right. We're to seek Him for what we're called to do.
2. What words are you speaking in this season?
Two words are to be spoken at the end of the year: Good-bye and welcome.
Goodbye needs to be in Japanese, which means goodbye forever.
Welcome (not Hello) suggests invitation and embracement.
We're to welcome the year 2005, the year of Jubilee.
Welcome is a powerful proclamation.

Then Phil talks about the craziness of the sale season after Christmas. Everything's on sale, with discounted price. But we can't live Christianity like that. To follow Jesus is gonna cost you. Are we prepared to pay the full price? Do we want the best for our lives? Phil had a friend who bought a mountain bike with 2000 dollars. It was on sale, marked down from 6000 dollars. But during a trip, this bike split into half.
Passion is only gonna get you so far, but commitment will take you all the way through.

God has great dreams for us. We need to change the way we think and engage ourselves with actions. We need to step up to the calling and declare that the year of 2005 is a favourable, acceptable year for me.

As seen by Susan @ 1:28 AM

God's calling and childbirth

Sometimes I think God's calling is like child birth.
First, we conceive, God puts a dream, a future, a life in our lives. We're excited, and we want to tell the world about the good news. But then it comes the morning sickness. Our body is not adjusted to the child in our lives and the hormone system can react crazy. I had terrible morning sicknesses with all my three kids. I'd throw up like 10 times a day and sometimes I had to go to the hospital for a drip. I even thought that I was dying sometimes and I didn't have strength to take a shower. Well, many of you were much better than I was. But the thing is, when the calling becomes real in our lives, we want it so badly, now, but our characters are not coping with the callings and that's gonna cause some discomfort and hurt.
Then after the 2-3 months turmoil, our bodies start to settle down, and grow into a steady stage waiting for the baby to mature. Faith gets strong, hope is comforting, and love carries the God dream inside. This is a fairly long period. We learn to wait patiently.
Just as we thought that it seemed nothing's ever gonna happen, then one day the pain starts. It comes as a divine stirring inside. The baby gets uncomfortable, our bodies are not big enough for the baby to move around any more and the baby is due to get out. We get uncomfortable as we're so used to keeping the dream inside of us, we've learned to cope with all the movements inside, but our bodies are just too comfortable to go through the change and let go.
But the baby has to come out, it's the time. And the pain starts. The real, excrutiating pain. We can either try to hold the baby back, or we can face it,and work with the pain.
The dream is about to come true. But before the baby's out, there's great pain. There's this phase called labour. We can be very tempted to abort the mission, and give up the calling, forget about the dream and walk away, but then we'll be left with frustration and void all our lives, or we can choose to face the challenge, rise up and work with the pain, to bring the dream out into reality.
Usually the fact is, the more fearful we are, the more attitute problem we harbour, the more painful the process will become. If we accept that this stage's gonna be painful, and work with it, cooperate with the stirring, then the labour time will be much shorter and we'd be recovered a lot quicker and the process will be smoother.
Do you really want your dream to come to pass? Do you want to see God's calling manifest in your life? Do you want to walk into your destiny? Then hold on to the promise and walk through the pain. It won't be long any more, give all you got and the pain will soon be all over.
Even after the baby's out, there might still be some pain. But the blessings from heaven, the joy and the fulfilment will soon take over the memory of the pain. And what awaits for you ahead is the enheritance of the promised land.

As seen by Susan @ 1:13 AM

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Childlike faith

This is another Coach Helen Chen's email inspirational letters. I've been enjoying so much of her letters lately and I thought I'd copy it here again:

The Scary Storm

A little girl walked daily to and from school. Though
the weather that morning was questionable and clouds
were forming, she made her daily trip to school.

As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up,
along with thunder and lightning. The mother of the
little girl felt concerned that her daughter would be
frightened as she walked home from school, and she
herself feared that the electrical storm might harm
her child. Following the roar of thunder, lightning,
like a flaming sword would cut through the sky.

Full of concern, the mother quickly got in her car
and drove along the route to her child's school.

As she did so, she saw her little girl walking along,
but at each flash of lightning, the child would stop,
look up and smile. Another and another were to follow
quickly, each with the little girl stopping, looking
up and smiling.

Finally, the mother called over to her child and
asked, "what are you doing?" The child answered,
"smiling, God just keeps taking pictures of me."

======================

First of all, I have received this story through a
friend. I don't know its validity and have no idea
who wrote it and told it. But, I don't think that is
important. It is a story of illustration and we can
extract the essence and toss out the unimportant things.

This girl has so much faith in that God loves her.

In fact, she might have been told so many times of
how the Heavenly Father loved her and adored her that
when she saw the lightening from heaven, she
associated it with the flashes coming from her loving
parents on earth. So, she gave her best smiles
everytime there was lightening.

Now, you and I may have gone through disappointments
and storms in life many times that when we see the
lightening we begin to hide, we go back to our place
of security. We don't want to get toasted and harmed.

But, God may be calling us to trust in Him again with
a child-like faith.

You see, we have been taught and trained to be wise
through the storms in life. But, in the process, the
enemy might have mixed in some unbelief and fear.

As you set your goals for your next year, would you
add as one of your goals to have child-like faith and
step into more unkown to let Him lead you into the
paths that you've never walked on before to reach your
path of destiny?

Love drives out fear. Ask God to let you understand
to a greater extent of His love this coming year. I
remember years ago, I prayed this particular prayer,
and through it God expanded my understanding of His
love and took me on a great journey to trust Him more.
For this coming year, I am praying this prayer again,
because it is such a wonderful thing to experience
more of His love. My friend, will you also do
the same and pray the same prayer? I am sure, by this
time next year, you will have great stories of faith
to tell your friends and your relationship with Him
will never be the same.

As seen by Susan @ 5:05 PM

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a beautiful day at Christmas. I did.
It was the first time that I hosted a formal Christmas lunch at our house. Peter's parents, his sister's family, his auntie and one of our friends came over to celebebrate Christmas with us.
It seemed that everyone loved the roast dinner I cooked. It turned out quite well. I had roast turkey, lamb, pork, chicken and ham. Then of course the roast potatoes, pumpkins and sweet potatoes, corn and some vegies. And the left overs are enough for at least another Christmas lunch for all of us again. Then Peter's mum suggested that I portion the left overs in plates as complete meals and freeze them so that when I'm gone to China Peter can just take out a plate each time and have his dinner. hehe...might be a good idea.
The house looks lovely when it's tidy for Christmas. Normally it won't take long at all for kids to mess up.
Kids loved it of course, they had so many pressies I can't believe it.
I wished I had taken a picture of our feast at lunch, but I couldn't find my digital camera anywhere. Only found it after we all finished and cleaned up.(sigh)
Anyway, we had a great time together. The friend of ours is an entertainer, and he played the piano and sang lots of songs.
It was such a beautiful Christmas. I'm sure it'll be in my memory for quite a long time.
Merry Christmas everyone!

As seen by Susan @ 8:36 PM

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Kate

As seen by Susan @ 12:08 AM

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

disco party

jamie

Jamie

Jamie

Kate

Jamie

Ellie

As seen by Susan @ 10:12 PM

Monday, December 20, 2004

Christmas carols

I was reading a friend JiaLin's post on how she dreaded Christmas carols in shopping centres. Funny how people can be so different. I actually love Christmas carols. I love listening to them, I love singing them, it always brings back lots of memories.

While I was at college in Beijing, I belonged to a choir that mostly sang Christmas carols. It wasn't a college choir, but a choir of YMCA that was in the centre of the city, Wangfujing. It took me about an hour and a half to get there every time, but I went there every week for 7 years. The director was at the beginning a music student from the Central conservotory of music, but later he won the first prize at an international director competition, and not only he won the first prize, but because he was so good, they left the second place vacant. He was brilliant, one of China's top directors. He could have left the choir long time ago, but something unusual about this choir that had attracted him for so long and had also attracted me for so long, I can't really discribe it, but the friendship was just unreal. In the end the director actually broke up with his pianist girlfriend and married one of the choiristers. He's truly a genius. He had a very bad temper, but he conducted the music with his soul.

We performed every year at Beijing Music Hall around Christmas time mostly Christmas carols. Beijing Music Hall to China is like Sydney Opera House to Australia. Then we had tours. Gosh we had so much fun. We'd get on a public bus and sang all the way, or sang in the streets(like Shanghai tan), and we'd get to a small restaurant after finishing performance and eat and sang all night long. Well, not only Christmas carols, but also a lot of traditional, classical choir songs with quite sophisticated arrangings. One of the restaurant owners was so amazed at us that he kept giving us free food to keep us singing until morning. The most unforgetable memory was during the 89 Tiananmen square event. We'd sing in the Tian'anmen square revolutionery songs and got all the other students to sing with us, and of course the silent nights,etc....we marched, and sang....until nobody's got any voice left. The director was with us all the time of course and he was so passionate about the movement...well for the fun of it. There were a lot of love stories during those times as well. Most of the students I know were not really into politics, and while the government leaders were having a fight among themselves, we just thought it was very cool to have strikes for such a long time and we didn't have to go to classes and have exams,etc.

Also my parents in Fuzhou runs a choir that sings regularly in the hotels. And a lot of the songs were Christmas carols as well. They practised a lot in our home. My parents don't have their children around a lot, as I was in Beijing for 10 years, my sister's in Wuhan, my brother although in Fuzhou but he's extremely busy all the time. The choir they run becomes their extended family. They have so many so called "dry daughters" and even "wet daughters" (Chinese slang). Whenever I went home for holiday, it was quite often to have 30 or so young people gathering in my parents' home, and of course, they all love singing. My father usually directed during rehearsals and my mom played piano.

Since I was in the choir for so long, I remembered all the words by heart. Strangely most of the choir members were not Christians but were attracted to the carols.

Whenever I hear the Christmas carols, whether in church or shopping centres, they always trigger some of the fondest memories in my life.

As seen by Susan @ 10:00 PM

Hillsong teaching -- Darlene Zschech

Darlene Zschech preached yesterday at Hillsong church. This month is the Mighty women of faith series that feature Bobbie Houston, Donna Crouch, Darlene Zschech and Christine Caine as the preachers for Sunday mornings.

Although I missed Donna Crouch last Sunday, I don't think I've missed out too much, it seemed to be the same message that she preached a little while ago at Hillsong women which I've already written a post about it.

The title of Darlene Zschech's message is "Immanuel, God is with us."
She addressed the problems of familiarity and complacency that take people's attention away from the presence of God. For example, once she took one of her friend to church. She's a famous actress. They're a bit late and when they went into the church, Darlene noticed that the banner on the stage was a bit crooked. She got quite upset with that as she was bringing a very important friend of hers to the church that day. She was thinking of ways to fix it and hoped that her friend wouldn't be bothered with that sign. And when she looked at her friend, she couldn't see her at the first glance, she was on her knees completely lost in worship. And Darlene herself, as a worship leader, worried about the sign, totally missed the presence of God.
So many people have been in the church for a long time. And then week in, week out, they gradually lost the freshness and hunger for the presence of God, and familiarity has caused them to lose the sense of wonder. Their attitute has shifted from "whatever it takes" to "whatever..." , and this is a real danger among the long time church members.
She gave a few points on how to steer clear:
1. Remember what it's like before meeting Christ. Her actress friend told her,"I'll never forget how things were like before I met Jesus."
2. Always remain grateful.
This is the foundation of praise. "By faith I will praise", "enter with praise"... We should praise at all times, not only when things are going good.
3. Learn to discipline your tongue.
4. Learn to hope.
"My hope is in the name of the Lord." Hope suggests that there is a possibility of dissapointment, and hope enables us to take a step into Him.
5. Learn to notice.
While in the crowd, Jesus noticed someone's need, and He stopped, noticed and met the need.
6. Look up
When you are feeling drowned or tired, you need to take time to look up to God.

Immanuel, God is with us. There's power in the presence of God. And we should never take it for granted.

As seen by Susan @ 11:12 AM

Christmas Spectacular at Hillsong

It was awesome. Truly fantastic. The church was fully packed last night with crowds of people still waiting outside. Heaps of dancings and singings. Darlene Zschech, Katrina Peoples, Debra Ezzy, Lucy Fisher, Steve Mcpherson...were some of the singers. I watched 6 times....I know it's quite a lot. But what else could I do? I missed the first two performances, and Ellie cried her eyes out,"Everyone else's mommy's there watching, and your not...it hurt me more than a very hard smack..." Oh well, better go watch then. She had 9 performances, I thought she'd had enough when it's all over, but she's sad, she wanted to keep doing it. She had heaps of fun. Even Jamie and Kate watched 3 times.
Hillsong holds Christmas Spectacular every year and they just get better and better each year. It was sensational.

As seen by Susan @ 10:58 AM

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Shyness

Ellie has a beautiful gift in dancing. Sometimes when she dances in spirit, it really touches my heart. But the problem is, she's shy. If she realises that someone's watching her, she'd stop or she'd only do the technical part of dancing. That really frustrates me.

But then I can't blame her at all. I'm extremely shy myself. And I know the Lord is frustrated with me, extremely.

I think my shyness comes from the education and upbringing that I had. It's a culture thing of China. Shyness is regarded as a virtue, especially for females. Openly express one's feelings will just make one feel like some kind of prostitute or causing mockings. I was mocked badly when I was a child so somewhere I've made a decision to never express my feelings openly again. If I tried to dance or smile, even my sister or brother would laugh at me. And the worse part is, I started to laugh at myself.

I lost the ability to laugh out loud, and to be transparent. I always unintentionly try to hide myself behind a mask. And for most Chinese, this is how they live....always with a mask, that will only reveal a part of their true feelings.

Living in Australia has helped me a lot. People are a lot open and willing to share their emotions and feelings. I'm blessed to be able to go to Hillsong church, where their praise and worship is famous around the world, where people allow their inner joy to freely flow out and expressed through facial expressions, body languages...their whole being.

The Bible tells us that the light is not to be hidden, it's to be placed at an open place for people to see. We all have light inside of us. But for me, too many times, I have covered it tightly without letting it to shine out freely.

It has always been a battle for me not to be shy. Like if I have to pray publicly, I'd freeze. I feel extremely difficult if I need to move my body like to dance,etc. And I find it difficult to even tell my kids I love them. A lot of the time I hide myself behind humour, not that I'm good at humour, but at least they can cover me of my true feelings.

But then I find, being shy actually hurts the Lord so much. It actually caused me to miss so many chances to be a blessing to other people. The Lord wants me to be an expression for Him, to be a light for Him in this world, but shyness is just like using a quilt to cover the light. It's actually a sin.

It's easy to hide behind shyness so I don't have to feel vulnerable. But then when I do choose to be vulnerable I always feel the power of the Lord with me. I really need to grow in this strength until it becomes a habit.

Blogging has been a big help for me when it comes to expressing. I find it a lot easier to express myself in writing than any other means of communication.

But I need to constantly remind myself from now on, that shyness is a sin. And it's not something that I should hold on to or celebrate. Do you agree?

As seen by Susan @ 11:35 AM

China

So I've bought my ticket already....very hard to return, looks like I'm definately going. And I've done most of the shopping, like gifts for friends,etc.
Please pray for my passport and visa...that there's no hickups. I haven't got my passport yet, but is expecting it to arrive around 21st.
My inlaws are in Sydney now, and they'll be with us for Christmas at our house. Also Peter's sister's family and auntie. This is the first time that I'm hosting a Christmas lunch, it should be interesting. I just hope that my roasts will not be half cooked or burnt, I don't usually do roasts that much at all.
Everyone's been telling me that there's huge changes in China as I haven't been back for 8 years. So I shall find out this time for myself. I really miss my friends, my old college(Beijing Language Institute, or Beijing Language and Culture University, or whatever they call it now), fellowships, and of course my family. I'll be leaving Dec30th returning the 20th of Jan. I don't think I can blog in China as so far nobody in China I know have been able to get on the blog website. I think there's blockage over there for blogs.

As seen by Susan @ 11:23 AM

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Creativity -- Bobbie Houston

In the mighty women of God series at Hillsong this month, Bobbie Houston brought out a fantastic message last Sunday about creativity. I've lost the notes so I can only talk about what it meant to me. It's like when the children are hungry, they come to you crying out, "I'm hungry!" well we can't just say, "now you go to the freezer and find something to eat. there're frozen chicken and raw rice out there somewhere and you just help yourself." for the children, the food on the kitchen shelf and freezer are not tangible, accessable for them, and we need to add our creativity to make up a meal that's suitable for them to meet their need. There're lots of hungry and needy people out there in the world, well all their needs can be met by the good news in the gospel, but somehow the good news is not tangible, accessible for them, they don't know how to apply them and use them to meet their need. Then we need to add our creativity to make the gospel acceptable to them in a way that they can identify and understand.
Bobbie said that nothing at Hillsong just happened by itself. It all "happened" because they planned, strategized, created and organized. Prov16:9 "The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." God gives us His calling, His directions, where we're going, but how we're gonna get there depends on our planning. Planning involves a lot of creativity. We're co-creators with God along the journey. We can rely on God for His inspirations, revelations, words, ideas, but we also need to be willing to join ourselves into His creativity. And when we do that, the messages that God wants us to bring becomes tangible and accessble to the people that He wants to reach.

As seen by Susan @ 8:36 PM

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Calling and love

Mr. Standfast has been talking about calling and love over at his blog. I've put a few comments there, and thought I'd post them here as well.

I think God has a calling for everyone of us, but not everyone of us knows what this calling is. But when you know what your calling is, it always comes with an extradinary love. God gives the love together with the calling, so the person being called can't help it but to love. It's different than people's concept of love though. For example, Hellen Keller's teacher Anne's calling is toward Helen. She had an extraordinary love for Helen. But to everyone else, she might not have the same extraordinary love. She might not even be able to love her own family. But she was able to love Helen with the love and capacity that enabled by God. God continued to give her love, strength, patience, encouragement everyday through the journey, it's tied together with her calling. We can't try to fake it when we don't have the true calling,you'll soon tell. When there's a real calling, there's a real love, and this love is the same love that will sacrifice one's only son on the cross in order to see the purpose fulfilled.

There's a big difference between God's love and our own love. Human love bounces back when this love is rejected. But love that God gives will not give up at this point, but it will be able to keep loving and loving, no matter how hard it's rejected, how long it will take, whatever price it will require, it WILL not give up. It will persevere until God's purpose is fulfilled. Because God is love, and God will not give up. As a matter of fact, if the love is from God, I'd be really surprised to see that it doesn't get rejected and turned down and severely challenged.Human love will not stand the challenge, but God's love will. Because God's love never fails.

As seen by Susan @ 11:46 PM

Imaginations

I love coach Helen Chen's inspirational letters. Here's another one, you can always subscribe them for yourself.

Hi Susan,

Every high achiever knows how to let their minds be filled with
all the great things that they plan to achieve. Our imagination
is a gift from God. You can imagine fear, or you can imagine
love.

Is your dream to have a marriage made of heaven? Ask God to
sanctify your imagination so you can start seeing in your mind
the great marriage that belongs to you and pray that for your
life? Stop seeing all the negative pictures!

Is your dream to have a wonderful spouse? Spend time in the
Word and let God's word confirm to your heart again and again
that He is a good God and He desires to bless you with a
wonderful spouse. Don't imagine the worst!?! Imagine the best!
Don't fear that you won't find him/her. Imagine that he/she is
on their way and start thanking God.

Is your dream to have a fulfilling job? Let God guide you to
imagine what that wonderful job looks like. Then, ask God what
you need to do to get there. You may or may not get an
immediate response, but you will see that He answers your
prayers in the most amazing times.

Don't let past failures and disappointments hold you back from
imagining the best that can happen in your life. God is good;
He can turn all things for good. He can heal you and He can
sanctify again your mind, your imagination.

Susan, would you allow Him to do that today in you? Don't rush to do anything
right now. Pray to Him to do just that for you and
expect that He answer your prayers.

Let's pray. Susan, you go ahead. :-)

Warmly,

Helen Y. Chen
Business & Life Coach
http://www.HYCCoaching.com

P.S. I would like to reach out to more people that need encouragement today with
this message, if you participate in any online forums or if you own a blog, could
you please share the flash movie with your community?

Here is the link to the flash movie: http://www.hyccoaching.com/Flash/movie.htm

As seen by Susan @ 8:53 PM

Thursday, December 09, 2004

No Hillsong today

Today is the first day that I don't have to go to Hillsong for any reason since a long time ago....yay!
On Tuesday alone this week I went there 5 times.
4 times a day's not a big deal.
And today I don't need to go there even once... Feels a bit weired though.
But I did call the church once still, to register myself for the colour your world women's conference 2005. I offered to volunteer for the second conference, but they told me they don't need any volunteers for colour. Oh well, that will save me a few trips to the church for that week...hehe.

As seen by Susan @ 4:26 PM

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

China

Looks like I'm going back to China over Christmas holiday.
I haven't been back to China at all ever since I got here 8 years ago. Have always been too busy with pregnancy and babies.
I have booked ticket departing on Dec30th returning around 20th.
The main purpose for the trip is for my business(Amkey), and of course to have a holiday with friends and family. Should be fun!

As seen by Susan @ 11:07 AM

Ellie

Ellie's won the academic achievement award for her year at school yesterday. This is the highest award for school. Yay!! She won the same award last year in kindergarten as well.
Needless to say, I'm so proud of her! Actually I have almost zero involvement in her school side of work. I put a lot of energy in afterschool activities, as she does more than 10 classes a week after school. But for schoolwork, I sort of just let her handle all by herself. I've hardly given her any help, support or extra work for school works. But she's doing incredibly well. Her reading ability is amazing for her age and I can't even remember reading to her any stories. She just finds books and reads for herself.
I put a lot of time in her piano practises. She just turned 7 last month, but she's playing piano pieces of grade 5.
She just finished her dance classes with Hillsong performing art academy last night, with two open night performances. But then since she's involved in the Christmas Spectacular, she'll still keep me busy for another two weeks.

As seen by Susan @ 10:53 AM

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Happy Birthday to Jamie!!

Today is Jamie's birthday.... Finally!
She has been such a faithful waiter for this dream to come true. But just a few days ago, she cried her eyes out, saying, "My birthday's never gonna come." Then everyday she'd say, I'm so excited, my birthday's gonna be next week... Today she has been counting down the hours. She's such a drama queen toward her birthday. I can't imagine anything bigger than her birthday in her little mind.
So, she's five today. It's almost a disaster to have her birthday a month later than Ellie's. The month's wait is almost like a million years to her. I think next year we'd have to put their birthday celebrations together.
She sure is cute. And she's getting prettier and prettier. She has a beautiful smile and she loves to sing and dance. She's such an adorable little thing. And she's a character. She's like a little butterfly.
I hope all her birthday dreams come true!

Jamie

As seen by Susan @ 1:12 AM

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Still hot

So hot today. Lunch time in my car it was 50 degrees and it's only the first official day of summer. And Ellie's classroom's not even air conditioned. Felt sorry for Ellie and then decided to pick her up early and go shopping. Been keeping her up with icy drinks and ice creams, plus she just had a cold shower. My skin feels burning at the moment. Wonder what snow feels like......paradise.. hehe

As seen by Susan @ 3:09 PM

Delirious?

So I bought this Hillsong + Delirious? (up)Unified:Praise live worship DVD. I think it's the best. Really cool.It was recorded live at Hillsong conference 2003. I didn't really want to buy it before, but then I got it for a friend. I had a look before I give out and it's just awesome. If you haven't watched it, you should have a look.

As seen by Susan @ 10:53 AM