Owner: tenforty URL:http://tenforty.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 11:03:41 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: travel tales in the Far East; Cambodia, China, the Philippines, Singapore; photo blog; inspirational poems and quotes. Site statistics:Click here
PicK Of The Day: Hungry Souls 2007-10-07 08:21:00 Koh Kong Cambodia. This scene was taken a couple of years ago during a Christmas service in December in the Koh Kong church. I like this photo for a couple of reasons: 1) look at all the hungry souls, especially so many youngsters, gathered in the church compound to hear the Christmas story, and 2) in the midst of all the eager Cambodians sat a lone Singaporean with her camera, looking very, very much at home. Read more:Hungry
, Souls
Mountain Top Experience Part 1 2007-10-06 06:42:00 We were up bright and early the next morning and went down for breakfast. Ranie was very popular in the dining hall, and we soon found out that it was because of the instant coffee she had bought at the supermarket the previous evening. Coffee is not a popular beverage in this part of the world. We all missed our Starbucks, didn't we. VG came along with some good news: we could proceed to our traditional yurt hotel on the grasslands as the water had apparently returned, although electricity was still somewhat lacking. We checked out right after breakfast and were soon in our bus for the one-hour journey. Here are the scenes from the bus window.Grass, grass and more grass.Sheep and more grass.Cows and plenty more grass.Some yurts and lots and lots more grass.Homes of normadic Mongols? Not sure.According to DL, yurts are painted white and blue. Blue represents the sky, and white represents milk.We arrived at the yurt hotel in good time, at about 1030 am, and had our first glimpse of our Read more:Mountain
Recent Koh Kong Trip 2007-10-20 04:35:00 While I am sitting here and staring at a blank sheet of MS Word doc, I started to wonder if I can be lazy and just point you to Daph’s blog again to check out her Destination Cambodia travelogue and photos. She really did have some amazing pics, you know. She made the trip only a few months ago before mine, in July, and she covered most of the places I went to. Hmm? No? You don’t want me to be lazy, is it? All right, I guess I’m not, except when it comes to housework. My mother will tell me, So lazy, when are you going to clean your room?? Huh? Dirty again, meh? I thought I already cleaned before CNY.Well, since the next Chinese New Year is coming real soon, let’s leave the room-cleaning till then and write some Koh Kong stories. Before I went on my second trip a couple of weeks ago, I checked out Daph’s blog and photos closely to see what improvements have been made to this little town since my last time there. When I was in Koh Kong in March, I basically didn’t go anywhe Read more:Recent
Mountain Top Experience Part 2 2007-10-17 21:03:00 I'm still lost in my latest Koh Kong adventures but at the end of Part 1, I did promise Part 2 of the mountain top story in inner Mongolia, so... here goes. The title would have given you a big clue whether I made it to the top or not. How could I write about a 'mountain top experience' if I was sitting somewhere at the bottom having my own little meeting while the rest got up there?Actually, I did think of sitting at the bottom to have my own little meeting and wait, as we were trekking towards the hill. It looked so far away. And the gap between the 3 people in front of me (Vi, Uncle R and VG) grew wider and wider until when they reached the hill, I was still glumly dragging my feet along far, far behind them.See? The 3 of them were just in front of me when we set out from the yurt hotel...But all of a sudden, they were climbing the hill while I struggled far behind!But it was very encouraging to see the summit, and John and Mark standing there waiting for us.And here's a pictur Read more:Mountain
Missionary 2007-10-16 18:01:00 Her name is Marissa. She is our missionary in Koh Kong Cambodia, and the chief reason why I have been there twice this year (14 - 17 March and 11 - 14 Oct 2007).Sure, sometimes I dream about going shopping in the big cities (like London or Paris!) but (sigh!) I don't know anybody there. So, I go to a small little town called Koh Kong. Nobody's heard of it. Nobody knows where it is on the map.Marissa with DarahMarissa with two kids and a dog, at GLBC Koh KongIt does not even have a shopping mall, but it has Marissa. She took me to the local market......and on dangerous boat rides over the high seas to Baklang and Bangkachang islands.Koh Kong is a lot less exciting without her.
No, No, No! 2007-10-23 18:12:00 That's a word we often use on small children and dogs. A word small children (throwing tantrums, accompanied by stamping feet and piercing screams) use back on us. And then, it's also a word the authorities (or those who think they're in authority) use indirectly on everybody else. We were filling up on supplies (bottled water, biscuits) in a supermarket in a small town in inner Mongolia, and it was near closing time. Not wishing to spend the night there if the doors shut unexpectedly, I grabbed what I needed, paid up and then went outside to wait for my two friends who were taking their time. Outside on the wall next to the big doors was this sign. It made me stare at it for a long, long while before I fished out my camera.
Basic Blogging Etiquette, Do’s And Don’ts, Plagiarism 2007-10-22 18:00:00 I don't usually post to my blog on Tuesdays but this is not the usual kind of post - I'm in the midst of trying to resolve a nasty issue regarding the plagiarism of one of my articles (swiped from right under my nose within 24 hours of posting!) and I'm not a happy person today. So I thought it's time for one of those Admin/Miscellaneous posts.I have been blogging since April'07 but still consider myself new and have a great deal to learn. And I've learnt a lot from many other bloggers, blog discussions and picking up blog tips along the way.I'm no expert but I can list out briefly here what I've learnt which will be applicable for the average blogger who knows little about how things work in blogsphere. It's a jungle out there, folks! Don't be ignorant and get eaten up!I'll cover the following in this lengthy post -1) Dos and don'ts in blogsphere;2) Helpful widgets and steps to protect your blog's content; and3) How do you know if your copyrighted article / photos have be Read more:Basic
, Blogging
, Etiquette
, Plagiarism
Vibe 2007-10-21 07:42:00 An invitation from CalyXmae to hang out at Vibe Cafe on Saturday afternoon was too good to turn down, so I duly trotted to church at 3pm.The church building was buzzing with a great deal of activity. The Christmas Drama team was in the basement. The Uth ministry workers were in the office, photocopying fliers. There was another group in the fellowship hall, recording music. And finally, up the staircase in the church sanctuary, was Vibe.Vibe Cafe currently operates once a month, on a Saturday from 3pm to 9pm. The youthful waiters, waitresses, cooks, cleaners and other helpers swung into action much, much earlier, to turn the sanctuary into a very classy-looking red and black establishment.With music blaring and a never-ending stream of slides on the big screen, customers brought their friends and dogs and made themselves right at home.Gasp, I hear you say! Does the pastor of this church know what's been done to the sanctuary on Saturday afternoon?? Well, he himself turned up to meet a
To Market, To Market 2007-10-28 18:03:00 I don't know if the market at Koh Kong is extra busy on weekends, but this was what I saw when I took a slow stroll there with Marissa and Pastor Vic one Saturday morning.Outside the marketThe seafood sectionGoing into the marketI pointed my camera everywhere. Read more:Market
From Koh Kong To Prey Nob 2007-10-28 06:34:00 I'm not the first to go to the Prey Nob campsite from Koh Kong. I'm not even the second, or the tenth, or the twentieth. In the past three years or so, many people I know have done it before me, and they had returned laughing, with scary tales of being on the road for hours on end, getting stuck in lots of mud, crossing the dangerous rivers etc etc. I guessed that put me off, and when Pastor Vic asked if I'd like to go to Prey Nob in March, I said no, let me stay behind in Koh Kong. The roads were improving, the hours shortened, but not much. In July, Daph joined the team and returned with the great news that the bridges were nearly completed. This must be the right time, I thought. No suffering on the journey to Prey Nob and back. Let there be paved roads and no mud or rivers to cross, please!A few years ago, I visited Prey Nob from Phnom Penh. The roads were good until the last bits, about ten minutes from the camp site. We were basically being jiggled and shakened up and down unt
Koh Kong To Prey Nob Photos 2007-10-31 12:01:00 You may be wondering why there were no photos accompanying the Sunday article From Koh Kong To Prey Nob. Well, I was rather busy then and only had time to write - I can write very quickly and finish the story in a few minutes, but photos needed to be sorted to find the best ones, resized, and watermarked, and arranged in the right chronological order, and uploaded, and captioned and...whew, that can take a whole night.Anyway, this blog gets lots of visits because of the photos, and there were so many comments about the pics of oranges I posted yesterday. I'd no idea those oranges were such a hit! (Thanks to all who commented, and e-mail and RSS subscribers, do visit the blog to read 'em! You don't know what you're missing.) Sometimes, sniff, sniff, I wonder if anyone appreciates my writing any more. I love to write, but I don't think I'm a very good photographer. Still learning!Back to the subject, and here... ta da! are the photos of the first leg of our journey from Koh Kong to
Oranges 2007-10-30 12:11:00 At the market in Koh Kong, Cambodia. These don't look much like oranges on the outside. They have green skin, not orange skin! But they looked and tasted like orange on the inside. I did wonder for a moment if it was possible to haul one of the above bags all the way home to Singapore, but I finally decided against it.Marissa bought some of these green oranges (on the bottom right) for our dessert. She got a bag (perhaps about 12 or 15 big ones for US$1.00) Read more:Oranges
Philippines 2007-11-06 11:01:00 Because of all the curiosity over last Wednesday's green oranges, I emailed Marissa, our missionary in Cambodia, to take pictures of the fruit cut opened to show that it's really orange inside. A very strange thing to ask a missionary to do, for sure, but she sent me the picture and here it is! I also did some research on why they're green, you can see my comments in last week's post.Now, on to this week... I have started taking out my Philippines
photos and showing a few choiciest ones since Saturday - see the previous two days' posts. I have been focusing too much on Cambodia, China and inner Mongolia, and not much about the Philippines, yet this land is still my all-time favourite missions trip destination, and we support the most number of missionaries there. The food's great, the shopping's great, the people are wonderful, friendly and hospitable... what more can one ask for?1) The food. Oh, look at the wide smiles. Good mangoes, eh?Guimaras mangoes are the sweetest in the
Taking A Break 2007-11-04 11:01:00 At the Forest Camp, Negros Oriental Philippines. Read more:Taking
, Break
Stolen Content Removed 2007-11-11 04:40:00 It was my birthday on Friday! And Google, which is in charge of blogspot (Blogger), must have known it because they sent me this message the night before, nine days after I emailed them a DMCA Notice (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaining about my article and photos which appeared in a spam blog without my permission.--------------------Hello,In accordance with the DMCA, we have completed processing your infringement complaint and the content in question no longer appears on the following URL(s):[URL]Please let us know if we can assist you further.Sincerely,The Blogger Team--------------------For the background about what had happened, please see my earlier post. I thought I would have to wait till Christmas to hear anything, but thank God it didn't take that long after all.Although that particular page with my content and photos had been removed, the spam blog with lots of pages of foreign language content has not been taken down yet, and following further advice, I reported Read more:Content
Ministry On Bangkachang 2007-11-09 22:32:00 On Saturday afternoon at about 3pm, we left the church and took the two-wheeled taxi to the jetty. Taking taxis in Cambodia, as you should know by now, meant risking our lives without crash helmets, but thank God the traffic in Koh Kong was not as bad as Phnom Penh.Marissa had gone on ahead of us, to the market to buy packets of biscuits for the children's ministry on Bangkachang island, and when she met us, she said since there were six of us going, we would take a 'bigger' boat. I thought... ok, bigger boat = something like this size, right? Yup, like the pump boat we took from Iloilo to Guimaras island in the Philippines. Not too bad.Who knows she wasn't referring to those, but to these little fellars.Anyway, we survived that ride, and reached the island in one piece. To all our brethren who had visited the island previously and had their feet soaked because the beach was flooded, you may like to know that Pastor Vic was prepared with his white slippers, but I went [by faith] i Read more:Ministry
Room To Room Evangelism - Cebu 2007-11-16 22:04:00 Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!To God be the glory for what He has done last Saturday (Nov 10th) during our room-to-room evangelism at the University of Cebu. All we can say, thanks be to God for the victory and spiritual awakening in Cebu City!We praise the Lord for hearing our prayers!God gave us 28 soulwinners (including 6 SMCians and FBC brethren) and enough for the number of students were present that day to be reached out.God indeed knew everything, He knew that we can't cater to 5,000 students and He gave us 2,000+ which covers all classrooms present on that particular day.Praise the Lord, many professions were made and we believe that God will give the increase! It was indeed a great experience to each and every one of us.Some of us were first timers, the product of our first Netcasters training at FBC last January. Pastor Anat, our senior pastor, told me that really it was a great experience and blessing to him once again since over 10 years he ha Read more:Evangelism
Cambodia Index 2007-11-15 11:00:00 24 17 Nov 2007 -- Prey Nob -- 5 photos COMING SOON!23 15 Nov 2007 -- The Cambodia
n Vision -- 3 photos22 10 Nov 2007 -- Ministry On Bangkachang -- 9 photos21 01 Nov 2007 -- Koh Kong To Prey Nob Photos -- 40 photos20 31 Oct 2007 -- Oranges -- 3 photos19 29 Oct 2007 -- To Market To Market -- 7 photos18 28 Oct 2007 -- From Koh Kong To Prey Nob -- no photos17 20 Oct 2007 -- Recent Koh Kong Trip -- 3 photos16 17 Oct 2007 -- Missionary -- 5 photos15 15 Oct 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Fish -- 1 photo14 15 Oct 2007 -- Back From Trip -- 1 photo13 07 Oct 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Hungry Souls -- 1 photo12 03 Oct 2007 -- Koh Kong - 3 photos11 16 Sep 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Baklang Island Koh Kong Cambodia -- 1 photo10 11 Aug 2007 -- Destination Cambodia - no photos09 05 Aug 2007 -- The Persecuted Church Part 4 - no photos08 06 Jun 2007 -- From Church Camp To Colorful Circumstances - 6 photos07 31 May 2007 -- Mission Shopping Tri Read more:Index
The Cambodian Vision 2007-11-14 17:01:00 Several people in our church in Singapore had asked if we run an orphanage in Cambodia. It seems a common perception that there are many orphans in Cambodia. This may not be wrong.The Cambodian people experienced many problems and hardships over the last few decades. The sufferings included war, civil war, genocide, human rights violations, AIDS and poverty.Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world today. 34% of the population live on less than US$1.00 a day. Two-thirds of the population of 14 million is below 25 years of age.About half a million Cambodian children of primary school-going age remain out of school, most of them poor and living in remote rural areas. Among those who attend school regularly, dropout rates and grade repetition rates are very high.Without an educated pool of citizens, the country cannot survive on its own. Cambodia is still dependent on grants and soft loans from other countries.Many orphanages, run by NGOs (non-government organizations) and oth
Quiet Time 2007-11-13 11:00:00 Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. - Psalm 25:4 Read more:Quiet
Fishing Boats 2007-11-21 19:45:00 Tanjay City, Negros Oriental, Philippines. On this trip, Ven, our missionary, took us to visit a little fishermen family that had just started coming to church. There were perhaps ten of us squashed in the car with Pastor Sam at the wheel, and as we drove past this idyllic scene with the blue, blue sky and the fishing boats floating on the blue, blue sea, I poked my camera quickly out of the opened window and took this photo. Read more:Fishing
, Boats
Roosters 2007-11-20 17:25:00 There were a couple of spiritual roosters which attended the children's Sunday School class when I visited them one fine morning at the church in Dumaguete City, Philippines. Here's one.His friend, however, was locked up behind the three Sunday School teachers, and they even used the top of his cage for their books and pens! I supposed he ended up there because he was naughty, huh? Perhaps he wasn't singing the song properly along with the other children?Perhaps he went "Cocadoodledoooo!" when everyone else was singing "Jesus loves me this I know!"These children sure enjoyed themselves.Gospel Light Christian Church in Dumaguete City, Philippines grew out of the campus ministry work which started in a state college in May 1999. Besides reaching college kids, our missionaries saturated the seeds of the gospel in many parts of the city, and families came into the church. While the worship service (with a congregation of about 80 to 100) is conducted in the sanctuary on the second floo
Prey Nob 2007-11-18 05:22:00 If you're wondering what in the world is Prey and why does it always seem to go together with Nob, the word "Prey Nob" is simply the name of a place in Cambodia. Just like "Koh Kong", or "Phnom Penh", or "Kampong Som" - names of places or towns in Cambodia.Several years ago, Pastor Noe, our partner in the Cambodia work, bought a large piece of empty land in Prey Nob for the princely sum of US$3,300.00. That was a few years ago. If you wish to buy the 6 hectares of land from Pastor Noe now, and he asks for 50 times what he paid for, he may not be over-charging you, because land prices in Cambodia had gone up and up since then. Anyway, Pastor Noe is not selling. It is being developed as a camp site and a leadership training centre.When I first visited Prey Nob in October 2004, there was not much development on the land. It took us about four hours driving from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to Prey Nob. We travelled on a good highway most of the way, until the last half hour. Th
Starry Starry Sea 2007-11-27 11:01:00 Bohol Philippines. So many starfish! Bohol has one of the best diving spots in the world. I like this pic because it was one which I couldn't possibly have taken. Can you imagine me standing barefoot among so many slimy starfishes? Yeeks! Yuks! All right, I know they don't bite, but I still don't like to get too close to slimy things, Anyway, during my one-day trip to Bohol, we didn't have time to go to the beaches at all. A good friend of mine, Malt, took this photo during his trip.
20th Anniversary 2007-11-25 06:40:00 The Bahasa (Indonesian) CongregationWe're not a teenager any more! Today, 25th November 2007, our church celebrated her 20th birthday, and here are some photos and video clips taken this morning.We started 20 years ago in a little function room at Hilton Hotel with 18 members.Twenty years later, we have grown to eight congregations (soon to be nine) with about 1,300 attendees each Sunday.Sunday morning - 2 English Services, 1 Mandarin Service, 1 Cantonese/Hokkien Service, 1 Bahasa (Indonesian) ServiceSunday afternoon - 1 Filipino ServiceSunday evening - 1 Mandarin (Workers) Service, 1 Telugu (Indian) ServiceComing soon on 23rd Dec... Sunday morning Filipino Service.The Sunday School children (video clip)The Filipino CongregationThe ACTS (Adults Coming Together to Serve) MinistryThe Dialect (Cantonese/Hokkien) CongregationGod Moves in Mysterious Ways (video clip)- William Cowper (1731–1800) God moves in a mysterious way,His wonders to perform;He plants his footsteps in the sea,And Read more:Anniversary
Website Grader 2007-11-24 07:28:00 I don't know how to write any more. When someone told me about an online website grader tool, I went there to check out how they'll rate this blog and guess what?Isn't that unbelievable? Oh, sorry, that is a very long word to use. Maybe you don't know it. Maybe that's why they tell me you need a PhD to read and understand this blog. Funny, I don't remember getting a PhD myself. Maybe if I dumb down my writing, I'll get more readers. Let me try and see if it works...Here is a photo of a man and a little girl. They are in a place called Prey Nob. It is in Cambodia. Cambodia is a big country in South-East Asia. The man and the little girl are looking at some geese playing under a tree. Can you count how many geese there are?The geese are very fierce. They will chase and bite you if you go too near. You must stand far away and not let them see you. You must run away if they chase you.There. I hope the above will be graded Primary One level.At another online website tool (yes, your g Read more:Grader
A Short Little Trip To Batam 2007-12-02 08:40:00 I got back from the island of Batam
, Indonesia, a couple of hours ago after a day trip. It's fairly easy for Singaporeans to get out of our tiny island country without even flying... head either north (via the Causeway) or west (the bridge known as the Second Link) by car for Malaysia, or else head south and hop into a ferry for Batam.The sea was rather rough on the one-hour journey, and when we reached Batam at 1pm, we queued up at the ferry sales booth to confirm our 5.30pm return trip. The moment Pastor Vic reached the counter, he was told to wait because the computer system had gone off-line. Hmm! Elder Leong and I went off to buy some buns for our lunch, and we waited a bit more with Stella. We were running late because the service was to start at two. Finally we exchanged our immigration cards and particulars at the sales booth for a receipt, for them to confirm our tickets upon our return.Thankfully the new venue for the English service was not too far away. This was the fifth Read more:Short
Philippines Index 2007-12-01 09:59:00 13 28 Nov 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Starry Starry Sea - 1 photo12 22 Nov 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Fishing Boats - 1 photo11 21 Nov 2007 -- Roosters - 4 photos10 17 Nov 2007 -- Room To Room Evangelism - Cebu - 15 photos09 14 Nov 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Quiet Time - 1 photo08 07 Nov 2007 -- Philippines
- 7 photos07 05 Nov 2007 -- Taking A Break - 3 photos06 03 Nov 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: Contemplation - 1 photo05 30 Sep 2007 -- PicK Of The Day: At The Forest Camp Advance - 1 photo04 08 Jul 2007 -- Somewhere Beyond The Blue - 1 photo03 07 Jul 2007 -- Getting Around: Jeepney Adventures In The Philippines Part Two - 6 photos02 14 Jun 2007 -- Getting Around: Jeepney Adventures In The Philippines - 3 photos01 03 May 2007 -- Vacation Bible School - 5 photos Read more:Index
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