For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and Live!

Ezekiel 18: 32

First dentistry was painless.

Then bicycles were chainless,

Carriages were horseless,

And many laws enforceless.

Next cookery was fireless,

Telegraphy was wireless,

Cigars were nicotineless,

And coffee caffeineless.

Soon oranges were seedless,

The putting green was weedless,

The college boy was hatless,

The proper diet fatless.

New motor roads are dustless,

The latest steel is rustless,

Our tennis courts are sodless,

Our new religion – godless.

Been exploring some really rural areas and praying over it. Exciting stuff.

And because I’ve been away, I haven’t used a computer for that length of time. So now typing away on my macbook feels so foreign. How I wish to be away again.

Yeah… church embarked on this 90 day bible cover to cover reading campaign much earlier in the year and technically suppose to have finished by  the end of June/early July… something like that

BUT TODAY I’ve finished reading the bible cover to cover!

Quite exciting stuff in a sense by speed reading it like that.. names tend to stick with you longer and you can see the major major theme of the bible play out really epically.

It’s so amazing!

Gonna speed read through again and hopefully get it done within 90 days! Will use a different version. Thinking either NKJV or the ESV… but either way I’ll have to read it online.

Here’s to establishing a solid reading discipline again!

I’ll try and transcribe what I wrote in my journal as best as I can.. cause even I myself can’t read my own writing at the best of times!

God are you calling me to be a pioneer? Is that why all these ideas though probably inspired by You, but proliferated by man that is like going over old ground to achieve new things that I just can’t quite get my head around. I do appreciate that we have to learn from the past though…

But yet the work of a pioneer is not even new!

There is only one thing that he ought and should do. That is to pray! Working on his knees.

Why do we also make a big deal of world issues when really they are just a manifestation of the deeper root issues. That is spiritual leadership. Not necessarily political leadership but the actual spiritual leadership where the actual head is God. Because if we run a spiritual entity as a political entity, we have not learn from the mistakes of the past that Israel demonstrated.

The kingdom of God resides in the heart of man.

Hence once again why we need to pray. Breaking new grounds into the desolate hearts of the heathen.

Therefore the pioneer doesn’t actually need to do any new work apart from unique prayers offered up on behalf of the desire that God has given him. For the burden upon his shoulders symbolises the yoke bored by Jesus.

Learning about past strategies isn’t so much about repeating the strategies in subsequent missions for the individual/team/organisiation/agency/church. Rather it is about seeing the goodness of God, glorifying His name. Because even when God is brought to disrepute, paradoxically He gets glorified and people do get save. We shouldn’t be so wrapped up about wanting to make Him sound good. Rather we should be more concerned about living our lives won by God.

Being holy.

Our lives is what brings more glory to God and how is that achieved?

Unsurprisingly it is prayer!

Some of the stuff I wrote doesn’t quite flow and doesn’t quite describe what a pioneer is in a sense, because I had quite  a few different train of thoughts running in my mind at that time.

However this is as much as a challenge for me, I really need to pray more.

I remember in the time leading up to leaving Perth, I never thought too much of prayer as the work of a Christian. I convince myself I’m the do it all guy. Prayer is just a part of the Christian life, and I want to be a missionary, so I’ll pray once I’m on the field but really I just want to get down and dirty. Running my hands, and bleeding sweat on the field.

By His grace I’m definitely enlightened.

One of our teachers shared this important statement:

Prayer is the work, ministry is the reward.

That really drove the point home to me. And it applies to every single Christian out there, regardless of their calling.

Despite knowing that I have a calling of a pioneer within me, I am still in the same position as every one else. I have to pray. Even more so because conceptually I argue a pioneer wouldn’t know anything else simply due to the fact that he be going to places (spiritual and physical) where no man has ever been before. Yes he can draw inspiration from the experiences of missions past, and acquired knowledge, but the real source of it all is God alone.

Therefore the pioneer’s sole purpose is to pray. God will take care of the rest.

Guess I somehow extended upon what I wrote in my physical journal on my online one. Let me know what you think about this, please rebuke me if in any ways I’ve strayed from the Truth I won’t bite… I might just bark a little haha!

It all started when I was young. I remember clearly seeing people walking around with their mouths opens and I thought that’s the coolest thing and proceeded to develop that habit of breathing through my mouth.

When I started my first foray into jogging in first year uni, I found myself consistently having to gasp for breath through my mouth. I knew this was bad so I forced myself to breath in through my nose which took a super long time to get used to but eventually got the hang of it.

But still when I’m not conscious of it I still breath through my mouth, hence why I drool when I sleep.

Come this year, I decided to make a more conscious effort of breathing through my nose. And got the habit down pretty consistently till a week after I arrived in China and I had this massive block nose for a few days that forced me to breath through my mouth. Needless to say old habits die hard.

But over the last few days, I’ve been making a more conscious effort to breath through my nose, especially when I’m riding on my bicycle (of which I’m yet to blog about…). And because of the great pollution in this country, the mucus or the “beisi” is black… and then I thought “my poor lungs!”

How great a filter is the nose.

Holy Spirit is an amazing one too when you’re in a place where the air/aroma/breathe/fragrance (what have you) of God is absent. Keeping your insides nice and clean.

As I made mention to in my previous post, I want to learn how to edit the photos so that it’s at least somewhat interesting, and hopefully that means more readers to my blog so that it’ll at least make me feel like my writings are being read!

So I’m learning really slowly the art of processing digital photography. Trying to understand what a good “workflow” is as the keyword that gets thrown around a lot to encourage efficiency. Heck I don’t even know what’s a good way of organising my photos, using a library/catalogue and all these funny things. I’m using Adobe Lightroom 3 and it’s quite powerful. But I’m overwhelmed by it and slowly learning it. I figured once I can get my head around how to manage a catalogue that encourages good habits at this critical learning stage, if ever I do move on into digital photography it’ll be a lot better.

Yes I know I’m still a dinosaur using film. And it’s a pain trying to find film to buy here. But I’m slowly learning to accustom myself to reading chinese online and so I’ve been exploring taobao for film. It’s like a Chinese eBay. Only problem is that I’ll have to get my classmate who’s setup an account there and bother him a little bit which I don’t really like doing.

Nonetheless, like a lot of things, the last few weeks has just been an exercise in learning slowly a lot of new things!

You can check them out at my Flick’r account: http://flic.kr/jiroumi

My aim was to upload maybe  a select few pictures from a few rolls a day. It is a bit of a pain though labeling everything, putting a description on everything. Especially with backlog that seriously extends a year.

Looking through my pictures though, really rekindled my attraction to shooting photos. This year I’ve been really conservative with my photo taking, bordering on actually can’t be bothered. Namely for a few reasons, process of film is getting expensive. Film itself isn’t that bad, can get some good deals on ebay, it’s just getting it developed and scanned. All the photo developing places closed down, except for a couple big ones but their prices are so expensive. Which leads on to another reason, feedback. Time between shooting and seeing picture is a long time.. I’ve got a couple of rolls from probably 3-4 months ago that are still yet to be developed.

But going back through my archives, seeing some really good shots, inspired me! So much so that I burnt through a few rolls within the last few days, regretting not bringing more rolls of film. I thought I’ll just get by happily with my point and shoot. But really the limitations are so annoying! I can tolerate the lens, but I can’t stand being unable to control my aperture, shutter speed and focus. During favourable lighting situation it’s fine, but when it gets questionable it’s a pain!

So that leaves me one thing, to learn how to edit my photos. I’m at a loss when it comes to that, coming from the shooting film and you get what you get background, though you could argue darkroom magic, but I wouldn’t even go near that sort of destructive creativity with a ten-foot pole! But that is my goal now, when I’ve caught up with my uploads, and learnt how to edit, you’ll see more of my digital pictures.

That’s not to say, I’m not showing some analogue love! I’m just going to wait till I’m in Hong Kong in late January to develop and scan my films. And I wait with eager anticipation to see what’s caught on film!

Been meaning to blog about many different things, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it… don’t know why!

It’s just like the markets nearby which I frequented a bit last week because my roommate and I were rostered to prepare dinner for our entire group (approx 10 ppl depending).

Why is it like the markets nearby?

Because there’s all these different stalls selling different things, or if in the case of vegetables usually the same thing and since it’s so cheap anyway I can’t really be bothered to go shop around for the best price. My point is that there’s this variety of things to pick and buy or just leave, just like my thoughts and what to blog.

And speaking of the markets, the first day I was there, that very morning I decided to take my big wallet, and moments after I bought my meat and turned around to vegies, but seemingly in a moment of no concentration either I must have dropped my wallet and went missing straight away, or it got pickpocketed of which both I have no idea how. Except maybe when that lady bumped me just after I bought my meat… but I could have sworn I still had my wallet in my bag cause I saw it after that… oh well lesson learnt.

Funnily, I jokingly said to my housemate “revenge is the Lord’s”… and probably an hour or so later, when the group was praying for me, someone else prayed that it will be a blessing to the thief. Ah the Lord’s gentle rebuke over me! haha!

Interestingly, calling up all my banks etc. to cancel my card, the Commonwealth Bank representative had the nerve to sell a product to me after fulfilling my request. He saw in my transaction history, one where I transferred a relatively large sum of money to my internet savings account and decided to sell me CBA’s equivalent product. Thought I entertained him, just in case it might actually be a good deal, of which it is but only for a few months! So NO DEAL!

Oh how the world is this massive market!

But how do I trust them when they said that the water was meant to be turned off about 4 days ago!

The only annoying thing about not having water is that I can’t take a shower and the toilets can’t flush…