Only God's omnipresent!

Dear all,

Found it so funny that dear Kelly appeared on Public Insight commenting on Midsouth, a company which he covers. In it, he mentioned that Midsouth is poised to benefit from construction demand, tt is omnipresent in China. Right on Sun at church, Martin and Grace came up to us and duly informed us that only God is omnipresent. tee hee .. rightfully so! =)

Catch it here:
http://www.publicinsight.com.sg/s3e4tr.htm

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Honey Moon Pics

Hi guys,

Been a tad busy these couple of weeks after our honeymoon w work n all =) But here's some photos tt we've posted up, feel free to check them up if you're free ;p

http://picasaweb.google.com/kellyandfiona/HoneymoonPart1?authkey=WAmv-MXyCKc

Post wedding pics

Hi guys,

Just returned home today and was so pleasantly surprised by Marvin's photos of us, here's some just to share =) More available here

http://marvinlee.multiply.com/photos/album/93/Kelly_Fiona_Chia

Thanks Marvin, love your shots.... =)

Email to my jiemeis today

Hi guys!

Thought to just drop all of u an email once again to let u know what’s happening =) I’m finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this is getting me a wee bit excited! ;p Yes italy n Switzerland, here I come! =) Thanks so much for being a blessing to me and Kelly, been feeling a bit below the weather of late, with work stress n all. Yes, my boss has not approved my leave for next wed though technically I’ve to be at ROM getting my certs, but Hmmm.. haha, but apart from tt, all’s well. Like I was just telling some of you, I’m beginning to not sweat the small stuff, I trust u guys with the execution , knowing that you know me well and long enough.

Just this mon evening, I had my march in rehersal in church, to the tune of Rachel Lampa’s “No greather Love” Go listen to it here, if e link, doesn’t work, just go to you tube n do a search on Rachel lampa n no greater love. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN2vyy__os8

I agree with Marietta, that when lynette n cyn started singing, I just had such goose bumps n I knew that I just have to keep my mind stayed on God this whole time. It’s true know, throughout this whole process, with increasing work stress n house prep n wedding prep n all, I was beginning to lose focus on what really mattered. I mean seriously , choosing paint colour for the walls, rsvping dinner guests n writing construction reports are all important things and unfortunately all ve to be done ,but where is God in all this? I mean, if He is not Lord of all, then He’s not Lord at all. I mean, REALLY REALLY. So I wanna spend my time focussing on things tt do matter , spending time w u guys, time w Kelly and time w my family n time w God. I mean, vacuum cleaner can always get after the wedding right? Who needs the house spick n span all the time anyways … Grinz

Ok, housekeeping, some of you have been askin me what time to reach on the 6th. Here’s the official answer, no later than 8.30am. Kelly’s reaching at 9.10am, and we need to leave for his place at 10am, so u guys can whip up your recipe in half an hr? I think can la right? =) I wanna let u guys sleep as late as possible hence 8.30am, so dun be late k? =) Karena, who’s games master, shout if there’s not enough time yah?

As for outfits, as long as they are 80% the stipulated colours of white, silver, light purple and pink , I’m ok w prints n all ;)

Actually apart from being at the reception for some of u , I need you girls to (i) actively help me get guests “wedding wishes” written on the butterfly slips and collect them back immediately so we can use them after the wedding =) (ii)smile, stay hydrated, ve a good time n pray for no rain ;p

Attached’s the schedule for the actual day and your duties.

Here’s the lyrics to No greater Love. Stay cool girls.. =)


Before I knew Your Name, You knew my ev’ry breath.
Before I found my way, You knew my ev’ry step.
Before I knew everything that I need, You gave it all to me.
No greater love than this…
That You should lay down Your life For someone such as me;
I’d spend a lifetime wondering why.
The Beauty of Heaven Is here in my heart
And I know there can be No greater love than this.

I never understood How merciful Love could be,
Until I felt His Flame Light every part of me
And I would give everything that I am ’ Cause I have been saved; Yes, I have been saved!
No greater love than this…
That You should lay down Your life For someone such as me;
I’d spend a lifetime wondering why.
The Beauty of Heaven Is here in my heart
And I know there can be No greater love.

Our wedding invites

Hi guys, been really busy, no time to catch up, sigh, but do come for our wedding if we've left you out by mistake yah? Or rather drop me an email, or whack me on the head when u next see me, i'll make sure the invite gets delivered promptly to your door! =)

Love
Us

Year, Month, Days... Update

The counter says 28 days to our wedding...

It really reminded me that its really close and that I had better be prepared... At least as best as I can be, spiritually, emotionally and financially.

We've been having a really intense time. Work has simmered down a bit as its the lull season for Sep. In a certain sense, its good so that we can ramp up on our preparations.

We've obtained some of our furniture and fittings. We took a whole 8 hours without a break going from place to place. Glad its over and that we got quite good bargains on our stuff. On a number of items, we wanted to scrimp on them but decided against it as we're in this for the longer haul and intending (if God wills) to stay at our place for 5-10 years and beyond.

Funds are running short and without our family's help, it would have been even tougher. It really put a burden on me to let my kids start off on a good footing too in the future.

Lots of things to "do" but making best efforts to keep abiding in God so that I won't get worn out and myopic.

Lord, help us prepare for the marriage and not just the wedding.

If we're too busy and don't post, see you folks that are able to come on 6 Oct.

kelly

Small stuff and smaller stuff... Its all about where we stand.

I was in the lift just now going for a meeting and two tea ladies walked in with me and they were complaining. They were complaining about how "difficult" life was because how some office admin folks were making them clear old newspapers etc. which incidentally is their job to do so.

Today the STI made another decline downwards. As of lunch time when I'm writing this post, its 156points down. Along with the whole aspect of Hedge Funds collapsing, panic in the market and the likelihood of the whole economy slowing down despite what the governments of the world is saying, I was thinking: "That's really sweating the small stuff."

But you know, I remember the wallpaper that I've put on my computer back home. Its this picture:

Those of us who haven't seen this might be thinking... "What?!? He's a photographer man... bad as he is, this ain't a photo. If it is, its an artifact filled photo." Well, this picture is a picture of the world as we know it, except that its given us a perspective that most of us are myopic towards. Yes, planet earth is there. If you still can't see it, let me point us out to you:

Yup, that's us. ALL of us. On a planet that our entire lives, generations, economies revolve in. That includes the tiny little S$440bn Singapore Index which I was concerned about.

God spoke to Job near the end of his very difficult circumstance: "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Do you know the ordinances of the heaven? Can you set their dominion over the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that an abundanc eof water may cover you? Can you send out lightnings that they may go?" Job 38: 31, 33, 34-35.

Obviously he couldn't.

God basically said: "Don't worry. It doesn't help." Matt 6:25-34.

So our worries are unfounded but our concerns must remain focused. Concern for people and concern for their eternity. Let's not sweat the small stuff and focus on what's to last forever. He's got you covered as long as we don't walk away from His covering.

What are you worried about today? What you concerned about tomorrow? Make sure its eternal, not temporary.

Grace and peace,

kel

PS: Some info on the "pale blue dot" picture above. This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager's great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification.

This and that

This is easily my favorite photo of all, for one simple reason, because it’s silly and tt makes me laugh. Humour, no matter how silly it is, is easily the most important ingredient in a relationship. A merry heart doeth good like medicine, even the Bible advocates it. The devil however works at taking away the joy of doing the simplest of things or rather the devil steals away your time with unnecessary and silly demands that deprive you of doing the very things that would keep you happy and satisfied.

To be honest, I wished I had more time to laugh at ourselves. New job demands, an immature boss , parental demands , sighing partners have taken its toll on me. I’ve come to realized that I’ve low tolerance or rather low resistance to circumstances in the now seen world. It drains the life out of me and deprives me from keeping the main thing the main thing. For instance , I don’t know how to uplift Kelly in his foul times, in fact , it “spreads” to me and the good that I want to do, I don’t do! Sulking party continues. This far I know about myself, I’m not resilient to circumstances. I’m not unfazed by moods and pple around me.

I want to see God work through all these things, because all I can do, is to surrender and say “ Hey God, over here, take over.. pls “ , I don’t want to just sing “His grace is sufficient for me”,self pity continues... I want to be able to sing, “Worthy is the Lamb” , “I exalt Thee” through it all. Cos i acknowledge and see in myself no good thing indeed, but in Him , is my redemption and MY SALVATION! I want to see Him in His rightful place, in the heavenly places where the victory has truly been won. Open my eyes Lord.

Fiona

Tensions and expectations

Its just less than 2 months away from our big day! Wow, to think that we started planning 1 year in advance and there's still so much to do.

Well, its been a really tough week for the both of us. Work pressure increases its screams for attention and we've been under quite a lot of tension these couple of weeks since our photo shoot.

We're honest. We need prayer. Please pray for us.

However, the thing which I realise why most if not every time someone gets into tense situations is because of expectations. Just look at your work place. When you don't meet expectations, people are unhappy. When you do meet them or exceed them, everyone's happy.

But how a person falls short, meets or exceeds expectations is a complete factor of the communication or MIS-communication of the level of expectation. If your boss at work doesn't let you know what's your expectation, how on earth would you know how much to work? Unless you're like a very reputable and influential CEO (whom I won't mention) who said (I'm paraphrasing): "Don't let them know your expectations. So they need to work so hard just to meet an imaginary expectation. Then, when something goes wrong, you fire them for not meeting an expectation that wasn't in the very beginning".

That's nasty right?

But that's the world. Where the system is designed to extract the maximum (and more) from individuals that are defined as statistics. In this relationship of marriage, its a caricature of the Lord's union with His church. Conceptualised in love and completed in the same.

I'm a really bad communicator. I've got a really foul mood when I do things which I don't really like. Add that up and its prime recipe for tense situations.

Please do keep us in prayer. Especially for me, God really needs to do a lot of work on me.

Grace and peace to all,
kelly

More photos

It was about 1400hrs... so I was hungry... ;p

Somehow, I really like this picture.

Bobby, the golden retriever, our prop :)

I can jump quite high right?

We see ourselves, dimly, though not through a mirror.

A class from Princess Elizabeth Primary School, also used as our props :)

She looks so great here :)

Ok... this is very ordinary... but its a very big tree.

the water felt therapeutic :)

Band of Brothers... I mean, family.

I can jump high, even with an umbrella :)

Chilling out (or at least pretending to...)

My dad and I. He's the best dad in the world :)

Hi everyone, here's some more snippets of the day's happenings on 26th July. We had good fun cos of the people that God blessed us with and merciful weather that God planned for us. Leave us your thoughts please :)

Catch of the day...

Where's all that foam from?


It's bubbling season??? Bring on the brollies!

AH! there you are, the bubble puff girls..

Kelly n Fiona n Mike

More photos like these taken from my photographer's blog :
http://kelvinkoh.livejournal.com/4310.html

Some prelim photos from our trusty Canon Ixus

Underground pass at Tanah Merah
title of book "boy meets girl" - Josh Harris

Mel's dog, our prop, BOBBY!!

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” – Optimus Prime

First off, this is a response to everyone who cared in this difficult time of our wedding preparation. To those who somehow heard of the struggles we’ve been going through and you made a choice to stand with us, especially in prayer. We thank you for it. It really means something to us :)

If you’re wondering what Optimus Prime has to do with our wedding… Well, it really about freedom and the choices we make today.

I was thinking about this particular robot for all its worth. The idealist that first dreamt of mechanical beings that would respond with the capacity of emotions like humans. The animator who would put a face and form to this particular “leader of the pack”. But most of all, the creator who formed the very character of this hero, in a world that needed one even though it didn’t know it.

Sentient. Its defined as “having the power of perception by senses or emotion; consciousness”. In effect, we’re all sentient beings. We basically have a right of choice.

In retrospect of the past and current weeks of struggles, I’ve come to value freedom. A freedom that the Lord has given us in the Holy Spirit. “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3:17).

Much of the onslaught has been to curb and smother this liberty that we have in Him. Freedom to ask our God as we ask a loving father. We needed wisdom when work was overwhelming us. We needed strength when we had little rest. We needed comfort when we were beaten down. We needed healing when we’re down with sickness. At times, it came fast and furious. Other times, it was slick and subtle. All to achieve the aim to bind rather than be liberated in our never-ending Source.

Our friendly webslinging neighbourhood hero said: “We all have a choice.” The choices we make today will echo in eternity, whether we like it or not.

So, we’ve decided not to take our freedom to choose for granted and we cannot let our freedom of choice be taken away from us. Because eternity is at stake, regardless whether we see it or not. We walk by faith not by sight.

We are no longer slaves bound by fear (Rom 8:15). We choose to look up instead of down. We choose to look out instead of in. We choose to be up-beat instead of beaten-down.

You know, the Decepticons had all the cool machines… big tank, massive hauler, wicked fighter jets, sand swimming scorpion and even a cool stereo boom box. They seem to have everything while the good guys were just… cars… DUH.

Still, the big baddie Megatron, died in the hands of a “puny human” because he had the power of the Cube in his hands. We have a power that is not just in our hands but in our entire being. That’s the power of the Holy Spirit and to put it in a nasty way to our Enemy, its an overwhelming “unfair advantage” that we’ve got. He knows it and wants us to be so bound by our circumstances that we forget it.

God’s goodness and righteousness will prevail. Can you see it? Can you believe it despite the overwhelming odds? Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6)

Ranting too much… but I pose this to us all:

Choose to dream colossal.
Choose to think colossal.
Choose to love colossal.
And most importantly, choose to DO colossal.

We serve a God in which ALL things consist. Is that big or is that big?

Don’t be beaten down. All things are possible with God.

Make a difference in someone’s life.

“Transform and roll out!” :)

Grace and peace,
Kelly and Fiona

Things have been getting very difficult

Hi folks,

Just wanted to update that things have been getting difficult in our wedding preparations. Recently, there's been quite a lot of miscommunications and tempers have been getting short.

Along with the work load (which we're both entering our peak season from 1 July - 16 Aug), the home renovations, wedding prep has taken its toll on simple things like rest at night.

There are many who want to help but I think they are helping in the way which is not the best way for us. Do ask us how you can if you wish to. Cos sometimes, the "help rendered" makes things worse.

We both believe that its a spiritual thing at work because of the things that we've been doing (like street evangelism) for the extension of the Kingdom of Heaven. It doesn't really look like lots but it seems to have upset Ol' Grouch.

Let me give you a simple example (there are many more):

I just finished my fitting of my suit for my wedding shoot due on 26th July. The weather today was blistering and that didn't help. When we finally got a cab back to a food court to have a meal. In the course of getting our food, Fiona tripped on a tiny step and spilt soy sauce that she was carrying in a little saucer into my bag (that was slung high on my arm) carrying my 2 shirts to be used for my wedding. The shirts were tucked in a ANOTHER plastic bag that only had a small opening. Lo and behold, the tiny opening let almost all the soy sauce onto my shirts. Talk about "accurate". Grrr.

The place that we were sitting was also unbearably hot as compared to places just 5 meters away in the food court.

Like I mentioned, this is just ONE of the "situations". It has been going on and on for the last 2 weeks.

I get so upset that I start reminding the Devil that his time is coming that he's going to burn in the Lake of Fire FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.

Please pray for us. Just 2+ more months and anything can go afoul. We're not going to give up.

May the Blood of the Lamb cover us all.

Thanks for your prayers,
kelly

My dear friend Frances (3rd from right) who left for HK last sun. She's been really a good testimony as can be seen from the number of her church mates and friends who turned up at the airport to send her off. =) I'll miss you!! Praying God's protection and grace and strength upon you =)

On the job front , this is my 4th week, grace grace and more grace. Beginning to feel the tension of time as we prepare for the wedding and house reno. But i'm holding on to His promise, that His presence will go b4 us and give us rest!

Take care all!

Tom's the 4th week of my time at my new place. I'm asking for more grace.

4 day stint in Shanghai

Me and Wen in Shanghai with the Oriental Pearl Tower behind us, 3rd tallest building in the world. This is a break for Wen b4 she embarks on her new job ,for me as well i suppose =) We had fun in Shanghai, had lots of xiaolongpao and roast pigeons. One thing about the Shanghainese, they are very loud and aggressive, was at a qipao shop making qipao for my mum, and here was a qipao shop owner talking to her customer and you'd think tt they were screaming at each other! I was hiding at a corner cos it was so loud! It's the culture i guess, the violent take it by force kinda thing. Perhaps we need some of tt sometimes =) Just not the loudness......

Met a HK star at the Shanghai airport, he was queueing in front of me, can't rem his name though, i'm sure siblings know, seen him in some shows
My wonderful cell member Lionel who drove me to the airport and my wonderful Kelly who prayed for me and Wen as we headed our way.

Blessings

What i've been busy with =)

Kareen my good friend since sec school's wedding on 12 May! Was privileged to offer my help as a jie mei and emcee. Just before the wedding, Kareen's mum was hospitalised for throat infection and was only released the day of Kareen's wedding. So it's really by God's grace that she could come. It was the prayer of the saints too, Kareen and hubby Guowei mobilised everyone they knew to pray, very thankful that it all worked out! Praying tt God would bless them with a wonderful marriage ahead!
My brother, back from army, needless to say, there had to be pizza awaiting him! =) Keeping u in prayer Fabian! Hang in there. So happy that God's been speaking to him throughout his BMT, may he continue to find strength in Him for the rest of the 2 yrs ahead!!! =)
Vanessa's (girl 2nd from left) farewell treat for the colleagues at the yummy Yinzhong shop tt sells xiaolongpau, la mian, and my fav red bean pancake. It was really sad seeing Van leave on 23 May, then Wenching (girl 1st from left) had her farewell yesterday. 15 June would be my turn... wonder if i'd tear .... i must say God has blessed me with the best colleagues in the world. I've the best teammates and boss too. Really difficult to depart... Grace grace.... =)

Oh yes, did i mention that my trip to Israel got published in my company's newsletter? Quite happy with it, cos it gave me an opportunity to talk about God and Israel. =)

Got our flat... after some hoohah...

Above: I flew in a prop plane.
Above: Sunset in Washington DC (photo taken out of bus)
Above: Memorial to Ab Lincoln
Above: Declaration.
Above: The typical scene of movies...

Well, not much has been happening on the front of our wedding. We just sealed the deal for our flat in Simei at HDB. Was quite an experience before this as we had some issues with our seller wanting to stay on for another 1+ month for free while we started to service our mortgage. Not such a nice experience but thank God that it went well.

I was in the US on a business trip when the whole thing "blew up" and Fiona handled it superbly! She such a blessing! Now I realised how tiring a "jet setting" lifestyle can be. I flew 33 hours (4 airplane rides) just to get to my first location! I stayed in the US for about 5 days and I took 10 flights in all... that's tiring.

Ok, so that's the latest update on us. We're taking it a bit easier now for the time being. Need to recharge for the phase near the wedding. We'll give our helpers more info soon!

Cheers :)