News Update!

Straits Times News 1: Snatch thief tracked down through his sweaty shoe

Hey brothers and sisters, I just read the newspaper today, saying that a snatch thief was arrested after the police traced him by the DNA of the perspiration in the shoe he left behind at the crime scene.

The DNA of perspiration in shoe matched his sample provided a year later when he was convicted of another theft.
LIKE Cinderella, Mohamed Ali Abdul Ghani fled in a hurry, leaving not a glass slipper but a shoe behind.
Unlike Cinderella, there was no fairy-tale ending for the 35-year-old snatch thief, who had grabbed a purse from a 25-year-old woman in August last year.
He had escaped despite being pursued, but did not get away.
The perspiration from the sole of his foot, left in his shoe, was what did him in.
Police who arrived took away the shoe, had the sweat tested and obtained Ali's DNA profile.
Every individual's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is easily obtained from blood, saliva, skin and semen, has a unique fingerprint.
But even then, the police had to wait more than a year before they could find the man.
In the meantime, Ali had been arrested for another theft, convicted and jailed for 10 weeks in July. As a convicted criminal, he had to submit a body sample to be included in a national DNA database that helps the police solve crimes.
His profile matched that obtained from the shoe, and Ali.
He is not the first criminal nabbed here with the help of DNA profiling.
In 2005, a 39-year-old man was jailed for eight years and caned six times after he killed a woman who had provoked him. The police tracked him down from DNA samples on 10 cigarette butts found at the woman's home.

Scientists say it is extremely difficult to erase these telltale bits of generic information. Even washed clothings retain enough semen and blood stains for forensic identification of who it beongs to.
Under the law, anyone who is under arrest, detention or police supervision will have body samples taken for DNA profiling, along with photographs, fingerprints and particulars.

My thoughts after reading this article:

Previously i wrote about my thoughts as a life science undergrad studying the mechanisms of a cell to such a depth and that "Life is so complex, human is so intricately made. Conditions have to be so precise in order for life to exist." I am so in awe of God's creation. However, this time I am more interested in the uniqueness of each and everyone of us. We are all so complex, yet very unique. Everyone of us has our very own set of fingerprints and DNA. It makes me think that all of us will have to account for the things we do. Even the policemen can use these 'fingerprints' to trace who is present at the crime scene, what less can the LORD our God see beyond all these, He who is 24/7 awake?

Everyone is responsible for every action he/she does.

Merry Christmas!

Wow! This is my 3rd Christmas as a Christian, and each year i learnt and experienced this season differently. Still remember my first Christmas as a christian, i was still serving in the army. I spent the Christmas night watching 'Passion of Christ' movie in the bunk with my fellow instructors. Being a new believer then, I didn't know about bringing in spiritual conversation at that time, but i remembered all of us, christians and non-christians were so impacted by the graphics, loss of words.

This year, I was involved in the planning of the Christmas party. There were times when i really felt stretched by the work and alone in my family. In my mind, I was thinking and asking God when will i have a peaceful Christmas, whereby i can walk along the cool streets with my jacket, watching carols, stop by some coffee place and ponder on the things at the back of my mind over coffee. Thank God that I re-visited the meaning of Christmas and the reason for serving. I asked myself what does God wants me to do as a Christian during this festive season. I re-aligned myself to God, and gained greater understanding and joy of serving God and serving people who came for the party on that day. I realised that for a christian, all the more we should grasp this opportunity to share to people boldly, what Christmas is all about. Thank God for the National Council of Churches in Singapore, for bringing together a series of programmes and performance by various church groups - dance, choir, band, acapella... outside Tangs plaza, PS, Paragon... There was one night where Qiao Ping, Ian & myself sat down outside Tangs to watch the performances for 2 hours. I felt so blessed by the groups and the atmosphere of love and peace was really in the air. The hosts even share a bit here and there about God's love and the sacrifice of Jesus so that we can have eternal life, proudly proclaim the glory of God to the huge crowd there.

Through this Christmas, I have learnt more about what it means to serve God, joy thru serving, and what it means to celebrate Christmas as a christian. It is a big lesson i learnt from this season.

The year is coming to an end, perhaps we can take time to record down such experiences (things which we had made sense of) we had in our walk with God this year. Time to stock check our journey, before we step into the brand new year 2008.

want to share with you guys.. =D

Heart-warming video:

This is super cool! No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted:




Scary-but-interesting video:

How to get into the Gates of Heaven?

I came across this meaningful clip at Godtube, once again reminded of God's grace and mercy. Enjoy!

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

~ Eph 2:8-9 ~

Praise the LORD - It's Over!

Yeah! So happy to finish my last paper!

Let me type down my reflections on this exam period here.

It's my 3rd time going thru the exam period with God, and everytime i have learnt different things about God and also myself. Frankly speaking, this sem is a hard sem for me - never been so worried for my exam. Because i have not been able to catch-up with my core mods all along, always lagging behind.

This exam preparation i experienced some really emotionally down time - tired, worried and a heavy heavy heart. I was not able to lift myself up at times, i found no joy in me.

Luckily, my shepherd recommended this place to me - EA rooftop.

(this is the place where i have my quiet time with God, enjoying the breeze quietly, looking at the cars, sometimes birds in the air, reading the bible, playing guitar plus singing out loud, ...)

Everytime i ask God for stamina to last thru this exam period, in return i am assured by God of His faithfulness and goodness, His promise to deliver me once again from this exam.

This sem I experienced the joy and blessings of sacrificing time for others. One night i was preparing for paper the next day, but after dinner at the 'Exam Wartime HQ' i chose to help my life science junior Xu Mei for his general biology, helping him to clear certain doubts on the chapter. Never did i knew that the particular issue we were discussing that night actually came out for my paper. Actually that issue was not something that was well explained during the lectures. Yeah!

This sem I met my primary sch friend started to see each other in NUS and he confronted me on several occasions to challenge my faith. But many times when i pray to God for someone He wants me to share about His love, this friend will happen to pop-out physically from nowhere, making me wonder if it was coincidental or I should stay confident and anticipate his 'questioning'.

Recently on the night before my last paper, i went on msn and decided to invite him for service.

he says:
i saying this cos i view u as a very close friend. why shld i attend sth i know for sure is false?
i say:
I am inviting you because i view you as a close friend also. of cos i respect your current decision and stand though.
I am not saying that u must take it or agree to what i say now, just wanted to invite u to look and hear it from the sermon for yourself.
he says:
thanks man, but not interested.
i say:
but i just want to pray that your heart will remain open to me sharing to you
i say:
(just to let you know i appreciate every conversation you have with me recently)
he says: ok, i let u know again! Nite!

Although it seemed that his heart is still very hard, i just want to continue to pray that he is still willing to explore God with me. Actively being challenged by people around me keeps me on the alert and pushes me to structure my thoughts and things that i would be sharing, whenever i am free. Let me end with a verse which i keep in mind.

I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

- Philemon 1:6 -

An excellent chance to share with our friends! :)

Thank God :) Testimonies to share!!!

God has really blessed me and kept me safe throughout this period of exams. Really wanna give thanks to God for blessing me so much!! When you do your best by giving your 100% effort, God will do the rest and the outcome will be 200%!!

Wanna share my testimonies:
1) I fell down last week and it was a super bad fall. I slipped off the stairs and I landed on my back against the edge of the stairs. It was a truly bad fall because i landed on my back. Though I had bruise on my back but i think God has really kept me safe and protected me. If not i would have broken my back or seriously injure it. Really wanna give praise and thanks to God for looking out for me.

2) This is the first sem I experienced wisdom from God in my exams. It happened for my last paper, plant physiology. This module is a crazy module with lots of information to remember and also our prof is very demanding. She said that if we only quote from textbook can only get c. Hee... though i really doubt so but i think wont do very well like get A. Think even getting B+ would be hard too. I had 2.5 days to study for this module and think it was really torturous man. hee... cause i was really saturated from studying and memorising and reading. But think God really sustained me and helped to stayed focused despite my tiredness. For this paper, i managed to study my notes quite thoroughly, did only two chapters of textbook and never read research papers at all!!! scream....

hee.. but god's way is higher than my way and god really gave me wisdom for this paper. For my past exams, i experienced god through peace and strength and the assurance i needed. However, this time was true wisdom which i knew came from god.

As i was doing my paper, there was two parts which i wasn't very sure and god just gave me insight into it and so i just wrote my answers down. It's not that i do not know my stuff but its just that God added on to what i knew and the extra thing in fact, are things that you would know if you study the practical and read the extra research readings.

Another thing i wanna share is that before my paper shu yi actually ask me about a part of our notes which i knew briefly but not in detail (as in extra information from textbook). Den suddenly our common frien heard our discussion and came over and started explaining to me the everything to us about that chapter and guess what? he explained with extra diagrams and information.

Guess what? it came out for exams and it was 20% 1/3 of my paper already!!! Wow... thank you God :)

Think this sem my attitude towards studying is very different. In fact, I like studying this sem and i find myself being more focused and growing in faithfulness even towards my studies. Seeing meaning in my studies and not just seeing it as a chore just to scrap through to get good results. But now, god has showed me deeper meaning as in why He puts/ places me to study here in uni. This is my stage of life to help me mature and grow not only in my knowledge but also in my character :)

For example, through the many semesters i have learnt the meaning of being faithful in the things that God has called me to do (even if they are things that i do not fully enjoyed). Also, learning the meaning of serving God through my daily life which includes my studies and also to do my best in everything that God has called and placed me to do.

Honestly, if i cant even be faithful in the small things like studies that God has called me to do, then would God entrust me more?

Can read the parables of the Talents: Matt 25:14-30 :)

Let's serve and honour God through our daily life.

putting on out thinking caps!

It' s been quite some time since I posted or looked at this site..;p Well, I'm only a last paper away..so thought of typing down some of my thoughts and reflections recently..since I'm in a rare mood to type on my PRESTIGO laptop (eh..though it's not exactly a fantastic brand, it's still usable and fine..=P) ..Here're some questions that maybe some of us may thought of before:

What if I can't find the "right one" before I reach 30yrs?
What should I do to win the favor and maybe approval of this person?
I'm so fearful to having to boldly tell others that God's real..What if they dont believe what I say? What if they look down on me as a "out-dated religious freako"?
Why on Earth am I supposed to do in and with my life? What if what I do is wrong?
....

So many of these internal dialogues and thoughts..have you ever had any one of such "conversations" with your heart? This inner struggle between even what you think you should know, and what you really feel and believe about? "I know God's good, but if that's so why did this and that happened to me?" "I know loving people is important and I want to do it, but why is it so difficult when it really comes to doing it?"

As far as our theoretical mind can make sense of, our heart sometimes cannot keep up with its pace..it falls behind, feeling strended and lost, feeling lonely and sad because it doesnt understand why it has to do the things it need to do..sometimes the mind takes a break because it's too tired of the struggle or it just gives up thinking..the heart takes control and do all it desires, only to find that it starts to do things that dont make sense when looking back..

God gave us brains to be intrigue by His powers, wonders and greatness..Hearts to feel His love, grace and mercy...But these two sometimes just dont work well together dont they?

Of the so many people that I've met and seen, there are people who think too much, only to end up very lost and even blurrer than before they started off (ironically..we should get clearer as we think and make sense more?) Some think so much that they just sit there to think everyday, but not do anything much constructively..(and I'm not refering to day-dreaming) Some people just dont think that much..they just live day by day as it gets by, emotions led by the ups and downs of triviality of life and circumstances..When asked why they feel the way they feel and why they do the things they do, they could only strug and not know why..

To a certain extent, I could feel and understand what all these people felt, because I've experienced them before. In saying so, I dont mean that I've overcame and make sense of all these things that I felt or do, but I think somehow or another, everyone would have experienced this too..

oops..dont mean to drown ya in my long long essay..haha..But in the quest of our search for meaning and purpose in life, what do we make sense of all these things that we're going through? To all the questions of "whys" and "hows", where do we look to find all the answers? Sometimes, we really just need to put on our shield of faith (Eph 6:16), to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), to seek our Maker, and trust in God, for His ways are always higher and better (Isa 55:9)

About the issue of heart and mind struggle, my personal conviction is this..if we're able to really obey this verse,

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10:5)

so let the heart reconcile with the mind in line with the bible. Maybe at the end of the day, it's not a matter of how the mind and heart don't click well together..but rather, either one, or sometimes both, are not flowing in linel with the bible..