An entry I read on a favorite blog caught my eye. It was the morning of his ninth wedding anniversary. Not having a lot of money, the writer ran out to get his wife, Heidi, their favorite French pastry—pain au chocolat. After sprinting several miles, he arrived home, exhausted, to find her in the kitchen just pulling a chocolate-filled croissant out of the oven. It was pain au chocolat.
That husband, Jeff, compared his life with Heidi to the lives of the people in O. Henry’s short story “Gift of the Magi.” It tells of a man who sold his lone possession of value—a pocket watch—to buy hair combs for his wife, who had sold her long, beautiful hair to buy a gold chain for his watch.
Having no money concerns would be great—but realizing the immeasurable value of the people we care about is more important. We sometimes need a reminder that acquiring “things” is not nearly as important as appreciating the people God has placed in our lives. When we practice putting others’ interests before our own (Phil. 2:3-4), we learn what it means to love, serve, and sacrifice. In fact, that’s how we pattern Christ in our relationships (Eph. 5:1-2).
Life, love, and chocolate taste better when shared with others. — Cindy Hess Kasper
I want to share with those I love The highest joy I’m thinking of, Not just what brightens all their days But what will give God highest praise. —Hess
Love is never afraid of giving too much.
Be imitators of God . . . . And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us. —Ephesians 5:1-2
Ricky falls into coma and dreamt about his childhood. He was bullied and upset. He feels that life has no meaning and hope that the car has ran over him.
The scene was shot outside the church and it was during winter. We want to make the Tai Lou (Darren) like terminator with dark glasses, gloves and tight leather suits. His bodyguard, Bao Pei and San Kai has to act fit while loosely dressed, like ‘Gu Wak Zai’. The scene where the body guard came out from Tai Lou was shot countless times because we just can’t stop laughing… and Gary had quite a scare during the car scene.
Casts: Gary as Ricky Darren as Tai Lou James as Bao Pei Ka Kit as San Kai
For your information, - The name of the two gangsters, Bao Pei and San Kai was reference to a Hong Kong gangster film. - Ricky’s last name, Conner, was reference to The Terminator movie’s John Conner. - Bao Pei and San Kai have to act tough although the weather was cold during shooting time… - It was my bag that they were throwing around… - The Renault was Daniel’s car.
Photo/Video editing is one of my personal hobbies during University years. It was the time where digital camera’s and camcorders started to become relevant and popular. I bought my first digital camera back in 2000. It is a Fujifilm Finepix with 2.1 Megapixels. It was very old fashioned and bulky but at that time it was king. The N73 I’m currently carrying has higher pixels then this.
I bought a Panasonic camcorder 2 years later. It was an analog camcorder using tape, but able to transfer to pc by converting it into digital signal. It wasn’t too much of a hassle trying to upload the videos into your pc, but you have to get ready a bigger hard disk for it…
The direct transfer of 10 minutes video takes a whooping 1 GB off my then only 40 Gb laptop. It takes a lot of trial and error before I could figure out how to choose the video format that gives the best video quality with minimal capacity.
I would normally take video shoots when I’m on vacation or special occasions like church camp and parties. I will then edit it by cutting out the non relevant parts and inserting some music to make it less boring. After that I would burn it into a cd/dvd and store it in my ‘memory lane’.
Never in my entire life would I think of making and directing a movie/ drama. I’ve done some photo editing and video slide shows before, but not to an extend of this.
The idea of a video project came out from Jessie, our Sheffield Chinese Christian Church recreation committee. She had an idea of filming a story about a boy’s life journey towards knowing and accepting Christ. She came out with a script instantaneously. There were 5 to 6 scenes in total, some were taken off, some added in later. The casting was done rather quickly without questions ask, as most of church brothers and sisters are willing to participate.
So the final decision is up to me - whether I am able to direct, film and produce the video.
I was scratching my head on such a long script. First off, I haven’t done such filming and directing in my life before. Second, the current video software I used had a lot of tendency to hang and crash during editing. Third, the editing software wasn’t as flexible to cater for such filming requirements.
Anyway, we started with a ‘one-off’ approach, i.e. film first, edit later. While the filming was ongoing, I was able to test on new and available software. And yes, during the progress, I did manage to find more user-friendly and stable video editing software.
The filming wasn’t easy also, as some of the script was either ‘unfilmable’, or it doesn’t come together well enough. Most of the time, filming session becomes brainstorming session because a lot of suggestions and ideas were proposed last minute.
Nevertheless, we are having a good time doing this project. Although I did make some mistakes, I really appreciate the patience and support given by brothers and sisters, and God up most high.
So why the title Footprints? At start the title is actually ‘no title’. I can’t really remember how it comes about, I think it was a title I saw on a Christian album CD covers. As our story is about a life journey of a boy, guided by God, I think Footprints is very well representing the title of our project.
Prologue
It started off as a prologue stage show before the video comes in. We plan to start and end with a stage performance because it will bring a so call ‘life’ to the show. Here is where Ricky, the main cast was introduced, together with his family and his attempt to commit suicide, and was sent to hospital under coma.
Casts: Gary as Ricky Algene as Ricky’s Sister Ruth as Ricky’s Mother Yichuan as Ricky’s Father Sam as Doctor Sam
For your information, - The ‘Sleeping Pill’ is actually Fish Oil supplements. - The doctor is really a doctor, and a humorous one. - Beep sound was actually Nokia hand phone message beep, repeat at countless time. - They forgot to remove their name tags…
This is my first trip to Kuantan. We started our engines early in the morning and reached there in less than 3 hours. The highway that connects Karak to Kuantan is the best I’ve ever drive. The highway is so straight that you almost feel nothing in the car even with fast cruising speed. The weather was kind to us as well =)
First stop at Restoran Zaman for it’s famous Nasi Lemak, as suggested by Eva, and my GPS as well >o<… Second stop, Cheese Crab for dinner… Yummy!
Third stop, Kuantan night beach!
三剑客到此一游(Journey of the 3 Swordsman/ Umbrella man)
They call this 文头冰(揾到冰), meaning ‘found ice’… -_-|||
Spiderman begging for duit susu…
Fourth stop, back to Eva’s sister house, for durians!
Am I holding a piece of gold?
Too much food in one day, so the next day, we went to Taman Gelora for some exercise!
The church is organizing a fitness event called 赞美操, a good way to reach out to the community.
Before we go back, we had satay in a nearby shop. This marks the end of our ‘food trip’ in Kuantan. Thank God for the safe trip as well =)
For centuries, man has tried various ways and countless effort to reach God and to seek life’s answer. However, no matter what we did or tried, we are doomed to failure. You many come across people who say that all religion is the same because they teach people to do good. However, does doing good promise salvation? Do we have the wisdom and strength to determine where we go after we die?
In God’s eye, we are all sinners. We carried sinful blood passed down by our ancestor Adam & Eve. No matter what we do, our contaminated body will not allow us to enter God’s kingdom.
God knows our limitation, but still He loves us. As promised in John 3:16, instead of man reaching to God, God Himself came down to earth as Jesus, so that whoever believes in Him may seek Him and have eternal life. Through Jesus’ blood, we are cleansed from sin. We don’t have to do anything; we just need to believe in Him.
In everyday life, we might wonder what God’s will is for us. A lot of us mis-interpreted that we will not do anything until God speaks to us. This is not true.
In God’s kingdom, we live by faith. For everything we do in life, we need to be sensitive to God. No matter where we are, in workplace or at home, we strive to do our best in our designated role. We need to spend quality time in prayer, to meditate on His word, and to improve our relationship with God accordingly. Things might not be in favor to us sometimes, but we can take this as an opportunity from God to mould us into a better person, like what God did to Joseph during his slavery times. He did his best, but God did the rest for him. Without God’s wisdom and promise, no matter how well Joseph performs in his daily work, do you think he has the strength to deliver his people?
We did our best to perform well in our daily job. However, in certain situation we could be helpless. We might face challenging situation where crucial decisions has to be made which will probably lose our position, and we don’t know what the next step is. We are exhausted, tired, and lost. But rests assure, as long as we give our best to what we did for God, we believe God has his plan to do the rest for us.
Have faith in our Almighty God. Do your best, God will do the rest!
I was leading a bible study in a cell group last Friday. The discussion ends at 11pm and we had a closing prayer to thank God for His guidance. All the while I taught that I’m doing a good job in executing the flow and managed to convey most of the message. I knew I have spent a lot of time in preparing this, and no doubt all the hard work will not go in vain. And yes, I was proud of myself.
I was holding my pride for some time, doing things my way and undermine what other people have done.
It didn’t take long until someone comment about the bible study that I conducted. I was expecting good answers like ‘wow, you are great’ or ‘hey, thanks for your effort on the bible study’.
Instead, what I heard is ‘you need to be more flexible’, ‘there is not enough sharing’, ‘and you missed out some point’ etc. I can feel my pride being crushed into little pieces. At first I was rebellious, and was defending myself through by giving some excuses and by explaining my own ‘perfect’ way. The pride has shielded me away from God, and all the while it is me, me and me only.
I calmed myself down during midnight, thinking about the past, present, and future. It is funny that often when we said that we can accept any comments from others, but in the end we defend against their comments. I was ready to listen to the comments, but not ready to accept it. The stumbling block is non other than pride itself.
I prayed to God for forgiveness, and to grant me strength to be humble-wholeheartedly. Indeed, the next day I was able to view things differently, and thank God I was saved from the sin that has long affecting my life – pride.
Pride is a sin. It controls our emotion and will pull us away from God if we are not aware of it. It is like a cancer that spreads throughout your whole body, leading to other sins like greed and hatred. Pride makes us think we are God, in fact we are not. It is because of pride that Adam & Eve ate the forbidden fruit. In pride there is no love, no care, and no mercy.
We serve God not because we are good at anything. We serve God because He loved us first. He took His initial step, to become one of us, as Jesus, and teach us how to love one another, and to serve others who are in need.
Let us humbly come into His presence, and follow His foot steps, towards righteousness, glory and honor.
I woke up 2.30am midnight, feeling very uncomfortable due to the hot weather and extended heat. My whole body was sweating like just coming out from sauna. I couldn’t sleep anymore... The temperature has been 30C ++ or so lately. I scratched my arm outside the window; there was no wind at all.
Thank God there was the air conditional. All the while I was reluctant to turn it on because I wasn’t used to sleep with it. I always think that no matter how hot the weather is, I still can sleep peacefully without air conditional. I have refused to install the air conditional in my room although Ruth’s sister insisted to. I advise her to install in the living room instead. Well, I was wrong.
I turned on the air conditional, and the cool breeze fills the room. It was great! After awhile, I slept comfortably whole night like a baby in his mother’s womb. If the air conditional wasn’t there, I couldn’t imagine how I’m going to go through the whole night.
We might not understand God’s way of doing things, like why the air conditional is installed when you think you wouldn’t need it. When the right time comes, God’s plan will be revealed, and we will be amazed of what He has done in our life. Yes, the air conditional is ready to be used.
'Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still living?" But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come close to me." When they had done so, he said, "I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance'.
In Genesis 45 when Joseph met his brothers who sold him to Egypt. He could have taken revenge on his brother but he chose not to. Instead he forgives them for their wrong doings and thanked God for what He has prepared for his people.
What makes Joseph such a person? God has molded Him through slavery, temptation, 13 years of suffering in jail for wrong accuse, and also the 7 years of serving under Pharaoh. God prepares all this in advance so that Joseph can become a faithful and righteous person.
It is for our own good that sufferings and temptation is inevitable. It is the perseverance, patience and faith that mold us into a better person to serve in His kingdom. Are we prepared to be molded by God?
It reminds me of how we should pray to God. Very often we pray for our needs and focus on what we want in our lives. We always hope that God will grant us what we wish. If then, what difference will it make in comparison to other religion?
Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship, a relationship with God the creator. We are not merely asking for His help, but to seek Him and to build up a relationship with Him. God has His will for everyone of us, to walk in the true path, and His way of righteousness. Even though the path may not be favor to us, it is sometimes God’s will for us to endure the pain and suffering, so that we can grow and become stronger in His faith, and to understand His purpose.
What is God’s will, you may ask. It all started within you, on how close your relationship is with God. Prayer and reading God’s word is the key to improve our relationship with God. By getting closer to Him, we can understand His will and be ready to walk in His way.
God made us to have the freedom to choose. Do we choose to live an obedient, righteous and faithful life? Or do we choose to live by our own way?
