Photos from the shoot

Have some comments that I could add more pictures and life shots.. here are some.. heh

That's me at photoshoot.. the product has been blurred out.. :D





"Ah! I have a headache...! I think I'm dying!"


That's melodramatic cuddly Joshua Bear.. Hehehe..


we're having fun with the soft toys, can make anime soon.. :p

Here he is, intently searching for something.. perhaps someone left a drop of honey on the ground..








This is Chief Squirrel. Head of the squad of mini-toys. Armed with a spear (aka satay stick), headband (aka green ribbon), gold armrings (aka gold wiring), courtesy of my colleague.





Looks all ready to take on the world!












Side Profile





Front view

That's our photographer.. my mischievous colleagues stuck a neat bowtie.. on his back! haha

Negativity..

Have been at photoshoot the past few days.. feel very drained by the long hours of standing, sitting, bending over and scrutinizing.
It has been really tiring.

Wednesday was really a bad day. Started off when one of my colleagues, A, who was in charge of the shoot that day was in a really bad mood. I'm still not very sure what happened to her, perhaps something happened at home and she's really homesick. She walked away from the shoot and left me and another colleague B to take over for her. I was initially quite unhappy as I felt it was quite unprofessional,and it's not the first time it has happened. B and I had quite a few meetings that day and A just left us to shoot. After about an hour or two, B and I really had to go for our meeting and A finally came back to shoot. The next morning, she was crying again... I hope things are ok for her. Today is Friday and she still looks a little down, but at least not so emotional.
God, what do I do at times like this? As a project leader, how tolerant and gracious should I be that a teammate should leave her position without accounting and expect other colleagues to take over? Subtly, I think the stress also comes as I feel my bosses and manager (who are not around) would want me to learn to handle the situation as a team leader. Can already hear them saying "You should stop covering up for each other!" "Phoebe, what would you do if your teammate does this?"
Thank you Lord, for helping me not flare up at her. Grant me peace at heart and more grace to handle people relations. Now that she's feeling better, grant me wisdom to speak to her if needed!

That day, other unfortunate things also happened - rushing from meetings, spilled coffee all over the wooden floor in the store room and had to clean up, realized that the flats that we were interested in on the HDB sale all taken up by others already, flared up at ST in the evening and said some really harsh comments. Not knowing that he also had a terrible day and was feeling downcast with his job, my comments only aggravated the situation. And I was reprimanded for my bad spirit and lousy attitude and ungracious remarks late that night and the next morning. Was quite affected by it and found it difficult to work the whole day, but I guess that's not the point. Point is to learn from the lesson...
God, help me to be more sensitive and more gracious with my thoughts and words. Help me be more humble and not put unneccessary expectations on others. Help me also to learn to control my emotions and pour out to you instead of transferring my frustrations to someone else, whether it is ST or my colleagues or my family. Help me to love despite my emotions! Help me also to not take harsh words personally and harbour hurt and anger but to absorb your Truth and grow. Thank you for forgiving me for all my sins and weaknesses. Be my leader and my refuge..

In the midst of all these, there's also stress from other parties at work. Clients, partners, potential partners or outsiders we work with. I guess they'll have constant requests for more and more things. This negatiation business is tiring and strenuous too. I really don't like this part of my job, yet I know it is essential and important. How do I say no politely, without hurting the working relationship? How do I be shrewd such that I can protect myself from those who always want to grab and eat me up, take as much advantage of me, my company or the situation as possible? How do I balance this with God's principles of kindness and consideration, yet not be a stupid prey? I find myself feeling stupid each time others have taken advantage of my 'goodwill- thinking for others'. Seems like I better learn fast when I should and when I should not "think of others first". God help me be shrewd as a serpent, yet innocent as doves.

Since then, coupled with the physical tiredness from photoshoot, negative thoughts have been invading my mind. (Reminds me of the movie Independence Day.. when aliens invaded the earth suddenly and from all over. And their strength was technology and telepathy.) I have what I think can be called chronic negative thought attacks. They can happen quite suddenly and at any time of the day- whether at work or at night or on the bus. Need to hang on desperately for dear life, to God's Word. If not I think these chronic attacks are going to eat me up even if the world doesn't. Pray.. it's my only weapon, but I believe it is powerful. Speak positively for God. Let not discouragement or negativity (the devil's weapons against us) get us down.

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We 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 Corinthians 10:4-5

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Phil 4:8

Marigold :)

Here's some images our photographer took of a lone flower that I thought looks really sweet. :)

The name of the flower is yellow pom.. haha.. there are lots of poms in the world. but this one really looks like a marigold I feel.. marigold suits it better? :D And it's of a very special pastel yellow that I seldom see.. Nice..! beautiful piece of nature.

What is Prayer to you?

It has been a fast flying week!
With photoshoot going on, somehow time at work passes really fast. But thank God that it's 5 weeks of photoshoot down, about 4-5 weeks to go. Halfway mark le. Gambatte! :)

Had a good time with caregroup yesterday. It's been quite some time since cg has been so spiritually ministering I think. :) Thank God for His presence!
We watched a video from the Alpha Course about Prayer- What is, How and Why should we pray. Many of things about prayer are fundamental and most of us already know them, but they were good reminders and Nicky Gumbel's testimonies touched our hearts.

Some of the things that I remember:

1) Prayer is access to God through the Son, Jesus.
By ourselves, we can't reach God. Unconfessed sins hinders us from knowing our Holy Father. BUT the good news is, we have access through Jesus! Nicky shared a very interesting story about how a soldier could not get access to the President (then Abraham Lincoln) so that he could ask for a deferment/exemption from army service, but when he by chance spoke to a boy at the park, who happened to be Lincoln’s son, the little boy just brought him easily past the guards and right into the Presidential office. :) That’s how too, we reach God! Immediate and direct, no need to climb dagger mountain or dive into the fiery sea (Shang4 Dao1 Shan1, Xia4 Huo2 Hai3 in Mandarin.. hehe). He's right here with us. Listen!

2) In God’s Presence, is love, joy, security!
You’ll know when He is with you.

3) Persist in prayer. God has all eternity to answer. :)
Story of a woman who prayed for 9 years for her rebellious son! Her son was awful, got into all sorts of stuff – gangs, cults, weird practices, fathered a son out of marriage etc. Until one day God really turned things around and he later on grew to become one of the world’s renowned theologians – St Augustine! And Augustine attributed his conversion very much to his mum’s persistent prayer.. this woman’s prayer changed the world indeed.
Eternity is but one second to God who is not confined by time, God has all the power to answer our prayers! Reminds me to not give up in praying for good things, don’t have to ‘help God’ find excuses when he ‘doesn’t answer’.

4) God always answers, just that he sometimes says “Yes!”, sometimes, “Nope!” and other times, “wait, my dear child.”
God knows our future and what is good for us so sometimes he says “No” because he something something else in mind, or what we want is not good for us (perhaps we have wrong motives. *See James 4:2b-3). Shared a quote from Ruth Graham (wife of evangelist Billy Graham) who commented that she thanks God that he didn’t answer her prayers always, if not she would have married the wrong man… several times! Hehe.. How true, isn’t it that we are so glad that God doesn’t say yes to all our prayers! He will open the right doors at the right time. :D

5) Nothing is too hard for God.
Let not our prayers be limited by our own understanding or human limits!
Story about how a man who held unforgiveness against his wife for leaving him turned to God and had a changed life. After which he still faced repeated rejections from his wife for several months and were already midway in divorce when suddenly God touched his wife’s heart and a huge turnaround happened! :D
Reminds me to believe that God can do miracles, even when it seems impossible.

Pray and believe. Because God is the one who’s answering. Not us! :D

*James 4: 2b-3
You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

A blessed Easter weekend

It has been a fantastic Good Friday and Easter weekend. :D

On Good Friday, we had an afternoon of The Quest.
Though many people were late, [and I mean really late.. we started 2 hours later than the supposed time and I had to miss meeting my shepherd. I think it’s God preparing us for the South American culture of slowness and lateness.. hahaha..] we had a really good time together I felt.
I was able to spend more time with Yanting, our new sister, getting to know her and sharing with her stories about God teaching me to love my family more. We also played the Polar Bear game. Thank God for Sharon coming to lead the game. She has improved in her confidence and clarity of explanation in leading games! :) Though there were still some bugs in the game (it’s a complicated one this game.), we really had fun trying to bluff each other and guessing the Polar Bear. The game was intended to be a fun spoof of how man pointed fingers and accused Jesus though he was innocent… hehe.. We had a good laugh at the end of the game :D Then during the discussion, we had a time of sharing testimonies of how Jesus death and resurrection has become real to our lives, touching and changing us. A good time exchanging testimonies. :) I shared about my water baptism experience, how God humbled me to learn to love my family and not just say it.
It is good to share.. I was reminded once again of how a sinner I can be, and how amazing God’s grace is for me.

On Easter Sunday, we had 4 friends joining us for service! It is a breakthrough for the caregroup since we have not been seeing visitors joining us for services for quite some time. I really thank God for bringing these friends.

The service was wonderful. The opening performances of songs was astounding. Our church is growing in the arts indeed. The testimony of Dave, a changed drug addict, now in our church, is amazing. :) I was really touched and proud to know that we have testimonies like this in our church, so near to home! God is so real, right here, close to us! (With this, God disproves the idea that the grass is always greener elsewhere. God is good. Everywhere. Especially when you realize He is right here at home with us. :) )

Pastor Jeff preached powerfully, with his dose of jokes that sends the auditorium roaring, yet brought the message out alive in a real and relevant manner. God has really given him a talent for being real funny- real AND funny. :p Shirley’s rendition of the song Why, together with the animation- a clip of drawings painted by a young child- Fu Guo Qiang in our church was mesmerizing and moving.. Shirley is gifted with a beautiful voice that moves hearts towards God. :) And the drawings! Oh my goodness.. you wouldn’t believe they were painted by a boy.. Our church is full of talents indeed. So glad these talents have come together to serve God.

But the most important achievement I believe, is the lives that were touched by God through the service. The animation MTV and the song “Why” brought tears to my eyes.
Also, at least two out of four of our friends enjoyed themselves very much and found the message relevant. The other two I didn’t really get to ask.. hee.. Lydia, a sister-in-Christ said she’d join us again coz she likes our fellowship and feels that God has brought us-new friends to her! She’s also a believer who is interested in knowing God’s word better. Pray that we will be a good encouragement and family to her. :) Pray also that the other friend who found the message relevant will come and experience Jesus for himself soon!

On Easter night, Shenteng and I had dinner with my parents. Good time of chat and my parents advised us to learn about the wedding preparations for different cultures, sharing with us some practices of Cantonese and TeoChew. TeoChews need to give Si Dian Jin (literally, 4 dots of gold). I think the significance is like a glorious and prosperous marriage. Bring glory to the family to have 4 pieces of gold given to the bride by the groom’s family. Cantonese need to get married at wee hours of the morning.. and stuff like that.. quite interesting. Heh.

Late at night when I was just about to go to sleep, I saw my dad watching Passion of the Christ on StarTV! Though I felt really tired, decided to sit down to watch it with him, hoping for a chance to share. :) And thank God I did! He asked me questions like who are the people stoning Jesus, who’s the woman with Pilate, and other characters in the movie. Also asked who the guy in black (Satan) is. Managed to get a chance to drop in details about how amazing our own sin and selfishness and blind us to an innocent man’s suffering and even got to share about Jesus’ death meaning Satan’s defeat, the earthquake tearing apart the veil in the temple and therefore we can now reach God directly. Pray that that has sown gospel seeds in my dad’s heart! Really look forward to the day my parents and brother will come to know God too.. God grant me more love for them and more courage to share.

Thanksgiving

Thank God for a fruitful last week!

1) Settled our wedding banquet at The Pines! :)
We learnt a lesson about ourselves during this adventure – that we actually are quite concerned about how we feel about the place and how things look.

Here’s the initial story: amazingly both our parents were willing to not have a banquet so we had originally wanted to go for a simple solemnization and buffet. Hehe.. so we were actually quite disappointed with ourselves for succumbing to temptation the moment we signed for it. But I guess we really like the ambience at The Pines, and comparing the prices, it is really quite worth it to have a banquet there. I think our parents and friends will enjoy the ambience and food too. Heard it’s good. :) Anyway, though we will be spending more on the banquet, we hope to plan a good program for the wedding that’d express our thanksgiving to God and all our friends. That’d make sure the money is well-spent. :) Praying that God will guide us in this and that the wedding will be memorable and impactful for all who attend!

2) Signed up for a pretty good bridal photo package in JB. :D
Thank God for helping us to keep costs low for this! At this moment, we are really quite pleased with this incident because we had specificially prayed for a good studio with good service, good photography, nice gowns and a good rate. And when we went JB to look around, this studio just so happened to be having a promotion! And God really answered our prayers for all the 4 points above! Our hearts were filled with thanksgiving and gladness because we also felt that we had learnt our lesson from the banquet and grateful that God helped us keep to our budget. :D Yeahz!
If the service is good throughout the entire process, will recommend this studio to those getting married next yr. :) Can earn privilege points.. haha..

On hindsight also, I think we prayed much more for the bridal studio than for the banquet. Lesson learnt – be more prayerful!
Action point – pray for every part of our weddings plans. Best if in specific details!

3) Had a fruitful shepherding with my two sheep.
We discussed about how we can keep God’s righteousness and be wise in some of our work situations. For e.g. if in order to achieve the end result, we cannot reveal A during the process, how shd we respond when we are asked whether we are A? should we say no? Wouldn’t that be lying? [For confidential reasons, I am unable to provide the exact example… heh..]
It was an interesting discussion. After that we also discussed through some of the questions they had about the OT – such as Numbers 22, why was God angry with Balaam for going with the princes of Balak when it seemed that he did agree to it initially?
It was a refreshing time to delve deeper into the Word and learn from it. :) We shall have it more often.

4) Exercised.
Played badminton with ST during my leave and also on Saturday. This Monday I also went jogging. Yeah! Thank God for ST. :D He helps to discipline me to exercise and keep fit! Finally I see myself getting down to fulfilling my New Year resolution of exercising regularly!

5) Also, God has blessed me in my family
They (all of my immediate family- father, mother and brother!) now know I am planning to go Ecuador and do not have violent objections! In fact my parents seem quite supportive. My brother is quite shocked and I think I really surprise him with this decision. He has lots of questions- why South America? Why Ecuador? How will you find a job? They speak Portuguese don’t they? (Explained that they speak Spanish and I’m learning it now. Very fun! :) ) God help me to continue wisely in my planning so that their worries will be allayed and that this may even be an opportunity to bring them closer to God!

6) Two of my very good friends – Huaqiang and Sarah are in courtship! Woohoo!~
Very happy for them! Their story – how God brought them together, is an amazing one as well – about obeying God and listening to His perfect timing. :D

Ok, I have more thanksgiving points actually. But I must learn to keep my blogs shorter.

Started photoshoot today. So far so good. Pray for physical strength, creative ideas, efficiency and everything to be smooth!

The Pursuit of HappYness

I watched The Pursuit of HappYness on Thursday with Liyi and Sharon. A very-worth-it, touching and meaningful show to catch. =)

Simple synopsis:
A rags-to-riches story based on the real life story of Chris Gardner. An unsuccessful salesperson who becomes a single parent to his 5 yr old child and then ends up evicted and homeless with his child. His chance comes when he is offered an internship at a prominent stock-broking firm but the internship is a no-pay job for 6 months…

Main themes: Pursuing your dreams, faith and determination, a father’s love.

You can read more about the show and the actors (Will Smith and his son, Jaden) as well as the real Chris Gardner from this Oprah Winfrey website:

http://www2.oprah.com/tows/slide/200611/20061122/slide_20061122_350_101.jhtml

It’s the kind of show that has scenes that will make you feel for the actors and think about people or events in your life…

Some of the scenes that really touched me and/or made me reflect (not in chronological order or any order of importance):

1) Chris Gardner and Chris junior, homeless and staying overnight at the subway station’s toilet. Chris Gardner pretending it’s a game with his son and they’re staying in a cave for the night… and then weeping when his son falls asleep.
The thoughts and feeling of failure as a parent… as well as the feelings of shock, desperation and despair at the sudden losses..

2) The quarrels and unhappiness between Chris’s wife and him before she left. The worries about money, survival, providing for their child…
Made me reflect and ponder about the difficulties of marriage life. The vows to be with each other in sickness and in health, in poverty and in riches.. and how when you really face the toughest circumstances that are so real and so painful, will your commitment to your vows waver?
Yet another area we so desperately need God to help us with.

3) In the early part of the show where Chris Gardner speaks about his own family where he did not even know who his dad was until he was 28 (if I don’t remember wrongly), and how he made it a point even at a very young age that when he has children, he’ll be a good father to them and teach them that he’ll be with them all the time. And in the show, his fatherly love is really touching- teaching his son to believe in dreams, going without food so his son can have one piece of pizza, buying a sweet with the little money they have, bathing his son at night.. etc. etc.

Reminds me of the late night conversations I used to have with my dad when I was young.. I think I’ll miss this quite a lot when I go overseas.. Fills me also with a gratefulness to my dad for the love and protection he gave me as a child.. that helped me to grow up more secure in family love. Thank you Daddy!
Reminded me also of Shenteng telling me recently that he would want to be a father who’s close to his children because his father is a more traditional Chinese father who isn’t very expressive in love. (this is a change for ST who really doesn’t really like children…haha.)
Think it is also a good reflection time to think about God’s fatherly love for us that is also tender, sacrificial and all-giving.. Thanks Dad (my heavenly one)!

The show is also very inspirational and thought-provoking on the themes of how man needs hope to dream and determination to live it out, as well as what happiness we are pursuing for in life. =)

I think Chris Gardner fought hard for his happiness. One that was actually through the entire tough process, there with him- love and protection for his loved ones, his son. One that is not dependent on money, though he really had to scrape for it. I believe his ultimate happiness came from a satisfied heart knowing that he loves his son, he didn’t give up and he succeeded in providing for his son and that dreams actually can and do come through.

There’s nothing too hard that we can’t live through. Hope that some of us who feel like giving up at the worst moments and pits of our life will find inspiration from Chris Gardner’s life and persevere on. Nothing is impossible with God.