Entering the Stories of Ordinary People

Read this this morning. A simple piece by Gordon MacDonald entitled Entering the Stories of Ordinary People. Caught my eye because I "love" stories. Not just stories as in illustrations for sermons ...but stories that define and shape everyday people. It can be found below but before that ... just a few rambling thoughts.

I find it sad that most people do not want to share their stories.

Sometimes people think their lives are boring and they have nothing significant to share but I doubt that this is actually the case especially if one is a Christian. I can't imagine how being a Christian can be boring especially since God is working in our lives daily, changing us into Christ's likeness.

I think our mindset and attitudes are being transformed (perhaps slowly but definitely surely!) and as we grow and learn, we see the world, our circumstances, our whole life in a new and wonderful way. We find new joy and learn valuable lessons (often unexpected) in things that may have once been thought mundane and insignificant. Even tough times are seen with "new eyes".

I think it is sad that we do not share more often our stories (big or small). Especially for pastors, we know the power of stories and the importance of good stories. Good Stories communicate, connect, encourage, opens doors, bless ...

Interesting fact: 40% OF the Old Testament is in story form!

One reason why I blog is to remember and share my stories.... and here's my pitch ... ALUMNI, COULD YOU CONSIDER SHARING SOME OF YOUR STORIES WITH THE REST OF US? IF YOU BLOG, WE WANT TO LINK YOUR BLOGS TO THIS PAGE. IF NOT, JUST SEND PATRICK OR MYSELF YOUR STORIES AND WE WILL POST IT UP FOR YOU!

Okay, here's the article

The other morning I headed for the Egg Shell restaurant just down the road from our home to join a friend for breakfast. My PDA scheduled us for 7a.m; but his, I later learned, said 7:30. Result? I had a half hour to drink coffee and observe life around me.

Sitting at 2 or 3 shoved together tables not far from my booth were ten baseball capped men in working clothes and mud-caked boots. The same group is always there whenever I breakfast at the Egg Shell. They sit shoulder to shoulder saying little to each other. Mainly, they read their copies of the New Hampshire Union Leader and shovel down omelets and home fries.

I once asked Cindy, a server at the Egg Shell, who they were. She said they were retired guys who had met for breakfast for years. "They're like a bunch of brothers," she added. "They do lots of stuff together." She didn't say what the stuff was.

When these mostly non-verbal men finished their breakfasts, they paid their bills, grabbed their coats and grunted goodbyes to Cindy. Some of them even give her a "sisterly" hug. I could see why she likened them to a band of brothers. As they passed my booth, I said, "Make the world a better place today, guys." One of them responded, "Great idea. We'll do it."

Two women (middle aged) were at another table. Unlike the men, they were spirited talkers, their conversation bouncing between laughter and whispered confidentialities. When they finished eating and started for the door, one called out to Gloria, the other server, "Behave yourself, Gloria. But if you decide not too, it won't matter much." This breezy goodbye tickled me because—and I mean no disrespect—Gloria doesn't look like the kind of person who would misbehave even if she had the opportunity. It was clear that the comment was an indication of affection between people who share a lot of history together.

When Gloria started to refill my coffee cup, I asked, "Known them for a long time?"

"Neighbors," she said. "One of them may lose her home. We're pretty shook about it."

"She's fortunate to have friends like you," I responded.

"Well, we're going to have to stick close to her."

Click HERE for the rest of the article

Malaysia Bridal Seminary

I met two old alumni a few weeks ago at a conference and was surprised to learn that they married each other. Come to think of it, MBS has brought together many couples over the years hence the title of this post. I encouraged to start a blog where he can be connected to the alumni and here you are, the small town pastor from Kulim has gone high-tech! Let's welcome Silas Jugdip Singh and Josephine Ting to our alumni blog. You can contact them at Facebook.

MInistering to Grieving People

Last night, I bumped into Edmund Ng, an alumnus who has started a specialized ministry to those who have lost a loved one. Besides sharing and teaching, his ministry also include emotional support and practical help according to individual needs and concerns. Practical Help include legal and administrative matters (such as letter of administration, EPF, Socso and insurance claims, social welfare applications, etc) and micro-finance loans for income-generating enterprises. We alumni could network with him and tap on his expertise in this area of ministry. Click on his name to acccess his site

Alumni 1978-1980

Dear Alumni,

I have posted here the names of the alumni from the 70s (previously was PLKM) Can anyone out there enlighten us who they are and how to contact them?

1978
1 Ong Hwai Teik Dip.T.S (Methodist TRAC)
2 Cheang Mu Kean Cert.of Att.
3 Ooi Teak Seng Dip.Th
4 Thomas Tay W.S. Dip.Th
5 Chiam Peng Kean Dip.Th
6 Julia Lim Cert.of Attendance
7 Eddie Ong L.B. Cert.of Attendance (Anglican)
8 Lim Siew Chin Dip.T.S
9 Cheong Choue Yuk Cert.of Attendance

1979
1 Andrew Lim P.K. Dip.Past.Th
2 Daniel Lim S.P. Dip.Past.Th
3 Wong Chin Kin Dip.Th
4 Chiam Teng Poh Dip.Th
5 Daniel Teh S.P. Dip.Th
6 Katherine Wong Cert.of Attendance

1980
1 Tadius Yusuf Dip.Past.Th
2 Rose Cheng N.C. Dip.Th
3 Irene Neai K.K. Dip.Th
4 Lam Chin Kaw Dip.Th
5 Tan Cheng Kin Dip.Th
6 Andrew Tan K.K. Dip.Th
7 Stella Puvaneswary Dip.Th (Johor Baru)
8 Tee Moon Soung Dip.Th
9 Henry Ching Cert.of Attendance
10 Matthew Chong Cert.of Attendance

Frustration and Exasperation

All things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose

A familiar verse eh?

Wait till you try to communicate over cyberspace with someone who is staying in the uttermost part of the world.

That was the frustration I faced in trying to link up with Paul Long (who is now residing in New Zealand)to resolve the technicalities of this blog for the MBS alumni.

After 3 days of ding-dong, I finally resolved the initial problem. Is it worth it? Oh yes - Paul is a great guy who has been very patient in answering my questions which are unanswerable!I finally found the solution - the problem is ME!

Anyway, the problem is resolved now... and now that I have to keys to this blog, let the show begin...

Alumni link

If you have a personal blog or your church has a website, let me know and I can link it on the sidebar. Some examples are given of my church website, my personal blog and NECF (where Patrick works) and his blogspot site.

We could at least start with this ...

God bless!!

Paul

Calling all MBS (ED) alumni ...

The living legend of MBS Rev. Loh Soon Choy recently had a big birthday celebration.  (Let's leave the details of that to someone who went to blog on. I was not there or I would). At that celebration it seems that many MBS (Malaysia Bible Seminary) alumni attended and there was as expected much reminiscing about the good old days, as well as catching up on each other's lives.

And as usual (yup, it has happened many times before in the past) some brought up the need to revive the alumni association etc. The main problem of course is there is often more talk and many suggestions but few willing "workers". It would seem most of the alumni are far too busy and have a 101 reasons (dare I say excuses) for not being able to help, contribute etc. 

I could blog for pages on the frustrations of the small handful who over the years took on the challenge of trying to revive the alumni association only to be met most of the time with very pitifully lukewarm (if not downright cold) responses.  But I won't.... at least for now :-)

As has been the case over the last 10 years or so, the challenge to revive the alumni association was taken up by Patrick Cheng who (again!) approached me with some new ideas. One of them being starting an MBS alumni blog to at least try to connect alumni with each other. So far there are three of us involved in this project, Patrick, Looi Kok Kim and myself (Paul Long) Kok Kim has to be involved whether he likes it or not since he was the passionate one who hounded  Patrick to "do something!" 

Warning: If you back out on this project KK, I will make you eat tarantulas which I will personally bring back from Cambodia for you. :-) ... the same way I brought back live sago larvae for you to eat when you had to pull out of our mission trip to Sarawak when we were MBS students, (and left me as the sole guy with 4 girls on the team)! :-)

But first, I personally need to clarify a few matters.

1. There is no MBS (ED) alumni committee. We do not have the mandate to form a committee anymore as not enough alumni make an effort to attend alumni meetings, and most new graduates have this irritating habit of disappearing during alumni homecoming and bi-annual elections. We do not have the numbers and unless we change our constitution (we do have one!), that's ther way it will remain.

2. This blog is not an official alumni blog but an personal effort of 3 alumni to start reaching out and networking via the www.   (The title is "The Unofficial Malaysia Bible Seminary (ED).  All opinions are personal.

3. This blog idea is just a seed idea and we hope it would start some networking among alumni as this blog has the potential of overcoming one major group of excuses which are:  

a. We are too busy

b. Our schedules are too tight

c. We don't know each other

d. We live too far apart to get together 

e. Add in your own here ...

* Note that I now live and minister in New Zealand

How this blog develops is up to us. But for now, the ideas we three have come up with are:

1. Alumni who have something to share can send their posts / information to me (until someone else takes over). That way we get news of what we are all doing and we can share thoughts, joys, lessons learnt etc. Let's be creative - you could send links to your church websites or personal websites and we can link them up.

* Alumni, you would have gotten an e-mail from Patrick so you would know my e-mail address

2. We can interact with each other via posting comments on blogs.

* Question: why blogspot? why not _____ or _____ or use a forum or _____ etc.? 

* Answer: This is just a seed, a test run, and it is free, it is easy and right now we don't need bells and whistles ... Also, I am like most busy and I am a pastor not a web designer or computer science graduate so 

3. A blog site has the advantage of someone (*sigh* me ... unless we can get Rev. Loh SC to help. Now there's an idea!!!) filtering the content, and it is more personal. I personally am pretty fed up with fwded mail - chain letters.

God bless

Paul