Talents and giftings

I was quite nervous about this morning’s Sunday school lesson. After all, it’s not easy to do a sharing session about talents and giftings to a group of children between 10 –12 years old. What will they know about talents and giftings? Will they seriously search their hearts before sharing? Heck, they may not even want to share at all in class. Often, sharing times are met with replies of “I don’t know”, a shrugged of shoulder and a shake of head. Well, the next hour can be quite a challenge if they all choose to remain silent …..

I started gently with them on the paper craft lesson to show that they are all unique – made by God in a very special way and given special talents and giftings by God. And, as I challenged them to think about each of their gifts and talents, I was silently praying that God would reveal them to the children.

And, the children were amazing! When it was their turn, they shared unabashedly their talents and strengths. Some recognized their talents in singing, playing musical instruments, teaching, hospitality and strengths to discipline the younger children. Each of them chipped in on the giftings that they see in their friends, too. What a joy to see the happy looks and the big smiles around the room as the children began to realize and share about their talents and giftings! Their confidence grew. They talked excitedly about how to use their talents. Most importantly, they realized too, that they have a purpose in life, which is to expand and nurture their talents and to find ways to serve others.

Every child has talents and giftings given by God for a purpose.
I count it a privilege to help them discover each of their talents and giftings and putting them into good use.
What a wonderful hope we have in these children who are ready to be groomed to serve the Lord with their talents and giftings.
The world can take great comfort in this hope, too.

Thursday's night out

Last Thursday was a mad rush to the cinema after work. We beat the heavy traffic and crowd to catch Indy in his latest adventure. Arriving with mere minutes to spend, we only managed a combo meal from Auntie Anne’s as dinner, promising ourselves a sinful indulgence into rich caramel popcorn later during the movie.

The movie stayed true to its original style. Indy’s on-screen appearance, his infamous hat and whip, his wit, silly grin and at times, goofy antics - everything breeds familiarity! It didn’t seem like there was an absence of 19 years from the last movie at all!

The story unraveled well with lots of action from the word go. They stuck to the old fashioned way of travelogue – showing the plane flying across the map. How classic can that be? I enjoyed the movie very much, except towards the end of the show. The spoiler? Well, dear Steven Spielberg had to bring in ET into the show! Oh, no!!! Why??

It was kinda hard to swallow that bit of alien part…..but to think of Cate Blanchett in that outrageously funny hair style….. Maybe the aliens were not so strange after all!

Pretty good movie overall. And, who knows? We may see an Indy 5 in the near future with the talented Shia Labeouf.

Heading Home : “That’s not all folks!”

Seated in a 4-seater row in the plane, I have 2 more empty seats beside me. I was thinking how nice it’ll be when the crew dim the lights, then I can stretch myself out on the 2 seats and sleep! But, before I could do that, another lady came by to the seat and to my horror, took off her shoes, lifted her feet and plopped her feet next to me! Eeeuuwww! That smell! I wanted to puke! I tried hinting to her subtlely to get her feet off the seat, but she wouldn’t budge. In the end, after an hour’s struggle with the smell, I had to wake her up and tell her frankly that I needed her feet off the seat! There, I felt much better after that. Despite some flight turbulences, we finally touched down again in Malaysian soil at 4.15 am.


The trip was fun and especially priceless since I made it together with my dear hubby. We learnt much about ourselves and about one another. It also opened our eyes to see the different cultures and lifestyles. We just love traveling together and can’t wait to plan for our next trip again.

Day 4 : “Shopping! Shopping!And, more shopping!”

The final day was all about shopping! We headed together with another 2 couple to the Carrara markets. The taxi ride costed us AUD 9 per couple. The Carrara markets had all local goods for sale. One interesting stall that I particularly like was selling all kinds of buttons and laces. I have never seen so many different kinds of buttons, laces, ribbons and even different types of iron on stickers, in one single place in my whole entire life. The stall, ran by an elderly couple, occupied a space as big as a badminton court. They had so many goods with them, all so pretty and nice. Other stalls were also selling goods at bargained prices. Very good place to shop for things.


Later, we took a bus ride to the Pacific Fair. The bus ride costed us AUD1 per person. Pacific Fair was like any other shopping mall, so we spent about an hour only before we decided to head back to Harbour Town to do more shopping!

From Pacific Fair , we took a bus no. 738 , which costed us another AUD6.40 for 2 persons. Well, unknowingly to us, Harbour Town is the last stop for this bus, so we spent 1 hour of traveling in the bus :( Maybe we could have hopped on a different bus next time ….
Once in Harbour Town, it was more shopping!!

When we finally exhaust ourselves physically and financially, we took a bus no. 709 back to our hotel in Surfers. It costed us another AUD 6.40 for 2 persons. We reached the hotel just half an hour earlier before the coach came to transfer us to the airport. Ah, what a day!

Day 3 : “Scooby Dooby Doo oooo !!!!”

Warner Bro’s Movie World! I was soooooo looking forward to this! My heart was racing like a child’s when I stepped into this Wonderland! Everything here was enchanting! The shops (Harry Potter's shop, Shrek's shop, The Daily Planet, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, etc), the characters from my favourite cartoon shows (Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo, Shrek, Batman etc), the ice cream parlour, the Wild Wild West…I was the wide-eyed child again, roaming with careless abandonment.

We started off by watching a 4D Shrek adventure show. It was extremely entertaining… and if you are going to catch it soon, beware of the effects. They’re so real. Be warned of the creepy spiders cause it sure did feel like they were crawling up your feet!! Eeee!

At the giant Panasonic screen up in the main street, many live performances were scheduled every hour. We watched The Looney Tunes Fab Four (Bugs, Daffy, Slyvester & Taz) paying their tribute to the sounds of The Beatles. We also caught the Batman and Scooby Doo show. Here, also, the All Star Parade took place, where all the stars will walk down the main street and back and adjourned for photo sessions.

Of course, there were the famed roller coaster rides in this park, namely the Lethal Weapon, Superman and Batman rides. Believe me, they’re definitely not for the faint hearted. They were so scary, that even watching them from the ground made my knees go weak. The Lethal Weapon ride, for instance, is where you seat with your feet dangling in the air, while the coaster takes you on 2 - 3 rounds of 360 degrees turns. The Superman rides are equally terrifying with a high speed coaster making an almost 90 degrees turn while descending at a break neck speed from the top! The Batman ride gives you an exhilarating vertical ride. It speeds up vertically, falls down equally fast and goes up again. You’ll feel like a human yo-yo….. so, we quickly concluded that we’ll give all these 3 rides a miss. Not to be taunted as too cowardly to try any roller coaster rides in a theme park, we settled for something less intimidating - the Scooby Doo ride! “Oh, boy! Oh, boy!” What a mistake! The ride was not as harmless as it sounds. It moves at a breakneck speed, doing 90 degrees turns and a REVERSE as well !! I dare anyone who thinks this is just a child’s ride to take it!!

The Wild Wild West area provided some good old cowboy feel. There was a a short performance and some game stalls. I tried 2 games but did not manage to win anything. Hubby, played 2 games and won both games! The prize? A cute small lion soft toy and a much coveted 2 ½ feet tall Bugs! My hero!

Finally, after a whole day in Movie World, we returned to the Hotel. In the evenings, we strolled along Surfers and found a place called Hog’s Breath Café where they served 100% Aussie meat. Really nice ambience and hugely popular among locals. We had to wait for 15 minutes before getting a place. But the food was worth the wait.

Day 2: “Old Mac Donald had a Farm, ee yai, ee yai O!”

It’s time for a little farm adventure on the second day! We stopped by the Paradise Country Farm for what the locals call, to “experience real Australia”. We watched the sheep shearing, horse displays, stock round up, kangaroo enclosure and enjoyed some Billy Tea (delicious tea grown in native Australia) and BBQ lunch.

While I wanted so much to feed the kangaroos, looking at their very big feet, I felt a little intimidated. Oh, dear, what if they suddenly kicked me? I remembered Elmer in the looney tunes cartoon. He was boxed and kicked by a seemingly harmless kangaroo. I wouldn’t want that to happen to me. Anyway, the kangaroos turned out to be timid creatures and I do enjoy feeding them immensely.

We also had a picture taken with a koala bear. It cost us AUD14 for only 1 pic. Right after we handed the koala back to the trainer, it pooh'ed! Woah, great timing, mate!!

In the baby animal nursery, hubby experienced cradling a lamb, and I experienced feeding a calf with a jumbo milk bottle. The calf finished the entire bottle in less than 5 minutes!
There too, I had an encounter with a strangely intelligent dog who wants to play fetch with me. She dropped a stick near my feet and waited for me to throw the stick and she’ll then fetched it back for me. It was later, in the “sheep roundup” show that I got to know that this dog , named Ginnie, was a sheep dog, trained to muster sheeps.

We also tried some Australian tea called Billy Tea and some home made damper served at the farm. The bread tasted a little sweet as it was baked together with some raisins.

As lunch was served, we were also entertained with some Aussie music. This man went from table to table to sing and when he reached ours, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of him ! Also, you can see the kind of food we’re taking for lunch… very filling! And the singing? First class!

After lunch, we headed for the Mount Tamborine winery and craft shops. After sampling about 8 different types of wine, we finally bought a bottle of Daisy Chardonnay. This wine is very special. It is sweetened with honey and it tasted heavenly! After visiting the entire Gallery Walk filled with art and craft shops, we headed to another popular destination : Harbour Town, for some shopping.

With less than 2 hours to spend, (they close at 5pm), there were just so much to see and buy. In Harbour Town, the quality brands like Espirit, Nike, Adidas, Levis, Calvin Klein Jeans, Tommy Hilfiger, and many more, all sell direct for as low as 60% discount everyday. The talk of the day was the Nike outlet, whereby, they had a “happy-hour” everyday. For 1 hour during the “happy hour” everyday, everything goes for almost 70% less! Even after conversion to MYR, it’s still cheaper buying from Harbour Town.
Accordingly, here in Harbour Town, too, we can find the cheapest Duty Free shop in the whole of Gold Coast. It’s called Souvenirs Direct. We were helping ourselves with the many choices from toys, key chains, macadamia nuts, towels, T-shirts, leather goods, and so much more!

At night when everyone else has retired to their rooms, hubby and I ventured out again to the night markets along Surfers Paradise. Held every Wednesdays and Fridays only, from 5.30pm to 11pm, the night markets are filled with a lot of stalls displaying crafts, woodworks and paintings. The main difference between the night market here as compared to our Malaysian night markets is : there were no food stalls here in Surfers Paradise night market! Nevertheless, you get a bevy of ideas for creative crafts from coloured sand arts in decorative bottles, mind boggling puzzles made of steel (hubby bought 7 puzzles, we can show them to you later), toy dogs made from sponge, shell and opal accessories, paintings, gifts made of crocodile skin and shark tooth, shirts and leashes for pet dogs among other fascinating crafts. They are usually handmade things, produced out of the owners’ creative juices. I would loved to see our Malaysian night market showcasing more of these, instead of just food and commercial made-in-China products…

Day 1: “Oh, fishy, where art thou?”

All my tiredness disappeared when we landed safely in Coolaganta airport at about 10 plus in the morning (Aussie time). Our first stop is to the Sea World. Now, I have been told that there isn’t much to do in the Sea World except looking at the fishes swimming non-chalantly in the aquariums and catching some performances by the sea lions and dolphins. So, I didn’t have much of an expectation. But, it turned out pretty alright. We enjoyed the Dugongs, Polar Bears, Sharks and Penguins. We also touched excitedly for the first time, the different kinds of starfish and sea cucumber. The dolphins also did some great stunts like catching the ball while swimming on their backs.

And, I had a surprise treat! I got to see the new Sesame Street Beach Show. I was as excited as a little girl when I get to see my Elmo, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Big Bird and friends dancing and singing there. I tried recording some of it, but being an amateur, the audio was missing. So, here's a pic of it.

Hubby then took me for a “romantic” tour around the park on a bright red choo-choo-train right before we left the place…how sweet :)

After a tiring day at the Sea World, we checked into our hotel : Mantra Legends located in the heart of Surfers Paradise.

We walked 2 blocks away from the hotel and settled for some Brazillian Dinner. The food was pretty good, and price quite reasonable. I tried a Brazilian drink called “acerola”, tasted a bit like avocado drink though….. delicious and apparently, high in Vitamin C, too ……

Away from home….

I am just home from a trip with my hubby to Gold Coast. It was an amazing, wonderful and fun experience! The autumn weather there suited us just fine- sunny but breezy. We walked around much in the Theme parks and along Surfer’s Paradise, but we also pigged it out with the fabulous food there. Alas, much fun and weight gained after 4 days in Gold Coast.

The departure from the Malaysian soil itself was a memorable one. We were grounded for 3 solid hours before take off!! (You know, I would have reached Ipoh in 3 hours!) You would never imagine what was the cause of delay! Right before take off, the ground vehicles were all leaving the aircraft after some last minute checking. Apparently, one “smart” driver decided to do a reverse and went straight into the tyres of the plane! So, the engineers spent 3 hours changing the 2 tyres. It was so frustrating as we were all in the plane, just waiting in our cramped seats with nothing much to do. The crew , meanwhile, made the best of the time by starting off with sales of drinks and snacks. Classic. Fortunately after 3 hours, the plane finally took off at 0030. The crew tried to make it up to us by giving us an additional bottle of mineral water and ‘sambal ikan bilis” (curry paste anchovies) bun. All I needed was some sleep and prayed that there are no more untoward incident during the remainder of the flight.