Slowly he walks treading a narrow path of muddy road, he leaves with him light imprints onto the ground that perhaps others may follow. He has few companions, but with them he's very comfortable. The road seemed trying in the beginning, but years down that marshy path has taught him to endure. Many a time, he fell hard and skin his knees. Many a time, the rocky grounds were unstable and he felt insecure. Yet, every time he went through these things, he had a Friend to pick him up and lead him on again.
Many who came alongside him asked him why is he walking there. There's certainly a better way, and what they showed to him was no lie. For parallel to this road, there's a neatly tarred highway. It was a fast and easy track. Many people chose to walk there. Road bumps were fewer, the course was much steadier, many things tangible felt substantial. It was the easy way.
But he knowing where he's heading down this narrow road declines their offer, faithful to the path that he's on. Trusting that this path takes him to a far more promising destination compared to that of the highway. He knows, his path is The Way. He knows what he believes is The Truth, and he certainly knows that where he's going is The Life. He knows, yet only he knows.
Very few of us now are constantly reminded of Matt 28:19 and 20. The last few words recorded in Matthew left with us by Christ Jesus. The Great Commission. Like how Mr. Lian puts it, "GO and make disciples of all nations", makes it sound like a special task. The word "GO" is read as if Christians must be "sent out" to fulfill The Great Commission. Please refer to Mr. Lian (Our Bible Study Teacher) what the Greek meaning of the word is, but it does not imply what we frequently derive as "send out". As Christians we are to share the Gospel to everyone around us. Not being afraid to love the people around us and tell them about Jesus Christ and the Salvation that He has given to us all! We have failed to realize this urgency and sometimes it is because we already feel the comfort of the company that we are in, even though the company is but a few people.
When was the last time you've talked to your friend about your faith? When was the last time you mentioned Jesus Christ to a friend? Do your friends around you know you are a Christian? Does your life speak Christ to them? Are you a living breathing model of Christ that people recognize and would want to follow?
Here's something that might help us all...
(Romans 1:14) I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
WE OWE THEM THE GOSPEL~!!!
Paul writes here that he owes Greeks and the Barbarians (All Gentiles),
Wise or unwise (Phd Holder or that HoBo down the street),
Momma always say... if you owe someone something, go repay him at once when you've got the means to...
Until we realize that our friends need God, or else they're on the Highway to Hell... then we see the urgency. A lot of us allow them to pass us by, they become our friends, worked and played with them, but yet we've never had the urge to repay that debt we so owe them... the Gospel.
As a confession, in my many years of walking with the Lord, I've only been spoken to a few non-Christians about God and Christ. Sharing the Gospel had never been an urgency. Even in my campus days, I've not done much as a Christian student, carriying out my obligation to tell my friends about the Gospel. In this pluralistic society where tolerance dominate, we tend to "respect" one another's religion by not talking about religion at all. We don't want to "offend" our friends. We don't want to be called the "fanatic". I personally had fallen into that trap, I'm finding my way out. How? By making the first step to reach out. My campus days are not over yet, and so does many of us. I believe it is a strategic time being in campus where our friends are, as Mr. Lian puts it, too old to be given orders and too young to be expected of anything. It is here that men and women will turn to God when given a chance.
I'm not making anymore excuses. In the words of Will Hung (a great philosopher), "I have no professional training..."
We DON'T need professional training to share the Gospel.
If we Love our friends enough, we will tell them about it. Not just in words, but also in our actions. The way we live our lives, our integrity, our principles, our priorities and our honesty. The quality of your life is what others look at.
But he was always watching one of his companions. He always thought he was a little bit too loud about telling others why they should be on this narrow path instead of the 4 lane highway. But today he understood what it meant to bring across a friend travelling full speed to eternal doom, and suddenly to change course to follow him to eternal life. "Oh... such Joy to see one soul saved." For once he walked a silent street, today he breaks silence by proclaiming Salvation!
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16 comments:
I missed my blog~! :)
-___________________________-""""
Sehoo (is it stuck together?) ... I had to answer your question.. Your appearing in my piggish life made me realize one thing... One darn dangerous thing... If it's permissible for mentioning...
But it will haunt your life. I am dead serious.
I mean it. Like nobody's business.
I was meant to haunt your Hoo-ish life.
Don't feel insulted or offended. Gravity was created for a purpose; so as the ability to haunt. Welcome to my life.
xD
You can sue the Internet Communications whatever Sdn Bhd or Blogger.com and state "THIS IS BLOGSPOT'S HARASSMENT!"
Do, dood, where'd be ya heading after 2007?
And I miss disturbing the author la, how? xD
Well a cup of coffee isn't nice without it tasting a little bitter. That's how enlightening yours and Suit Lin's comments can be at times.
As one sips deeper into the bottom of the cup, the coffee taste even more bitter, but the elation of downing that cup drowns the bitter senses.
In simpler words, though its irritating at often times being SPAM-ed, yet its delighting to have receive SPAMs from a friend like you.
2007 is still a long year ahead. Plans are uncertain, but intentions to travel seem prompting.
xD
Well, all the best to your studies! I know it's your last year (I think. It is, right?)... So kick the exams and assignments fair and square... xD
And your post is very deep lar.. haha.. ;)
ciaoz.. til we meet.. wahaha!
I miss the author!
I upgraded my blog! Check it out yeah!
Yours truly,
lovely Sister in Singapore :D
I have already lost hope in this Malaysia years ago. Now, my priority is to make the money oversea/here and banked it in a bank oversea. Get a PR status elsewhere. In fact, I don't even bother to vote anymore. Waste my time and petrol money.
Leave Malaysia to the bigots. One day, when they bled Malaysia dry, the country will go back to the Stone Age.
By not seeking to help our children to reach their fullest potential is a sin by itself, you stay and you kill their hope by marginalized their talent, yes! You lost your racial pride of a race Han touted 5000 years old. We are talking about kids being taught by incompetent teachers and lecturers, you have no way of helping them to reach their fullest potential, given them what they deserve.
Who gave you the idea that ex-Malaysians are losers? We are doing Malaysia proud, renowned surgeons from Malaysia in top hospitals all over the world, ministers of Singapore from born in Penang, Malaysia engineers in fortune 500 companies.
Sorry I should not say 'offer', this people climb to such status on own merits where meritocracy is the call of the day.
You have a point talking of migration of this scale, I foresee the Chinese population will reduce till say below 15% by 2020 and below 10% by 2030.
Especially the professional they are the most likely to emigrate but no matter what percentage the remaining 5% or 10% they are always the business class because the malays didn't teach and allow them how to be professional like teachers or lecturers.
I have left years ago and my siblings are still doing fine in Malaysia and main concern is providing for their children's education, so to fulfill each child potential to the fullest is something which I think is a birth right and I really appreciate and admire government who abide by this policy.
We have the tallest, longest, largest, greatest, grandest, biggest, everything; and now some record breaking events, falling, collapsing, cracking, bursting, break-downing incidents in new buildings. It is only the beginning.
Read it all. In Mahathir's Malaysia, over 40% of the population lives under constitutionally mandated and perpetual state sanctioned racism. It is verging on illegality to even bring up the subject - even in parliament.
Non-malays live under widespread and considerable electoral, educational, economic and even religious restrictions and also have to live with the risk of racially motivated stirring from malay politicians who could put one nation to shame. And don't ask about illegal aliens, they are safely locked up in detention centres.
Unsurprisingly, some malay policies have played upon resultant fears of racial tensions and the difficulties non-malays face in creating their own political voice to shore up a captive vote in the ethnic electorate.
Starting up a company or even purchasing land and property is harder and more expensive for non-malays. The only way to alleviate their permanent designation as a second-class citizen is to convert to Islam and thus enjoy partial legal acceptance as a bumi.
This Malaysia, a land where racism is used to justify racism, is Mahathir's creation and if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, then I need a new palette.
Perhaps you may have heard of the axiom making its rounds among the Malaysian bloggers:
"If it is a malay issue, it is a national issue. If it is an Indian issue, it is not an issue. If it is a Chinese issue, it is a racial issue."
That is the problem with Malaysia. The Indians and Chinese are made to feel as if Malaysia is for the malays, and not for the citizens of Malaysia. Even the textbooks are often written as if addressing the malays instead of Malaysians, with references to Islam and other malay cultural aspects.
Just look at Singapore. In spite of their being a multiracial society completely lacking in national resources, they are now a developed country. Why?
Because the people there are united. There is no presumption that the average citizen is a Chinese or any serious programme giving a particular race special rights.
The presumption that greed, dishonesty and betrayal are innate qualities of a Chinese is simply as abhorrent as the presumption by some Chinese that malays smell bad, are lazy and are extremely religious to the point of martyrdom. Such stereotyping accomplishes nothing.
If Chinese kids won't die for Malaysia, we should not jump to the conclusion that Chinese cannot be trusted. Instead, we should consider it equally among other possibilities, such as the government's policies creating a feeling of unfair treatment despite the premise that we are all equal as citizens of Malaysia.
We know what the original intentions of the malay special privileges provision in the Merdeka Constitution were, but to maintain that it is a carte blanche for all manner of discrimination based on the bumi/non-bumi divide is certainly straining credibility.
Now that the commanding heights of the Malaysia economy have fallen into the hands of malay capitalists 49 years after independence, is it wrong to appeal for a new consensus based on social sector and need instead of race?
From the above, it is clear that the question of the constitutionality of the quota system as it has been practised since 1971 especially in totally malay institutions has never been tested.
Because the government imposes racial quota in government departments and education, therefore Singapore and other countries take fortune at the tide. For years, there has been brain drain to our neighbour.
I called my newfound friend earlier who works in Singapore. Somehow, the conversation ended up on Malaysians holding top positions in Singapore.
Well, I have a good friend who is currently working with a top-notch investment company in Singapore. When my new friend found out, immediately said, "No wonder that Pak Lah person was mentioning about the brain drain in Malaysia!"
Well, I know a lot of scientists and doctors are working overseas. A number of my school alumni are actually working overseas and not in Malaysia. Some are doing well in London, Boston, to name a few. It is even funnier to hear stories of some of my school alumni to accidentally meet each other when they are overseas. Yes, my school is guilty for contributing to the brain drain……….
Closer to home, I wonder if Pak Lah knows about our own Malaysian companies that are also contributing to the brain drain. No name mentioned, but I know of one company, due to the change in business process has forced a number of the disgruntled staff to leave the company.
The worse thing, these staff left and joined the competitors that are not Malaysian owned. And even worse, some staff actually decided to leave Malaysia and work at greener pastures.
They could have stayed in Malaysia, but no company in Malaysia could afford to pay the expected salary due to the staff being former scholars and studied overseas during the economic crisis.
Sad really. Now wonder why Pak Lah has an uphill task.
Clearly, there has always been movement of highly skilled people in and out of a country. If there is brain drain from a particular country, it can scarcely develop. On the other hand, if it can keep its talents and successfully attract its skilled citizens to return as well as foreign talents to come, it will prosper.
NEP - A truly Never Ending Policy!
Let us look at all the countries around the world.
Is there a country that has achieved economic equality among the races?
Let us not be fooled by the power-that-be.
Vote for change at the next election!
Malaysia being in such a sad state, I can only see decline for decades to come.
May be even for centuries.
May be the rise of China can give the bright sparks of Malaysia some leverage to change society, but I doubt whether the ingrained culture of failure can be reversed.
Not the UK, not the US, not in most parts of the world, the culture of failure always reproduced itself generation after generation.
Change has to come from external influence and not from the inside.
No surprising with such emotion running high: More to emigrate. This is brain drain. Bolehland has no vision for its all people except for the Umno malays.
Who not afraid of the keris waving politician? Even my malay classmate emigrated to New Zealand recently, sick of the polemics and the politicising of religion here, good thing got money shall travel, no money no talk.
Should have left 10 years ago when I saw that we have no equal opportunities. But I hesitated and said there will be a change when Badawi takes over. Well! Guess that was not the case. It got worse and the future of Malaysia is bleak!
Pack my back and left the place to look for better opportunities and fight on merits. I am better off in Australia than the "dark hole" of Malaysia. At least you get respected for your recognition and skill. In Malaysia, how good you are is always a second class citizen. No promotion for us but their own kind.
NEP to malays is like drug to drug addicts. Once they started to taste it, they will never let go till they die. Tough they all know very well NEP is just like drug, not good for them in the long run, but they can't resist the short term temptation and fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of NEP.
Since now, the NEP had become Never Ending Policy, the little hope of getting out of the NEP drug will dismiss and leading to the destruction of the malays. By then maybe all the able non-malays had already emigrated to greener pasture in overseas. I forecast 2020 year is the doom day. Thanks to selfish Umno malays.
We are at our own liberty not to live in this controversial country. The government does not discourage us to leave this country. For Chinese and Indians, Malaysia perhaps is not a good place to stay because your mother countries to with China and India are now thriving. Just leave malays to manage their own country. Let Malaysia ruin with the malays.
The Chinese culture is compatible to other cultures in the world. The Chinese will have no problem adapt to other cultures in the world. There are many China Towns in overseas countries. So the Malaysian Chinese will feel at home wherever they go.
Real sick and tired of all these Umno babiputras, the sob in Malaysia Umno babiputras!
Yes, the only realistic proposition is encourage all Chinese to emigrate to Singapore and leave Malaysia for the malays. Trouble is Singapore is so small, its land mass will not allow a huge population to live in the island.
So next choice for the Chinese to emigrate is to Australia and New Zealand. The exodus has begun. Those who can afford now have started to go. The signs are already there.
There is no future in this country anymore. In a few years time this country will be in ruins when the oil money runs dry. FDI has already dry up and gone to other countries like Thailand and Vietnam. Foreign factories have closed shop migrated to China and India.
Chinese planning to emigrate should also consider option to return to China. Some of my friends went to invest there and within a few years become millionaires. There are much more opportunities and being Chinese there shouldn't be any problem.
By my own experience I can tell you that it is great being a new citizen in Singapore. You are judged by what you can contribute and not but some NEP policies.
The education in Singapore is also about the best in the world. Yes, even the educators from the native English-speaking countries adopt how mathematics and science are taught here.
Best of all, every time you cross the causeway to visit Malaysia you are rewarded by at least 2 or 3 times in your spending capability.
Oops……….now that this is happening, in the next 5 - 10 years, Malaysia will end up looking like the Philippines, where their main export is maids. Lack of income from tax, will see economy melt down. Skilled professionals all fled from the country.
Yes and having lived overseas, I have a nice bird's eye view of how Malaysia is heading towards the sewers.
Malaysia has spent the last 3 decades focusing on physical infrastructure without developing the human capital. Never mind the restrictions and stifling of independent minds - let us not even go there yet.
Let us start with basic education and providing of higher education opportunities for the best and brightest. We have cultivated at least 2 generations of dumbass.
Too many unqualified malays have been force fed into colleges and universities and the end result is you have the same bunch of witless village idiots, except now they are holding a piece of paper they don't know what to do with. A minority is absorbed back into the tertiary education system……….no prizes for guessing what that has caused over the last 30 years.
For the majority remaining, real world corporations wouldn't even hire them if they offered to work for free. So you have a bunch of jobless numbskulls who think they are too good for the common labor jobs, which they would have ended up in anyways given their aptitude and qualification, and desire a pen-pushing corporate position (if they could push that pen to string one coherent sentence in English, that would be another thing).
So we bring in all sorts of foreign labors to do our work for us, and we have a youth bulge of unemployable (and grossly unqualified) graduates walking around with a sense of entitlement.
Sounds familiar? It should. This is what is happening in the Middle East.
This trend towards greater Islamic extremism is also no coincidence. It is merely the natural path of development that a failed society embarks upon.
The malays have failed. Plain and simple. Their policies stink, they have screwed themselves more than they have others, in fact. The only reason the shit hasn't hit the fan sooner is because, like their desert co-religionists, they have petroleum propping them up.
That will go soon……….not totally, but it won't be at the present rate it props the country up. And it is closer than you think.
Those who can should emigrate and get the hell out - and that includes our malay brothers and sisters who have the means to. When the dust settles, no amount of cyber cities, longest bridges and tallest buildings, are going to save you from the disaster of a fourth world country that is being developed.
I am one of the cows applying for migration. How do I feel? I feel that the world is my home. If I am not treated well here, I will go to another country.
It is not about fighting for the country or fighting for the world. I am fighting for a better life and that is what everyone craves for.
Anyway why limit ourselves to one country when we can explore to other places. We only leave once, make the best out of it.
Well, the most popular countries to emigrate are Australia, New Zealand and USA. For those who wanted to emigrate to any of these countries and not prepare to pay the extra migration agent fees should consider apply themselves, it is not difficult as long as you meet the respective country criteria.
I know because I am a migrant myself and I helped my friends to emigrate to all those countries in the past three years.
If ever I would want to produce a movie of the old China dynasty era, Koh Tsu Koon and Ong Ka Ting would make perfect casting as the eunuchs of the emperor.
Just look at their faces and mannerisms in real life and you'd know they are perfect for these roles in reel life.
This is not a false perception as many posters here have similar perception of these people.
Other than carrying the balls of the power bearers and keeping mum on issues affecting the Chinese community, these seemingly emasculated people are always seen having a gayest time showing their faces in the papers.
The voters just have to waken up for the next elections. Enough of Eunuchs!
49 years after independence, the people of Malaysia are still searching for an identity. Are they Malays or Muslims first; are they Chinese, Indians or Malaysians first?
This identity crisis is a result of the failure of the BN government, which has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957, later as the expanded Barisan Nasional.
The truth is that the malays of this country partly owe their independence to the non-malays. The reason was that the British refused to give independence without an agreement from the non-malays.
Another argument put forth by the pro malay special rights group is that, they made a compromise by giving the non-malays their citizenship and in exchange the malays must be given their special privileges.
This argument is the most ridiculous I have heard thus far but in their ignorance some Malaysians still think that citizenship is for a certain race to give. This logic would mean that the minorities will always be seen as foreigners who will never be equal to the malays.
'The Chinese and Indians must accept they are immigrants and they were given citizenships in 1957 on the agreement that the malays are given special rights and privileges.'
Stretching your logic a bit further, are you also suggesting that in America, the Negroes continue to be slaves to the whites, otherwise they give up US citizenship and go back to Africa?
This is stupid idiotic logic. Even if the so-called contract was valid, it was so only in the 50s and 60s.
We are nearly 50 years after independence and all Chinese and Indians have begun citizens. They are no more bound by the so-called social contract which enslaved their ancestors.
Umno is afraid to give up Ketuanan Melayu because it is bankrupt of ideas in competing with others in this 21st century democracy.
Umno's warped logic is that, it is better for country to be backward so long as malays benefit than for country to prosper, where malays are marginalized.
This warped logic is in fact the beginning of the end of the malays who will never progress and compete with others on equal footing and level playing field, so long as they subscribe to Ketuanan Melayu and have crutch mentality in forever relying on special privileges.
Malays will crumble from internal weaknesses and disappear in era of globalization - no need for others to colonize them as Mahathir had constantly raised this bogey.
There can never be equal footing - not even among people of the same race.
It saddens me to see the country I was born in and raised stagnating in so many ways - ideologically, sociologically and technologically.
My dad is a racist; so is my mom. Similarly racists are my brother, sister and relatives. All the Malaysian friends I now have are, and those I had were or at the least had been, racists too. Well, perhaps thanks to all these people, I have become and remain a racist as well.
You see, we are the members of a much larger community: Malaysia - the racist nation!
The term community is somewhat misleading. We are not united as such as a nation should be. We are only united by the fact that all of us - at one time or other - had been are or will become, racists……….
All of us formally became racists in the year of 1971, when racism was institutionalised in Malaysia. Not that racism didn't exist before: it did; it lurked underneath, which as everyone knows - erupted as the May 13 ethnic riots.
Hence came the New Economic Policy, set up to divert the winds off the sails of racism. Ballasting the boat, and listing it in favour of the economically disadvantaged malay Malaysians may lead to Malaysians seeing each other as equals, it was thought.
Then came the 80s, which also gave Dr Mahathir.
Still, racism remained somewhat otherworldly to me. All of us practiced racism, on the streets, in shops, in schools and in the house, but racism was never blatant - at least in my life. That changed as the 80s came to a close.
............
Please tell me, can anyone even imagine a multi-cultural Malaysia nation - where no one discriminates the other on the basis of race, where everyone treats the other as a brother or sister - being run by the same racist parties that exist now? Is such a future even conceptually possible?
It is time for me to descend to earth and crawl back into my racist carapace, and be a realist again. And heap praises on our nation and on the ideals that are so central to its psyche: long live, racism! Long live, racist Malaysia - the model racist nation!
It is no wonder our civil participation is as backward as it is.
Do you have any idea why Singapore is almost the first world country or 30 years better than Malaysia?
One could argue every country has its own laws and policies that place prejudice on certain parties - yes, that is true, but none so shamefully as (Malaysia) those who not only boast about it, take the credit for the successes of these people whom they slam their discriminatory abuses on, and have no intention to change it (and that said with a smug look on the face).
Bangsa Malaysia? Bah, humbug!
I have suggested in the past that Chinese Malaysians should just gather their wealth and leave Malaysia and let malays them become backwards.
Singapore is desperately looking for skilled foreign workers due to dwindling birthrates. Many Indians are working over there. Seriously Chinese Malaysians should look into moving to Singapore.
I am sure China can make good use of the wealth of Chinese Malaysians. Is there any policy the China government have enacted to encourage overseas Chinese to come back and make China their home once again?
That will teach the Malaysians a lesson. Their economy will crumble and will put them back 50 years.
Living in the northern state ever since primary school, I told myself that Malaysia is not the country I want my family to lives, just in case. Seeking better education and employment opportunities elsewhere, my siblings left our hometown one by one, so did our neighbours.
None of my sibling resides in Malaysia and I am now a PR in another country but I came back. First, seeking business opportunity and second, I come back because this is my country.
Without the contributions of non-malays there will be no Malaysia, so why must I run away and let the Umno malays took over all the Chinese property we have earned through hard work.
The racist policies that Umno pursues, is putting this country in a brink of collapse. On the surface; it seems like nothing is worth fighting, millions of non-malays have left; perhaps million more will go; then how?
I encourage my brothers and sisters not to come back to Malaysia, now I believe strongly I have done the right thing.
Some nights, when the air is cool, when you are sitting out in the garden thinking about your loves ones, and wondering if you have given them the right suggestions about not returning to Malaysia, especially when your parents are old, very much pressurising but..........
Everyday when we read the papers, we begun to realised the stupidity of our advice, the fact is like in the film Jurassic Park:
Nature will finds its way (to survive), we don't need to give advices like these, they are afraid for us and they are learned, like my brother now oversea, says to me that "he has made the right choice not to return back", my bro-in-law intends to migrate next year, we are not on the talking terms and therefore I have nowhere to persuade him, he is a professional, he is made up his mind.
In short, exodus has already happened, no need for us to encourage this phenomenon, just let nature and the Umno malays run its course. Let us pray that we have an exit ticket.
Emigrating from a developing country to a developed country is one of the most important decision of one's life - career, family and financially.
With globalisation and the world becoming borderless, mobility of business and employment is important to ensure your security and success.
At this moment, India, with its English education, is the biggest exporter of professional human resources. Soon you will see them in all parts of the world. China is its industrial power. Imagine, with 45% of world population, you combine the two.
There are increasingly strong competition for a better life and place out there.
Found you!
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