In December 2010, I had just returned from a prayer retreat in Seoul, a trip I almost didn't make. That December, Pyongyang had threatened to go to war with South Korea. This time, the rhetoric sounded less hollow than before - and amid the sabre-rattling, the US moved a warship into the Yellow Sea. Many people cancelled their trip to Seoul on the concern war might truly break out. I sought the Lord earnestly if I should still proceed; He assured me it would be safe to go, and I did. Whilst there, it struck me that many South Koreans were third generation believers -- how had they gotten Christianised I wonder? I found out later the revival had first started in Pyongyang more than a century ago, and then spread South. Pyongyang! The rogue nation that almost caused me to miss my trip!
This intriguing piece of information caused me to start reading up on the Pyongyang revival. It made me jealous for Singapore to be saved too … for Singapore to experience the revival that swept across Pyongyang, and rippled outwards.
I know many Singaporeans have likewise contended for years for this nation of ours to be a resting place, a dwelling place for the Lord. A place which He is so comfortable with, He will tarry, and stay.
This is why I'm so excited about the Singapore Family Gathering happening at the Singapore Indoor Stadium from 14-16 September. This gathering is not like other ordinary gatherings - it is a gathering of believers who long for the Spirit to break out over this land. I've attended similar gatherings in Hong Kong, Japan and Israel, and the heart of these gatherings is to give the Holy Spirit complete freedom to move and to direct the programme. A lot of time is centered on worship; and if the Lord wills, whole sessions are given to worship (We do not limit Him!). Lots of emphasis is placed on hearing the voice of God, and moving only when He says move. In past meetings, lots of repentance, reconciliation and restoration also takes place, with the other nations and the global body.
At the recent Jubilee Day of Prayer, I was greatly moved to see 50,000 Singaporeans come together to worship and thank the Lord for all that He has done these 50 years, and to pray that righteousness will be upheld the next 50 years. I saw Singaporeans unite as one to intercede for this little red dot we call home.
The September Family Gathering will be special -- coming on Singapore's 50th year, and coinciding with our founding father Lee Kuan Yew's birthday, as well as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It also coincides with the last of the four blood moons.
Today I heard that Singapore has the Issachar anointing - we are a people who understand the times and seasons we live in. This blogpost is an encouragement to all who love the Lord and who love Singapore to prayerfully consider joining this gathering. Already the ability to secure the venue at the Singapore Indoor Stadium is a divine happening… and I am excited in my Spirit because I know the Lord will pour out His Spirit upon us.
Here a video on the Singapore Gathering:
To find out more about the Singapore Gathering and to register, please click here
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Spiritual sight
In Psalms 119:18-19, the Psalmist prays:
"Open my eyes that I might see
Wonderful things in your law
I am a stranger on earth
Do not hide your commands from me."
In Chinese, this reads:
求你开我的眼睛
使我看出你律法的奇妙
我是在地上寄居的
求你不要向我隐瞒你的命令。
It's interesting these days for me to deconstruct the Chinese language. The Chinese have such an ancient history leading back 2,500 years and they used to serve 上帝，the Most High God. Many of the Chinese characters can be deconstructed to show the Chinese knew stories from the Bible. For example, the word 船，or boat, is made up of three separate characters... A vessel, and eight people. Now we know that Noah and his family (wife, 3 sons and their wives) went into the ark, a total of eight persons.
Back to this passage in Psalms. It is telling that the word hide "隐瞒＂is made up of a few characters. One is 急，or busy, rushed, harried.
The other is 目, or sight.
The others I need to ask my Chinese speaking friends haha.
But it struck me that in the Bible, spiritual sight or revelation/ understanding is so key to the prophetic, especially to the seers.
God said to Amos, "What do you see?"
He said to Jeremiah, "What do you see?"
He said to Zechariah, "What do you see?"
The same is true for Ezekiah and so on and so forth.
What gets in the way of spiritual sight? One hindrance is busyness, a rushing about. In Chinese, the word busy 忙 can be deconstructed to mean 心 (heart) and 亡 (dead). Sobering.
On the other hand, the greatest commandment is to love The Lord with all our hearts (尽心）or to pursue him wholeheartedly or with one heart (一心).
In 2015, am praying that The Lord opens up my spiritual sight that I may see Him and know His heart. Praying that the busyness and hurriedness that all us city dwellers fall prey to will be something I overcome. Seeking The Lord about the rest that is synonymous with the Jubilee here in Singapore.
Without vision, the people perish. May The Lord open our eyes that we may have eyes to see. Amen.
"Open my eyes that I might see
Wonderful things in your law
I am a stranger on earth
Do not hide your commands from me."
In Chinese, this reads:
求你开我的眼睛
使我看出你律法的奇妙
我是在地上寄居的
求你不要向我隐瞒你的命令。
It's interesting these days for me to deconstruct the Chinese language. The Chinese have such an ancient history leading back 2,500 years and they used to serve 上帝，the Most High God. Many of the Chinese characters can be deconstructed to show the Chinese knew stories from the Bible. For example, the word 船，or boat, is made up of three separate characters... A vessel, and eight people. Now we know that Noah and his family (wife, 3 sons and their wives) went into the ark, a total of eight persons.
Back to this passage in Psalms. It is telling that the word hide "隐瞒＂is made up of a few characters. One is 急，or busy, rushed, harried.
The other is 目, or sight.
The others I need to ask my Chinese speaking friends haha.
But it struck me that in the Bible, spiritual sight or revelation/ understanding is so key to the prophetic, especially to the seers.
God said to Amos, "What do you see?"
He said to Jeremiah, "What do you see?"
He said to Zechariah, "What do you see?"
The same is true for Ezekiah and so on and so forth.
What gets in the way of spiritual sight? One hindrance is busyness, a rushing about. In Chinese, the word busy 忙 can be deconstructed to mean 心 (heart) and 亡 (dead). Sobering.
On the other hand, the greatest commandment is to love The Lord with all our hearts (尽心）or to pursue him wholeheartedly or with one heart (一心).
In 2015, am praying that The Lord opens up my spiritual sight that I may see Him and know His heart. Praying that the busyness and hurriedness that all us city dwellers fall prey to will be something I overcome. Seeking The Lord about the rest that is synonymous with the Jubilee here in Singapore.
Without vision, the people perish. May The Lord open our eyes that we may have eyes to see. Amen.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
仍然愛著耶穌
今天在华文教会见证了神在它们当中所做的奇妙事。我是第一次参加华文教会的敬拜，真的很感谢主给我这个机会领受他对我们华人的恩典慈爱。在敬拜的时侯真的是感动的流起泪来。早上唱的两首诗歌对我来说还是第一次听到，可是里头存有很多真理，真是太美妙了。
Prayer in the year of Singapore's Jubilee
As Singapore enters her Jubilee, this song so beautifully captures the prayer of my heart.
May this city be yours, O Lord. We long for your glory, for your presence to be upon this land. This is our prayer, our plea. May this, our prayer for our city, our people, rise as incense before your throne.
May this city be yours, O Lord. We long for your glory, for your presence to be upon this land. This is our prayer, our plea. May this, our prayer for our city, our people, rise as incense before your throne.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Healing is here (Deluge)
We sang this song at worship this morning, and WOW! What a amazing, anointed song. LOVE it!!!
Remembered how the Lord healed me of my excruciating back pain last year, lengthened one leg so that both legs would be of equal length, and straightened my spine!
Ps Yang said today God cannot stop himself from healing. He is Jehovah Rapha - The Lord My Healer. His name reflects his character, and who He is. Amen!!!
And here is the backstory to how the song was composed.
Remembered how the Lord healed me of my excruciating back pain last year, lengthened one leg so that both legs would be of equal length, and straightened my spine!
Ps Yang said today God cannot stop himself from healing. He is Jehovah Rapha - The Lord My Healer. His name reflects his character, and who He is. Amen!!!
And here is the backstory to how the song was composed.
Three worship songs in Mandarin
Three beautiful worship songs in Mandarin. The first is "Still" in Mandarin. LOVE the richness of the Chinese language. Haven't fully appreciated it until lately, but am coming to realise that the language has such a depth to it. Perhaps because of its long history, the Chinese language has more vocabulary to express deep reverence and longing for the Great King of the Universe than there are words in the English language. Often a time, I would find myself finding that words cannot express what my heart wants to say to the Lord, and I am thankful in those times for the gift of tongues. Now am exploring one more new avenue - the native language of my people :)
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Back from a Welsh revival tour (May 2014)
For years, I have loved the story of Evan Roberts, the young Welsh coal miner who famously prayed, "God, bend me". The accounts of the 1904-1905 Welsh revival have also gripped my heart. But it feels God prepared me on my recent journey to Wales, first by planting these seeds of fascination, then watering them.
A few years ago, a few friends and I were preparing to go for a silent retreat in the Korean prayer mountains when North Korea (Pyongyang) threatened to go to war with South Korea. As our day of departure drew closer, the sabre rattling and war rhetoric got increasingly more intense. The US even moved a warship into the neighbouring waters. Family and friends advised me against going, and for the first time, I bought travel insurance which covered the possibility of war. In the end, the Lord gave a clear word that gave us assurance we could go. Whilst in Seoul, I wondered why South Korea seemed to have been evangelised ahead of many of us elsewhere in Asia. In Singapore, many of us are just first or second-generation Christians. It struck me that Korea was Christianised way before many of the Asian nations. So I asked a Korean missionary friend how Korea got Christianised. Her answer shocked me when she said, "Pyongyang 1907". I was floored! This rogue nation which almost caused me to cancel my trip was the birthplace of Korean revival, and as I did my research, I realised it was once called "Jerusalem of the East".
Last year, the Lord took this nugget of history and exploded it further in my heart. At a gathering of 16,000 believers in Hong Kong, a mainland Chinese pastor shared that some years back, as a theology student, she lived in the household of a Korean family. Now, the Koreans are well-known for their early morning prayers. Since she was living under their roof, she, too, had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for prayer. At one of these meetings, a Korean man expressed great joy at meeting a mainland Chinese believer for the first time. "For years," he said, "I have been praying for the Chinese church to arise." This sharing brought all of us, including myself, to tears. Our salvation - the salvation of the Chinese church - has been prayed in by those in other nations, including the Koreans, who had come to the Lord ahead of us.
Two weeks later, I met David and Jan Holdaway in Singapore. The Holdaways are a lovely Welsh couple who long for revival in their nation. David has been a pastor for many years, and today, this couple continue to minister in their land and in the nations. At this meeting, they shared about Robert Jermain Thomas, born in South Wales in 1839, who was the first Protestant martyr in Korea. He was killed by the natives as he handed out bibles while reaching the shores of Pyongyang. His death planted the seed for the Pyongyang 1907 revival.
How this gripped me. So if I were to trace the debt we Chinese owe to the nations, it leads back to Korea and back still further to Wales. And so I was really excited to learn that David and Jan run revival tours in Wales that take visitors to significant sites at the centre of Welsh revival history. For me, this was all about understanding my Christian heritage, and blessing the land that had blessed the Chinese bloodline.
A few years ago, a few friends and I were preparing to go for a silent retreat in the Korean prayer mountains when North Korea (Pyongyang) threatened to go to war with South Korea. As our day of departure drew closer, the sabre rattling and war rhetoric got increasingly more intense. The US even moved a warship into the neighbouring waters. Family and friends advised me against going, and for the first time, I bought travel insurance which covered the possibility of war. In the end, the Lord gave a clear word that gave us assurance we could go. Whilst in Seoul, I wondered why South Korea seemed to have been evangelised ahead of many of us elsewhere in Asia. In Singapore, many of us are just first or second-generation Christians. It struck me that Korea was Christianised way before many of the Asian nations. So I asked a Korean missionary friend how Korea got Christianised. Her answer shocked me when she said, "Pyongyang 1907". I was floored! This rogue nation which almost caused me to cancel my trip was the birthplace of Korean revival, and as I did my research, I realised it was once called "Jerusalem of the East".
Last year, the Lord took this nugget of history and exploded it further in my heart. At a gathering of 16,000 believers in Hong Kong, a mainland Chinese pastor shared that some years back, as a theology student, she lived in the household of a Korean family. Now, the Koreans are well-known for their early morning prayers. Since she was living under their roof, she, too, had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for prayer. At one of these meetings, a Korean man expressed great joy at meeting a mainland Chinese believer for the first time. "For years," he said, "I have been praying for the Chinese church to arise." This sharing brought all of us, including myself, to tears. Our salvation - the salvation of the Chinese church - has been prayed in by those in other nations, including the Koreans, who had come to the Lord ahead of us.
Two weeks later, I met David and Jan Holdaway in Singapore. The Holdaways are a lovely Welsh couple who long for revival in their nation. David has been a pastor for many years, and today, this couple continue to minister in their land and in the nations. At this meeting, they shared about Robert Jermain Thomas, born in South Wales in 1839, who was the first Protestant martyr in Korea. He was killed by the natives as he handed out bibles while reaching the shores of Pyongyang. His death planted the seed for the Pyongyang 1907 revival.
How this gripped me. So if I were to trace the debt we Chinese owe to the nations, it leads back to Korea and back still further to Wales. And so I was really excited to learn that David and Jan run revival tours in Wales that take visitors to significant sites at the centre of Welsh revival history. For me, this was all about understanding my Christian heritage, and blessing the land that had blessed the Chinese bloodline.
We went to Moriah Chapel, where Robert Evans conducted revival meetings, and Llanover, Robert Jermain Thomas' home church.
We also spent two nights at Ffald-dy-Brenin (Sheepfold of the King), the prettiest secluded retreat centre I know. It was so tranquil, so breathtakingly beautiful - indeed, a gem of a place to spend quiet time with the Lord.
Of course we had to go to the Bible College of Wales in Swansea, since Singapore is now linked to it. (To read how our church in Singapore bought the Bible College of Wales, click here). We were there for Sunday service and a Tuesday morning prayer meeting, and it was awesome. I really feel like there are some deep wells there. My traveling mate felt like we had to attend a prophetic art exhibition while there, and so we did!!
The wonder of the entire trip was that we had sites and places worked into the itinerary, but as would happen in Wales and when one is walking with the Spirit, God would surprise us with good things and we would shift our plan around. As an example, although rooms in Ffald-dy-Brenin are usually booked 12-18 months in advance, we were so blessed to be able to stay one night due to a last minute cancellation. And we got the most beautiful lodging of all, a two-storey lodge! The next day, as we were checking out, the receptionist asked where we were from. We said Singapore! And then he asked if we wanted to stay another night because the guests they were expecting wouldn't come in for another day. We jumped right at it. Yeah!!!! God is good.
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| Moriah Chapel, with a memorial of Evan Roberts in front |
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| The beautiful pathway to the cross. |
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| One of the buildings at Ffald-dy-Brenin. The views are breathtaking. |
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| The cross on a hill at Ffald-dy-Brenin. |
The wonder of the entire trip was that we had sites and places worked into the itinerary, but as would happen in Wales and when one is walking with the Spirit, God would surprise us with good things and we would shift our plan around. As an example, although rooms in Ffald-dy-Brenin are usually booked 12-18 months in advance, we were so blessed to be able to stay one night due to a last minute cancellation. And we got the most beautiful lodging of all, a two-storey lodge! The next day, as we were checking out, the receptionist asked where we were from. We said Singapore! And then he asked if we wanted to stay another night because the guests they were expecting wouldn't come in for another day. We jumped right at it. Yeah!!!! God is good.
At Moriah Chapel, we didn't plan for this, but we were joined by members of an Australian church, who had travelled the distance to pray for revival in Wales. There were also two Malaysians, one Indonesian and a Kargyz. Wow. The atmosphere was dynamite when we prayed together, and the Australians invited our little party to join them in taking communion. Another unexpected blessing!
Before my trip, The Lord told me I would meet a Korean in Wales. True enough, I met a Korean pastor and his wife at Llanover. They are now pastoring the chapel where Robert Jermain Thomas worshipped growing up.
My big takeaway from this trip is God's covenantal love. As the Welsh people blessed the nations in a big way so many years ago, so He remembers them in his great love. Today, many of the nations Wales has blessed in times past are returning there to pray and serve. My heart is that this nation of revivals will experience a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit yet again.
Throughout the trip, I could think of no better people to lead us than David and Jan. It is sometimes really difficult to find Christian leaders and bible teachers who are both sharp in both word and Spirit, but they carry both in depth, which is so precious. So even while we were on the road, or sitting in Starbucks chatting, they had so much to offer. Their passion for the Lord, for Welsh history and revival, and for people shine through, and we were truly blessed in our time there.
For more information about the Welsh revival tour and to get in touch with David and Jan for an experience to remember, click here.
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