Birthdays of my loved Ones :)

Dear All

We recently celebrated the birthdays of Feli, Bert and Tiff. Simple celebrations, simple meals, simple gifts, and we thank the Lord for His abundant blessings in giving us the ability to celebrate our birthdays each year. There are many others, even in Singapore, who are not so fortunate to be able to either celebrate it, or no loved ones to celebrate it with.

The daddy opening his bd gift from the girls (below):

The happy dada with his sheep from Precious Moments (Below):

The inscription at the bottom of the figurine (below):

Tiffy celebrated her birthday last night with KFC and cake and 100+ facebook bd wishes (below):

We managed to squeeze in a baking session with Tiffany during the 1 week September school hols. She made the cupcakes below, practically all by herself, including decorating and washing up everything!! The trick is to use ready cake mix. Just add in the fats, water and eggs, and viola...instant cake batter! This is the 1st time trying such a cake mix. We used Betty Crocker super moist cake mix from Cold Storage.

Before I could take a pix, 1 cupcake was already gone!! It was that yummy! (Below):

This brand and type of mix flavour was recommended by Tiff's friends (below):

The measurements were all in USA, or had to google to convert to something understandable:

LC Sharing Session & 36th Wedding Anniversary @ M&L - 10 Sep 2011

Dear All

It has been a trying 1 week Sep school holiday for me and my family. We had to take turns to help my mum out with taking care of my dad whilst their maid had to return to her country, as her husband had met with an accident with a drunk driver and died in ICU. It has been a miracle that my brother managed to arrange for her to leave so soon so as to see her husband one last time.

Anyway, we still made time for LC, and we usually try to bring the girls along with us, although they are growing up fast, and sometimes would like to have their own space and time. But usually, they are wonderful girls, and try to join us as much as possible :)

The sharing question for the session was:

HDIF when we seem to be too busy for each other? Describe fully those feelings. Pretend today, the phone/internet/power if out. How do I feel about that?

Celebrating the 36th Wedding Anniversary with Mike & Lisa (pink shirt & lime green blouse) at their beautiful home (photo below):

It was a wonderful session led by A&P. They gave us a 1 page note on the importance of having an intimate relationship with God and sowing seeds to know and love Him. In a similar way, that's how we should be building an intimate relationship with our other best friend, who is our spouse. For in the end, we can only reap when we have sown. Otherwise, there's nothing to harvest when the kids have flown the coop and we are at the end of our earthly pilgrimage.

Lenz's sharing summed up the general feel of the session:

What we brought home from the sharing:-

1) You reap what you sow (see 2 Corinthians 9:6 ) and that we can’t expect to reap a harvest on seeds you’ve never sown

2) Time is the price we must pay for intimacy with GOD/spouse, if you have an intimate relationship with God, you will likely have an intimate relationship with your spouse.

3) What are "The Wretched Stone" of your life, beware of them.

4) When things are ok, pray 1 hr a day, when things are not and we are busy, pray 2hrs a day.

5) Your spouse is God's gift to you, how are you treating the gift?

Remember the 4 tools to continue the journey for a intimate spousal relationship ---

1) Dialogue;

2) Sexual Relationship;

3) Couple Prayer;

4) Journey with the like-minded, ie ME couples as in Lovecircle, ME Service Team, ME priests…etc.

Love Theresa

Our Visit to Maghain Aboth Synagogue

Dear All

Today, Sunday, Sep 11 2011, we visited the Maghain Aboth Synagogue located at Waterloo Street.

It was organised by our parish's Great Bible Adventure Class.

We understand from a member that is very difficult to visit a synagogue, so we were very blessed that our entire family could visit this Jewish place of worship.

As our Bible Adventure Class of 24 sessions cover both the old and new Testaments, it was opportune to have an insight into the life of Jesus as well as to get some understanding of the Jews practices. As security was very tight, we were not allowed to take any photos of the synagogue.

These are some photos taken from internet:

The Ark is behind the curtains (Below):

Behind the 3 dark blue panels of this "stage" at the very front of the synagogue is the Ark. This is NOT the Ark of the Convenant (which contains 3 items : Moses' 2 tablets of the 10 commandments, manna from heaven and Aaron's rod). The Ark here contains 40 ancient scrolls where the torah (or holy book) is written. It's written on parchment made of cow skin and written with special feather pens. The Jews do not have an altar since the destruction of the Temple.

Besides the 10 commandments, they actually have 163 commandments (inclusive of the 10). They have strings tied to the 4 corners of their garments to remind them of the 163 commandments. The head cloth they wear is a reminder that there is God who is always above them.

A beautiful take-away from the new going to be rabbi is this: Everything around us has a purpose. It's been put their by God and we should accept it (be it things, people or animals) for itself.

The Ark is on the top of photo, and in the centre of the photo, is the place where the Rabbi reads the Torah (Below):

When the Ark is revealed, everyone has to stand (otherwise they sit). Males 13 years and above sit separately from the ladies. The guys sit below, whilst the ladies and children sit in the gallery above.

When the torah (which is held in the Ark) is read by the rabbi at the raised stage at the centre of the synagogue, the people follow the text in something like our church's missal. The rabbi walks down the red strip of the carpet on the RHS facing away from the front stage to go to the centre stage. After reading, he goes along the other side of the red strip of carpet back to the front stage to return the torah to the sacred place behind the panels of curtains.

At the top right hand corner of the photo shown above, is a space where they keep glass bowls of oil and several white candles. Another beautiful view of life after death which I have learnt was, to the Jews, how they visualise souls, it's like a flame. After death, our souls still live on, and like a flame, no matter how it is lit, it always burns upwards. Just like our soul, it is always wanting to go up to heaven. For some Jews, the candle is lit for the entire 1st year of a loved ones death, to remind them that they loved one is still living but not in the bodily form. After that, a candle is lit on every death anniversary of the love one.

Another interesting view is that heaven is not just one place, but there are different levels of heaven. That's what I gathered from the briefing.

Another view of the centre stage and front stage (at top of photo). You can see the galleries on either side at the top of the photo:

The external view of the synagogiue (below):

The synagogue was built in 1878 by Jews from Iraq (middle-east) but based on the architectual style of Britain.

Interestingly, they sing without instruments. They love to dance and use the bells hang around the posts of the stages to jingle them as they dance (much like how king David used to dance and sing in the Old Testament).

The text is in Hebrew and they don't have any pictures of people on the walls. They have a few poster-sized frames of torah verses for the people to read as they respond to the rabbi prayers.

Sabbath day is actually Saturday, and not Sunday. Their day starts at sunset usually around 6:30pm.

Another view of the externals of the synagogue:

Lastly, they don't follow our Gregorian calendar. For this year, their new year is 28 Sep of the new year 5772 (That is, currently it's the year 5771). Just like our CNY, their new year changes every time, but usually falls either in Sep of Oct.

These are just little bits of info that I remembered of this visit. Hope you find them educational. We share so much similarity with various religions actually :)

Love Theresa