Things your mum will not tell you about Yong Ching Seng (Part 3)

It is interesting how God is working as a master-mind behind all things.

Remember after I went to church for about 6 months, I was disconnected from church for the next 6 months all the way until I have finished STPM exams.

I was quite free after the exams, and somehow my church friends ontacted me because some of the members needed help with their SPM subjects. So I volunteered myself to help them and at the same time, got connected with the church body again.

After a few months, results were released and I applied for IPTA, NTU, and NUS. After a while, thank God that university applications were approved for UTM, NTU, and NUS. I picked NTU.

By now, with the choice of university made, I was quite regular with the church activities. Then, there was a youth camp coming up a few weeks before my departure to for tertiary education.

I joined the 3D2N youth camp. It was not a very big camp, no impressive programme or equipments, in fact, one of the games was passing arround "timun" with legs hahahah! However, the presence of God was with the camp. Every morning, they would wake up to seek the Lord and reading the Bible while I was pretending to be awake. However, I enjoyed myself so much that I got chosen as the best camper haha. One thing that I remember the most is the phrase "Seng, you got to be serious with God" that came to my mind when we were singing songs in a farewell circle during a emo session. With that phrase in mind, my attitude towards churchlife changed. I got myself a Bible, started to take notes during service, fellowshipping with the people, started serving as kitchen boy (yes the church has a cafe), prayer meetings, and also learnt how to share the Good news.

Eventually, just when I have started to be serious, it's time for me to leave. The youth pastor, who is also my sister's good friend, asked me to check out City Harvest Church and pastor Kong Hee when I go to Singapore. Being a noob, of course I knew nothing about this popular church. Being the usual obedient son (I am still obedient now, ahem), I went back home to check the location of the church.

At the same time, I discovered that one of my childhood kaki, was also studying at NTU. We stopped contacting each other after primary school, but I knew that he's a church goer too. So I contacted him. He seemed excited upon hearing my decision to go NTU, and more excited when I asked him to bring me to CHC. Well this old friend of mine is EnYao, who is now still serving God fervently in CHC and working towards marriage, this relationship is their first time, I hope he reads this hahah!

Anyway, I was curious to find out the location of the church. So I went online search and saw the map for the first time. Then I saw at the corner of the map, I read something like "Nanyang Drive" or something like that, which was blocked by the window. I shifted the focus of the map and clicked on it and behold, it's NTU!!!

"NTU is just beside the church?!?!" I shouted myself. I rubbed my eyes again and yes, it's no kidding. I estimated the distance between these two locations and gosh it is just barely 1KM!

The church is just beside the university, how cool is that. You want to tell me all these things happened by chance? Certainly not!

This is how I started attending CHC ever since I stepped into Singapore.


Moral of the story:

1. There are no accidents, we are not accidents!
2. Be serious with God! Treat this spiritual walk like something which involves life and death! (in fact, it is.)
3. First love in church towards marriage is not a myth!
   
   
   *To be continued*

Things your mum will not tell you about Yong Ching Seng (Part 2)

After got acquainted with Christ, I attended the church regularly every week just for service only because I did not comprehend the significance of fellowship, Word, prayer, serving, etc.

However, as noob as I may be, I experienced few things which I still remember until today.

Firstly, my experience of baptism in the Spirit which resulted in Speaking in Tongues. It was during a service that an altar call was given to those who want to be baptised in the Spirit. I totally had no idea what this "mumbling trance" is about, my friend invited me to go forward, so I went ahead. Then someone laid hands on me, and for the first time I was actually encouraged to make any noise. Finally, without giant winds, lightning storms, volcano eruption, feet-sweeping earthquake and such, I just opened my mouth and mumbled. As I prayed in tongues, I felt a flowing from my abdomen.

After that incident, I attended a morning prayer meeting in a small room, with a group of young people. As we all started praying in the Spirit, wah the whole atmosphere changed and I could feel the charging up of the place with the presence of God. As we continued, I suddenly sensed a joy inside of me. The joy appeared with no apparent reason. As the joy thickened, I just laughed and laughed and laughed, the room was so filled with the guitar and praying voice that my laugher was covered up hahahaha. Ever since that day, a sense of joyfulness follows me wherever I go, laughter would just follow me to the point that my friends were asking "Eh why are you so happy all the time?"

Let's consider Acts 2:5-13.

During the Day of Pentecost, when the people were baptised in the Holy Spirit for the first time, some saw them and commented that "they are full of new wine" (Acts 2:13). Well, I can imagine that as they first baptised in the Holy Spirit, the joy of the Lord which surpasses understanding fell on them and they just could not help but laugh like drunkards! No wonder alcoholic drinks are also known as spirits. Good news is, we all can get spirit-filled without alcohol!!!! *hicccup*

Secondly, of all the messages that the pastor preached, there's one thing which I remember. He gave a prophecy that the Lord would expand our territory like what He did for Jabez, and it would be a "harvestful year" in different areas of our life. I had faith towards this promise, and I made the prayer of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:10) almost everyday before I sleep.

After attended church for 6 months, I got scolded by parents regarding my study attitude, and I got discouraged and felt that I am not worthy to attend church. So I left church. However, I still remember the prophecy and confessed the prayer of Jabez frequently.

With a "slightly" higher faith level, I went on to work on my studies. During STPM trial exam, I obtained all B's, which does not grant me to go any nice university. My parents got disappointed and met up with my class teacher. My mum was so disappointed that she broke down in tears. The incident hit me, and with STPM around the corner, I decided to give the best shot. As I realized that, time seemed not enough, sometimes I would stay back at school to study alone, and everyday I would sleep around 1am. Even though ill-prepared, there's a sense of peace with me and I just faithfully study the best I could.

Suddenly, my grandfather passed away on 10th of October. With less than a month to STPM, I had to attend the funeral which was situated 45-minute driving journey from school. Facing this incident, the peace still followed me, and I still continue to buat lawak at school, playful mah.

Finally, I went for the real war, ill-prepared.

1) General paper: never memorize paper 1 (Malaysian administration) because it's MCQ. For paper 2, I did not have any tips until I read the question while flipping the exams paper.
2) Chemistry: covered 2/3 of chemistry without touching inorganic at all because I did not have the book.
3) Biology: My least studied subject due to the enormous amount of information. It was a browsing more than a revision for me.
4) Physics: Throughout my form 6, I only studied physics for 3 hours a week at a tuition centre. The tuition notes were my only source of material. So I finished my physics revision quite fast *ahem*
5) Mathematics: I only understand what the text books are teaching, with some extra information from one revision book which my teacher used.

Also, besides physics, I had no other tuition.

With all these short-comings, I sat through all the exams with a sense of peacefulness, celebrated deepavali in the middle of the exams (yes we had 1 week break in between the exam). In the end, I obtained 2A (general paper, mathematics) 1A- (chemistry), 1B (physics), 1B- (Biology), which gave me a CGPA of 3.69 out of 4.00, which gave my name a place in the school top-performers list (normally I am not even a top-20 student in my class of 35), which opened up a door for me to come to NTU, which opened the door for me to attend CHC, which inspired spiritual growth in my walk, which gave me an oppurtunity to serve in W518.

Are all these by chance? Certainly not! It's by God's grace! Friends, we are not here by chance, you do not read this entry by chance. Everything happens with a purpose. We are here for a purpose. God is real, let us be real and treat Him seriously as well. Let us be more fervent for Jesus, following Him for the rest of our life. Hallelujah!


*To be continued*

Things your mum will not tell you about Yong Ching Seng (Part 1)

Greetings everyone, this is my first ever article on a blog. I have been thinking that I can try many things, besides blogging. But anyway here I am doing blog!

Blog blog blog. Why blog? First of all, Samantha told me that some first years are keen to set up a blog. Since they have this initiative. "Sure, why not? On!" was my usual answer, however deep inside my heart I told myself that blogging is still a high maintainence stuff for people longing to express themselves.

Well anyway, recently I sense the prompting to post something on this blog, and I will do my best to post regularly lah ok. Strange enough, when I have decided to blog, ideas begin to flow into my mind, but I shall not disclose those soon heheh.

First stop, I would like to share with you all abit of my life journey, and I hope this will stir some of us up to share our life journey so that we can let others have deeper insights about our life.

I was quite a good student from my primary to secondary level. I buat lawak in class, made alot of friends, and performed well in exam. Besides, I was quite active playing sports and almost got a blackbelt in taekwondo. Not holding any award, but I guess I was quite a balanced boy. I called myself a free-thinker even though I had some exposure to Christianity at Sunday School from my aunt who is a pastor.

Then, I started holding girl's hand when I was in secondary 3. I continued to achieve great results for PMR and SPM. With good results, lots of friends and a girl's hand. Life was just smooth-sailing and I thought that's everything. After SPM, knowing that I had no place to go, I went to form 6, hearing that it's quite challenging and I like challenges.

Then things begin to change in form 6. I lost my interest in studies. Being the usual playful self, I spent most of my time playing and buat lawak with friends. My results dropped as the school I went for form 6 was a gathering of big brains. I ignored homework and just gave bare minimal effort to my studies. I had no vision seeing me going anywhere after form 6, and even thought of quitting school to go other place else. Also, my relationship with the girl ended.

With these two things fall apart, I felt lost and empty.

Then, it was 2003 Christmas eve. I went to a christmas eve event held by a church at Mike's school (Pay Fong High School). The people shared stories and performed some items. At the end of the event, they invited people to respond to Christ. I sensed a longing in me, and without hesitating, I just went forward. A female minister prayed for me. A simple prayer, but I could feel a sense of belonging, a feeling of returning home. Strangely, the emptiness gone.

Then, through my cousin, I started attending the chirch which held the event. I used to think that church is a boring place to go. But the atmosphere of that church is different, people are singing fervently. I could feel the joy filling up inside of me. While they are singing slower worship song, I could feel the peace and calmness that set inside my soul. However, I couldn't understand the preaching because I was totally clueless about the Bible. But, every week I look forward to attending church because of the experience I felt from the praise and worship session. From there, I knew some friends, still, I was without Bible, without Bible studies, certainly not involved in any small group activities. I just loved the singing session.

This is how I got acquainted with Christ.

*To be continued*