Take My Son

I came through this when looking at a blog. I felt that this is interesting and talks about Jesus who died on the cross for us. Read it

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.He said, "Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art." The young man held out this package. "I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this."The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture. "Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift."The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?"There was silence.Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, "We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one."But the auctioneer persisted. "Will somebody bid for this painting. Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?"Another voice angrily. "We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!"But still the auctioneer continued. "The son! The son! Who'll take the son?"Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. "I'll give $10 for the painting." Being a poor man, it was all he could afford."We have $10, who will bid $20?""Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters.""$10 is the bid, won't someone bid $20?"The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son.They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections.The auctioneer pounded the gavel. "Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!"A man sitting on the second row shouted, "Now let's get on with the collection!"The auctioneer laid down his gavel. "I'm sorry, the auction is over.""What about the paintings?""I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets everything!"God gave His son 2,000 years ago to die on the cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is: "The son, the son, who'll take the son?"Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, WHO SO EVER BELIEVETH, SHALL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE...THAT'S LOVE.

From: http://3i4christ.blogspot.com/

'Virus'

Yesterday I downloaded some Block Checker thing from the internet after a 'recomendation'. Then when I installed the block checker thing it worked fine, but each time when I opened a msn conversation an advertisment on the block checker would always appear. How frustrating. I asked my friend about how to get rid of it and he said there would be no way. Sigh. So I went to the block checker website and went to the help section to find out if there was a way to get rid of the 'virus'. I finally managed to download a program that would erase the virus. I erased the virus and introduced it to my friend. He managed to erase the virus too, eventually.
I thought that God wants to tell us that if your friends are bad and sin, they will affect you and you too will sin, but when you believe and recieve God into your lives, you will be forgiven of your sins and you will become a new person, someone who is God loving and fearing. And besides that, when you introduce God to your friends, and if they believe in him, they too will be changed.

ATC Camp

Hey, I haven't been blogging for 3 months already. So far 1 term has been gone and it's been quite ok. The holidays are almost ending but there are still 2 more extra days of holiday because the teachers have to go for some meeting or training.
Meanwhile, during the holidays, I went for the Adventure Training Camp (ATC) by Royal Rangers from Wednesday to Saturday (15 to 18 March). The camp was simply wonderful. The Holy Spirit really blessed the camp and the spirit there was really wonderful, the patrol spirit, the camp spirit and even the spirit of the commanders. We started off with creating our patrol name and we called ourselves Holy Bears. Then we pitched our campsite and our patrol was very lucky to have the largest campsite. Our team spirit was evidently present and we completed our requirement within the first day and got a bronze the next day during flag raising. I then cooked dinner which was packet noodles, egg, vegetables and luncheon meat. The food turned out to be nice. We then had evening classes before a campfire at night which was like most other campfires, except of the Christian element which we had. The council fire a.k.a. campfire consisted of cheers, campsite songs, acts, stories and after that, there came the Christian element. We had worship and a sermon by pastor Rachel (was it?). It was something like a revival. Then we went to bathe in the toilets where we only had a bucket of cold water and a scoop to bathe in (imagine if you run out of water). After that we went to sleep at 12. I managed to finally sleep at 12.30am, praise the lord. The next morning we woke up at 5am. We then had devotion and breakfast and then flag raising. It was followed by morning lessons such as firecraft, toolcraft, ropecraft, etc. Then we cooked our own food which was tin foil cooking which consisted of chicken, carrots and potatoes. It was quite disastarous as the charcoal fire was not strong enough and the food took a long time to cook. However we manager to eat some food and it was yummy. We had some water games and got people wet before having more classes. Then we had dinner which was sausage buns with vegetables and baked beans. The dinner turned out well and then we had more evening classes before having another campfire, just the same as the day before, except the boy patrols had to light the council fire and the girl patrols having to perform a stunt (skit). Then we bathed in the horrible toilet again and went to sleep in the tent at 1am. The next day we woke up at 6am and the morning was the same as the day before's. We got our silver medal during the flag raising and I was the patrol guide on that day. In the afternooon, we had tin foil for lunch, except this time it was fish, potatoes and carrots. It was as disastarous as yesterday but the food was nice again. We then had water games the whole afternoon. Observation: The girls always are the losing teams in the water games. Inference: The girls... (no offence). Then we had dinner which was supposed to be claypot chicken rice but ended up to be claypot chicken porridge. However, time and time again, even though I still don't know why, the food turned out to be nice again. Dinner was followed by evening lessons before the council fire. During that council fire, I managed to be baptised by the holy spirit. Praise the Lord. Then we stayed up until 4am to do our workbooks and I decided not to go to bed after that which meant not sleeping. I managed to not sleep without really feeling tired. However during devotion I got too comfortable and dozed off, hitting my head on the wall 3 times. After devotion, we had breakfast and then packed up our campsite before having a McDonalds burger for lunch before having the ceremony. Our patrol got the gold medal which other patrols got too, not only from the ATC, but also the patrols from the JTC and AJTC. Every patrol got the gold medal. I still wasn't feeling tired then. I went home after the ceremony and bathed and came back for RR. I still wasn't feeling tired eventhough I didn't sleep (minus the 1 or 2 minutes where I dozed off during devotion). Then for RR the people who went for ATC (including me) had to do worship. The worship was a little shaky, but it was ok considering that it was our first time. I saw and compared the spirit of our outpost rangers with the rangers in the camp, there was a big difference; the spirit in the camp was high, everyone would be singing, cheering their hearts out, everyone would be enthusastic, reply a question with all our voices, but in our outpost the rangers would all stand there, see you sing and reply like half-dead, totally no spirit at all. The ranger class ended early without lessons, only a sharing of pictures about the ATC camp. After the class, me and Ji Heng were playing the guitar and singing while the other ATC graduates went back to sleep in the room we had most of our lessons in during ATC. Then after church I went home and suddenly got very tired. So I slept for about 1hour and woke up half alseep. I couldn't really remember someone sending me an sms and I replied to it, all half alseep. Then we went to the airport to send my dad off while I was very sleepy and after a drink, it was time for my dad to leave. We did the normal stuff everyone would do when a loved one would leave. Then we went home and I slept at 1am.
I don't know why I didn't feel tired even though I didn't sleep the last night. Maybe it was just that I was too excited, maybe it was just that I had enough energy. Or it could have been Jesus who was there for me. God Rocks.