Someone said, "The glue to any relationship - is to say heart felt 'thank you' and 'sorry' whenever it is necessary." It is as simple as that. But many rather let go of relationship than to utter those words.

Once, Jesus healed ten lepers. But only one returned to say 'thank you'. Jesus said, " Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?" I am sure they all thanked Jesus on the spot over joy after the healing. I think what Jesus really meant, was, 'Did others truly feel grateful about the impact on their lives like this man, who doubled back to thank me again as an after thought?'

Another time, Jesus went into the house of a man named Zacchaeus, who was a tax collector for Rome, who habitually collected more money than what was required, so he could pocket them. He was hated by his own people. Zacchaeus was convicted of his malpractice at the presence of Jesus. He repented and promised to return to people four times what he had charged them. Jesus said to him, "Salvation has come to your house to-day." It was not the money which changed or saved him, but his attitude and heart toward what was right and wrong.

Having live long enough to know what relationship is and does, I think I understand why Jesus said those things.

Our approach to God is to be that of a 'relationship' in response to his ultimate love and sacrifice for us. Not as a religion. When we approach him as a religion, we focus on the outward performance, the attendance, the observance of rituals and how we appear to others. When God proved that it didn't work, he came in the person of Jesus to clearly explains to us that he looks into our hearts and weight our motives toward him and our fellowman. We cannot gloss over our intention and actions for the reason of loving God, then turn around, to hurt our fellowmen who are made after the image of God. God is big enough to defend himself and his creatures if he wants to. But often, he chooses not to for a while, until the fullness of time comes.

The Bible says, God gives rain (and many other things he provides through planet earth and people whom he put on our paths) to those who acknowledge him and to those who don't. If we are thankless, we are like the nine lepers, living the lives of  'Entitlement'. We miss the deeper level of healing in our psychic and spirit.  We carry on with pseudo relationships with God and men, not realizing the bottom will fall out some day.

It has been a glorious April. Though we still have days of rain, the warm weather has been bestowed on us earlier this year. By April, spring flowers have been blooming one after another. We went downtown to view the Yashino cherry trees in proud display of their soft pink gowns, gently swaying in the wind. Japanese say that the tree reminds us of our blissful existence in this world. I couldn't help, but to bring back one from the nursery. May be if I live long enough, I could see the sway and the petals covered ground.

Back home, my front garden is like a pastel color board - pink, yellow, white , purple, soft blue from the tulips, rock crest, candy turf and forget-me-not. There are more in the back yard. Soon the rhododendrons will add more colors to the existing ones. It feels so good to dig my fingers into the warm earth again. Though with each year, my muscles and bones make more and more protest, it is still worth it.

This year, I sowed the seeds from last year's sweet peas, they are already couple inches tall. It was such joy to see their little green heads poked through the ground. If no natural disaster descend on them, I shall have plenty for cut-flower. It used to be an old time favorite because they are such hardy little beauties with sweet fragrance.

The nasturtiums also came out from the seeds from the previous years. I guess I am wiser not to plant  things which do not bear good result. Another wonder is the fall lantern plant which I had coveted for several years. I found the price in the nursery a bit ridiculous. We had it in the old home by the yards. It is a plant which could take over your flower bed easily. So last year I tried germinating them, but was met with failure. I put the pot into the garage in the fall. This spring, when I retrieved the pot, I found something 4 cm long but 1/10 of the thickness of bean sprouts on top of the dry dirt. Well, I hope they are the real thing and not just weeds.

My water plant from two years ago still lives. I wretch my brain to find it a hot enough spot to park but not to attract mosquitos. Two years ago it almost gave me a pink water lily.

Amazingly, my soft yellow violet pansies with faint purple edge do not mind the soggy 'water bowl' they are in and come back just as gorgeous this year. I bought some more to fill in the empty space. Just can't take my eyes off them.

My azaleas, iris, peonies, roses, mock orange, lilac, clematis, poppies, columbines, lilies.........Can't wait to say 'hello' to you after months of separation!

I love the sayings

I love the sayings:

'Sow a thought,
reap an action.
Sow an action,
reaps a habit.
Sow a habit,
reaps a character.
Sow a character,
reaps a life.'

- What goes out will come back (boomerang effect.)
- If you plant beans, you get beans. If you plant melon, you get melon
- Better to die well than to be born well.
- Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows

Once a child asked me, "Why do you have to make everything a lesson?" I wish I knew how to answer her to her satisfaction.

Now that I am older and have seen enough 'life,' I would like to say to her, "It is because I want to have peace in the last few years of my life when most of me will be falling apart."

The followings are lessons I gleaned from other people's lives:

A lovely couple who both had hard feelings in God due to the early part of their lives, decided to make it out on their own.  The later part of their lives were even harder than what was previously.

A man who short changed his partners after making use of them, abandoned and distrusted those whom he was supposed to love and to support. In the end was abandoned by 'his most trusted friends 'and lives out a lonely life in the corner of his own making.

A girl who ridiculed her young widowed mother's faith, made many wrong decisions which affect her own life. She also experienced many sickness and death among those whom she love because of her bias counselling to them.

A self-centred girl who had the practice of saying unkind words to her siblings and others, grew up to do the same thing to her own family. Now others have to leave her to her own device. She complaints being very lonely bitterly..

A God fearing couple who shared the love of Jesus to everyone around them, even strangers,  live to see their family and  great grand children around them affectionately.

A woman who used others, was in turn used by them . She had a beautiful place to live, but she could not feel it 'home.'

A couple, whose goals in life was to make lots of money and to enjoyed 'good food', has in the end, gained the two but lost each other.

Another couple whose goal was to acquire power, fame and money ended up in disarray in finance, health and relationship.

A hard working couple, whose priorities are their jobs, family and big house they owned, both died in their 50's.

Yet, I believe it was not out of anger God let that happened, but out of love, to give them opportunities to find out what is important in life.


'Lord, teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.' (Psalm 90:12)

December has always been an unusual month. A mixture of pain and joy through out the world. It touches the heart of old and young, rich or poor like no other month.

This year, I started the month planning for the party at the Centre. Since we didn't know how many are coming, it is like a wild goose chase. I planned to make it a family affair rather than adult affair, so I prepared lots of decorations, craft, games, presents for the children and a game for the adults which also involved a lot of presents.

It was nice to be invited to J's apartment beore I got swallowed up by the project. She prepared a special meal for us. We got to meet her bf, and we played chinese checker afterward. It was a relaxing night.

I was supposed to make a turkey for the party, which I did on Thursday. Unfortunately, I overcooked it because I was warned the oven was not working up to par. So I ran out on Friday to buy another one to have it cooked by Saturday. Whew.....it was good to plan ahead for this never seasoned cook. By the time
I have to load the things in the car according to their different purposes, I was wondering if I would be like a chicken without a head running different parts of the program.

The room was nicely decorated by the teenagers. We put out as many chairs and tables as we could find.
People started trickling in and then pouring in. There were not enough room on the two long serving serving tables to put the main courses which the guests brought. . Yum..., do I ever like to try each of them. The guest went over the predicted number by half. There were not enough forks and chairs. We had to wash the forks which the early guests used inorder to serve the later guests. Chairs? Well, we had to let them play musical chairs on their own. Fortunately, the children did not have too much attention span to sit and eat, they were on the go to the play area. We had lively Christmas music, kind of usual because it is of African background.

When the speaker came on, we tried to keep the children busy in the playarea. I made crafts with them. However, the speaker took longer than we planned and the younger children became restless and wanted to go in touch with their parents. There were battles and struggles between the door to the room. After the longest 15 minutes in my life, they were finally allowed to go. By then, I was kind of exhausted. So forget about the children's games. B and I was even thinking of cancelling adults' game and have a draw instead. But L insisted on the game. It was a joke for everyone, because they risked losing the gifts in their hands. We had a lot of laugh and fun. Then we handed the little ones their gifts. But for the teenagers, we had no gift for them. Will do better next year. Workers still have the place to clean up before we took some people home.I didn't eat, but it was worth it.

It took me almost a week to recover from the party while wrapping up the school for the last week. Then it was time to prepare the family gathering on Christmas night. It was nice not to have to prepare gifts for individuals. Instead, I wrap up a lot of practical items for prizes. I made different dips for veggi and shrimp, a roast lamb leg instead of turkey. J made nice soft ginger bread cookies and T made awesome cheese cake for desert. After dinner, we played chinese checker. Dad is the schemer. We also played a nice game called 'Imaginiff" until all the prizes were claimed.

The next morning, we had salmon on toasts and Cheddar and raspberry quesadillas. Before everyone packed up to go. We had scripture reading from Genesis 3:15; Micah:5:2; Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7; 52:13-15; 53:8-12 and Roman 5:17-19 to remind ourselves how God fullfilled his promise to redeem mankind in the person of Jesus. It was a wonderful time for our family to be together.

It turned out I still have a week of holiday after Christmas. It was nice that the two of us could be quiet and relax to catch up with works on our desks, around the home in and the garage before we had D &M and their  family for dinner after the New Year.

All in all, it was a good holiday.

The other night, I watched a movie called 'All mine to give' which I had watched at least a couple times when I was still in school. I remember I cried buckets of tears. Especially when I watched it the second time,
The tears couldn't wait to burst from the very beginning of the story. It was about a family of parents and six children in the settlers' days. The oldest one was about 12, the youngest about 2 or 3. The parents was deceased one after another. After the father died, the oldest one took on the role of  'the man of the house' working hard as a hired hand. Before the mother passed away, she asked him to send the younger siblings to the best families he knew to be adopted. There was a rich old lady in town, who demanded her right to take the youngest girl. But the 3 older boys stood together to prevent it from happening. There was a nice old couple, the husband being the doctor in town, wanted to adopted one of the youngest children. But the oldest boy turned them down kindly and gave them the family cow instead to pay for the doctor's fee. His reason being they did not have a young family to keep their younger sister company. He ended up taking a long trek in the snow to give his sister to a family which had children. Couple of the older children had to find their own ways to the families whom they wanted to be adopted. The second oldest boy wanted to stick around with his older brother, who, for the sake of  his younger brother's well being,  kicked him out of the house, in order to force him to find better shelter.

To my own surprise, this time when I watched it, there were not nearly as much tears as I had many years ago. I asked myself the question - 'why'? The answer was quite simple, I was much closer to their age and situation when growing up missing my parents. I could sympathize and empathize with them a lot easier. After many years away from hardship, I think my heart has grown harder and more insensitive to the same situation.

That leads me to the thinking why we need a suffering Savior, one who can sympathize and empathize with us as we go through the trials, heartache and pain in a fallen world. It is because he drank from the same cup as we do.  Not because he has to, rather, he volunteers to, because he loves us and lay down his right for us, so that we can choose to love or reject him. It is not a love that is forced upon us, but a love which woos us. 

Christmas is here again. You ask the adults and the children, why and what they celebrate Christmas for?
Most of them said because of Santa. Indeed, Santa has become the god of this world. He gives people a reason to go on shopping spree, to wine, dine and have parties. Yet they leave the most precious gift of Christmas untouch - the love of God and his free gift of  forgiveness through the death of Christ on our behalf. No wonder there is little consolation in broken hearts, distorted lives. All the things in this world cannot fill up the vaccum inside a man's soul.

To think that Christ came and die a horrible death so that we may have a week or month of feasting is more than absurb.

I love 'autumn'. It has both side of the weather. Sometimes the sun shines gorgeously, splashing golden color everywhere, a time to take up opportunities, a time for dicision. Sometimes it drizzles, everything get shrouded in the mist and fog, like we come to the uncertain part of our lives, a mystery. A waiting time and a time to recompose.

I stopped by a nursery next door to the field trip place. I knew better it was not a time to plant things, as much as they tell you it is a good time to do that. I was struck by the sight of these color patterned gigantic potted mums outside the store.They measureed a meter across the top. I looked for the price. I saw a $5 sign standing beside it. I thought that must be a mistake. So I brushed off the idea and went into the store to look around. When I came out, I heard someone saying those potted mums were really $5 a piece and she was hauling 4 or 5 of them into her truck. I dashed back into the store to double check with the clerk. Indeed, it was. I couldn't see how wrong it could be to get one. So I chose one, and then another one, to pile them into back of  my little car. I drove away happily---there was no looking back--- I couldn't have seen through them anyway. They graced my deck and yard for Thanksgiving and lasted for more than a month.

I am not a fan of birthday celebration. I think birthday is a time to think of the person who had to suffer nine months of discomfort and many hours of excruciating pain to bring me into the world. So when J said we would go to our usual resturant for my birthday, I heard myself saying, 'no thanks' under my breath. But at the same time, I saw this tiny ad on the newspaper that this place is holding a fundraising turkey dinner a couple of days before my birthday. So I booked couple of seats.

On the night, we left on time and got there exactly at six. The door lady was turning away people. But said four people had not show up yet and would sell those tickets in a while. We arrived at a pricarious time, almost lost our seats. The place was full, we went around trying to find two chairs at the same table. At best there were single ones. So I went to the head lady and told her we can get the money back and go somewhere else. She said, 'no way, we will find places for you.' And she squeezed an extra chair beside an empty one at a table. By then, I thought , J would have lectured me the advantage of arriving early. But he didn't. No sooner after we sat down. They called for tables to line up for food. Our table was the first one. The two of us were the first ones in the line. I thought that was a pleasant    change. I couldn't have arranged it with all my plotting and scheming. I favoured the moment. It was a scrumptious meal. Truely, there was not a square centimeter of space left in me after the last spoonful of  pumpkin pie. Then we heard another announcement. They still had food left and would happily sell them for $5 a box. Of course, we couldn't bypass the reasonable offer. So $30 ended up buying us three meals.

I like the surprise birthday celebrations arranged by my Father above. Thank you very much!