A Testimony from Metro Tabernacle Church

This is testimony from by Celia Tham, a member of Metro Tabernacle Church of which its ground floor was gutted by arson due to the recent events. I got this in an email, and I especially love the part about where their pastor was supposed to be working in the church but was saved due to the moving of the Holy Spirit. And I hope the politicians who saw how the Christians reacted to the incident were convicted to do the right thing. I have to say, God is one truly awesome dude. :D

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1) The night before the church was burned their Pastor was at the church past 11pm because he wanted to check his emails. He is a very hardworking person and has a habit of wanting to complete his work as much as possible. But he is also very sensitive to the Holy Spirit. When he got to the church premise and was about to swipe the card to open the door, he had a terrible stomachache that he had never had before. He knew that the Lord was telling him to go back home and he obeyed and left the church premise. It was past midnight that the church was torched. If he had not obeyed he would have been burned alive and would not be able to live to tell this wonderful testimony. God still has work for him to do on earth. His time was not up yet.

2) The MTC had trouble moving to the new premises in Batu Caves . They had been waiting for approval from the Local Authorities and is still pending. Then they were facing financial difficulties as they needed to buy new furniture for the new premise. They had been raising funds on their own to relocate to Batu Caves but had been “stuck” due to approval permits and raising more $ to buy new furniture and equipment. So when the church was burned it was all the old stuff that they had been wanting to get rid off! And our Govt compensated them RM500K and CIMB and many other donations started to pour in. From an adversity it turned into a blessing! Our God truly provides!
3) Celia has been rejoicing in the office and shared with my MD. Today at our Management meeting, the MD said I had never seen anyone so full of joy when the church got burned down but instead she said it was a blessing.

4) Celia said the church leaders and members shook hands with Najib and they released forgiveness for whatever that has happened in the past. She said Najib felt very welcomed at the church. Hishamuddin commented that during his visit he has never seen so many smiling faces when their church had just been burned down. To God be the glory!

5) They also requested for the Batu Caves new church premise to be turned into a place of worship and not a commercial zone. The Selangor Govt is looking into it and the MB, Khalid gave his assurance that he will look into it personally.

6) The Metro Tabernacle worship service appeared in the International Herald Tribune (they were on international news) and the photo of the worshippers with their hands raised was taken in the Wisma MCA hall. My MD asked what was happening and Celia told him we were praising and worshipping God. MD didn’t know that this was how we praised and worshipped God.

7) A few years ago a visiting speaker from overseas prophesied that the MTC would be in international news. At that time the congregation thought that their Pastor would be traveling around the world to preach as he was already doing that but she said now they understood what the speaker said. I told Celia if it was the doing of man, God would not be glorified but when it is not of man, then God would be glorified like in this situation.

8) It was good to see many church leaders of other denominations coming together at the MTC worship service over the last few days, united and praying together.
9) Lastly, sometime last year Celia approached me and said that she has been praying and she was convicted in her heart to give me an invitation to ask our church/cell to partner with them in prayer with regards to the move to the new church premise in Batu Caves . They were facing a lot of spiritual warfare. I remember sharing with the cell. We didn’t know very much about them then. God is moving amongst us and we could choose to obey his call to pray or disregard and miss the excitement and blessing!

I hope the above sharing would have encouraged us all to press on and serve our Almighty God. MTC has found favour with God and so has many other churches. We must increase our faith to the next level and stay united. PRAYER is the only powerful weapon God has given to all of us. Let’s use it mightily for His Glory!

A Testimony from Metro Tabernacle Church

In the spirit of 1Malaysia! (Warning: Sarcasm overload)

On today's segment of "Did You Know?" (Actually this is my first segment ever... gotta start somewhere, right?):

DID YOU KNOW...
The Torah (which is the first 5 books of the Bible) were written well before 1000B.C, the 4 Gospels were written about 70 A.D. (about 40 years about Jesus died), the rest of the biblical books were written somewhere in between, but the Quran was written in approximately 610 to 632 A.D (that's waaaay after all the books of the Bible were written) ?

DID YOU KNOW....
Many stories and people written about in the Quran are the same people written about in the Bible? These include Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, King David, King Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Aaron, Moses, Zechariah, John the Baptist, and Jesus. Details of these stories are similar (with some differences) but the Quran describes them all to be men sent by the one whose name starts with "A" (I can't use the word coz' I'm not Muslim. Kinda makes me feel like a character in the Harry Potter books who uses "You-know-you" instead of 'Voldemort'.). More importantly, the Quran says Jesus were merely a prophet, although the Bible says Jesus in the Son of God.

DID YOU KNOW...
The English translation of the Quran also commonly refers to the one whose name starts with "A" as "Lord"? You can see this for yourself in the online version of the English translation of the Quran. The name 'Lord' is what Christians use to refer to our God and to Jesus.


I still hold out some hope that our Malaysian government does desire some form of equality among all Malaysians, especially our Prime Minister and his political party whose name befits their actions (because their actions usually make everyone else go either "Umm?" or "Noooo!!") whose dream is to have everyone united under '1Malaysia'. Under this vision of '1Malaysia', it is apparently very equal to ask people of certain faiths to not use a certain name to refer to their God, regardless of the fact that this name has been used by people of this faith for centuries. The very logical reason is because the people of different faiths have different beliefs of what their God is like, therefore it does not make sense to call the God of people of different faiths by the same name. It is equal to say that even though this certain name of God has been used for centuries by people this faith not only in Malaysia, but also Arab, Indonesia and the rest of the Arabic speaking world, restrictions on the use of this name only apply to people of Malaysia. Why? Well, because Malaysia is SPECIAL (so Arab and Indonesia, you just gotta deal with it. Ok? OK? O? Kay?)
It is also very equal to confiscate and ban 15,000 holy books using this specific name in this specific language. Under '1Malaysia', this is necessary to ensure that the religious sensitivities of a certain group of religiously sensitive people are not insensitively flared up. So to help further achieve our government's noble vision of unity and equality under '1Malaysia', in light of the above mentioned fun facts and also to ensure there is no chance of insensitively flaring up the religious sensitivities of potentially-sensitive people of other faiths, I think it may be necessary to make the following requests to our wonderful and fair government:

1) Kindly order that all English versions of the Quran which refer to the one whose name starts with "A" as 'Lord', be banned, removed from stores and ceased from printing. According to Cambridge Dictionary, "Allah" is defined as "the name of God for Muslims", whereas "Lord" is referring to "(in the Christian religion) God or Jesus Christ". As such, it is fair that if only Muslims can use "Allah" in reference to your God, then it must be that only Christians can be allowed to use the word "Lord" in reference to their God and Jesus Christ. The English version of the Quran cannot use the word "Lord", especially since it is already defined as a name specifically referring to the Christian God, which is obviously not the same as the Muslim God. If an English version of the Quran using the word "Lord" is read by a Christian, they might get confused and convert to Islam. We don't want any Christians to be confused. No sirree. Probably wouldn't be good for Muslims either, since they might also read the word 'Lord' in the English Quran, and think it refers to the Christian God, and therefore be confused and become a Christian. You don't want any Muslims to be confused either. No sirree.

Oh no! I mentioned the 'A' word even though I'm not a Muslim! I'm evil, I'm eeeeeevil!!!

But I'll get over it.

2) In the process, kindly also ban the printing of all English versions of the Quran that print the name of Jesus. This is because the Christians also worship Jesus as our Lord and Son of God, whereas the Quran only describes Jesus as a prophet and specifically states He is not the Son of God. Since the God of the Muslims and the Christians are different and they must be called by different names, then the Jesus of the Muslims and the Christians are also different. Christians might also read about Jesus in the Quran and become confused, thinking He's been demoted to a prophet. No good, no good, no good. You could, however, just refer to Jesus as 'Isa', which is the Arabic name for Jesus. No problem there.

3) While you're at this, kindly also make sure all the English Qurans do not use the names of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, King David, King Solomon, Mary, Moses, etc... since these were all people written about in the Christian Bible. Copyrights of stories goes to the first person who writes that story, and since the Christian Bible came WAAAAY before the Quran was written, then the Quran cannot use those names. Especially since the Quran also describes these people rather differently, so they can't be the same people as those in the Bible, therefore you have to give them different names. There is no problem if the English Quran used only the Arabic names of these people (Moses = Musa, Solomon = Sulaiman, Mary = Mariam, Abraham = Ibrahim, Noah = Nuh, etc, etc). Gosh, it would just be a catastrophe if the Christians read about all these biblical characters with biblical English names in the Quran. They all just get so confused and think the Quran IS the Bible and become Muslim! After all, there *might* be some Christians out there who are incapable of reading the front cover of a holy book, and therefore mistake the words "The Holy Quran" as meaning "The Holy Bible". Although I wonder how they can even read the book in the first place if they can't even read the front cover and differentiate the Muslim Quran from the Christian Bible. I'm just saying.

4) The government must also establish a new ruling that everyone who has a different opinion about a certain person must refer that person by one specific name. This is due to the very logical reasoning that if Muslims and Christians believe different things about their God, then this God must be two different entities and Muslims and Christians cannot call them by the same name. By the same logic, if I were to believe that the ex-president of MIC, Samy Vellu were a very noble and honest politician upholding the rights of the people, but another person believed Samy Vellu were a scoundrel out to swindle the people of their money, then we are believing in two very different people. As such, it is imperative to have a new ruling - all people with the same opinion of Samy Vellu as myself can only call him "Samy". No other name. And all people who think he's a scoundrel can only call him "Vellu". We cannot interchange these names. It could inflame some political sensitivities, and we don't want people to think we are referring to the same Samy Vellu. It is simply illogical. Same applies to all other politicians and famous people in the country, since everyone has different ideas and opinions about different people. You now have to come up with a long list of specific names that can only be used by specific people. You better get busy!


Yes, my dear Malaysian government and PM, I'm sure you will all agree that removing all English versions of the Quran with the above name being used is an absolutely necessary step towards ensuring the religious sensitivities of the Christians are not inflamed. It is also necessary that all Muslims and Christians make sure they use ONLY the names referring to their respectives Gods and people in the Bible, and not share these names among each other, because this is the true spirit of '1Malaysia'. '1' God for Muslims and '1' God for the Christians. Let's all ignore the fact that Muslims and Christians share a lot of common beliefs... sharing things in common is not in the spirit of '1Malaysia' at all. It is the fact that Malaysians do not know how to share that makes us all truly ONE.

So goooooo, 1Malaysia!

In the spirit of 1Malaysia! (Warning: Sarcasm overload)

Tuhan Akbar!

In other words, God is great, and since the 'A' word is claimed to be copyrighted by certain people who have some misguided belief that certain words can only be used by certain people of which I am not one of, I conveniently replaced the 'A' word with Tuhan. God is really really great. And awesome. And almighty. Coz' He not only protected his people, who by biblical definition are the real churches, He has also done a good job of protecting the buildings that His people go to worship.Why do I think so? To date, the number of reported attacks on churches, plus one convent school (they even dare to attack SCHOOLS where children may be at. These twerps truly have no conscience!) has risen to EIGHT, today some of which were churches outside of the Klang Valley, in Perak, Sarawak and Malacca. And this is what the papers have reported:

Reported in the News Straits Times on 8 Jan 2010:

The Metro Tabernacle church in suburban Kuala Lumpur was fire-bombed in a midnight attack that gutted its ground floor. Firebombs were later tossed into the compound of at least two more churches - the Assumption Catholic Church and the Life Chapel Protestant church - in Petaling Jaya, but both failed to explode. Another church also received a threat.

Reported today (10 Jan 2010) in the Sun:
In the first case outside the Klang Valley, a pastor at All Saints Church on Jalan Taming Sari in Taiping alerted the police after finding broken bottles and soot in the compound of the church at about 7.30am.

The 120-year-old Anglican church is listed as a heritage site.

Perak police chief DCP Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah, who confirmed the incident, said there was no damage to the timber building.

He said police received another report from SM Convent on Jalan Regat Convent after a Molotov cocktail was hurled at the security guardhouse at about 3.30am. The bottle broke a glass window but failed to explode.

Zulkifli said police were also informed of a broken empty bottle found in the compound of St Louis Catholic Church not far from the school.

In all reports of churches attacked with Molotov cocktails, so far not ONE has exploded. Like what? Either these guys are just so incredibly incompetent that they can't even make a proper Molotov cocktail, or these bombs just didn't go off because of divine protection. Actually I like both possibilities just as much, and the former is simply more hilarious, but still I'd rather put it down to divine protection. Of course, the thought occurred to me earlier, but I thought it would have been unfair to say God protected all the other churches when the ground floor of one of the churches attacked, the Metro Tabernacle, was destroyed by arson. Does that mean God protected the other churches but not this one??

Not so, as I read a report in the Star today that shows otherwise. The worshippers at Metro Tabernacle were already planning to relocate their church to a new area, which was all set up and ready to be moved in by Christmas last year, but they couldn't because they couldn't get the necessary approvals. Now not only will they certainly get their approvals, but our Prime Minister is giving a grant of RM500,000 to them to help them to relocate! So they not only already have a brand spanking new church to go to, but they have a hoopla of money to buy new resources and equipment for their church! It's amazing! Is God awesome or what? Fellow Christians, let's give our Lord all the glory and praise He deserves and trust that He will continue to protect us and His churches.

Our places of worship are not meant for this:


Our places of worship are meant for THIS:

This was my church service today. We had a combined service with all other CBC centres, and amid the hype of churches being firebombed, we CBC-ians came out in FULL FORCE to celebrate and praise God. And news reports also show that Christians in other churches were all out today, regardless of the security risks. There was no talk of fear or condemnation of any one of my church leaders. Instead, my church leaders asked us to bless our nation, to bless our country's leaders and government and pray for them to have wisdom and uphold justice in our country. Honestly, I found it SO difficult to pray that, considering everything we've seen so far shows our leaders haven't got much in terms of wisdom or ability to be just. But as difficult as it is, that's what Christians are called to do... not just to love our friends, but also to love our enemies. And I'm glad and proud that my church leaders encouraged us to do what is difficult, but what we know is right.

We don't need to turn our places of worship and joy into places of protest and anger.

We don't need to fight anyone else to protect the name of our God. Our God is fully well and able to protect us from harm, and He has already done so.

We only need to praise His name and enjoy every minute of it.

God is GREAT! :D

Tuhan Akbar!

A week of sadness and madness

The past couple of days have been both saddening and maddening. Saddening because I recently got news of the death of a friend of mine. And maddening (and saddening as well) because of events yesterday in which several churches in Malaysia were firebombed. I don't feel the need to reiterate these events, they are all over the news not only in Malaysia but on CNN, MSN and around the world. The reason for these attacks is also stupid and more maddening... just because some Muslims (thankfully not all of them) believe the word 'Allah' is exclusive to them. It's maddening because they don't realise that Catholics and Christians who only speak Malay have been using the word 'Allah' for ages, and just because they are afraid of their fellow Muslims being confused into becoming Christian by us using the word 'Allah', this stupid molehill turned into a mountain. If the Muslims have such bad understanding of their own faith that they cannot tell the difference between their own god and the Christian God just because they hear the word 'Allah', isn't that their own fault for not being well versed in their own teachings? Shouldn't they be making more effort to educate the Muslims on how to tell the difference, instead of hitting out at Catholics who been using the word for ages? There are numerous articles online written by Muslim writers, including Marina Mahathir, who has argued that 'Allah' has been used by Christians around the world for ages, but when it comes to the fanatics, all this falls on deaf ears. What's even more maddening is that most of the church attacked were not Catholic churches but protestant churches, which has nothing to do with the Catholic publication, the 'Herald' which is using the word 'Allah'. I suppose if they can't even tell the difference between a Catholic church and a Protestant church, then they would just as easily confused by the use of the word 'Allah' by Catholics. Fantastic way of demonstrating their level of intelligence to the world. The whole issue was just mildly funny when it became a court case. Now they have taken it to the extent of causing arson and throwing bombs into churches, which is far from a laughing matter. What if someone had been in these churches and been badly injured or killed? Will that make them happy? If these people have no qualms about burning down other people's places of worship, then what is stopping them from taking the next step and strapping a bomb to themselves before walking into a church service tomorrow? Even my mum warned to stay away from church for a while, but I'm not about to let a bunch of uncivilized hooligans scare me away from going to worship. Christians around Malaysia are praying for peace and protection, and I know He will provide. If they try any funny things tomorrow, God will protect his people even if other property gets damaged.

Some people claim this fire was sparked by certain political parties out for political gain, and I have little doubt that this is true, considering there is even a Facebook group called 'Menentang Penggunaan Nama 'Allah' oleh Golongan Bukan Islam'. And of the list of officers of this group, I think almost half of them are from a certain political group whose name befits their actions Coz' their actions make everyone (except their own people, of course) either go "Ummm???" or "Nooooo!!". While this doesn't prove for sure that said political group is brainwashing anyone into throwing bombs into churches, it DOES show there is a definite political link in the whole 'Allah' issue. One of these officers is the son of our wonderful ex-Prime Minister, whose name I decided not to mention coz' in this country it seems to be a crime under what I like to call the Incredibly Stoopid Act to point out the injustices committed by people in power. So I will refer to said person as "Mucky" (Isn't that an endearing name? When I get another dog, I think I might name it that). Mucky, ironically enough, stated on his FB profile that he also supported the whole idea of 1Malaysia. It was so maddening and ludicrous at the same time, that I couldn't resist sending him a little message to poke him with the irony. I suppose considering he is a leader of the political party that makes people either go "Ummm??" or "Nooooo!!", doing such a thing isn't wise. Perhaps tomorrow some the rambunctious youth of said political group will come hitting on my door and try to firebomb my house for speaking up against one of their great leaders? But if they are out for political gain, then this is exactly what they want - for non-Muslims to be afraid. So afraid that they won't dare speak up for fear of getting into trouble with the government like what's happened to RPK and other bloggers. But if Mucky is as all for '1Malaysia' as he claims to be, then he being an political leader will listen to what people like me have to say without making threats. He actually replied to my message, which was a bit of a pleasant surprise, considering I thought he would more likely ignore me as a nobody. So since I had his attention, I decided to throw him a challenge. Here's a rundown of what I said to him on Facebook (I spoke initially in Malay, so sorry for anyone who doesn't understand. I'm lazy to translate:

My 1st message:
"Bersama sama melaksanakan gagasan 1Malaysia" tetapi kamu memimpin kumpulan "Menentang penggunan nama Allah oleh golongan bukan Islam". Itu bukan ONE malaysia lagi, itu Malaysia terbahagi kepada golongan Islam dan bukan Islam, faham tak? Adakah Allah kamu akan bergembira kalau kuli-kuli kumpulan kamu berjaya meruntuhkan gereja-gereja di Malaysia atau membunuh semua pastor dan pemimpin Kristian? Orang seperti kamu menyebabkan orang Islam diketawakan oleh seluruh dunia luar dan menjadikan ekonomi kita lebih teruk sebab orang luar takut melabur pada Malaysia sekarang. Kakak kamu, Marina, memang lebih bijak daripada kamu. Belajarlah daripadanya.

Mucky's reply:
sy tidak rase ini org melayu islam buat... mana bukti dia? kalau sdri ingat sejarah kapal terbang langgar bangunan di us tempoh hari.. angkara siapa? mana org yahudi ada dlm bangunan tersebut...? siapa yang bakar sentimen dahulu? kita hidup dah lebih 50 tahun kenapa isu perlu di ungkit..? kalau sdri bersetuju kepada tidak sokong sekolah wawasan @ untuk semua... siapa rasict ??

My 2nd message:
Kenapa isu perlu diungkit? Itu soalan yang patut ditanya oleh orang Katolik. Orang Katolik di Sabah dan Sarawak yang hanya fasih dalam Bahasa Melayu telah menggunakan nama 'Allah' sebelum kemerdekaan negara kita. Begitu juga dengan umat Katolik dan Kristian di Arab dan Indonesia. Kenapa hanya sekarang penggunaan nama Allah oleh orang Katolik menjadi isu walaupun mereka telah menggunakannya sejak berpuluh-puluh tahun?? Kalau takut orang Islam akan menjadi 'keliru' dengan penggunaan nama Allah oleh orang Katolik, ini bukan kesalahan orang Katolik tetapi kesalahan orang Melayu yang langsung tidak memahami pengajaran dan kepercayaan Islam, lalu mereka hanya tahu mempercayai apa-apa yang diperkatakan oleh orang lain. Orang Islam yang memang memahami pengajaran Islam tidak akan dikelirukan dengan begitu senang, seperti yang diperkatakan oleh Marina juga dalam artikel blognya "Confident People Do Not Get Confused". Kalau nama 'Allah' menjadi copyright orang Islam, apa perkataan yang lain akan menjadi copyright Islam? Seluruh Bahasa Melayu? Kalau begitu, Bahasa Melayu tidak perlu dijadikan bahasa kebangsaan, jadikannya hanya eksklusif kepada orang Melayu sahaja. No problem because I can do very well with English. And no, I do not believe it was real Muslims attacking our churches. Real Muslims understand that the Quran preaches peace and instructs Muslims that other places of worship should not be destroyed. I have many Muslim friends and colleagues who are nice people and I know they would not carry out such horrible acts. But the attackers are fools who think they are upholding the name of 'Allah' because someone told them to. Do you know that even if the police claims there is no evidence that these acts were carried out by Muslims, this is what the rest of the country and the WORLD already thinks? Just read the world news on CNN, Reuters, MSN, etc, all with headlines saying "Malaysian Churches firebombed amid 'Allah' dispute." And the rest of the world also already knows Muslim terrorists were behind the attacks on the World Trade Centres. I know not all Muslims are like this, but the few that are giving the rest of you a VERY bad name. So while you continue to wait for the 'evidence', the rest of the world is already seeing Malaysian Muslims as a bunch of Christian-attacking fanatics. Is this what you want the rest of the world to think of your fellow Muslims? Do you support these acts of intimidation against Christian on our Malaysian soil? And do you really support the whole idea of 1Malaysia? If not, then as a leader of UMNO, I ask you to gather your fellow UMNO members in your next protest to put aside your 'Allah' issue and instead protest against these acts of violence of Christians, and send the message to those fools pretending to be Muslims that your GOD (I won't use the word 'Allah', nanti I kena hentam sebab bukan Melayu) does not condone such things. And for your information, I am not one of those against the wawasan school. I myself studied in sekolah kebangsaan, not Chinese school, or else I would not be able to speak your language as well as I can. Thank you.

I just sent that last message, so no reply from him yet. I wonder if there is any tiny chance of him actually taking me up on my challenge and starting a protest against the attacks on the churches. If he does, I guess there is still some small inkling of hope for his political party. But judging from the dumb questions he was asking me, nope, don't think it's going to happen. He's the one asking ME who was raising sentiments after 50 years. Haiyoh, so faaarny.

To my Muslim friends reading this, I understand that these fanatical Muslims are the minority. I have read many articles by Muslims who have spoken out to condemn the acts of violence... I also have a number of Muslim friends and colleagues whom I know personally to be nice and wonderful people who would not think of doing such heinous acts. So I know it is unfair to lump all of you together as one big crazy group of religious fanatics... this is simply not true. But I hope the Muslims that are equally as saddened by these events will not just stand by and hope it will all go away soon. These fools pretending to be Muslims will not listen to reason by non-Muslims... but they may listen to their fellow Muslims who stand up against these acts of violence. Stand up for what is right, so the rest of the world will know that the violent few Muslims do NOT represent all of you.

And to my fellow Christians, if you can be totally peaceful and forgiving and encouraging over this, then great. For me, I can't helped but be somewhat pissed, but I think it is ok to be angry too. Jesus was also angry at the unrighteous Pharisees, but he never cursed them or harmed them (the most he did was threw around a few tables outside a temple coz' they were selling stuff. That's not half as bad as firebombs). Let's not retaliate violence with violence, but uphold peace in this nation. As Jesus forgave us, let's forgive them (Although understandably it's very hard, and if I could catch those firebombing hooligans, I'd find it very hard to resist the urge to punch them. Hey, I'm just being honest).

A week of sadness and madness