Sunday, March 6, 2011
Local Travel 1: Destination -- Montreux/Veytaux, Switzerland
Monday, February 14, 2011
Manifestation of a Social Life Crisis!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The Travelling and Eating Challenge
- See at least 10 Swiss cities/provinces -- Geneva up to Laussanne not included; neighboring France towns are included (except for Ferney which is 5-8 minutes away from my office)
- See at least 5 other countries -- Philippines not included
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Discipleship is Relationship
“Remember – discipleship is relationship. Church planting is relationship. You will never have church planting problems, only people problems.” – Pastor Dennis Sy
http://www.dennissy.com/the-more-personal/
I couldn’t agree more with Pastor Dennis when he wrote how ineffective giving out flyers, sticking posters and pulpit announcements when inviting people to church. Don’t get me wrong, they might actually catch people’s attention but what is the probability that they will respond to it?
I first discovered the effectiveness of establishing a relationship as a marketing strategy when I was a volunteer at the UNICEF. I became a volunteer for one of UNICEF’s education project immediately after graduating from college. My work basically was to stand in the middle of a mall and ask the people passing by to either make an onsite donation or make a monthly pledge to give certain amounts – most challenging work ever! I remember, my first time to do it was disappointing. I kept running after one person to another and sometimes even practically shouting: “sir/ma’am, would you like to make a donation?!” I got practically nothing! The second day, after half a day of running and shouting, I gave up! I left my post and started checking out shoes in one of the nearest shoe store. At the shoe store, I ended up in a conversation with one of the ladies who were buying a pair of shoes. To cut the story short, after a brief conversation on wedges vs. heels, I asked her if she would like to make a pledge for UNICEF and she did. From then on, I realized that people would actually stick around and listen to what I had say after having small talks with them that were not related to asking money.
When it comes to discipleship, I learned the importance of establishing a relationship first before anything else with my very own first small group. It was my first time to lead a small group and I was excited about it! My former small group or victory group was composed of 4 young ladies, ages 14-17, and three of them were from the community. Val and I chose the topic “How to Know God’s Will” as we think it’s one of the easiest topics to explain to our victory group (we initially started with a mixed group with Val leading but it didn’t work out).
Anyway, I planned it so well! I prepared a week in advance – I made a topic outline of the second chapter and flow of discussion (yes, they were nicely type written and printed in an A4 paper and in colored). I even practiced the night before our first meeting. On the day it self, I started our victory group with a quick hi, hello, welcome, etc as stated in my color coded script. Then I started with our main event – chapter one of “How to know God’s Will”. After a couple of minutes of talking, I noticed that two of the girls weren’t listening at all (and looked really bored) while the other two were looking at me with a “what the heck is she talking about” expression on their faces. I asked them if they have any questions and they all answered “none”. I started talking again and realized that it’s not working. So I put my booklet and script down, called their names and asked them: “who’s your favorite singer?” They all suddenly paid attention to me and said their favorite artists, songs, actors, etc. Then we talked about school: how annoying some of their classmates were and how difficult their teachers were. The college student started opening up about not being happy with her current course. They asked a lot of questions about me – how old I was, how long have I been a Christian, how am I related to Val, where do I live, what’s my work, where do I work, etc. We didn’t finish chapter 2 (in fact, we didn’t even reach the half of it) but we’ve established a relationship with one another. The following week, we finished our discussion on Chapter 2 (and yes, they were attentive from then on).
In addition to establishing a relationship with the persons when inviting them to church, I say it is also critical to maintain or even enhance that relationship in order for them to stick. Do not just be satisfied in making them attend a couple of services and pay no attention to what’s going to happen to them next. You don’t have to baby sit them but you just have to maintain (or enhance) that relationship you have with them.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Nope, I Don’t Think The World is Ending
Just a couple of quick thoughts on Stephen Waltz’s: The End of The World As We Know It (http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/13/the_end_of_the_world_as_we_know_it?obref=obinsite)
Are we really seeing the end of the “Atlantic Era”? Declining definitely but I think it is far from ending. Although we’ve seen in the first half of 2010 the economic surge of
I don’t agree with Stephen Waltz that we are reaching the end of the era of the transatlantic powers but I definitely agree that in the case of the
And with that note, I say I do believe that all the factors affecting the decline of the transatlantic powers (from economic decline to political decline, from fighting terrorism to improving the quality of education) are all policy issues. And yes, I agree with Waltz that in a time like this, if the
Sunday, August 1, 2010
How My Day Was: Sunday
I told myself that I will grab a bite before going to church. I told myself that I will go to Uptown Geneva at least 15 minutes before the service so that I can chat with some people there...
I woke up at 8.30H but couldn't make myself leave the bed so I just amazingly laid there for 30 minutes. Then I realized I'm supposed to read my bible! So I read my reading plan for the day. I finally got up and prepared for church. As expected, I finished preparing at 10.20H so I found my self running again towards Uptown Geneva. Service was at 10.30H (Argh! I hate my self for being extra slow on Sundays!)
I love our topic at ICF. Our series is "at the movies". Today, the topic was the Bruce Almighty movie.
At 15.30H, I was with Carol and Chito. We didn't catch the bus because of me so we walked up to the gare instead. (I wasn't late! I promise! the bus was early!)
Monday, July 26, 2010
Heart-Breaking Stories
Did I hear the person being interviewed and the reporter right? Are they seriously going to kill these dogs?
I didn't want to know but being a dog lover, I wanted to know if the dogs are ok. I continued watching.
Then the reporter said that it has been a week since they filmed the previous scenes and until now, no one has claimed any of the dogs. They showed how a guy guided the dogs to this chamber - some fought for their lives, some where just plainly obedient and some where even excited (perhaps thinking they were going for a walk). Then they were "gassed". A couple of minutes later, the reporter said they all died and new batch of dogs just came in the pound.
The anchor man explain that it was a really diffucult report to show but they had to. They said Japan and the US are one of the countries where there are high rates of dog euthanasia. Most countries in Europe like Italy, France, Switzerland, etc. have ZERO cases of dog euthanasia - dog euthanasia is illegal in most countries in Europe.
Also last week, they also reported that Chinese government has officially banned the selling of dog and cat meats.
Last Thursday, while doing my laundry, this old man came in with a seriously huge german shepherd without a leash! The old man was walking very slowly with his back bent low. The german shepherd was just looking at the old man and patiently walking the same pace as him. The old man put on his clothes to the washing machine and dropped some coins. When the machine was running, he whispered to his dog. The dog laid down in front of the machine and the old man went out of the laundry shop. There were three of us (excluding german sheppy) inside the laundry shop and we were all looking at the german sheppy. At some point, we realized that we were all looking at the german sheppy so we looked at one another in amazement and smiled. After 20-30 minutes, the old man came back with 2 small bottles of water - he gave the other one to german sheppy. Once the old man was done with the laundy, he packed up and blurted some in french to german sheppy. The dog stoop up and walked with the old man. We all noticed that that the old man mind is having a hard time carrying his laundry bag this time bec he didn't tumble dry his clothes therefore they were heavier. I don't know if it was just me for german sheppy was uneasy - walking while literally looking at the old man. So the guy behind me offered help. The old man accepted.
There a lot of touching stories out there how dogs really helped people in a lot of ways so seeing that CNN special report just broke my heart.