An Extraordinary Sunday Worship Service

Today we had an extraordinary Sunday worship service line-up and it all started with our Senior Pastor spraining his back yesterday. 

By evening he was still in pain and so the SOS went out for Bro. Koay to take over the preaching for him and for me to conduct the Holy Communion. 

When I went to church this morning, I went looking for Grace Tan, the worship leader, to find out when she is going to pass over the service for me to conduct the Holy Communion. Lo and behold! I was told that she had fallen sick that very morning and that Melissa was taking over the worship leading. 

So this morning we had an unprecedented occasion in TOP where we had a replacement worship leader, a replacement Holy Communion leader and a replacement preacher. All on the same day. We just stepped up and into our roles and it's "business" as usual even when the Senior Pastor is not around.

That is wisdom of training up and empowering lay leaders to do the work of the ministry. No panic. No running around like a chicken without its head. No problem. 

Well done, TOP!

Our First Okoberfest

Last Friday we attended our very first Oktoberfest ever despite our most gallant efforts to evade the "invitation". We were finally cornered and coerced into buying tickets for the event.

At first Hubby didn't want to go for the dinner but I persuaded him otherwise. After all, we still have to eat dinner. No point in letting the tickets go to waste, right?

So the plan was to just go for dinner and then leave.

Our plates piled high with green salad, German potato salad, laugen bread, sausages, barbecued meats, sauerkraut, and chicken mushroom pie. Hubby's had additional egg fried rice.

Here we are trying to eat in the midst of the noise and behind us you can see the band in the background oom pah pah-ing away. There were also pretty girls dressed as bar maids in frilly short skirts moving among the crowd but we didn't get around to taking any photos with the sweet young things.

We left immediately after dinner as planned and on our way out we met the President of the club. When he saw the bottles of soft drink and water in our hands he said, "It's a crime to drink this at Oktoberfest!"

Well, at least we give face and turned up.

A photo proof of the "criminals" leaving the Oktoberfest party with their illicit drinks.

Unfortunately Hubby woke up with a bad headache the next morning. He claimed that it was a hangover!

I don't know how that could have happened when ne'er a drop of beer or anything remotely alcoholic passed our lips last night. Maybe it's the beer fumes in the air. Or could it be the Sprite?

Anyway, I think this will be our first and last Oktoberfest ever.

P.S Can you believe it? I didn't even know that Oktoberfest was spelt this way until I took a closer look at signage in the photo of us below the arch at the entrance. All the while I was spelling it as Octoberfest while I was writing the post. *blush*

Think Pink This October

This is the month to think PINK! So be prepared to see lots of pink events stealing the limelight this month. This has been happening without fail annually ever since October was designated breast cancer awareness month more than 25 years ago. I am glad to find that breast cancer awareness promotion has been picking up momentum over the years.

My pink October kicked off with a good start when Baby Sis invited me to attend a Luscious Ladies Day in Shades of Pink last Thursday at the Victory Annexe Ballroom at the E&O Hotel. 

Lovely party favours in all shades of pink

A pretty pink themed table to set the mood for ladies

Clockwise from top left corner: All the chairs prettily dressed in shades of pink; in contrast, the lovely stage was framed in frosty white; table arrangements; pink and silver helium balloons clinging to the ceiling

Baby Sis got carried away by the pink balloons. The guy in orange
with a very worried look on his face was the balloon vendor.

For me, the highlight of the morning was a testimony from a lady who had preventive double mastectomy when she tested positive for the BRCA gene mutation that increased her risk of getting breast cancer to 85%. 

She had been going for mammograms ever since she was 21 because she has a family history of breast cancer. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 32 but managed to beat it. Unfortunately her mom succumbed to another more aggressive attack at age 42 that eventually took her life. 

When she tested positive, she was in a dilemma because, being a breast fed baby herself, she wanted to breast-feed her baby. As she thought to herself, she realised that she wouldn't have minded not being a breast fed baby if it meant that she could still have her mom around. 

Likewise she didn't want to leave her children orphans when she could do something about it and so, with the support of her husband, family and friends, she underwent a double mastectomy. The doctor took fat from her stomach to reconstruct her breasts so she had a tummy tuck as well. 

Then she did another test that showed that she had a 50% chance of getting ovarian cancer. Since she wanted to remove her ovaries at age 35, she and her husband decided to fast forward their plans to have a baby even though they didn't plan to have children while they were in Asia. Recently, at age 31, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl here in Penang.

After listening to her, I could understand a little bit more of why Angelina Jolie made the decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. Who are we to sit in judgement of their decision when we have not walked in their shoes? Nevertheless, I couldn't help imagining a situation where we keep cutting off more and more parts of our body until...what? Until all our organs are removed or replaced? That thought just boggles my mind. 

I Am Not Alone! AMEN!!!

Before the auctions and what-not there was a little James Bond skit and Mazeta led us in singing Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone". I had a God moment as He comforted me with the words:

You are not alone

I  am here with you

P.S. All photos taken by Lillian Tong

Gifts from Taiwan

God-daughter bought us some gifts from her recent trip to Taiwan.

This...

and this...

The latter is to help beautify her God-mother.

She never forgets us wherever she goes. My heart is warmed by such thoughtfulness and generosity from someone who is still studying.

Thank you, Jewel! *hugs and kisses*

Cafe Hopping

Jewel is back for the holidays so we had a night out cafe hopping along Green Hall Road.

We had dinner at Kaffa and then adjourned to another cafe further up the road (cannot remember the name) for Crepe Mille cakes and drinks.

Baby Brother and I with our desserts in the foreground; bottom fr left to right, BBQ Ribs, Portobello Mushroom Pasta and some Philly Cheese Sandwich with something something

I took photos of Baby Sis and Jewel but not with my camera. Hence no photos of them.

Our table at Kaffa

I think I've seen a red tv like this before

Darth Vader was hiding in the corner

I would love to play with this!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Today I made a total of 44 mini-mooncakes using new moulds I couldn't resist buying because the patterns are so pretty. They are also a teeny bit bigger than the micro mini ones I bought earlier so the yield was less 22:30.

See the pretty patterns.

After my first successful attempt at making snow skin mooncakes two weeks ago I felt confident enough and in an adventurous mood to experiment with new combinations today.

• Coffee snow skin with tiramisu filling


• Green tea snow skin with lotus paste and kuaci


• White snow skin with black sesame filling a la Michael Jackson


• Pink snow skin with honey and longan filling

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival everyone!

Hatyai Jaunt

Hubby and I together with a bunch of church friends went for a weekend trip to Hatyai on the 20-21 July weekend. So this is really a very belated post with only the highlights of the trip.

Due to good business Lee Garden Hotel was out of rooms so we had to upgrade to a suite. The room was huge but the air-con vent was placed at the lounge area instead of the bedroom. Isn't that ridiculous? All of us couldn't really sleep well that night because of the heat. Thank God we only stayed one night.

Our very spacious suite

After we checked in, we piled back into the van and headed to Songkhla for a seafood lunch.

Hmmm, what shall we have for lunch?

Lunch was cheap and good but some of the dishes were so spicy hot that I cried!

Then the van driver insisted that we have to go to the beach because it was too early to go to the floating market. 

Baked eggs sold by peddlers at the beach
stirred our curiosity but not our appetite

We were told that the coconut ice cream in Thailand is very delicious and since we had time we asked the store keepers for the location of the coconut ice cream stall. They weren't helpful at all and we were given the run around. Nevertheless we eventually found the stall. 

Enjoying my super yummy-licious coconut ice cream

And then we stumbled upon the Consulate General of Malaysia at Songkhla.

All of us felt compelled to take a photo outside the building of
the Consulate-General of Malaysia in Songkhla. So patriotic!

Finally we arrived at the floating market. 

At the floating market

The seller will use a basket to serve the food to the customer
who will, likewise, put the payment into basket

It was there that I did something so unthinkable and unbelievable that no one who knows me would believe that I did it if I don't have pictures as proof. 

There were other stalls by the river-side and there was this stall
selling crispy fried maggots, larvae, crickets, grasshoppers, etc!

Kelvin bought some and somehow managed to persuade me to try some.
Surprisingly the silkworm (that's what the vendor said it was)
didn't taste too bad. In fact, it was quite "lemak." 

Then Hubby also joined in

As we wondered around the market, the one thing I noticed in Thailand is their great love for colours. 

From colourful baskets...

to colourful cakes...

to colourful sushi!

 Most of the time we travelled by tuk-tuk which was a real squeeze for the 10 of us. 

Hardly any space left for Hubby who was taking the photo

But the most memorable thing for Hubby was the 3-layer teh tarik just outside the hotel. 

 The next day was spent shopping and by the time we left...

...the van was packed full to overflowing. 

On the trip back we also had an adventure trying to escape being stopped by the authorities who were asking passengers to come down from the vans and unloading their luggage for a thorough check. 

We even went off the highway into the small kampungs with our van leading a convoy of 6 vans. When we went onto the highway again we thought all was well but the van driver saw the enforcement officers at the rest area. So all the vans went fast and furious trying to get across the toll before being stopped. 

All the while there were so many calls from our van driver to the rest and vice versa. Some of the conversation was in Hokkien and while others were in Thai. We had a great time trying to decipher what was going on since we could only hear the driver's responses which is only a quarter of what is being said. 

Everyone was caught up with the adventure. Even those who were sleeping woke up.