Experiential Staff Outing!

For many years, we'd suggested to have office staff outing or staff trip away and somehow it did not happen and suddenly, at the first office devotion of the year, Pastor Tim announced that we will take an overnight staff trip from 19th to 20th of January! and that's when things started to pick up...

Pastor Steven has been assigned to pull together the trip and he'd been on the phone ever since - looking for a bungalow to stay, calling up restaurants to find out where we can have dinner, calling up the various 'activity' options, calling up to ask about which movie we can all go together... but in the end we decided not to do an overnight thingy.

But here's the final plan ... he set the theme to be an 'Experiential Outing'...

We locked up the church after the Frontier Learning Centre students finishes (some of them had to wait for their parents at the kopitiam behind church) and all of us head over to Mid Valley - meeting point: Info Counter @ Centre Court! But there were some delay and so we started off quite late. But nothing could dampen the spirit as we rush there to kick start the experience!

First up - GALACTIC LASER! For those of us who dare brave it, we suit up for the mission ahead! It's back to Red Team against Green Team! We didn't divide ourselves but somehow standing in two rows so we were instantly put into teams like that!

We were to go into the 'galactic' and basically hide or shoot others or be shot! Loads of running around and screaming for the 3 ladies that went in! It was exciting yet funny for me at the same time! hahahah... But Jaime opted out of the game as she deem it to exciting for her!

Red Team won of course - no surprise there (I was, of course, in the winning team). ahahaha.. But the surprise came when we check the score chart and realised that Pastor Tim was one of the highest scorer! He's Raven, the ultimate champion with 7200 points! Good thing he's a pastor, else he would make a good predator! I was Shadow... being shot by Neil & Max!!

The entire office (plus me behind the camera) were present, joined by Pastor Tim's family! It was huge fun! They were supposed to be in galactic hero poses but.... failed lah! hahaha...

After a hectic game, we were all given a 30min massage - either foot or half body! For some, it's a first time. The Thai way of massage involves a lot of bones 'crackling' sound as the lady pull and tug and step on you!! But everyone came out satisfied, happy and instantly lighter! Jaime even commented that her nose is no more blocked!

Just can't resist that shot! It's CHRIS LEONG! hahahaha...

Instead of just a typical sit down dinner and since the theme is experiential, we were ushered into RED BOX Karaoke for buffet and of course, 4 hours of singing and screaming into the four microphones! There were two yee sang that came with the package and everyone was just enjoying the moment and 'lou' for everything.... someone even shouted for 'a wife'... ahhaha.... which got us started laughing all over again. (traditionally, the chinese will say blessed words during the 'lou' or mixing up the ingredients).


There was two groups of people in the room.
Group 1. Pick all the Chinese song, especially sad and teary kind + sitting there laughing at the other group
Group 2. Pick all the English songs, especially the latest and current ones + making hilarious antics to be laughed at!

Even Joanna got her turn! She was holding the mic and doing her own moves. But when we selected 'The Five Little Ducks' for her to sing for real, she got all shy. But we had our laugh when the music video came on! ahahhaa...


First shot of the day of Pastor Steven. He couldn't join us earlier and came during the karaoke time and immediately started off with a chinese song!

See Pastor Tim laughing there? He was surprised when Joel took the mic and did a fast rap song from the beginning til the end with Joash singing the vocals part of the song. We were all wow-ed! hhahaahahha...


Last shot after I got forced to sing a song too! Not that I don't want but I couldn't read the chinese lyrics and usually mumble half the song away! This is my problem when I go to karaoke but of course everyone have to sing something! Chrystin sang the whole Taylor Swift song - Love Story! Jaime did a Westlife song!

But back to this last shot. It's Jaime, Teresa, Pastor Tim and PC all sitting there and Pastor Steven (not in the pic) all singing 月亮代表我的心 (Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin / Let the moon represent my heart). A classic mandarin song that I think all Chinese knows how to sing! Can see Joanna already slept there.

After a couple more songs, it's time to go home. For me, it's time to knock out but for the rest of them, they were all set and ready to go over to PC & Kel's house for an overnight board game session!

Well, that's all for the half day staff outing but it was indeed experiential, thanks to Pastor Steven for making all the arrangements. It's good for the team that works together to find time to play together! What I like was that it's not just meet, eat and leave but we actually did spent time together!

That's all for today... and yeah... it's gonna end with dinner at Frank & Cecilia, tomorrow night! Each year, they invite the whole church staff for a dinner and from past experiences, they cook the best food - the kind that I love! So I'm excitedly anticipating for tomorrow night! Being church staffs have it's cons and limitations in certain ways but it definitely does not lack in TLC, blessings and fellowship!! =)

Office Staffs

It's all about blessing and eating today! Not sure why but some how it's about eating today. People that came back from overseas brought us food and Kareem came back from Ipoh brought us food also...

After devotion, during announcement time = eating time!

Someone from our chinese church started a lunch delivery service and we planned to eat together today! Her business must be very good. When we call about 12pm, already almost sold out. Maybe cos we use the 'Eaglepoint' venue, we got free soup and free egg... I think usually need to add money for those..

This is custard from Ipoh!


See my bliss face? Oooo...... very hard only I get custard leh... I think like once or max twice a year only... so I had to savour every bit I put in my mouth ... seeing it disappear too soon...

Teaser!

The new church building prospectus is coming out soon!

Brand Meeting

Yesterday, some of the pastoral plus some of the office staffs, went for a 10am-3pm brand workshop conducted by Joescher Chee from the company CC+J. He also serves at Eaglepoint Damansara. He runs a company with the tagline - MAKE BRANDS FAMOUS!

Joescher has sat in multiple trainings himself and has graciously shared his knowledge and experience with us. His company has also committed to served Community At Heart for the past couple of years. They are the ones that come out with the website development and maintenance and also produce the branding and event media for Community At Heart.

Honestly, I think one day is not enough to brand Eaglepoint. We only managed to work through a few of the agendas. The workshop came about because Eaglepoint is growing (yeah!) and we needed to standardise some of the taglines and names and such to bring about the most accurate representation of who Eaglepoint wants to be.

Our Brand Positioning is now:
Eaglepoint is a church where everyone discovers life together.
A life with God.
A life with others.
A life with purpose!

Definition of Friends in Eaglepoint

In Eaglepoint, once a friend, always a friend... whether he'd flew off to Palmeston North, a small town with more sheeps than human in New Zealand, for the past couple of years or whether she'd flew off to Adelaide for the past year!

Jasmine and Nai Chen (more fondly known as Nike) both came back to KL at almost the same time, so we all squeezed out time to meet up... and it was really squeezed out because we had no other time where everyone is available so we met at midnight hours at the mamak at Centre Point. Seriously, for me, it's been a long time since I go lepak at such late hours!

Both Nike and Jasmine served in 1a.m. Dance once upon a time and ever since, the ties had been glued and I guess serving together has brought friends for life. We are waiting for them to come back to the team!

Not much on reminiscence but more on catching up on what had happened and what will happen. what I like most was that there was no strangeness or 'kekok-ness' and everyone wanted to come at such off hours just to catch up when I say Jasz and Nike is back!!

...yeah.. and that is Nai Lin behind there with the funny face! She thinks that she can quit the dance team but it's just... 'all in her own mind'... once a dance team, always a dance team! =)

Agreement Focus

Tonight, at Prayer Meeting, we came together as a church to agree. If you did not manage to join us physically, join us in your own prayer time to agree. Pastor Timothy shared that in Acts 2, when the people were gathered in One Accord, SUDDENLY... they were visited by Heavenly Sound. Our part is to agree and God will do the visit! So, let us agree...

Personal Front

• I agree to love God with all my heart, mind, emotion and will

• I agree to live a life that fear God, serve and honor Him

• I agree to do His Will and walk in His Ways

• I agree to trust God and call upon His Name alwaysI agree to pursue righteousness and love purity

Family Front

• We agree to make God the Head of this Household

• We agree to build our Household together with love, joy and peace

• We agree to uphold our marriage in the highest honor and purity

• We agree to speak words of encouragement and strength to each other

• We agree to parent our children in God’s Way and into God’s Will

Church Front

• We agree to always seek You, be in step with you and follow Your promptings

• We agree to focus in being and making disciples that believe, belong and become in all generation

• We agree to practice “include, invest, invite” as we desire to see more souls being saved

• We agree to contend for more miracles, supernatural intervention and power of God in us, through us and around us

• We agree to see more chains broken, curses lifted, wounds healed, bondages shattered, stronghold uprooted in the lives of many

• We agree to release gifting, talents, time and resource to build lives, purpose and God’s House together

• We agree to be in faith, humility and unity as we journey through the building our new facility phase

The Heavenly Gift!

As Pastor Tim had announced over the weekend, we have collected about RM107k! Yeah! and Yeah to all the volunteers that made it all happened! Without your resources and time, it would not happened. A Big Thank You to all of you! (please reply me evaluation email so that we can improve for next year)

After purchasing, we would sort it according to profile numbers and then a group of volunteers will come to help wrap them up and then pack it into homes by homes. Although sounded simple but it took a lot of sorting and going through and trying to minimise mistakes so that the children will get the best heavenly gifts.


One of the pillar of this event is Agape Yeo. We lean on each other's strength and encouragement during this whole week of buying and sorting and buying and sorting and more buying and sorting.

Anyone can come and wrap. In fact, I encourage the community to come and help to wrap too. Charleen rallied her classmates to come and do community services by wrapping gifts and I left to their capable hands to wrap the packs!



For me, this was one of the most touching family scene. It was Christmas eve and the Yeo sisters were here to support each other and help to finish up. Me and Agape were slowly sorting out the shoes that came last minute and then Renee and Ken brought the baby and maid along to help and were energised to speed up the process. Then Bee Sean and the third sister came along with dinner and fed us and then helped out together. I couldn't resist the photo-moment!

Knowing that they are all taking care of the shoes, I left to IOI mall to shut down the booth. It is the last night of The Heavenly Gift booth at IOI Mall. We were tired after almost 20 days of volunteering at the mall but we were not too tired to excitedly tear down and pack up everything! Last photo before going home to wrap our own Christmas gifts!!

Just want to thank all the volunteers again for your time and hardwork in making the event a blessing to our community! I was really encouraged each time I visit the booth and see the volunteers relentlessly talking to the shoppers even after multiple rejection, they can all still laugh about it and move on to approach another shopper!

For the month of December, my phone rang the most times and the more frequently asked question I have to answer is "I'm on duty at Old Wing or New Wing ah?"... hahaha... Finally my pathetic, taped up schedule can rest in peace! After enduring days of scratched off names, refilled names and folding and unfolding.

After the closing of the booth comes the next exciting chapter of THG - the DISTRIBUTION! I think 26th was the most exciting day as I see volunteers coming to get the gift packs to head over to the various homes and run a small Christmas party for the children.

The volunteers prepared games and food and carols to have a fun time with the children. It's good to see everyone willingly step into the homes and join the children in laughter and a little childishness.

The joy and the laughter you can see from the faces of the children were priceless. I believe it's worth all the sleeplessness and the stress and the rejections from some of the shoppers. We made a positive change to our community, we brought "Heavenliness" to our community and we brought back compassion to the volunteers!




Each zone kind of helped to organise the Christmas party for one of the homes we championed but as for me, I championed the poor family food distribution on the 26th. Early in the morning we were gathered at Tesco to count the stocks and pile the goods into the van and cars to drive over to the Enggang Apartment community hall. Honestly, I was gladly surprised to see more than 80 volunteers turned up to help out at the distribution. Many hands make light work. They started taping up the boxes and aligning them and packing food into the boxes per family.

Joseph Gan and Pastor Timothy Loh, the two founders of Community At Heart, were there to help out as well. They were both sweating yet still laughing and enjoying themselves as their pack food and toiletries into their boxes!

There were volunteers from all walks of life. The married couples, the working adults, the teens, and the children can help out.


After the food were packed, it's now time to register the families and let them in. Our guy volunteers were inside queuing up inside to help carry the heavy food packs for the families. They each walked a few rounds just to help to carry - without complains! I absolutely salute them for their dedication and willingness just to serve.


After the food distribution, we also co-organise a children Christmas party with Malaysian Care and some of our volunteers stayed on to for their second round of the day. They started at 10am and end maybe at 10pm..? I was almost ready to crash to a knocked out sleep but they were still serving as I head home to shower and change before heading to a family Christmas party for the rest of the night.

The chapter has closed for The Heavenly Gift for now but soon, it will be the next chapter opening when we gather all the shoppers who volunteered to a round of meeting up and briefing on how they can make a positive change to the community.

If you've had any part in making THG happened, here's a BIG THANK YOU TO YOU! =)