God's Kitchen

It is way past midnight (oh yes, my BEDTIME too!) and I’m still wide awake. The reddish grey cloud outside is already hinting that rain is inevitable while the accompanying cool breeze is saying amen to that! Lovely…

I can’t help myself from munching the hot potato PIK-NIK “Shoestrings” while writing this…it is so addictive I’m beginning to think that if I don’t stop now I’ll continue eating it like an Eat-To-Sleep Chewing Machine! Oh don’t worry, I don’t do that all the time…and my current weight is still bearable…so it’s okay…

By the way, there’s a SMALL bowl of Cruzer’s Daybreak Salad waiting for me in the kitchen!

Hmmm…anyway, I’m just thinking…

If again tomorrow night I can’t sleep, despite the perfect weather, will I drug myself with more junk food or will I turn to the solid spiritual food? Shhh…I know…

Yes; lately, I’ve been so challenged and healthily bugged by the word of God written in Joshua 1:8. It says…

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful”. (NIV)

You see…too many of us, me included, I’m pretty sure we’ve came across this scripture too many times we overlooked the lamb-chop-like juice of truth it contains. Often time I realize I’d focus more on the “God’s Promise” part of the scripture neglecting the “My Action” part. It is as though I was too hungry I couldn’t wait for my lamb chop to cook I ate it raw – far off from His plan for me to enjoy the meat well done.

The thing about me (and probably you too) is that I don’t really love waiting and I want what I want right here right now. That’s how I am sometimes. I wanna be prosperous and I wanna be successful and I want them both fast, minus having to go through any hurdles. It is like I’m demanding for the profit but totally choose to forget about the investments! It doesn’t work that way, right?

But God being the fair Boss, His strategy is different – always! Not that He loves to withhold His promises, but in my own opinion, He is just not a fan of having to fork out salary advances to any of His servants. Unless faith actions are constantly and sincerely shown, He can choose to delay in delivering the desires of my heart…and He will not surprisingly do just that!

The whole experience of being enlightened by this simple verse has really caused me to dig in whatever I read so much deeper with the quest to find a fresh revelation and the whole package that comes with it. Like those who serves in the oil and gas industry, they dig deeper not with the goal to find out more about dinosaurs or fossils they knew ever existed; their prize – the oil and gas itself! Likewise, my attitude is not to just read whatever that is visible but beyond.

That’s just one of the things I learned…would love to share more juice with you again next time…perhaps in one of my other sleepless nights. Til then, enjoy what I’m leaving behind for you…

Cruzer’s Daybreak Salad Recipe:

Chicken Sausages with Cheese and Chili – raw, sliced to your hotness;

Onions, sliced thin enough to remind you of the unnecessary fat you might gain;

Tomato, sliced to the number of hours you have left in bed;

Carrots, sliced enough to shut your Parrot mouth;

Coral Leaves/Lettuces, generously green enough to remind you Jude is a vegetarian;

Sprinkles of coarse Black Pepper, as desired as you would tiny sweet moles on your face;

French Dressing, poured to perfection to romance your taste bud.

*would be nicer with Parmesan Cheese & Croutons!

Best paired with: Iced Lemon Tea chilled at -2°c.

Total Preparation Time: 7 minutes

Accompanying Soundtracks:

Nightminds by Missy Higgins

Water Feels Warm by Electralow

Hide Me by Grandad Bob

Change Your World Tour - Teaser

Guys! GO TO YOUTUBE AND COPY THE URL OR EMBEDDED THIS VIDEO TO PLAY ON YOUR BLOG, WEBSITE OR MYSPACE.

SPREAD IT OUT AND TOGETHER LETS BRING CHANGE!!!!

2008 Briefly - Cuzario

Looking back, 2008 was like a roller-coaster ride for me personally.
There were lotsa ups and downs almost everywhere all the time.

Compared to the year before, there weren't many tours in 2008 but itdoesn't mean we didn't do much this year. What I personally perceive is that God kept us for a season just to prepare us for a greater year ahead.

Through this time of confinement God truly have brought us as a band to really dive in deeper into the ocean floor, understanding a new level of what worship is all about. Finding new revelations about how great God really is was almost like having an incurable brain tumor! Even mind-boggling doesn't come close to describing the magnitude of this God we are serving!

Generally, especially in the 2nd half of the year, we enjoyed our time ministering, empowering, equipping & training a few worship teams from some local churches around the country. Besides, we also prioritized to strengthen our own worship teams at home.

Personally, it was and still is a very emotionally-challenging year for me as relationships with friends turned rocky and all that. Worst, I had to fight with time as God welcomed some (in the last 2 years) of my dearest home to be with Him forever a bit sooner than I
could imagine.

In my brokenness facing the reality of life I'm thankful that God is still so ever faithful in having so much interest in every area of my imperfect life. I cannot but keep thirsting for more of Him each day. It's His grace that fuels me to lift my heavy feet as I drag my own cross daily knowing that in my weaknesses I'm always made strong. More than often His comforting living Words has never failed to keep me sane and grounded each time unexpected storms came by, which in some desperate moments made me feel as though I'm clinging for my dear life on a sinking boat only to realize He's always there to grab me from sinking deeper into the troubled waters.

Overall, the journey this year wasn't easy at all but definitely rewarding. Surrendering everything to Him is still the best choice and the right thing todo. As I lay here waiting for a better tomorrow, all He's asking me to do is to be still and let God be God! So...I'll just stick to that in obedience. After all, He's the One who's in control over this broken
life.


~cruzer~

The year that was 2008 - Jude

Since joining 1a.m. on the 17th Feb 08 ( YES EXACT DATE.. )

My journey has been a most exciting one though its only a short amount of time. I remember being exposed to the different fields of work, like managing an entire academy, to overseeing the whole musical department as music director in training, things I'm not good at, but which 1a.m. had the confidence (or audacity) to entrust me with. But it is by God's grace the academy and music team is still surviving! (insert laughter here)

But really, journeying together with 1a.m. has really broaden my view towards God, from God only being my comfort and provider, to God being BIGGER THAN ALL MY PROBLEMS, and seeing him in a bigger worth. Being my 1st time away from home, often times I go to God for a "home security", which is good cos I i believe he wants us to go to him as often as we are able to.

But as God slowly reveals to me himself more and more, I felt God saying "MY PRESENCE IS BETTER THAN ANY HOME ON EARTH". So kinda like God became bigger than any castle mansion made. God has been so gracious even before I joined 1a.m. and I realized that often times I only acknowledge Him whenever He provides, intervenes in my problems, or when he delivers me from my grief.

Being with 1a.m. has open my eyes in worshipping Him, and honoring him EVEN WHEN HE SEEMS TO BE QUIET, or when things doesn't go MY WAY. God is always in control of everything regardless of different situations that we face. My heart has always been music, playing music, and anything to do with music, and when God gets involved in the music it just makes it even better. I've always wanted to play better, improve in my skills, learn everything possible, JUST so that I can equip myself. But...slowly God change me, as I journey with 1a.m. I now realized doing all the work, practicing 100 hours a day, trying to play faster than that speeding bullet, became secondary as MY HEART WAS MORE IMPORTANT ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE.

God changed me from WANTING TO BE ABLE TO PLAY EVERYTHING TO EQUIP MYSELF to WANTING TO IMPROVE MYSELF SO THAT I'M ABLE TO SERVE HIM BETTER.

This year has been awesome, 1 year flew by without me noticing the red light.

Throughout the year I met many a challenge, most of them made me feel extremely inadequate. I specially remember one of them where my playing styles completely differ from the current band members.. ( I grew up listening to classical, jazz and Prog Metal and music like Japanese pop...yes, worlds apart... ) Everyone was either...rock...or...not-classical-not-jazz-not-metal kinda thing... So a lot of times it was extremely hard for me to gel with them, to play skillfully up to an expectation, ( everyone thought highly of my musicality's apparently ) and being a musician it's hard to change instantly and suck in your pride. But I thank GOD for THE AWESOME journey He hooked me up in '08, for being such an AWESOME GOD, for BEING SO REAL, and walking me me thru all the moments where I felt I'm inadequate, cos that's where i feel him the most. Of course God is slowly changing me as well musically, at least now know jazz is not the band's thing :) ....

I look forward for '09 to come, cos I know God has in store for me MORE AWESOME THINGS that He wants me to experience.

It's been good being a guitarist for God, I regret nothing...

Malaysia Shouts Your Praise - Music Video/ Testimony

Here is 1a.m's new music video

This just came out last week. A collection of pictures showing what Malaysia's all about. A reminder that we should love our country. God Bless Malaysia!



Testimony of Malaysia Shouts Your Praise

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

A new year, a new start. We have no idea what the year has in stored but we know God does.

We'll make sure that we'll keep you updated in whatever God has been doing in our lives,devotion, ministry, tours, etc.

We're excited. Hope you are too!

1a.m.

Statement by Pastor Aljay - Dubai

Statement by Pastor Aljay - Dubai

hi bro,

I'm doing fine now. all i needed was a 2 day sleep. Cant cope up with your fire and energy. All of you were on fire man.,

Here are the summary of the impact you all have made while visiting us.

FAITH: Faith has been stirred up in the hearts of the people in the UAE as we've seen 1a.m. band members so young yet making an impact in the nations.Your voices were heard not just in Dubai, Sharjah, and Jebel Ali but to the many nations represented during our Spirit filled worship concert. The same way the walls of Jericho crumbled in the days of Joshua, i believed that a lot of demonic strongholds went crushing down as you declared the praises and worship of our King Jesus here in the Middle East.

Worship: All of us were inspired by how you worshiped our King. Our worship team have been challenge to bring His worship to the next level. The workshops helped them see the bigger perspective of unity and teamwork.

The message of Sold Out: One can be sold out to anything or anyone but theres nothing like living a life sold out for Jesus. Its not just the songs and the melodies, but your lives spoke the real meaning of Sold Out.

- Pastor Aljay Lumapas,
Every Nation UAE

Day 8

Day 8

It's time to go home to beautiful sunny Malaysia. We had only 2 ½ hours to do our shopping for gifts though we left in the morning as the traffic took us a while to move around.

Pastor Rouell just came back from Phillipines early in the morning that day but came to see us off at 4pm.He mentioned he heard so many great report from his pastors and the church members that they were all really bless by our ministry. He then drove us to the airport and while in the van, he shared with Kel that the weather should not be as good as it should during this time of the month. It should be scourging hot and the wind should be blowing hot air.

That was when we realise God did another miracle for us, He gave us a beautiful weather, He showered His rain down twice in that week we were there and we believe that the Holy Spirit ministered to the people of U.A.E. that week.

We are so bless by the people in U.A.E. The Pastors and the people there are all servants of God always ready to bless us. If you are reading this all you people of U.A.E. ... YOU GUYS ROCK!!! We thank the Lord for you all and we are so bless to have known our Every Nation family in U.A.E. Keep the flame burning hotter than the heat over there

Day 7

Day 7

Some of us went for trhe safari desert adventure and some went shopping. But before that all of us went to the desert and did the quadra bike. It was totally fun for all of us.

On the way back Pastor Aljay's car over heated and he drove all the way back, which was at least almost an hour drive away.But God was great because nothing happened to his car. Praise God for another miracle

Day 5

Day 5

We got up late today because we had such a late night on Friday. But this time, before we had lunch with the leaders, we got together. PC wanted us to take some time together to think, meditate on what we can be thankful for, and what God has taught or shown us during this trip. It was evident that God impacted each and every one of us. It's so profound and yet life-changing. Each shared 1 or 2 things that God has taught us, plus things that we are thankful for. I personally was so blessed!

Suddenly someone came in to announce that our chicken was ready. The announcer came in the form of Pastor Rouelle's son. We were also blessed with a giant pot of beef briyani and barbecued chicken!!!

After that, we prayed and got ready and headed out to the DECC Maranantha Hall. But before we did that, we went to the shopping mall near the DECC. It was very beautifully designed. The name of the mall was... We went to Starbucks to kill time and then we went to the DECC to prepare for the concert.

The hall is great, very big and spacious. Apparently Matt Redman did a concert in the same hall. We were expecting about 500-600 people.

By this time, our Sold Out cd's were all sold out! Our t-shirts as well. We're so blessed. We're so amazed.

The worship concert was supposed to start at 8.30 pm but we waited till 9pm to start. In the beginning, we didn't see that many people but towards the later part of the night, the hall filled up. It was fantastic.

Our line up this time was fewer songs:-

The Anthem

Freedom

Singing & Living

My Father

Breathe

All I Wanna Do

Blessed Draw

My God Is So Big

Always In My Heart (community video)

PC exaltation

Sold Out

PC exaltation

Lift The Name of Jesus

Dive In

The Presence of God was evident. Even from the start.

PC then gave a word of exaltation. It was about encouraging people to take little steps of faith wherever they were; she gave illustrations on David, as he was just doing his chore and to deliver food to his brothers in the battlefield and instead he became a hero because he was ready to move and to act in faith. The people were ministered by the Spirit. We felt that God told them that they can do it.

We were amazed at what God did at the concert. We could feel His presence and we found that we were also touched by His Spirit. We were doing our last encore which was " Dive In". The people yelled for more so we did "Freedom" again. In the middle of the song, Pastor Cathryn dragged Daniel to the front of the stage and he had no choice but to do a solo. He was in the flow of the Spirit. Then it was Cuzario's turn; as he beat the drums, you could tell that there was an anointing. Last but not least, was Tj! He seemed a little shocked at first but the Spirit took over and he belted out an amazing instrumental unto the Lord.It was unbelievable as they had never soloed in a concert before! All of them were amazed by how God used them.

Again, after everytime we do P&W, we prayed and gave thanks to our Lord for all that He's done and thankful that He's chosen us as His vessels. All Glory to God!!!

The concerts & workshop was finally over! It was a spiritual experience for all of us.

Day 4

Day 4

We had an early start. Today is a very, very packed day. It's morning service at Holy Trinity at 10.30 am, then lunch at Pastor Mar's Villa and then afternoon service at St Martins at 2 pm and then back to the Villa in Dubai for Workshop/Q&A.

We went early to Holy Trinity. It's interesting to see the people doing the set up again.

This time, people knew us and there were more people today. It is a holiday - Prophet Mohammad's birthday so the next day was a public holiday.

Service starts at 10.30 am and finishes at 12 noon.
Our line up :- Take It All, Singing & Living, Our God Reigns, Sold Out

Neil led worship here and did very well. We finished and quickly packed up and left for Sharjah (Pastor Mar's villa). It was interesting, the van was stuck because Neil didn't see a hole and the wheel of the van got stuck. But it's so good to see how the brothers in the church took over and helped us to get the van out. Praise God for spiritual family!

So we went over to Pastor Mar's villa for lunch. The food was great and we had a great time of fellowship with Pastor Mar. He opened his house to us and is a very gracious host. We rested and relaxed. Then at around 1.30 pm, we left the villa for St Martin's. The sound team had already gone ahead and set up the equipment while we were at the villa. They are pretty organised. ;p

So service started. Our line up was:- Majesty, Take It All, Here I Am to Worship and Sold Out

Pastor Cathryn led worship and this time, Kel took the pulpit. He preached about David and how Sold Out was evident in the scripture. He shared about his dreams and his call. He even showed a physical example of Goliath and David.People were touched and encouraged. He challenged the people to live a Sold Out life. The church in Sharjah is also starting a new service in one of the hotels. We pray that it will be another breakthrough for them. They have to be very careful and watchful. By the time we finished at Sharjah, it was already around 4.30 pm.

Then straight after that, we went back to the Villa to prepare for the last workshop on Vocals, Sound and Q&A. that was supposed to be at 7 pm. So we waited for the equipment, setting up, etc.. we had to also wait for the people to get to the Villa after work. We finally started our workshops around 7.30 pm.

Each workshop was fruitful. I felt that people received and the response was good. We are sooo thankful and grateful to God that we can be a vessel in this area.

We finished around 10 pm and headed out to the beach for a barbecue. They arranged for food and invited the people who were in the worship teams to come and fellowship.

The event was great. We didn't have much time at the park/beach but it was fun. We got to fellowship, build relationships and shared our lives even more. As the place closed at 11pm, we went to another beach, near the Burj. It was amazing. There were many people there. People from different backgrounds were at this place. This place was full of life, even so late at night. It goes to show that people in Dubai don't sleep!!! We left this place at 1am (another sign ), which was again about 5 am in Malaysia!!! But it was worth it.

Day 3

Day 3

Today, we had Praise and Worship at Holy Trinity in Dubai and then the workshop later on at night.

We were given time to rest, we got up and did our devotion together. We were all asked to pray and meditate about what God wants to do and what God was saying to us personally, to share what was one thing or some things that we are grateful to God for. We were all expressing our thanks to the Lord and it was refreshing to always remember that.

During our devotion Kel shared that he felt that God wanted to heal the dry bones (Ezekiel 37) of the Christians in Dubai. He asked the Lord for a sign to confirm whether it's really from the Lord. In the morning, it rained and we all thought that it's normal since we often get rain in Malaysia. But we later found out that some people who have lived 5 years there only experience rain twice. We knew then that was a sign from the Lord that he wants to heal the dry bones. We also recalled the prophetic word that Pastor Mar prophesied that God is pouring His presence down on U.A.E. We were excited to see how God is moving.

During this time, Pastor Mary joined us and told us that did we know that there in our conccert 4 people came to accept Jesus as their savior. We thank the Lord truly " worship brings change". We did not even make a salvation call but because of the power and presence of God through worship that people can't help but know that He is truly a living God.That was our greatest desire in our worship to see people save and delivered.

The next thing, we went downtown for lunch at a local Filipino restaurant. It was interesting for a lot of us as that was the first time. We ate a lot and then returned to the Villa to get ready to get ready for Praise and Worship in Holy Trinity at 4.30 pm.

It was quite amazing to see the people in Dubai do their set up. Holy Trinity, like St Martin's is a compound that is the assigned place of worship. There were quite a number of churches in the same place. It's pretty amazing. Each church comes into a hall, at their scheduled time, take 15 minutes to set up their equipment, instruments, etc. and be ready to start their services. Service ends after 1 hour and a half and then they pack up their things in 15 minutes and leave so that the next church is able to come in and use the hall. It's something that makes us so grateful to God that we don't have to do this. They have such limited time. We are so blessed!

The line up for this service was :- Take It All, Dive in, Breathe, Cause I & I Lift the name of Jesus

Kel led worship and the service starts at 4.30 pm and finishes at 6pm. We then had to rush back to the Villa to get ready for Band Dynamics and Worship Leading for the Dubai P&W Teams.They call it the "WAP" teams.PC was left to preach the Word. She preached on Sold Out.Many of the people there gave their feedback that they were ministered and convicted by the message.

We had some technical glitches at Holy Trinity. The keyboard was set on "transposed" and so the whole time, we were in the wrong key and weren't able to do our best. Kel didn't anticipate. That taught us something. So straight after, we had to get back to the villa but due to the traffic, we got back at almost 8 pm to the Villa. This was for Band Dynamics and Worship Leading Workshop that was supposed to start at 8.30pm. We had to wait for the equipment, setting up, etc.. and we also had to wait for the people to get to the Villa after work. Many people finish work late plus the traffic doesn't help. We finally started our workshops by about 10 pm. We did the same as for Sharjah, except that this time, we had more time to finish everything as we paced ourselves better. By the time we finished, it was about 12.30 am. That was 4.30 am Malaysian time.

We were so bushed!!!But one thing, I'm very proud of us, is that we were all in great spirit and were united.

Day 2

Day 2

Cuz is unwell. He has a tummy problem. Lisa still has her cough. It's annoying. She can't sing properly and we're sure that Cuz can't play properly as well. Lisa felt that is was a test, to see if she can worship God without her voice at it's best. Tonight, it's the Worship Concert at St Martin's Sharjah

Devotion : we came together in the morning. Thanking God and the word that came from Kel was Ezekiel 33:31-32 and from PC was Psalms 4:4. We prayed and asked for a Word from God for the people. Tonight is the first concert and it was to be in Sharjah. It's exciting.We are going to declare how great God's strength is and that there will be redemption. The people needed healing in all areas and God will show Himself. We also needed to think of God, think of His thoughts and not have our own way of thinking.

Sharjah is a more conservative place and foreigners are expected to adhere to their dress-code; we're not supposed to expose our flesh too much - no mini-skirts, shorts, tank tops, no sleeveless tops ; on the other hand Dubai is very modern and open. It's something that we need to get used to.

The hall in St Martin's was able to fit about 400-450 people. It was quite big. We had to be there by 5.30 pm to set-up. When we arrived, they hadn't opened the doors yet. Finally, the doors opened at around 5.45 pm. Every minute is precious. There were problems during the sound-check especially for the vocals and the keyboard as Kel was using only 1 keyboard. The structure/layout of the stage is a bit cramped and there are 2 marble pillars on the sides. We had to work around it. The sound engineers did their best and we learned to work around the situation.

Before we started, we prayed and asked that God's glory be shown.The songs that we did are :

1. The Anthem
2. Majesty (Planetshakers)
3. Take It All
   Community Video - sharing by Kel
4. Breathe (altar call by Kel)
   Neil's Testimony
5. Sold Out
   Exaltation by PC
6. Sold Out
7. All I want Do
   Blessed Draw
8. Here I Am
9. Here I Am to Worship
   

There were people of all ages in Sharjah. At the beginning, there weren't that many people but later that night, there were more. It seemed that it was almost full. For the first altar call at Breathe, we couldn't tell how many people were ministered as Kel encouraged them to stay where they are and to worship from there. The young people and the leaders of the church were standing in the front rows. They were so responsive and you could see that the Presence of God was strong. For Neil's testimony, quite a number of people responded as he's their "homeboy" and knew him personally. People were blessed and encouraged. Then for Sold Out, PC preached to the people, encouraged them to live a Sold Out Life for God - she preached on Peter's call; the question that burned Peter's soul - on whether he truly loved the Lord enough to live the Sold Out Life.

This time, the 2nd altar call, people were encouraged to move to the front. They were challenged to come up to give their lives; to recommit and live "Sold Out" for God. The leaders and PC prayed over the people as we sang Sold Out.

By the time we finished, it was around 11 pm. We prayed and thanked God. That will always be the first thing that we do whenever we finish something. God is to be glorified, always. In fact, the center space on stage is for God, nobody else takes that place. It's His rightful place of honor. We weren't able to finish all the songs that we lined up due to time constraints. The pastors also came up every now and then to give a prophetic word. One of the prophetic word's Pastor Mar gave was that he felt God open the ozone layer and He is pouring His presence down upon U.A.E. He also prophesied that 1a.m. is a fertile ministry and it will bear much fruits.

We went back, came together and talked about it. It certainly wasn't our best musically or technically. We had to straighten the kinks, we discussed what could be improved and discovered that timing and execution needed to be improved. We also discovered that we needed to reflect even more and rely even more on God. This was truly a test of our faith.

PC exalted us to think and focus on God before we rested. That we needed to quiet the other voices and listen clearly to the Voice of God. PC is very wise. She constantly reminds us to condition ourselves so that we didn't fall sick and be able to minister at all times.

Tour Dubai

Tour Dubai

With finally a tedious flight and formalities out of the way, we happily trudged out of the airport onto official Dubai soil. Pastor Aljay met us excitedly, a great guy, passionate speaker, and awesome host. Of course, as humble ‘missionaries' we never expected for Aljay to put us in a huge mansion for our weeks stay. Then again, nearly all homes in Dubai are huge mansions.

It wasn't long before we had work on our hands. Our first workshop in Sharjah was fruitful, as a band still learning to reach a certain standard of public speech, our delivery of ideas met well, well absorbed. People were excited; our concert the next day was chocked full. Crowds met excitedly in praise and worship, you know the presence of God is strong when you find out the next day 4 people gave their lives to Christ without an alter call, even though we didn't play that well.

The rest of our trip consisted of more workshops, praise and worships sessions, getting to know the ‘Dubai-ans', which are a socialite bunch of photo-loving, warm, and fun people; even though a little extreme at times.

Of course we had our grand finale concert in Abu Dhabi, once again chocked full with people. Congregation was wild, people's hearts open to worship; it was definitely a blast. More than just playing well, the presence of God was definitely strongly tangible in the theatre; so tangible in fact the band burst out into solo performances - something we've never rehearsed or done before.

We've accomplished what we've come to do; bring aspects of worship to bring their team to the next level, preach the gospel, helped others encounter God. One of the prophetic words Pastor Mar received was God opening the ozone layer and pouring His presence down upon U.A.E. He also prophesied over 1a.m. as a fertile ministry, and will bear many fruits to come. People were SOLD OUT!