Kuching Trip

Kuching Trip

It was a journey home for me, back to a familiar territory…my comfort zone, the land I left not too long ago before God challenged me to walk on waters. This time around I didn’t head home for what would normally be a leisure trip for me; it was more of an assignment...the kind that caused us all to settle for nothing less than being totally Sold Out to His call. Secularly, it felt like a Home Coming Concert for me…in my dreams…

The few days spent in the land we call the Cat City has evidently helped me, or us all as a band, unearth some of the needs the locals are desperately seeking help in. For most, they know very well it is about time for them to escalate their worship to greater heights but there is just no clear direction on how to get there. Some are just hampered by the absence of a visionary in their midst. The whole picture is like wanting to drive a car forward but can’t keep your eyes off the rear view mirror.

From our own workshops I personally discovered the importance of being able to gel with people of different generations especially when the only language you and the other person could converse in is music. For the young punks, they’d grumble about the elders for not being able to fulfill their demanding musical needs. On the other hand, the seniors can always be heard nagging about how intricate the music of today’s shocking generation has evolved. More than often, this is one of the main and obvious reasons we seldom see a mixture of age groups being put together to serve in the same band. Imagine the blend of flattering sounds produced should the best of these two worlds are being put together!!!

Another significant moment worth freezing from this trip is when I took the band for a simple dinner with my clan…to the historic spot where I was ejected from my mum’s womb. Though the food was traditionally exceptional (and it was fun witnessing Neil confessed to enjoying something his taste bud has been rejecting) but it was truly the chance for the band members to speak into some of my relatives’ lives that caught my attention.

On one end, Neil was seen paying undivided attention to every word my uncle spat out while Kelvin was caught mingling and exchanging thoughts with my dad. On the other end I saw PC was engaging in a deep conversation with my other uncle who once was a faithful servant in the house of God until the storm in his life struck causing him to not wanting to be associated with church at all. I have no clue what PC said or how God used her that evening but two weeks after that short talk with her, that very same uncle of mine finally found his way back to the church he left more than 10 years ago! I was just so amazed at how God could timely use a deliberate person to defrost a frozen heart!

Overall…convinced with our growing strength and passion, in the course of this trip I’ve seen God helped us unlock doors which were right in front of us (or was it only me?!) but never saw. No details can be confirmed yet but definitely something hot is in the pipeline for the very near future. Somehow we are all so inspired to do greater things as were sinking into 2008!!! Slowly but surely are we gonna be stepping really hard on our spiritual accelerator pedal as we are gearing to yet another exciting new year. That I can be very sure of…

Do what we do best

Do what we do best

Bangkok Jazz experience was just cool. It was a good night for the band as it helped us increase our confidence in the things that we do for God. It was also totally awesome. Why? Coz God was present.

After a night of worship concert on Saturday and an opening service of our sister church (ECF Damansara), I can tell you that the band was already tired. Daniel the most since he had to help out with the videos for the opening service and play for Sunday service in the morning.

When we got there, I could hear music from outside, songs being played by other bands. There were about 18 bands all together I believe, and 1a.m. were the second to the last band to perform. The bands present were not bad. Some had skills, some really surprised us with their skills like there was this really young band and man they ROCK! I’m in my early 20’s and I’ve got areas to improve in music but they look like they’re just 15 so imagine with me on how they would be when they reach my age?

Well, as our turn to play drew near, I was in a position that I really needed God. Personally, I was nervous, how would the people react? Will they boo us off stage? Joke about us? You have to understand that we are playing our original songs from our next album and man the songs clearly speaks of our creator, our savior, our God right on the dot. This ain’t switchfoot.

I went back in to listen to the other bands for a while, did my normal stuff to observe how the sound was and just when I was doing that, Doris, one of our church members who came along to support the band came to me and praise the team that we’ll do great but the thing that caught my attention was when she said that “ Do what you guys do best”.

When she said that, I asked myself the same question “What do we really do best? And in a few seconds the answer to that was “Worship”. With that, I found comfort. We may not have the best musicians or vocalist in the world but it is worship that we do best. A responsibility that we as a worship ministry do is bring down God’s presence and man we wanted Gods presence to be there. Guess what? The presence of God was there in fact HE was there watching His kids play. Front row, front seat.

Just before our turn came to play, I gathered the team and reminded them about what we do best. I reminded them to worship God with the talents God had given us and not be distracted by how good other bands were. Our goal was to bring down the presence of God in Bangkok Jazz and there he was.

God was so good were just before our turn came, the band before us were singing praises to the Lord. We were shock coz we thought we were the only Christian band there. Hearing them sing that, I could tell that set the tone for us 1a.m. Personally my spirit man worship and praised God when that song was playing and was ready to do what I’m called to do at that moment, at that time and place. A moment prepared by our God for us as a team.

So here we were. On stage, sound check done and ready to worship in front of different people, cultures and religion. We struck the first chord of the first song (Pour Out) and when the music came out of our instruments, I felt that Spirit of God just explode in that room. (It was like a grenade that exploded).The respond was quiet receiving that they enjoyed it. We ended with our second song and the rest is in the history books of heaven. We came out with a very positive respond that after our “so called GIG” people approached us and said a lot of overwhelming comments. Glory to God! The team gathered together with the people who came to support us outside Bangkok Jazz and prayed to God giving Him the Glory.

I am excited for what the future brings for this ministry, step by step God has opened doors and I tell you, it’s always challenging than the previous which only makes us stronger and better ministers of God.

We did the show to represent the God that loves us by doing what we do best which is “Worship”. People may have not understood what we did but we planted a seed. And in faith, just like a seed, God would cause it to grow and at the end of the day God’s people will reap a harvest.

Worship!

August 07 Onwards

Wow...

A lot of things has been happening and this section hasn't been updated. Sorry for the delayed updates in a lot of things. Will try to update everything as fast as I can.

Heres whats been happening (in short) and what to expect :-

1) The band has toured around East Malaysia, Kuching and Saba. Did a couple of concerts in Kuala Lumpur. The most recent one is @ EFC,PJ. We're gathering up testimonies from the team to be posted up here in the blog soon. Bangkok Jazz testimony will be up as soon as I'm done with this.

2) Win an IPOD promo is out. 80 Gb guys so who knows, if GOd is willing, YOU might get it. Plus loads of other cool prizes to be won like Ipod Nano's, etc,etc...

3) Indieheaven Momentum Award 08 is up so Vote for 1a.m. Oh by the way, the song "Always in your heart" is up so go to FanFaves and vote the song to climb up the charts. www. indieheaven.com

4) 1a.m is in the process of releasing its 3rd album. This will be different as the youth will be taking over. An EP album is planned to be released early next year before the main album so stay tune. Previews, V-blogs will be up in a few weeks so be excited ;)

5) 1a.m future tour dates 08 will be up soon. Please email us early if your local church or some event (regardless of whatever nation) wants to invite us .We will need to plan and arrange dates so that it doesn't clash with what our local church(ECF) is up to.

Thats it for now,so keep logging in.

SOLD OUT

Neil1am

Day 16

Date : 16 May

Day : Wednesday

Event : Time to fly and go home! Back to Malaysia! Uh oh, we were kind of late again. The stress of checking in, is so bad. We had the challenge again, as usual. This time, we were in excess again (not new, huh?) Anyway, PC again explained to the officer and we didn’t realize there was this new ruling. We learnt that different airports have different requirements and rules. Now we’re smarter. Praise God, the officer let us through and we managed, just to pay our taxes and dashed to the gate! Again, it’s another adventure. It’s always exciting with 1 a.m.!

We took off and arrived in Singapore. It didn’t even feel like a 10 hour flight, thanks to the great selection of movies that was offered. The thing now was that we had to stay in Changi for another 10 hours before our flight back to KL. Changi has great facilities i.e. free internet. You could see so many people logging on and chatting with friends.

Anyway, we slept at one of the airport lounges, allocated specifically for those who are tired and weary from traveling. We met again later, at the appointed time and headed towards the departure gates. It was really tiring but it was good to heading home.

We finally got home, touched down KL at about 6.30 am and we went our ways. God brought us back safe and sound, with great stories to tell, with much more wisdom and growth. We could never have done it without God and the support of the church. You never know how blessed you are until you go out and see what’s happening in the world out there. Pastor Tim, leaders and ECF – you’re the best and we love you!

In summary

We are so honored and bless because God has always been there before us wherever He takes us to. He protected us, assured us and the best is He anointed us just like what he promise us in Isaiah 61. We have seen salvation, healing, people liberated from their mindset, people who are bound set free to worship God and many other testimonies. We just want to give God the glory for what He is doing in 1a.m.

If you are reading this and you want to know Jesus, please do write to us and we are more than happy to walk that journey with you.

Day 14 and 15

Date : 14 May

Day : Monday

Event : Breakfast - then the guys came over from Alf’s place to Pastor John’s place which is just 5 minutes from each other. That’s pretty cool. The plan for the day was to go to the beach, which isn’t very far away as Auckland is pretty much near the sea. That was really nice. Pictures again? ;p

Lisa didn’t’ join us because she wasn’t feeling that well but on the other hand, she got to bond with Kelly and Cindy.

Blessings : Cindy cooked Bak Kut Teh for us! That is sooooooo yummy! We are so very blessed!

It was sooo good that we saved the soup and then bought more meat so that Kelly could cook another meal with it. Mmmmmmmm

That night, we had the core worship team over. This time it was like a forum and there were many things shared. PC and Kel shared about how the structure of 1 a.m. is like and how it is run, how we grew and the history of the ministry. They also fielded questions from the worship team and you could sense that they really want to move to the next level of worship. They also shared their concerns and what they want to achieve for their worship. It’s really humbling to see all this and to be grateful that we have such visionary and great leaders.

Date : 15 May

Day : Tuesday

Event : Shopping! Buying souvenirs in town! Visiting Parachute. We were so privileged to meet with the Parachute Marketing Director. Parachute is such a big name and they hold a concert every year which draws about 20,000 people. The great thing is that they are looking for true worshipers and not just great musicians. (We think alike!) We left our CD with him and pray that the door will be opened, all in God’s will and timing. It also got TJ thinking about his deferment and calling, ha ha ha! However, we all know that our lives are in God’s hands and we need to know what He wants and obey. His plans are always better than ours, always.

R & R : Then we went shopping with Alf. We also got to go to the city of Auckland. We got more souvenirs! Ha ha ha!

PC however, had a meeting with one of the leaders doing the ZEAL program for youths in Auckland and is currently doing very well in the high schools. It’s also recognized by the government. God is really doing something in the midst of all that is going on in NZ. The country is facing much onslaught from the enemy; the new PM is passing laws i.e making prostitution legal, possibly even making it a subject taught and acceptable in school, passing a bill where parents can’t smack their kids, legalizing gambling, legalizing the marriages of gays and lesbians; claiming to be a liberal country but going against the principles of good and the Bible. However, we believe that God is raising people in that country, young people to be a standard against the enemy. It reminds me of that scripture “when the enemy comes in like a flood, God’s Spirit will raise up a standard against it”.

Event : Pot luck dinner at a church sister’s home with the worship team. We were asked to share a few things that we learnt while being in NZ.

It was nice to see so many people. We made a lot of friends i.e. Sale, Ulu, Daphne, Sisela, Samantha, Ola, Joe, such great and talented people. We really enjoyed their company, exchanged gifts, e-mails, etc. It was kind of emotional at the end. However, I was already homesick…..!

Tonight, it’s time to pack though, we leave the next day.

Day 13

Date : 13 May

Day : Sunday

Event : Morning to set up and sound check at Northside (Pastor Ken Dew’s church), Rosmini College. That day was the celebration of Mother’s Day. This place is quite big and very nice and could fit about 300-400 people? We were a bit slow on the sound check so we started about 5 minutes late.

The Line up of the songs were The Anthem, singing & Living, Take It All, Dive In, Secret Place, My Father and Sold Out.

This was the praise and worship session that we ministered. As we ministered to God, the presence of God was also evident in the hall. We did the same flow but PC didn’t share the Word this time but instead we sang and flowed prophetically. Again, we got to do Dive In, and you could tell that not only the youth but the whole church were into it. It was fantastic! All glory to God again.

We were so blessed with all the encouraging words that came from Pastor Renee (Pastor Ken Dew’s wife), the leaders and all the people. One of the Pastor’s wife went up on the stage to actually promote a women seminar but she kept on raving about how she enjoyed our worship songs because she felt the tangible presence of God. It’s humbling, because we know that it’s not us that did it, but God’s anointing. Without God, we’re nothing.

God moment : We were not meant to get a collection of the offering for that day but we did. Pastor Ken Dew called Pastor Richard from the States to instruct him to do that. That was totally divine. That was God. Isn’t that all the more evident that God really moves, even without us asking. He knows and that’s so cool. ;p

Fun : After that, the church celebrated Mother’s Day. That was very sweet. There was a “Mother of the Year” contest. You get a foot massager. That’s cool! A treat for tired, worn out mothers, ha ha ha!

R & R : That afternoon, we were given a tour or Mission Bay by Calvin, a Malaysian who’s now migrated to NZ. We went for another bout of fish & chips and this time, a bunch of the other Malaysians came with us, together with a few of the locals. It was great! We also took a lot of photos at the bay….hmmmm posing again!

Calvin is a very generous guy as he opened his home to us. We had a great time getting to know him and the people. It was nice as we even went for Spiderman 3 (which was a disappointing movie for us). Lisa went out with Samantha and Oka They are all such great gals, especially Ola. She’s so sweet, she actually wants to audition for 1.a.m. ;p Awesome! They bonded big time!

While we were doing all that, PC , Kel and Calvin went to Pastor Renee’s home for dinner.

After all that, we got back and talked a bit about what we would do the next day i.e. Pastor John wanted to spend time with the band. ;p

Sad moment : Charlene was leaving for home. Work commitments. We’re so blessed to have her though. Love her. .

Day 11 and 12

Date : 11 May

Day : Friday

Event : Morning devotion – we got together to pray for the people of Auckland. We wanted to do what God wanted us to do here. We prayed for the acoustic session for the night’s street evangelism. We also found out that day we didn’t have drums. What a challenge! We haven’t had that experience before. Well, there’s a first for everything! We were doing this by faith.

Felt that God wanted to test us and wanted us to grow in our faith. It will be to see whether we will come forth as gold. Word 1 Peter 1:7 and Job 23:10

We practiced and the line up : My God Is So Big, Secret Place, Singing & Living, My Father, All I Wanna Do and Sold Out. It was the first time we’ve ever done street evangelism. We had the pre-event prayer where everyone gathered round to pray for the city and the people of the city.

Felt that God really wants to reign in this city and the country; we needed to pray for God’s presence to be strong in the people and the city, to declare Jesus’ name high in this land. That God wants to raise great leaders in the nation to do something, to rise up.

Event : That night, the band that was on before us was very skilful in every way and it was very intimidating for the guys. They also had people coming up to testify about what God did in their lives. It’s powerful and challenging. It’s different for us because we can’t do this in Malaysia.

We got off to a shaky start because we couldn’t get the sound right. It’s a bit awkward as well as this was our first time doing anything like this in a city, out in the open. But despite the rocky start, despite the cold and despite the rain, we were able to get into worship and everything changed from there. Then PC started to sing and prophesy to the city of Auckland and you could see that it was powerful as the presence of God was there and you could see that people, strangers were engaged and “locked on”! God was doing something great and Kel started to pray over the city and declare over the city that God reigns .

God moment : pastors who headed this ministry came up to PC and talked about the anointing that was of God when we ministered. It was very encouraging to hear that and this is another confirmation that God can use anybody, despite our level of skills, despite us not having any drums, to reach people.

Fun fact : We didn’t even have drums! We only had a toy box (a yellow Sesame Street toy box) as our drums and a funny looking shaker. It was a fruitful night. God is glorified ;p

Date : 12 May

Day : Saturday

Event : Gathered together to discuss the workshops because we didn’t do a good job the last time in Christchurch. We talked about what to share to the people as they are so skilful and the best way to go is that we shared our own testimony, intimacy with God, the flow of the HS and worshiping with our instruments.

The workshop was supposed to start at 2 pm but we started at 3 pm due to the traffic. We shared :-

1. being a contagious worshiper
2. the 3 H’s
3. shared testimonies
4. worshiping with our instruments
5. Word – not being too familiar with worship

God moment : Again, we had technical difficulties. No instruments to show dynamics but we shared from our heart and our experiences. It was fruitful.

After the workshop, we fellowshipped and had pizza for dinner. It seems like we’re having a lot of pizza lately? ;p It was great, we got to talk to some people and got to know them a bit better.

Concert : it was supposed to start at 7 pm. Venue : Rotorua Girls School (Southside) The line-up was the same as Christchurch. PC shared about the prostitute and Simon the Pharisee and I felt that this time around, she was preaching it so much stronger! (way to go PC!) people began to be liberated and especially when we hit Dive In; it was amazing! People were dancing! Again, we were told that was something new and liberating! God is really awesome in His power! All glory to Him. God really showed up that night. When we did My Father, you could almost feel the tangible presence of God – The Spirit of God filling up the place. 2 salvations and about 10 or more pledges to be Sold Out to Jesus! ;p

Lisa’s personal thought : When we were worshiping, I saw the Spirit of God fill up the whole hall like His robe, covering everything, every person and it reminded me of His glory when the train of His robe fills the temple – Isaiah 6:1-3. .