More Words Coming To Pass

As I was doing my quiet time this morning, I was reminded of this part of the message I preached on 12 Oct 08 - "Fruitful In The Land Of Famine." I was sharing of the opportunities that will come available and I said this:

"In 2-5 years time, the interest will be lower. It won’t be the 9-10% now.
So now probably is not so good a time yet to buy because of the interest rates and prices still can come down further."

Ten days later on 23 Oct 08, the Reserve Bank of NZ cut interest rates by a huge, unprecedented 1%.

Just a few days ago, it was reported on 27 Oct 08 that a house in Brown's Bay valued at NZ$1.03 million was sold at NZ$685,000 - a $300,000 discount. The house was sold at an auction with a NZ$1 reserve price meaning that the house will be sold at the auction - no matter what the price. It did captivate the attention of many and attracted 100 people to the auction, 46 of whom were registered bidders at a time whereby there are few real bidders.

More Windows of Opportunities are coming ....
Start saving up if you haven't ....

The Fable / Parable Of The Earnest Do Gooders

Below is an interesting story I received and I thought that this is a fable like Aesops Fable and is also like a parable.

Both Fables and Parables illustrate a moral or religious principle / lesson.

In a Fable or Parable, the moral of the story is not stated explicitly but the story forces the reader to come to certain conclusions and lessons.

A Fable uses animals and other objects (animate or inanimate) whereas a parable generally uses human characters .

(nevertheless we still have the parable of the Mustard Seed and the Four Types Of Soil in the Bible)

The Ant And The Grasshopper

Old Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

Moral of the story:
Be responsible for yourself!

Modern Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

TV1, TV3 and Maori TV show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. New Zealand is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Good Morning with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
Green Party stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'

Labour Party Minister exclaims in an interview with John Campbell that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share as the ant is too much of a "Rich Prick."
Finally, the Labour Party drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Another party gets his law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of judges that the minister appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighbourhood.

Moral of the story:
Be VERY careful how you vote in 2008!!

Election Dates & Dilemma

NZ 2008 Election Date: Sat 8 Nov
US 2008 Election Date: Tues 4 Nov

All NZ citizens and Permanent Residents are eligible to vote.
And if we are Christians, we need to exercise our responsibility to vote - and to vote carefully because the laws governing this beautiful nation depends on who we vote into Parliament.

Those who subscribe to family friendly and Judeo-Christian policies in NZ are in a dilemma as to who to vote for. The Kiwi Party is the party that best represents Judeo-Christian values based on their stated policies as per their website.

http://thekiwiparty.org.nz/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98&Itemid=50

However, they do not as yet register in polls since they are a new party.

Small parties face a challenging task. If none of their candidates win an electoral seat, then they need to attain 5% of party votes to gain seats in the Parliament.
(see http://www.elections.org.nz/voting/mmp/two-ticks-too-easy.html).
If a minor party does not gain parliamentary seats, the votes for that party will not be re-allocated and the votes they receive will be equivalent to no votes.

For a summary of how the various parties voted on issues like prostitution, civil union, anti-smacking, lifting of drinking age etc, please see Family First website or the links below:

http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/
http://www.valueyourvote.org.nz/

Policies on Crime are not captured in the Comparison Chart.

Who will form the next government - Labour or National - depends a lot on the Party vote and their ability to form coalition.

So the dilemma is who to give the Party vote to who are family friendly - National or Kiwi Party?
According to the above website, Labour is the lowest rated family friendly party - at only 8% compared to the National Party at 54%. So if we want a more family friendly Party to form the government - the choice is clear.

As National tries to stick to principles and has declared that it would not form a coalition with NZ First (Winston Peters party), and the Greens have formally announced that they would only work with Labour Party to form a coalition, it becomes all the more crucial for National to receive a mandate to govern almost by itself.

May God bless New Zealanders to vote wisely for our future so that we are more aligned to God's values.

More Of The Word Coming To Pass

Further to the message of 22 June and Blog of 7 Aug 08, more of the word released are coming to pass in an unprecedented and dramatic way.

Below is a re-cap of the main points of Blog of 7 Aug based on 22 June message and how it has come to pass:

On 22 Jun 08, I shared during the Sunday message that it seems that the worst of the NZ economy and property market is not yet here - perhaps in 2010.

These have come to pass:

# NZ confirmed in recession

# The two projects in Orewa - Kensington Park and Whisper Cove - worth NZ$800 million are in receivership together with Zane Grey Resort (near Paihia) and the $2 billion Five Mile proposed township in Queenstown.
Today 13 Oct 08, it has been reported that the Sale of 15 farms throughout NZ failed to settle last week because of the credit crunch. This means that three farm sales a day could not be settled last week because of the credit seizure forcing buyers to walk away from their contracts forfeiting deposits of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
See http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10537169

# The global economy is in a crisis like never seen before - which was something I never imagined when I released the word.
Not only are companies in serious financial crunch, banks and countries too are not spared from the fallout.
Iceland was an epitome of success just a year ago with its people rated as the happiest people in the world (see Economist article: http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10529960).
But Iceland now is struggling with two of its main banks in receivership and the largest bank being rescued by the government (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3147866/Financial-crisis-Icelands-dreams-go-up-in-smoke.html ; http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D93MUPAG0.htm ).

Now banks are even afraid to lend to each other that the Central Banks have to step in to pump in liquidity.

I also shared earlier :

The easing of interest rate will help house owners in servicing mortgages.
But this means that the kiwi $ will be under pressure - and so has declined against other currencies. …

# Late on Wed night (8 Oct 08 midnight) when I started to prepare Sunday's message, I “happened” to have an urging (I believe it is a prompting and no coincidence) to check on the currencies. And I looked for the first time to add a currency converter gadget to my igoogle default start up webpage. As I checked the currency converter for kiwi $ to S$ at around midnight Wednesday night, to my amazement, the kiwi $ plunged 4.8 % against the S$ from S$0.92=NZ$1 to S$0.87=NZ$1. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The S$ is weakening against the US$ but the kiwi $ is weakening even further. Just 3 months ago in Jul 08, it was S$1.04=NZ$1.

I sense this is a foretaste of things to come.

I shared earlier:

The downturn in the property market has a multiplier impact on other businesses e.g. real estate agents, anything to do with houses e.g. contractors, carpets, household appliances and even restaurants. (today I just heard of a company that does concrete jobs going under). All these hit the stock market. Unemployment is up slightly.

These unfortunate events have come to pass:

# More contractors are laying off staff because of low work volume.

# Even vegetable farmers are hard hit because restaurants are not ordering as much as before and people are not eating out as often.

# NZ Stock market has fallen by about 20% in the 6 months from 3,500 in May 08 to 2,800 as of 13 Oct.
The Dow Jones from about 12,000, 6 months ago to 8,500 (now) - a massive drop of nearly 30%.

With all these grim figures and grim future, what is in store for us Christians and what can we do?

In my next blog, I will share of the preparation we can take to seize the window of opportunities that will come our way when property prices in particular start to fall from the economic fallout - though NZ may not suffer as much as other countries, but fall it will.

Testimony - Trip To Turoa Ski Field

A group of us from our church went for a trip to Ohakune, Mt Ruapehu over the last weekend.

Normally staying in a motel or chalet would cost quite a fair bit in a peak winter / Ski season.
But we were blessed to book into a bach or a holiday house which can sleep 10-11 persons for a good rate. So we praise God for the accomodation at an affordable price.
What really is a bonus to us when we arrived is that though the house didn't look impressive from the outside, it was lovely inside and it is almost brand new with all the kitchen facilities.

We praise God for that and we praise God for the good company we had.

On Sat, we had the opportunity to drive up to the Turoa Ski Field on Mt Ruapehu. It was really a scary drive up because it was foggy towards the top of the mountain and we could see barely 30m ahead. So we praise God that we all reached up there safely if not we will be up there in another dimension pre-maturely.

My daughter and I had our first lesson and first taste of skiing (try the Discover Ski package) - and again we praise God that both of us and our friend could ski and didn't fall at all. I only fell once when trying to walk in the skis for the first time. Other than that, we could ski - at least on the beginner's slope. I think being able to roller blade and ice skate does help.

We left Ohakune the next day, Sunday. We were in the I-Site (Information Site) office in Taupo when we learnt that the Turoa Ski Field was actually closed that day because of bad weather and poor visibility.

We returned Auckland that Sunday thanking the Lord for giving us the window of opportunity to go up to Turoa Ski Field on Saturday.

God is Good!!! Amen.

Faith Grows Under Pressure

Ps 86:6 Hear my prayer, O LORD?
listen to my cry for mercy.
Ps 86:7 In the day of my trouble I will call to you,
for you will answer me.

Yesterday I met a Samoan pastor for tea and he was such an encouragement to me.

He has undergone some difficult moments in his life and is really spending much time with God.
In spite of his challenging circumstances, he was smiling.

He works part-time and his wife is not working. He shared with me how tight their financial situation was. And he had to repair his van, which he uses for ministry and transporting church members around. The quote for the cost of repair came up to about $500 plus. He was praying real hard for God to provide the money.

He went witnessing and met a man who was quite receptive to the Word and to him. He turned out to be a car mechanic. In the end, this mechanic charged him $200+ for the repairs to the van.
God is good. God saved my pastor friend a tidy sum.

As he shared with me this incident, I realize how sometimes when we have enough funds, we don't really ask God and be dependent on God as much.
We would try to negotiate with the first mechanic to try to get the $500+ bill reduced.

But when we are desperate, we cry out to God.
We lean on God more and more. Praying more and more.
And in this case, God provided another way out for my pastor friend.

When we are desperate, when we are under pressure - we call out to God.
God does answer us.
And our faith is strengthened.
Our faith is strengthened under pressure.

Ps 86:12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
Ps 86:13 For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave

Learning To Relax

One thing I learn in NZ is to learn to relax.

From where I come from, life is fast paced and pressurizing.
It is about getting results.
Children go for tuition and scoring "B" or even "A" in their exams may not be good enough - after all there is "A star."
Work also is performance oriented and intense.
Even church work can get corrupted by the intensity of the work if it affects relationships.

In ministry, we must remind ourselves that achieving results at the expense of relationships will only produce short-term results and gains.
But relationships and love in the relationships will produce the desired fruit / results.
Relationships after all is also the fruit or result.

So RELAX ... and RELATE.

Then it is good to regularly REFRESH ourselves.

I am pleased to take a holiday to the snow capped mountain of Mount Ruapehu and try skiing for the first time (Oct 08).

May there be fruit after that ...

Matt 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Mt 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

God is good.