Life's Journey with God

For the past few days, I've had a lot of questions popping up and it was hard to be present as the thoughts were taking up most of the space in my mind. This was all triggered when I came across a video on YouTube on Saturday night. It was a singer that I've known of since I was in high school. Her name is Alex G and she got married recently. Her latest song tells the story of her journey and it was to also reach out to her parents. Her question as to why she would want to ever "pray it away" causes me to think as well. Do I want my same sex attractions to go away? I don't know if I can say for sure that I want that. Sure, it brings a lot of challenges and sure, there's suffering in a different way I've never had to experience before but these are all unique experiences for me and I would like to be able to hope that in spite of that, it will help to understand and discover what love really means. See, I guess there are some things I've never r

So I've been reading a fair bit of articles on the topic of dogs today. I came across a few things one of which being the whole discussion on domestication of this species. So the history of how it happened is because a long time ago (about 12,000-33,000 years ago when dogs diverged from a now extinct wolf species), humans needed dogs to help them in herding and hunting, for an early alarm system, and as a source of food. Apparently in the ancient days, if it weren't for the help of animals, the population of the human race probably wouldn't be this huge now. So essentially, they were used to help the human species survive. It's actually quite inline with what the Church says: [CCC 2417] God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable

"We need to move from maintenance to mission mode." It's something that I've been hearing for the past one month or more from my parish priest. It's also something that I truly believe is necessary for the growth and the good of the Church. "I dream of a missionary option, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today's world rather than for her self-preservation." —Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 24 November 2013 3 months ago, I embarked on my first ever mission trip to Europe, specifically through the cities of Istanbul, Paris, Berlin and some parts of Poland. I never thought I would one day be a part of a mission trip as the idea seemed so far away to me. How could God ever use me when I feel so unequipped and carry brokenness in me?

You know, now that I am working, I tend to look back at the times when I wasn't feeling any pressure, just enjoying my time with family. Reminiscing back on the most recent trip I took back in April, I decided why not write about my trip and share this itinerary with everyone. After all, I know how much people in my generation love to plan their own trip rather than seeking the services of a travel agency. When I first pitched the idea of going to Australia to my dad (because we've never been out of South East Asia), he wasn't too keen on it because of the exchange rates and money we had to fork for the four of us. What was good was that last year, I managed to search for cheap tickets from Air Asia to Perth for just RM565 per person round trip from Malaysia. Because it was so affordable, we decided to just go for it and hence, begun my planning. Day 1 Midnight flight from KUL which meant we arrived in PER early morning. A Toyota Corolla was booked beforehand thro

So I recently traveled to Perth and around WA for about 9 days. It was important for me to have a steady connection throughout as we would be driving all over. Instead of getting Optus or Telstra temporary data SIM cards which do offer great packages for short stays, I thought why not get a portable WiFi which could be shared among my family members? Since I work for an online travel agency, Wonderfly, I automatically knew of Roamingman which was a new and up and coming company that provides WiFi service to over 100 countries in the different continents. If you visit our  website  here, it cost only RM26/day for Australia and New Zealand though depending on where you're travelling, you can get it from as low as RM15/day! It's pretty simple to use; just treat it like any other powerbank you have. As much as 5 different users can connect to one but it's better if it's limited to just 3 as the power can also be lasted throughout the day and the speed will pro

Here's a post that will divert from my usual (which are usually about my feelings, experiences, setbacks and well, God!)  to talk about my food journey today! So this morning we started our journey to Klang from Shah Alam at 9 plus. We reached the famous Mee Hoon Kuih restaurant at about 9.40am. Fatty Mee Hoon Kuih House, located in Berkeley, opens at 9.30am. Andrea and I, waiting for our food. Only RM4.50 per bowl with an additional 70 cents for an egg. We had a review of all the food we ate and for this mee hoon kuih noodles, this is what we rated: Rachel - 7/10 Nothing special about it save for the clear soup and cheap price. Andrea - 6.5/10 The service was slow so don't go there hungry. You will come back hangry. The food that came didn't compensate for the total time waiting. Next, we went to try out beef noodles which was only a few restaurants away! Cheong Kee Restaurant, also in Taman Berkeley. We ordered beef stomach a