Under Trial for Believing.

Anila and Perveen
(these names have been changed to protect the individual and their families)
17 and 18 years old
Pakistan
1997

Anila met Perveen at school. As their friendship grew, Anila gave Perveen a Bible and taught her Christian songs. Perveen quickly learned Christian songs and began to teach to her younger sister when her parents weren’t at home. Perveen’s parents soon learned of the songs. Being strict Muslims, they were not happy about them. But rather than confronting Perveen right away, they had her younger sister try to find out where she was getting this Christian influence.

Anila eventually invited Perveen to a Good Friday service. When the young Muslim heard the Gospel presentation, she immediately accepted Jesus. Perveen became very excited about her new relationship with Jesus and saw great changes take place n her life. She read her Bible and praised God boldly. Anila knew that, before long, her friend would encounter opposition from her family.

Perveen’s parents were furious when they learned of her conversion. They had previously arranged for her to marry a Muslim man. When Perveen again refused, she ran away.

When Perveen’s parents could not find her, they accused Anila and her pastor of kidnapping her. They had Anila arrested. Anila was slapped and beaten in front of her parents for over nine hours. Finally she was taken to prison.

Anila’s pastor and his family were taken to prison on the following day. Anila and her pastor experienced horrible tortures in jail. She was whipped sixteen times (five times would make a normal man pass out). When they were released, Anila could not sit for two months, and her pastor could barely walk from the bruises on his hips and thighs.

Perveen was later found by her family. In Muslim nations, children are often severely beaten for converting to Christianity. Others are killed by their own parents or siblings for apostasy, converting to another faith.

To restore the honor of his family, Perveen’s brother stabbed her to death. He then turned himself in to the local authorities. As is not uncommon in such situations, he was eventually released without incident.

Anila was then arrested on charges of kidnapping.

She was imprisoned, then released on bail a little more than a month later. She and her family went into hiding as their lives were threatened by radical Muslims.

In May 1999, Anila was acquitted of all charges. Praise God for the prayers of faithful believers around the world! Continue to pray for her protection as she remains in hiding.

“I have seen the world,” Anila said, “and it has nothing good. Jesus is my only peace.”

_______________________________________________________

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of other, similar stories that are never told of Christian children and teens being killed by their Muslim parents. Jesus said this would happen:

Matthew 10:21-22
Brothers will give their own brothers to be killed, and fathers will give their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and have them put to death. All people will hate you because you follow me, but those people who keep their faith until the end will be saved.


What does believing in Jesus mean to you?


*This story has been taken from dcTalk’s book: Jesus Freaks and the Voice of the Martyrs.
Visit www.jesusfreaks.net and www.persecution.com for more details.

The Magic of Make-Up

This was taken before our Drama last Friday. Thanks to Joanne Tan for the make-up. Don't I look pretty? Hehe.

I always see girls taking pics of themselves like this. So I thought of trying it out myself haha.

Seductive or Vomit-Inducing?

=)

Drama: Gay Cinderella

Last Friday we had a Drama Presentation in our College HICT. It was one of our English assignments. So yea, my group was headed by Simon Kong and we came together and agreed on doing Gay Cinderella as in Happy Cinderella. It was a distorted version of the childhood story haha. However it was really nice and interesting. After about two months of practice, the day finally came for us to go and present on stage. We were among the 5 five groups to present in the auditorium last Friday.

Just a brief sypnosis about our Drama. Cinderella goes to the ball, bla bla bla. Fairy Godmother gets kidnapped by The Joker (?) and asks for a ransom. In the end, Cinderella reveals that he is a man and the Prince Charming is a woman (?) haha. Another twist was at the ball Romeo came and wanted to bring Cinderella away because he mistaken Cinderella as Juliet. The after much fighting and singing, Juliet came out and whacked Romeo and brought him home.

The fun part was the cross dressing. I wore this really nice purple dress and it fits nicely on me. I bet the girls were mad at me because I had such good body shape for a nice dress. And the funnest part of the whole drama was at the end when we got the whole auditorium to stand up and dance with us to the song Pretty Woman!

The guys were shouting and molesting me haha. The best dress and make up was The Joker played by Simon Kong. Look at the pics and you will see.

The cast:
Zlwin Chew as Cinderella
Simon Kong as The Joker
Jolene Tan as Prince Charming
Qayyum as Romeo
Syakirah as Juliet
Kevin Lee as Small Sister
Desmond as Big Sister
Wei Keat as Step Mother
Hong Guan as Royal Servant


Special Thanks to Joanne Tan and Kenneth Oh for the make up.

Simon Kong as The Joker. The pink tie and purple shirt belongs to me.

The cast.

Sexy Mama in the middle haha.

The Joker with Romeo.

Prince Charming with Syakirah.

The Joker with Cinderella haha.

Joanne and Kenneth the make up artists.

Of Ghost and Being a Magician...

I got my Ghost Decks quite some time ago. Ordered it from the supplier from the US. This is a really cool looking deck but you won’t be seeing me doing magic with this deck though haha because it is expensive and too good to be used =) However if I do have another Ghost deck, then I will use one and keep the other one haha. One cool thing about this deck is the color, all the pips on the hearts and diamonds are colored blood red, which contrasts the all white card and this gives a really good look to the cards. Awesome! There is another version out there called the Ghost Deck Second Edition which is black in color, something like the Shadow Masters but different. Plan to add that to my collection soon =)

I do not do much card magic because there are much greater effects out there involving many other items such as coins, balls, pens, watches, rings and so so so many more. I am more into stage magic and I love playing with silks a lot =)

One more note to everyone out there. Please do not think of magic as a cheap art. Do not view magicians as schemers or tricksters. There are a lot of people out there who tarnished the once respected art of magic because of their lack of knowledge. People think that they are magicians if they hold a deck of cards and know some cool “tricks”. However I want to tell you that being a magician is more than that. We dedicate ourselves to this art and we practice a lot before even doing one trick. There is a Korean magician who isolated himself for two years on a hilltop in Korea just to practice and perfect his coin magic. And for two whole years his only friends were his coins. Now he is a renown magician in Korea.

As for me, I do practice a lot before I even attempt to show the trick to my magician friends who already know how it is done. Just to let you know, I did a 50 minute show in my college’s Christian Fellowship camp the other day. I practiced for three weeks for that 50 minutes show.

So please do take us magicians seriously and do not think of us as people who just want to fool others. We spend a lot of time and money in our hobby. Magic is like playing music in a band, or kicking the ball in the field, or taking photographs and constantly upgrading your camera. Magic is just like all those hobbies but it is much more… Magic is an art.

See you soon for a magical experience. Tata! =)

The Ghost Deck. What I love about it (among many other things) is that all the pips on the Hearts and Diamonds card are colored BLOOD RED. So nice. Look at the King of Hearts.

Saw the Red color pips? So nice. It gives a feel to the all white cards.

It fans well also (because it is new). And I am not good in fanning haha.

The Aces. Oh so cool! Plus the Joker. Wow.

Next on my list is Ghost Deck Second Edition!!! Woo hoo. It is in black and more new features.

Where Have They Gone To?

It is really a sad thing to see Christians leaving the church to go join another church. I have been growing up in Grace Assembly and have remained faithful to my church ever since. Throughout the years I have seen many people leave the church only to attend another church which was obviously much more “happening” and “hyped up” and “cool”. It is even sad to see leaders who once were once so committed leave the church.

What were their reasons?

There are many reasons that contribute to this “migration”. Some of the common ones are the politics in church. They do not like the leadership system in the church therefore they saw it fit to leave. Another common reason is those who leave feels that they are not able to grow in the church. One more reason is they do not see any growth in the church.

And the list goes on… Yada yada yada…

I could not help but to agree with the fact that there is no one perfect church. However I will say that we all know that there are churches which are much more “happening”. This is a fact. Some of the youths in other churches are enjoying their youth activities more than some churches. Youth groups in different churches have different “attractions” and the grass is always greener on the other side.

I am going to pour out my heartaches now. I cannot help it anymore but to tell everyone how sad am I to see many of the youths in my church leaving just to attend other churches which are more “happening”. This is not a case of control over the youths but this is a serious matter to deal with. They may have good reasons to leave but there is never a right reason to leave the church without trying to do anything to change the situation first.

To those who have left for another church and to those who are thinking of leaving I ask you these questions:

1. Have you prayed for your church? If yes, how much? How desperate are you to see a change in your church?
2. Have you tried being the change instead of changing the people around you?
3. Have you approached your pastors and talk to them? If yes, have you tried working alongside them to see a change?

So far all the ones that left the church move on to churches which are much bigger and churches who have more cool activities for the youths. Note this, I have NEVER EVER seen youths who left their church only to go to churches which are LESS happening or I could say smaller churches – NEVER.

However I do not want to blame the youths only. The church leaders should also get their act together and start doing the right thing in order to see growth. If they realize and know that there are a lot of youths leaving the church, they should really start praying and asking God what have they done and not done.

My few last words:

If it is really God's call for you to leave then by all means do leave. And it is not hard for one who walks with God to discern whether another person's leaving is by divine appointment or not.

You got to be the change you want to see in your church. And you got to get on your knees and really cry. If not, there is NO reason for you to leave the church.

HOW SELFISH COULD YOU BE TO ABANDON YOUR CHURCH, LET THE CHURCH DIE AND TO GO TO SERVE THE SAME GOD IN ANOTHER CHURCH...