It’s About Time

Today, while driving to Jismyl’s school to fetch her home, Amanda asked while we’re at the traffic light (cross-junction), “where is Jesus?”  To which I replied, “Jesus is in heaven.”  “Where is heaven?” she followed up. “Well, heaven is above but more importantly, it is where Jesus and God is.”

“I want to go to heaven.” Amanda said on her own accord.  “How do you get to heaven?” I asked, wondering if she knew the answer. She said, “Believe in Jesus.”  I said, “Yes, you need to believe in Jesus in order to get to heaven.”

“Well, the Bible says that we must believe in Him, and importantly, we must know that we are sinners, and need Him to forgive us of our sins, and believe that He died for our sins. Believe that if we trust in Jesus, He will save us.” I explained.  ”Do you want to do that?”  After pausing for awhile (the traffic light turns green in our favor and I drove on).

“Yes” she said. So I led her to pray the modified version of sinners’ prayer and she did. After which I told her about John 3:16; 14:3 (both verses she knew).

The background that led to this conversation is that she attends Shalom BP kindergarten which is 10 minutes drive from our home.  Since last year she was exposed to the Gospel presentation during their chapel sessions.  In fact, she asked several times, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”  We answered her duly but no further we weren’t sure if she was trying to impress us with facts that she gained or what.  Furthermore we didn’t want to rush just to extract a “conversion” since she was almost 4 years of age then.  However, we were sure she is thinking about the subject and periodic coverage of the Gospel continually either in kindergarten or our church’s Sunday school.

Today, at chapel (Friday afternoon is chapel time where a pastoral staff will teach the children); I suppose the teacher/preacher covered the topic of heaven, thus the question that she raised to me.  And the rest was that she prayed after me.

As we reach Jismyl’s school gate, I told Amanda that perhaps she would like to tell her mommy that she has believed in Jesus.  She said, “Mommy would say, ‘wow!’”  True enough, that’s what came out of Jismyl’s mouth.

Of course, we can only ascertain later on in her life for evidence of salvation.  Right now, we’re glad that she understands much more than she did earlier – that Jesus died for her sins; heaven is for those who have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior.

Yamaha FG512-II

Finally, my faithful Yamaha FG-512-II was sold last Saturday after listing it on AdPost for several months.  It appears that when I have given up hope on selling it that response started coming in.  The same happened when I listed my Ovation Custom Legend 1117 last year.

In this particular case, one person sms me when I was in Harbin.  Nothing came out of this query. The next person sms almost the next day. He was a bit elusive in that he doesn’t reply to sms immediately.  So we played a bit of “sms-tag”  along the way. A few times we couldn’t meet up due to scheduling conflicts mainly on my end.  So think that it’s going to have the same ending, I sms to see if he is still interested. Surprisingly he was still interested in it.  So we met up and quickly agreed on the price.

So after having been with me since 1981, this Yamaha FG-512II was sold to another person.  Why did I want to sell it?  Well, the main reason is that of maintenance. It costs more to restring the guitar; it cost more time to tune all 12 strings (though with electronic tuner the task was simplified).  Besides, the bridge had cracked at the end of last year’s Children’s Day Camp. Malcolm the luthier glued it with superglue (of sorts) and it held.  So not knowing when the crack will surface again, I decided to offload this guitar.  Thankfully this man will use the guitar often since he bought it because he wanted to start playing again.

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

Dr Seuss

In the past, it was hard to modify a guitar unless you’re prepared to face the consequence of an attempt gone wrong (ie, guitar got damaged in the process).  Singapore wasn’t really a place where one could fiddle with his guitar and learn lots out of it. Besides, spare parts or special tools weren’t available. Well, I was unaware of how much guitar retail scene has changed all these years until late 2008.

Never know anything about guitar set up until last year. Imagine that I’ve been playing guitar since 12 and owned several guitars over the years though most if not were al-cheapos.  Always thought that acoustic or steel strings guitars are what you see is what you get. Thanks to internet that I learned much about it.

Anyway, I was glad to have found a guitar tech to take care of my Yamaha FG512-II 12 strings about 2 years ago. However, I realized only recently that somethings he did then to my guitar was not right.  Instead of adjusting the action via nut or saddle and heating the truss rod because it was bent. He sandpapered the bridge instead. Learned later from the luthir it’s a no-no to sand a bridge.  Well, it’s a lesson learned.

During the last quarter of the year, while searching for something, I found Malcolm Tan (visit http://www.mtlutherie.com/) .  He was a trained luthier and had worked in China to help kick start a Taiwanese guitar company.  He returned to Singapore a couple of years ago. Set up his own ’shop’ at home.  Anyway, found out that he is a Christian. Always a plus because you can at least know that he will honor his work.  Plus he lives much closer to my home so that saves me a bundle and time since I don’t have to drive to Downtown to get some guitar service.

More importantly, I have gotten to know Malcolm a little better as a person and appreciate his work ethics.  I’ve been very pleased with his workmanship having sent my Yamaha FG512-II for repairs; Ovation 97 Parlor and 1116 Concert for servicing and upgrades.

Only today, I sent him my Yamaha LJ-16 for setup and upgrades from tusq to bone straddle and nut. Looking forward to hear how much difference in tone quality has improved with straddle and nut upgrades.

Last week was “Kaka-Frenzy” week for Manchester City as well as AC Milan.  What intrigues me was not so much the amount offered to get Kaka to cross over from Italy to UK, but the person himself.

It was said that Kaka is a devout evangelical Christian.  He also claimed to be a radical because he goes against the flow so to speak.  Apparently he has conviction and strive to live accordingly. Well,it’s refreshing to read of such a person given the notorious lifestyle of highly paid sports stars.

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy. — Isaac Newton