Saturday, August 22, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Practical steps needed to check H1N1
Thursday August 20, 2009
I CAN understand the Health Ministry’s urgent and all-out attempts to get public cooperation in containing the spread of the A (H1N1) flu. To date, the disease has claimed an unproportionate number of lives and as such, all citizens should be truly concerned and do their part.
But is it practical to fine and/or imprison those with flu-like illness (ILI) symptoms but are found not wearing face masks?
How is the enforcement to be carried out? Who are going to catch the defaulters – the police or health officials? Don’t forget we have problems even to catch smokers in designated non-smoking areas. Also, those who litter are rarely reprimanded in spite of our anti-littering laws.
I can’t imagine how the whole process of identifying and confirming the sick can be done in public places or on the streets.
We are told that the ministry is hard pressed to provide sufficient medical personnel to handle all the suspected cases in hospitals and clinics and leave for medical staff has been frozen.
Now, we are talking about putting enforcers in public places to detect and catch those who are sick but not wearing face masks.
Are these enforcers to be equipped with thermometers, flu detectors or what? Or are all the suspects to be brought back to hospital for confirmation, adding to the already big crowd there? How sick does one have to be in order to be considered guilty for not wearing a face mask?
If a person is sick and indeed very sick, shouldn’t he be hospitalised rather than being sent to prison when he is unable or refuses to pay the fine? Also, to put these sick people in prison for not wearing masks, are we not risking infecting the whole prison?
If it becomes widespread in the prison, are we going to close the prison and send all the inmates home, just like we do for our schools and institutions of learning? Our prisons are said to be always overcrowded, so separate quarantine rooms are out of the question.
We should stop all these knee-jerk reactions and be more proactive and innovative in ways that are practical!
In this context, please look into how the hospital and clinical medical staff can render more speedy and effective treatment to all those who seek help.
It is not accurate to say that those infected were late in seeking hospital treatment. It is more accurate to say that the hospital delayed treatment for them. How many who sought treatment were first sent home only to be re-admitted when their conditions deteriorated?
In this critical time, the minister and his director-general should make more visits and get first-hand information on how exactly their medical staff is handling and coping with the situation on the ground in hospitals and clinics all over the country.
LIONG KAM CHONG,
Seremban.
I CAN understand the Health Ministry’s urgent and all-out attempts to get public cooperation in containing the spread of the A (H1N1) flu. To date, the disease has claimed an unproportionate number of lives and as such, all citizens should be truly concerned and do their part.
But is it practical to fine and/or imprison those with flu-like illness (ILI) symptoms but are found not wearing face masks?
How is the enforcement to be carried out? Who are going to catch the defaulters – the police or health officials? Don’t forget we have problems even to catch smokers in designated non-smoking areas. Also, those who litter are rarely reprimanded in spite of our anti-littering laws.
I can’t imagine how the whole process of identifying and confirming the sick can be done in public places or on the streets.
We are told that the ministry is hard pressed to provide sufficient medical personnel to handle all the suspected cases in hospitals and clinics and leave for medical staff has been frozen.
Now, we are talking about putting enforcers in public places to detect and catch those who are sick but not wearing face masks.
Are these enforcers to be equipped with thermometers, flu detectors or what? Or are all the suspects to be brought back to hospital for confirmation, adding to the already big crowd there? How sick does one have to be in order to be considered guilty for not wearing a face mask?
If a person is sick and indeed very sick, shouldn’t he be hospitalised rather than being sent to prison when he is unable or refuses to pay the fine? Also, to put these sick people in prison for not wearing masks, are we not risking infecting the whole prison?
If it becomes widespread in the prison, are we going to close the prison and send all the inmates home, just like we do for our schools and institutions of learning? Our prisons are said to be always overcrowded, so separate quarantine rooms are out of the question.
We should stop all these knee-jerk reactions and be more proactive and innovative in ways that are practical!
In this context, please look into how the hospital and clinical medical staff can render more speedy and effective treatment to all those who seek help.
It is not accurate to say that those infected were late in seeking hospital treatment. It is more accurate to say that the hospital delayed treatment for them. How many who sought treatment were first sent home only to be re-admitted when their conditions deteriorated?
In this critical time, the minister and his director-general should make more visits and get first-hand information on how exactly their medical staff is handling and coping with the situation on the ground in hospitals and clinics all over the country.
LIONG KAM CHONG,
Seremban.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
God Never Sends You Out Alone
by Max Lucado
When you place your faith in Christ, Christ places his Spirit before, behind, and within you. Not a strange spirit, but the same Spirit: the parakletos. Everything Jesus did for his followers, his Spirit does for you. Jesus taught; the Spirit teaches. Jesus healed; the Spirit heals. Jesus comforted; his Spirit comforts. As Jesus sends you into new seasons, he sends his counselor to go with you.
God treats you the way one mother treated her young son, Timmy. She didn’t like the thought of Timmy walking to his first-grade class unaccompanied. But he was too grown-up to be seen with his mother. “Besides,” he explained, “I can walk with a friend.” So she did her best to stay calm, quoting the Twenty-third Psalm to him every morning: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”
One school day she came up with an idea. She asked a neighbor to follow Timmy to school in the mornings, staying at a distance, lest he notice her. The neighbor was happy to oblige. She took her toddler on morning walks anyway.
After several days Timmy’s friend noticed the lady and the child.
“Do you know who that woman is who follows us to school?”
“Sure,” Timmy answered. “That’s Shirley Goodnest and her daughter Marcy.”
“Who?”
“My mom reads about them every day in the Twenty-third Psalm. She says, ‘Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ Guess I’ll have to get used to them.”
You will too. God never sends you out alone. Are you on the eve of change? Do you find yourself looking into a new chapter? Is the foliage of your world showing signs of a new season? Heaven’s message for you is clear: when everything else changes, God presence never does. You journey in the company of the Holy Spirit, who “will teach you and will remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:26 NLT).
From
Fearless
© (Thomas Nelson, 2009),
Max Lucado
When you place your faith in Christ, Christ places his Spirit before, behind, and within you. Not a strange spirit, but the same Spirit: the parakletos. Everything Jesus did for his followers, his Spirit does for you. Jesus taught; the Spirit teaches. Jesus healed; the Spirit heals. Jesus comforted; his Spirit comforts. As Jesus sends you into new seasons, he sends his counselor to go with you.
God treats you the way one mother treated her young son, Timmy. She didn’t like the thought of Timmy walking to his first-grade class unaccompanied. But he was too grown-up to be seen with his mother. “Besides,” he explained, “I can walk with a friend.” So she did her best to stay calm, quoting the Twenty-third Psalm to him every morning: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”
One school day she came up with an idea. She asked a neighbor to follow Timmy to school in the mornings, staying at a distance, lest he notice her. The neighbor was happy to oblige. She took her toddler on morning walks anyway.
After several days Timmy’s friend noticed the lady and the child.
“Do you know who that woman is who follows us to school?”
“Sure,” Timmy answered. “That’s Shirley Goodnest and her daughter Marcy.”
“Who?”
“My mom reads about them every day in the Twenty-third Psalm. She says, ‘Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ Guess I’ll have to get used to them.”
You will too. God never sends you out alone. Are you on the eve of change? Do you find yourself looking into a new chapter? Is the foliage of your world showing signs of a new season? Heaven’s message for you is clear: when everything else changes, God presence never does. You journey in the company of the Holy Spirit, who “will teach you and will remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:26 NLT).
From
Fearless
© (Thomas Nelson, 2009),
Max Lucado
Monday, August 17, 2009
Make Friends With Whatever’s Next
by Max Lucado
Embrace it. Accept it. Don’t resist it. Change is not only a part of life; change is a necessary part of God’s strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments. Gideon: from farmer to general; Mary: from peasant girl to the mother of Christ; Paul: from local rabbi to world evangelist. God transitioned Joseph from a baby brother to an Egyptian prince. He changed David from a a shepherd to a king. Peter wanted to fish the Sea of Galilee. God called him to lead the first church. God makes reassignments.
But, someone might ask, what about the tragic changes God permits? Some seasons make no sense…do such moments serve a purpose?
They do if we see them from an eternal perspective. What makes no sense in this life will make perfect sense in the next. I have proof: you in the womb.
I know you don’t remember this prenatal season, so let me remind you what happened during it. Every gestation day equipped you for your earthly life. Your bones solidified, your eyes developed, the umbilical cord transported nutrients into your growing frame…for what reason? So you might remain enwombed? Quite the contrary. Womb time equipped you for earth time, suited you up for your postpartum existence.
Some prenatal features went unused before birth. You grew a nose but didn’t breathe. Eyes developed, but could you see? Your tongue, toenails, and crop of hair served no function in your mother’s belly. But aren’t you glad you have them now?
Certain chapters in this life seem so unnecessary, like nostrils on the preborn. Suffering. Loneliness. Disease. Holocausts. Martyrdom. Monsoons. If we assume this world exists just for pregrave happiness, these atrocities disqualify it from doing so. But what if this earth is the womb? Might these challenges, severe as they may be, serve to prepare us, equip us for the world to come? As Paul wrote, “These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing” (2 Cor. 4:17 CEV).
From
Fearless
© (Thomas Nelson, 2009),
Max Lucado
Embrace it. Accept it. Don’t resist it. Change is not only a part of life; change is a necessary part of God’s strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments. Gideon: from farmer to general; Mary: from peasant girl to the mother of Christ; Paul: from local rabbi to world evangelist. God transitioned Joseph from a baby brother to an Egyptian prince. He changed David from a a shepherd to a king. Peter wanted to fish the Sea of Galilee. God called him to lead the first church. God makes reassignments.
But, someone might ask, what about the tragic changes God permits? Some seasons make no sense…do such moments serve a purpose?
They do if we see them from an eternal perspective. What makes no sense in this life will make perfect sense in the next. I have proof: you in the womb.
I know you don’t remember this prenatal season, so let me remind you what happened during it. Every gestation day equipped you for your earthly life. Your bones solidified, your eyes developed, the umbilical cord transported nutrients into your growing frame…for what reason? So you might remain enwombed? Quite the contrary. Womb time equipped you for earth time, suited you up for your postpartum existence.
Some prenatal features went unused before birth. You grew a nose but didn’t breathe. Eyes developed, but could you see? Your tongue, toenails, and crop of hair served no function in your mother’s belly. But aren’t you glad you have them now?
Certain chapters in this life seem so unnecessary, like nostrils on the preborn. Suffering. Loneliness. Disease. Holocausts. Martyrdom. Monsoons. If we assume this world exists just for pregrave happiness, these atrocities disqualify it from doing so. But what if this earth is the womb? Might these challenges, severe as they may be, serve to prepare us, equip us for the world to come? As Paul wrote, “These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing” (2 Cor. 4:17 CEV).
From
Fearless
© (Thomas Nelson, 2009),
Max Lucado
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Death: Because of Christ, You Can Face It.
by Max Lucado
As heart surgeries go, mine was far from the riskiest. But any procedure that requires four hours of probes inside your heart is enough to warrant an added prayer. So on the eve of my surgery, Denalyn, I, and some kind friends offered our share. We were staying at a hotel adjacent to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. We asked God to bless the doctors and watch over the nurses. After we chatted a few minutes, they wished me well and said good-bye. I needed to go to bed early. But before I could sleep, I wanted to offer one more prayer…alone.
I took the elevator down to the lobby and found a quiet corner and began to think. What if the surgery goes awry? What if this is my final night on earth? Is there anyone with whom I should make my peace? Do I need to phone any person and make amends? I couldn’t think of anyone. (So if you are thinking I should have called you, sorry. Perhaps we should talk.)
Next I wrote letters to my wife and daughters, each beginning with the sentence “If you are reading this, something went wrong in the surgery.”
Then God and I had the most honest of talks. We began with a good review of my first half century. The details would bore you, but they entertained us. I thanked him for grace beyond measure and for a wife who descended from the angels. My tabulation of blessings could have gone on all night and threatened to do just that. So I stopped and offered this prayer: I’m in good hands, Lord. The doctors are prepared; the staff is experienced. But even with the best of care, things happen. This could be my final night in this version of life, and I’d like you to know, if that’s the case, I’m okay.
And I went to bed. And slept like a baby. As things turned out, I recovered from the surgery, and here I am, strong as ever, still pounding away at the computer keyboard. One thing is different, though. This matter of dying bravely?
I think I will.
May you do the same.
As heart surgeries go, mine was far from the riskiest. But any procedure that requires four hours of probes inside your heart is enough to warrant an added prayer. So on the eve of my surgery, Denalyn, I, and some kind friends offered our share. We were staying at a hotel adjacent to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. We asked God to bless the doctors and watch over the nurses. After we chatted a few minutes, they wished me well and said good-bye. I needed to go to bed early. But before I could sleep, I wanted to offer one more prayer…alone.
I took the elevator down to the lobby and found a quiet corner and began to think. What if the surgery goes awry? What if this is my final night on earth? Is there anyone with whom I should make my peace? Do I need to phone any person and make amends? I couldn’t think of anyone. (So if you are thinking I should have called you, sorry. Perhaps we should talk.)
Next I wrote letters to my wife and daughters, each beginning with the sentence “If you are reading this, something went wrong in the surgery.”
Then God and I had the most honest of talks. We began with a good review of my first half century. The details would bore you, but they entertained us. I thanked him for grace beyond measure and for a wife who descended from the angels. My tabulation of blessings could have gone on all night and threatened to do just that. So I stopped and offered this prayer: I’m in good hands, Lord. The doctors are prepared; the staff is experienced. But even with the best of care, things happen. This could be my final night in this version of life, and I’d like you to know, if that’s the case, I’m okay.
And I went to bed. And slept like a baby. As things turned out, I recovered from the surgery, and here I am, strong as ever, still pounding away at the computer keyboard. One thing is different, though. This matter of dying bravely?
I think I will.
May you do the same.
Monday, August 10, 2009
WATCH & PRAY
Dear brothers & sisters in Christ.
The A H1N1 flu pandemic is spreading like wildfire.
Please be vigilant, pray and take proactive steps to protect yourselves and your family & friends.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/
The A H1N1 flu pandemic is spreading like wildfire.
Please be vigilant, pray and take proactive steps to protect yourselves and your family & friends.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/
Saturday, August 1, 2009
We Shall Meet on that Beautiful Shore
The mother of our beloved Elder, Lim Swee Boon has gone to be with the Lord today.
Official memorial: Sunday, 2 August @ 8pm
Funeral: Monday, 3 August @ 10am
.
Official memorial: Sunday, 2 August @ 8pm
Funeral: Monday, 3 August @ 10am
.
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