Yes, I know it's been a long time since I blogged. Apologies to all those who follow the rantings of this soon to be 40-years-young Cradle Catholic. Life has truly been an adventure.

Now in this post of mine, I just wanted to share a video made by one of St Thomas More's 11.30am choir members.

Her name is Marilyn and she hails from Philippines.

Talented in singing and music, she has really given a boost to our choir. Of late, she has contributed yet again through her initiative of creating videos of the songs we sung during mass, including the psalms.

I was really very touched by her efforts and I have nicknamed her the techno evangelist. From her actions, all the songs and psalms can now continue to touch our lives even after the mass has ended.

Especially during challenging times when we need the comfort of the Word of God in song. This is the first of her videos I am posting on my blog. Why?

Because one of our parishioners said some of the youths were very touched by this particular song when it was sung during mass last Sunday

Do take note, that Marilyn just used a tiny MP3 recorder/player to record the singing, so the quality may not be so good.

Marilyn is not the composer of the song. I just wanted to clarify as her name appeared below the song. I think this happened as she uploaded the song into Facebook and I just copied the link onto my blog. I wanted to clarify this to avoid any copyrights issues.

But you know God uses the simple and imperfect things and people to touch His people. Hope this post will bring a smile in your heart today.

Have a superbly blessed day,
Hazel

Christmas With CrisKroz - A Family Heartbeat

Last year's Christmas Battle Of the Bands champion CrisKroz is once again making waves during this Yuletide season. This time, they are launching their very first album entitled A Family Hearbeat on 3 Dec.
The official launch will be held in Wisma MAA at 3pm.

In line with the spirit of season, the album showcases 10 tracks of Christmas songs, of which two (Emmanuel and Peace He Will Bring) are original numbers written by the band's vocalist and song writer Cecelia Biggs.

CrisKroz was born as a result of the members' decision to take part in the Christmas Battle of the Bands competition held at the Central Market open arena last year.

Besides Cecelia, the group consist of Ravi Kana, who is not only keyboardist and vocalist, but also her beloved spouse. Then there's Aaron Ravi, their son and guitarist of the band. Other members are Aloysius John, who plays bass and Christopher Felix on drums.

With the RM10k competition cash prize in hand, and adding some personal savings, the group embarked on this album project, which they have dedicated to all families (thus the title of the album).

After winning the Christmas Battle Of the Bands, CrisKroz had also performed live for the Church Of Divine Mercy in the Families United concert.

Known for their unique style of Christian Praise & Worship music, their genre is classified under Contemporary Christian Gospel.

Why You Should Own This Album

Firstly, it gives a fresh prespective or twist to some golden oldies. Guess that was the element that won them the championship last year.

Second, there are not many creative Malaysian Catholics who release albums. So when they do, support them so that more talent will emerge and we will have a great pool. For so many years we have been always buying foreign and Prostestants, right? Nothing against that, but Belilah Barangan Malaysia, especially Katolik Malaysia. Isn't it fantastic?

Third, they are promoting good family values.

Fourth and most importantly, they are also supporting some charities - especially since one of them is the St Thomas More building fund... ha... ;-)

On a personal note, I'm also proud to say that two of the members are parishioners of St Thomas More and in fact one of them - the cute drummer Christopher is from our Music Ministry (girls I'm not sure if he's still available though. You gotta do some research yourself - sorry).

I've seen Chris grew up from a little boy into a young man whom God has blessed with the ability to play several instruments (drums, guitar, bass, piano... to say the least).

Aloysius is also a good friend, whose life testimony on God's providence will shock you into the faith if not anything. Besides that Aloy is also another one who plays several instruments well.

I don't really know Ravi's family that well but I'm sure they too have a compelling Faith story to share with us.

So if you guys want to know more - first get the album and then perhaps one day they might have a concert in a parish near you.

To order the albums, email: hazelong888@gmail.com

If you are from abroad (outside Malaysia), you can pay through PayPal. You can either have it shipped to you or you can buy it for someone you know in Malaysia as a Christmas present. We can include a card with your personalised message for them.

With that said, it's off to my own Christmas mass practice soon, not forgetting mass for tomorrow.

To all of you Catholic Christians out there - Have a fantastic Advent and a wonderful Christmas!!!

Cradle Catholic Talent Pool

Gosh! It has been four days since I could get time to sit in front of the laptop and blog. In fact, I got to write fast as I will be going somewhere again. That's the story of my life, especially since becoming Mrs Patrick Archibald. I'll leave it at that for now.

For this post I just wanted to share with you the recent cradle Catholic talent I discovered in Kuching. Well, his name is Nomiday Dajie (pic). A little Iban warrior in size, but a powerhouse of a person.

I first met Nomiday in St Joseph Cathedral sometime last year. That time he was assigned by my Kuching wealth advisor who is from the SIB church, to take good care of me. She asked him to make sure I felt at home during mass in Kuching - typical East Malaysian hospitality.

From the start, I could feel that Nomiday is a young man full of potential. Fast forward to the future - today he is not only my friend, he is also my new wealth advisor, but most importantly another fellow cradle Catholic.

However, today, I discovered a new talent of his - his song writing skills. If you are a youth around college or university age you may have attended the Freedom event last year, of which, Nomiday or Miday, as we call him was part of the organising team.

During that event - some of his original worship songs were sung. Way to go Miday. I'm sure you make our Lord very very proud. I heard they even sold some CDs of those songs to raise funds.

His other talents are photography and making unique and attractive flyers for his campus ministry.

Actually, I'm no stranger to East Malaysian Catholic talent since my Choice days. Through God's grace, I've learnt beautiful action songs from the Kuching team of my time. I'll definitely never forget The Road Of Our Lives, I'll Be There For You, Carry Your Candle, The Jubilee Song and others.... such fond memories indeed.

In fact, I'm quite sure even the KL Choice was using the Road of Our Lives action song during my time and many Choice weekends after that. Thanks to Felix, Linda, Sarah, Mervin and team. Wonder whether the recent KL Choice weekend did it? (if you are reading Autumn?)

Anyway, last night I met Michael Hii and his team of Faith Formators from St Peter's Church, Padungan. Here is another bunch of eager beaver Catholics, comprising both the cradle and convert species respectively.

Their commitment to serve the children and youth of their parish is indeed commendable. In fact, Michael was one of the first people who started corresponding with me after I set up this blog. He said he wanted to network cos' he wanted as many resources as possible.

Whenever, he visits Australia (and other countries) he would buy whatever Catholic books and videos that are not available in Kuching.

Sad to say I could not offer very much in terms of resources, except maybe Martin Jalleh's contact details. Unfortunately, I found out from Michael's email just now that Mr Jalleh is fully booked for the year. Now, Martin, (with his adorable sad clown eyes) is indeed another great example of Catholic talent.

During the course of the night I instead learnt so much from the St Peter's group, bringing home with me the creative booklets they made to aid their faith formation activities. This is after they fed me up, nice and well - God provides through His people indeed.

Within that group - I can see that Michael's talent is in gathering his people for their Sunday school type ministry, which they emphasised that they prefered to call Faith Formation. The other visible talent within the group is Timothy Voon, the avid photographer. Actually I would have loved to include our group photo but I have not received it yet. Tim, hope you get the hint, *wink, wink*

Btw, God is a great networker. That is why I feel the world is getting smaller by the day. In the midst of our great feasting of pork leg, midin, oh chian, steam fish and other delicious delicacies, I found out that Tim actually knows my choir mate from St Thomas More parish - Gerald Lau aka the Bun Boy.

When they found out that I'm from Subang Jaya, one of them - Faith Au Nyet Joong then revealed that she is a school mate and good friend of Cynthia (Read) Foo.

That's when the It's a Small World After All tune started playing in my mind, pretty much like a Twitlight Zone moment too.

Anyway, we had a great time feasting together - a great Malaysian hobby.

It's getting really late now, and I got to go home and sleep. So before I end, I wish all of you a blessed Divine Mercy Sunday.

If you remember my earlier post on Good Friday, you would know that the Novena for this great Feast day started the day Jesus died to save us.

May His Mercy Be Upon Us All.... (Now where is my Chaplet???)