Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Christ showed us how to Love

Dear All,

Yukyin just hanged up a call with her mum.

I don't know how to describe the situation, but her mum is a very sad person. She does not receive a lot of support from her husband or should I say that she does not receive any at all. She is lacking love, appreciation, kindness, attention... anyway, what should be standard care from any marriage.

We don't really know what to do, how to help her, the only thing we can try to do is to show her our love between us, and pour some in her life. I don't think that we have the perfect concept of love. But with Christ as our model, I don't think we can grow wrong.

It is written:

"22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."


Ephesians 5:22-33

Before my marriage, these words have been complete mystery... :D I really thank Yukyin and the Holy Spirit for showing such patience with me. Explaining this short extract would request too much time that I don't have... and besides, I don't know if I am the right one to do so. But, I can share with you the way I love Yukyin.

As stated, Love is something husband is responsible of giving to his wife, it's not the other way around. I love Yukyin from the bottom of my heart, I am willing to give my life for her as Christ gave His life for me. I am willing to make her holy as Christ made us holy by sacrificing for us. I love her as I love myself. That's pretty much the way I see it, it's pretty funny that God give this commandment to man, as we are quite clumsy when it comes to speak about feelings and emotions. But I assure you that it's not too late, there are ways to learn how to please and love your partner, and for the one that already live a great love, I pray that it continues to be that way and that God bless your marriage.

Wive is to submit herself to the husband. To be honest, at first, I was quite chocked by these words as I was only thinking about submission as a master and slave relation. Man and Woman have been created equals in the eyes of God, how can He use such a word then? In fact, if He can't be wrong, I am the one to be wrong. Submission as stated here is a induced submission (not sure if I sounds English). Yukyin answers to my love by submitting herself to me. I don't get it by force or by any form of wicked manner, I receive and appreciate the joys of her love because at first, I love her. If your husband does not love as you would like him to do, then, maybe that's your requirements that are too high. Learn how to appreciate him.

There is too much things to be said about this topic, too much to be written here, if you are still single, Love is far from easy, so don't spend too much time dreaming about it... :) if you have a partner, I pray that God gives you wings to love each other.

To get back to my mother in law, I want to profit of this post as a call to prayer, I know that there is a lot of people suffering everywhere in this world, but if you have the time, just 20 seconds, I want to ask you to pray for her, God will certainly bless you as you do so.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Pictures!

Hey, it's been a long time since I haven't shot anything with my camera. Lately, I went to the Flower Show in Hong Kong, it's the third time I think... and this year was crowded as ever. A lot of people with different type of camera, from cheap cameraphone, to expensive digital medium format. Seriously, it's the global financial turmoil but I don't think it has any impact on Hong Kong photographer market.

Anyway, after this year outing, I have a clearer view of how I handle this show and the type of pictures I make:
-Even if I go with somebody, at a moment, we got separated and spend almost all the time alone, sitting at the border of the flower. So I might need to go twice, once for my pictures and another time with Yukyin and make memories.
-A flash is unnecessary, I brought mine this year, but it was a stupid idea, if it's sunny, there will be enough light. Also, flash is a bit hard to mix with daylight to my taste. (maybe it's the fact that I lack of experience). Heavy and bulky, better stay home.
-A tripod is optional. I don't have one and my friends did not bring his. It's heavy, cumbersome and you can't really reach high magnification with macro lens (the front element needs to be just some 5cm from the subject).
-Go sooner... the sooner, the fresher, in my pictures, the flower's heart is barely opened. On the pictures of my colleague, two days later, everything is totally open even already dry. So, if the weather forecast is sunny, go sooner. Also go early, in order to avoid the crowd... but it's relative, a lot of people, a lot of camera, a lot of damn tripods everywhere... But, you won't be able to see much bugs if it's too soon... Like me... so I will go bug hunting another time.
-Take a water spray. I saw a lot of people do that, it gives a good effect, I like it, :) will arrange something next time.
-Take macro lenses only. That's for my type of photography. I usually only do close-up. But, any telephoto is a good choice, for close-up at a long distance with a good bokeh. Going further than 300mm is a nonsense to me... There is no way you can shoot anything with so much range among the crowd. Though, if you go with somebody who wants to be taken with a lot of flowers... IMHO, it's not the right place, too many people.

Anyway, that's the few things I have made for this outing.

Following are the pictures I want to share with you:

One Among Thousands
One Among Thousands
I really like the flower canopy effect that gives the telephoto lenses. :)

Nest
Nest

The petals are slowly opening to show a growing heart, little tentacles reaching out for sunlight.


Soft as Silk
Soft as silk

I really like the way the petal flows like a layer of silk underneath the heart of the flower.

And to finish:

Growing Together
Growing Together
Because it reminds me our couple. We are both growing together under the God's light.

Hope that you enjoyed ;)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

5 Years!

Dear All,

Just a quick post to say that we have been walking together for 5 long years and we pray that we will be holding hands for years to come.

Not much of a program, just went to our usual French style restaurant in Pacific Place. Great place, great value for those looking for some mid priced French meal.

Coincidentally, today was baby's 20 week check-up. Baby is doing fine, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 kidneys, one liver, lungs, heart etc... everything is going smoothly. :)

Today was the first time somebody let his seat to Yukyin!!! Many thanks to that guy! we were moving into a crowdy MTR car and there was no seats anymore, somebody noticed how painful she was feeling and let his seat to her. Dear God, I pray that you bless this guy!

However, I recognize that it is not that easy to see if someone is pregnant, especially Yukyin as her tummy is quite "hidden". It happened to a lot of people, we are not sure that the lady is pregnant and completely afraid of doing something real wrong... :(

Last thing, does anybody knows how it cost to save cord blood from the baby? We are wondering about that. It should be quite a huge amount of money and does not serve a lot of time, but when it serve, it is indeed very useful... Leukemia especially. So... if anybody can share some thoughts, it will be much appreciated.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Postnatal Helper Hunt Done... at last

Dear all,

We meet our candidate C and finally went for it. She came with her agent, a woman that manages a company referring postnatal helper. They were quite professional and explain a lot of things about what will happen during this period. After a long interview, we decided to go ahead.

For the one that are not familiar with Asian style postnatal helper, here is the detail of her duties:

-do the groceries for the different meals.
-make lunch.
-make dinner.
-make a fish soup (in order to have more milk).
-make a Chinese Medicine soup (from day 12 to help body recover)
-make a huge quantity of tea (in the Chinese medicine, new mums cannot drink water, they need to drink a kind of tea that allows them to be less "swollen" and help the elimination of toxins, etc...)
-take care of the baby:
-feed him/her or help breastfeeding.
-bath/cleaning
-make the ginger paste for bath/shower (another Chinese medicine tip)

She will come 6 days a week for 8 hours and is not cheap at all... ~13000HKD (1300€ or 1675US$)

Talking about that, the list of ingredients I need for the Chinese Medicine soup is not cheap at all. There are a lot of different things really expensive. But, I think it worth it. Anyway, what she'll eat, baby will eat it too. Hope she can breastfeed, that's all, I will save on milk powder...