The song is called “Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape”. I don’t own any of the music or the lyrics. I just want to share this with you.

I heard a voice through the discord
A deluge of passersby
I saw one gaze frozen in time
Watching me passing by

And I swear I’ll know your face in the crowd
And I’ll hear your voice so loud
When you’re whispering

Hey unfaithful I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger
Hey ungraceful I will teach you
To forgive one another.

Here’s my kiss to betray (Kiss to betray)
Desperate to brush the lips of grace (Brush the lips of grace)
Do you feel hollow when you think of how I lied?

Oh sweet angel of mercy
With your grace like the morning
Wrap your loving arms around me
Oh sweet angel of mercy
With your grace like the morning
Wrap your loving arms around me

Hey unfaithful I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger
Hey ungraceful I will teach you
To forgive one another

Hey unfaithful I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger
Hey unloving
I will love you
I will love you
I will love you

And Jesus I’m ready to come home
Jesus, I’m ready to come home(home)
home (home)
I’m ready to come (home)
Hey Unfaithful
Hey Ungraceful
Hey Unloving
I will love you
Hey Unloving (Hey Unloving)
I will love you

I remember, not long after I moved there, that I was biking one day. This was in the afternoon, and afternoons in Cambodia were so beautiful. And I remember peering up to the sky and seeing a massive storm cloud, the size of a neighborhood, slowly swirling into a vortex.

Call me dramatic, but I think this was pathetic fallacy for my life to come. My life was a storm in Cambodia. And you can look at storms in different ways; some people hate the rain, some people love the rain. Some people feel the bass of thunder and love it, others detest it.

In Cambodia, I constantly switched between love and hate for my life there. Of course, it also depended on the day. But being a third-culture child, I always wondered about home – where was it?

Home is where your heart is.

To me Cambodia was a place where I could fall in love with God.

When you think of God, do you think about having a relationship with him?

The conditions weren’t exactly candlelight and jazz music. I fell in love with God, because conditions weren’t happy, because things weren’t right, because life was tough.

I suffered through addiction. Not addiction of narcotics, but addiction to myself. I struggled with staying pure. Many of my friends there, had addictions to narcotics. Alcohol and Mary Jane were popular.

I never really faced what I felt with them doing those things.

I felt hurt, depressed. I was in pain, because I grew up with these friends, lingered souls with them, and saw their hearts slowly turn into something that I did not know anymore. It was a metaphysical change that was too difficult to watch.

Yes, in the coming of an increasing liberal age, we can say that the morals of these things are controversial and confusing. But to me, that’s not the point.

It could have been selfish of me, but I wished that they stopped, because they knew it hurt me. Because they knew I didn’t like it.

But then I realized, that my addiction was the same to God. Nevermind, who is right or wrong, but their is someone out their that hates to see this happen to you.

If your seeking pleasure in wrong places, because you aren’t happy, you know there is something wrong.

So one day, I hope they’ll understand that. I don’t know if they will. And one day I hope I’ll understand that.

In Cambodia I lingered my soul with God’s spirit. I woke up.

And I hope, I can help other people wake up too.

The previous night I was very stressed out. College and University life was getting closer…and I wanted to get into many different schools. My father, did burst my bubble, saying that my grades might not be enough. I was much distressed.  When I started writing this I realized that God had my back no matter what.

This is what came out of it…hope it might give some comfort to those with the same worries.

I sit and contemplate how light travels, and the meaning with it.

We are all subjected to the void of possibility.

I wake up every morning feeling like that void has become a cement block.

My bubble burst last night, because my bubble was too big. I am not going to the school that I desire.

Recently I have learned the difference of low self esteem and humility, but I keep mixing the two like a deadly intoxicating cocktail. How can I want more than what I have already worked for?

In the mist of comforting words and silk black symbols on a piece of paper, I know that I travel with you.

And you got me covered.“

I believe in living a life where God comes first. Putting my belief in a figure of faith sounds insane, but this is what I believe. I believe that Jesus came down to die for our sins. I believe that God knew me even before I was formed in my mother’s womb. I believe that God has a purpose for my life.

When I look at the world today, I see conflicts, materialism and debauchery. I feel like there is a lack of substance around us, that sincerity and meaning have been blown away like chaf in the wind. My words are filled with cynism, because I have lost my faith in humanity. Humanity is a beautiful thing, but eventually when humanity betrays you, you start looking elsewere. You start looking for the piece in your heart that can never seemed to be filled with the pleasures of the world. It feels like an uncomfortably hollow stomach. It feels like unquenchable thirst.

I have experienced this emptiness myself. Who betrayed me, you might ask. The person I know best, and the person I’ve grown up with. Myself. Out of my own selfish desire, I discovered a drug that I thought could quench my thirst. This drug made me feel good. I used it to secure my insecurity, and to gratify my self-esteem. After each dose, I would an imense guilt. It was painful, as I degraded my body to this drug, as it became a tool for my own pleasure. I felt shameful; this was something that I hid away in the privacy of my room, and in the darkness of the night. After indulging in this drug, I would lay in my blanket, begging God to take it away from me. I would feel like hurting myself, so I could never do this again. This is why I call my self an addict. I got to the point where I did not want to continue, but I could not stop. The more I indulged in myself, the more I grew distant away from God. I needed the security that this drug gave me, and I needed the pleasure. I became less and less sincere to other people. I was my God, I was my king. This had to stop.

Unfortunately, someone had to die in order for me to understand and have a chance at stopping. My life lesson was at a funeral, from a last lecture of a life professor. I did not know the teacher who was lecturing. I only knew her husband, because we were involved in a project of constructing two small huts for AIDs victims in a Cambodian Village. He was very humorous, because while working, he wore his motorcycle hat and always insisted “safety first!”. I soon learned about the person, whom I was saying my last goodbyes to. Her name was Adayt, and she was born into human trafficking. She grew up hungry, and poor. She was diagnosed with cancer at twenty five, and died a year later.

Admist the mourning cries in the background and the smiling, decorated corpse, I remember seeing their one year old girl look towards people for toys, not knowing that she had just lost her mother, and would never see her again. I gave her my mobile phone to play. I looked at her, I looked at the corpse, thats when I started to cry. I realized that the people in the funeral still had their lives, while Adayt could rest. I remember the cries next to me, as her coffin was closed, and she was pushed into the crematory, and how the cries intensified as the crematory door closed on her. I understood now that she had finished the race. She died faithfully to Christ, and with her life example I realized that my love for God needed to change. She lived and died for God. Dying was what I set out to do, but living for God was a different matter.

I did not know this woman, but by the end of the funeral I was dried eyed. Adayt told me, without speaking, and without rebuking, that God had to come first. Adayt lived through hell to find God, and even though she was born into hurt from the day she was born, she was still humble enough to accept that she hurt others, and that she needed God. My love of God had to surpass the love of myself. It had to be so deep that the rules, the confessions, and the religion did not matter. My relationship with God was to become my not just my life, but my existence. She reminded me, that in my own selfishness, God was still waiting, looking over the horizon for his prodical son.

Its been 4 months since I’ve had my last fix, and I have never been more happy in my life. I hope to stay off the drug, and I am confident that God will heal me. Life will still have its challenges, and I will always be locked in the battle against myself. When I am afraid, and I feel like I cannot make another day, I will remember Adayt’s smile in her coffin, and my new life that was created by death. This I believe.

Ian Thomas is on the top left corner

In response to his death, I asked one close friend of mine, who was also a student of his to write a tribute to him.

Some people say that when something bad is about to happen, you can feel it even though you are unaware at the moment that such an occurrence is on the verge of becoming real. It’s not true. Fate does not in fact have a way of telling you that it is about to act on its own will. She merely slips by, taking what she wants from the world and moving on, leaving reality behind. On Monday, August 17^th of the year 2009, fate took Ian Thomas. He died of pneumonia in a small hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was not an easy thing to let him go for it was as much unexpected as it was unwanted. To all those who knew him, to all those who were students to his teaching, he will not be forgotten nor will his memory be overlooked.

Mr. Ian Thomas has been a passionate musician all his life and taught me for a few of the years I have lived in Cambodia. I look back fondly on the jam sessions he used to hold at his apartment and remember them as some of the most meaningful learning experiences I have had. It is quite an ordeal to contemplate the thought of his presence on this earth as one that has lasted as long as it did. As for me I am only 15 years old and him 61. His passing, to me has felt like something of a loss. Something that’s been there all my life and as far as I can remember has now vanished. It’s definitely a bit different now telling yourself that you won’t be able to trudge up the flight of stairs and into his apartment, guitar in hand to play a jam session again. It unsettles me even more that I cannot really come to remember in great detail the last time I had been over there to his apartment. Going over there had seemed so natural that it was not one of those things you thought about closely. His passing has seemed to bring me to want to revisit every time I had ever gone there. I can almost put myself there right now if I close my eyes tight enough.

There has never been a guy quite like Mr. Thomas. His love for music had obviously not gone one bit stale as he was always faithful to the music he played and to the image of his teenage band, “The Missing Links”. Needless to say, he was a very powerful mentor, a very proud mentor and I am not here to argue otherwise. He deserved to be proud. He will remain to be a prominent memory of my times in Cambodia, a place in which I have now since left. I had just left before he died though I knew he had been hospitalized before I left. I can only regret not giving him my words of farewell before I left Cambodia. The turnout was not what I expected. He died on the day I started school here in Beijing. The troubling news came a few days later, like a blow to the head.

Thank you Ian Thomas for everything you have taught me for it has been so much more than just music. In a sense you were like a father to me. May your loyalty to music carry you onto wherever you may go. So here’s to the memories and the experiences, my final words of farewell. I’ll see you on the other side.

Farewell Mr. Thomas, we will miss you dearly.

“Failure is a blessing in disguise”. That quote is from one of my favorite Christian Punk bands. And this quote has been so meaningful in my life.

It has been 4 months since i moved back to this big metropolis, and the results from school that are coming are back are not the most encouraging.

Recently I have been doing badly in school mainly because this school is so much harder. The pressure from school and the competitiveness among the students its overwhelming.

Back where I came from, having lots of Girls was having a reputation, but here its having good grades. Being nerdy is actually cool.

There was one day were, I just finished a math test. And because my lack of knowledge using a GDC (Texas Instrument Calculator), I realized that I lost about 80% of my score, when I just knew I could ace the test.

I’ve been preparing for so long, and my failure eventually ended up with one lack of knowledge that is not actually math. I was very disappointed with myself, so much in fact that I had to go to one a school balcony and sit down and cry.

I nearly did.

But,

Failure is a blessing in disguise.

What does that exactly mean? If you think about the concept is very simple. The reason why we are born weak and helpless is because we need our mothers and fathers to care for us.

The reason why we fail in relationships is because we can grow and cherish the next one we have, and hopefully for our whole lives.

The reason why we fail at school is to learn.

I tell you now, I am in a society where failure is weakness. Where girls are warned to stay away from dating because it will effect their grades. Where people commit suicide because they can’t cope with their own transgressions.

There is a scripture in the bible that says: “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”-2 Corinthians 12:10.

This life ain’t ours. This life is not for us to live. This is why we fail. We fail because we need the grace of God to help us wake up every morning. We need the grace of God to love one another and to forgive. Grace is the net that allows us to fail. This is why we are not perfect.

The blessing is grace.

We need something that is better than us. Something that will break our falls.

And I am just glad that God is on my side.

This was the faith leap that I had to take. And I am still learning how to look forward and learn from the dead, and keep striving.

And I am just glad that God is on my side.

~Reaching Neveah

She sings a lot of Christian inspired pop, and from two songs I can say that she has a very grateful attitude towards God.

This movie really moved my heart. If your do not believe in the Christian faith, I still encourage you to watch this, because the song is beautiful and it’s just nice to listen to.

Sorry about the quality.

Here are the lyrics:

We rode into town the other day
Just me and my Daddy
He said I’d finally reached that age
And I could ride next to him on a horse
That of course was not quite as wide

We heard a crowd of people shouting
And so we stopped to find out why
And there was that man
That my dad said he loved
But today there was fear in his eyes

So I said “Daddy, why are they screaming?
Why are the faces of some of them beaming?
Why is He dressed in that bright purple robe?
I’ll bet that crown hurts Him more than He shows
Daddy, please can’t you do something?
He looks as though He’s gonna cry
you said he was stronger than all of those guys
addy, please tell me why
Why does everyone want him to die?”

Later that day the sky grew cloudy
And Daddy said I should go inside
Somehow he knew things would get stormy
Boy was he right
But I could not keep from wondering
If there was something he had to hide

So after he left I had to find out
I was not afraid of getting lost
So I followed the crowds
To a hill where I knew men had been killed
And I heard a voice come from the cross

And it said, “Father, why are they screaming?
Why are the faces of some of them beaming?
Why are they casting their lots for My robe?
This crown of thorns hurts Me more than it shows
Father, please can’t You do something?
I know that You must hear My cry
I thought I could handle the cross of this size
Father, remind Me why
Why does everyone want Me to die?
When will I understand why?”

“My precious Son, I hear them screaming
I’m watching the face of the enemy beaming
But soon I will clothe You in robes of My own
Jesus, this hurts Me much more than You know
But this dark hour I must do nothing
Though I’ve heard Your unbearable cry
The power in Your blood destroys all of the lies
Soon You’ll see past their unmerciful eyes
Look there below, see the child
Trembling by her father’s side
Now I can tell You why
She is why You must die”

I thank you for your support over the holidays and the start of this new school year!

As you all have noticed, Reaching Neveah has been inactive for quiet sometime.

I can assure you I am not dead, but just have been rather busy with a new school year and moving to a different country.

However,

the blog will be back “on air” after my little haitus and I will do my best to give you readers an article a week.

Please keep reading, and if you think this blog has really got something to say, go tell other people about it!

Thank you all.

~ Reaching Neveah

Some of us dream to be an astronaut. Some of us dream of being married. Some of us dream of being rich.

We all have hopes and dreams.

Today in the society we live in, success is determined by our status. If you walk in a bookstore, you would usually find books on how to be succesful or how to create a fortune in only a few days.

Recently I have undergone a big change in my life. I moved to metropolis named Hong Kong.

Changes occurred. I am still at this moment recovering from severe culture shock. I feel like I am going to school again.

At school we are all young, we are all ambitious and we all want to succeed. I feel as if my school, I am in a race to get a prize, and this prize is a degree. All my friends and classmates constantly chatter on who got what grade and how we are to do homework.We all mutter, and are weary of each others gazes, insecure on who is better than who.

There is a girl I sit next to in math class. She is a very hard working student, very focused in class.

Once we had a math quiz. I didn’t do so well, but she did. Just under 100%, but then what I hear from her is

“Ahhh I was soo stupid!”

“Why did i make that mistake?”

I asked her later that week, if she compared herself to others. She gave me a sheepish smile.

Success is improving yourself all the time.

We all walk around aiming for success, because we think we have reputations. Donald Trump thinks he has a reputation.

And this reputation is our pride. Its what we gained, its our successes that have become our identity.

We are so afraid of our reputations being shattered because it’s the only confidence we can get. Its our only way to stand up to each other.

My younger brother doesn’t want to be an astronaut when he grows up, nor he does not want to be a business man.

He never said he wanted to own a Ferrari, or live in a big house.

No.

My brother aspires to be a janitor.

Ha! A janitor?!

He wants to be a janitor because he loves the sense of clean and tidiness. He loves cleaning.

I believe thats the true meaning of success…actually doing what you love and not bothering about money, or reputation.

That is success.

Jeremiah was told by God to spread his word…but no one ever listened to him, people chased him to a well. But Jeremiah loved God, thats what made him such a great success.

Our world today demands worldly success! But what if we could just follow our own hearts?

~

Reaching Neveah

This is a picture of a 93 year old woman, on an river island called Silk Island.

For 30 years she has been cleaning about 12 metres of her own district road with nothing but a twig.

As I walk towards her, she goes to me and complains in an inaudible manner.

Our guide says that she complains about how no one else helps her clean the road.

I look at her and using the respectful Cambodian hand gesture, I leave, but as I go to the next group of houses, the contrast of the different roads is as clear as night and day.

A fine, invisible line separates her street and the next street.

On her street, it is bare, clean road, without debris or dust-balls.

Only a millimeter away is a piece of decayed cloth.

In terms of being clean, even though this woman is restricted to an actual mop and some soap, she is much more hygienic than I am.

This woman, however being dedicated for 30 years, with the same effort every single day, has created a much nicer outlook on her street.

This woman has taught me that if I work on something with the my best efforts everyday, even with a twig I can make a huge impact on something that I care about.

~

Reaching Neveah