Bahasa Dunia vs Bahasa Alkitab

Belakangan ini saya banyak mendegar hamba2 Tuhan membandingkan bahasa dunia dengan bahasa alkitab. Inti argumen nya adalah HARUS DIBEDAKAN mana yang bahasa dunia dan bahasa alkitab. Well, setelah saya pikir2, kenapa harus dibedakan demikian?? PERTAMA, harus diingat alkitab kita juga ditulis dengan bahasa dunia, bukan bahasa planet yang ga jelas. Segala pemahaman kita tentang Allah, semua dipahami dalam KETERBATASAN kita sebagai manusia. Dan yang paling utama adalah dalam BAHASA kita. Seorang hamba Tuhan tidak setuju dengan istilah "Crazy Love" yg dikenakan untuk kasih Allah. Argumennya, tidak ada istilah tsb dalam alkitab. Walaupun dia setuju dengan penejelasan dan maksud si pemakai istilah tsb yg alkitabiah, tetapi tetap saja istilah tsb tidak ada di alkitab. Menurutnya, bahasa tsb adalah bhs marketing untuk "menjual" buku tsb. Well, ada 2 kesalahan yang dipakai disini, yang pertama saya pikir tidak salah untuk menggambarkan kasih Allah sebagai crazy love. Itu bahasa gaul sehari2. Mungkin juga maksud si penulis adalah untuk "menjual" buku tsb bagi orang-orang non kristen (kalau pake istilah God's Love/ Jesus' Love) pastilah dihindari orang-orang non kristen. Tetapi mungkin saja itu cara yang dipakai si penulis untuk menjangkau orang-orang non kristen. Yang kedua, TIDAK ADA penjelasan yang logis untuk menggambarkan kasih Allah. Bahasa dan pemahaman mana yang mampu menjelaskannya? Tidak ada. Itulah kasih Allah yang "crazy" KEDUA, ada hamba Tuhan yang tidak setuju dengan pemakaian kata "anugerah" untuk kasih karunia. Karena menurutnya anugerah dalam bahasa indonesia berarti imbalan atau balas jasa yang diberikan karena telah melakukan sesuatu. Well, kembali spt poin di atas, siapa yang mampu memahami kasih karunia Allah?? Tidak ada. Kita tidak mengenal konsep pemberian cuma-cuma bahkan pemberian nyawa untuk mati yang GRATIS, CUMA-CUMA, TANPA IMBALAN sedikitpun!! Tidak ada! Konsep manusia selalu timbal balik, balas budi, ada aksi ada reaksi, that's it! Jadi kita mau kata apa lagi untuk menggambarkan kasih karunia dan anugerah Allah. Jelas tidak ada! Jadi, kita perlu ingat, jangan membeda2 kan dunia dengan alkitab. Allah memanggil kita untuk menjadi anak-anakNya yang hidup di dunia ini. Kita tidak dapat menjadi orang-orang yang pietis atau puritan yang "menanggalkan" dunia dan mengharap-harapkan sorga. Justru kita harus membawa Kerajaan Sorga di dunia ini (Mat. 6:10). Blessings!!

I'm back !!

I'm back! Setelah menyelesaikan studi & tesis, saya berkomitmen utk menulis lagi di blog ini. Setelah lama "dikuasai" oleh istri, sekarang saya akan menulis sendiri di blog ini. Semoga tulisan2 saya nanti dapat menjadi berkat bagi para pembaca. Blessings!!

Happy Birthday Eben!

Another baking project! A birthday cake for my nephew Eben. Last Saturday was his 3rd birthday.

Here’s the birthday boy.





















I was going to bake him cupcakes and make a cupcake tier to put the cupcakes, but Abram was sick again, so I couldn’t find time to make the tier. Anyway, making cupcakes require lots of time because I only have a small oven, so I have to bake in batches. I finally decided to bake him a simple butter cake , the same recipe as the LOVE juice cupcakes, reduced the sugar to 120g , and replaced the LOVE juice with 200ml Buavita mango juice. The mango juice flavor did not taste too strong, in fact, you wouldn’t be able to tell that this cake was using mango juice, I didn’t try to make it a mango flavored cake, I was just looking for other alternative to flavor the cake beside using vanilla essence because I think the essence tastes a bit bitter when used too much. I should buy vanilla extract but the price stops me from doing that =)

The theme of the cake was jungle. I got the idea from a video in youtube from wilton decorating. I was planning to make 2 layers of butter cake, put a layer of whipped cream and grated cheese between the 2 layers and decorated with colored whipped cream and animal candles.

The first layer came out nice……..I put it on the cake board smoothly. No problem at all.

















Then I made the second layer. When it was done, hmmmm…….now, how should I put this on the top of the first layer??? I decided to put it on a plate then picked it up carefully with two hands and put it on the first layer. And…………..it broke!!!! Haiiissssss!!!! What to do???? I didn’t have the time and material to make a new one…..T_T…… Finally I made a pudding, It would be a pudding cake. I had canned longans and lychees and made longans pudding. The pudding was put on the top layer.
















Pheeewwww……Thank goodness the pudding set quickly in the fridge, and it didn’t break when I took it off the cake pan and slide it from a plate on to the cake. *I took it off while praying “please God help me” cos it stucked in the pan, I had to tap it on the counter several times before it slide off*

Here’s the finished cake. I didn’t cover the sides with whipped cream, used chocolate wafer instead because I thought it was easier (actually, I ran out of wafer to cover 1 side so I had to go to a mini-mart near-by to buy more wafers, so, clearly, it wasn’t as easy as I thought).


















The pond should be blue, but I couldn’t find a blue coloring anywhere, so I use Fanta blueberry, but it wasn’t blue enough. Well, it wasn’t bad either……





































Curiously looking at his cake.





















Got excited when we started singing Happy Birthday ^_^




















With grandma.




















Actually, I took some more pictures, but they were blurry because the object (Eben) couldn’t stay still. =D
Happy Birthday Eben!!! Kiss from Papi Donny, Mami Lois and Abram.

The Book of Eli – Believe

A few days ago we watched the movie “The Book of Eli”, starred by Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Jennifer Beals and Mila Kunis. The genre is called post-apocalyptic, that is a movie about what happens after an apocalyptic event (e.g World War, huge natural disaster etc).
I actually don’t really like this kind of movie because of the gloomy and dusty background with violent scenes. In fact, I felt a bit bored watching it….. If you like cowboy movies or movies like “The Departed”, you’d probably like “The Book of Eli”.
But this movie has wonderful Christianity messages in it, and I recommend to watch this movie (not for young children, not appropriate because of some violent scenes).

It is told that after an apocalyptic event, Eli (Denzel Washington) has been walking to west for 30 years, his mission is to bring The King James Version Bible (the only one left in the world) to a safe place. He doesn’t know what kind of place that “safe place” is and where it is exactly, he’s just following a voice telling him to bring the book and go west. The voice say he will be protected against anyone or anything that stands in his way, and apparently the voice doesn’t lie. 30 years walking on foot, facing hijackers and robbers, hunting bizarre animals for food, with limited water supplies, and only an ipod (is that an ipod? Looks like an ipod to me ^_^) as an entertainment, yet he survives. Eli walks by faith, not by sight.
This reminds me a lot of the journey of Abraham. He also didn’t know his destination, he was just following God. God promised him that he will get a very good land to live in, and that his descendants will be many, like sand in the beach and stars in the sky. It will be a big nation and all the people in the world will be blessed by his descendants. Abraham did not see all God’s promises fulfilled, but he still believed. That is why he is called The Father of all Faithful Man. Abraham walked by faith, not by sight.

Eli carries a hand gun, a riffle (I think that’s the name, I’m not really familiar with all types of weapon) and a big blade. He uses them very well, he can easily kill 5 hijackers in one fight scene. One time, he sees some people in motorcycles robbing 2 travellers, they kill the travelers and take all their belongings, but Eli decides not to help, he decides to stay on his path and that it is not his business.
Later on, when Solara (Mila Kunis) joins him in his journey, he regretly says he read the book (Bible) everyday, but he hasn’t live by it.
I remember the story of The Good Samaritan. A priest and a Levite didn’t help the half dead traveller. They surely knew the word of God in the available scriptures and should help the traveller but they didn’t! They read God’s words everyday but they didn’t live by it.

When his ipod needs recharging, Eli stops by a shop in a small town. He meets Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who’s been searching for the Bible to own it. Carnegie finds out that Eli has the Bible and forces Eli to give it to him. When asked why he wants the Bible so much, Carnegie answers the words from the book can make him more powerful than now, he can control more people and people will follow him because of the words from the book.
Hearing Carnegie’s reason, I can’t help thinking about some “Preachers” who are also using the Bible to gain popularity for themselves (not all preachers, but there are some that I know). They call themselves pastor, reverend, God’s servant, even prophet, but what they actually do is just selling God’s words (from the Bible) to gain popularity, money and power.

Carnegie manages to get the Bible from Eli after shooting him in the stomach. In the scene where Eli is shot, the camera focuses on Eli’s face, his expression is like he can’t believe that he’s been shot! I feel that he might be a bit disappointed because the voice has promised to protect him until the Bible arrives at the safe place, he doesn’t understand why he’s shot now and why is Carnegie allowed to take away the Bible. I was kinda hoping for a scene of miracle, maybe suddenly Eli stands up and not wounded by the shot at all, but apparently that’s not how the story goes……
Eli makes an attempt to stand up, as if he doesn’t believe that he will die before taking the Bible to west, but he falls down to the ground…….
I think it is good that there is no scene of miracle in this movie, because that is what going to happen in real life, if you are shot then you will be wounded.
Sometimes people expect miracles, they think if they follow God faithfully then God will make miracles to keep them safe from harm. But that’s not how this life goes. God can make a miracle when He wants to and when He thinks it’s necessary, but not always, it’s not His obligation. Sometimes God lets us have a hard life because He wants us to learn something from it.
In this point, I think Eli is a winner. The shot has wounded him badly but he manages to stand up and walk again heading west. He doesn’t give up, though no miracle happens, he still believes that he will arrive at his destination. And he finally does.

In the end, Eli and Solara arrive at the “safe place”, but without the Bible which is taken by Carnegie. But having been reading it everyday for 30 years, Eli remembers everything that is written in the bible and dictates it to a curator who collects important things from before the apocalypse. Finally, the Bible can be re-printed and Eli dies because of his wounds.
Imagine reading the Bible everyday for 30 years! No wonder he can memorize everything. What a shame that I have lived for 30 years but have never been able to read the whole bible even for once……

And what a struggle a man has made to preserve the Words of God.
When describing life before apocalypse to Solara, Eli says that people waste things that they now kill each other for. It’s true that now people can have the Bible easily that they take it for granted. In certain places, people can’t get access to the Bible and have to put their lifes on the line just to read a torn page of the Bible.
It also applies for other things such as food, clothes, education, time etc. How often are we wasting the things we have, just because we can have plenty of them?
My boss once said : “If you can have it easily, then you take it for granted.”
That is true indeed!

I give 5 stars for the meaningful messages in this movie ^_^

Good Friday and Easter with No Mixer Cupcakes, Love Juice Pomegranate Cupcakes and Strawberry Cupcakes

Last weekend was a long weekend, we celebrated the death and rise of Jesus Christ. I tried to read the story of Jesus’ crucifixion to Abram but he only sit on my lap for less than 1 minute….hehehe….. I finished reading though, don’t know if he listened to me or not but I believe it wasn’t a waste of time.

Later on, he decided to “read” the book himself……














































































And since Friday was a holiday, I decided to bake again. This time I made something simpler, No-Mixer Cupcake. I forgot where I got the recipe, I think it was from one of NCC members. The original recipe uses buttermilk which I didn’t have (and will never have since it’s not available anywhere), so I replaced it with yoghurt. I was going to use Elle n Vire yoghurt but it was quite pricey so I chose another brand, and how wrong I was…….I’ve never tasted that brand before, so I didn’t know that it tasted weird, it tasted like perfume…..yucksss! And it made my cupcake tasted a bit weird……T_T

I put a lot of grated Dark Cooking Chocolate to cover the taste of the yoghurt and it helped a bit. Actually, the cupcake was quite good, it was moist and quite soft, just because of the yoghurt it tasted weird…..

So, if you’re going to try this cupcake, please use real buttermilk or use a well-known yoghurt brand (or the brand you’ve already know the taste).

No-Mixer Cupcake
3 cups cake flour
1tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup sugar
12 tbsp butter , melted
1 ¼ cup buttermilk


Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl, whisk together.
Whisk eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl, add sugar slowly, add melted butter gradually.
Add flour mix and buttermilk alternately.
Fill in cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake 160d celcius for 18-22 minutes or until done.


I filled in my cases till almost full because I like my cupcakes domed =)









































On Saturday, I tried to cook Sapo Tahu which failed terribly……T_T……I didn’t know what went wrong, I followed a recipe and it turned out bad, it looked bad and it tasted worse…..Guess I don’t have the talent to cook……
To cheer myself up, I baked another batch of cupcakes. This time is the recipe from http://myfoodtrail.blogspot.com/2009/11/recipe-pom-wonderful-juice-cupcakes.html . this recipe uses pomegranate juice. I used this one.










I still have some strawberry jam in the fridge so I thought it should be great to use it in the cupcake.

The original recipe with the buttercream recipe can be seen in the above link, here’s my version.

LOVE juice (pomegranate) Cupcakes and Strawberry Jam Cupcakes
120g margarine
150g sugar (if your strawberry jam is already sweet, you can reduce the amount of sugar)
2 eggs
210g cake flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of salt
¼ cup pomegranate juice
1 ½ - 2 tbsp Strawberry Jam

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.
Beat margarine and sugar till pale and fluffy, add eggs one at a time.
Fold in the flour mix gradually.
Divide the batter into 2 equal parts.
Add in the pomegranate juice in one part of the batter and mix.
Add in the strawberry jam in the other part of batter and mix, taste the batter to determine how much jam you want in the batter.
Fill in the cupcake cases and bake 180d celcius for 20-30 minutes.

You can actually substitute the strawberry jam with any other jam you like. I also put grated Dark Cooking Chocolate in the center of the pomegranate juice cupcakes, and strawberry jam in the center of the strawberry ones.
I didn’t have the time to make the buttercream since Abram had to go to the Easter celebration at church.

What Cake....?

I was browsing google for “soft cake” when I found this blog http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com. He’s got some recipes I’d like to try, his other blog is http://cornercafe.wordpress.com/ which also has some good recipes.

I have baked brownies, butter cake and cookies, so this time I think about baking sponge type cake, I thought about baking a chiffon type but I don’t have the cake pan. And I found this recipe from the above blog that looked delicious and easy. It’s called Japanese Cottonsoft Sponge Cake, you can find the recipe here http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/2007/05/japanese-cottonsoft-sponge-cake.html

This cake should be baked in a 30x25cm baking tray, the same way if we’re going to bake a roll cake, it should be thin because it doesn’t have enough flour to support its weight, so we can’t put a thick batter in a small cake pan, it will sink if we do that. But I don’t have a baking tray so I thought I would just use the regular cake pan I have and bake just a thin layer.

So, I prepared the cake pan, layer it with wax paper and started making the cake. I halved the recipe, just in case I screwed up and the cake failed then it wouldn’t waste too much ingredients.

After I finished the batter, I poured it to the cake pan and when I wanted to put it in the oven I realized that the cake pan didn’t fit in the oven! Duh! Stupid me……I forgot that I only had a small sized electric oven…..T_T
I rushed and grabbed a smaller cake pan and poured the batter in, I didn’t even think about layering it with wax paper. When it was in the oven, I was thinking : how the heck will I going to get the cake out of the pan??? I didn’t layer it with wax paper, it will stuck in the pan!!! OMG…… So I started to think of another way to get the cake out without ruining the shape, then I remembered I just bought a round cookie cutter, hey…..why not cut the cake with it???

The cake came out from the oven like this















Quite nice looking and very thin, I think it was only 1 cm high. I used a cookie cutter to cut the cake.
















And then stacked them in 3 layers.















I got 3 stacks and put strawberry jam on the first layer and grated cheese on the second layer.
















Two of the stacks were for my MIL and hubby, I didn’t put any buttercream for health reason. The third was for me and I decorated it with green buttercream, just for fun.



















This is the picture of the layers




















It tasted good, though I didn’t get the texture of a cake, it was kinda like a pancake. Hahahaha. Well, I would try to make this cake again later, using the correct size of baking tray and wax paper……

Starting Pre-School

Today is Abram's first day in pre-school.. yeaaayyyyyy!

We've chosen Kinderland for Abram because it has music lesson in kindergarten ad the facility is better.

He still looked reluctant to start his school, but there were some improvements, such as using his spoon and plate correctly, playing in a group (well, not exactly playing with other kids but at least he didn't mind being in a group =p)

Still crying in the art class, still looking at the carpet in the story-telling class....oh well....at least he can use the spoon and plate. hehehe.....

This time , mommy still went in the classes with nanny, next time only nanny will accompany Abram.