Grace! tis a charming sound,
harmonious to the ear,
Heav’n with the echo shall resound,
and all the earth shall hear.
O let Thy grace inspire my soul
with strength divine,
May all my powers to thee aspire
and all my days be thine.
Saved by grace alone!
This is all my plea:
Jesus died for all mankind,
And Jesus died for me.
– P. Doddridge & A. Toplady –
extracted portions from Amazing Grace by Kenneth W. Osbeck
e-Filing makes submission of personal taxes in Malaysia so much easier these days. They’ve taken a few years to improve on the the system and the online forms, but personally I think they’ve come a long way since the first year it was introduced. Back then when I finally attempted the submission electronically, the massive incoming traffic caused the system to go down and I had to rush all the way to the tax office to submit it amongst the throngs of people. Aaah, there is a sort of comfort when you’re with thousands of your other last minute cohorts. Well anyway, on the e-filing front, hopefully they’ve resolved those internet traffic issues by now.
It’s easy in e-Filing as you merely pluck-and-place values into the respective columns, and the electronic form takes it from there and calculates all the rest of the mathematically derived fields automatically. It really does take away the cumbersome working of the physical tax sheet, writing and rewriting in case you missed out on a thing or two. Having to update all the pages with the carried forward values is time consuming. You can save your partially completed tax sheet and get back to it the next day too if you have to go search for those stray book receipts for deductions or something. Now, that’s convenience. Plus you get to print out your draft versions in case you’d like to hand it to an accountant friend to see if you did it right. Once you’ve clicked submit (no turning back after this), you can print out the final copies of all your tax submission and you can still come back to the website to get a reprint of your confirmation page and submitted returns easily. For now, I’m all for it… until (or unless) someone hacks and finds a vulnerability in the system.
But this year, for the very first time I’ve submitted my tax returns 2 weeks from the deadline. Normally I push and then rush it on the final 2-3 days. Ah, but come 2009 this time Johnny-come-lately, got in early. 🙂
We didn’t manage to have a big birthday celebration for Ryan, as the closest weekend to the date happened to intersect with the Easter weekend. We were away in Singapore and it was also way too busy a period for any family members to come over for one. So it was the 13th and it was going to be just the 3 of us.
Still, it didn’t dampen our little boy’s excitement to know that he had just turned 2. The number “2” has by far been his favourite number for the past few weeks. It might have something to do with the fact that we live on level 2 (he loves to press the button on the lift) and the number just seems to keep popping out everywhere he turns. Often holding 2 fingers out, he’d happily chirp “twooo” or “du-a” in malay. And there he was, all of two years old and ever so happy sitting patiently looking on as we lit up the candles on a blueberry cupcake bought from the Crown Plaza’s bakery. And as he had been practicing the whole day, right after we had finished singing him the happy birthday tune … Ryan blew his candles out in one puff.
Yay! It's my birthday
I like my cake and eat it too
3 cupcakes
So sonny boy, welcome to your terrific two’s. If you ever read this in a couple of years time, just remember that mummy and daddy’s birthday wish for you is that you will come to know that Christ came into the world to save sinners (that includes you and me) and that you’ll one day trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour. That would be by far be the most momentous birthday you’ll ever have. Blessed 2nd birthday to you, wang wang!
A bit of a Malaysian’s observation for today. I’ve always found it a little interesting years ago when I heard that those who took the office of prime minister in our country seemed to follow an acronym. That acronym was based on the name of the country’s first PM name, thus we arrive at R.A.H.M.A.N.
A slightly loose rule that limited it to any occurrence of the starting letter to any portion of their name. The trend seemed to show itself as subsequent premiers filled the portfolio.
And so Malaysian history went on to show …
Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al – Haj
Tun Abdul Razak b. Hussein
Tun Hussein b. Onn
Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (earlier thought to be Mr. Anwar)
And today, if things stand as they are, the final ‘N’ as there will be the inauguration of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. So there we go, the so called ‘R.A.H.M.A.N prophecy’ fulfilled. It’s funny how some of these things go. 🙂
Now, on a more important note, let’s continue to pray for the leaders of this country. For wisdom to govern justly and honestly. To do the right thing.
Also for peace in the land such that there is freedom for the gospel to be preached near and far. Let us remember that it’s not the shouts of protests, supposed freedom of press or even the abolishing of certain laws that will really free men in this country. Indeed history has shown that more often than not, man’s idea of freedom is the right to say and do whatever they desire irrespective of what God says is right. That certainly is not ‘freedom’, but rather a distortion of it. No, it is the light of the true gospel which brings true freedom and liberation in the hearts of men, and this freedom is found when men live in light of God’s rule upon their lives. If we believe this, it will affect our witness.
Antioch Agent 
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