I have reached level 50…..Yiipppeee 
I’ve been playing the Warbook game in Facebook for some time. My kingdom type is magician. Just few days ago, I reached the highest level. For two nights, I was sparing with another player in my alliance. I went up 10 levels per night.
So now I have 490 mana. That’s almost 25 fireballs or 12 earthquakes or 5 landgrabs every 5 hours
I’ve been looking into some options for the parent visa recently. At first I was considering the “normal” parent visa which only costs few thousand dollars. However, the waiting period could be a substantial. If it takes over 10 years, then my parents would be around 70 by then. Then, I looked into the contributory parent visa. This would cost over $30k per person meaning that I would have to spend over $60k.
I’m sure most people would agree that $60k is a lot of money. Is the cost justified? I wonder. Wouldn’t the money be better spent for supporting various Christian organisations?
This morning we learnt from Acts that every Christian is part of a community. The Christians in Acts manifested their communion by sharing their belongings to other Christians so that no one was poor (a.k.a. financially struggling in our contemporary term). The bottom line is that Christians should be generous especially towards other fellow Christians.
I wonder how a Christian balances his/her financial contribution to various Christian organisations in a practical term. I think our immediate church is the first priority. We should support the gospel workers and the church staffs as they work to serve us.
Then what are the next ones? The options are missionary organisations, such as CMS, specific ministry, e.g. MTS, ECom, and social organisations, e.g. Tearfund.
So how much do we give to each one?
I received my monthly Tearfund publication today. It also came with “the world’s most useful gift” catalogue. The way it works is that when you purchase, say a goat, you will get a card and the goat goes to a poor family in some third world country. Other gifts include teaching materials, plant seeds, etc. This gift system has also been imitated by other organisations, including CMS I think.
For a list of gifts, see www.usefulgifts.org.
For the tax conscious, the gifts are also tax-deductible.
As my birthday and Christmas are approaching, perhaps I should start making a list
I had my first walk in Portal today. In Portal, players navigate around a 3D space and create portals to find their way out on each level. To create portals, players fire a weapon to a wall, floor or ceiling to create the portal’s entrance and exit.
The exciting one is when climbing my way up through four storeys. I created an exit portal on a wall opposite the second level and an entrance portal on a floor five metres below me. (There is a gap between the wall and the second level.) Then I dropped down to the entrance. As I appeared on the wall opposite the second level, the gravitational force continued to push me off the wall to the second level. There is a switch on the floor which opens the door on the fourth level. I had to grab a crate from the third level and placed it on the switch. So I climbed to third floor using the same method, grabbed the crate, went back to the second floor and placed it on the switch. Then, I finally climbed to the fourth level. The thrilling bit is doing the free fall face down several times.
Next game to try out: Team Fortress 2 …which comes from the same creator as the Portal.