Sunday, July 12, 2026

God Blesses Neverendingly: Perfectly Perfect, Grace upon Grace, Lavishly (GBN 7755 L)

Sunday, 12th July 2026

At the end of every year, our church has this annual practice of getting her members to write down 3 prayer requests for the upcoming year, which we then bring before the Lord as a corporate body on the first Sunday service of the new year.  

Just this week, the 1st prayer request that I had jotted down back in December 2025 was answered.  Thank you Jesus!

Through God's wonderful divine arrangement,  my son was able to accelerate his learning journey and was assigned to a team of elite driving instructors.  That all culminated in him obtaining his Class 3A licence on 8 July 2026.  Hallelujah!

Over the past few months, I would happily fetch him to the driving centre and back for his lessons (he was my "captive" audience, so to speak), and as a consequence, we have gotten much closer because of the time spent together :-)

In fact, he and I went on our maiden father-son bonding trip to UK from 24 to 31 December 2025 (primarily to watch Chelsea v Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge), and will be going on a second trip together to Hong Kong from 4 to 8 August 2026 to watch both our favourite teams in pre-season action (Chelsea v Juventus and Aston Villa v Bayern Munich).

On to the title of today's post.

Separately, I have been monitoring COE prices and noted that one particular vehicle category typically lags behind the rest by around $30,000, which is Cat C meant for commercial vehicles such as vans and lorries.  I have also observed an increasing number of minivans (what the Japanese term as kei cars) such as the Suzuki Spacia and Nissan N-Van plying our roads. It appears that drivers are switching from Cat A cars to Cat C kei cars, and saving at least $30,000 as a result of doing so.

In August 2025, when Cat C COE was at $70,000, I purchased a Suzuki Spacia Base XF for $91,800 so that I could give it to my son to use upon him obtaining his driving licence.  But I kept it under wraps until he did so, so as not to put unnecessary pressure upon him.

Meanwhile, Cat C COEs just hit a record-high of $95,000 (and is likely to breach $100k before the year's end).

Thank God for His prompting then because it has saved me $25,000 :-) 

Indeed, God's Blessings are Never-ending.  They are perfectly perfect (77), filled with grace upon grace (55).  Lavish.  In other words, GBN 7755 L.  Amen?

By the way, I had initially bidded for GBN5775S but someone else beat me to it.  Thankfully, GBN7755L was available.

For those of you also considering doing a switch from a Cat A car to a Cat C kei car, do take note of the following:

- the vehicle has to be G-plated and purchased using an ACRA-registered entity (for which, a sole proprietorship suffices at an annual fee of $30). It cannot be purchased in your own individual name.

- unlike passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles are subject to annual LTA inspections (yup, EVERY year).

- the vehicle technically cannot have rear passenger seats, so they will need to be removed every time before it is sent for that annual inspection.

- the speed limit is 70km/h (although you do see some of them travelling faster than that).

- the vehicle technically cannot be driven into JB (unless you first register a Malaysian business with a director that is also a director/owner of your Singapore business)

Having said that, the above are tolerable "inconveniences", given that you will be saving at least $30,000 on COE.  There is also excellent fuel efficiency -- you can get at least 20km per litre.

Thursday, July 2, 2026

One Year On

Thursday, 2nd July 2026

It has been a year since Dad went back home to be with the Lord.

This was the video montage that was played at his wake.

My sweetie actually used the original montage that was made for his 80th birthday in 2015, and appended some more additional photos leading up to 2025.

Back in 1996, my parents were among the pioneer batch of people who booked their niches at All Saints' Memorial Chapel Columbarium, Poh Huat Road, so they received an "early-bird discount" of sorts, which was $600 for a 30-year lease, that only took effect from the date of interment.

For my mom, it was 26 Jun 2012.  For my dad, it was 7 July 2025.  So the lease on their niche runs until 2042 and 2055 respectively.

Early this morning, I decided to make a visit to their niches to change the flowers, and also to say a short prayer.  Location: Memorial Block 3 Room 7, Niche 173 and 174.

My grandparents' niches are also located there, so I went to visit theirs too. Location: Memorial Hall, Room 7 Niche 30.