Linus Soh

After about three days of intensive research, one hardware test, and much needed prayer, I decided to get an iPod.

I wanted to make sure it would work for linux. And it does, for the most part. But unfortunately, iTunes does NOT. And anything I buy of off iTunes would not be playable on linux without breaking the DMCA.

So, the end result is turning one of my servers into a Windows XP box…*shudders*. That’s right. I’ll actually be using a computer with it’s intended operating system.

It does scare me a bit. Because now it means I’ll have to dust up on my windows know-how. All for an iPod.

Apple just needs to come out with a Linux version.

Here is a cross post of a pastor’s blog entry who is in our sister church in Amsterdam.

28 July 2005

seeing

Never
before have I seen the stark contrast of good and evil as I have seen
in Amsterdam. Never have I more strongly felt the presence of evil and
sickness as I have here. Never before have I looked in the face of evil
as I did yesterday.

I don’t know if I can describe the
experience I had yesterday. I don’t think I can paint a clear enough
picture of the event, though I will try.

Yesterday four of us
stood on a bridge in the red light district of Amsterdam. Like every
Tuesday we were praying for the city and reaching out to drug addicts
and dealers. As I was standing on the bridge watching the people of all
ages, race, class, and nationality pass before me, I prayed a simple
prayer. Little did I know the answer to my prayer would come so quickly
and clearly? Little did I know the magnitude of what I asked to see?

As
I looked upon the many comers and goers I prayed, “God open my eyes,
let me see the spiritual realms and understand what is happening in
this place.”

It was only a few minutes later when Andrew
approached us. He was looking for “Excalibur”, a local bar. He was
about my age and looked like a normal guy, other than the word “Fuck”
on his sweat shirt. We asked Andrew if he lived in the area. He
proceeded to tell us a story, not just a story, his story, one I will
never forget.

Two weeks early a relationship of his went sour.
She was the second person he ever loved. What better to do than head to
Amsterdam, indulge in every possible sin and forget his pain? His sole
mission: smoke as much crack as he could and sleep with as many
prostitutes as possible.

As we were conversing we told him we
were Christians, “oh, I know the New Testament very well” he said. And
he did. Andrew proceeded to tell us a dark and disturbing tale, “I have
rejected God” he said. “I have not only turned my back on God, but I
have made it my aim to hurt him as much as possible.” “How do plan on
hurting him?” we asked. “By hurting those he loves, the creatures
created in his image” Andrew responded. “I know I am going to hell and
I want to bring as many people with me as I can.”

“My problem is
pride” Andrew continued. “I will not bow my knee to God. I refuse to
admit my need of his salvation, it would be an act of moral cowardice.”
Andrew began referencing stories of pride in Persian mythology and the
book “Paradise Lost” by John Milton. He began to talk about the devil
and his demons. “The Bible says there will be a day all of us will
stand before God and every knee shall bow. God is going to have to
break my knees, because I will not bow.”

He looked at us and
chuckled, “You Christians, you always talk about winning the battle.
You don’t get it. We know we’ve lost. We’re not trying to win. We’re
trying to take as many down with us as we can.” “We” I said, “who do
you mean by we”, “the legions, the devil and his demons” he replied in
a calm manner. “We hate you, for you are the loved and we are the
forsaken.”

Andrew continued, “Most people in this world don’t
know whom they are serving. They are blind to the spiritual forces.
They are slaves to the master of this world. You know what the devil
wants; he doesn’t want you to suffer in this world, because when people
suffer, they turn to God. He wants you to be distracted. He wants you
to have a nice house, with a nice income and lots of entertainment,
anything to keep you sedated.”

“So” I said, “what is it you
don’t want people to know about God?” “We don’t want people to know He
loves them. His love is dangerous. We want to keep the people blind.”

“The
world is fortunate I am a small man, if I had money and power I would
hurt a lot of people. I would do tremendous evil. You see these crack
heads on the street, I’ll give them money, but first I make them
renounce Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I make them say it out loud. I
make them condemn themselves for a Euro, or a hit of crack.”

Andrew continued, “I
had a Christian friend once, he invited me to a Thanksgiving dinner, to
be nice and because he thought I would be lonely on my own. What he
didn’t understand, is that I don’t get lonely, I am loneliness, my soul is a barren wasteland, I am desolate and dead inside. I feel nothing.”

Andrew then proceeded to open his life to us.

“I
was adopted when I was three” he said. “When my adopted parents got me
they found cigarette burns up and down my back.” “I don’t remember
anything from my first three years of life, all I know, is enough bad
stuff happened to really fuck me up. In high school I was tested and
diagnosed as a sociopath, I have no remorse or guilt; I have no love for people, only hatred.”

“The
only love I felt was with my last girlfriend. It was the first time I
felt emotions. I began crying when I watched sad movies, I was like
“what the fuck is happening to me.” I felt myself changing. Love
changes a person, it’s dangerous. Now the relationship is over and I’m
back to my self, my heart is dead again. After experiencing all this, I
figure there may be a possibility for me to accept God’s love, but it
would only be possible through another persons love.”

Andrew
continued “There is one thing I fear.” “What is that?” we responded. “I
fear demons have influenced my thinking, making me unable to think for
myself on these matters. I have thought about asking God to ride me of
all demonic influence for a period of 30 days, in order to see if the
things I have told you are my thoughts or demon influenced.” “Why not
ask him?” I responded “Isn’t it worth knowing, I mean, you are talking
about spending all of eternity apart from God, in hell, wouldn’t you
want to know if your thinking was wrong?” “Yes I would” Andrew replied.

“You
can pray right now and ask him” I said. “O.K.” he replied. We bowed our
heads and Andrew prayed this prayer. “Jesus, you know I hate you, you
know I want nothing to do with you, but I want to ask you, if you will
listen to me, remove any demonic influenced thinking in my life, give
me 30 days of clarity, so I can know if these are my thoughts or the
thoughts of others.” Andrew then allowed me to pray for him too.

We continued to talk for some time.

“Why are you in Amsterdam?” he said to me. “I came here over two years to start a church.” “So, you are doing His

work.” “Yea, I am his servant.” “Its too late here, we already own this
city. Just look around. We’ve won here.” As I looked around, it was as
if my eyes were opened. I saw red lights, sex shops, drug addicts and
drug dealers. I saw tourist with cameras. I saw souls imprisoned, minds
blinded and hearts hardened. I saw evil oppressing and hatred stealing
people’s lives. I saw sickness and devastation. I saw Andrew’s reality.
I saw a city blinded to love and truth. It was horrifying.

I answered back, “yeah, you may be right, but we are snacking souls out of this hell, one at a time.”

As
we were finishing our conversation, I thanked Andrew for his honesty
and for not pretending who he was truly serving. I also let him know,
that by talking with us, he was actually helping to serve the kingdom
of God. He replied “I know! I hate that, He always turns our evil into
good.”

Please join with me in praying for Andrew for the next 30
days. It was no small thing that Andrew asked God for help. I believe
God knows Andrew and heard his plea. As Andrew said himself, “If I were
to become a Christian, I know I would be a very powerful servant for
God. But I don’t think I could bear the remorse I would feel for all
the evil I have done. If I would turn to God I would have to admit my
wrong and I don’t think I could take it, I don’t think I am strong
enough to bear it.”

God is strong enough to bear it, he bore it on a cross.

posted by Todd @ 10:27 AM

When I first read this, I couldn’t believe how powerful the spirit really was. My heart was just so torn from what Andrew was saying. A part of me felt like…this is it…this is the evil one.

But I have to keep remembering…Satan is the enemy, not people…

I paid $2.799 a gallon today…I hate gas prices! Even with a hybrid…I hate it!

As of tonight, I’ve raised 27.03% of my total goal!! I’m so excited!!! It’s been two months and it seems like I’m on track to being full-time soon. At the rate I’m going, though, I’m afraid it will take a year. but we shall see.

The semester is kicking up soon. I’m not too thrilled about it. But I must say that it feels weird. For the first time, in my LIFE, I am not going to school in the fall. This feels so weird….

But, that’s what life is about. Moving on. right??

So I made a suggestion to LiveJournal today. It’s about adding auto-completion to the tag system. I think that would encourage me to tag more often and more accurately.

So that’s all for now…go back and look at my pictures.

I’m so sleepy! New pictures are up for Jason’s Bachelor Party and Jason and Shari’s Wedding.

It was such an awesome wedding. I had so much fun just hanging out with my awesome roommate and some other cool peeps.

One more wedding left…

Because of some instability with my e-mail at the CS department, I’ve been thinking about some other ways I can get uninterrupted e-mail access. I think what I’m going to do is go old-school and have my computer download the mail from the POP3 server. This still poses the bottleneck problem: if the CS Department goes down, my mail still will not get forwarded.

Since I’ve set up my own domain, I’ve been thinking about converting everything over to mikesoh.com, but not sure if it’s the best thing right now. This would mean that I need to keep mikesoh.com and never unregister it. Which sounds fine now, but I don’t know what things are going to look like 10, 15, 20 years from now.

Not that it matters, of course. I’m sure by then there will be a different type of communication system.

I could, I guess, mask it so that it still looks like everything is coming from the CS department and not mikesoh.com

This actually posed another question to me: should I switch to DVORAK?

I’ve been doing some preliminary research and most of what I found is that it’s very comfortable for those that type a lot…and it helps with carpel tunnel.

Everyone I know has gone to the beach this summer. I feel so left out! It’s really been on my heart to go to the beach and unplug for a little bit.

And I think I need to. I’ve just been so cooped up in my little room, making all sorts of calls and such. What I want is to just take my entire Tuesday and just drive to the beach and hang out there. Or go hiking…that might be fun.

I do want to pray this through and see where God would like me to go. I’m interested to see what a “day vacation” will look like.

Yeah, I did something really stupid. mikesoh.com doesn’t work right now. Hopefully this will be fixed today. Otherwise, plaese visit mikesoh.us

After three or so hours of boring, tedious, and repeative typing…my pictures have been fully converted over to my new web site:
http://www.mikesoh.com/pictures
So there it is.

in other news, I decided to check out my stats for my blog, something I haven’t done in a really long time. I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting pretty regular visitors! To those of you that are coming, thanks for reading!

I should really try to update my blog daily. I think I’m going to try to do that again next week.

Another thing that hit me today is that next year, I will be paying a total of $120 annually for web services. I think I may no longer use LiveJournal’s paid feature. I don’t think I’m using enough of the features to warrent another $12 a month. Besides, I think should move my blog over to my host…save money that way. I haven’t found a decent blog software (LiveJournal is not pretty software…). I’ve been thinking about WordPress. I probably won’t make this move for a while. So stay tuned here!