With Mum in Spring, Kuching!

I had a lovely time with my mum in the mall called Spring in Kuching tonight! I must record here my thanks to the management for allocating 4 parking lots, right near the entrance of the mall at the basement level,specifically for those who are on wheel-chairs. Such caring gestures from this management ought to be emulated by other businessmen all around the world, especially Malaysia.

I especially appreciated this because my 85 year-old mum needs a wheel-chair to move around and I often find it difficult to park my car at the entrance of any building to let my mum get out of the car and into her wheel-chair, without people getting impatient waiting behind my car which they cannot pass until I wheel her to some safe spot and driving somewhere else to park my car. At Spring, I can do it so easily and other cars have ample space to pass my car on one side while my mum slowly gets out of her carseat into the wheel-chair! And then, I just have to reversed a little to park my car into the lots specially reserved for those with wheel-chairs. Often we meet kind-hearted security personnel who helped me with my mum while I parked the car! Bravo to such kind consideration! The world is a better place because of kind people like them!

So Spring will always be my choice of destination whenever I want to take my mum out for dinner or shopping or just to get out of the room where she spends most of days of her sun-set years!

We had a simple but lovely dinner of hot-plate chicken/beef with rice and our favourite dessert - ABC ( Ais Batu Kacang), a huge bowl of ice-shavings topped with sweetened red beans, chandol (a green rice noodle with pandan), chin chau (chopped black jelly), mixed fruits, syrup and evaporated milk and vanilla ice-cream! Always a delicious treat!!! I think my mum was happy tonight and I am happy because she is happy.

The best part of the dinner was the opportunity to make friends with a most wonderful couple from Coffs Harbour, Australia who owned a bakery for 31 years and have come to Kalimantan to build a bakery in Living Waters Village so that the orphans in the orphanage there can be trained to be bakers who can bake well and sell good baked products so that they can be self-sufficient and financially independent soon! What nobel efforts to help the poor ! A wonderful example of teaching the underpriviledged how to fish for themselves and not just give them fish! May God sustain and empower this lovely couple to finish this task He has placed on their shoulders and may He grant them great joy!!!!

I thank God that I had a Happy Mother's Day after all!

Unhappy Mother's Day

Wouldn't any mother feel unhappy on Mother's Day when she tried to teach her children about wise spending and commented that they do not feel the pinch when they spend needlessly because they did not have to earn the money, her children replied that she, a homemaker, did not earn the money either --- implying she has no right to teach them about monetary things!!!! Well, I was that mother today and I have been deeply wounded! May God grant me the healing I need! I will focus today on showing love to my aged 85 year old mother, who lives with me, instead!

Today I wish there is no Mother's Day because at least I will not expect to be appreciated. When you do and you are not appreciated, it is a huge diasppointment. When you do not expect any appreciation and it comes to you, you will be pleasantly surprised and you will feel you are at the top of the world!

I know a 15 year-old boy who is dying of cancer. The doctors have tried everything they could but they could not help him to conquer this disease. He came to Sarawak General Hospital for treatment when the cancer has already spread from his bone to his lungs and it really was too late. The malignant growth in his leg has been removed surgically but the lung cancer was just not responsive to the chemotherapy he was given. Now it has spread all over his lungs and spine. Tommorow he is going back to his home in Sabah, knowing that he does not have long to live.

How does one talk to a person who knows he is dying soon?

I wanted to see him today, to take him and his mother to a nice place for a meal. But on my way to fetch him and his mother, I got a call from his mother saying that he has a headache and wanted to rest instead. I really hope to see him again tomorow before he leaves for Sabah because I do not know if I will get to see him again. He is a wonderful chap who has been brave in going through all the treatments at SGH and who has really hoped for a cure until last week when he was told that nothing else can be done for him. Cancer has triumphed again - how sad! If only he was diagnosed earlier and treated earlier !!!!

Months ago I have shared with him that he can have eternal life by accepting Jesus as his Saviour and Lord. But because he was hearing this for the first time in his life, he was not sure how to respond to this good news. I hope he has read more of God's love for him in the Bible I gave him and that in his own way, he has opened his heart to God but I do not know and I hope I can find out tomorrow. May God use me to encourage him to let God into his life and become a child of God. May God give him the faith to believe he can have eternal life through Christ Jesus! O, Lord, please have mercy!!!

It has been an awfully long time since I last blogged.My family has been robbed at our home 2 months ago! Since that day I have been very busy with efforts to try to increase the security of our home. We got people to re-install our alarm system, change locks and add bolts to our doors, put in an extra grill at the top of our stairs(leading to our bedrooms) and build a new and tall fence. We also started rearing 2 dogs to guard our house.

Robbed!!!

About a month ago, my family and I were robbed at our home at 4.30am. I was soundly asleep when I was rudely awakened by 4 robbers who had entered my bedroom, after breaking in through the kitchen grills. They covered their heads and faces using our t-shirts which were hanging out to dry at the backyard. The gangleader was the only one who spoke to us most of time. He threathened to harm with the clever knife in his hand. They bound my hands and told me to wake the rest of my family - my son, daughter, mother and mother-in-law. My husband was in Seremban at that time. After that, they ransacked our rooms and took away all our valuables - cash, jewellery, lap-top, camera, 4 hand-phones, badminton racquets and shoes.

During the robbery, which lasted about 30-45min, I was filled with the peace of God. I was convinced God was with us and that He was still in control, even though there were evil men around us. I kept praying that He will protect us from bodily harm and He did!!! God even gave me the words to say so that the robbers will not bind my mother-in-law's hands at the back of her because her shoulders were experiencing pain and they were compassionate enough to agree. Because of that, she was able to free the binds on her leg easily and able to walk to her sewing-machine to get a pairs of scissors to cut the binds on my son's hands. He then freed the rest of us. Also when I saw my waist-pouch worn across the chest of the gang-leader, I was calm enough to bargain with him, to ask him to take the money inside but to leave my documents behind. He cooperated! Thanks to God !It saved me from alll the hassle if I had to report the loss and get replacement of all my bank cards, identity card, driving license,etc.

As soon as my son cut the binds on my hands and legs, I called 911. But the policewoman on the line told me to call 103 to get the telephone number of the police station closest to me. When I threatened to report her unwillingness to help me, she relented and connected me to the Kuching police station. Within 10 min after that call, the police arrived at my house to investigate the robbery. They found the entry point- a cut chain-link fence at the back of my house and a cut iron grill at my kitchen.They found the robbers' weapon - the cleaver knife on my bed and tried in vain to get the finger-prints of the robbers. They found the sock which was worn by the robbers to prevent finger-prints being left behind. A sniffer dog was brought to my house to sniff out the scent of the robbers and it led to the back lane onwards to the adjacent road and the trail of scent ended. The neighbours were questioned by the police. My family and I were also questioned many times regarding the details of the robbery. Despite the flurry of investigative activities, there is no trace of the robbers to this day.

After the robbery, my daughter who is most traumatised by it has been sleeping with my husband and I till today. Hopefully, after our new fence is built and extra iron grill installed at the top of our stairs, and the alarm system of the house fully functioning, my daughter will feel safe enough to sleep in her own room again. May God heal her completely of the trauma she had gone through and take away all her fears and enable her to trust Him again. God had never left her, even during the robbery but she needs to be reassured of God's abiding presence with her and be courageous again like she used to be. She still talks and make noise often in her dreams. She says she does not dream about the robbery but had other types of bad dreams, eg huge spiders.

Guess what? 2 weeks after the robbery, my husband lost his wallet with all his documents while we were watching a movie. It was very stressful, having to cancel the bank cards and going to report the loss of his documents and running around to the different places to replace them. Even though the wallet was found 2 days later, all the hard work had been done. We are grateful, though, that it was found in answer to our prayers and there were many more cards inside that we do not have to replace. Wonderful to know that God is with us through it all!

Happy Birthday???

Last Thursday, my beloved hubby baked me a chocolate birthday cake - his very first cake! I really appreciate his loving gesture and his courage to step into the baking world! And everyone who ate that cake found it hard to believe my husband was the one who made it! It was soft, moist and yummy!! Someone actually said it tasted like the rich Hilton chocolate cake! Another friend actually took some of the cake home in an attempt to inspire her husband to bake one for her birthday next week!

Cakes aside, I was very glad to have the company of 14 good friends in my home fellowship who sang me the birthday song and prayed for many blessings from God for me. I was touched by their love for me. But another part of me pained at the thought that 3 out of 4 of my children did not remember my birthday. Only my second son in Sewanee, Tennessee, USA emailed me a birthday greeting. The eldest son in Fort Worth,Texas totally forgot. My two other children who are still staying with me at home did not even give me any verbal greeting, although they knew it was my birthday since their father tried in vain to get them to help him make the cake the night before.

It is at times of disappointments like this that I find comfort in God's Word. Just recently, God has spoken to me in a very clear way, like a bolt of lightning brightening the dark sky. I was reading Luke 17:7-10, a passage where Jesus said :
"Suppose one of you has a servant who is plowing or looking after the sheep. When he comes in from the field, do you tell him to hurry along and eat his meal? Of course not! Instead you say to him,'Get my supper ready, then put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink, after that you may have your meal.' The servant does not deserve thanks for obeying orders, does he? It is the same with you, when you have done all you have been told to do, say 'We are ordinary servants, we have only done our duty.' " I suddenly saw for the first time that in all my service unto others, especially my children, I must not expect to be thanked! If I expect any gratitude, I am in for disappointment. I am only serving the Lord as His servant. It is good enough that the Lord sees what I do in obedience to Him. The Lord can set me free from my self-centredness and the need for appreciation from others. I desire to continue to do good unto others without expecting ANYTHING in return - not even a thank you.

I do not want to wallow in any self-pity when my children do not remember my birthday. Why is my birthday so important anyway? (Probably many thousands of people were born on the same day of the same month as me!) Perhaps it is because I grew up in a family where we always remembered and celebrated each others' birthdays as a way of showing love and appreciation for one another. And I have never failed to remember and celebrate the birthdays of each of my children and my husband. But why must I expect them to do the same for me? May I never forget Jesus' teaching in Lk 17. I must decrease and Christ must increase! Lord, help me!

Life is Beautiful!

Life is beautiful! That is how I have been feeling nowadays, for quite some time. I wake up each morning with joy, thanking God for a brand new day to experience His goodness to me and to do His bidding. There is peace and harmony between all members of my immediate family – no more hostility that I used to sense from my daughter, no more enmity between my eldest son and my only daughter (they made peace before he went overseas for studies). I also sense that a deeper understanding and appreciation of one another has grown between my husband and me. This is so precious.

I am also thankful to God that I am physically healthy and rather strong ( able to lift things like my mother’s wheelchair all by myself although my arms complain after each lifting). I jog with my husband in the evenings as often as we can, when it is not raining and there is no meeting with anyone. Recently, we have started swimming once a week on Sunday evenings at the Stampin Waterpark when my children are having their Bahasa Malaysia tuition. We really enjoy that time together in the pool, exercising and chatting in between our laps. So, physically, I feel very well and this sense of well-being energizes me to do a lot more than just cooking, shopping and fetching the children to their activities. I have been busy helping out at the Friendship House, where cancer patients and their relatives stay, in between receiving treatments at Sarawak General Hospital. My latest project is to teach the children during the coming church camp, together with my husband. There will be about 17 children, ages 5-10, and four sessions over 3 days. I have been busy looking for suitable materials and preparing for the children’s program. But I am looking forward to it. I pray that the children will be nourished in God’s Word through creative ways next weekend and that they will have much fun too!

For the past three months, I have not had any attacks of depression. Thanks be to God!!! I believe God has brought my hormonal levels to a good balance and I pray He will keep it that way! On my part, I try to pace myself and not to do too many things at one go. In the afternoons, I take a nap to be rejuvenated for what I need to do in the evenings. I am grateful to God for the good domestic help that He has given me. She helps me with a lot of the household chores and this frees me to be of service to others and to exercise and keep fit. She is also a great help in taking care of the physical needs of my aged mother ( she is 84!).


I believe that the secret to personal happiness is in being obedient to God and in loving service to others. When we have an intimate relationship with God and we are obedient to His leading, we will have a great sense of fulfillment and contentment. When we deny ourselves, for example in not going for the type of holidays we desire and not buying the new set of furniture we long for, but using that money which is saved to give to the poor and needy (including needy pastors), there will be so much joy in our hearts – joy which is from God which way above the short-lived thrills that the world offers. When we choose not to cling to our possessions (including our time), but instead share it with others, we are freed from slavery to materialism and self-centredness and our lives will not be so cluttered too! I think this is a good way to spread the fragrance of Christ wherever we go!!!