TAKING A BREAK

IT IS THE rainy season, not the best time to go to the beach.
But we did it anyway.
Took two days off to Bintan to enjoy the sand and sun (well, some of it).
Had we gone snorkling, which we didn't as the sea was too choppy, it would have been perfect.
There's nothing like 'crossing to the other side'.
Away from the hustle and bustle of Singapore city life, somehow everything looked different.
Simpler.
Easier.
Less complicated.
It was calming to sit for hours on the beach (it rained some but we survived), read, take long walks, pray, with no schedule to follow, no deadlines to meet.
I particularly enjoyed watching a couple of guys fishing when the rain finally stopped.
We were all strangers on the shore but each time their lines came back with fishes, we all rejoiced.
We even discussed how each type of fish should be cooked.
It's been a long time since I woke up that early to catch the sunrise.
And played ping pong at night.
I didn't come back exactly totally rejuvenated--the lady who massaged my shoulders on the beach said I was too tensed, "Must relax more, madam," she said (good advice).
But I came back grateful.
For the chance to slow down.
Change pace.
And breathe in life--slowly.

SHEEP TALK

I'M READING a book on biblical leadership by Timothy Laniak.

Entitled While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks, the book is a gem for people in ministry.

Basically the author talks about what shepherds should be, drawn from observations while living in Israel.

The first thing that strikes me is the work of the shepherd is never done!

Besides making sure his flock is well--free of disease, danger and mischief--one of his most challenging roles is to feed the sheep. All the time.

I mean these creatures eat - and drink - all day long.

The very young ones need soft and new grass. The older ones something more mature and solid.
And the shepherd needs to find safe clean water for his sheep.

And when they have grazed enough in one place, he moves them to another for the same thing, the same routine.

Grass. Water. Grass. All year long.

Shepherding is back-breaking work.

There is nothing glamorous or easy or painless about the job.

And the sheep doesn't say, "Thank you."

And sheep business doesn't pay either--not enough for that kind of labor.

You got to love the job--and the sheep, the author adds.

I asked myself many questions as I read the book:

Do I love my sheep?

Do I have passion for what I do?

Am I shepherding or am I just organizing or lording over the flock?

Am I feeding my sheep all the time?

And with the right food, making sure God's Word is simple, palatable, and delicious enough for them?

TOKYO DELIGHTS

DURING THE LAST week of December, we went to Tokyo to speak at a Japan Campus Crusade retreat for more than 100 workers.

We received many blessings. Here are 10 of them, not in any order:

1. Just being in Japan is a blessing. The cleanliness, the trains that never failed to arrive on time, people in colorful scarves, boots, and mittens.

2. It was minus 3 degrees C the morning we left. But we loved the change from Singapore's heat and humidity!

3. Getting to know the Japanese workers. Their sincerity and warmth surprised me. (Confirmed. Japanese people are not all cold and reserved.)

4. Meeting Keiko Kawagami again. We met five years ago on a mission trip to Tokyo. She visited us later in Singapore and accepted the Lord. She served us a Japanese tea ceremony before we left; it was completely charming.

5. Going to Harajuku one afternoon. We felt we had landed in Manga-land.

6. Dawn, Julienne's friend who came with us. She enjoyed our worship and talks (she's a Roman Catholic), she said. That makes me very grateful.

7. Almost every restaurant and cafe we went to, there was always very nice jazz music playing. That's a treat to us.

8. The sushi and sashimi in Japan are fresh and surprisingly affordable. Our hosts took us to a place where sushi is half the price of what we get here in Singapore. Shocking, isn't it?

9. Staying with Patrick and Estella Low, Singaporeans missionaries, and their three kids. I learned from them how to extend hospitality, enjoy udon in five different ways.

10. Celebrating our daughter's 21st birthday on our final night with the Lows and Dawn. What can I say? It was an evening of good company, great Japanese food, and tons of gratitude. God is good.

MEETING GEORGE AGAIN

IN JULY, we went for Campus Mission 2007 in Busan, Korea. What a wonderful conference it was.
There were 16,000 of us from more than 123 countries.
I (YK) spoke at one of the workshops to more than 1,000 women, and had many opportunities to counsel students one on one.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

But the highlight of CM 2007, for me, was meeting George Verwer again.

Between 1976-1978, I served on board the MV Logos (OM ministry), which brought educational and Christian books to Africa and India.

George, then the director of OM, came to the ship regularly to speak to us.
Once he announced in a public meeting, "If anyone read/listened to 100 books/taped messages within the year, come to me and ask for any book or collection of books in our exhibition and I’ll give it to you."

That--the reward--got me really excited (I was all of 21 years old).

Before the year was up, I had completed 100 books and tapes. Stott, Packer, Tozer, Elliott, you name it, I covered them all.
I even selected my ‘reward’: a multi-volume Bible Encyclopedia (yes I was young AND greedy).

One fine day, we were told George was coming to the ship to speak to us.

The night before he arrived, I stood before a mirror for two hours practicing my claim-the-reward speech.

But halfway through my rehearsal, the Lord spoke to me, "What reward are you claiming?" He asked.
"Haven’t you been blessed already?"

As usual, God was right.
That one year of getting into the lives of those men and women had blessed me richly. My life, habits, convictions, my understanding of God, they were not the same anymore.

No, I didn’t claim my reward that day. I didn’t even tell George I did it (so shy lah).
But after CM 2007, some 30 years later, I finally wrote to him (and that’s because Julienne, who’s endlessly delighted with my story, pushed me to do it).
Yes, and I finally told him his fruit has remained.

Praise God for choosing others to bear fruit in our life.

Praise Him for choosing us to, in turn, bear fruit in other people’s life.

Seven tips to visiting the sick

Lately I've been visiting someone in hospital.

And I learned many things.

One of which is what to do and what not to do when visiting the sick.

1. Do visit them.

It's a great ministry.

Both to the visited and the visitor.

For me, it keeps me humble.

2. But don't rush in and out.

When we rush, people won't feel the ministry, no matter what we bring them or what we say.

I still remember a superior who came for my dad's wake seven years ago.

He looked and sounded appropriately sorry for me, but stole glances at his watch like 20 times throughout the ten long minutes he stayed.

He needn't have come, I remember thinking.

3. Be cheerful.

Don't giggle and tell jokes but don't pull a long face either.

The gal I'm visiting is all of 16 years old.

It's already very sad for her to be lying down all day for the past three weeks, and be subject to all sorts of tests every day.

She doesn't need to comfort her visitors by being extra cheerful.

4. Bring something to brighten up the day.

Flowers, huge cards, soft toys, anything.

This gal's aunt brought all her barbie dolls and decorated the room with them.

Even the visitors sqealed with delight.

5. If the patient is up to it, do something with him or her together.

I brought my MP3 player and we worshipped the Lord together to 'Heart of Worship'.

It was a quiet, joyful time together.

6. Don't talk about yourself for more than five minutes.

One visitor went straight into her own journey of sicknesses and healing the moment she arrived.

She meant well but the teenager switched off.

Clearly she had heard one 'comforting' story too many.

7. Make yourself useful.

Sometimes it means running errands for the family.

I brought my daughter to make cards with the teenager while I took her mum, who's the patient's constant caregiver, for a drive out and fresh air.

bear with me

In recent days there’ve been a lot of bear buzz at the Berlin Zoo.
It’s to do with a cute and white four letter word: KNUT.

Knut is a polar bear born at the zoo on 5 December 2006.
He was raised by human hands because his mother had refused to nurse him and his brother, who later died.
The cutie, who’s now a 19-pounder, became a global sensation, after an animal activist had insisted that it be killed since its mother did not want it to live.
Raising it through humans, he claimed, is cruel.

Reminds me of the story in I Kings chapter three in the Bible about King Solomon, the wisest man on earth, and how he settled a dispute between two prostitutes.
The women gave birth to sons in the same house.
One of the babies, however, died, in the night; and the mother of the dead child claimed that her housemate’s son was hers.

After hearing their arguments, Solomon summoned for a sword.
“Cut the boy in two and give each woman half the baby,” he said to his men.
The mother of the living baby panicked, and begged the king to spare her son, and give him to the other woman.
That was when the king knew who the true mother was.

You see, the one who truly loved the child didn’t have to be right.
The animal activist, in fighting for his "child"--his cause for preservation of animals, etc., which are all good--was willing to sacrifice the cub.

Why? Because he had to be right.
He had missed the reason behind his mission.

Great stories--both this and the one from I Kings.

Timely reminder too for me:

that I should never forget the reason behind what I work hard in,

that it's easy to lose the human touch even when fighting for a GREAT cause,

that once in while, it's ok not to be right.

NOTES FROM A CAT LOVER

Yesterday while hunting for a parking lot near my church, I witnessed a hit and run.
The victim was a white cat with blue eyes.
I was in time to see the car screeching off, followed by two women running out of their terrace houses to tend to the bloodied remains of the animal.

By the time I got out of my car, everyone was sobbing: the two women, a maid, two children hiding behind their gate, weeping.
The bones of the animal were broken. The car must have been in high speed. It was a residential area.

The owner, a 70-plus woman in a flowery housecoat, couldn’t bear to touch it. So the neighbor and I moved the body to the shade.
As she covered it with a towel, weeping, the lady asked me, “Could it still be alive?”
“No,” I replied. Thank God it didn’t suffer.”

Later, as I sat with the owner, she told me how everyone in the lane loved the cat.

And it had been her constant companion ever since her husband passed away and daughter married off.
“My son, who lives with me, doesn’t talk to me,” she said.

Halfway, she showed me, from an album, pictures of her husband’s young handsome face from long ago, playing the piano; and herself in dancing shoes, looking very pretty.
“I used to go for ballroom dancing every week,” she said.

Then she wept. Bitterly.
For the things she has lost: her husband, her youth, relationship with her son, her cat.

For almost 20 years, I had parked in this upper-middle-income neighborhood near my church almost every Sunday.
I would admire the picket fences and well-tendered gardens.

Sometimes the dogs would come out and look at me, wagging their tails.
Seldom would I see the people living in the houses.

But yesterday, I stepped inside one of those gates and took a peek into someone’s life.
And I was reminded that behind the high walls and well-renovated exteriors are people with memories, heartaches, husbands who left, hearts that could be lonely.

I’ll not walk in this neighborhood the same way again.