We were racing to Soekarno-Hatta Airport and I was half hopeful that the new highway would mitigate the usual slow traffic. To my dismay, the traffic began to slow to a crawl. A plume of dark smoke some distance away on the highway signalled a fire of some sort. After more painful crawling, we saw a truck engulfed in flames on the left lane. It had apparently only just caught fire! As our car nudged its way past, I half-heartedly hoped (again!) that its fuel tank would not time its imminent explosion just as we passed....

"Towards the end of the fasting season, I was challenged with a personal difficulty and was struggling to cope with it. I prayed constantly to God to help me with the problem and grant me discernment to what He wanted for me. It was the first time that I desperately needed God and from the whole experience, God drew me closer to Him and made me realise that I needed to fully rely on Him. I’m also really thankful that God is gracious and provided me with support and comfort when I was struggling. In retrospect, I felt that God deliberately timed the fasting season to help me through my struggles. He helped me to realise that He was constantly there for me and that I could always rely on Him to bring me through whatever tough circumstances that I was facing.

Psalm 62:1-2. My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

This verse and many more verses gave me a lot of comfort and provided me with strength during my struggles. I could see for myself that God was always faithful to me and gave me extra strength and reassurance to help me when I was struggling..."

"In Oct 2005, Hua Fen got pregnant again. This time around, we felt that it was going to be successful. However, due to Hua Fen's weak body, we had to visit the gynaecologist almost every other week, whenever she had slight bleeding. We ended up spending a large part of our savings paying unnecessarily high consultation fees, as we only wanted the best for our baby. We saw a gynaecologist at a private hospital and the fees incurred were very high. Hua Fen even went through a simple operation that was supposed to prevent miscarriage, which cost a lot as well.

However, in Feb 2006, Hua Fen had a miscarriage again. This time around, she literally gave birth to a lifeless baby. The sight of the stillborn foetus emerging from her body was the most tormenting moment in my life. I started to blame God again. Why, oh why, God? Why did this keep happening to us? This is already the second time, how many more times more could we take this?..."

"After I was born, my would-be great grandmother heard of two babies in Indonesia who were available for adoption. That Sunday afternoon, my would-be parents and paternal grandparents went to Indonesia to see if the babies were truly available for adoption. When my mum-to-be saw me, she instantly fell in love with me. She did not even want to consider the other baby (who happened to be a boy), but immediately confirmed that she wanted to adopt me. A month later, I flew over to Singapore and started my life here..."

"So instead of wasting her Sundays to stay at home to watch TV and sleep, she met up with Dora and went for service and then into the small CG groups. In the beginning, she was very shy and only talked to Dora and the people she knew, and she found the Bible studies very useful to her so she started to come to church, but sometimes she was too lazy to get out of bed so she wasn't regular in attending.

She remembers that Adrielle and Bernard were her first CG leaders and that time Bernard was really nice to her and even gave her her very first new Bible, but of course Adrielle was nicer and she was very patient with the naughty boys...."

"The night before the hearing, I was somehow led to turn back to God. A still small voice inside me told me very gently that I had tried so many gods and they had all failed me. The same voice asked if I had ever considered calling upon Him. At that instant, I perceived that it was the Lord speaking to me. In desperation, I broke down and fell to my knees, crying like a baby and turning to the Lord for help. I asked for His forgiveness and told Him that He was my last hope. After pleading with Him, I fell into a deep sleep. For the first time since I started working in the company, I slept like a baby..."

"As a young Christian, I naturally have many questions about the various topics being discussed during cell group meetings. God has been very kind, very patient and simply wonderful in guiding me and providing answers to my ignorance. It is fascinating how he does it in various ways and one of the ways is through songs.

Let me tell you how it happened. I had read that there is such a thing as singing in tongues. I wanted to try it, too, and in my attempt to do so, the words "The River of Life " poured out of my mouth without my conscious effort. With it came a tune. That was my first song...."

"Diabetes is what we call a lifestyle disease - a result of too much good food and not enough exercise, although genetic factors also play a part.

I diagnosed myself with diabetes more than ten years ago, but have never really been very worried about my condition. After all, I reasoned, dying early from the complications of diabetes simply meant going to heaven that much sooner (Phil 1:23). I tried to get some regular exercise, but never watched my diet. No one would ever have guessed that I was a diabetic from observing the way I ate, least of all my diabetic patients, to whom I often stressed the importance of diet and exercise..."

"On the third day in the hospital, Natasha had another fit while two nurses were in the process of helping her to bathe. This time, it was very serious, and the fits did not stop despite the treatment given by the doctors and nurses. She eventually fell into a coma, and was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit, where the doctors had to insert a tube into her throat to help her breathe.
 
Susan and I were very worried, and feared the worst. It did not help that even after carrying out an exhaustive series of tests, the doctors could not come to a definitive diagnosis and tell us what was wrong with Natasha. There was nothing we could do except pray, trust God and hope for the best...."

"After breakfast on 11 Sept 2006 ("9/11"), the symptoms suddenly became acute and I began to feel dizzy. After carefully (in case I fell) feeding my marine fish, I made my way slowly upstairs and rested on the easy chair in my bedroom. Soon after, I started retching and vomiting. I became cold and sweated profusely (clammy). The slightest movement on my part would trigger another episode of vomiting. After the fourth episode, I felt that my heartbeat had become irregular. By this time, my wife had become alarmed and called my doctor friend..."

Towards the end of December 2006, I shared with many of you at Christalite about my father's medical condition and requested your prayers. Thank you all for the support and concern you showed. My father was called home by the LORD on 5 June 2007 and with this article, I share with you some of my personal reflections about his life and death.

I had dinner with a friend recently and we ate at a sandwich bar. It was then that I realized that I had not had a sandwich for a meal since I came back 5 months ago! Sandwiches (those properly filled ones, with a nice salad in it) were just 'fast food' for the longest time, and it never occurred to me that I would ever get nostalgic over them, but there I was, having dinner in O'Brien's and thinking of the Pret-a-manger and Greggs along Sauchiehall Street (2 popular sandwich chains along one of the main shopping streets in Glasgow).

Dealing with doubts

Going to Scotland was not all that easy a decision, despite the fact that I had a clear sense that God wanted me to study for my theological degree overseas. I find that often in my walk with God, it is after I make a decision that obstacles seem to appear and I start to doubt if I had heard God right. It was one of those times for me. Shortly after I sent in my application form to the college, I started to have doubts.

"This time I ploughed full speed into my son who had gone ahead and fallen in the snow. He screamed in pain and cried that he could not move his legs. I had crashed to a halt a little lower down the slope, and had to crawl up to him as he screamed and asked me why I was trying to kill him. It was like a scene from a soap opera, except it was real. I genuinely thought I had paralyzed him for life, and cried out to God that this would not be the case. Oh God, No!"