Fragile

Last week, I made a trip to Adelaide. It was one of the very difficult trips that I made. My mother was very sick; her kidney is failing and not communicating very well. Doctors suspected that she may have another stroke. Everyone from the family came to Adelaide to see mum, including the grandchildren from NZ.

When I saw mum, my heart was broken. She was frail and very sleepy. Her condition is getting worst. She was very chatty last time I saw her. She used to be able to feed herself with one hand. She used to be able to recognise people but this time, she looked confused. She's in a lot of pain. The doctors who are looking after mum have never experience such a difficult case. The family need to make a decision whether to have active intervention to treat mum or to let her go peacefully without prolong her suffering any longer. Her heart was kept active by the pace maker implanted in her heart. Though her body starts to fail, it was the pace maker that artificially keeps her heart pumping. The decision was to deactivate the pace maker, if she has a heart failure the pace maker will not kick in.

Mum has been praying to God to take her home. She looks like she wanted to say something, but her condition makes it difficult for her to communicate what ever she wanted to say. She must be very frustrated.

Mum was a superwoman when she was young. She brought all us up single handily without dad's help. Dad was being controlled by the other mother at that time. (My father was married to 2 women at that time.) She has set a fantastic exmple for all of us in the family.

Life is fragile. Treasure every moment.

Make an impact to someone's life today.

Doulos Part III - Mozamibique

Doulos Part I

Doulos PartII, Doulos Part IIb

After 3 days of voyage, we finally arrived at Nacala, Mozambique. The sea got rough before2 hours before we reached Nacala. I lied on the floor in the main lounge which is the middle part of the ship. Before long, I found more and more people joining me. We got there at 5pm.

‘To Teach and Testify’ was the theme for this port. Mozambique was occupied by Portugal for over three hundred years. The country gained independent in the 80’s and was governed by the Marxist government which was all out against the church. Only about 15 years ago, the government started to open up to freedom of religion. Very few people speak English as the main language in this country was Portuguese and the local dialect. As most churches are very young, therefore the theme was chosen for this port. It would be a challenge to all of us because of the language barrier, but the language that would reach them would be the love of God.
1July 2005
First day in Nacala was my free day according to my schedule. I got better from the sea sickness as the ship is now berthed at the port. No waves, no movements, it was just beautiful. After our group meeting, I went to the E-day notice board to find out what I would be doing on the next day. E-day is one of the jargon that we use on the ship, it is the day when members of the ship’s company gets an assignment to go out and meet the locals and do some community work. The ship normally sends out few teams a day. Doulos consists of 350 volunteers from over 40 different countries. When you are working on Doulos, you get 5 working days a week on your assigned department, 1 ministry day, i.e. E-day and 1 free day.

When I looked at the notice board, I found my name on one of the team. And I have to be ready to meet the team leader at 9:00am. I did not have much time to get ready for this. The work we’ll be doing on that day was practical work, which means it would be very physical. I would need a lot of water. Being new to the ship, I went around and to look for a water bottle and I couldn’t find anything. Finally, I’ve decided to go without it, silly mistake. I packed my lunch for the day as instructed by the notice as our schedule was going to be very long. The second part of the E-day was that we will be going to show Jesus film in a village 45 minutes away from the port. No dinner will be provided, so I have to pack dinner too.

The team met our team leader, Peter who’s a very tall guy and has been nick named by people as Tiny. Our task was to dig a 4m x 4m x 3m reservoir for a missionary centre near the port. It was hard work as there was no machine to help us and everything had to be done manually. After day one, we managed to dig 1.25m deep. During that time, I managed to drink water brought by the team leader and the host provided lunch as well. It looked like there would be another 2 to 3 days of work before the project can be completed. We cleaned up after 4pm and got on to our van and headed to the village to show the Jesus film.

When we got there, it was close to 5pm and started to get darker. We were followed by the kids in the village everywhere we went. They were so curious to see foreigners in their village especially an Asian. Few of us have to distract the kids so that the crew can set up the projector and the screen. We bounced the flash at the kids and they went wild and ran around to follow us. It was fun!

After showing the film, we packed up our equipment to the van. The pastor showed us to a mud hut to serve us some dinner. I was immediately humbled by the food they served; soft drinks and chicken, simple and cheap according to Australian standard but extremely expensive to the Mozambican locals.

We went "home" tired but very satisfied.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong, a happening city. I stopped over at Hong Kong for a few nights, on the way back to Melbourne. My main purpose was to catch up some of my friends who used to stay in Adelaide when we were students whom I have not seen for many years. Before making this trip, I was told that everyone was busy. It's very hard to get together to meet. I was very happy that these friends made an effort on a very short notice to come out to meet.
There were some thoughts went through my mind when I was in this very much happening city. Will I survive with the pressure over here if I work here?
Will I have time for my friends with my very much packed schedule? Will I have time for God? & etc
I was reminded a bible passage about how Jesus asked 'Who touched my clothes?'
Mark 5: 24 - 34
24So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' " 32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

One could imagine how busy Jesus' daily schedule would be. When He was going through the crowds wanting attention, He had time to minister this woman who was suffering from bleeding out of many people who gathering around Him. I guess most people did not take notice of her but Jesus did and I was touched by the attention Jesus gave to this woman. The bible says 'Jesus kept looking around ... ‘ I am sure that He knew who did it. I could imagine that must have been a long time for the woman to come up and admitted that she was the one. Jesus was willing to stop what He was doing and give her the time that she needed.