HOW I BECAME A CHRISTIAN
I am not from a Christian family. I remember how my mother once took me to see a movie based on the life of Buddha. She also made me wear an amulet in the shape of a miniature Buddha around my neck, although she did not actually become a Buddhist herself until much later. When I got older, however, I stopped wearing it.
It was about the year 1976 that a parcel addressed to my sister arrived at our home in Taiping, a fairly quiet town in the state of Perak in Malaysia. It turned out to be an edition of the Living New Testament entitled "The Greatest Is Love" (1 Corinthians 13:13). My sister did not read it, but my brother and I did. I was moved by the description of the works and sayings of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels, and eventually I read through the whole New Testament.
Subsequently I got copies of the Scripture Union Daily Bread and/or the Radio Bible Class's "Our Daily Bread" from a Christian classmate. After reading these, I was impressed with the way in which Christian teachings could be related to our daily lives. But I was still not ready to invite Christ into my heart.
My brother who had also read the New Testament went away to Australia to further his studies. While he was away we corresponded. After some time he told me that he had accepted Christ in Australia, and he urged me to consider accepting Christ myself. Due to his sharing in his letters, on a rainy September afternoon in 1980 I finally prayed the prayer to ask Christ into my life. I wrote to my brother and he urged me to start attending a church.
So I just walked into the Wesley Methodist Church in Taiping and found one of my school teachers worshipping there. She was, in fact, the wife of the pastor. What a small world! There were also a few others in the church who were from my school.
So they invited me to join the Methodist Youth Fellowship in the church. Exactly one year after I first attended one of their meetings, I was asked to lead the singing at a meeting. During our long holidays after our Higher School Certificate exams we had a Bible study on none other than Paul's letter to the Romans. One memorable passage from that letter is Paul's conviction in Romans 8:38-39.
Of course becoming a Christian does not mean a life of smooth failing. When I first went to university in Singapore I studied engineering. At the end of the first year I failed very badly in the exams. I was given a chance to resit for seven papers. Out of these I still failed five. I was not allowed to continue to the second year.
So I went back to Taiping to face my parents. To my surprise they were very understanding and they accepted that the course had been too difficult for me. I think God must have prepared them beforehand so that they were able to accept my failure. That was one of the early instances of God's provision in my Christian life.
I spent a year back in Malaysia, then went back to the same university for a course in science. Shortly before I left for Singapore I was baptized on 9 June 1984. At the university I did well enough to pass all my exams at the first attempt, whereas some of my fellow hostelites had to resit various papers one year or another.
It's been over 18 years now and God has been faithful to me every step of the way. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like now if I had not accepted Christ way back on that stormy September afternoon in 1980.
Reflection on how God has been at work in my life, in my family and my church
On a rainy September afternoon in 1980 I accepted Christ. My seeker's journey had started roughly four years earlier when an edition of the Living New Testament entitled "The Greatest Is Love" arrived in my home in Taiping, and I started reading it out of curiosity. A few years later my brother, who had also started reading the New Testament for the same reason, left for Australia to further his studies and subsequently accepted Christ down under. He shared his decision with me in our correspondence, which sometimes included letters as long as 8 foolscap pages. This was back in the days before personal computers, let alone e-mail!
Anyway, when I got to Lower 6 in my school I was elected class monitor for the first time in my school life, but I only lasted one school term in office before my form teacher stripped me of the post over what I considered a trivial matter. My disappointment at being treated this way was a trigger for me to accept Christ, especially after my brother had urged me to do so in his letters.
So I became a Christian in Taiping, where I had grown up although I was born in a small town nearby. God had obviously been at work in my life. The New Testament that came by post was from a man in India whom we had never heard of. We certainly did not write to him to request a New Testament! One might have thought that he had made a mistake by sending an English New Testament to my sister who studied in a Chinese school, and whose command of English wasn't strong enough for her to make an effort to read this New Testament. But that was how my English-educated brother and I ended up reading it instead. Then God worked through my brother when he was in Australia to bring me to Christ. Being sacked as class monitor was another sign of God at work.
After all these years, my brother and I are still the only Christians in our family, and we need to keep on praying for the rest of the family who are not Christians. I thank God for being with me all the way, as I went to Singapore to further my studies, failed badly in my first year in university, got kicked out, and spent a year back in Malaysia to recover from the setback after breaking the news to my parents, who took the news surprisingly well - another sign of God's providence.
I reapplied to the same university in Singapore the following year for a different course. I was accepted, and soon found that the time table was just as heavy as it had been in my previous course. However, I got through all the 3 years of the course without having to refer a single paper, unlike some of my course mates and fellow hostelites. When I graduated in 1987, I faced another trial as the economy was then in recession and it took a long time to find a full-time job after graduation.
Finally I got a job in February 1988. The pay was low, but it was better than no job, and I supplemented my earnings by giving tuition on the side. I only lasted a year in that job before moving on to greener pastures. My boss had been elected an MP in the election held that year. Years later, I read in the paper that he had resigned as MP after having been convicted of some crooked dealings. Who knows, if I had continued working for him, I might have become mixed up with his dishonest activities. I thank God for taking me out of that place of work well ahead of time.
Speaking about time, another example of God's protection well ahead of time came about in Singapore. In 1977, when I was just a seeker, I accompanied my father on a tour to Singapore and we stayed at a hotel that was then known as the New Serangoon Hotel. Later that hotel was renamed the New World Hotel, and in 1986 it collapsed, killing 33 people. I still remember the piped music in the hotel room when I stayed there in 1977 was playing the ABBA hit "Money Money Money"! Indeed, one "cannot serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24, NIV).
Anyway, when I left the job under that MP, it was only the first move in a career that now resembles that of a rolling stone. Along the way, I got to travel to Italy for a 3-month training stint in 1989. During my time there I managed to visit more countries in Europe than I have so far visited in Asia. I hardly went to church during my time in Europe because most of the weekends my colleagues and I were travelling. So when I returned to Singapore it was a great joy to rejoin my brothers and sisters in Christian fellowship in the church where I used to worship.
How did God use me in that church? I sang in the choir for 11 years from 1987 to 1998, and I also got involved with a small group consisting mostly of fellow hostelites from my varsity days. In 1993 I assumed the leadership of that small group after the previous leader stepped down. I remained as leader until I left Singapore in 1998. Then I came back to Malaysia to go through another period in the wilderness as far as earning a living was concerned. I spent a couple of months with my brother in Bandar Utama in PJ before going to stay with my parents in Prai, where I remained until the end of 2001.
My pastor in Butterworth Wesley, where I had transferred my membership from Barker Road in Singapore, let me know of a job vacancy that had come up in KL Wesley, and he encouraged me to apply for it. So I sent in my application with a letter of recommendation from the same pastor, and subsequently I was called for an interview and got the job. Later on, my job title was changed twice. However, no matter what the job title is, the important thing is to serve God. As Paul writes to the Colossians, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men" (3:23).
It was during that period in the wilderness in Prai that I decided to start my journey towards an LPL. The very first module that I tried to sign up for was postponed due to a shortage of students. However, I managed to attend it not in STM, as originally planned, but at Canning Garden Methodist Church in Ipoh, which was just about a couple of hours by road from Butterworth. Later, for another module, I travelled all the way from Butterworth to Seremban, only to decide to audit it instead of taking credit, as it was an elective module. The main reason for that was my then impending move to the Klang Valley to take up the post at KL Wesley, with all the major adjustments that had to be made in order to join God in His work in my life.
This is how God has been at work in my life. As I rely on His provision and His timing, I know that He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). To God be the glory!
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