Shiny New Tires!

I finally got my new tires after struggling for the whole winter. I knew I need tire after sliding all over and finally need to abandon my car during the first snow last winter. But since my car service centre has tire for life warranty if I brought my car back for service, I have been waiting for them to give me my free tires. That is right. It is free! But when I brought my car in during in December, the guy said they need to check with the warranty centre because I was late for service couple times. They may void my tire for life. I was so mad when I heard that cause I don't remember anyone telling me they would void that if I am late for service. And what if I was late, if they void my free tires now, I would never go back for service and that probably will cost them more. But since they said they will call me back, I guess I will wait before yelling at people. But they never call me back. I waited and waited and no one bother calling me. And then I brought my car in again for some other thing and another guy said they would check again for my tires. And of course they never call too. So after the whole winter without proper tires for driving in the snow, I am glad the snow season finally over. And when I brought my car for service last week, the guy suddenly mention that I need new tires and they ordered for me already and they are free! I was sooo happy. Cause the service centre quoted me $200 per tires plus labour. I don't have that $1200! I am so glad everything is free now. One thing I wasn't too happy though. They were supposed to call me on Tuesday when the tires arrived. Yet again, they never did. And when I called them on Thursday, they said I need to book an appointment. I have been driving on my spare tires for more than a week. :( But oh well, free tires. :)

Support

I am truly amazed to find how much support I got ever since people knew about my leaving. I mean I always know my friends will support me, both in prayer and financially. But there are people that I don't know well. When they found out that I am leaving for mission, they would offer to be on my prayer partner list. One person I have been talking to regarding to my church's mission trip and I told him my leaving. He immediately offered to be on my prayer partner list. I am touched because I don't really know him well. Another person from church whom I almost never talked to offered to support me financially. I am so touched by all the support people show for me. May be this trip is a bit less scary now. At least I know I am not alone.

Passion

My pastor asked me to share my plan for the mission trip during sermon. I was a bit hesitated cause I still have a round of interview in Toronto and no one know if I would pass or not. And it would be extremely embarrassed if I did fail. Anyhow, I also don't want my church to be surprised when I suddenly announced I am leaving in two weeks. One thing that my pastor want me to mention is why Cambodia. I thought I wrote about that in my blog but I somehow couldn't find it. I remembered it was two years ago when I went with my friend to Cambodia for travelling. When we were having lunch around Angkor Wat, one girl walked up to us holding post card and counting them in English one by one. She was pretty cute and outspoken. So we bought a set from her. She quickly approached other tourists doing the same thing. And then we saw another little kid trying to sell the post card as well. But he was more shy and timid and he just stood beside us keep counting in a very quiet voice scarily. But since we already bought the post card, we didn't buy more from him. He tried to approach other tourists by the other girl always got to them first. So he just kept counting beside us. We tried to offer him food instead but he just kept counting. In the end we still didn't buy from him. But somehow his imagine was still in my mind. It was after that trip I know I want to go back to Cambodia to do mission work. I don't know how yet. But I just know that is my calling.

Trust

I never imagine at my age, the approval from my parents still matter that much. I thought after all these years I grew so independent making my own decision, why would I care if they don't approve of something. In fact, I still do. Hearing my mom in her tearing voice said "go do what you want and don't let us burden you" broke my heart. But yet it still gave me so much courage to move on. My uncle asked me about the organization I am going with. It was then I realized I never told my parents that too. So I sent both of them the organization website since I figured my parents would want to know too. They were pretty worried about my church in the first place because there are so many cult out there. But my dad replied and said "We didn't ask you that because we trust you." It brought me to tears seeing how my parents support in this whole process. Like my dad said, "we are the coolest parents, huh?" Yes dad, you are. :)

Do Not Worry

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? -- Matthew 6:25-27

I keep reciting this verse in my head. How come it didn't make me less scare? How am I going to survive next month? Where do I find money for mortgage? Gas? Everything? What am I going to do with the bed I am sleeping on? All the furniture? I was so worried about all the little things last night and I ended up not sleeping at all. Am I just not trust enough? I hand in my resignation letter today. But I felt more scared than ever. I felt there is a storm raging inside my head. Deep breath.

Step of Faith

Taking a step of faith. It is always easier said than done. I thought I did that already by seriously considering moving to Singapore even though I won't be making money for 1-2 years. But as if God doesn't think I trust Him enough. I felt like He is putting me thru another test again to push me more. Today I got my invitation to Toronto training course. That mean, I am on my very last round of the application process. Unless something major happened during that week, I most likely am going to Singapore. And here come the hard part. I most likely need to quit my current job BEFORE leaving for Toronto. That is the part I feel very uncomfortable now. Somehow having a "gap" between my employment make me feel extremely uncomfortable. I have never been in this situation before. Even if I did last time, I got some money from my previous company. Now I feel so vulnerable. Even if I don't starve myself, I still have tons of utility to pay. I know it is a short period of time. But somehow I feel very nervous. I know it is a step of faith. If I trust God will provide, I have to trust He will guide me thru this whole way. He led me to this far and for sure He won't abandon me now. Courage!

Difference

I finally finished the most hideous application form known to man kind. It is called Second Step ;) It took me seriously 3 days to finish it. It is the form I got from OMF after I completed the first round of interview. It asked about my relationship with God and church, my thought on OMF policies and my stands on different denominations and different practices. When I first looked at the questions, a lot of my answer was "I don't care". But when I started filling the form, my first reaction became "Oh, I don't know I can accept that. That sounds just wrong." Then I realized what I was doing and stopped to think. Do I really care that much about how we define baptism or church membership. Not really. But I am more used to how my church define those concept and anything else seems too foreign for me to accept. But those concept are just different way to interpret the doctrine. And the most important part of my faith isn't even that. Then why those tiny difference becomes so important. And would that stop me from working with people whose view is differently than me. It shouldn't be. We all believe in the same God and believe that Jesus came and die for us. That should be enough. We should not focus what we do externally, but how our heart is.

So even though the form is hideously long, it does help me to reflect a lot on the basis of my faith.

The Beginning

I applied for a mission position with OMF in Singapore/Cambodia. I somehow want to keep track of my thought during this process. This is the email I wrote to my partner partners at the very beginning.


The whole thing started off with me surfing for short term mission opportunity in Cambodia and came across a posting looking for personnel to work on an IT project in Singapore/Cambodia. Ever since I went to Cambodia two years ago, I always want to go back to help the people there. And it is a ministry that require what I do for living. I can hear God's calling so loudly that I immediately email OMF. I had an interview with their project manager in Singapore and also their National director last week. Even though I blew my interview on the technical part :P, both of them told OMF to proceed my application to the next step. So here I am, filling a bunch of forms :(

When I first saw the position, I was pretty excited. But this week reality sinks in, with all the logistics problem, I became very scared. The most scary part is I have to leave my job and not able to have an income for the period during mission. That idea freak me out. With mortgage I have and being the financial support for my family, the more I think about it, the more I lost in the idea why I would even want to move. No matter how many times I told myself that I have to trust God will provide. It is just a step of faith I have to commit. And if I know it is a calling, why it is so hard to trust God. Why when I told my congregation to not let money stop them from going on mission, it burden me so much. The more I think about it, the more scared I am.

Then my parents called me on Thursday. Their acceptance on the idea is actually the scariest of all things. I have been delaying to tell them until I passed the first step. My mom first wanted to make sure everything is okay with me. Then she said if it is something I want to do, go ahead and do it. Don't let them stop me. You can't imagine how touched and encouraged I was when I heard that. My family isn't rich and with me leaving and not working for 1-2 years, we really need to juggle thing around. And my parents are non Christian and I can't expect them to understand. But they support me anyway. I am truly encouraged by them and pick up my courage to keep going in my process.

Body Check Part 2

I finally finished complete body check and got my test result today. That inclued everything you can think of to test (5 test tubes of blood! and TB skin test and chest x-ray). I think the only thing that is missing is a CT scan. Everything seemed okay. The most exciting thing is I finally know my blood type. But it cost me $20 to do the test. :( Now I know who can save me when I need blood. Hahaha. My family doctor figured since I am doing all those blood test, I may as well do my thyroid test which is long overdued. The result comes back is confusing. Apparently my body think I have enough thyroid but my brain doesn't think so. So my doctor is going to change my medicine dose and see. I wonder if that is what makes me feel so tired lately. Could be just all the staying up late for nothing. But at least I know my health is fine-ish. :)

Blind!

This weekend I had new discovery of myself. I am blind. I am in fact so impressed with myself on how unobservant I am. We often said guys are unobservant. The guys I worked with wouldn't notice when I cut my hair from shoulder length to just covering the ear. But man, I am more impressed with myself. How often do you notice your tires? How often would you notice your tires are different? Would you notice the rear tire from the driver's side changed? How about if the tire cap become bright yellow, I bet you would notice, right? I walked out to my car Saturday morning and notice something very different. My tire cap became bright yellow. I had that instant panic that someone stole my tire cap. But when I looked more closely, I noticed it was not just the tire cap, the whole tire was smaller. It was the spare tire. Then I became more panick. Who on earth change my tire to a spare tire!! My first reaction someone broke into the garage again and thought it was funny. But when I opened my trunk, my regular tire was right there, nicely wrapped in plastic bag. I was all confused now. I took my car for service on Friday and they mentioned I needed new tires and ordered a set for me. Would it be the service people who changed my tire? But why would they do that when they were about to give me new tires? The MOST interesting part is, I was driving my car the whole Friday night without even noticing my tire is different! Not even the bright yellow cap caught my attention!

The Scariest V-Day

Tonight, while everyone is out celebrating (or forced to celebrate) Valentine's Day, I was freaking out with several friends cause we couldn't get a hold of one of our friends for couple days now. She hasn't been very responsive to any of our email and phone calls and text messages. But she has been in contact with one of the friends. But now not even that friend can get a hold of her. And last thing we heard was she was sick and that was 4 days ago. Her family didn't know where she was. So my friend and I decided to go to her place. I went there earlier and knocked for a good 10 minute but no one answered. We figured we would try again. At least may be we can get a hold of the landlord. We rang the door bell and knocked on the door and still no one answered. We finally talked to her neighbor and asked for landlord's number. We called the guy but he couldn't do anything unless we called the cop. He said may be she was out celebrating Valentine's Day with her boyfriend. That moment I wish she just having a secret boyfriend and not telling any of us. The landlord also asked if we smelled something funny. I almost broke to tear on that thought, but I did know I didn't smell anything. My friend and I sat there and debating if we should call her brother about calling the cop. We finally figured we will wait for one more friend to show up and gave some input. The wait was killing both of us. We changed our mind and went to another friend's house to wait instead. None of us know what to do still except calling her family, but we hesitated in case it was really nothing. It was then, she finally replied to my friend's email and said she was sick and just slept thru all the noise. I swear I never swear so much in one night in my life than I did last night. Part of me was so glad she is alive and part of me was so mad at her non-responsiveness. So, Happy V-Day!

Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day. It is also another good day for business to rip money off people. For some reason, flower, chocolate, and dinner is a must for married/dating people. And they are also stupidly expensive during this time of the year. My brother and I always had this big business plan when we were a kid. Back in Hong Kong, dating couple usually like to stroll along the Victoria habour at night. That is like a dating activity. And on Valentine's Day, some people will carry basket of roses to sell. They will approach the couple and ask the guy to buy a rose. The guy usually wouldn't dare to say no in front of his girlfriend even though the rose is insanely expensive. And you can't really say no when a kid is selling too. So my brother and I figure it is like a sure win business plan. All we need to start is that basket of roses. We can make like $100 per rose. We will make enough money to last a year. And then come back next year for more. Of course this never happen because our parents think we were just two stupid kids. :( Happy Valentine's Day! :)

Body Check Part 1

Today I went to do a series of blood tests as part of my body check. I am actually quite familiar with blood test procedure. Because of my thyroid problem, I need to do a blood test every year. However, I was never thrilled when the nurse came close with a needle ready to poke me. Today is a bit special. Because of the number of tests I need to do, they need to take 5 tubes of blood from me compared to the regular 2 tubes. Usually I would turn away and not look at how they took the blood from me until they are done. But today it took longer than usual and I turned my head and looked. I was stunned. I was scared to see how fast my blood leaving my body and streaming into the bottle. I felt so weak all a sudden, as if my life was leaving me. I almost wanted to faint. I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself. I know. I am such a wimp. Faint after looking at my own blood for 2 seconds. But it is really scary! I am glad I never choose to be a doctor.