Reminiscing

It's 630am in the morning and this the is the scene outside my bedroom. With the deep blue pre-dawn sky and the warm yellow street lamps, it's a rare time for me to be awake at this really peaceful time of the day.

I'm now listening to this old 1978 favourite of mine called Reminiscing by the Little River Band, and realising that this song is 30 years old.



Indeed this has been what I've been doing these last 2 days.... After several postponements and missed opportunities, I finally met up with 3 old friends. Two were from Temasek Junior College days and one from my very first Christian rock band in the mid 80s. We've been talking a lot about old times, people we knew and what they were doing now, remembering some who have passed on at a young age etc. I guess at 40 I finally have enough of a history to spend more than an hour reminiscing about the good times we've had. Through this, I also realise how God has been so faithful to me all these years.

I can see how God has taken us through our different journeys in our work, marriages, kids, spiritual journeys etc. I realise that as we get older, our circle of good friends usually get smaller and smaller. The incredible thing in recent years - and I thank God for it - is facebook. It's incredible how many long lost friends have been found and reunited. I'm sure there are also many stories out there of long lost sweethearts finding each other again..... In the good old days before facebook, it would be a one in a million chance of finding each other. This song by Dan Folgerberg has been one of my old old favourites. I didn't quite relate to it so much when it was popular in the early 80s, but I sure felt many of the feelings and related to many of its wonderful images brought up by this song called Same Old Lang Syne.



This year, in December, I will celebrate 30 years since I became a Christian. Wow.... time really flies. It was in 1978 that my whole extended family on my dad's side, save for my one stubborn uncle Phil, came to accept Jesus Christ as our personal saviour at the Billy Graham Crusade at the Singapore National Stadium. Through the 5 days of crusade, we all came separately in small groups, and all gave our lives to Jesus..... what a wonderful testimony to His goodness to us.
In December this year, the Billy Graham crusade organisation will celebrate this milestone with a project called MyHope Singapore which will bring the gospel into the homes of hundreds of thousands of people.

Talking about my uncle Phil, it's an incredible journey for him. 20 odd years after Billy Graham, he is still the only one in the family who has not made a decision for Jesus. In 1989, my grandfather passed away from a heart attack at the airport. Being the filial son and the only person in the family without a church to go to, he decided to now be responsible for bringing my grandma to church every Sunday. She attends a Chinese service, and since his Chinese was probably one of the better ones in the family, it made sense to him. Well after some time of that happening, his heart was finally open and he accepted Christ and was baptised!

Yesterday morning I visited this same Uncle Phil in the hospital where he's just been moved to the ICU. Apparently, his small intestines were blocked and his stomach had bloated big and hard and was causing a lot of pain. Normally it would be a rather simple affair to have surgery to remove the blockage, but for his medical condition... a weak heart.

More than 10 years ago, we almost lost him to a heart attack. He had collapsed at the airport like my granddad and was warded at Changi hospital in a coma and the prognosis was not good. We thought that he we were going to lose him. Well, the family gathered around and prayed like we never prayed before..... he was transfered to Glen Eagles hospital where he was operated on and after a good number of days, he miraculous survived against all the odds!

Well, back at this same hospital surgery and ICU area after all these years certainly brough back memories of that time. There I was with my Aunty Jane - Uncle Phil's wife and Aunty Anne - another aunt of mine. Uncle Phil had just been moved to the ICU and I took some time off from work to go visit him. He was definitely in pain and was coughing a lot, thirsty but could not drink as the liquid cannot drain through his stomach. He had a tube in the nose to drain the stomach, and another tube to provide oxygen. He was still able to talk and I was so happy to be able to pray for him together with Aunties Jane and Anne. The doctor said that they cannot operate because his heart was failing, but the condition of the intestines will get worse if they don't.

I left after awhile for another meeting, and in the afternoon, I received an SMS from my dad saying that Uncle Phil's heart has stabilised enough that they would proceed with the operation to unblock the intestines at 530pm and to pray. Praise God. Pray I did.
At about 630, I called my dad who was at the hospital and found out that God has been gracious again.... my uncle had appendicitis (inflamed appendix) that was causing the block. Had they not operated then, it could have burst and caused poisons to flood inside his body. However, this is a common surgery and they were able to quickly and safely remove the appendix. Praise God.
This morning, I'll be visiting him again.

As I get older, I get more aware of the frailness of our bodies here. I am so thankful that as Christians, we have the hope of an eternal life and new unperishable bodies when we get to heaven. No more pain... how nice that would be.