Rejoice......

After almost two and a half months away from home, it is indeed good to be back home even for a short while. It is good to meet familiar faces again. However, it is also sad to hear and know that quite a number of friends have since migrated to another world. This brings to mind that one needs to value friendship because life is so transcient, here a moment gone the next. Life is always in the hands of our Maker. We can't prolong our lives a minute nor can we shorten it. We need to live our lives to the fullest....thanking God for each moment. Another aspect we need to learn is to accept change. Change seems to be the constant factor nowadays. Friends moving to live in another place....certain places in town change due to development. Guess this is what life is all about.
Personally, i too need to adapt to change. Never in my adult life would i dream of travelling between Malaysia and Australia twice in a year. This is something i still can't believe. This morning, the Malaysian Airlines System called me to change my morning flight to the night flight so that connecting passengers from Europe can go straight to Sydney. For being agreeable to the change of plan, i was upgraded to business class. Wow! This is certainly a great treat and new year present. I know i will never be able afford a business class ticket. This certainly a change i would welcome.....truly thank the Almighty for this great chance. Everyone in the family was certainly thrilled at my good fortune.
The next three months will be busy enough for me. Christina's baby will be due in two weeks. So it will be a time of cooking for the nursing mother....and help out to care for the little one. This will be another change for me too....a new addition to the family. Come what may, i need to learn to rejoice in all circumstances. However, i never dream i would someday be a grandmother. It is certainly a pleasure and i hope i would be a good granny to the little girl.

Remember.......

It's been almost six weeks since i arrived in Sydney. I must say during these six weeks i have my up and down moments. The last time, i said i needed to follow the young generation with their ways and their thinking, and to keep my opinion to myself. Well, needless to say, this is easier said than done. I guess an old lady like me is simply too set in her ways, and just too difficult to change...thus, i often ended up in heated exchanges. I suppose this is what people call the 'generation gap'.
Here are some of the things i need to remember....firstly to keep your thoughts and ways of doing things to yourself. The younger people have their ways of doing things in their own home. You can only have your own opinion and your own ways of doing things when your are in your own home. So, i need to remember this. Secondly, clear up any mess immediately...remember you're not in your own home and you cannot take your time clearing up. So, please remember this too. These few weeks made me realized that when one is getting old, the reflexes are getting slower and even the memory is playing havoc. Things simply got misplaced. Luckily, i still remember how to catch the train home after a day out in the city.
The weather is also not predictable....often rains and too cold for my liking. I guess i just can't wait to go home to Teluk Intan. As the saying goes...there's no place like home.

Relationships.........

i have learnt, in these two weeks, relationships change in time and space. Relationships in the past will always remain in the past. Future relationships will have to be built in the present. Things can never be the same. A hard lesson for an old lady like me to learn but i have to learn neverthelessor else face some severing of a relationship. Even the close relationship between a mother and daughter can be affected after the said daughter got married. The mother must realized that the daughter's world view has changed because she is now the partner of a man. As they build a life together, she too has to adjust and change in her outlook in life. This is quite a shock for many chinese mums like me .....as we thought nothing can change the relationship between a mother and a daughter. How wrong i was! Now i understood how my own mother felt when my sisters got married....why she preferred to live with me.
I certainly learnt to speak when spoken to....don't be too eager to offer your opinion. Your opinion does not matter....so keep you opinion to yourself. From now onwards, just follow their ways...they are happy, you are happy so as to speak. The whole world will be at peace.........

Remember....the civics lesson we learnt

These past few weeks, i read with interest some of the news items in the papers and this kept me wondering what has happened to the moral values that we had learned. It looks as if society is now moving towards a situation where moral values do not exist at all. We are going backwards to an age where only the laws of the jungle is in force. Survival of the foetus is the only law we know.
Children nowadays are not taught about showing respect to the elderly. They are not taught to be polite, to be well mannered, to care for others and to be humble. For example, during a buffet lunch or dinner, they are not taught to take enough food for themselves and to leave food for others who are at the back of queue. When every one has taken their share, then they can go for a second round. Instead, one can see the children just pick the food they like best and piled onto their plates as high as a mountain. If they can't finish the food, they just dumped it into the bin. What a wastage of good food and the people at the back of the queue has none. The second observation is that children are not well disciplined. They are left to do as they like. The parents don't seem to teach their children what is right from what is wrong. So when something terrible happens, they begin to ask questions....but then, it will be too late.
I always wondered why as a nation progresses, there are so many social problems. Then i realized parents are very hardworking indeed to earn as much money as possible. As a result, they spend very little time with their children. Consequently, the children are not taught properly or disciplined. The cycle goes on and on until today this is the result we see. I'm truly fearful for our future generations...........if we don't act now.

Remember....

Today is the first Saturday in September. How time flies! As i was watching Hurricane Earl on TV, i remembered the storm we experienced in Teluk Intan on Monday. Almost the same time every year, around the end of August or the beginning of September, we sure would experience some form of this type of tropical storm. Well, it was not like a hurricane but the winds were strong enough to cause some forms of damage. Many roofs of houses were being blown off, trees were down. This time around, the winds were strong enough to shift the tiles of my house and water was dripping profusely down from the ceiling. Fortunately, it was confined to one room only. The telephone line in my house was down too. For two days, i could not make any calls nor receive calls. Also, this time around, some parts of town had hail stones too. What a storm....it came suddenly, caused damages to some houses and we were left assessing the destruction. For those people whose roofs were blown off, would have spent quite a bit to replace them. Anyway, storms of such destructive nature were unheard of while i was young then. It was only in the last decade or so we experienced such severe storms. I wonder if this is the consequence of us cutting down forests to make way for housing projects to cause this form of climate change. Also, for the past few years, big trees of more than a hundred years old were being cut down because they were too old. I remembered while i was still teaching then, a new principal would come with ideas of planting lots of trees around the school compound. We teachers would be so happy because it would not be so hot around the school and we had some shade for our cars. After 7 or 8 years when another principal came, he would start cutting down all those trees because he had other ideas. I remembered very vividly the day i went back to school after the long holidays, how bright the whole school compound was, then i realized why....the trees were all gone.

Remember.....

We met in church....the Chans, the Chins and I. After that we went out for lunch at a local restaurant. The food was good and we really enjoyed ourselves. For the Chans, it has been some time since they tasted Malaysian dishes so they really like them. There was so much to talk about.....their lives in Brisbane and our lives here in Malaysia. The topic on politics is never far and today especially they were waiting to know the outcome of the election results in Australia.
The get together for lunch was not enough so we met again for dinner. This time i got to meet Kelly, the Chan's only daughter, and her husband and her two sons. Oh, her two sons are really cute. The younger son, Nelson, looks exactly like Shawn, Kelly's brother when he was at that age.Then, there's Jeanie Chin's grandson Nathan, who too looks exactly like his father when he was a little boy. So imagine the 'oooos' and the 'ahhhs' when we saw these little ones. Truly, this brings back memories when we were young then. Well, i guess at this time in our lives, all we have will be our memories....... our happy times or otherwise.
Anyway, i shall be meeting the Chans again in the not so distant future in Brisbane i hope. Kelly and her family will flying back to Holland tomorrow night. Eddy and Lucy Chan will be going to Singapore for a week......Sydney for another week...then back home to Brisbane. What a flying visit but we were certainly glad to see each other again.

Remember.......

Sunday 22nd August 2010.....a day of reunion again. The Chans are in town. They emigrated to Down Under more than twenty years ago and today they are back for another visit. This is true friendship...never forget each other.....trying to meet each other when ever possible. I remembered the times I spent at their home in the palm oil estate. What wonderful times we had. This is one family who was very hospitable and still is. The invitation to their home in Brisbane is still open.....come visit anytime...just let us know. This has been their parting words whenever we contact each other.
Jeanie and Solomon together with their grandson are also in town for a visit, and also to meet the Chans. I truly thank the One above for our friendship.We have continued to be good friends all these years. Throughout we have supported each other, encouraged each other, cried together in our sorrowful moments and laughed together in our joyful moments...and the moments i like best were the times we laughed at our sillyness. It's good to be able reflect on our actions and reactions on hindsight. This helps to mould our character to become better persons i hope. We are already in our sixties, and we are still learning about life. Indeed, life is a long learning process....we can always learn something new every day.
Today, after church, we will have lunch at a restuarant in town....a time of fellowship. After all the chatting and laughing, we'll say goodbye and hope to meet again sometime in the near future. I guess this is what life is all about..........

Remember.....

We met for breakfast. As i had thought, the topic of conversation was centred around her adaptation to life in the city and the grandchild of course. After breakfast, the three of us set out to paint the town red. Our first task was to accompany her to three banks to close accounts and to transfer funds to other accounts. Then we to the shops and the market to get all the much need ingredients for her cooking spree in the city. The amount of food and dried ingredients that she bought will be enough to last her for the next two months or so. She kept telling us that it is so easy to get all the stuff she needed in a small town like Teluk Intan which, of course, i totally agreed with her. This is one of the reasons which i would like to stay permanently in this small town. I would certainly like to go 'jalan-jalan' in the city once in a while.['Jalan-jalan' means visiting or touring in the local language].
Many of my friends who had migrated to bigger cities always have the same old complain when they come back to visit Teluk Intan. The people in TI are so much friendlier. It is so easy to buy stuff needed for cooking. In the big cities, one has to travel a long distance just to get some stuff. The most important thing is, just with a trip to the town, all the household bills will be paid. In the cities, one has to locate the relevant places first before one can pay the bills and these offices can be far from each other. Not so in Teluk Intan. One can just park the car in one place and almost all the offices are within walking distance. Well, my advice to all my friends who were adventurous enough to migrate to cities after retirement is this...it's time to learn to use the computer and pay all your bills online........hahaha........

Remember....

Today is August 16th. Half of the month left. It seems time is just flying. To my students, time seems to move so slowly. They are just waiting for their exams to be over and then to have a good time during the year end holidays. Ah...the minds of the young! We older folks will just dread the start of another year. It will mean we have to make contingencies for the new year. It is interesting to see parents make all sorts of plans for their children for the coming year. As for me, though Christina is now married, i still have some plans in my mind. At the moment, the coming addition of a new member to the family circle is in my uppermost mind. I realized that eventhough i had a western type of education and influence, in many aspects, i am still very chinese in my thinking. I guess this is the legacy my parents left me...to take care of the family. This trait is already ingrained in me that i can't change much. Many a time, i wish i could change but i simply can't because it is like forsaking my duties....and this is not good for my conscience.
Today, i am also going to meet one of my morning walk croonies for breakfast. She has migrated to the city of Kuala Lumpur but miss us too much. So she comes back to Teluk Intan quite often to do her shopping of fish and chicken and to meet up with her friends of which i am one of them. I know we will be talking about her new life in the city and also about her granddaughter. ....

Remember....

Remember...

Today is the first day in August. How time flies. It is just like the blink of an eye and we have already entered the second half of 2010. i am trying to recall what are the stuff i have done so far. Apart from the usual household chores, i managed to complete two patchwork blankets for my girl. At the moment, i am sewing a smaller one for the future grandkid. As i reflect upon my days , i realised that i'm just like my mother. She too did a lot of patchwork in her life time for family members, friends and relatives and she even sold a few to good friends. I remembered mom would asked me to take her round to all the garment factories around town and to buy all those remnant materials for her patchwork. She would buy them by the sacks and when she reached home, she would sort them out piece by piece. The ones that she could use, she would put them aside in boxes and the unwanted ones would be thrown away. i used to nag at her that she was just wasting good money as she would had thrown away more than she could use. As a result ,i started using the smaller pieces to create my own patchwork. Because the pieces of material were so small, i had to hand stitched the patchwok. It would be impossible to use the sewing machine. So mom had the whole sewing machine to herself. In a way, this was a good arrangement because we didn't have to share the sewing maching. So today, i need to thank mom for those smaller pieces of remnant material. If they were thrown them away, i would not be making use of them. By sewing, i have found a good way to make good use of my time other than reading or listening to the news on CNN, BBC, Aljezeera or the Australian news network. Mothers' Day this year has long passed but i would like to take this opportunity to say thank you mother. As usual, mother knows best what is good for her children when she had rested from her labours......i hope too that i will be able to leave a legacy for Christina when i migrate to another planet.

Remember....

The World Cup Football is almost over. Germany versus Uruguay on Saturday and Spain versus The Netherlands on Sunday. Yes, football fever is on, even here in sleepy Teluk Intan. This brought to mind the football final in 1974 between Germany and Holland at that time. That day was the day i bought my first televion set. It was a National T.V. set and a black and white one. The shop had to deliver it in time so that we can watch the final that night. What a treat for my dad as he loved watching football. So it was football which made me buy my first T.V. set. Since then, this is the 10th world cup that i'm watching on T.V.
You can imagine the amount of bettings that are going on at this time. Large number of people have already fled the little town of Teluk Intan.....for fear of the moneylenders. Here we call them the 'Alongs'. My students told me that many people have borrowed from these loan sharks to make bets. Well, the results have all gone wrong. They had to leave town because they just can't pay back the loan sharks.....principal plus the interest, this can be quite a hefty sum. Well, even students in schools make bets. Few lucky ones will be enjoying their ice-creams for some months to come. Bets on ice-creams....loose three ice- creams but if you win, you'll get thirty ice-creams. I still cannot make out how they bet, and i guess i will never understand...........

Remember......

Dorothy has left Teluk Intan for two weeks already. She's a grand old lady of more than eighty years old. I have known her for more than fifty years, and i can't imagine that, at this great age, she has to leave this little quiet town and resettle in noisy busy city of Petaling Jaya. I always thought that most senior citizens would retire in small quiet towns like Teluk Intan or Kampar or even Bidor, but i thought wrong. We retirees are so set in our ways that we won't find it easy to readjust to life in new places. However, readjust to new places we must when we find ourselves in a situation like Dorothy. Living all alone in a house when one is old is certainly not recommended. The amount of housework we have to do on our own sometimes boggles me....cooking,washing, dusting, wiping, even gardening. There's no one willing to do these chores even if one is willing to pay for these services. So, we have to do all these on our own. Also, our mobility is limited nowadays. We have to learn to do things slower than before. We have to learn to take little rests in between our chores, lest we get tired...and we certainly get tired easily.
I am thinking of myself at the moment. Will i have to make this choice in twenty years' time if God grace me with another twenty years of life? I don't know. But i hope i don't have to make this choice...i am praying that i would be healthy still till that day. One thing i learnt from this...life is nver certain....we need to learn to take life one day at a time. Making plans is when you are young. Now that you are old, live your life to the fullest for the day. We will never know what tomorrow will bring............

Remember....

Today we celebrated Parents' Day in church. A day to remember our roles as parents. It was good to see so many children in church today to celebrate together with their parents. Sometimes i too wonder ..was i a good parent to Christina while she was growing up? Did i bring her up properly to face such challenges that are in the world today? Every time that she calls me from Down Under to chat or to share her experiences with me, i must confess that i worried for her too. Though she is now married herself and has a husband to share her life with, there are certain things only a daughter can share with her mother, the woman who has brought her up. In these circumstances, it is good to know that as a mother, you are still very important to your girl. Nowadays, we share and exchange recipes that we have tried out and the dish turned out nice. We exchange news about our mutual friends or share with each other our funny encounters with people.
This brings to mind my own relationship with my parents. The relationship was so very different. We were told to obey what they told us to do....without questions or arguement. As a matter of fact we just have to be submissive to them. Even now they are dead and gone...i.m still trying to understand the parents of yesteryears. One thing i realized was that our parents followed the example of their parents..and i believed this is one of the ways the sins of the forefathers being passed from one generation to another generation. This is because we believe that what our parents did was always right.
Today i count myself very blessed indeed. I was the blessed few who managed to go to school and got an education, went to college and had a career. I know i'm a different from my own parents. I'm guided by a different set of values in life. I hope that when the time comes when Christina herself becomes a parent, she will have better set of values in her life to pass on to her own children....

Remembering....

This week, we saw in the news how Bangkok was smouldering in flames and smoke. The destruction is just unbelievable, I can't imagine the level of anger and frustration as shown by the Thai people, but i can understand their feelings. All of us do experience some form of anger and frustrations and we have to release all these pent-up emotions.
I was in Bangkok a couple of years ago. A sprawling city...the roads were very wide indeed. During traffic jams, we hardly heard the sound of car horns....motorists just sat there waiting patiently for the long line of vehicles to move. It took us almost three hours to reach our hotel from the airport.
The people there were friendly and always smiling. The shopkeepers were always polite and friendly and helpful too. I wonder how long the people there will take to rebuild Bangkok. My friends and i plan to visit Chiangmai in Northern Thailand and stopping for a few days in Bangkok this year end. ...but it looks as if we have to postpone our trip for the time being as the whole country in still very volatile and emotions can still run high. The next time i visit Bangkok, it will certainly look very different......

Remembering....

correction at third line of last blog....it should be 60 years and not 60 days. Pardon the mistake.

Remembering....

Today is Mother's Day. Though a year has passed by, i still remember my mum so vividly. 365 days have gone by, but the memories of her are still so fresh in the mind. The woman who had took care of me for almost 60 days...how can i forget her so soon. I'm sure the thoughts of her will still be embedded in my heart for many years to come.
What would i like to remember most about mum today? Obviously all the good and beautiful things about her ...a woman of courage... a woman, who in times of hardships,taught me to endure...a woman who taught me about hope in hopeless situations...a woman who gave her best to take care of the family. Pastor said today that it is mothers who will set examples for their children to follow. Well, it is true. How we turn out to be is what our mothers have taught us. The greatest teaching, i personally believe, is the ability to differentiate right from wrong. Sad to say, this is very lacking in our society today. Motherhood has undergone an evolution nowadays. Mothers are too busy......no time for their children. Children are left to do their own stuff. Television programmes are the mothers of today....the programmes teach our children what values should be, teaching our children to be aggresive and violence....certainly many of these cartoon networks are perpetuating many negative values.
As for myself, i hope i can say that i have brought up Christina to be well-balanced person....able to differ right and wrong. For the time being, i hope she is a good wife. To be a good wife and mother is not easy....but has to be learnt....so that generation from generation we can have children who will truly carry on the good name of the family.......

Remember.....

I really try to remember when was it that the weather was so humid and hot. Simply can't remember a time when the days and nights are so hot.....and also i have to bathe 4 or 5 times a day. The moment one step out of the bathroom, the sweat glands start to work. So better sit under a fan to cool off first before one gets drenched in sweat all over again.
I went out to the garden this evening..and most of the plants are so limped for lack of water. Luckily there is no water rationing or else most of the plants will just withered away for lack of water. I wondered how people can survive in times of draught and the weather is hot. It is so blessed to live in a country where we are not affected by earthquakes, typhoons, or periods of draughts. Landslides.... yes in the rainy seasons. These landslides are generally caused by deforestation and the cutting of trees for development, so the authorities say. Anyway, can the cutting down of trees and deforestation cause such hot weather? I don't know.
Meanwhile, we just have to learn to adjust and to accept this hot weather stuff will be here to stay. Tomorrow will be another day and the hot weather will be here to stay.........

Remember.....

Last Sunday, 4th April, i met some of my classmates, seniors and juniors at one of my classmate's house warmning party. It was indeed nostalgic....meeting so many of them after more than forty years. Many of them i couldn't even remember their names or their faces. A few of them i could remember their faces but not their names. Some i could still remember their names and make out their faces. Just imagine! We left school in 1965. We are the boomers. Many of them are millionaires in their own right, having done very in the field of business, real estate and so on. They have indeed done very well in life and very generous too....contributing much financial help to the schools where they had studied in their childhood. A few of them truly live up to our school motto..'Live to Serve'
Besides the good food, wine and beer were free flowing. This is one night i realized that time is so short. There was so much catching up to do amongst the seventy or eighty of us. It seemed as if it was yesterday that we all left school and now that we meet again, all of us are already in our sixties. Many already have grandchildren! Many too have regain their single status. The next round of gathering i wonder how many of us will be able to attend...........

Remember.....

The hot weather has finally come to an end i hope. I cannot remember a time when i really eagerly waiting for rain. It came yesterday...a very heavy downpour. Today, the day is just nice...cloudy and not so warm.
I took a ride round the town today.....and i missed the many big trees that lined the roads. Those big, big rain trees. I went to a particular part of town where many years ago there were those lovely trees where during the hot weather,the whole trees would be covered with bright red flowers.....our teacher told us these trees were called the flame of the forests. Another type of trees were covered with bright yellow flowers and we were told they were called the angsana trees. Yet another type of trees which were full of purple flowers, but i have forgotten the name of these trees. Where have all the trees gone? They all have been cut down in the name of development. In its place, we have broader roads, all tarred nicely but emitting such heat....
I went to a part of the riverside...it is so sad to see the river eroding away the banks. Nothing much is being done to prevent such erosion...a truly sad state of affairs. When can we have responsible statesmen who truly love the country and do something constructive so as to preserve the country for the future generations?
In such matters, we can only hope and pray............

Remembering....

For the past week, the weather had been very, very hot. Nearly everyone in the house is having heat rashes and we are all scratching everywhere. There is no escape from the heat. Just wish to put a big block of ice in the bath water and cool off.
I was away in Hatyai in southern Thailand and the weather is also very terrible. No escape from the heat. I just wonder how the local Thai people can stand under their umbrella and sell their stuff in such great heat. In my entire life, i can't recall a time when we had experienced such heat. Even the mattress and pillows in the bed room is hot, not warm. No wonder my friends who live near shopping malls will go to these places to cool off in the afternoons.
The rain came today. Instead of cooling the earth, it make matter worse. After the shower of blessing, the earth emitted more heat, making us feel even worse.
Ah, when can we experience cool weather again. In another month i hope. The Chinese in this part of the country where i live believe that the 'cheng beng' period is a time of periodic showers and i certainly hope it is true. By the way, 'cheng beng' is a twenty days period where we visit and pray at the graveside of our parents and relatives. This is the time when we will experience periodic showers..not too heavy rain but enough to cool the earth. So i'm just hoping this time around the rain will come....the earlier the better.

Reflections.....

Today is the last day of the CNY celebrations...the fifteenth day. I wonder what the year of the Tiger has installed for us all. Something good i hope...Tiger joy, Tiger health, Tiger wealth, Tiger prosperity and i hope Tiger peace. The tiger is such a beautiful animal and yet the rich people of Indonesia are encouraged by their government to adopt tigers and keep them in cages at the back of their gardens. This is to ensure their survival so they say. I wonder what the world has come too? I believe wild animals should be in the wilds and not be kept in captivity. Man should not be so greedy as to destroy the rain forests that the animals of the wild have no place they can call home. Man should realize that for all the wealth they amassed would one day be destroyed too and their efforts of hoarding more wealth would come to nought.
The CNY period this year see us experiencing the worst heat wave. It is simply unbearable even when we are inside the house. Imagine us sweating away even in an air-conditioned restaurant. This has never happened to me before as i would be the first to complain about the cold in an air-conditioned room. Times have changed, so they say. Indeed, it has, so be alert........

Remember.....

The Chinese New Year celebrations almost over, another week to go. Time just don't fly, it just zooms. The first time that i spent the CNY without mum. My sister and i talked about the times when mum will tell us what to cook and what to do for the celebration. After all the recollection of the past, we realized that from this year onwards, we will have to set our own style of celebrating the CNY. We will set our own traditions and pass them to our future generation. In time, they too will set their own traditioons and pass them to their future generation.
However, i'm glad to know that the tradition of 'balik kampung' or going back to the ancestral home to spend the CNY is still very strong amongst us siblings. So, i was very glad my brother and his family came back to celebrate with me and my nephew. My sister too came to visit. Despite the fact that mum is no longer with us, we still feel the sense of family ties. This is good relationship indeed and i hope my nieces and nephews will carry on this tradition at least.
Celebration is also a time of eating and drinking. I'm sure i have put on two or three kilos already. So from now onwards, it will be a time exercising to control my weight. Just hope that i can go back to my original weight.......

Remember.....

Time flies. Tomorrow will the last day of the year of the Bull according to the Chinese Lunar calendar. Most Chinese members will travel back to their parents' homes to celebrate the reunion dinner....and then welcome the New Year. Next year will be the year of the Tiger. It is predicted that the Tiger will enter the new year with a ferocious roar. After being hiding in his cave for so long, it is hope he will indeed roar his way into the new year. So, everyone can expect something exciting next year.
This will be the first Chinese New Year i will spend without the presence of mum. All said and done, i still missed her very much....the matriach of the family and the director of operations. This time around there is no one to direct us on what dishes to prepare and cook for the celebration. So, we just cook what we like to eat. This year though, we have lots of cookies and biscuits...gifts from friends. It is a good practice exchanging cookies...then we do not have to make so many types. Also, we get to sample each other's cookies.
Christina and Peter will be celebrating CNY in Sydney this time. I am so glad to know she will be celebrating the reunion dinner with her friends from HK and China. It is a pot bless session, so she too will be able to sample each other's cooking too.
I'm taking this opportunity to wish every one reading this a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.....and God's choicest blessings. Till then.......

Reflections.....

We're in the middle of January....a new year has begun. Well, the year 2010 will be the beginning of another new family story. Christina has got married and there is a new addition to this family. Well, welcome to the family Peter, and may you enjoy our warm fellowship.
As i reflect upon the incidents of the past year...two members of family migrated to another planet, so as to speak.....another person has come to join the family. I guess this is what life is all about. Our loved ones may leave us but there will be other additions to make the family complete either by birth or by marriage. Another family saga will begin.
Well, 2009 ended with wonderful news. Carmen, my niece, finally was given her citizenship . She is now a full fledged Malaysian citizen. This is indeed timely as she has to apply for her identity card this year. Then there was Christina, she lost her wallet on a train in Sydney. Not much cash in it but important documents like her Malaysian identity card and driving licence were in it. Thank God it was found some hours later. A good Samaritan found it and passed it to the station master. My belief that there are still good people around was proven right this time. Take heart, the world is still a good place to live. Lastly, Christina has passed her uni and is now a full fledged nurse....and she also has got a job too. All praise to our great and mighty God.
The month of December has been a month of baking....cookies and wedding cakes. In two weeks, we will be hosting a wedding dinner for Christina and Peter in Teluk Intan, Malaysia. Around three hundred guests, friends and relatives, will coming for the dinner, and also to witness the wedding blessing. What a celebration it will be........