August 31, 2022. Al Ngu

Walking on Song King Hai street in Kuching on this nice not so hot summer day, I saw this old frail white man haggard looking walking passed me. First it’s unusual to see white folks in Kuching , second it’s an old man haggard looking and alone. Whites are generally tourists visiting town . Not to sound picking up on race, but that’s the reality of culture here. Whites are and have been seen and perceived from the colony days of Great Britain commonwealth days in Malaysia. And with the world technology and cultural trend settled by Hollywood and the superpower influence , and also with swaths of affordable Malaysian students flocking to Australia and UK for university studies, it’s not hard the perception of the western superiority in cultural thinking.

So when I saw this old haggard white man, a thought just came to my mind. When a man gets old, no matter what color or ethnic or rich or poor, he is old and getting into the era of a sense of weakness and eventually helplessness. By which time, the time would dawn the same way for anyone under the sun, the same way, that is to eventually meet with the Risen Christ face to face and see his enormous power and glory sitting on the throne of judgement, those who have believed in Christ and follows him would be received into his kingdom and the rest would be thrown into burning hell.

The thing is what I said above is known by all especially for Christian’s. My point is the starkness of the imaginary of look on the face being old and haggard as an old white man in Kuching caught mt attention. And that immediately translated to my thought of the destiny of old men and women. It dawned on me the reality of old age, a sense of feeling of helplessness comes upon me for that man and many old people and the thought of my mum in her old age and all of us including myself getting there one day.

The lesson from here is to actually conceptualize and itch into our minds that our time one earth is limited. It will end one day within our life span that God has given each one of us, nothing less, nothing more. There are verses like honor your parents in the Lord, and you will live long. And others like in Psalms that says fear the Lord, and you will have long life.  The thing to remember that while long life is a blessing from the Lord, what we are called to do in this life is even more important! You could have lived up to 100 years old, but achieving nothing much at all, and in fact, heading to eternal condemnation, and that’s absolutely a waste of life! You can live up to only 33 years, like our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, but he turned the world upside down, and change the world forever and ever for three redemption of mankind. Or look at Paul who lived probably to 50 or so and martyred, but he had singled handedly written more epistles in the Bible than anyone else, and his theology became the foundation stone for the theology of grace, justification by faith, and the huge imprint of theology on our life that no one can match. He suffered immensely like beaten 39 times minus one, shipwrecked few times, in hunger and poverty, but so rich in the eyes of God as he possessed millions and millions of followers , in fact, billions by now overt the 2 millennia. They are the exceptions, okay, let’s hope and pray that we can live long to enjoy the life God has given us, and more importantly walk with God, enjoy God and glorify God. To remove the conversation of God while going down the life path without God, is a deadly adventure, a frightening journey towards darkness and anguish for eternity. The reality of which doesn’t hit so much until people don’t feel the need to beware. Like while I saw that old haggard man, a sense of that reality dawns on me, someday I will be there, and we will all be there, it’s just a matter of time.

We need that reality to dawn upon us to wake us up to live for the new covenant, the new glory that’s dawning that goes far beyond our physical age on earth. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.

This trip to Malaysia is primarily to see my mum & my siblings and Doreen her sister in August 2022. It is a 21 hours’ flight from New York to Singapore, and then another 1 hour flight from Singapore to Kuching. It has been already more memorable than any other trip.

It was very important to see my aging mother in her 80’s, and was encouraged to spend much time with her. Her constantly caring of my siblings and I and her grandchildren is amazing. Probably having been a widow for so many years, her emotional attachment to her children becomes more acute than most parents. All her children loves her very much, my special thanks to my brother Julian & family who takes care of her and live with her, and also my sister Jaime & brother in law Teck who loves & looks after her!

This is mum passing masks to me from a distance. Mother’s love!

The trip to visit Kota Kinabalu has been most memorable and very different. This is the church Doreen & I planted over 20 years ago in KK, Sabah. In fact, the pastor of this church over the last 20 years or so since we left for the States is Dr Anthony Ng, whom I led to Christ in University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) back in late 90’s. They remained close to me over these last 20 years much to my joy. Every year we have been visiting and I have been preaching there.

This year it’s different. The night before the worship Sunday service, on Saturday morning, I got a positive result for Covid. My heart sank, as it would mean I could not go to church to preach and meet with the brothers and sisters in Christ personally. I texted Anthony the result and said that I may not be able to preach on Sunday. Then after an hour or so, he texted me back and asked me if could do a zoom preaching? My heart leapt, of course!

Saturday morning and afternoon I was feeling fatigue and feverish. I took 2 panadol and by evening I was about ready to go! I pulled out one of my better sermons I preached in LIALC church in Long Island, and I tweaked it to better suit the congregation here due to translation and hence term time constraint. Also I made it more focused and accurate. I felt good about it. By Sunday morning, it was a blast! I enjoyed it so much; I knew the Lord spoke to his people!

Here is such a good picture of my family with the KK folks.

Just such a memorable time.

I also did a leadership session with the church when I shared about Pauling’s theology on the new covenant and what it means to us.