A Lesson on Patience and Persistence

As many of you may have read from today's headlines on the Straits Times, Mas Selamat has been captured and detained in Malaysia for interrogation. It brings to mind many unanswered questions as well as realisation of the power of collaboration in working together. What, you might ask, are the correlations? Am I mad? No, of course I'm not mad, at least not yet.

According to the report, Mas Selamat was captured along the outskirts of JB on April 1 following some leads from our ISD, but news of the arrest has not been released by the Malaysian authorities until yesterday. Why is that so? He is after all our wanted man, not Malaysia's! Well, I guess the fact that the Malaysians caught him and not us gives them the right to interrogate Mas Selamat first and decide when they are ready to inform our authorities when they are ready. After all Mas Selamat is a highly dangerous figure and could sabotage not only Singapore but Malaysia as well. A ruthless man trained in military in Afghanistan and head of JI singapore, he must be capable of all terrorist activities. No country he steps foot upon is safe. Isn't he just like Satan, a time bomb that will go off any moment if we don't guard our hearts consistently and be submissive to God at all times? We trust the authorities to keep us safe, just like we trust God to keep us safe. And we have faith in the authorities to one day capture Mas Selamat again, just like we have faith in God to reveal His plans for us one day, according to His will.

It was sheer collaboration between ISD and Malaysian and Indonesian authorities over the past 8 years that landed Mas Selamat in detention three times, this being the fourth. Without this close ties between the countries and willingness to collaborate with one another, we would not be able to keep Mas Selamat under lock and key and hence keeping our countries terrorism-free. Look at the price paid when collaboration was not there the first time round when Mas Selamat was captured and detained in Bintang. He served his sentence and was set free to plan and create more havoc in the region. Had the Indonesian authorities extradite him straight to Singapore after he finished serving his sentence in Indonesia, we would have been able to keep him away earlier, and he would have less chance to get in touch and recruit more JI members in the region. I think this is a true reflection of our lives. We as Christians live a life of collaboration (aka accountability) with one another as well as with God. When we run into a problem, we don't keep mum and try to solve it ourselves. Rather, we should seek the advice of our brothers and sisters and pray hard about it. Somehow the answer will come if we have enough faith.

Some of you may know that for a few years I struggled with the decision of where to send my kids to for primary school education. Mee Toh came at the right/wrong time. I am a person who really emphasises on academic excellence as well as bilingualism, naturally Mee Toh became the ideal choice of school for my kids. Yet I know that it would be a huge spiritual struggle, I don't want them to be exposed to Buddhism at such a young and impressionable age. But I seriously doubted that Edgefield Primary was good enough. After all I only hear positive comments from Dennis + Pauline and Tony + Ling2. Everywhere else I hear negative remarks and how parents gtry ways and means to transfer their kids to Mee Toh. And my Higher Chinese from P1, which was offered only in Mee Toh and not Edgefield. I prayer and prayed and prayed, but nothing happened for over a year. And the time for registering them for P1 was drawing closer day after day. One morning, just as I had finished my QT and prayed, for some strange reason I just flipped through Psalms. And for some strange reason not related to that particular Psalm I was reading, I seemed to hear a voice telling me that Edgefield is the right school, and Higher Chinese should not be a deterring reason to stop me from sending them there. I listened to this sound faithfully and guess what I was rewarded with? Higher Chinese from P1 for this batch onwards!!! To date, I am very happy with the support the school and the teachers have given to my kids, especially during the time when I was acting up and got myself in the hospital. The school counsellor and form teachers saw my kids together as well as separately to explain to them the stress I was undergoing and what I did was wrong, but I did it nevertheless so that I won't take it out on them. They are a lot more sensitive to my roller coaster emotions now than before, and this I have to thank the school for it. And I see the two of them blooming, one in ballet, another academically as well as looking forward to joining soccer as CCA. what else can I ask for?

I have been a very blessed person, both before and after I became a disciple. Never mind the hardships I had to go through to be what I am today, they were preparations for the me I am today. Looking back, I have been patient and persistent to lead a life of my own desire, and I chose to follow Jesus and carry my cross rather than carry the family traditional burden. My parents and father-in-law have accepted our decision despite the fact that my mum was so against me becoming a Christian and threatened me emotionally for not tending to their needs when I first started going to church regularly on Sundays. Being a stubborn mule who always wanted my own way, I never relented.

Now my patience and persistence have finally paid off, just like ISD's patience and persistence in capturing Mas Selamat. Don't you now think there indeed is a correlation between the two?