Second Fall

Warning - gory pictures ahead. If you have a weak stomach, do not scroll down.

Not a good day, but learnt to see God's blessings in disguise.

First, my office laptop died on me. I had been having problems with the VPN connection the last few weekends. Dylan (my office IT support officer) helped me throughout the week to try to get the probem solved, but it lingered around. This morning, at home, I managed to connect to VPN and office Lotus Notes without a hitch. So happy. In church, when I booted up the laptop, it flashed an error message about not being able to open my profile. I shut it down and turned it on again. That's when the error message came up saying that some Windows System file is missing or corrupted. It just wouldn't boot up. Blessing in disguise - I can forget about work for this weekend.

It started raining after lunch with the guys in the hawkers centre. It stopped a while, and rained again, and stopped. I decided to go for my jog, and I ran a longer route - into the Chinese Garden, out at the Chinese Garden MRT station gate, turned right, and continued to run, heading back to Taman Jurong. When I reached the canal near the Lakeside MRT station, I think I tripped on something, and fell.

As I fell, a lot of things went through my mind, but I can't remember anything. I remember feeling my knees and my palms brush against the cement floor, and thinking that the floor was smooth, and thanked God for that. When I stood up, I saw my left knee was bruised and bleeding, but my palms were ok. The second finger on my right hand was hurting - must have hit it against the ground. One guy who was crossing the road, saw me fall. He looked at me and walked away - much like the other 2 guys in the Good Samaritan story.

Anyway, I continued to run to the Chinese Garden (along the Jurong Lake path) toilet, and cleaned the wounds and my hands. Then I walked to the hawkers centre to buy my dinner. Along the way, some people who saw my knees looked and stared.

Blessings - I can still walk. I was telling MDM that the bruises and wounds are not as extensive as those I sustained in the first fall. But I looked at the pictures of the bruises from the first fall - look like both are equally bad. Just that the bruises of the first fall were on my left knee and my left palm. This time, there are 2 bruises on my left knee, and none on my palms. Read about the first fall here.

Here are the pictures.

My left knee - the wounds are still wet. Will need to put plasters over them before I sleep. Otherwise, the bedsheet may be stained.


My right knee - just a slight cut. The other cut is from the first fall.


My left thumb - with a blue black, but no pain at all.

Tow Ming

I received a surprise call from Tow Ming in California when I was in classroom G in church this morning. His name did not show on my mobile phone, because I didn't have his number.

I knew Tow Ming when he was in Form Five in KL. Swee Leong brought a group of his school friends, including Tow Ming, to church and I coached them Additional Maths every Friday evening. Tow Ming's parents sent him to KL to study because he was mixing with the wrong company in his hometown in Seremban. I did not once share Christ with him during the tuition sessions. Then one afternoon, he called me at home to tell me that he accepted Christ. Later, when I asked him why he made the decision, he explained that he saw something different and was touched by my willingness to coach the group without getting anything in return. But I guess his becoming a Christian was reward enough.

Soon after that, I came to Singapore to work, and he left to study in Canada. While he was there, he was bullied in his college because he stood up openly for Jesus. We kept in touch through letters. After he started his own business in California, we would meet up in Singapore whenever he travelled home to KL. The times we met grow less frequent. We have not met for a long long time.

Tow Ming was in KL and Singapore a few weeks ago, but he didn't have my contact number. None of the friends in KL could help him. He found my mobile number when he searched through my old emails to him. He may be coming back to KL, and coming down to Singapore too, in about a week. I look forward to seeing him again. He said he lost a lot of money in a business deal in Malaysia, and was travelling back hoping to recoup some of his losses.

All these only help to reinforce my recent inclination to go back to the basics. And I was reminded recently to look for opportunities in the second half of my life to use the giftings and blessings God gave me in the first half to continue to bless and help people around me.