I love my mum

and she is just a great blessing to my life!

Her courage and love.
And she's "cute" as well! Late last year, she suddenly wanted to write for the church magazine.

So here's from Cecilia Chua:

Last September, I flew from Labuan to Kuala Lumpur with my family to be treated for breast cancer. I had to have a mastectomy and other medical treatment. Pastor Ling and a few Christian friends supported us throughout the hospital stay. Without them, we would have been quite lost. During my first chemotherapy session, my white blood cell count plummeted to 0.5. My immune system was extremely weak as white blood cell count of a normal person is about 4. Clots of blood were also coming out from my uterine.

I was really scared. I was rushed to the hospital's emergency ward by my eldest daughter Sarah, who was on holiday and could hence be with me. Praise God for His timing. Dr Jamila who saw me at the emergency insisted that I see the gynaecologist who scanned my uterus and found that I had fibroids. I was treated with hormones. Later, during my quiet time, I read Psalm 121. I could not stop crying. I sensed the Lord reaching out His hand and saying that my walk on earth was not finished.

However, the bleeding did not stop. During my third chemotherapy session, my white blood cell count was then 1 but I had no fear. God's peace was with me and 2 Corinthians 5:7 kept coming to me. "We live by faith and not by sight." From then on, the lyrics in the song became real. Tissues were my best friend during praise and worship in church as I would be overwhelmed by tears of thankfulness and awe of our great God. Thank God too for my husband, Meng Yong who was with me through all my six chemotherapy sessions.

I could sense God's presence everywhere even in the hospital. While I was given my 11th herceptin (a new anti cancer drug) intravenously, one of the nurses in charge came and held my right hand. I felt God holding my right hand as another nurse took my blood. Isaiah 41:10 flashed. "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Today I am still on treatment and have six more courses of herceptin. Through Him I had victoriously gone through six chemotherapy sessions and 11 courses of herceptin.

Senior Pastor Daniel's message about "people do not care how much we know until they know how much we care" is true. Sister Pang whom I knew from an alter call prayer, messaged me early one morning before treatment and told me to collect a second book she wanted to give me. It made my day sparkle to know someone cared. People in the hospital asked me why I continued smiling. I shared with them that I was not alone and that there were people in my church who cared. I pray that I will also make a difference in other peoples' lives.

One afternoon when I was very down, God prompted Shirley (whom I met during the 21 days of prayer and fasting) to call me. Her call really reminded me of Hebrews 13:5 which says "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." Shirley has been a blessing. She takes me out to lunch and also brings my helper Herliani, my second daughter Sabrina and I home from church faithfully.

I thank my SS14 cell group and Herliani's Bahasa cell group for upholding me in prayer. Thank God too for providing Sabrina who has just finished her South Australian Matriculation programme, to be with me. I am also thankful to everyone who has helped me. I look forward to
have my youngest daughter, Serene joining me next year. Indeed, God is good yesterday, today and forever. I trust my Almighty God and I confess His healing words everyday.

("My Help Comes from The Lord." Floodgates Issue 42, pg 4 Jan-Feb 2008)



Happy 52th birthday mum!

I am..

...reminded of God's amazing faithfulness!

For Jane

I don't normally do this but since it's a request by msn all the way from London, here goes :)
8 random facts about me:

1) I grew up in a small island that is so small that there's no McDonalds! (yea, laugh, laugh. There's KFC and Pizza Hut thought!)

2) Because I grew up surrounded by the sea, I can tell the difference between saltwater fish and freshwater fish by taste.

3) And I never knew that most people can't tell the difference in "fish taste" till I moved to the big city of KL and had people exclaim in amazement that I could.

4) I drink green tea everyday (more antioxidants! haha)

5) I have a spot on my sclera which looks like a haemorrhagic spot. I distinctly remember being bitten by an ant when I was very very young.....but I don't know how reliable my memory is! But it is a good way of telling if someone is looking into my eyes when they notice ;)

6) I had a milk tooth extracted when I was 19 because it just did not fall off.

I am running out of things to say....

7) I never wanted to become a doctor but a war/current affairs journalist (so naive, and of course the lack of insight on my writing skills!)

8) I am sensitive to caffeine and thus avoid any trace of caffeine even in Coke or tea after 6pm. But I make an exception for chocolates!

Won't be tagging anyone.

Just a picture from one of the storefronts in Darlinghurst, the uber chic area near my hospital.

An amazing quote!

"Yet the silence of God is not the same as the absence of God"

from: A Turkish Theologian.
An excellent account of the persecuted church.


More:

...This reality forces us to take another look at what Paul means in Romans 8:28 by "our good." If our good is a stable, safe, healthy, happy, and reasonably wealthy middle-class life, then logically one can conclude that God really does not work for the good of the largest portion of the global church today.

Similarly, when we look at Paul's list of sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11, it's clear that Paul's life will never be known as a good one by today's pop psychology or quick-fix spirituality books....

...But, our highest good is not a problem-free life; it is to be like the Son....

If u plan to raise a child in Australia..

..or maybe any anglo-saxon country..
..or even in Malaysia (come to think of it)

don't name your child Sarah!

In my tutorial group of 16 people, of which half are guys..
there are 3 Sarahs! 3/8 chance of having a person named Sarah.

And in my bible study group last year..
there were 4 Sarahs!

And there is normally a Sarah or two among the nurses on the wards
which always results in me being "perasaan" (aka overrating self) when I hear "Sarah"

At least atm, I'm the Asian Sarah.

:)

It's now time to...

...buy chocolate bunnies and eggs!

The true Asian in me would only buy today when it's heavily discounted :)

Privileged

Having just completed my neurology term, I must really say that I am very privileged to be under my team. Even though I am just a lowly medical student and the bottom of the food chain, the registrars and intern have invited me to join them for lunches & even...."shout" (Australian lingo for buy) me lunches numerous times. And my registrar even bought me a box of chocolates! (It should be the other way around!)

The best part is that after work one day, they even asked me along to Bankstown (which is a good 40 min drive away) for Pho (Vietnamese beef soup) because our intern who's Viet recommended it.

Although I did walk around this term feeling like the biggest idiot as my neuroanatomy is not great, I've learn from this team about the personal side of medicine and working life. How connections and rapport with consultants must be developed.

And I hope I don't look that old, because I have been mistaken as the neurology registrar (not even an intern or resident!!!!) by a consultant... ^_^

***************************

There's new experiences everyday, some which are surprisingly delightful others which require another step of endurance.

Just can't put it in words.
Circumstances I would never have chosen or wished upon others even, yet somehow falls into place in His sovereign rule and wisdom.

Pleased BUT...

When the first winds of dissent blew at the BERSIH and HINDRAF protests, we Malaysians were still skeptical if BN will lose its 2/3 majority. Even as a facebook group was set up, still I didn't think it was possible.

I am especially pleased that Hindraf leader and ISA-detainee M Manoharan, on a DAP ticket, obtained 12,699 votes to win with a 7,184-vote majority. In prison, with no campaigning!
Again, I respect people who dare to protest and even go all the way to prison when they could be comfortable as rich Indian lawyers.

Now, it seems that BN will retain 2/3 but barely survive.
(*update...seems like BN only has a simple majority! for the 1st time in history!! Unbelievable!)

Who would have even imagined Lim Guan Eng being Penang CM? Or Kelantan, Kedah, Penang, Selangor & Perak be under opposition leadership?

Unfortunately UMNO (United Malays National Organization) has not lost that many seats and the biggest losers are MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress) and MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association).

Even as smses are being sent by Christians all over Malaysia because there's a sense of change, an electric atmosphere of both hope for a new change and fear that the current government will sow racial tensions.....

But we have woken up. Hopefully a change for the better!


Malaysians, pray pray pray.

This is groundbreaking!!

I am going to have RSI from repeatedly reloading Malaysiakini every 5 minutes.

So many big guns are going down in a blaze. This is something new, almost revolutionary for Malaysia!!! I am glad though that some really big fish have finally lost! Enough with the cracked highways and collapsing buildings!

But will this polarize us by race even more?
As much as I respect people like Lim Kit Siang, Tian Chua, Teresa Kok...can Barisan Rakyat be united enough to change Malaysia?

Will this be for the better?

I pray it will. Join me in prayer. :)

Anyway, it's time for

some non serious fun...(at my expense).

So, a few weeks back, during ward rounds a patient needed a new cannula. Of course no med student will not pass up the opportunity to poke patients so I went to get the equipment and set it all up.

Slowly but surely I put it in and a tinge of red flashback appeared. Success......

...until I fumbled around the kidney dish, looking for a cap!

You'd have guessed by now that I did not have a cap! And by now the blood was pouring out of the beautiful cannula I put in.
What's even better is that since it was a ward round, 2 registrars and my intern was there!
Of course they saved me by dashing to get a cap in the end, but not till there was a 30cm diameter of redness on the patient's sheets. Which was matched probably by the redness of my face.


Anyway, a obligatory picture of IMU seniors in Sydney.
We are surely growing in numbers as more uk people head over.


There's another fun experience of being a simulated comatose patient for the AMC exams, but that's for another day.

Election

With the minimal knowledge I have in marketing, what I do know is that advertisers often have a target audience and thus place advertisements accordingly.

Which is interesting but not surprising that on the webportal of Malaysiakini, there's an advertised link for migration to Australia. Maybe the rational is that people will get so sick of the current situation in Malaysia and thus, viola, they will click on the link.

I wonder how many of us who formerly professed our desire to serve God still care about the going ins and outs of the country or are we more busy finding ways to advance our careers? Or even merely the best sale, stuff to buy, places to go?

With the election heating up, there's so much to read, to know, to follow.
The injustice, corruption, increasing restriction of religious freedom.

But, I will not say anything because I don't have the right to, until and unless I turn the tide and choose to return home. I cannot write proudly and patriotically like Crz. Cuz he has chosen to stay back.

An eventful week

....where 12 patients passed on in 1 week.
And not just merely patients I see on rounds, but patients that I admitted personally.

Some people may call it post traumatic stress; but I actually dream last week that I had lung ca with 4 weeks to live. (My enemies will breath a sigh of relief! haha :) ).
But it wasn't a nightmare because in the dream I felt okay and just wanted to see my family before I die. I guess in some sense, having tasted a little bit of the sorrows in life, it's alright to "leave" this earth and there's not much I miss.

....and when I am tempted to complaint and feel sorry for myself, I am reminded that I am (at least atm) not terminally ill. In the midst of unwelcome circumstances, there's still so much to be grateful and genuinely thankful for!

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12: 28-29

(*disclaimer, I've not learnt nor practiced the full extend of this verse, esp the consuming fire part...which is why I add this disclaimer, as having tasted a little bit of heat, I know that truly I am far off from living this out)

Happy CNY

Of course, this is still my all time favourite

Capre Diem

Rounding the wards; especially when you see patients with similar disease but now in the "special unit"....

....I couldn't help but send a quick SMS to my mum "I love you. Haha"

Every day is a perfect day to say that. And every day is an purchased miracle from God, Ps Daniel Ho.

What's normal?

They were still playing with the resident cat on the ward, smiling at nurses, eagerly eating free ice cream from the fridge.
Only 8 and 10. Was to be their first day back at school but they weren't in their uniforms.

Their father had passed on only an hour or two before.

I can't help but wonder, do they understand the true impact of how their lives have changed?
The "trials" in my life are mere blips compared to theirs and it's a good month for me if I don't tear.
How life can be hard without a father?

But maybe they do; their mother smiled in her sobs as she showed the last pictures of her husband. That eating ice cream and simply going on with life is what's life about.

A crack of vulnerability

I think one of the hardest things of last year was moving to a completely foreign country, suddenly jammed into 4th year as the pioneer batch from a university no one here knows about and then having to rebuild friendships from scratch.

Which by and large is not too far away from what everyone else in IMU experiences when we are suddenly scattered around the world; but fresh from the harrowing experiences of cancer, I struggled to give and listen to airy descriptions of what I did during the weekend nor did not know how to answer "how are yous"
Do you be honest and tell the whole emotional drama to a person whom you only know by name and faculty? And it was a dilemma, for I was dying to have deep conversations yet if a stranger was to walk up to me and poured out their life story, I'd probably freak out!

How do you ask your church friends whom you've probably only meet a few times "How does a loving God fit into the picture of death?" And like it or not, I was not there and am not there as some of my closest friends struggle thousands of kilometers away, vice versa it is unfair of me to expect them to be there all the time.

And even follow up seems a little disjointed. I speak to my pastors back home and then I speak to my pastors here, my pastors back home know me and work through some things; the pastors here know me as I struggle through my current issues. Which is working alright at the moment; but it does take effort and coordination (of which I am grateful to my leaders for being so patient and gracious with me!)

Also, in a sense I've always pathologically looked up to him as the leader. More than expecting calls or emails, I guess what I was really looking for at that point was someone who'd work with me through my theological questions and doubts. Where when my father himself was troubled and my mother needed all the comfort and assurance, where when I had to bridge the gap for my younger sisters, someone who would listen, whom it would be alright to say "I really want to believe in God but I am struggling to." "I am hurting, I don't know where else to turn to because even God seems far now, help me, pray with me"
Though it was not his fault and yes, he has been gracious and respectful so yea don't send flaming emails to him. Haha.

I blame palliative care for bringing up all these emotions again!
But in an essence, I guess I am learning to live out what I always used to sing.....
(blindly and in ignorance!! A song, and along with many songs After cancer (AC,haha) I wished I've never sung without thinking...)

"You're all I want, You're all I've ever needed. You're all I want. Help me know You are near."

So yea, is He really all we want? All we need?
Is He really enough for us when things are stripped away?

My sister,

.....is going to the best uni in the world, haha, in my own biased opinion.

IMU dentistry!
and twinning to Oz!
Congrats babes. Haha.

A demonstration of IMU's lameness:

The weight of wings

You have heard me tell of Gladys Aylward, the 'small woman' of China, whom I heard speak many years ago at Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta. She told how when she was a child she had two great sorrows. One, that while all her friends had beautiful golden hair, hers was black. The other, that while her friends were still growing, she stopped. She was about four feet ten inches tall. But when at last she reached the country to which God had called her to be a missionary, she stood on the wharf in Shanghai and looked around at the people to whom He had called her.

"Every single one of them," she said, "had black hair. And every single one of them had stopped growing when I did. And I said, 'Lord God, You know what You're doing!'"
Elisabeth Elliot

And so, surprisingly I feel different arriving back; not quite so damp anymore
a wee bit more hopeful with a tinge of expectation and a dash of excitement.

I choose to be hopeful even though hope opens the possibility of dashed expectations.
I choose to trust that He knows what He's doing.

Sydney is my home, for this season.

For now..

I am so unprepared to start clinical school again on Monday!
Having arrived only in Dec and starting so soon, I don't feel rested enough.

And I am starting with a "great" block, palliative care.
For one thing, our medical blocks are randomly allocated and I already did an oncology block for my 1st posting last year. Is it a coincidence?

Have had great conversations.
It has convinced me more than ever, God does answer prayers but in ways we never imagined.
That those close are going deep because we prayed that we as a group of believers in IMU wanted to be doctors/health professionals who made a difference, who understood compassion. For until and unless we have wrestled with the questions of suffering, doubt and pain how can we ask dying people to look to God? How callous and shallow of us if we do.

The paradox

As my youngest sister and I were just talking, her statements surprised me.

"When so many bad things happen, you end up feeling "whatever."New bad news doesn't make you so sad anymore, but you also don't feel happy when good things come. You become numb."

I am not surprised at the statement itself, because it's been what I've felt this year. My sobering surprise was that she, at 17, have lost the innocence and rose colored glasses while I only woke up to this rude reality called life at 21.

As I look back at this year, I am still at a lost to respond correctly to God/people.

A new sensitivity awaken; to participate in the fellowship of suffering.

This post is a new year request to pray for the following people.
People I hold with regard, whom I cry for; because if it hurts so bad in my own minor hiccups, I know the struggle must be so much more magnified in theirs.

1) The Chin family.

I can only marvel at their love for God. The choice they made in staying in a tiny village away from Phomn Pehn, where there's no electricity or running water! For Ps Kenneth to give up his engineering career. Learning a new language. The kids who are home schooled, not having a fridge let alone a TV or internet.

And yet there's a deeper story still, because their son Jonathan has a hole in his heart. Having been to Cambodia, the rural hospitals are such that cows graze 50 meters away, where not every hospital has electricity (forget about basics like X-rays or even sterilizing equipment). Yet they are willing to take up their cross and obey.
Do pray that God's favor will rest upon this family and their ministry.

2) My grandmother
When I came back in July this year, I actually made an emergency flight from KL to Sibu and back in 1 day because my grandfather was deteriorating. I've never spoken of it, but it was depressing as he was nose-fed and had both legs amputated to his thighs. Ever since his dementia, she was his primary care giver. He passed away on my birthday this year.

Due to my bad Hokkien we have rarely spoken deeply. And my mother has had her own cancer thing to deal with at the same time, so it's hard to physically show care and His love to my grandmother.
Do pray for her that, although I don't know how, she will know this God who love enough to die for us.

3) Our IMU senior
It's odd because I've never met this guy and don't know him personally.
Yet when I read his site, I couldn't help but feel for him as well.
Perhaps there's a sense of connection from reading all the get well messages from IMU CFers around the world on his blog. Perhaps because he was/is part of IMU (IMC) CF.

A man at the peak of his career; coming out of this unknown med uni in Malaysia called IMU, going overseas, probably with the big financial sacrifice of his family and finally making it in Mayo Clinic. A man who has chosen a tough specialty, Onco/Haem. And from the request IMU CF recently received from SAD's Charlene to pray for him, most likely a very active Christian during his student days in IMU. For more info, visit his site as I can't write what I have no 1st hand knowledge about.
Do pray that God will be gracious and watch over him and his fiancee.


There are more friends, people I do care about but I just can't list out as due to privacy/ respect. Pray for them and me included, that in the ups and downs in life, somehow beyond human understanding, He will be more than enough.