No man is poor who has had a godly mother. -Abraham Lincoln
Her children rise up and call her blessed. - Proverbs 31:28 (RSV)
My mum went home to be with the Lord on the morning of 28th October 2008 (Tuesday) at the Salvation Army Peacehaven nursing home. Mum suffered a massive stroke the previous Sunday, and the doctors told us that at age 85 she could not survive an operation, and that she did not have much time left. They were right. We were ready as a family to see her go, and together with our sister who flew in from Germany, and the grandchildren, we gathered and expressed our goodbyes with words, tears, gestures and prayer . We now thank the Lord that she slipped into glory peacefully and with dignity.
Mum was a special woman: beautiful outside and wonderful inside. She managed the home very well. She was neat and organized, and she kept the house, especially the kitchen, clean and neat. I also remember how we all wore the same coloured shirts and pants every Chinese New Year. She also enlisted everybody at home to do all the household chores and I guess with five kids, four of them boys, she needed management skills to survive. There was a regimen at home and we had homework time and play time that had to be adhered to. The carrot and stick worked well. She was an excellent cook and whipped up fantastic curries, ngoh hiong, chili crab, roasted meats and chicken stew, etc. Baking was her forte too and her signature pineapple tarts and butter cake was popular fare among relatives and neighbours as well. As children we delighted in her homemade kaya, coconut candies, tapioca kueh and jelly desserts. And she managed all this on a tight budget. (Put cursor over pic for captions and click on pic for enlarged pop ups).
Mum was industrious, resourceful, thrifty, and supremely sacrificial. She was a skilled seamstress and used to tailor-make dresses for her clients. This was a supplementary source of income for the family. She even did dressmaking classes in her home for some rich tai tais of the Shaw family. Later on her sewing skills were put to great use at St Andrew’s Cathedral where she embroidered and maintained the various stoles and linens used to dress the sancutary for the various Christian seasons. That was her ministry with the Thursday’s ladies fellowship. I remember how she even made curry powder and sold them in packets. She didn’t make much from this but she took pride in it and was meticulous about the quality and cleanliness of the spices and ingredients. On occasion I grudgingly helped her carry big packs of dried chili to the Indian grinders and mixers. She was also a good saver and maximizer of whatever she had and we always had enough for the basics, including tuition for Maths and Mandarin. Her life was generously poured out in the endless sacrifices she made for her family, even after they were married.
Mum had a pleasant temperament. She was characterized by quiet and calm, patience, longsuffering, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. She was moderate in her dressing and spending and with her discipline over us, giving us space as teenagers, and yet occasionally with firmness. I wince with embarassment when I recall how she once went to the community centre basketball court and in front of my friends, called me home for I was furiously playing ball day and night.
Her dad was an Anglican and she married my father, Andrew Chee, in St Andrew’s Cathedral but they were not churchgoers though they allowed us to attend Sunday School when we were young. When the marriage hit turbulence, she experienced a turn of piety and used to go to Novena on Saturdays to pray. Besides recourse to prayer she had wonderful relatives from both hers and fathers side who generously gave her support and practical help, and this helped her to persevere. Later on she joined the St Andrew’s Cathedral ladies fellowhip, which met on Thursdays, and this was the period where I was pleased to see her faith in Christ renewed and deepened with Bible studies, ministry and the warm fellowship there. She was also a regular in the early morning services and even after the onset of dementia, she still went to church regularly under the watchful eyes of Amy the domestic helper, and Lily her sister. Even when she couldn’t recognize us she would still say, “God bless you”, or remember songs like “Jesus loves me this I know”. Even after the geriartician said her memory has gone zero, her helper Amy saw her woke up in the middle of the night and prayed the whole “Lord’s Prayer” and on another night witnessed her looking out the window and praised God, “I love you, Jesus, I love you Jesus. Her faith in Christ, and her temperament made her Alzeimer dementia a sweet one. She would often brush her hands on our cheeks and greet us and strangers with a “You are so pretty”. With this kind of temperament, the great caregivers at Peacehaven’s Flamingo found it pleasant to care for her.
Mum left behind four sons, Colin, Julian, Victor, and myself; three daughters in law, Linda, Ai Lee, and Jenny my wife; and one daughter, Beryll (Joyce). And seven grandchildren: Olivia and Keith; Noah and Nathan; Joshua, Matthew and Elaine; all of whom were cared for by her during the early months of their life.
She also left behind siblings: Philip Law, Lily Law and Florence Law.
How do I feel? Hovering sadness; relieved that it was peaceful and dignified; and thankful to God for his providence, and the hope in Christ. Mixed feelings. I have been grieving over my loss of my mum to dementia over the last few years. She couldn’t recognize or remember anyone. Now I have lost her physically as well, but only until the resurrection of the dead. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes; blessed be His holy name. Do remember us in your prayer.
(If you wish to leave e-condolences or eulogies to the bereaved families, you may use the comment box of this post. Just click on “__ comments” below; fill in your name and email address; filling in your URL - personal website address is optional. Then write your stuff, and finally click on “Add Comment”. )
I hardly visited to maintain my old site at xanga.com. Today I shut it down permanently. Goodbye. It is finished. Blog euthanasia. It feels like shutting down a part of my beginnings in blogging. There is memory; there is sadness. That was where I learned and thrilled at the power of the world wide web and the ease with which one can publish one’s thoughts. Thanks xanga for the fun, the learning, the inspiration, and the introduction to blogging. Farewell.
Today, a medium sized chicken at a supermarket costs around $7, all cleaned and ready to be cooked. How much did a chicken cost in the good old days? How much overheads did this guy have to pay for his business? Probably no rental. No refrigeration needed. No transport costs. But you had to kill the chicken yourself and pluck out the feathers. I remember helping out to do that; I mean the plucking….leh cheh! Were the good old days really that good? Give me the cold lifeless stuff in a plastic bag. I’ll pay for it.
I think its time we take dogs more seriously. When they speak bark we ought to listen. I was talking to blogger-dog Barnabas Ju-Ern and remarking about how he could be so happily running all over when we two-leggeds were in the midst of a global economic storm. And was his two-legged mummy worried at all? This was his reply, from which we can learn something about how we too can smile at the storm. There was byte in his bark:
Blogpastor: “Its amazing how you can run happily when the two-legged world is facing an economic crisis of a proportion never heard of or seen in the last 70 years? Doesn’t it show in your mum’s face: perhaps the furrowed brow; perhaps, the occasional sigh. You need to get close and comfort her as she comforts her people”.
Barnabas Ju-Ern: “Who me, worry? Clare-worry?
I only worry about Clare stealing my bones and sleeping on MY side of the bed. Clare worries about Aunty Lu going on strike and not throwing her balls for her to catch. Mummy doesn’t understand maths….so I guess the economic crisis doesnt ring too many alarm bells with her….”
So the people who are ignorant of maths can smile in the storm; and the dogs are blessed too because they are happy just knowing they are deeply loved and cared for by their mummy and they don’t sweat over the big stuff they cannot comprehend.
Hmm….canine wisdom: “You can be happy when you know you are deeply loved!” Wuff! Wuff!
The morning church wedding was held at Trinity Theological College’s sanctuary and this was the oldest pageboy I had ever seen, and it was my son, the good friend of the bride.
They say it is very difficult for a man to give away his daughter in marriage, but does he have a choice? “Who gives this woman to be married?” could easily be addressed to the bride,”Which man do you give up to be married?” and she’d gladly say, “The older one.”
They held the wedding dinner at the Hilton. That was where my wife and I had our wedding reception back in December 1980.
Grace’s church friends at the cocktail before the dinner.
We were seated beside “church pillars”: Agnes and Mark Chua, who were good company to have, and the evening passed by quickly.
The photos showed an obvious difference between Sony Eriksson phone 701 and Nokia E71: the pics above, taken with E71, were grainy, for indoor and low light conditions.
We have in this tribute to Tan Sri P. Ramlee, the great Malay movie star, an interesting look at how Malay culture and dressing for women was like in the 1960’s. The absence of the tundung (head-dress) is deafening. It took an American friend, Monte Lee Rice, to point this out to me. Now in many places I go, I see Malay women wearing the tundung. Exceptions are the schools, hospitals, airlines, where uniforms are required. The difference in dressing is due to the revival of religions, particularly, Islam in the 1980’s. Religion is indeed a force of social transformation to be reckoned with if it can make women surrender looking good. Instead of a national campaign to get people to clear their food trays from the table, maybe a religious campaign may work better! And by the way, did you notice the pleated pants? Its very 60’s!
I asked twenty copies of it from Norman Wong and sold it all in church last Sunday. “Can you answer these questions?” is a practical book written by him. Norman studied in London Bible College, served in England as a missionary among students for several years, and on his return to Singapore, pastored several Methodist churches, before working with TRAC in the youth and now the missions society. This handbook is excellent follow-up material to ground a new Christian in the basics, a balanced book, with both indicatives and imperatives, for balanced growth. It will also be great to use for small group discussion but everybody needs to have a copy and read the chapter between meetings to highlight what struck them so they can share it at the cell. The cell leader readies himself and kicks off each sharing with what he learned and the rest follows suit. The transparency and growth of the cell is likely as members practice its lessons. It should be available in most Christian bookshops. Go grab it.
It was Sunday morning of 28th September and my wife was excited about giving the angpow at the tea ceremony while I tried to keep dignified about losing it.
Together with my brother in law Kenneth and his wife Maggie, we prayed for blessings.
Keith and Gwen Poh had a breather before they went off to the hotel to rest.
The Lee family from Bangkok: Wen Por and Wen Mun stayed with us while dad and mum stayed in a hotel in Chinatown.
We had Chinese wedding dinner at a hotel.
And we wondered which cousin would be next to get married after Keith.
A news report about a Buddhist monk caught my attention and I wanted to blog about it. In the space of seven days in the Straits Times, we can now weave a tale of three holy men. They are all “set apart”. They are all men of faith. Two are megachurch pastors and one a monk. But how they live out their faith is different. One owns a few fashion shops but serves the church without a salary and is generous in his giving. There are other pastors like that too who are bi-vocational and the other job is not taxi driver or durian seller but a thriving profitable business, and they are laying their lives for the church and the Lord. Another has a high salary which could have been higher but refuses to accept a system which would have seen him earning even more. He too is generous in his giving. And today Monte Lee Rice a perceptive seer wrote a comment from which I have extracted what he said about the report I wanted to blog on:
And finally brothers and sisters, I am compelled to draw attention to the article in today’s paper (The Sunday Times, 12 October 2008) titled, “I, who have nothing.” This is a short write-up about the British born and Buddhist month Ajahn Brahm, whose picture most of us have at some point seen occasionally in the paper or around town. I am not a Buddhist; I am a Christian. But boy, what shame this man brings upon us! He “travels up to 10 times or more a year” all over the world, “people turn up by the thousands to listen to him,” and yet he “does not carry a single penny, has no mobile phone or MP3 player,” and “sleeps on the floor and has one meal a day from his alms bow.” The article mentions that Ajahn Brahm “doesn’t believe religious leaders should be paid a lot of money either.” I think we better listen to this: “How much money did Jesus have? He had nothing. . . . We’re at an economic downturn here and many people are afraid of what might happen if they lose their savings and house, and I can come along and say I’ve never had a house and savings and I can be happen and peaceful If I can do that with nothing, you don’t need to be afraid.” Well, let’s do give the Lord the last word here: “if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? . . . . But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Monte Lee Rice
Perichorus
Jesus himself, who was not silent on wealth and possessions, had said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt 6:19-21). Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys(Luke 12:33). Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”(Luke 12:15).
We know that Jesus died a shameful death, and in the world’s eyes, he died in failure and poverty. We also know that all the twelve apostles, and Paul too died with little possessions to boast of. They were the closest to Jesus, and their interpretation of Jesus words can be seen in the way they lived. I suppose they were like Nazirites: you could call them incarnated prophecies for the larger body, extreme examples that will continually arrest our attention, and make us think about how we are living out our faith.
None of us are to legislate how everyone else is to apply these words and teachings of Jesus, and how we should exactly follow the examples of these apostles who were unlikely to misinterpret Jesus’ teachings. How each one of us specifically responds to God is according to the grace we have experienced in our lives, and our stewardship to Him.
Its not that the church doesn’t have its own examples in this respect: John Wesley who despite more money coming into his hands, insisted on keeping his standard of living unchanged, but increased his giving. Or George Muller who ran an orphanage by faith in prayer and without publicity of needs but just by prayer. He saw thousands of pounds pass through his hands but none got stuck in his palms. Or a St Francis of Assisi. Or a Mother Theresa. Or C.T. Studd who gave up his substantial inheritance and fame as a sportsman and became a missionary to Africa.
As Christians, we are all holy, “set apart” men and women, whether pastor or accountant or clerk, we are all equally accountable to God as to how we live in His presence. How we manage and use the gifts and opportunities He gives us is something we are personally accountable to Him for, and we ought not to judge other Christians over how much they earn, or the way they spend their money or the possessions they keep. Or to make what standards of living we are convinced of, a law that everyone else must comply with. However we can ask ourselves as stewards, “What is God saying to me about me about my desire to be rich; about the possessions I now own and my attitude towards them; about my personal pursuit of earthly security in an enlarged barn to store more grain, rather than in an enlarged vision of a loving God to distribute more grain?”
Now if God can speak through nature’s wonders, an animal and even Caiaphas or king Cyrus, is this Buddhist monk, his mouthpiece of the moment to Singaporean Christians and churches in this furious economic tsunami, a dark parable that Christians need to personally reflect on and ask, “Lord, is there something I need to learn here for myself?”
The Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings top 100 was released recently and Singapore’s National University of Singapore now enjoys joint ranking with UCLA at number 30. Such ranking systems have their detractors and objectors but if you have improved over last year and are in the upper half what is there to complain about? Take a look at the top 30:
1 HARVARD University United States
2 YALE University United States
3 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom
4 University of OXFORD United Kingdom
5 CALIFORNIA Institute of Technology (Calt… United States
6 IMPERIAL College London United Kingdom
7 UCL (University College London) United Kingdom
8 University of CHICAGO United States
9 MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (M… United States
10 COLUMBIA University United States
11 University of PENNSYLVANIA United States
12 PRINCETON University United States
13= DUKE University United States
13= JOHNS HOPKINS University United States
15 CORNELL University United States
16 AUSTRALIAN National University Australia
17 STANFORD University United States
18 University of MICHIGAN United States
19 University of TOKYO Japan
20 MCGILL University Canada
21 CARNEGIE MELLON University United States
22 KING’S College London United Kingdom
23 University of EDINBURGH United Kingdom
24 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of T… Switzerland
25 KYOTO University Japan
26 University of HONG KONG Hong Kong
27 BROWN University United States
28 École Normale Supérieure, PARIS France
29 University of MANCHESTER United Kingdom
30= National University of SINGAPORE(NUS) Singapore
30= University of CALIFORNIA, Los Angeles (U… United States
The report continued: “More than a third of the top 100 are based in the US. The rise of Asian institutions is reflected in the inclusion of nine of them within the top 50, including three based in Hong Kong”.
It could have been: 30=National University of SINGAPORE(NUS) Malaysia but alas….
We ought to be thankful we are in the list, although some folks, including its students, may doubt if it deserves to be there.
Is the NUS’s quality of education as good as UCLA’s? Do you think it deserves its place?
Is this another good reason for you to stay instead of emigrating?
hit turbulence, she experienced a turn of piety and used to go to Novena on Saturdays to pray. Besides recourse to prayer she had wonderful relatives from both hers and fathers side who generously gave her support and practical help, and this helped her to persevere. Later on she joined the St Andrew’s Cathedral ladies fellowhip, which met on Thursdays, and this was the period where I was pleased to see her faith in Christ renewed and deepened with Bible studies, ministry and the warm fellowship there. She was also a regular in the early morning services and even after the onset of dementia, she still went to church regularly under the watchful eyes of Amy the domestic helper, and Lily her sister. Even when she couldn’t recognize us she would still say, “God bless you”, or remember songs like “Jesus loves me this I know”. Even after the geriartician said her memory has gone zero, her helper Amy saw her woke up in the middle of the night and prayed the whole “Lord’s Prayer” and on another night witnessed her looking out the window and praised God, “I love you, Jesus, I love you Jesus. Her faith in Christ, and her temperament made her Alzeimer dementia a sweet one. She would often brush her hands on our cheeks and greet us and strangers with a “You are so pretty”. With this kind of temperament, the great caregivers at Peacehaven’s Flamingo found it pleasant to care for her.
I think its time we take dogs more seriously. When they 
I asked twenty copies of it from Norman Wong and sold it all in church last Sunday. “Can you answer these questions?” is a practical book written by him. Norman studied in London Bible College, served in England as a missionary among students for several years, and on his return to Singapore, pastored several Methodist churches, before working with TRAC in the youth and now the missions society. This handbook is excellent follow-up material to ground a new Christian in the basics, a balanced book, with both indicatives and imperatives, for balanced growth. It will also be great to use for small group discussion but everybody needs to have a copy and read the chapter between meetings to highlight what struck them so they can share it at the cell. The cell leader readies himself and kicks off each sharing with what he learned and the rest follows suit. The transparency and growth of the cell is likely as members practice its lessons. It should be available in most Christian bookshops. Go grab it.
A news report about a Buddhist monk caught my attention and I wanted to blog about it. In the space of seven days in the Straits Times, we can now weave a tale of three holy men. They are all “set apart”. They are all men of faith. Two are megachurch pastors and one a monk. But how they live out their faith is different. One owns a few fashion shops but serves the church without a salary and is generous in his giving. There are other pastors like that too who are bi-vocational and the other job is not taxi driver or durian seller but a thriving profitable business, and they are laying their lives for the church and the Lord. Another has a high salary which could have been higher but refuses to accept a system which would have seen him earning even more. He too is generous in his giving. And today Monte Lee Rice a perceptive seer wrote a comment from which I have extracted what he said about the report I wanted to blog on:
The Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings top 100 was released recently and Singapore’s National University of Singapore now enjoys joint ranking with UCLA at number 30. Such ranking systems have their detractors and objectors but if you have improved over last year and are in the upper half what is there to complain about? Take a look at the top 30:
