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"Memoir"
Target reached. Day ONE of my 30 days 30 minutes challenge to myself.
I watched Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days and decided that for the next 30 days (well it’s 29 now) I will walk for 30 minutes. I’ve given myself the allowance to replace walking with swimming or any other form of exercise. The point is to do it for 30 minutes everyday.
For someone who would much rather sit in front of the computer, this is a very good start. So pat pat on my back.
I am one extremely happy entrepreneur.
It was less than 4 hours ago that I posted about the challenges with “cash flow”.
I just got word that we clinched a project enough to cover our needs for the next month!
Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
- Psalm 127:1
I’m happy to say I recorded my first podcast early this morning. I’ve been thinking and talking about it for the longest time.
I have been listening and reading up podcast tutorials, watching training videos (it’s amazing the resources you can find out there), thinking about the topics I will address. I’m still studying the technical aspects of geting it available online and on iTune.
I wonder if I can sustain the series. It’s a long haul commitment – not easy when I have competing demands. Never mind, I got started. That’s what counts right now.
I hope to launch the series soon! I know I should put a launch date to it… I will, I will…
I went to the service centre to get my broken speakers repaired this afternoon. I had barely walked a few steps outside the building after I was done when there came a heavy downpour. I ran across the road desperate to find shelter.
I started to walk under the sheltered five-foot way hoping the rain would stop long enough for me to run across the road to the bus stop. All of a sudden I saw a rundown building. It was the clinic of the doctor who delivered me some 50 years ago. It was an uncanny. I walked closer to the faded glass panel to look inside the vacant clinic. I had told myself often that I wanted to go back to the clinic again to see if I could find my doctor and to take photos of the old place. Of course I never did.
Until today.
This past week, I received a phone call from a woman who identified herself as an old classmate from Baharruddin Vocational Institute (BVI). The school is now Temasek Polytechnic. Emily said that our cohort had reconnected at the funeral service of a classmate of ours who had passed away of cancer. It was a wake up call for many.
I started receiving emails from a few of them.
I don’t have many memories of my time in BVI. Maybe I really didn’t want to remember. Only 40 had been selected of the 400 (?) applications for the Graphic Design course. For someone who was drifting for most of my secondary school days, BVI came as a shock to my system. The long hours, the pressure, the homework. I never coped. After six months, my principal called me in one day and suggested that I leave on my own accord. It would look better on my record than if they ask me to leave.
That was a catastrophic for me.
How interesting that my visitors have come back to me at this time in my life. I am no longer who I was 30 years ago. I walk with my head held high and a song in my heart.
God is in the business of redeeming lives. He has redeemed mine.
In the 70s, a couple moved into my neighbourhood in Siglap. They threw a housewarming party. The teenagers in my neighbourhood went and of course I made sure I was among them. It was there that my friendship with the Myers began and grew over the years.
Warren and Ruth Myers became good friends with my family. Their home became my hiding place. They travelled a lot. Whenever they were away, I would write to Ruth. I always made it a point to keep photocopies of my rantings to her because the letters formed part of my journals.
One time, I had forgotten to make a copy of my letter. I asked Ruth if I could borrow it back. I was surprised and amazed. She had made markings on my letter as reminders to pray about the things I told her about.
Another time, Ruth wrote me a letter. It had many starts and stops. She said she had been carrying the airletter around – her half-written letters – one for her son, one for her daughter, and one for me. It wasn’t only that she was family to me, but that I was family to her!
A few days ago, I got the news that she had had a fall and was critically ill and in the last few days / hours of her life. The email came a few minutes ago that she had gone to be with Jesus.
When my sister passed away in 2002, Ruth wrote,”Our momentary loss, her unspeakable gain.” And that is what I feel today.
Today I celebrate the life of my mentor, “mother,” and friend, Ruth Myers. She went home to be with Jesus on 8 November 2010, a day short of her late husband Warren’s birthday. She was 82. I thank God for the blessing and privilege of being loved by her.
