Personal and family – Page 4

Category: Personal and family

Joining My Wife In Pickleball

5 May 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

I have picked up a new sport: pickleball. My wife has been with this sport for decades and have often asked me to join her. Time never permitted me this luxury during my pastoral ministry. Now with more time at hand, I joined her and gave it a try. I liked it and discovered a few things about it.

This sport is getting popular in Singapore. In USA, it is attracting the younger adults, and convincing tennis players to convert to pickleball. This is very evident in YouTube, which now has hundreds of instructional videos on pickleball skills, and increased visibility of pickleball tournaments. The People’s Association introduced the sport decades ago to get the seniors to be active. I must say they have succeeded supremely in bringing seniors of both sexes, but particularly the ladies into this new sport.
This sport has elements of badminton, tennis and table tennis in it. I only needed a paddle (the racquet that looks like an enlarged table tennis paddle), and a pair of court shoes.
It is fun and exciting. You can play for 11 points or 15 points, and usually we played doubles, which makes teamwork a must.
It is easy to pick up but takes time to master. I needed to do a lot of drills to train my muscle memory with new strokes and movements.
My tennis background helps as well as hinders. I had to unlearn certain rules, positioning, and my old habits of volleying often gets in the way of effective pickleball play.
It is a great aerobic exercise. When I first began, I was usually out of breath after two consecutive games. I had to run quickly up and down the court to make a return, or to get to the non-volley zone. My heart rate goes up and stays up when the game gets intense. It is good for my heart. It was so much fun, I forget that I ran a lot.
I need to be alert and react quickly to shots, because the court is smaller than a tennis court, and the balls come flying from the opponent’s court as quickly as it gets off my paddle.
I got to meet new people, mainly adults in their 50s and 60s. Many of them were inspiring. Recently I saw a player who has played for more than twenty years. He is in his 80s, and he played very well, and with greater fitness than me. I hope I can reach his level of fitness. Already I have seen how playing this sport has increased my fitness, so much so I do not huff and puff during my hikes or rides.
Many sport centers and community clubs have pickleball as one of the sports they offer. I first played pickleball in a open air badminton court in Bukit Panjang, and an indoor court in Bukit Batok during the covid restrictions which limited us to four players a court and no intermingling with other groups. Now I play at Jurong West Sports Center, near the Pioneer MRT station.

It is good to have an additional common leisure activity that both my wife and I can enjoy together. My wife joined me in hiking long ago and we both still enjoy it. She tried cycling with me but is not as enthusiastic about it as I still am. Now that I have joined her in her interest and found it fun, we have an added common activity that we both enjoy. This can only be good and enrich our marriage and promote good health.

If you want to picture what pickleball is like, have a look at this video from YouTube:

In Close Quarters With Covid-19

15 March 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

My brother in law Simeon Poh was infected by covid-19. He was coughing badly in my home. We tested him quickly and the ART test showed he had covid-19. We were distressed as we searched for more information, and made calls to hotlines, and looked for clinics that were open on a Sunday. When we finally went to the 24 hours clinic at Jurong Gateway nearby, Simeon went through another ART test and PCR test in the clinic. We were later told that within 24 hours we would be contacted and Simeon would be sent to a care facility.

Ups and Downs

We waited for the call while we bought things he may need and went to his home to help him pack his clothes, medicine and other stuff. We were told he would be housed in D’ Resorts at Pasir Ris, which looked good in the pictures in the internet. By Monday 5pm he was driven there in a car. We were thankful to God that everything went smoothly.

However, after a day at D’ Resort he was sent back at 9pm on Tuesday. My niece ART tested him and he ran positive. Why then was he sent back home? More distress. My wife made many calls and we were told to wait while they checked on what happened. The Ministry of Health hotline folks finally called, and on Wednesday he was sent to NTUC Tampines Nursing Home. Evidently, he did not know how to take his own blood pressure and temperature, record the details, and use his mobile to send it back to the nurse’s station daily. Well, he is over seventy years old and use of mobile phone cannot be taken for granted! Supposedly he was to be sent to another place but they mistakenly sent him home!

Anyway we were thankful that he was finally sent to a nursing home and they were excellent and professional, giving us regular updates about his situation and calling us for details about his other medications. This is certainly a more suitable place for Simeon and he was settled there.

Finally, after the few days of feeling stressed, relieved, and then stressed again, we had a breather. We thought it would be nine days from the time he was infected but we were to be surprised again! They called us on Friday and told us Simeon can go home on Saturday, even if the ART test shows positive, because he is no longer infectious by the seventh day! This was new to me! Therefore, he returned home by taxi on Saturday at 2pm with running nose and cough still evident. This seems to be the current protocol. It keeps being updated as new studies and information about omicron is received, analysed and acted upon.

Still We Are Thankful

We had no choice in this and were thankful that our government had these care centres for those who cannot manage isolation on their own for various reasons. The only payments we made were for the clinic ($10 – subsidized heavily), and taxi fare ($22) home, and the care he received in the isolation centres were free of charge. Thankful to God.

However, I received a Health Risk Notice on Thursday, 10^th March. I was to stay at home and monitor my health until the final day and my final ART test on 14 March. Of course, I could go out if my ART test was negative but I did not. I did three ART tests: one before, and one when I received the notice, and one at the end. All negative.

Strangely my wife never received a notice even though she was the “closer” contact. Nevertheless, we both took the necessary restrictions seriously and we cancelled quite a number of appointments, even though our ART test were negative, knowing that people may not be comfortable, but were unable to express it.

The stress never ends. Today I heard my nephew now has been infected….

A Covid-19 Chinese New Year

7 February 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

It was a calm, peaceful and quiet Chinese New Year (CNY) celebration 2022, not a tigerish one. Not that there was nothing to do. We had family visits and meals over four days. My wife cooked and had family over every day for four consecutive days.

The Eve

On Chinese New Year eve’s evening, my son Joshua, nephew and niece, Paul and Bethany Lee, and brother in law Simeon Poh came to my home for steamboat (what else?) reunion dinner. It was pleasant but we missed the usual crowd, which normally included my son Matthew’s family of Juyoung, Chloe and Claire; my daughter Elaine, and daughter in law Ping, and sister in law Baby and husband Jack. Yes, it used to require two tables, but I loved the crowd and chatter and the company of my grandchildren. This sounds rather strange for an introvert to say, but I guess as I grow older I kind of balance off with more extroversion. Then on the fifth day of CNY I met with my brothers and their wives. The week went so quickly I was curious how it sped by.

CNY 1st Day

The first day of CNY, we went to the Choa Chu Kang Cemetery to visit our departed loved ones. The Garden of Remembrance was sheltered but not the gravesite, where we ended up searching for Jenny’s mum gravesite, and my departed son Caleb’s gravesite – an unmarked grave. It was traumatic for me and my wife when the Lord took our twin son home six days after birth, and we sort of left the grave without any tombstone, as our burden laid elsewhere since the surviving twin-brother Joshua needed a lot of medical attention, and it also took many years for us to be healed of the grief and pain of loss. We will have to go back again another day and seek the help to locate his grave, as we simply couldn’t find it with the information we got from the cemetery office.

***Paying respect at my wife’s father’s grave***

CNY 5th Day

After the dinner at my eldest brother’s home, I saw some old black and white photographs of me and my younger sister, took our my mobile, and shot a few of them. Those were the days when photos were mainly black and white. I am surprised they did not fade even after sixty years in storage. The many photographs perked my curiosity as I tried to figure out who is who, and smiled at the hairstyles and dressing of those days. Looking at these old photographs are fun and makes for good conversations and learning about our family of origin and our relatives. It also made me realize that some of them are no longer with us and in a matter of two or three decades, neither would we be around. Will my children and grandchildren be swiping their iPads and looking at snazzy unfadable colour pictures of us and reminiscing about the “good old days”? I hope so! If they remembered us there is a high chance they can learn something of the wisdom of the past, even if it is what not to do.

*I am the little boy seated second from left. My mum is the third lady from the left.*

In All Things Thankful

I feel thankful for the opportunities to meet up over meals despite the restrictions to a maximum of five visitors per day and visit. If it helps to minimize the spread of Covid 19, I am most willing to do my part. Despite Singaporeans trying their level best, the number of infections tripled during the CNY period. I pray regularly for Singapore and all the countries around us, asking God to extend his mercy upon us and help us win the fight against Covid 19. I also pray often for the bold and powerful preaching of the good news about Jesus Christ and for souls to be saved and saints to be revived. The pandemic has ripened the crops and the harvest is ready for churches and Christians to reap and bring the harvest in. May the Lord enable us to do this with diligence for “he who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame”(Proverbs 10:5 ESV).