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Category: Society and religion

A Simple Tribute To A Simple Brother

10 July 2023 blogpastor 2 Comments

I received this from my friend Eric Ng. It was a lovely tribute from a younger brother to a brother who lived alone and died alone. I read it and could not put it down. If it had not been for this well written tribute, the deceased would have been another statistic to add to the increasing numbers who died in their homes (unknown to their loved ones). Another tragic and worrying report in the news with surface information about the person that departed and little about the life he or she lived. This tribute I read gave a beautiful portrait of a man who zealously sought the Lord and shared the good news about Jesus Christ to others. The tribute crowned the stark report with grace and dignity. I felt moved to share this with others through this blogpost, and if it touches your heart, do share this touching tribute with even more people. Here it is:

A SIMPLE TRIBUTE TO A SIMPLE BROTHER

The Bible says, “It is appointed for men to die once…” (Heb 9:27a). That’s the edict from the Giver of Life who also has the equal right to take back the life when it has reached a destined expiry date.

On 26 June 2023, Shin Min Daily News wrote an article with this as headline: ELDERLY MAN PASSES AWAY IN TOA PAYOH FLAT, PLANTS STARTED WILTING A WEEK EARLIER. How unceremonious an epitaph! Then came the subheading: “77-Year-Old Elderly Man Passes Away In Toa Payoh Flat, Discovered After Foul Smell Detected.” SMDN is correct to make this sad commentary: “Whenever an elderly person who lives alone passes away, it’s always heartbreaking news. This is especially as the deceased would have left this world all alone, with nobody knowing of their demise until a decaying corpse is found.”

But it’s more heart wrenching for his next-of-kin to find out secondhand about this news from others. This lonely, elderly man is my second brother. He lived an ordinary life – ranked 5th in line in a family of 7 siblings.

Growing up with him, I remember his easy-go-lucky lifestyle. He hardly gave my parents any trouble. He was liked in his kampong. His greatest passion was playing hockey. He wasn’t a brilliant student but he got a Grade II result that qualified him to take a job with the civil service.

John grew up in the Westmoreland/Dorset area. Like most of the kampong boys, he smoked, gambled, and spoke with machine-gun speed vulgarities in the Chinese, Malay, and English [his only deficiency was Tamil ]. It wasn’t until 1966/7 that he seasoned his speech with salt and gave up his few vices when he was wondrously converted to Christianity. He became an intrepid witness for Christ. Soon, some of his kampong friends joined him in embracing the Christian faith—when they saw the radical transformation in his life.

Possessed by a passion to win souls for Christ, John began to witness to many of the kampong boys. Not long, he got some of them to follow him to attend a nearby church in Moulmein Rise. The church is still there and is still called Revival Centre. At this time, I had moved out of my mother’s house to live with my sister. But I would visit my mum every week. During those times, John and I would engage in serious conversations—mostly doctrinal and theological in nature. His love for God’s Word was almost unstoppable. He would spend hard earned money to buy books directly from overseas publishers. Many of the books were written by the renowned authors like DeVerne Fromke (Unto Full Stature, Ultimate Intention), C S Lewis (Mere Christianity), Carl F H Henry (Evangelism and Theology based books.

One vicarious benefit I got from John’s enthusiastic witness was in the 1960s when at a special rally conducted by A/G Singapore. Tommy Barnette, the famous evangelist, came to SG and the rally was held at the old Victoria Memorial Hall. That day, Tommy Barnette decided to award the person who brought the most people to the rally. It turned out that John had brought the most people but he told me to go forward on his behalf and accept the ‘reward’ of an LP cut by Tommy Barnette. Thank you John for that special gift.

Some time later, I told John about my church’s weekly Wednesday Bible Study. I boasted about my teacher’s incredible expository skills. That teacher is Sis Margaret Seaward. I was then attending Bethel Assembly. That church was located at 4 Palm Grove Avenue, off Flower Road, off Upper Serangoon Road (famously called Hougang 6th Mile). It was a long journey by bus from my mum’s house in Westmoreland. Despite the inconvenience, John decided to join me in Bethel not only for the Wednesday Bible Study but also the Friday ‘Glory Meeting”, i.e., Pentecostal Prayer Meeting. He never left Bethel until he started a church and called it Lord’s Grace (I may not have this name right, but I knew he started an informal ‘gathering of saints’ to champion his belief of the Apostolic Faith.

I write all these so that my FB friends from CCC/VFC and from the Westmoreland/Dorset group, who’re also friends of my Bro John Lui, should know some of the less known facts about him. John was a recluse and lived a very private life. That accounts for his dying alone and unknown until the news became public in SMDN.

I thank God that some of my friends had read the article in Chinese and could identify from highlighted facts that it was about John. The friends on my WhatsApp group, CCC Staff, alerted me of John’s death. I was only told of this in the late afternoon. That started me doing a bit of enquiries with the police. I could confirm with them that the person identified as a 77-year old man, who died in Blk 174 Toa Payoh, was my brother. Later this morning, I’ll be collecting his body. I will give him a simple cremation and bid him a simple farewell. He’s now in a much better place of comfort and rest—safe in the arms of his loving Saviour and cradled at His bosom.

John, I will meet you soon – over there on the beautiful shore of heaven. What we didn’t get time of earth to share as we did in my younger years, we’ll have eternity to do it! You lived a life that was pleasing to God. I would be remiss, John, if I failed to mention this. As it is, I already failed to say thank you inf life. Now, I want to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU for those years you quietly put the ‘Pentecostal’ handshake and gave me money when I was short of paying my Bible School fees. God used you to be the occasional, miraculous intervention when I was hard up of money. I know God took notice of what you did privately. He will reward you publicly in heaven. Thank you, John.

You had run and completed the race. You can now take your deserved rest in the Presence of your wonderful Lord and Saviour.

I thank God for the privilege of finding out at the very last minute of your demise and body which I will be claiming in two hours’ time. Rest well my dear brother. Until we meet again,

Your brother-in-the-flesh and
Your brother-in-the-Lord
Peter Lui

An online article about this and other similar deaths can be read HERE.

“Walk In A Relaxed Manner”: book reflection

13 October 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

Joyce Rupp is a retreat leader, conference speaker and author of many bestselling books on Christian spirituality. This book is her reflections about the 36 days of walking 805 km across northern Spain, from Ronscevales to Santiago. It is called the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, one of the three famous Christian pilgrimages. She walked the camino at the age of sixty and wrote about the life lessons she learned from it.

I asked myself: How do you write about a 36 days walk? Do I write in a diary format? Take journal notes every day of distance, weather, places, people, scenery, food and refugios and convert these into a kind of travel diary. How repetitive and boring! How about writing a “how to” book, a book that gives practical information and helps pilgrims to prepare themselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually so as to maximise from the camino experience. Nobody would buy such a book.

The author chose to write in a “relaxed manner”: 25 short, interesting chapters captioned with the life lessons she gleaned. I thought this was the best way to do it. The lessons were digestible and clear. At the same time, she covered the other information, details and stories in a topical and accessible format. Each chapter she unfolded the lesson she learned, and substantiated it with many instances and examples of experiences that illustrated her point. For example, one of the life lessons she learned was living in the now, not in the past, or in the future. She extracted from her journal an example of this: “It has been a hard day of walking. I did not expect to be so tired each day. I can’t have expectations of it. I just need to live NOW. Even this refugio at Estella. At first, when I saw the situation, I said to myself, ‘Just grit your teeth and think of tomorrow.’ But then, I said, ‘No, I must enter into THIS experience, NOW.’ After I did this, the situation didn’t look quite so deplorable and I found I could tolerate it better.”

The main takeaway for me was the lesson of walking in a relaxed manner, which is the title of the book. Rupp wrote: “Gradually I accepted my diminishing energy. I learned to be at peace with it. I also grew more grateful because the deliberately measured pace helped me slow down inside, causing me to become more contemplative as I walked along. This did not happen the first week, however. During the first week our sense of urgency continued to grow. Each morning we made as early a start as possible. We packed our backpacks faster. If we stopped for mid-morning coffee, we didn’t tarry long. When we met other pilgrims, we cut our conversations short. When we paused to rest our feet, we kept the stop brief. Our unspoken motto became: Push onward. Push forward. Push, push, push. Rush, rush, rush. We soon discovered that the rushing and pushing cause us to lose our enjoyment of the walk itself. We left home in order to experience the freedom of getting away from it all but we simply took the tensions with us in new forms. The place of our stress changed but we had not changed. We continued to strain and groan under the desires and expectations of achievement and accomplishment – goals which our culture thrives on and implants in us almost from birth.”

She continued: “When I came back home from the Camino, I observed how rushing and hurrying and pushing are evident everywhere. Overachievement, competition, comparison, addiction to work and duty, unreal expectations of needing to do more, the obsessive pursuit of having more – all these fell on us as heavy cultural and self-imposed burdens. When these attitudes and messages press in on us, they cause us to lose our harmony and self-satisfaction. There is far too much hurry and worry in most lives. There never seems to be enough time to complete the daily chores of laundry, lawn care, meal preparations, phone calls, and paying bills, let alone the pressure of other accomplishments that people feel compelled to do. Parents with children involved in an overabundance of activities, health care workers working double shifts, educators saddled with extracurricular tasks, managers with countless meetings, retired people with too much scheduled – these are some of the many people who need to walk in a relaxed manner, but who find their responsibilities and overextensions make it difficult to do. Undoubtedly, it will take a lifetime for me to fully learn the lesson of walking in a relaxed manner.”

I enjoyed reading this book that was given to me by pastor Thomas, and was amazed that the author was able to glean so many life lessons that will help us in our life’s pilgrimage. This book is a must read if you wish to do the camino or a part of it, or any other kind of camino, or long hikes over many days. It is a catalyst for fruitful reflection about your life’s pilgrimage, which is the most important of all pilgrimages.

Queen Elizabeth: Inspiring Model of Christian Witness

21 September 2022 blogpastor 4 Comments

For sure, I am no royalist. I grew up and lived for 25 years in a SIT housing area called Princess Elizabeth Estate, and I had my primary education at Princess Elizabeth Estate School. I loved those years and the wonderful experiences of growing up, adventure, spaciousness, and friendship, and in the last six years, of revival and prayer. The name of the estate made me curious but I felt no affection nor gratitude to the crown.

Queen Elizabeth visited Singapore a few times but it never got me excited. It was more like, “Oh, so she is here for a visit. What for huh?” She is just a dignitary, like the President of a country, visiting Singapore. She has her duties to the UK and their former colonies, including Singapore. Even her position as head of the church seems to be a formality conferred by virtue that she wore the crown. I must admit I doubted that her faith was genuine. I had this vague perception that hers was a nominal faith, an acted role expected of the queen, not a real lived out faith. I must sincerely apologise to the Queen in future when I meet her personally in heaven, for misjudging her faith. My view has now been totally overturned.

A genuine faith in Christ

Her recent death has however put out a lot of information about the genuineness of her personal faith in Christ and I must say I am so impressed that despite all the restraints of diplomacy in a multi-faith world, she had managed to share her faith in such a winsome, sensitive and brave way. Her witness was low-key but high-powered. She was no tele-evangelist though billions watched her funeral and heard about how her life was shaped by the gospel. She conducted no evangelistic rallies nor healed the sick in stadiums. Nor did she preach an evangelistic message in the church, but her life of faithfulness, godliness and dignity communicated more about the faith that her words. Even her brief speeches every Christmas, which she personally wrote, revealed and displayed her personal faith in Christ openly. She is an inspiration to all followers of Christ to be brave and wise in their witness wherever they are, both by their quiet, kind ways and by a wise, winsome sharing of their faith.

Some extracts from her speeches

“For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness. He stretched out His hands in love, acceptance, and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect all people of whatever faith or none.”

During the pandemic, in her Christmas broadcast: “We continue to be inspired by the kindness of strangers and draw comfort that even on the darkest nights there is hope in the new dawn. Jesus touched on this with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who is robbed and left at the roadside is saved by someone who did not share his religion or culture. This wonderful story of kindness is still as relevant today. Good Samaritans have emerged across society showing care and respect for all, regardless of gender, race or background, reminding us that each one of us is special and equal in the eyes of God.”

A month before her death she sent a message to Lambeth Conference, an assembly of all the bishops of the Anglican communion that was held every ten years to discuss issues facing the communion. She said, “Throughout my life, the message and teaching of Christ have been my guide and in them I find hope.”

I wish Singapore political leaders who are Christians can learn from her and disclose their personal faith without offending those of other faiths or no faith. Just do it the way the Queen did.

Lord, we thank you for the exemplary life of Queen Elizabeth. May her example inspire me and all Christians to be more effective witnesses of Christ in the marketplace. Amen.