2012.

It’s amazing how we tumbled into the new year.

Looking back at 2011, how have you changed? What have you let go, left behind? What have you brought with you? What were your moments of anguish, shame and pain, and what were your moments of joy? Was 2011 memorable? Putting everything aside, what was the one greatest lesson you learnt?

2011 was my first year of work. I had to let go of old hurts, I had to leave behind old roots of bitterness. In between and during 32-hour work shifts, I had my fair share of moments of scorn and shame. I saw death, pain and suffering first-hand, and experienced guilt and condemnation. But through it all, I learnt humility and meekness and servanthood. (I am still learning those things now, learning how to let go, still.) But putting everything aside, 2011 was the year I learnt about love.

Love. Because in spite of all my ideals, I used to scorn the idea of finding romantic love. I despised it in a way, what with all its cheesiness and fleeting highs. But God intervened and warmed my cold heart. He sent me a prince, from thousand of miles away; He made it seem impossible at first so I would learn to cherish the eventual miracle He created to pave a way for him to be here; He taught me that when we learn to trust, He will bring our faith to fruition.

So it was only apt, I suppose, that 2011 ended on a note of love.

With Us, visiting your relatives who stay in Hong Kong, and realizing how much I want to be a part of your amazing family; Us, re-visiting your childhood memories in your old house and neighbourhood in Hong Kong island; Us, getting lost in a big sprawling city with towering buildings everywhere late at night just so we could say one last goodbye to your grandma living on the other side of town before our 6am flight the next day.

I love the fierce way you love your grandma and family. 

Us, holding hands in Kowloon Park, where one of our famous missionary heroes, Jackie Pullinger, gave up her life to reach out to and love heroin addicts, prostitutes and the poor; Us, exploring mountains and seas and quiet nooks and crannies in this crazy-busy country with your uncle driving us around and who always knew when to “disappear” so we could have our quiet moments together (he’s undoubtedly the best tour guide and photographer ever); Us, stopping by the roadside ever so often to say hello to an old man sitting on a wheelchair and buying him a hot meal.

And then of course, while buying this old man a hot meal from the cantonese restaurant, God put in our way another withered old man, clad in a thin dirty black jacket peering longingly at the menu on the wall of that big restaurant, because he’s too blind to read the words, too poor to buy food but too hungry to leave.

And you changed your afternoon plans completely, instantly, and was so willing to stop for a moment for this old man because I asked if we could sit down with him and have a hot meal with him instead of running the errands you’d planned to do. You said yes, of course, even though you knew this meant we wouldn’t have time to run errands later, and you readily agreed to run back to the park to pass the first old man on a wheelchair the hot meal we just bought before returning again to sit with this old man to buy him a hot meal and sit and pray with him for a bit. I spoke and prayed, and you translated everything in beautiful Cantonese. This elderly man received everything with thanksgiving and joy and gratitude.

I knew God was answering my prayer, by showing me how together, we could make a greater difference to our world around us.

Grandpa Ming Fei, an old near-blind man we changed upon in Hong Kong,

who lives alone after his wife died in a car accident.

He has cataract in one eye, diabetes, and lives on a marginal pension.

I love the way you love God, the poor and me.

And yes, you, so in love, assuring me how much you enjoyed spending time feeding the needy with me  and want to continue doing so in the future, lest I feel bad for steering your afternoon plans off-course. You, telling me how much you love me because God’s compassion for the lost and hungry through me stuns and surprises you. You are always so humble. (Thank you for making time for Grandpa Zhou and me. I am glad our dates don’t revolve around Makansutra.)

 

Cliff, Grandpa Zhou and a generous friend who offered to pay for the sumptuous Christmas meal.

I love the way you love not only me, but the poor whom God loves, fiercely and ferociously. And I think I could love a man like that, who allows God, and not his own agenda, guide his footsteps.

And you, holding my ice-cold hands because I’m shivering under my trenchcoat while you brave the chilly winds in a paper-thin shirt (this wintry Hong Kong weather is nothing compared to the frosty winters in your everyday life in Canada.) You, really being in your element instead of your cautious, measured self in Singapore and showing me around (I love the way you lead, and I grow to appreciate the challenges you face by serving here voluntarily in a foreign land). You, treating me to dimsum and flaky egg waffles by the roadside and my favorite piping hot awesome black sesame paste with tang yuan (chinese rice dumplings) in the icy weather, holding my hand all this while to make sure I’m okay and that I’m feeling free enough to eat (I cannot count the number of times you text, email and tell me how beautiful you think I am- you spammer).

Me, feeling giddy in love too, as I lose my hands in yours. Me, amazed at how God brought us together. Me, in tears because I’ve changed so much.

Just within a twinkling of an eye, we have talked about marriage and missions and medicine and money next year in 2012, which I now realize is… this year.

I am learning, God can do anything. So for all my worries and anxieties about the future and how it looks like, I know God will bring me step by step to where He wants me, and us to be.

He will bring you there, too.

2012 with God will be an adventurous one.

Cheers.