What Counts in the End.

Dear friends,

Thank you for all your love and encouragement

in our journey to Uganda and back. 

Here’s sharing the online link to the full 23-minute documentary on

Channel NewsAsia programme aired this week,

and some food for thought.

TV programmes wield formidable power.

Through the art of storytelling, they can heighten drama; through the craft of weaving, they can paint a compelling tapestry; through narration, they can choose the lens through which you see the world.

So I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t just a little nervous that the documentary filmed over 8 days of our year in Uganda was screening on air.

The trailer, created to draw attention, was created with full dramatic effect, highlighting Cliff’s health risks and my ‘sacrifices’ made in career.

A friend texted me, “Congratulations.”

But for what? I genuinely pondered within.

A year ago, God called us to serve- we obeyed, after nearly disobeying. He opened the doors we could not open. He provided the opportunities for us to be part of an adventure we could never plan or dream of.

Looking back, we never did anything extraordinary. Conducting health training programmes and empowering villagers in livelihood skills aren’t novel. Serving needy communities in a foreign land isn’t unusual. Choosing to live differently has been the way of life for hundreds of thousands of missionaries, who have served selflessly for decades in rural communities.

Why are we different?

I tell our younger millennials, those who look at us with an admiring gaze, that- we are not.

The fact is that what the world looks to and applauds- sacrifice, drama, showy projects, are not what matter in eternity at the end.

After having God’s sacrificial love showered upon us, is there anything we do which can count as sacrifice?

Do the dramatic reasons of why we left when we left, matter to a sick and dying world hungry for love and compassion?

What do large, upscaled projects have to show for if they are built on a haystack of pride?

Since returning from Uganda, I’ve had the privilege to speak to young people at various platforms on serving needy communities.

While I’ve been deeply encouraged by the burning passion and zeal of many of our young millennials, my heart aches with anguish at some of the questions asked:

“So how did you ‘escape’ your bond temporarily?”

“What projects in Africa earned you the award nomination?”

“What research publications are you aiming for with this experience?”

My heart burns for them to ask instead- when all the glitz and applause from awards and media die down, when it all burns away- are all that is left of our lives just dross and dregs, embers and ashes?

My point is- at the end of your life, what really counts?

Are we investing our time into building a foundation made of hay and stubble, or that which lasts for eternity?

At the end of the day, not everything that be counted (i.e. research publications, accolades and interviews) might count at all. And not everything that truly counts and really matters, can be measured or counted at all.

So when I received the text message, saying “Congratulations”, I was bewildered. I pondered intently again- But what for?

This opportunity to share our journey was God-given. I am an ordinary 28-year old who does too many things at once to focus on any one thing at one time. I’ve made mistakes and had to say sorry one too many times to the people we have tried to help but inadvertently hurt.

When eternity arrives, the question I really want to ask God is, did what we do matter? More than the praise we received from this watching world, did the lives we encountered receive Your love? Was our work lasting fruit or temporary?

When all our “good works” go up in flames to be tested and tried, in motives and purity, did they become gold twice refined, or a heap of ashes from a smouldering haystack of pride and selfish ambition?

When we come to the end of our lives,

let us remember that perhaps, what really matters after all,

is not what the world counts, applauds and values, bu

t the hidden things grown deep in the hearts of men-

the purity of our motives, the sincerity of our hearts-

things which cannot be counted,

but count ultimately at the end.

“Now if any man build upon this foundation

gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

Every man’s work shall be made manifest:

for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire;

and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon,

he shall receive a reward.

If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:

but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

– 1 Cor. 3:12-15″