Off and away.

It’s only just sinking in. The M.B.B.S (my final examinations for medical school) has ended and in a few hours, I will be flying to Mozambique in Africa, to visit a ministry that has inspired, impacted and shaped me in a deep and profound way. 3 years ago, Heidi Baker, the Founder of Iris Ministries came to speak at a conference. Her message was simple but earth-shaking.

It was simply: Love has a face. Stop for the one.

I was once proud and judgemental (still am, by the way, just a little less). After her message, however, and having Grandpa Zhou transform my worldview about loving the poor, I realized just how essential it is for us to take the time to truly Stop for the one person hurting.

Time has been passing me by too fast. During the exam preparations, everyone was cramming in as much studying time as possible into their lives. Working out, meeting friends, going out… was all shaved off. Nobody taking the M.B.B.S had time for anything else.

Ironically, my life became different from my usual routine, and different from theirs. Studying, was comparatively far less hectic than my usual timetable of running around meeting people, getting projects done, swimming, biking and running in between, sending emails, answering calls, attending interviews, giving talks… Studying, made me realize just how insanely busy my life had become, and how little time I actually had just to be.

It’s funny. During the exam preparations, I really enjoyed sleeping in (which means waking up at 7am instead of my usual pre-6am routine), running to the beach to watch the sunrise before starting my day, eating breakfast languidly, checking my email inbox to find no emails wanting anything of me and simply sharing with people that I couldn’t meet them because of my final exams.

It was a quiet lull. I even took myself out to a movie in the heat of the final exams, something I would never have time to do on a usual basis. After the exams ended on Sunday, I felt the full swing of my old life just waiting, waiting to charge back like a heavy pendulum right at me.

But my trip to Africa has saved me from all that- it is giving me time to be, time to reflect, time to simply connect with God and find out what I am to do with my life.

I cried a lot yesterday. Besides the fact that it was definitely that time of the month, I simply felt overwhelmed by this new season of life I am about to enter into. For the first time, I am not a student anymore. If all goes well, I will be working soon. Yet now, everything hangs in uncertainty. What will being a junior doctor be like? Will I be chronically tired? Will I love my patients? Will I be constantly drinking from the well of God’s love? Will I be in a relationship this year? Is it next year? Am I ready? Why do I never feel ready for any of this. Talking to my mentor from church yesterday made me realize, I have so many fears about life, mainly from bad experiences growing up.

And I made a decision, that I didn’t want to carry that baggage with me anymore. But the world calls. There are so many distractions, so many things to do. To be fair, it is my own doing. My intensity drives me to look for things to do, and I am unsettled and unnerved by static nothingness. I am afraid of the silence, the lull of things, afraid of losing vision and verve and momentum.

Today, as I walked home, I saw a gust of wind blow through the row of trees outside my home, shaking their boughs to produce a snowstorm of golden chips flaking onto the ground. They were like a million butterflies falling onto the ground. I stood there, gripped by the sight.

Since when have I stopped to watch leaves fall. When was the last time I did that.

Today is Day 2 of the end of my exams. Already, I have received a request to be Guest-of-Honour at my alma mater’s Student Council Investiture and a text message for an interview with the mandarin television station. Already, we are receiving emails from the health ministry asking for our bank account numbers. Already doctors are contacting me with regards to some upcoming gathering that I’m to help organise. How did this happen.

Guest-of-honour? I’m just a graduate. To be accurate, I’ve not even graduated yet. Another interview at a radio station awaits me. I emailed them to say I would be in Africa for the next two weeks before they email me. I think I found so much satisfaction from doing all these things, from constantly being on the move, because I was afraid that being static would make me think too much (I am always thinking too much.) But now that Someone has come into my life and proposed a Possibility, I have been forced to slow down, to think about the roots of my fears and failings in this new season of life, to think about recalibrating my baseline speed in this rat-race.

I don’t want to live my life forever doing things. I want to be. I want to lie down and watch the sky pass me by. And leaves fall like rain.

Award nomination. Award ceremony. Published on national newspaper. Exam preps. Book launch. Birthday gathering. A surreal meeting. Interviews. Final exams. All these high-demand events happening one after the other since January rolled in.

I guess, it’s about time, for this super-charged bunny to take a breather, and say, okay. Enough. I just want to be normal. I don’t want to be super-human anymore.

I miss being alone. Miss going to art gallery after art gallery after art gallery. Miss watching plays. Miss walking from City Hall to the Esplanade to watch the night lights. Limited or no Internet access there in rural Mozambique? Only the beach and the prison ministry and mission hospital and orphanage? Great. Just what I need.

Just a quiet patch with me and God, for us just to talk. I have so much to thrash out with you, God. What am I here for. Where am I going. What are you doing in my life now. I am prepared to be wrecked on this trip.

Wrecked by the sights and sounds, lessons and revelations that God will soon reveal to me. I don’t want to be seen as Guest-of-Honour, some high-flying doctor, or some young author with ambition. I am just me, just a normal 24-year old- this is all God’s work- don’t you see? I now understand a little more of why Francis Chan, a successful and famous pastor in USA, said he needed to go away from the crowd; I now understand a little more of what Dr Tan Lai Yong, a Singaporean missionary doctor to China, meant when he said it was time to return home because the people there had put him up on a pedestal. I’m no famous person like they are, but I do know how it feels to want to be away from the maddening crowd.

I just want to come away for a while, and find the meaning of my living for God again.

God, speak to me.

*Thank you for walking this journey with her. Wai Jia will be travelling alone to Africa for a missions exposure and be back on 17 April. She has A LOT of luggage of donations and A LOT of travelling to do (3 flights and an overnight stay in between!) so she covets your prayers. With limited internet access, she’s not sure how much she can update from there. But she appreciates your prayers for her for her safety, for her to be a blessing to the people there, and for God to speak to her regarding her future in missions. She is grateful for yr love and prayers.