Excuse Me, Are You A Christian?

It has been a long and tiring day for me but fruitful though.

This morning it was raining very heavily and I needed to be in church early to set up the booth for the "Each One Give One" Bible Donation Drive. This is part of the church's effort to bless others what God has blessed us with as we prepare for the church's anniversary celebration. I planned to arrive at church by 8.15am and I left my home at 7.30am hoping to catch a cab.

Twenty minutes later there was no sign of any taxis. Usually I would get frustrated but instead of reacting that way, I prayed. I asked God to give me two cabs - one for me and the other for this elderly lady who was carrying a toddler. After that I carried on waiting.

Suddenly a white car stopped right in front of me and in it I saw this couple and two children waving at me. I looked again and I realised it was this family from my church. They asked whether I was heading for church and after acknowledging that, I got a lift from them.

It was amazing as this couple usually do not come by my estate but because of the rain they had to drop their son off in school for an archery lesson.

Well, I asked God for a cab and He gave me a private car driven by my fellow siblings-in-Christ. All praise and thanks to Him! I hope the elderly lady and the toddler did not have to wait too long for a taxi.

Today is the last day of the Bible donation drive. Five weeks ago, the Missions Committee I am chairing hoped to raise at least 1,000 Bibles for the Khmer-Christians who are not able to afford a Bible as it is too expensive. Then the Assistant Pastor challenged the Committee to raise 5,400 Bibles instead since it is the church's 54th Anniversary. When I was given that figure I was not too optimistic but went on with the drive.

Five weeks now, the Lord has shown the Committee and I how great He is! The church as a whole raised a total of 5,796 Bibles with another 600 more coming from another group of siblings-in-Christ who have yet to send in the cheque. That will then give us a grand total of 6,396 Bibles!!!

Wow! God is indeed good and His love endures forever!!!

After the drive, I needed to conduct a missions training session for the Youth Ministry's Mission Team. I was sharing with them the history of missions in the Methodist Church and in our local church.

I remembered sharing with my younger siblings-in-Christ the need for us to be missionaries wherever God placed us in - home, school, work, anywhere basically. I told them it is not enough to call ourselves Christians... we should also live it out so that others can see Christ in us and they will be drawn to His saving grace.

Well, one incident in the evening when I was having desserts with some closed friends put that point I mentioned above to the test.

We were in Swensen's and we decided to order the Giant Earthquake where it consisted of 8 scoops of ice-creams. We gave this waitress who attended to us the 8 flavours. When she repeated our orders she got some flavours wrong. So we repeated the whole list again and when she read out the order, it was wrong again.

That was when some of us, including myself got a little impatient. I decided to write for her all the flavours we wanted. After that she went to have them prepared.

Then came the Giant Earthquake and immediately when it was placed on the table we noticed that some flavours were not right. One of my friends went to see the manager and verified the order with her.

Obviously the waitress was affected when she saw what was going on. My friend came back and he told the rest of us that the lady who attended to us was actually intellectually handicapped as explained to him by the manager. She was employed as part of this programme to help them integrate better in society and also to earn a living for themselves. When I heard that, I felt really sad that I had reacted negatively to the whole situation.

We could also see the lady sobbing when she was clearing some plates. That made me feel really lousy. If I had been more conscious of my behaviour and my role as a Christian then I would have shown more grace. What happened if the complaint we made could have cost the waitress her job and the ability to support her family?

Anyway, I felt led to write the waitress a note on behalf of the group basically to encourage her. I asked the manager to pass the slip of paper to her on our behalf.

What a rebuke it was! Well, a good wake-up call basically for me.

May God have mercy on me.

I shall stop here. A lot to reflect this week.

"Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31