peace . love . joy

My grandmother came over to our house a few weeks ago after paying a visit to the eye specialist. She had lived a life as a farmer before she came to Singapore way back when. So, naturally, she gravitated towards my dad's little 'garden' by our waterfall installation. I watched her take each of the many heavy pots of plants outside into the common lift landing, lug a full bucket of water out from the toilet, and squatted there watering the plants, re-potting the plants, washing every single leaf of every plant we had. Time stood still as I squatted there with her, watching her as I used to do when I was little and we lived together in a big (maybe I remember it as big because I was small) house in Changi, the comfortable silence broken only by short exchanges in Hainanese and the sloshing and dripping of water.

She started tending to them plants in the early afternoon, right after lunch. And she finished, sitting down to dinner, satisfied, only late in the evening. We talked over dinner. She was telling me about how sad she was that too many of my cousins did not understand our dialect, let alone speak it, how I must be a good girl and look after my parents when I'm grown, how I should be looking for a good boy to settle down with... Things that I otherwise would not be open to hear from anyone else, I listened with great anticipation, lapping every single syllable that passed her lips... I listened with great sadness and eagerness.

She, with my paternal grandfather (my maternal grandparents have passed away a long time since. I never knew my maternal grandmother), are old. Her body is bent with time, her bowed legs even more prominent, her eyes grey with cataracts. My grandfather appears to be holding up much better though: he still walks tall and proud, laughs with a hearty guffaw, smokes, climbs up a mountain with still energy to spare much better than I can. Even so, I know the time is ticking. Constantly ticking.

They do not know the LORD. They may have heard of Him, mentioned here and there, but they do not know Him like I know Him.

And I want so badly for them to come to know and understand and love Him.

It pains me that it's so hard to share God with them through words because my grasp of Hainanese is probably as advanced as a three year old's. Why not revert to Chinese if I'm better schooled at that, if I want so badly to share the Gospel to them, you ask? I loathe speaking in Mandarin to them because I am not Chinese; I am Hainanese. We speak a beautiful dialect, not the crude language that annoying emperor concocted. And I know my grandparents get so tickled when I try to speak our dialect with them. And also because my Chinese also isn't that brilliant. I think my German's miles better than my Chinese.

Those urges I keep bottled up inside me burst open and spill out through my actions. I join my grandmother, even if it is in silence, as she does what she loves most - looking after the plants. I listen to what they have to say. I pay attention to what makes them smile, simple things like calling them to eat dinner, kissing them goodbye, saying "hi" to them individually, calling them by the correct kinship term, simple things like that I do.

Oh, how I long for the day when I can rattle off in Hainanese and talk to them so fluidly! Maybe that day will come. Maybe God will grant me the gift of tongues, even if it's just for a few minutes, to speak fluently to them both in their own dialect. I don't know.

But until then, I will try, through my actions and what little Hainese & Chinese I know, and I will help those who try, like helping my father give my grandfather books about Jesus to read, to win them both over to Christ, to the glory of God Almightly above.

Do you know people like that?
People who don't yet know God, and by 'know', I mean to comprehend, to accept, to love Him as we, Christians, say we do.
It could be your neighbour, your friend(s), your grandparent(s), parent(s), sister(s), brother(s), uncle(s), aunty(s), cousin(s), colleague(s), mark(s)...

These people are somehow connected to you.
For you have been given the opportunity, the chance to be in someone else's life, to help them, to change them, to bring them and win them over to God, to the glory of God above, to share with them Life.

You could say "hi" to them every so often, mow their lawns for them without their asking, buy them lunch, do the dishes without seeking praise or recognition...
You could give them books about Jesus to read, invite them over for a cup of tea, introduce them to your Bible study mates...
Take something off their plate to ease their burdens, forgive them...
Show them that neat trick you learnt in Sunday School, sing them that catchy song you sang in church, or recommend that great movie you saw...
You could pray for them, and sometimes, if they permit, pray with them...
Often, sharing Jesus comes in persevering in seemingly small acts of kindness and love, gentleness and patience.
Are you not capable of that?

But beware, dear ones, the time is short.
Everyone dies, but no one knows exactly when each person will pass. Every day, every person faces perils, from mundane daily activities like crossing the road, to health threats by illnesses, to unpredictable environmental events liks tsumanis, typhoons, gusts of wind, scorches of heat, and the shifting of the land beneath the feet.
Jesus is coming again, "Heaven and earth shall pass away... But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24: 35-39)
Therefore, awake from your foolish and simple slumber, and delay no longer!

You hold Life in your hands.
Are you ready to share it with those who march toward eternal death?

Or maybe the question is
Are you willing to?
Are you aching to?

Look out the window.
Do you see those people?

Do they matter enough...
for you to get up off the couch
and reach out both hands?