Ring Ring...

My cell phone rang two nights ago. The caller was Wai Seng, this guy I met when I was 16. Let's go back to the time when I met him. It was in Goodwill Camp in Ulu Bendol, Pahang when I was an active Ranger. I brought a small group of six Rangers from Sri Aman to a Scouts Camp...something we have never done before in our Sri Aman Guiding history due to the strict autocratic and bureaucratic manner school administration handles extra co-curricular related activities. So there we were on the first day after hiking onto our camp grounds. We were trying to pitch our tents and naturally, having not gone for any camps before and being horribly equipped with tent-pitching skills, our tents tumbled down at the blow of the wind. I tried not to act like a damstrel in distress, but relented to ask Zi-Lie, the Camp Organizer for help. He was awfully busy and pointed me to this guy in green army pants over the other side of the camp and said, "Neh, you go ask that guy for help." So off I went, trying to keep my cool and face intact. "Ermm, can you please help us pitch our tents?" I asked. That was the starting point of our friendship. Throughout the four-day camp, we worked closely together, (especially since my Unit needed quite a bit of help!) had good chats during hikes and campfires. I remember quite vividly one day when we were hiking down the mountain, we ventured onto the topic of religion. He told me he was an atheist, and that he didn't need God anyways. I probed further and tried to ask some thought provoking questions about the existence of God, humanity and such. He then told me that he believe in spirits, like the trees we were passing then - that they had spirits too. Animism came to my mind, and he did not totally reject the idea of it.

That was about six years ago. We met a couple more times at Scout gatherings and the last I heard from him was when he called me the following year during Chinese New Year. We lost touched for about four years until suddenly I had his news a year and a half ago. I was chatting with my best bud, Lina who was then in Perth, Australia (while I was in Canada). All of sudden she asked me if I knew Wai Seng, and later told me that so happen, her roomate Cheryl is his girlfriend. I was quite amazed at how small a world it is and that Lina gave me news about him through her connection with his girlfriend in Australia. Weird. Anyhow, she told me the big news that he accepted Christ a year ago...to which I screamed with shock (and joy, I suppose).

So, anyhow he called me two days ago and we met up for lunch yesterday. He's quite a changed person now (though he still smokes - trying to quit I shall say) and when he told me his testimony of how he accepted Christ in his life, I felt like the words he was speaking was a miracle touching my heart. It was just plain unbelievable, especially hearing him utter the words "Praise the Lord!" I prayed for him a bit when I knew him, but really did not envision this day coming, that he would really declare with his mouth that he believes in Christ. Amazing, simply amazing. His story was a long half an hour one, to which I will not produce in this blog, but truly, "Praise the Lord!"