Finally... went out to do a survey! Out of the comfy chair n air-conditioning and into a windy-dust and noise-filled environment...knocking on doors... it's an experience!
Why? coz No. 1, do you know how much dust you are breathing into your lungs?! One lady said our lungs must be as black as anything with all ze particles trapped inside eww... No. 2, you get to meet interesting people. Yes, I do miss Thailand and the people but we do get to meet all kinds of people right here in Singapore too. I'll just give one example which is utmost in my mind right now.
knock knock knock... down the block we went... and then we came to this flat. Someone was vacuuming the floor. I could hardly hear myself above the loud roaring of the traffic and vacuum cleaner. Just inside the door was an altar with some kind of picture and incense and some other things. Two wooden masks hung on the wall at the sides, and a wooden statue of a man with a spear along with toys and a porcelain cat stood at the foot of the altar. My friend and I rang the doorbell and finally, the vacuum cleaner stopped. A grim looking man, topless with tattoos of the picture mentioned above, came out, opened the grille door and beckoned with his hands for us to enter. My friend and I looked at each other. Seemed like there was no choice... my friend, a guy, entered and sat on the sofa looking apprehensive. We decided that i shouldn't go in so i erm gave a weak excuse that i'm going to knock on other doors. =P So i hid away from the door peeping in at times =P My other friends later joined me outside. And boy, did we wait! That man talked with my friend for about an hour! There are details I think it not wise to add in here but anyway my friend later came down with a Lee Kuan Yew biography and told us that that man's actually okie and quite nice (apologising for scaring me), but very wary of salesmen/women even going to extent of chasing them all the way out of the block. He also showed my friend the extremely close proximity of the block to the road and the difficulty in counting the number of vehicles passing in a minute. He also said he kept child spirits hence the altar, toys and the tattoos. He was praying during the visit, and i heard the ringing of a bell. He had 2 adopted daughters who left him after graduation.
Sigh... I knew it would be something like this, seeing from the altar. As i was standing outside, i was thinking of my friend and the man inside. Of the altar. I couldn't help but think the man is a devote spirit worshipper and there being a stronghold in that house. But I remembered that God is the greatest, the sovereign one. He is more powerful than any other thing. I started singing quietly "He is the King of kings... the Lord of lords...", "Joy is the flag flown high..." , "my God is so big..." hmm now that I've typed it down, I realise that these are some of the songs i held dear as a child. Not knowing what to do, standing there, i prayed that he too will come to know the Lord...
Now, i remember something i wrote in the morning: that one of the things I learned in Thailand is that God's grace extends to all nations, all people.
So too, this man.
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