Dora Poh Chin's birthday

Time flies, and the older one gets the more one feels its speed. A whole week has gone since I last wrote.

However I do keep a diary and scribble something each day. The big event for the week was the celebration of our daughter Dora Poh Chin's birthday. She turned 45 on Saturday 26th April.

She is very well cared for at our Salvation Army's Peacehaven Nursing Home at Changi. Our daughter Gladys was free on Friday, so she was able to fetch us there for the celebration. The nurses and residents in her ward joined in the celebrations. Everyone was given a piece of her birthday cake. The staff and nurses are wonderful people serving suffering humanity in the name of Jeeus.

Hard to believe that it was 45 years ago when Poh Chin was born in Kuala Lumpur where we were stationed. It was a year of the terrible racial riots in Malaysia where many lives were lost. God wonderfully preserved us those traumatic days.

This morning in our meeting we sang that lovely song by Fanny Crosby a blind poet. She scorned the idea that God had planned her blindness. She wrote in her autobiography , "The idea is repulsive to me that the Lord looked down on baby Fanny Crosby and ordained that she should be blind for life. I do believe that God permitted me to be blind, when that affliction had been put upon me by a doctor's blundering, and I believe that the way has been shown to make my blindness a blessing."

She wrote further that she had prayed: "About being blind, Lord there is something else. At first I had a hard time dealing with me. And then I learned to accept it. And now something even better has happened. I thank God for it!"

I must have the Saviour with me,
   For I dare not walk alone;
I must feel His presence near me,
  And His arm around me thrown.

Chorus:
Then my soul shall fear no ill;
Let Him lead me where He will,
I will go without a murmur,
And His footsteps follow still.

I must have the Saviour with me,
  For my faith at best is weak;
He will whisper words of comfort
  That no other voice can speak.

I must have the Saviour with me
  In the onward march of life;
Through the tempest and the sunshine,
  Through the battle and the strife.

Our Poh Chin is handicapped. We do not blame God. What caused the doctor to delay coming to perform the delivery, we still do not know. Later when we went back to the Hospital at Petaling Jaya, the nurse explained that her records were lost. We did not want to pursue the matter further.

One thing we know Poh Chin has brought blessing to many people and certainly to us her parents. She has in her own way added a new note to our ministry in helping suffering humanity. Our LORD is with us and we still hear "His words of comfort that no other voice can speak." He  equips us to share His words of comfort to those who are suffering. All glory be to our loving God who revealed Himself in Jesus His Son.