Tuesday, May 06, 2008

If only they realised who they are engaging with...the Devil at Work

Recently a fren of mine inform me of his father winning a 4D lottery number. I don't feel happy for him or his father. Both of us know that such a luck will in the long run, create more trouble than providing any sort of comfort. Perhaps, this would relieve his father of any short term financial burden. Perhaps the family will gain from temporary material comfort. But all these will mean nothing but the calm before the storm.


I know, my father was in such a similar situation before and I am writing from experience. We used to be a simple and average family living in KL during the late seventies up till early eighties. My father works at home dealing with managerial task and paper work for SME and retail outlets. Those days, even a simple letter from EPF or Bank would send these owners scurrying to my father for advice and consultation.

Somehow and someway, my father got involved with illegal 4D operations. Good money, it seems. So the office in our home doubles up to become an illegal 4D centre and a management office. Many aunties and uncles within the neigbourhood came to visit, write some numbers, pay some money and moved on. The daily collection and summary of these numbers are submitted before 4 o'clock daily to the main boss in Klang. Whether it rains or shines and riding his trusted Vespa, my father has to perform the submission on time. Otherwise, the numbers will be rejected and my father will be in deep shit should any of the numbers got shortlisted. Of course, nowadays, fax machine takes care of everything.

These secret operations goes on for several years and as time goes by, my father seems to apportion most of his time doing this illegal business and neglecting his official work. Then crisis struck. Malaysia was hit by recession in the mid eighties and many small and medium businesses were declared bankrupt. Many aunties/uncles are out of sight, either hiding or running away and that's when the problem start.

You see, many of these uncles and aunties 'book' their numbers by phone, promising to pay at the end of the week or by the end of the month. On the other hand whatever money that is owed by these people must be 'top up' by my father and submitted to the main boss in Klang on a daily basis. So could you imagined what would happen if several aunties and uncles refuse to pay my father? All you need is just two aunties to owe an amount of 20K to run away and hide, and my father will be in deep deep shit. There are even a few that simply refuse to acknowledge the transaction that has taken place and challenge my father to lodge a police report. What a dilemma my father was at that time!

Indeed, my father was in deep shit. I still remember those difficult times, when my father had to hide himself in a far away land and the whole family is sustained by my mother alone. She is a warrior, working two job in a day, as a kindergarten care giver cum cook and as a cleaner at the nearby church. We moved to another house and three of use (me, my mum and my sister) stayed in the main room while renting out the remaining rooms. Those were difficult times, but we had a lot of people to thank for being kind to us, especially Mr/Mrs. Goh who provided us with free tuition and Auntie Wong. Things got even more difficult when my sis was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, either due to stress or lack of proper nutrition. I think my sister's condition got worse when my mum learned from some aunties to feed my sis with more seafood and iodine rich food.

As such, I personally despise people who get involved with gambling of numbers. Whether it is illegal or otherwise, I would not hesitate to tell them they are ruining their life and the lives of their loves one in doing so.

To me, gambling is an act of inviting Satan to tempt a person with money. And done frequent enough it will become a form of ritual. For those determine to be tempted, Satan will not fail you. Satan will tempt you with monetary reward now and then. That will be the bait that will draw you deeper and deeper to the point of no return. And not only that, the lives of people close to you will also be greatly affected.

For my fren father, the devil's bait he will surely take. Too much effort and time had been invested and there are much accumulated debt to be settled. A much delayed 'reward' that justifies much.

But I do hope and pray that he will breakaway from this bondage and be able to realise that enough is enough. There must be a better way of living than to live in constant fear of being brought in for questioning by the police. There must be a better and more consistent way of earning ones keep.

May the Lord help him and be there for him always.

May the Lord grant him the wisdom and courage to break this bondage.

In Jesus name, Amen.


2 anak ayam bother to comments:

acura said...

Fully agree with you about this whole gambling thing. It is best to stay away from it yet we see so many people succumb to it.

Btw, nice blog you have here too. Have added you to my blogroll & will drop by often. Cheers

Chicken Feet aka KaKiaYam said...

Thank you acura, will do the same.... Good day ahead...