My actual appreciation speech....

First of all, I would like to give thanks to God, for it is through His will and purpose that both Christine and I could meet up with each other and to be united as husband and wife. For God is an all knowing God and He knows our individual character, both strengths and weaknesses... well enough to put us together. We pray that both of us would continue to put our faith in God and to trust that all things would happen according to His perfect purpose. We have faith that His grace is sufficient for us as we embark on life challenges as husband and wife.

Our parents has spend a good 20 years of their life taking care of us and ensuring that we have the best they could provide. And they spend a further 15 years worrying about us, whether we would mix with bad company or not having a good job and finally whether we will find the right partner in our life. For all the tears and sweat that they had shed on each of us, we would want to express our heartfelt gratitude to them.


My father painted the house partially and cooked for us most of the time in preparing for the Big day

I would want to specifically mention about my mother. To me, she is a very loving and sacrificial mother. She is also a very strong woman that is able to face life challenges head on, highly motivated and persistent. I hope to have half of her determination. My mother's main priority on me, is that I will be educated and that I will grow up to be a healthy person. Which is why, even though my mother is a housewife, she will never give up any opportunity to find extra money so as to finance our extra education. Even at a young age, my mother will do everything to ensure that we take tuition(or could it be I was too dumb) and my sister, music education. She has tried selling homemade roasted peanuts, baking mooncakes, butter cakes and cookies. When our whole family moved to JB, she started to sew leather shoes. Sometimes she would do all these even till late at night. And with all the money gained, she would, without much hesitation, use it on our education or on anything that is for our own good. She is such an enterprising and purpose minded person.

My mother lovingly cleaning up the house in preparation for the Big day

I'm grateful that she forced me to study. For when I finally decided to study again in my early 20's, I know for the first time, I am studying for myself and not to please her. It was also at that time that I finally realise, with the foundation my mother has help me to build, catching up with the rest of the group wasn't an impossible task. It wasn't easy with my poor SPM result, but it was not impossible. Thanks to my mum and dad, that I am able to have such a foundation. If I had a mum that would go easy on me, that would not risk the children hating them throughout their teenage years, ....then most probably I would still be hanging around and not having any proper skill to depend on. My parents did all they could and sacrifice all they had, for both me and my sister's future.

Thirdly, I would like to thank the church and Pastor Rev. Wong. I thank them not only because they have facilitated and arranged the wedding as if I am a long time member of the congregation, but especially because of the love everyone of the church has showered on my parent. I have heard of many stories from my mother, of how the brothers and sisters of the church displayed agape love through their time and money. Every time I hear of these stories, I would feel touched to the core by the love of God, displayed through these brothers and sisters. All these makes me feel that the love of God is real and that the fellowship of Christ is alive and strong!

I wish also to express my deep gratitude to our wedding coordinator, Sis Sun Mei, the head of the ministry, brother Chong Ming, the Music team, the children who are so cute and disciplined (we are pretty worried during rehearsals...haha), the choir team, brother Peter Lee who takes the role of the official Photographer and the whole team of brothers and sisters who takes cares of everything from ushering and decorating, to serving the food. The whole church are completely mobilised for our wedding! We sincerely acknowledge the love all of you have displayed in preparing for the wedding ceremony.

We have a group of frens and brothers and sisters who had travelled all the way, some from Singapore and others from Selangor just to be with us today. We would also want to acknowledge the tremendous support given by our cell members from CBC-Kota Damansara, brothers of the cell who are always cheering me from behind and sisters who are always scheming. We hope you have as much fun as we do. Thank you for sharing the joy with us.

Relatives from both side, we thank you for your attendance and we would like to take the opportunity to apologise should there be any inconveniences or displeasure that arises during the wedding. In addition, we would like to thank Aunty Ivy for baking her delicious and renowned kuih Lapis until past midnight, bringing it across the causeway and lovingly cupping them into shapes of love on the eve of our wedding.


Lastly, we would like to thank a young woman who, despite knowing us for such a short period, has showered much time and love on us. We are grateful to God for bringing such a person into our life. It is through her continued guidance and incessant prayers during those challenging times, that our lives were being aligned again, according to God's will and purpose. Pastor Alexa, the love you have shown us, has open our eyes to see and understand that there is no boundary or limitations to God's love. And above all, you have shown us that God is not judgemental but patient. Thank you for preparing both me and Christine to be a proper husband and wife, with each other and in Christ.

We feel tremendously blessed that throughout our life, all the pastors that we encounter has been such God fearing and God loving people. This itself is a good testimony that God does indeed loves us.

Finally, we thank each and everyone for all the gifts and best wishes showered upon us. May our hearts continue to be align and close to God and may our marriage be a good testimony of God's love to us.

Thank you and God bless.

Pang Khong Lin & Christine Qwik Lee Lee

The passing away of my 'great' grandfather

Exactly a year ago when we quietly visited my grandfather in Mersing, he is still healthy and strong. Although he is diagnosed with liver cancer then, he is still very positive with his life. That shows how strong is his faith in the Lord. The passing away of him, while does not come as a surprised, does shock me to a certain degree. I love him dearly, but just couldn't understand why I wasn't particularly sad. I shed not a single drop of tear throughout the whole proceedings, sigh...

Related posting on my grandfather -
1. A wish fulfilled
2. Chinese New Year

The passing away of a fren...

It is hard to accept death. It is even harder to accept the death of a fren. And it is terribly difficult to accept the death of a fren, in such a abrupt manner. This fren of mine used to be my college mate during those difficult but memorable Adorna days. We were never close, but we do speak whenever we happen to bump into each other. He come across as a pretty brash and loud mouth. But the impression he gave me was that of a straightforward, honest and unpretentious person.

His passing away sent me a chilling thought that I am not doing enough in keeping in touch with my friends in Penang and elsewhere. I have many memories in Penang, with the good ones heavily surpassing the not so pleasing ones.

I am surprised that his death has such an impact on me. Out of a sudden, I kind of lose hope on many things. I started to see things in a temporal manner. I have a sudden urge to eat all my favourite hawker food, visit all those familiar places and give a hug to those people that I have not seen for a long time. As if, out of a sudden, I am engulf with a end of the world feeling.

And I ask Lord, bless Han Chiou soul Lord.
Lord, we pray that you will be there to console his family and to help them to rebuild their life again. Lord, we pray that we will always remember this fren of us and be reminded that life on earth is only temporal and was not meant to be eternal. Our ultimate confidence and hope is in You where all things will be made to be perfect again, where Joy will be eternal. Lord we pray that you will bless Han Chiao soul and we pray that you will strengthen his family in this time of grief. We ask all these in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

RM10,430 to go...

For the past 6 months, I was very convinced that I have less than a year of car installment to go. I don't know why I think that way. The total owed, up to date is more than RM10K and my monthly car installment is RM465. So that would mean that I need to pay for at least another 2 years before the whole thing ends. If that's the case, why have I been entertaining the thought that I have less than a year before it ends? When it finally dawn on me that 10430 / 465 = 22 months, I just can't accept the silly mathematical mistake that I have made...and obviously the fact that the end is still far away...

I used to think that I am good in simple calculation like these. A good indication will be that I often stroll around Tesco and analysing the difference between a 400gm Milo that cost RM3.45 and a 500gm(with free 50gm) that cost RM4.15. And to know which is the better deal, with all calculation done in my head...

During SPM time, getting A1 or A2 for Modern Maths is 'sap-sap-sui' (chicken feed) to me ......but ironically, I have never passed my Pure Maths. For such a person to take up engineering is suicidal. A complete waste of time and money. That is on top of the fact that I started my engineering studies 5 years after SPM. How I survived the Engineering course where Integration and Differentiation is in every semester and applied on many subjects... is another story for another time. Suffice to say that I got through with acceptable results that I am very proud of, and that my Integration is still as bad as before. But the period of study which forces us to do so many integrations and differentiations like in fourier analysis make me fall in love with calculus and it's applications. I wonder, can we love something and yet are so bad on it?

Do not underestimate the power of Bad Maths

Coming back to the subject, I guess, I am in real hurry to finish off my loan. Part of the reason was that the 2001 year Kelisa is falling apart. Tweaking sounds are coming from everywhere and just can't pinpoint the exact location. Both the left and right drive shaft, although recently replaced are still giving me click click sounds during full turning. The time is ripe for me to spend some money taking care of this baby of mine. The time is right, but the timing is not. Another reason for that eagerness is clearly written in my profile. A recent bookmark which I have given to Pontian Salted Fish when we were just beginning to date each other shockingly reminds me of the number of years that we have been together. The bookmark dated 8/10/1999. I knew the time we are together is long,..i just never thought it was that long...

A wish fulfilled...

It was always my wish to visit my grandparents (especially the Grand old Master Chai) in Mersing. Last weekend, God granted me this wish. Some may wonder why the sudden I become so godly. Well, even if you don't believe in God in many things, you got to accept the fact that God is the only one that giveth and taketh life. ...

My grandfather was diagnosed with liver cancer a month back. Tumour was also detected at his kidneys. I got over the shock phase pretty soon, and the main thing on my mind was to spend as much time as possible with him. I love my grandfather, he is wise, he is wacky, he is easy going and above all, he loved the Lord with all his heart. One will never feel bored having him around, and although he still indulge in verbal fighting with my grandmother occasionally, I guess, my grandmother will miss these fighting session more than anyone else.

We reached Mersing late Saturday morning. We took the Kluang-Kahang road. We initially thought of stopping at Kluang morning market to get some roast pork (his favourite), but decided otherwise. Upon reaching Mersing, I walked straight into the kitchen without them realising. They have lovingly bought packets of Nasi Dagang from the morning market for the both of us. I whacked 4 packets of the rice while my gf finish three.

In front of the the house

My grandfather still looks the same, albeit much thinner. Gone are the broad shoulder that he used to have. (he used to be a body builder in his younger days) Currently, he is not taking any medicine for his condition (nothing usefull to take...it seems...) but is relying on some traditional chinese medicine and raw aloe vera. He knows his time is pretty much up but he is quite positive about it. On a positive note, besides the occasional pain that he felt, he is pretty much normal, munching on anything that he likes. I am still amaze on how he chew on all the meat and glutinous rice when he hasn't any teeth left.

Dinner in front of a neighbour house

I have always cherish the opportunity to attend the sunday service with him at the Presbyterian church in Mersing. Again, my wish were granted. They are very attentive the moment the service begins until the end of the sermon. I have difficulty listening to both the worship leader and the pastor. They sound too soft, pretty much like murmuring. But the problem lies in the speaker system. My preliminary guess was that someone tweak the equaliser and somehow increase the base disproportionately. I am no audio expert, but given the chance, I would want to take a look at it and hopefully be able to help.

See how attentive they are. . .

Although the time we spent in Mersing was for only a short period of 2 days one night, both me and my gf cherish every moment of it. In fact, we are entertained by the continuous antics of both my gong gong and poh poh. Let us hope that we will meet up and be able to spend more quite moments together soon.