Monday, September 11, 2017

Reflections on My MBA Journey in Kampar

Oh wow, how can 1 year and 9 months just passed so quickly without knowing? It took me some time to digest and ponder on how amazing my God is throughout this period. It has been an exciting and fulfilling roller coaster ride. Bear with me as I am going to share this story to my future-self and not forgetting to thank God & the people who have made this journey an adventurous one.

Why did I choose to take a MBA course? It actually began with some silly thoughts and misconceptions:-
1.       I will have more time to study my Chartered Financial Analyst exam
2.       In university, I will increase the chance in meeting the lover of my life whom God has prepared for me (*maybe up to 90% because of this)
3.       Great excuse to leave my mundane work routine
4.       To improve my career prospects
Having all these silly thoughts in mind, I thank God that at least I did one thing right which is to seek for His direction. One of my confirmations to study in UTAR came from my younger brother, Ezra, as he was searching for Uni to further his study during the same period. He chose UTAR and I ask whether he is fine with the idea of studying in the same Uni together and he gladly accepted this idea.
Praise the Lord, both my brother and I managed to be enrolled in UTAR without any hassle. One of the most important thing to me is to find the right church wherever I go. So, when we first arrived in Kampar, I asked God to lead me to the church where He wanted me to be. On a fine Sunday morning, I was led to Life Church and the Lord spoke through Eric Fung, who is the Executive Director of Asian Outreach Malaysia. I was touched by God and in tears after hearing his message. He encouraged me to grow spiritually in this church and to help out whenever I see a need. It is in this spiritual family, where I was loved and fed spiritually by Pastor PingChin and Elder K Lynn. I am grateful to my life group member Lwying Lee, Jireh, Yixian, Yun Xin, Luke Lee, Kadeisha, Julian and many more life church members who have sowed into my life. (*if you can’t find your name here, don’t worry it’s written in my heart, guys).

New friendship. I wanna thank God for His faithfulness, as I obeyed his commandments to do His will, miracles happened. As I asked God for a chance to share his good news, He led me to a cool guy, Zhen Bang, whom I met in LFS cinema and invited him to an Alpha course; Sally See, whom I met in UTAR BYIC club; Low Kok Tong, whom I met in postgraduate research room and many other people. I praise the Lord for these 3 amazing people whom God has placed in my life to experience that the word of God is living and active. I believe our friendships will continue to grow in Christ. I urge you to continue to follow Christ and dwell in the grace of God.

Love story time. Top 1 FAQ: How did I meet my girlfriend? Oh well, since I was 15 years old, I had already planned to get married in the age of 25, but things did not work as planned. Frankly speaking, I am frustrated and asked God why?!?!?! So, for almost every single week during Life group (cell group), my prayer requests would be praying for a future partner and it went on for almost year.
One fine day, before my HK trip, I was unwell for a period of time and later discovered that I need to undergo appendectomy. Miraculously, my insurance policy, which I just bought a month ago, became effective for me to claim for the RM11k++ medical fee. It’s the grace of God as I have only paid RM200 for the first quarterly insurance premium. I thank God that I managed to claim all my hotel and flight expenses too. During the recovering period, I really don’t understand why God allowed it to happen to me.

After I have recovered, I decided not to go HK but to visit Taiwan instead. On the 7th of Jan 2017, my family members and I were on our way to Taiwan departing from Changi Airport, Singapore. After passing the final customs, we decided to go to the washroom. Then, we took the inner path to the boarding gate. Suddenly *Deng Deng Deng*, I saw a pink colour Puma bag in the middle of the pathway. In my mind, I was looking around for possible person who might just dropped the bag and wondered why didn’t the shop attendants around do something about it. Argh... then only I realised we were in Singapore (U know what I meant). So, we walked past the bag. As we walked towards the boarding gate, suddenly*Deng Deng Deng*, an anxious lady, started to ask her family members whether they have seen her pink bag. Guess who she is? She is none other than my future sister-in-law, Jia Min. I overheard their conversations and I walked towards her and asked whether was it a Pink Puma Bag that she is looking for. So, I’ve became her angel and brought her to the place where she dropped her bag. However, when Jia Min was about to take the bag, an off-duty security guard stopped us. She forbid her from taking the unattended bag, as she has reported to the police about it. As a result, she became more anxious and worried. Then, she used my phone to call her sister, guess who? Yup, it’s none other than my lovely future life partner, Xingxing Lim. However, I didn’t roam my phone so the call didn’t get through. Then, she borrowed from a policeman and managed to contact XingXing. By the time Xing Xing came over, I told them that I will bring both our family members to cross the last boarding gate checkpoint and informed the flight attendants about the delay to buy us some time. So, I managed to chat with her family members for awhile and realized that Becky Lim, who was supposedly to be one the same plane but one of her exam has been postponed, needed to buy another air ticket and fly from KLIA. (*She later told me that it might be God’s will for her to meet her future husband on the plane.)

After 15 minutes or so, after Jia Min and Xing Xing talked to the special unit who deals with unattended belongings, they managed to pass the last checkpoint on time. This time round when I saw this beautiful lady, Xingxing Lim, I felt something miraculous happened in me that I can hardly describe with words and I had this peace from God like I had experienced so strongly after the JPA scholarship interview last time. So, I asked how my mum felt about her, she mentioned she looks beautiful and confirmed that she has a boyfriend now (seriously mum?!?). However, my heart had that peace which I have always asked from the Lord and I needed that confirmation from Him especially for locating the future partner whom He has prepared for me.

Back to my story, so we traveled with our family members to Taiwan on the same plane. Once I walked past the Taiwan custom, I was prompted to send a message about the lane to collect the luggage from by using the number Jia Min keyed in earlier on. I got to know her more from then on and prayed for her often. And my love story continues.

Philippians 4:6-7 (Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.)

Work life in Kampar. It is another amazing testimony that I gotta share. Lord, please give me a job which I need not to buy a car (as I am sharing it with my brother) and manage to earn a living. It seemed to be a simple prayer, but my God answered. One fine day, after a combined church prayer service in Kampar, which I enjoyed this kind of prayer meeting very much as people from different backgrounds come together as one, I got to catch up with Doreen Wee. After some chit chat, she recommended me to Presley (fiance) to work for him. I told him that I am willing to explore new opportunity and so made an appointment to discus about the job scope. Cut the story short, I took the job by faith, as I was given any basic salary. In hindsight, I took the job because it’s located in Kampar, I get to work less than 4 days a week and I do not need to purchase a car for it. Little did I know, it was God divine appointment. I was so blessed to join this handsome christian brothers sales team, Eu Gene-the boss, Joseph, Tan Sze Chuan, L'ric Chai Kok Leng and Presley. I am thankful and grateful to you all for your guidance and love, not forgetting “are you stressed?” session. I wanna give God all the glory, it’s Him who directed me to the clients and managed to closed all the sales smoothly. I want to thank all the bosses for giving me this opportunity to experience God’s goodness and faithfulness. Oh ya, I forgot to share, we worked as property sales consultants and we are currently selling one of the most exciting and promising commercial shop lots investment in Kampar. Praise be to God, all of us not only manage to earn a living, we are able to bless the needy, church, ministries and also save up for老婆本。

Study life testimony. As a non-utar graduate, I found it quite hard to adapt to a different learning method from my undergraduate study. Nevertheless, I know the learning process is more important than the result. Having say that, I wanna thank God that my CGPA increased gradually and praise God that He gave me lot’s of good friends to support me like Stella, Daniel Wa, William, Panda, Jake, Nickson, Ian Chong, Joe Liew, Michelle Ong, Siewsiew Belinda, Terence Toh, Vicky Yap, Zhiyin Mooi, Sam Tan, Xu Er, J'Ghanesh, Asuka Aaron and many more. I pray that the Lord will bless you and your future endeavors.

I know there are many people that I need to thank, but I am sorry that I didn’t manage to list them all out here. If I’ve missed out your name, scold me straight when U meet. Before I end this post, I also gotta thank my father, mother and brother for being so caring and good to me. Not forgetting, my godly beautiful wife-to-be, Xingxing Lim, and her lovely family members, thank you for accepting me for who I am and treating me as one. These are some of the many miracles that I have witnessed over 21 months in Kampar. God has been good to me. I will continue to seek the Lord and can’t wait to see what He has installed for my life, or should I say our lives. Do continue to pray for me and I will do likewise. 

Last but not least, the main reason for me to write this post is to share this God who loves us so much that He sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. Jesus came so that we may have life and have it abundantly. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Here’s a salvation prayer that you can pray:

Dear Lord Jesus,
Thank you for dying on the cross for my sin. Please forgive me. Come into my life. I receive You as my Lord and Savior. Now, help me to live for you the rest of this life.
In the name of Jesus, I pray.
Amen.

If you have made this prayer and you want to find out more about this amazing God, call me or just drop me a message. I will be more than willing to buy you a drink and share with you or maybe listen to your testimony.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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