The day I couldn't be a backseat driver

It's rainy season. You'd think that I'd have the common sense to pack in a raincoat in my bag... but No...

So it rained last Friday just as we were going back home. Thankfully David was more prepared than I was. So at least we had one raincoat to share between the two of us...

I'm a backseat driver. Especially when the driver is my husband. Even more so when we're in crazy-traffic-land, i.e. Cambodia. Frequently, I have this urge to scream out "Watch out! Car coming!" or "Slow down!" or "Motorbike!"

Even though I'm slowly learning to refrain from commenting, I still feel the obligation to "lend my pair of eyes" to watch out for the traffic. As if I can somehow control the driving just by my looking.

So... it was a rather... urm... faith-testing (& nerve-wrecking!) experience to be riding home under that raincoat without being able to see anything apart from my own two feet! You bet I was clinging on tighter than usual!

Maybe that's why God sometimes keeps us in the dark about where we're going in life. So that we can stop being backseat drivers trying to tell Him what to do? So that we can learn to trust & cling on to Him more?

When our windows of security were removed

Wrote this post in May, but only got around to posting it up now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When our “windows of security” are removed, we’re forced to remember God as our ultimate security.

This was our ‘literal’ experience  during our Field trip to the Royal Ploughing Day Ceremony here in Cambodia.

We had arrived early at the OMF Team Center with another family, waiting for the others to gather. David had wound down the (automatic) windows from his driver’s control panel so that we could all get some fresh air while we waited in the car with the engine turned off.

As we were about to begin our journey, each of us pressed our own control button to wind up the windows, but the windows wouldn’t go up except for the one at the driver’s seat. David tried from his ‘master control’ but nothing happened either with the 3 other passenger windows. We even tried turning off the car engine in hope of “rebooting” it (just like a computer perhaps?)!

Shrugging it off as one of those problems you get with an old car, we travelled through the dusty streets of Phnom Penh, occasionally moaning about the fumes that were getting into the car because of our open windows.

It was not until we arrived at an open-space car park that it suddenly struck us – our car was now an easy target for car-thieves! We parked right in front of the little hut where the guard was, but guess what? He was asleep! That certainly didn’t give us much sense of security!

So we prayed. There was nothing else we could do. Right there & then, we realised that all we could do was to trust & depend on God to protect the car & its contents.

Yet, it was also eye-opening to realize that, we wouldn’t have thought twice about depending on God when the windows were working!

But isn’t that faulty thinking? Who ultimately holds the security of our car, our possessions, even our lives? The multi-faceted locks on doors & windows? The security gate? The state-of-the-art alarm system? The insurance policy?

The security hedges we build around us sometimes do hinder us from experiencing the amazing loving hand of God holding, sustaining, protecting us from harm or loss. Sometimes, it takes the removing of some of these ‘security items’ before our eyes can see beyond toward the true hedge of security, toward God our fortress.

As it turned out, our car & everything in it was safe & intact when we got back to it after the ceremony. God was watching indeed!

Videos: Hannah {the drinking episode}

Drinking companions.... they drank a lot that day...

Was that water they drank? Or...?

Videos: Hannah

She loves the swings! Counting (in English)
1,2,3,9,10 is how she usually counts, though not in this video.

Her love for motorbikes! "Poot Poot!"

God knows our desires!

Was literally just thinking about how much I miss this biscuit yesterday, & look what I found in my pigeon hole today! (from a malaysian missionary who's in Cambodia for a few days)

God DOES know & provides even for our 'insignificant' desires!

Photos & Videos: Hannah

Hmm... perhaps she might start riding a motorbike before her mum would!

We learnt this song at the Khmer Sunday school 2 weeks ago & Hannah loves the actions! "This is the day"  (Khmer lyrics have almost the exact meaning to the English version). 

Take 1...

 

Take 2...

Please pardon the noise in the background (should have turned off the fan when taking the video!)

 

Slide action at LOGOS school (Hannah is almost 20 months at this stage but has been climbing up those steps since 2 months ago):

Love this photo of Hannah & her Dutch "sister" at Ta Phrom in Siem Reap :)

Check out their almost identical shoes / sandals!

Playing together at LOGOS school - those shoes again! :)

Ant invasion: a lesson on hoarding?

Recently, our house was infested with ants. We haven't had much problems with ants in the past few months, but one day, David started noticing long trails of ants along our wall.

He followed the trail into Hannah's room, & to his horror, he found them all over the (unopened) boxes of cereal we had stored in her room!

Due to our earlier experience of the cereal suddenly disappearing off the shelves of the supermarket, we decided to stock up our new substitute in bulk. We ended up having to throw away 5 out of the 14 boxes as there were just too many ants in them. A real treat for the ants & a real shame for us! :( Not to mention the hassle it was to sift through all 14 boxes to check which had been affected.

Our "ant cupboard" (we have 2) in the kitchen, i.e. cupboards fixed with little green cups that contain  water (+ salt to prevent mosquitoes breeding) that acts as a moat to prevent ants climbing into the cupboard.

The 2 ant cupboards were full, hence this is our temporary makeshift moat for the cereal we managed to salvage... 

Perhaps a paraphrase of Jesus' words in Matt 6:19 to fit our situation...
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures of cereal, where ants destroy... (own words in italics)

Could this be a lesson on not to hoard "stuff", including what we see as "necessities", but to trust God to provide other substitutes should we need them?

Having said that.. since we've bought more "ant cups", we've started hoarding again...