This year as usual, I did not intend to have any celebration for myself, nor even mention my birthday to people I would see on that day. Early in the morning when I switched on my hand phone, a few messages from my former secondary school good friends came in. Even though now we hardly gathered once a year, they never failed to send me a birthday greeting.
When I arrived at Calvary Care Home (CCH) at 9.30am, I met Peter T, a Singaporean who had a burden to pray for Malaysia. He came to Melaka by faith two years ago and was going to serve CCH on a voluntary but regular basis. He was supervising David to prepare noodle soup and fried tauhu. Then Joseph, who was back to CCH from Montfort Youth Centre for holiday, also turned up in the kitchen. When four of us sat in the dining room half an hour later, a lady came to bless us with a cheese cake and other food. When we shared the cake with other boys who got up and joined us downstairs, I continued to receive other SMS birthday greetings from my family members, my colleague KC, and even my blog friend Vince who must have learnt it through Facebook.
Later, a Singaporean couple (Peter and Grace) and their two daughters came to CCH for a visit. After a discussion with Peter T who had made known the boys' desire for fast food as lunch, they generously invited all of us to Pizza Hut. So we drove to Jaya Jusco with two cars, but only found that all the pizzerias there had been closed down. As the boys also loved burgers, we decided to have our meals at Mc Donald's which was inside the same shopping complex.
When we returned to CCH, Albert P was already there with Matthew.
We continued our sharing in the living room. After Grace and Peter learnt more about the CCH boys, they promised to come again the next morning to have another activity with them.
To fill the rest of the afternoon time, we had planned to go to the cinema. Joseph L, a Calvarite who used to invite the CCH boys for outings during previous years, came with his car to join us. He suggested "Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel" which was suitable for the children. As it was going to start in ten minutes, Joseph left with a few boys, followed by Albert with his passengers. I would be fetching Isaac and Luke.
When I was about to reverse to drive out of the house, Isaac, who was still inside the house, asked me to wait another two minutes. Five minutes later, I realized that he was still in the shower room! I began to keep looking at my watch and grumble in the car until he appeared again with a fresh and smart look. When we were finally leaving, a lady drove slowly into the road in front CCH. Seeing that she looked like a visitor, I screw down my car window. She introduced herself as Emily and passed to me ten red packets with money inside for the CCH children.
Had Isaac not delayed our departure, we would have missed the blessing and Emily would have wasted her trip. How unexpected the way God had arranged this encounter! I quickly confessed my impatience and thanked Isaac for his shower.
We were just a bit late. I had not watched the first "Alvin and the Chipmunks", so it took me some time to find out even the title and understand the story. Anyway, important was that the boys had a wonderful time watching those cute squirrels.
After the movie, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant at Bukit Beruang. After I sent my passengers back to CCH, it was about 9pm. I decided to drop by half an hour at Jeremiah and Phoebe's house at Cheng on my way home. They were having a Christmas feast. Pastors and church members from Calvary Life Assembly were invited. I had another nice moment of fellowship with some of them.
Amazingly, the first and last person who gave an audible "Happy Birthday" greeting to me was VC at about 10pm.
That was how God interestingly celebrated my birthday through those around me but not aware of it, and those knowing about it but physically far away from me on 24 December 2009.
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