After the 2025 Revival Prayer movement in Taiwan

 

A series of freaky event occurred in April 2025, right after I’ve participated in a month of Revival Prayer movement in Taiwan, so I believe these are attacks from the enemy. Firstly, a relative implied that someone in the family had active TB and kept it a secret from the relatives. On the following day I decided to do the IGRA blood test as precaution, since Charlie happened to have gotten sick with fever. On that same day Chester had an accident where his finger was in the door hinge while the educator was closing the door and his thumb nearly fell off, so we went to the ED and waited whole day, only to be told he needs to be seen by the plastics team the following day in another hospital which was very far away. This week coincided with the week of a big doctors’ strike! We were lucky that Chester was able to get the finger surgery done in the late afternoon. However, when I got home after Chester’s surgery, Charlie became even sicker. Chester and I tested -ve for TB, but Charlie's results were still pending! Then at midnight Charlie was breathing very fast and had very high fever and I saw the TB result was indeterminate, so I took him to RNSH ED in the middle of the night! We pretty much got locked into the hospital because as soon as they heard possible TB contact they got very cautious. CXR showed early pneumonia. IV antibiotics were given and Charlie improved very quickly. However, they wanted to take a nasogastric tube to confirm that it really wasn't TB, which was highly traumatic for Charlie, as he needed 5 people to hold him down. I got an update from the relative that it there wasn’t TB in the family after all. I tried telling this to the medical team but it took quite a while before the consultant doctor got the message. Luckily we got released from the hospital as a result. The children were very emotionally upset throughout this week, because they were both very upset by the whole hospital experience, and I didn’t sleep for 4 days. And I had to cancel three days’ worth of patients, approximately 100 patients! So the financial impact was pretty devastating for the family. Meanwhile, my husband’s studies abroad were going pretty rocky and he was at danger of having to repeat a year of medicine. This also coincided with the time where I was planning to get pregnant with the third baby: I have to get pregnant on this particular month so that the baby will be born when my husband is back in Sydney for the Christmas/New Year holidays. These series of event actually made me even more convicted that getting pregnant this month was the way to go!

 

Fast forward to July: I was about to enter into the second trimester and the baby and I have been well in all the antenatal checks. I thought that I should make a visit to Taiwan, because once we have the third baby, our family might not be able to travel again for quite a while. This was my first overseas travel since our wedding reception in Taiwan in 2019! And the children's first international travel! It was a lot more difficult than what I imagined (but my hubby already predicted all of those difficulties). Just to list some examples: Children overwhelmed by an environment different from what they are used to and crying that they want to go back to Australia and unable to fall asleep. 18kg preschooler suddenly refusing to walk: before getting on the plane, in the middle of switching from one public transport to another, etc.  Overtired children suddenly falling asleep during meal and throwing crazy tantrums in the restaurant after waking up and we had to takeaway the food.  The technical difficulty of catching public transport, which makes going from one place to another impossible: you can’t get a pram onto the buses in Linkou because there are so many steps, public transport is so crowded and you need to take the lift if you’re bringing the pram, and the wait for the lifts take forever, and the routes to the lifts makes the walks in the station much longer, just to name a few.

 

I did my cpds on the first weekend back, and my hubby did his medical electives on the weekdays for the rest of the two week stay in a more remote region in Taiwan, so I was alone with two kids during the weekdays, which made travel on public transport even more impossible. I stayed in Linkou during the weekdays during our first week back, and in the Taichung hotel during the weekdays of our second week back. The second week was much better than the first, because the environment was clean, and the hotel’s got brunch buffet and great play facilities for the children.  It was still exhausting being the sole carer for the children. It was great catching up with some relatives and family friends during the weekends though.

 

Fast forward to late August: It is confirmed that my husband has passed this year’s studies safely. Hopefully, he will graduate on time in June 2026!

 

Fast forward to 7 September: It was quite memorable in that it coincided with my wedding anniversary, the Australian Father’s Day, and the 23rd anniversary celebration of the church I used to go to – the 1503 Mission Network! Yet, this was a pretty “fatherless” day for our family. My husband is still far away abroad undergoing a career change. My dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly 12 years ago. Although not a man of many words, there’s still regret that I never tried “listening” to him and never truly got to know him well. Occasionally I still get dreams where my dad was actually alive and there was somehow a mistake that occurred which made us thought he had died. The first time I stepped into 1503 happened to be the church’s 5th anniversary, so I dropped in for a visit. The blood moon phenomenon occurred in various places around the world 7-8 September: based on past observations of blood moon occurrences, I think something big is coming up.  

Hearing and doing what the bible says… and unconditional love!

 

(photo of a heart-shaped ornament given to me recently by a Malaysian missionary)

 

It’s been a long time since the last time I’ve written an introspective journal entry.

Today the bible verse is James 1:22-27 (NIV)

 

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

 

26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

 

I find that the more I understand God's Word, the more difficult it is to do what God asks us to do. Christians are called to be “Christ-like.” If you are to love like the way Jesus does, which is unconditional love, it's not just a bit of chit chat and that's it. It is something that someone who is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit can do. It gets very tiring if you are trying to do it out of your own willpower (like a responsibility/obligation associated with one's particular role). In fact, I do not think it’s possible to do by human will power. With the amount of burden in my daily life, most of the time I am in a delicate balance struggling to even stay afloat. I do not feel I have the time to read God's word and pray and become "spirit-filled", even though I know that God’s words and praying are as important as oxygen in a Christian’s life.

 

God has placed multiple orphans and widows in my life… right in my immediate family and direct lineage family as a matter of fact. If I cannot even look after these people, how am I even capable of love for orphans and widows who aren’t even related to me?

 

And when you talk about “unconditional love”, this is love that expects nothing in return. I can confidently say that I love my children, but I can’t say it’s unconditional, because they are actually blood-related to me. Maybe if I adopt non-blood related children and love them, I might be able to say that this is a bit closer “unconditional love” than my biological children. But I would still have expectations that they show appreciation for what I’ve done for them, and although I wouldn’t expect them to become prime ministers or doctors or lawyers, I don’t know if I’d be able to love them if they become murderers or criminals. And it takes a lot of life force to pour one’s love out. A person is limited in space and time. There is only so few people one can have a deep relationship with. Many times, one’s own immediate family is already a lot to deal with.

 

People who know my situation better may ask 1) “Why have two children in such a short space of time?” and 2) “Why support your husband’s career change and become a single parent for 4 years?” I can only say this is something between me and God: 1) To have more than one child at our age, you don’t have much choice. And, being someone who married relatively late, I’ve got this thought: “why should I have fewer children than what I had dreamed of just because I happened to not have met my other half until later in life?” (Those who never got the chance to get married or those who want children but are unable to have children will roll their eyes at this). 2) My husband’s career change is a door that God has clearly opened up. To deny him of such dream is similar to denying my dream of having >1 child. And because we are now a family unit, his dream is my dream and my dream is his dream.

 

At this point in time, I do not even dare to become involved with church ministry, despite having had a lot of involvement with church ministry in the past. A lot of times, humans are very conditional. If I help someone, I hope it will pay off and the person takes a turn for the better, or that the person will actually help me if I encounter a difficult patch. And feel frustrated and disappointed if the person doesn’t. But being “unconditional” means you actually give without expecting any form of return: I know the “head knowledge”, but I cannot do it. Likewise, when I receive help, I feel there is an expectation that I will be helpful to the person whom I received help from in the future. Therefore, I am afraid of receiving help, because I do not know if I even have the resources or time to help others, as I am already running on very low energy levels. And being an introvert who is socially awkward doesn’t help either.

(photo taken by Chris' uncle in law)