"We think rightly or wrongly about our prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer...
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered...Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations."- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, May 26th
This Bangkok trip I just returned from may have been an impulse decision by everybody's standards, but I think somehow I have cause to believe that the events of the last 5 days suggest otherwise.
What are the chances of getting back your wallet if you left it in the cab that took you from the airport to the hotel in downtown Bangkok? And getting it back the next day with everything intact at that.
That was what happened to me in a nutshell.
An honest and earnest cab driver, an honest middle-aged woman and a bunch of brilliant Thai friends had a lot to do with it. But above all, God.
I remembered literally dropping everything I was carrying the moment I did not feel my wallet in my back pocket and dashing down the soi and running onto the road fronting MBK. I did not even care about oncoming traffic as I ran onto the middle lane checking every single taxi out.
The whole of my first evening on Thursday when Ick and Yo's parents treated me to a Thai seafood dinner was ruined just because of that. The food was great, but I had no appetite. I just wanted to go home, shower, curl up on my bed and sleep. I felt so alone and distressed despite so much company and help rendered.
But thank God for being God and providing friends.
Jent paid for my 500 baht one-night stay at The Bed & Breakfast Inn at Kasem San Soi 1. Ick's mom and Jent each thrusted 1000 baht into my hands after dinner, telling me not to worry. Ick, Yo and Jent started calling the three radio stations that cab drivers listen to with the relevant information.
Then Ick's dad prayed before and after dinner for God to help me trust in Him. And crucially, having returned from the airport earlier as well, he had a taxi ticket that my cab driver did not give me. That gave us the number to the Don Muaeng airport taxi service to call.
From there, we managed to track the cab driver down and we found out that he had handed my wallet to his next passenger thinking it was hers. Ick and Jent arranged to meet him at 8pm on Friday from where he picked her up and proceed to where he alighted her.
Ick and Yo's parents wanted me to bring forward my plan to move to their place on Saturday, but I decided to stay at the inn for a night, because I thought I wanted to let the cab driver have a place to come back to return my wallet if he had managed to track it down.
I particularly struggled with making sense of what had just happened that Thursday night. Although somehow I sensed that I would get my wallet back after reading the passage I quoted above for quiet time, I wondered if I could still exalt God if I sensed wrongly and do not get the wallet back eventually.
My faith was obviously being challenged that Thursday night. I thought God sure had his way of distracting me from fretting about my exam results that I was expecting the next day at 11am.
After breakfast Friday morning, I decided to mentally prepare myself for the results release by spending some time with God. In between praying, being silent before Him, worshipping/praising Him and popping my head out of the window to snap some pictures, I read ahead for once, and the May 28th entry particularly jumped at me.
What are the chances of getting back your wallet if you left it in the cab that took you from the airport to the hotel in downtown Bangkok? And getting it back the next day with everything intact at that.
That was what happened to me in a nutshell.
An honest and earnest cab driver, an honest middle-aged woman and a bunch of brilliant Thai friends had a lot to do with it. But above all, God.
I remembered literally dropping everything I was carrying the moment I did not feel my wallet in my back pocket and dashing down the soi and running onto the road fronting MBK. I did not even care about oncoming traffic as I ran onto the middle lane checking every single taxi out.
The whole of my first evening on Thursday when Ick and Yo's parents treated me to a Thai seafood dinner was ruined just because of that. The food was great, but I had no appetite. I just wanted to go home, shower, curl up on my bed and sleep. I felt so alone and distressed despite so much company and help rendered.
But thank God for being God and providing friends.
Jent paid for my 500 baht one-night stay at The Bed & Breakfast Inn at Kasem San Soi 1. Ick's mom and Jent each thrusted 1000 baht into my hands after dinner, telling me not to worry. Ick, Yo and Jent started calling the three radio stations that cab drivers listen to with the relevant information.
Then Ick's dad prayed before and after dinner for God to help me trust in Him. And crucially, having returned from the airport earlier as well, he had a taxi ticket that my cab driver did not give me. That gave us the number to the Don Muaeng airport taxi service to call.
From there, we managed to track the cab driver down and we found out that he had handed my wallet to his next passenger thinking it was hers. Ick and Jent arranged to meet him at 8pm on Friday from where he picked her up and proceed to where he alighted her.
Ick and Yo's parents wanted me to bring forward my plan to move to their place on Saturday, but I decided to stay at the inn for a night, because I thought I wanted to let the cab driver have a place to come back to return my wallet if he had managed to track it down.
I particularly struggled with making sense of what had just happened that Thursday night. Although somehow I sensed that I would get my wallet back after reading the passage I quoted above for quiet time, I wondered if I could still exalt God if I sensed wrongly and do not get the wallet back eventually.
My faith was obviously being challenged that Thursday night. I thought God sure had his way of distracting me from fretting about my exam results that I was expecting the next day at 11am.
After breakfast Friday morning, I decided to mentally prepare myself for the results release by spending some time with God. In between praying, being silent before Him, worshipping/praising Him and popping my head out of the window to snap some pictures, I read ahead for once, and the May 28th entry particularly jumped at me.
"If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong."
I finally understood when my exam results flashed before my very eyes later that Friday morning. I nearly choked and fell out of my chair when I saw this.
2005/2006 Sem 2 Examination for ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 2
| Module Code | Module Title | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| NM2221 | NEWS REPORTING AND EDITING | A |
| SC3101 | SOCIAL THOUGHT & SOCIAL THEORY | A+ |
| SC3203 | RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS | A+ |
| SC3205 | SOCIOLOGY OF POWER: WHO GETS TO RULE? | A+ |
| USE2302 | DEMOCRATIC POSSIBILITIES IN SINGAPORE | A- |
CAP: 4.08
I was quite honestly shocked. I crossed my fingers and closed my eyes, expecting the worst. I don't think anybody in the right frame of mind would expect 4.9 for any semesters to begin with.
I was just hoping to edge past 4.0 for my overall CAP, but after three semesters of trying not so successfully, I was preparing myself for the worst.
At that moment, I felt embarrased after all the nonsense I did in the last semester. I felt embarrased for doubting God even when He had encouraged me with signs. I also did not know whether to be happy or sad. I still did not know whether I will ever get back my money and cards back.
But losing my wallet upon my arrival also forced me to alter my predominant shopping plans. You have no idea how much photography I did. The pictures you see in my collection are perhaps only 1/4 of the total number of shots that survived the cut.
We went to Sampeng that afternoon to get Ick's camera back from the repair shop. It was so ironic I knew the place better than my three Thai friends, but that's because I had my Lonely Planet guide with maps to count on. Heh.
The real action started after a quick dinner at Siam Square. We met the cab driver, who drove us to an eastern residential suburb in Bangkok. The road trip took us almost an hour.
We reached Thanon Ramkhamhaeng Soi 11, thinking it was small enough to go door to door. But the soi further divided into 3 main sections, and one main section was further divided into 8 sub lanes. I thought I was done for.
But the cab driver quickly struck a conversation with the locals at the roadside stall. They quickly led us to the neighbourhood head who promptly made an announcement over the neighbourhood's public announcement system, looking for the woman in grey uniform that the cab driver handed my wallet to.
Miraculously, she appeared, but she dropped another bombshell. She passed my wallet earlier that day, to her sister whose husband could read English. But they lived at Bang Krea in Thonburi, which is to the west of downtown Bangkok, across the Chao Phraya River and a 2-hour cab ride away.
It was almost 10pm, but Jent, Ick, Yo and this time Ying who joined us at dinner, suggested finishing this whole adventure tonight once and for all.
I wanted Ying to go back home and rest, but she said there was no way that she could sleep without seeing this resolved. The excitement has got the adrenaline pumping in her. She has been working the whole day at the hospital toddlers section, clocking up the hours to be eligible for the au pair programme in America.
I felt so bad that my friends had to spend so much time and money, paying for everything I ate, drank and travelled on. They were dead tired too, but I suspected just like Ying, they wanted to see this whole matter resolved.
So all 5 of us, cramped into the back of the cab, with the woman and the driver in the front. We sat in contorted positions for close to 2 hours as the driver zipped past the tollways and into Thonburi. Jent reminded me to modify my expectations, just to make sure.
When I finally got the wallet back, it just blew my mind that nothing was lost - not even a single cent. I have to confirm whether there were any transactions made with my debit card, but as of now, I did not lose anything.
At that moment in time, everything I read, encountered and sensed started making sense to me. I had "failed" God in that I did not trust Him enough, but He used what little faith I had, and honoured it.
It might have taken quite a long while, and the whole incident might have looked like carelessness on my part, but this is really more than just a nice coincidence.
The timing of what I read, and how God spoke through the last week, which started with the Reuters rejection on Monday, were just part of God's planned narrative for my life. Just that this time, everything that turned out was favourable.
What about those times when it has not?
I have just been reminded of how my disposition is out of sync with God. But more than just basking in the goodness of God's blessings right now, I highly suspect that I will find it difficult to be able to do the same had things not gone the way I wanted them to be.
But it's perhaps not too good to dwell on the what-if's. I will just take it as it comes, and thank God for answering my initial prayer for Him to make this trip an experience I would remember.
If anything good came out of this - other than showing up my spiritual deficiencies for all its worth- it's that my Thai friends Jent, Ying, Ick and Yo, and me now have a shared experience that we could talk about.
And you know how in army, when your best mates are those who go through hell with you? I think the same pretty much applies here.
I am just glad I managed to spend time with all of them in a unique fashion that only God can envision on the night of May 26, 2006.
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