60 years and older

Nothing lasts forever. I was happily in my 50s and now my happy 50s have passed and I am into my 60s. Yesterday during the birthday lunch I joked with my friends that 60 is the new 40. Wishful thinking. Forty years old I was just driving up mountains and valleys and sleeping on rough surfaces and using toilets outside the church house. Now I try to book the nearest homestay when I get invited to preach in the villages. There is this Chinese proverb or axiom: "From 40-60 conquer the world under heaven". It refers to active soldiers on battle fields and by 60, soldiers must retire from frontline service and only a handful are retained as military advisors past 60. In Malaysia 60 is a magical age.

Surprised to find in my email 1.30am, the IRD also sent me happy birthday greeting: "Pembayar cukai yang dihargai" the email reads. And they know me. Almost 30 years ago I had to explain to them how my salary of RM20,000.00 per month became RM1,000.00 per month when I served as Treasurer-General of SIB. Even when I applied for my Singapore Permanent Residence it was an odd combination of SGD10,000 per month in my last year of legal practice to SGD330.00 per month (RM700.00) in my first year as a full-time servant of God, a College lecturer in the interior of Sabah with no fixed running water and no electricity. We used a generator that broke down every other week and I forgot the costs and the number of trips we made to KK to get it fixed. One time as it was flooded we had to detour to one of the lecturer's house in the nearby village and all our families did not know what happened to us because we returned to the Campus at noon the next day. Those were the days without handphone. We lived happy though. 

Yesterday my wife and I treated a few friends (6) to lunch at a restaurant with good food and air-cond. It was the right pick with plenty of parking at the basement. And the restaurant was three quarters full to my surprise and we waited nearly 40 minutes for our order to be served. So it meant all of us were pretty hungry and I added three more orders and there was still some food left over. 

But I planned to attend the night service as there was this Evangelistic seminar going on. I thought normally there would be an evening service but when I entered the hall I saw my friend, the speaker giving a lecture on how to do evangelism and the theology behind evangelising people to the Lord. Our leaders took up the back row seats when I went forward so not wanting to draw attention to myself I sat at the back row as well, 7 seats along the back row where our President and Vice President also sat. 

But when the lecture ended, I met up with a few of the participants. One of them had texted me a couple of times for my books and I brought a few along. There she was with her daughter who is also a pastor. Mother-daughter pair as pastors, both my former students. I said I would give one copy to her and she had to pay for the rest and she took two of my books. But a few seconds later I said to her "it's all free. It's my birthday today". Her face lit up. And I gave a copy to her daughter for free as well, who is in her late twenties by now since I left the College 5 years ago. And a few other pastors gathered around us and perhaps touched by the Lord, they started singing happy birthday in English and in Malay and I was taken by surprise and embarrassed by it all as it was at the front door of our main hall where some pastors still lingered ooutside the main door wondering what was happening with the singing just 10 or 15 feet away.