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| Last night I sat at
Skylounge at the TST Sheraton with my JLC boys. We had the corner
table looking over both TST and the hazy island across the
harbour. We split two bottles of wine and we just reflected on
how good God has been to us. Poser had just moved back from
Macau. Jon got his new job at the Journal. Ricky ... well,
he's going to be happy man come August. And me ... well ... I've
dedicated a lot of my time to my work ... and it's really starting to
pay off now.
I'm currently running our biggest
project of the year. The CEO and CFO came a few weeks ago and I
was part of the discussions for our global strategy for the next two
years. But I am also working very late every night and it
definitely takes a toll on me physically and spiritually. By His
grace, I am keeping my head above the water every day. I used to
sit on dry land and preach about how to swim. Now I am in the
water and I depend on His grace to keep me afloat. It is tough,
but this is what I came back to HK for.
Two nights ago I had almost 30 people
at my place. It felt just like the days at Western. I do
work hard, but thank God I have such a great bunch of people to hang
out with on the weekends. I also thank God that I have a place
big enough for 30 people to hang out.
Three nights ago I had CNY dinner
with my family. Even with so many of the families on vacation, we
still had 10 people together for dinner. I thank God that I do
have family here.
Four nights ago, I left the office at
9pm as usual, even though we were supposed to leave at 4pm (for CNY). But
I thank God because I didn't need to turn on my work computer this
weekend.
And tomorrow, I go back to
work. It will be a while before I stop swimming for long enough
to post, but until then, may God bless you in all that you do.
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| I arrived back in HK
last night with a nagging fear in my heart. I was scared that I
would go back to being who I was before I left for Houston.
This brief trip to the states
revealed a lot about who I have become in the past 10 months.
When I came to HK, I knew that it was time for me to step up and brave
this world from beyond my parents' shadow. What I did
unconsciously was step beyond God's shadow. I saw God's blessings
in my life and assumed that I was walking with Him. I expected to
go through stress and hard times because because of HK's reputation.
I had a brief talk with my parents on my last night in Houston.
What they pointed out was that my lack of prayer was leaving me
powerless. I pondered this thought throughout my flight back to
HK and I was humbled. I remembered waking up early to be with the
Lord during my days in Western and I remember the wisdom and
discernment that was born out of that. Before I left a week ago,
I thought that life was great - all I needed was a little time off to
rest. Now I know that rest is not what I need most. What I
need most is the Lord and his power. I was relying so much on
myself that I was burning out.
I will go back to work tomorrow and I really hope that it will start a
new phase in HK. I hope that in a few months I can look
back on this time and see it the time that I started to depend on the
Lord. And I really hope that the next few months will be defined by prayer.
Prayer. Only with prayer can I see things from God's
perspective. How small am I and how great is He. It is
during prayer that we see glimpses of His perspective, from which
wisdom and discernment naturally flow.
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| Twas a very awesome weekend indeed.
Saturday was a beautiful day.
The weather was so nice and I just relaxed all day before 180. I
had a great time at 180 as well, not to mention Derek's last talk on
his Discipleship series. After fellowship, a whole bunch of us
went clubbing - it was good to get it out of my system after all these
stressful weeks.
Today I woke up at 1pm, which didn't
leave much time for anything. I went to church at 6pm and a whole
bunch of us went hot-potting. It's funny - you get a whole bunch
of overseas-born kids who usually talk in English to hot pot, and they
automatically switch to speaking Chinese. It just doesn't feel
right speaking English in that setting. And man, was it fun.
Flying to Houston tomorrow. I'll be back in HK next Sunday night. Now, it's time to pack.
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| Finally. The
2007 Budget has been submitted - and no complaints yet from the finance
people. I've been working on next year's sales budget for the
past few weeks and man, it has been fun. Ok, it is damn tiring
and frustrating but I've grown up quite a bit in the process. Our
department lost a lot of money this year, mainly because a lot our
worldwide divisions didn't give us the sales support to prop up our new
factory.
So, I've been helping my boss chase these division heads for sales
commitments for next year. I think after 8 months on the
job, the team felt I was ready to deal directly with people outside our
department. Or, they were too busy to do it themselves. I
think there were times when these division heads thought, "why the heck
should I be dealing this kid?". After I while, I found it much
more effective to email them, quoting chunks of the CEO's emails and
throwing in lines like, "Please let me know if you have any issues and
I, along with my SVP, VP and Director will be happy to work with you on
this." Done and done.
Either way, things are looking up for next year and honestly, our goal
is to break even. We're increasing our production four-fold so
it's not going to be easy either. The great thing about having a
medical science degree in a business environment is that you don't get
pigeon-holed into any role. They don't know what to do with me so
they let me try a bit of everything. In the past few months, I
have dealt with direct sales with customers (like Walmart, Walgreens
and Target), production planning, sales forecasts and now
budgeting. Apparently they (and by they I pretty much mean my
boss) are happy with what I've been doing.
I must admit too that I have been out quite a lot the past few
weeks. Being confident at work makes it a lot easier to switch my
brain off when I get off work. For example, I was catching up
with Ricky over dinner and beer last Friday. He had just come
back from Canada was to start work at my company a few days later
(yesterday actually). So, I get a call during dinner and it's a
guy from work telling me to rush back to the office cos they couldn't
figure out some of the numbers for the budget. At that point, I
made a decision not to let work affect me more than it had to. I
took my time, finished my dinner and my beer and then headed
back. A few months ago, I think I would have dropped everything
and rushed back straight away.
And it has been fun. There has been a steady stream of friends
coming through HK. And the cool thing is that a lot of them are
considering moving here. Something is happening here. I'm
not quite sure what it is, but God is definitely bringing people here
to build something. There is such a strong network of talent,
experience and youth pooled here that I'm really excited about what's
going to happen. I'm just going to keep doing my thing and try my
best to remain in Him. And when God decides to flick that switch
in HK, it's going to be amazing.
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Last Saturday after 180: Housewarming game of MJ at Jon and Gordon's.
Bedtime: 6am
Last night after 180: Clubbing at pi
Bedtime: 4am
The working life may be tough during
the week, but the weekends are definitely better than the weekends at
university. Why? I can wake up after a late night out and
not have to stress about all the stuff I have to get done for
school. It also helps that there's a 6pm service at the Vine.
Also, I thank God every weekend that I have a place like this to chill and restore:
 
Oh
yeah, and the word is out. Gord, Jason and Dave came over on
Wednesday for our China prayer meeting. As they were leaving,
guess who passes by? Mr Andy Lau of course. Dave said hi
... and Andy said hi back. They've been gushing like schoolgirls
ever since. I think my place is going to become stalker
central.
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