A Day in the life

Pastor Mark – God Moments

First thing in the day I visited a physiotherapist. We had a great conversation and it turned out he was a follower of Jesus and was heading to Nepal with his son on a mission trip at the end of the week. I then picked up my grandson who volunteers at our church summer camp. Recently, I had the joy of baptizing him and his friend. May this time of volunteering be another step in his Christian growth. From there, I visited several ethnic shops to get supplies for Catherine’s out-of-school program. I was able to find a special Filipino sticky rice cake (Biko Biko). I returned to the church to wash and freeze blueberries for the winter when a friend from the local BC housing called and asked me to visit another resident.

I went over and sat with this man. He has been clean for 14 years and usually sits outside feeding peanuts to the squirrels and crows. I had introduced my granddaughter to him several days before and told her that this man was an inspiration to me as he remains clean of drugs in a setting where addictions abound. He said that over the years churches had helped him a lot by providing food while he was on the streets. He said he appreciated how we were active in helping the BC Housing community and he wanted to donate $100 to help with our efforts.

As I left another man came up and gave me a bear hug and another gave me fresh kale. Yet another woman with dropped head syndrome approached me to ask for bread and mentioned that she had been baptized at our church 40 years earlier. I invited her to come back. It all felt like a community of equals where we seek to share one another’s burdens and encourage each other through the inevitable challenges in life.

Testimony

Christina Basri – Testimony – God Moments

Its an honor and privilege to share my testimony with all of you.  Some of you would have heard my testimony as to how I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior via the screen in the sanctuary some 7 years ago. In view of that, I will sort of breeze through that part and go on to share my recent ordeal which testifies to God’s unfailing love, mercy, healing, and restoration.  Somewhere in there was also some needed discipline. The Bible tells us that God disciplines those He loves, just like a father/mother disciplines the child he/she loves.
 
My father (decd) was an Indonesian and born Muslim.  My mother (decd) was an overseas Chinese, born in Penang, Malaysia, and was a staunch Thai Buddhist but she converted to Christianity a few years before she died. One of her brothers who was a Christian commented that her conversion was a miracle in itself. 
 
Many decades ago, my father went to Singapore from Indonesia on a business trip. By that time my mother and her family had migrated from Malaysia to Singapore.  Man meets woman and a child was made: Me
However, before I was born, my biological father left us and went back to Indonesia. I didn’t meet him til I was 10 years old, and I saw him again 10 years later. That was the second and last time I saw my father.
 
Two of my maternal uncles were Christians and they were active members in their Brethren church.  When I was 6 years old and living in my grandma’s haunted, colonial bungalow together with my other cousins, Uncle David & his wife, and also Uncle Andrew and his girlfriend at that time, took turns to take me to Sunday School and I was introduced to Jesus.  I enjoyed singing the many happy choruses and was very zealous in memorizing the scripture verses, printed on small pieces of paper and these were handed out each week by our Sunday School Teacher.  I glued each text onto a little notebook.
 
As a little child, I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  However, I made a commitment to follow Him after I became mother of two and had graduated from a 2-yr part-time Discipleship Course, now renamed “Equip to Serve”.  This course really impacted my walk with Jesus.  I learned from the Bible that I was a sinner.  And God in his omnipotence and unfailing love for me, devised a redemption plan; he sent his only Son Jesus down to earth incarnated as a human being. He was brutally and unjustly crucified on the Cross to pay the penalty for my sins. Having accepted Jesus as my Savior, I know that when I die I will spend eternity with Him; with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.
 
Some of you might know that I was diagnosed with clinical depression more than two decades ago. Last Fall, unknowingly I was impacted by a couple of triggers and I experienced the beginning of a severe relapse, and I soon found myself tumbling unendingly into a rabbit hole.
 
Every day I felt joyless and hopeless.  I could not read the Bible; I couldn’t pray.  But saddest of all, I could not participate in corporate worship in church.  There seemed to be a hindrance. I felt as though I was tightly enveloped in a thick cloud of oppression.

My taste buds stopped working and as a result, I lost my appetite. Within three months I lost 20 lbs. I suffered from insomnia.  I could not get up from bed. I had no energy or motivation for anything.  All I wanted to do was to stay in bed or sit on my couch and ruminate on my past mistakes; my bad decisions and my life’s minefield of losses.
 
I ended up twice in Emergency,  each time having to wait a few hours to be seen by a doctor. I phoned the Crises Line many times, sometimes multiple times a day. 
 
I’m forever grateful to my army of prayer warriors who came alongside me during this period of darkness. (Some of you are here right now). Their unwavering faith was accompanied by good works just as Jesus’ younger brother James commanded in his very practical Book in the New Testament.  I was blessed with patience, love, compassion, and sometimes even home-cooked meals.
 
Jehovah Jireh’s provision is indeed beyond excellent.  One of my prayer warriors
had the wisdom to suggest that I ask my GP to refer me to BC West Side Mental Health for adults.  God connected me with a geriatric physician as well as a geriatric psychiatrist.  They put their heads together and chose to very gradually increase the dosage of my current medication rather than entertain the other option of introducing a new medication which might well give rise to unwelcome and adverse side effects. It took an unusually long nine months for my senior brain to respond to the increase.
 
know that God’s timing is perfect even if it’s not according to my finite human timeline.  However, as I waited, I was growing very impatient and frustrated. 
 
Now for the miracle.  On July 18 I was still sick. But on Friday, July 19, the year of the Lord 2024, I woke up and felt an incredible and powerful surge of joy, energy, and motivation that only Jesus my Savior can provide. 
That date will definitely be included in my memoirs.  I behaved like the bunny in the ad for EverReady battery. Remember the pink bunny hitting on the drums non-stop with such gusto?
 
I rearranged almost every piece of my furniture and cleaned and scrubbed almost every inch of my 400sf studio apartment, and am proud to say that I have kept it up since then.  I stretched my muscles so much that morning that my body ached so badly the next day.
 
I was among the living dead for almost 11 months and Jesus gave me a new lease on life.  It was a very painful and scary experience.  Undoubtedly the doctors and medical science played their part in my recovery. However, the other very crucial component was the tsunami of consistent and persistent prayers that were offered up by my faithful prayer warriors to the throne of grace, mercy, and compassion of Abba, Father.
 
I’m not only healed but Abba Father has restored to me what the locusts had stolen. I wonder whether you are aware of the fact that after expert restoration, old museum masterpieces looked even better than their original state. As His restored masterpiece, I’m ready for the works that He has lovingly & faithfully designed and prepared ahead for me to carry out to bring glory to his name. His name is above all names, above all creation; above all kingdoms and dominions; above all powers and positions.

 
Hallelujah! He is worthy to be praised! Praise the mighty name of Yeshua Hamashiak, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
 
Thank you everyone for your time and patience.