Witnessing the Hands of God through Wedding Preparation Part 1

As of 22 October 2016, Huanyan and Angelina officially got married. In case you are wondering why there was no update for the past 10 months, it’s because we were busy with all the wedding preparation stuff. However, this does not mean that we were too consumed with the wedding preparation that we lost focus of the manner that God was involved in the whole entire process. And this blog post will be one which we testify His manner of intervention through the wedding preparation, from the time we started planning for the wedding, to the time when Huanyan proposed, to the time when we had our engagement party, and to the time when the actual thing took place. As usual, we will take time to testify each other’s side of the story before ending with an overall reflection.

We think the journey towards our next half of the eternity had been one which has its own ups and downs, and its own challenges but not without its blessings. Certainly, looking back, the journey had been one which myself and Angelina found our relationship and our relationship with our respective in-laws grew by leaps and bounds. Because so many things happened over the past one year, we would like to tell our side of the story in terms of our journey towards each individual milestone, even though some of these milestones may overlap with one another.

Angelina’s side of the story

I decided I was ready to commit to spending the rest of my life with him because I saw how Huanyan put his heart to preparing the birthday celebration for me – 3 surprises in a row: buffet lunch, a letter and a fun time jumping trampoline, and a promise that this will not be a once-off effort, but just the start of many more to come, even after marriage.

With that we started to source for wedding venues and to commence the more detailed planning of the wedding.

The actual sourcing of venues and various vendors were surprisingly smooth – both Huanyan and I came to a consensus on the various vendors without much disagreement. We had quite a similar opinion on a number of things. Where there were differences, we had a “system” where we differed the decision to the person who either had greater experience in that particular area or the person who was more particular about the area. Thus Huanyan took the lead in deciding all the tech and serviced related stuff like videography, AV, worship, ushering, while I took a lead in the other aspects like photography, deco and design-related like decorations and outfits.

What was surprisingly difficult was trying to understand the expectations of parents. There was a lot of expectations on how things should be done, but little was communicated upfront. Even after repeated asking, the requirements were not stated clearly, but yet conversations on the wedding was peppered with “should”s. For someone who valued certainty and control over the outcome of situations, this was especially unsettling, because I felt that none of the plans we made were fixed because we had to leave room for changes, to address the unsaid expectations. What had made it even more challenging was that the unsaid expectations would only surface when we were close to the execution of the decision. However through all these unsettling times, I observed from Huanyan how things may not be bad as I make, and how it is possible to take remedial action to address these request that surfaced, without having to make extensive changes to existing plans. Thus I am learning from him how to remain more cool-headed when last minute changes arise, instead of entering into a panic mode.

The Journey towards Engagement

The two families, including the grandmas, first met for a dinner in Feb 2016. It was agreed then that we would have an engagement party to formally announce to our families that we will be getting married. That was the first milestone challenge – to figure out what an engagement party entailed and how it should be done. We were also asked to give out cakes to relatives to inform them of the wedding. Even till the day of the engagement party, I still could not fully visualize how the engagement party would be conducted, which once again is very unsettling for me. Luckily Huanyan took the lead that day and hosted everyone that day.

The Journey towards Pre-Wedding Photo-Taking and Concept Video

This was conceptualized and done amidst all the very unsettling time of wedding preparations. But I have to say I had a lot of fun planning out the details of our photoshoot (e.g. locations, outfits, props). This was what I enjoyed the most in the whole wedding process. And I am thankful that our photographer was not very calculative with his time, for a 6 hours package, we ended up shooting close to 8 hours in 7 different locations. Though it was really tiring to wake up at 5am for the makeup and to shoot in the sun, it whole process was really fun and enjoyable because of our photographer and make-up artist who made sure we were tickled and laughing at them most of the time. On top of this, we also got Huanyan’s cousin to shoot for us at COMB, the place that we first got together. Loved the pictures we got! I am thankful that Huanyan agreed that photography would be one of the items that we would spend more on, because it really meant much to me to be able to capture those moments (before I start putting on weight, if I do indeed follow the natural trajectory of most people).

Huanyan’s side of the story
The story took place after November 2015, after I celebrated Angelina’s birthday with a high time of trampoline. That was the point when she felt that she was ready for the proposal. There were a few obstacles when it came to the proposal. Firstly, I made a commitment to speak to her parents before proposing. However, this part of the journey did not turn out easy. More details will be revealed later.

Jump to our joy!

Secondly, there was the question of engagement. Her parents expected an engagement party. For the uninitiated, the Western world today still does an engagement party after proposal to announce to their close friends and family that they are getting married. In the ancient traditions, this is also practiced after the wedding is confirmed to announce to their tribes and clans of the big events. But today in Singapore, the proposal was almost the same as engagement and hence, both myself and Angelina spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what exactly is an engagement and whether that is synonymous with proposal in the minds of my parents-in-law.

Thirdly, the criteria for Angelina to say yes during the proposal was to have a meaningful surprise with a hydrangea bouquet and a nice ring. Getting the bouquet was relatively easier but it's finding the ring that will look nice on her and planning the meaningful surprise. 

And so the planning began. 

The first idea I always had in mind was to do a video, an interview video in fact with many close friends telling the camera why Angelina should marry me. Thus sometime in February and March, I began my route to find the different people to do the video. 

The second idea that I had was how to surprise her with the video. After some planning and thinking, as well as playing some "poker" with Angelina, I fixed a date to surprise her. That particular day, I arranged for a nice bouquet and a nice set of helium balloons and I got some of her good friends to ambush her at another friend's place while I set up the proposal venue. She really enjoyed the surprise. 

The nice bouquet that I got her

The nice ring I got her

Angelina with her balloons and flowers

Proposal success!

The Journey towards Engagement

And after we had a clearer picture of what the so-called "engagement" is all about. We sat down and started planning. However, this did not mean that we know totally what should be done even though my in-laws kept thinking that I should know what to do. They even asked me "what is the objective of holding this engagement" and I was like "what the heck!"

To cut the long story short, as far as I could understand back then, I knew that the engagement party would be a major milestone in terms of my relationship with my future in-laws, primarily because they saw it as a point where they would be personally involved to ensure that the wedding go ahead and that they stop any "third party" who might come in the way. But honestly, who would be so audacious to do so?

In any case, with Angelina getting more and more stress by the day, I had to soothe her and give her some assurance. But how does one give assurance to someone who needs control and certainty over the outcome when there is none of those in the first place? My secret is this: 硬着头皮, to bite all the bullets and to see how we can compromise.

The result is this.

Considered a success, I supposed

The Journey towards a Better Relationship with the In-Laws

The journey towards a better relationship with my in-laws is a difficult one and this is the main factor that precipitated throughout the major milestones. The obstacles are multi-fold.

Firstly, different backgrounds mean different expectations. I come from a pretty much mid-traditional and mid-liberal kind of Chinese family. My family people are not very much concerned about rites and rituals except the basic ones when it comes to ancestor veneration and in the case of the wedding, giving betrothal gifts to the bridal family. Angelina comes from westernised family background. Her parents were western-educated. However, her dad is what I would call, a westernised man seeking his Chinese roots while not knowing which one is really the root. He expected us to follow traditions but deemed some of the traditions that we proposed as outdated. It was only after a while when I realised that his "traditions" are not the "traditions" we would normally understand.

This brings me to the second obstacle - the obstacle of language and communications. I think God used the experience to train me well in interpreting what other people say. For one, my father-in-law is not someone who uses word simply, in the sense that most normal people would use. For example, he asked me who is the one who is solemnising the wedding. It was only after a while when I realised that what he meant by solemniser is not what you and I would understand. His solemniser is the one who has guided us throughout this relationship. This forms a difficulty as misunderstanding creates bad relationships. It takes a lot of patience on our part to slowly figure out what he wants.

Thirdly, what is being communicated generally has a deeper connotation. What is not said is more important than what is actually said. This applied very much to the journey towards a better relationship with my in-laws. At the end of the day, every party involved wants to feel good about the wedding. This is the same for my in-laws. However, a lot of the communications from my in-laws are communicated across as "our part to take note." If I had been more astute or they have been more forthright, many issues from the beginning could have been avoided.

Lastly, I faced with the many interventions and comments from my in-laws. How would you feel if a normal churchgoer lectures you, a theologian and bible scholar + a veteran in running events and services, on pastoral ministry and how a church wedding should run? Many times, I felt like giving the proverbial middle finger and ask them to shut up. But there is another issue as well - I felt being held hostage by them.

To explain this point, I would like to highlight that I strongly believe that a girl, as long she is not formally married, stands under the headship of her father in the family. It means that I saw myself as having no right to deny what my in-laws wanted because technically speaking, she is still under the headship of her father. This was a principle I wanted to hold on to till the wedding day.

But despite all these difficulties, I think the journey can easily be construed as a testimony on how God guided us. Because of the communication issues between me and my father-in-law, my mother-in-law entered into the picture and played the active role of a bridge to close the communication gap. This was crucial as it not only helped me to understand the communication gap better (since Angelina was no longer at that moment sane enough to be the bridge) but it also helped me to build a better relationship with my mother-in-law. She commented so, that if not for this, she would still be having surface conversations with me.

Also, because of the support of the people around us, the journey was much more bearable and I was able to fulfil most of the requests. So it was God who placed the people around us to support us. This has to be acknowledged.

We have much more stuff to write about but we will leave part 1 at here.

The Reality of God in a Love Relationship

As we close 2015 and move into 2016, we hope to testify about how real has God been to our relationship in 2015. To say the least, 2015 is a happening year both of us in terms of how the relationship has grown more towards a marriage that we have both set out to achieve. In some sense, we are also trying to keep this blog alive and avoid this blog from dying. After all, this blog we aimed to start up to bless people through our testimonies.

Huanyan's side of the story
For myself, I think God has been real in this relationship through the ups and the downs. But more importantly, it is the small wisdoms that I acquire when following my "instincts" that shows God being real in this relationship. One example was planning for Angelina's birthday. We were planning to go out for a celebration on 15 Nov since I was supposed to be teaching in HopeSem on the day of her actual birthday. Hence we were thinking where to celebrate and how to celebrate. She wanted something fun and so...

But I was actually short of ideas. Then I had the idea of doing some old-fashioned research on the internet and found Amped, which is a company doing trampoline jumping. We can go to the place and jump one hour of trampoline. At this point, I remembered that she has been wanting to go jump trampoline for a very long time and we decided that we will do precisely that on that day after a hearty buffet lunch at Robata Robata. 

What happened next was simply amazing. As we played at the trampoline, we began to play catching during the last 10 min of our session and we really had fun. Angelina was able to laugh heartily for the first time in our relationship. Looking back, it was simply God directing my decision to lead her in that place where we can have fun and play together. It brought me to a place where I realise what it looks like for both of us to have fun. We can expect more sessions of catching in the future. 

Us after the session of trampoline

There are also other times when I acted out of nowhere or when I decided to instinctively give her something. These "something", for some reason, turned up at the right time and helped to cheer her up. I interpret these as the little wisdoms that God impressed in my heart.

Nothing cheers her up more than a random gift of snacks

God also gives me wisdom in the area of letter writing. For those who are not in the know, I actually write love letters on paper to Angelina on a regular basis. Initially, I was only using flowery language but after Angelina gave me feedback that I need to write more about my feelings and substantiate those thoughts with evidence (a bit like writing a history paper), I began to test out different ways of writing, being more intentional in my words. 

Sometime the letter becomes a card

The end result is that I began to insert more biblical perspectives on our relationship into my letters to her. It may not seem very romantic to a lot of people, but I am beginning to believe that the most romantic thing that one can do for his significant other is to disciple her in biblical perspective. This is what Paul wrote in his epistle to the Ephesians:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

 This is a fairly familiar passage. What I have noticed over the years is that God expects us to love our wives, and the way to love her is disciple her so that she may appear sanctified before God. One way to do this and show love to her is to disciple her in the Scripture, allowing her life to be transformed through the infusing of Scriptural truth into her spirit. As I reflect back, this is the wisdom of God that I simply acted upon (without thinking much really).

Another way that God has shown His reality to us is through the little blessings that He showed in our lives. There are times when we find good deals which allow us to have our own fun and high time, enjoying some luxury that we would not otherwise enjoy given our current lifestyle. One such example was a high tea session at Movenpick Hotel. We managed to obtain a Groupon deal and went on to Movenpick to enjoy our high tea - with Angelina like a tai-tai:

A potential tai-tai in the making

Other times of blessing include the one time when I was given a pair of Platinum class movie tickets to watch Avengers by my boss. As a result, we were able to enjoy this:

Probably the one and only time...

I think one lesson that God taught us through these blessings is that even when we do not earn the same level of income as last time, He is still there to bless us, and to take care of us. To me, this is one way that He has shown Himself to be real and faithful in our relationship. These blessings allow us to spend memorable time with one another as we get to know each other more towards marriage.

Angelina's side of the story

Indeed God has been very real in this aspect of being able to "enjoy life" though we have left our very comfortable paying jobs. When we left, I was actually quite apprehensive about how this will affect the kind of lifestyle and dates that we can have. I remember Huanyan frequently suggesting going to cheaper places for meals and being very mindful of the amount we are spending in view of our reduced income. Initially I was quite sian, and I was envious of those who can go to cafes and restaurants as and when they want without having to think of the cost. As a girl, I still enjoyed being pampered with good meals in a nice ambience, but to Huanyan the cost was the main consideration. Thankfully we were able to talk about it very openly and eventually came to a compromise - we will a good meal each month. I must really affirm Huanyan for giving in to me because when he realised how important good meals were to me, and making adjustments to his budget so that he can bring me out :D 

And so on my part I started looking out for deals, so that we can have good meals that are value for money. And actually that became quite fun as it was like a game to look for the best value for money meals. We also started thinking of how we can maximise our dollar through credit card discount and rebates. I must say, because of our change of jobs, we have become better stewards of our finances. God has also blessed us greatly over this one year. Though financially, we have less than what we had previously, but the things we got to experience are amazing! 

Such as a luxury gala dinner at Fullerton hotel!

And we get a chance to dress up!

And I have to say, actually just once of such an experience is sufficient. While these are luxurious ways of pampering ourselves, and we did enjoy ourselves during the session, but after then whole thing was over, we both concluded that we would not pay so much on our own for such an experience. 

One thing that struck me - at the end of the day, all these luxurious experience cannot substitute relationships with people and cannot give you the fulfillment that comes from having strong relationships with people. We actually found it more enjoyable and fulfilling to have home cooked meals by our parents and the time spent with each others' families, as compared to the luxurious experiences we have had.

Another key milestone in 2015 was learning how to manage expectations and working out a compromise without killing each other in the process. I must say that Huanyan has been very patient and giving in this aspect. One of the major issues we were working through is this aspect of connecting emotionally. I had lofty ideas of how I had wanted him to connect with me. And initially, I would just fault him for not doing things in a way I had expected. Only after talking through, then I realised it was not very fair for him because I hadn't communicated these expectations. How could he know what I needed if I hadn't said? I realised that what was very obvious and "duh" to me may not be the case for him because he is not me. And so I learned to actively communicate the expectations I had and to talk through/ negotiate what was realistic and what wasn't. Of course, it took me a while to adjust (and still adjusting) to some of the unrealistic expectations I had/have. 

On his part, he has done a lot to level up and meet the expectations that he deems to be realistic. And he has definitely grown a lot. A lot of the frills that he would not naturally do, he learnt to do, because it was important to me. He also modified his communication style to talk more about feelings so that he could connect better with me. Not easy for him, but he did so nonetheless! At the end of the day, he taught me through his responses, that its not who is right/wrong, but is a issue of respecting each others preferences. And he has definitely been very accommodating of my preferences, and giving up of his right to be "right" out of his love for me.

This brings me to my last point - not only does Huanyan respect my preferences, he respects my limitations and gives me the time and space to grow. Actually I think I am harsher on myself that he is on me. Never once had he said "why can't you be more ...", but he just accepts that I am not like that and still have much to grow in those aspects. And then he patiently talks through the issue so that I have a clearer idea of the issue and gives me pointers on how I can do it better. And he assures me it is ok, when I doubt myself and points me back to God's word as the basis for my hope. And I think this is what a godly partnership is, when one is down, the other comes alongside to provide the support and points the person back to God, without hurrying the growth process or trying to play the role of God to change me. Huanyan has modelled for me what it means to love unconditionally and to see the potential in the person that God has created, but still refining in the process. That is something that I still have much to learn from him!

And of course the year ended off with the hydrangea!

Conclusion

Reflecting at how God has blessed this relationship so far and moving us towards marriage one step closer, it is not difficult to see His hands and fingerprints all over. The question we pose to one another is whether we are able to sustain this relationship in this manner and bring it even higher. The answer, I must say, is yes. And the answer lies in God and His Words. The answer comes from modelling from Christ in terms of His love and humility. That is where we really see the reality of God in our lives. This is what Paul said of Christ and us in Philippians 2:1-11:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

You see, Christ humbled himself, to the extent of emptying himself of his divine omnipotence and omniscience to be found in the appearance of man, and to be found in the very essence of man. He was willing to be tempted for our sake, suffered for our sake and die for our sake. This is where, in our relationship, we should be modelling after Christ - to value each other more than ourselves, looking out for one another's interest. This is where we hope to build our relationship upon - that we may serve one another more and more and see Christ through each other's love.

From 2014 to 2015

As we cross into 2015 from 2014, there are certainly thanksgiving points and testimonies from this relationship which glory only belongs to God and God alone. Indeed, as Psalm 145 says:

I will exalt you, my God the King;   

I will praise your name for ever and ever.

Every day I will praise you    

and extol your name for ever and ever.

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;    

his greatness no one can fathom.

One generation commends your works to another;    

they tell of your mighty acts.

They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—    

and I will meditate on your wonderful works.

They tell of the power of your awesome works—    

and I will proclaim your great deeds.

They celebrate your abundant goodness    

and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

The Lord is gracious and compassionate,    

slow to anger and rich in love.

The Lord is good to all;    

he has compassion on all he has made.

All your works praise you, Lord;    

your faithful people extol you.

They tell of the glory of your kingdom    

and speak of your might,

so that all people may know of your mighty acts    

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,    

and your dominion endures through all generations.

Our thanksgivings and testimonies are to be shared with people so that people may comprehend the glory of God and the splendor of His kingdom. 

• Maturity in the midst of conflicts and tensions

Our thanksgivings and testimonies are to be shared with people so that people may comprehend the glory of God and the splendor of His kingdom. Today we would like to share how we have seen God's Hand in our relationship amidst conflicts and tensions.

Like every other couples, we are have our own fair share of conflicts and tensions. We'll each be sharing a conflict that we found most memorable

Huanyan's side of the story:

It was September 2014. Angelina had just left her job and I just changed job. It was a period of transition for both of us. At that point in time, I was heavily involved in the publication of ACTS College magazine: Lighthouse and the committee was rushing to pass the publisher all the materials for the printing of the magazine. On top of that, I was having one of my block modules with AGBC on the Pastoral Epistles. Angelina, on the other hand,  was taking a break from work to recharge herself emotionally and spiritually, and she was taking the same block class as I was. During this period, the doctor had also given her some medication to re-caliberate her health (and one of the potential side effects was moodiness).

And that was when the problem began to blow up. Due to my high standard on doing exegesis, I was horribly displeased (an understatement) on the standard of work that was previously submitted by my teammates on our group assignment and spent a lot of time trying to revamp the work and doing the editing. In addition to the sleepless nights working on the assignment, I had to settle all the Lighthouse stuff as the deadline was nearing. In essence, I could not get any breather at all. As for Angelina, although she was an audit student, she was asked to contribute to some of the group work (which in my opinion was unwarranted) and she had to read up all the reference materials. And it was, to understate, a traumatising experience for her as she was just recovering from a burnout and reading up on academic materials and collating them were not exactly the most relaxing thing to do. On top of this, her medication began to wreck havoc emotionally and caused her to go into emo states inexplicably (which is amusing to me why the doctor even gave her those medication in the first place). 

Then came one Wednesday. Angelina, at around 6 plus, messaged me to ask what I was doing for the night. When I told her that I needed to finish up collating the group assignment and upload the materials for Lighthouse, she stopped at there. What I did not know was that she needed someone to talk to and to my fault, I failed to recognise that need at that time and she chose not to pursue it (even when she really needed someone to talk to) as she knew that I was very stressed up that week. Yet, the unhappiness was brewing while the woodhead that I was continued to do my own things. 

On Thursday night, she came late for lesson and we did not talk throughout the three hours. It was quite uneasy and unsettling and I could sense the tension even though I did not know why. And it got really distracting as I wanted to concentrate on the class instead of focusing on her emotions at that time. Then just as I thought I could talk to her after class, she rushed off without informing me that she was rushing off. And she was walking so fast that I could not catch up with her (as I was a bit sick back then and asthma was catching up with me also). But because of the lack of communications, my face was black as I did not know what I did that merited such treatment (although she told me later after she boarded the bus that she needed time alone). 

I think a godly man sometimes has his moments when he needs to learn how to manage his temperament and listen to his instinct even though it seemed illogical and when it seems flustering to be in a situation where you don't even know why you are in it. Anyway, that night I listened to my instincts. On my way home, as my bus passed by City Hall, Angelina messaged me to ask where she could find food and told me that she was at City Hall MRT station doing journaling. My instincts (which I believed was guided by the Holy Spirit) then told me that I needed to alight from the bus and find her. And obeyed my instincts I did. To cut the already long story short, things came out well after that night and Angelina was feeling better and I began to have a sense on what was actually happening: regarding all the past issues that she has been through in her work compounded by the medication...

Angelina's side of the story.

That was the first month after I stopped work, and I was still pretty "shaky" and was very easily stressed. On top of, that the medication I took made me go into unexplainable bouts of immense depression. For a thinker, it was an extremely uncomfortable situation because I had absolutely no control over my emotions and try as I might, there was no way I could rationalise the extreme sadness away. In my mind, I knew that there was no reason why I should be feeling the emotions to that intensity, yet if I were to be true to my feelings, there was no way I can just ignore the depression that was over me.  Thus I felt very stuck. During that period, I withdrew from everyone, including my family, and kept to myself. Huanyan was probably the only one who was more in tune with what I was feeling/going through (though that itself was probably pretty traumatic for him). 

During this period, there were many times that I wished Huanyan knew what I needed/wanted without me having to say anything. I was hoping that he would know me well enough to read me like a book without me having to explicitly state what I needed from him. But clearly, he isnt God and he will only know me as much as I communicate my needs and expectations to him. It took me a few rounds of hoping that he knew what I needed/wanted and being disappointed when he did do what I had secretly hoped he would for me to learn the importance of communicating these expectations to him. Even now, I am still learning this fact. 

Whenever I am down/stressed, I tend to withdraw from people and communication goes to the bare minimum. Yet my expectations of those closest to me (to know how to provide the necesary support) would increase significantly during this period. Decreased communication and increased exceptions is probably the formula for further conflicts. After a number of rounds of that (that actually took a few months), we finally learn how to mitigate it. I stated out the things that would help me in various situations in a "guide book" for Huanyan, so that whenever I regress into those emo states where there's minimal communication, he would have some idea of what he can do to help in that situation. Now I have to caveat that while it was very tempting to just list all my expectations for him, I had to hold back. I decided to pray through first before writing the list, so that whatever was finally written was not just a list of unrealistic self-centered expectations, but one that has been vetted through by God.  As I prayed through, God revealed that I had many expectations that were "over-romaticised". While it was not impossible for Huanyan to do them (since he was always very willing to learn) I must definitely do my part in communicating so that he can indeed do what I  "secretly hoped". Expecting him to do it without communicating what I needed/hoped for was just unloving. 

And this was just one of the many examples of the tensions and conflicts. As there were no people who were close by to guide us through all these conflicts and tensions, the danger was that any of those tensions could have blown up and reached a point of no return or even create unnecessary hurt to one another. Reflecting on this particular episode, which I (Huanyan) believe was one of those mroe extreme cases thus far, I believed it could really have turned out quite badly. I could have just ignored Angelina when she texted me to ask where on earth at City Hall could she find food and could have further ignored my instincts, like I did the previous night. Yet it seemed that God's hand was leading our actions even as things began to go downhill. Hence we thank God for the maturity that we showed during these episodes and that we were able to sort out the underlying issues. These are not easy times that we go through. 

Moreover, we have to thank God for these episodes themselves. Conflicts and tensions normally appear when two differing values begin to rub against one another. For couples who are either married or hoping to get married, this is an inevitable process of cleaving, where two separate entities learn to become one. But each time we get past one episode, we found ourselves gaining better understanding of one another and finding ourselves getting closer as well. 

​

• Serving together

Being in different lifegroups in church and serving in different capacities, there are not many opportunities for us to serve together. But the one most memorable time of serving together comes during a mission trip to the land upnorth in June 2014.

Although we were together in the same team, there wasn't a lot of opportunities when we could minister together. Then on one Wednesday night, I was supposed to share a message during a prayer meet in one of the churches. After I finished sharing, Angelina (with her gift of discernment and prophecy) came up and we began to pray for the church in the different areas. As she heard from God, I took the front stage to pray those prayer points over the church, since my language proficiency was better in that setting. Reflecting on this episode, I was just amazed at how we complemented one another in serving. 

There were other episodes of serving together and we shall not elaborate too much on these. We give thanks for these episodes as they showed to the two of us how God can use our lives to bless the other people around us. We started out this relationship wanting to be a blessing to the people around us and this is indeed the beginning. 

And these are just some thanksgiving points for 2014. We hope to share more in the future as we continue to seek God to pray what we want to disclose here so that our readers can be blessed. 

The Two Weeks

This episode will zoom into the two weeks after Huanyan met up with Angelina with his initial request. 

Huanyan's side of the story:

After the time has come to make a move, there were still some obstacles which I had to go through before I get the "yes" to go on further with the relationship. 

Firstly, it was the timing to meet her. It was perhaps very difficult to find a time to meet Angelina back then. I was (and still am) a busy bird running all over the place doing ministry. Also, during that time, I had to prepare for my upcoming mission trip to the land where Facebook is banned, on top of the normal church stuff. Hence it was a bit difficult to arrange a common time. 

Secondly, it was the premise for meeting up. There was a lot of apprehension before even asking her to meet, as I needed to find a 'non-threatening' premise to meet her. It was a good thing that her birthday was around the corner, hence I could use that as a premise to ask her out. 

Thirdly, I had to overcome the possibility of rejection. At that point before 30 November, I did not know whether any other guys are chasing after her or whether there's anything happening between her and other guys. But such is the risk of getting into a relationship that a guy has to undertake. More to be elaborated upon towards the end. 

Nevertheless, by God's grace, I managed to ask Angelina out to talk about it. And she asked me to wait for one month so that she can think through and pray about her reply to me. I accepted that effort.

In some sense, the following two weeks was a difficult period to go through. It was a nerve wrecking wait, as I did not know what the reply would be. Hence, my mind was almost always occupied. Not to mention that during this period, I had to think about all the Christmas stuff and the New Year. My worst nightmare back then was that I will be rejected on Christmas Eve or New Year Eve. My work productivity back then was almost equivalent to zero since this was almost occupying my mind all the time. I remember I was walking all over the place and was unable to settle down at one place as I needed to calm myself down from the very very fast heart beats despite myself in resting position. 

On hindsight, that was indeed the risk that a guy has to take. John Piper has defined biblical masculinity as “a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationship.” This means that the man ought to exercise a personal directive leadership in his own life and in his future relationship which will allow the woman to exercise her roles well in the relationship. On the contrary, John Piper defined biblical feminity as  “a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships.” This means that a woman best expresses herself in the acceptance of her complementary role and ministering as his helper and assistant even when she is searching for her life partner. Such a woman is free to allow the man she is considering to provide “the pattern of appropriate initiatives in her relationship while joining in this process of leadership and helping to strengthen the masculinity of the man.

Hence, in view of the differing roles of man and woman in a relationship, it is truly appropriate that a man just has to take the initiative in his relationship, and indeed once he takes the initiative, he is also taking on the risk that comes with taking the initiative. Most of the risk, if I may argue, comes in the possibilty of rejection. And I have indeed seen people being rejected before. As Erik Thoennes said it in Dating 101, a relationship seminar conducted in Biola University in 2011, it is the man's job to stick your neck so that it gets cut off. 

So, I think part of being a man is really to take the leadership and initiative in our relationship. This is, as I would argue, literally our God-given role. As the saying goes, we miss 100% of the shots we do not take. And as another saying goes, fortune favours the bold. We cannot perpetually sit there and refuse to do anything simply because we are afraid of rejections. You are going to set the pattern for your relationship and you cannot afford to allow the relationship to be defined as you being the passive half right from the start. And in any case, if you are so passive, you are probably not going to go anywhere.

And you know what, if you feel butterflies in the stomach, you are not the first one, and probably not the only one, and definitely not going to be the last one to experience this when you do the initial asking. For the first-timer (such as me), it was as terrifying as our first attempt at public speaking. I thought public speaking was bad but I never realized that I will go cold-feet at such a private setting – especially since I thought I had since overcome the fear of public speaking.

Little did I know that Angelina would have an answer so soon into two weeks....

Angelina's side of the story:

And so two weeks after I made the decision to surrender my future relationship (or maybe even the lack of it) to God, Huanyan met me on the pretext of celebrating my birthday. Given that Huanyan rarely met up with girls one-on-one unless there was work/ministry stuff to discuss, I found it rather weird that he would initiate a one-to-one meet up just to celebrate my birthday.

And so the night before the meeting, I was wondering about the possible reasons he would arrange such a meet up. One of the out-of-the-world (or maybe not so after all) possibility was to ask for a relationship, since I did know that there was someone he was interested in. But I didn't really place too much hope on that, given that there were hardly any signs from him that year (2013). Although we were still in the same office, we barely spoke or had lunch together ever since we went to different LGs. Surely, if you did like someone, you would have found excuses to increase interaction with the person, rather than to decrease it. At least that was how they always portrayed it in dramas. 

And so we met the next day for lunch. I felt a little weird having lunch with him without ministry or work related stuff on our agenda, since most of our previous interactions were centred around those two topics. It was the first time that I saw him so uneasy. After we were done with lunch, he got really tensed. After taking a few deep breaths, he asked. No frills, just straight to the point, and he explained how he came to this decision. I was surprised that the out-of-the-world possibility I had thought of the day before actually became a reality. My mind was just in a mess, with thousand and one questions. Too many for me to even ask all of them. Given that I rarely make decisions when I am in an emotional whirlwind, I told him to give me a month time to think and pray through. 

I was glad that it was service soon after that, because it gave me some time alone to think and process what just happened with God. Little did I expect that as I brought this before God during worship, God immediately showed me a picture of us standing together with light radiating out. The light from the two of us was wayyyy brighter than what we could ever achieve individually. The message was clear - the impact that we can make for God together is much greater than what each of us can ever achieve alone. 

Till that day he asked, I had never saw Huanyan as anything more than a leader. I spent the next two weeks asking God if this sort of synergistic impact could be achieved through a leader-member relationship. Though I had no clear answer, I knew that the synergy that God was referring to was more than a leader-member relationship, since we have had such a relationship for three years since our uni days.  I also revisited my original list of criteria (close relationship with God, family man, sensitive to my needs) and asking which "non-negotiable criteria" were really non-negotiable and which were actually negotiable. There were a lot of fears that came up during this period too: loss of my freedom as a single, fear of a failed relationship and the heartache that followed, the limelight of being together with someone pretty high profile in church. The more I thought about the issue, the more questions I had, so we met up again to clarify expectations on the relationship. 

I prayed through and sought counsel from leaders and parents. Various viewpoints were raised, all seemed valid. But one of my leaders sharply pointed out that while I can spend more time considering the various factors that people have brought up (personality, values, family background, depth of how much I know him etc), actually deep down I already had an answer, from the image that God has given. And since there were no major red flags that I could see, it was about responding in faith to Huanyan's invitation, and trusting that if God was the one who had brought us together, so that we can shine even greater for him, then God will take care of whatever concerns I had. 

It was with this understanding and perspective of trusting God that I decided to say yes to Huanyan.

It has been about one year since then, and we have seen so much of God's hands in this relationship. Like every couple, we have had our fair share of tensions, disagreements and cooling off periods. Yet through each of these uncomfortable episodes, we see how God has moulded us to be more like Him, as we turned to God to make sense of the situation and responded to God's promptings to put down our pride and serve the other person even though we don't instinctively feel like it. We pray that we can share some of these encounters in subsequent posts so that you will be encouraged by how it can be possible to emerge victoriously from not-so-rosy situations when we have God as the anchor in our individual lives and in the relationship.

The Years in Between: Waiting

In this episode, both Huanyan and Angelina will explore their journey from the time their paths separated till the day Huanyan decides to pop the penultimate question that falls short of a formal proposal. 

Angelina's side of the story:

As a girl who grew up watching Disney movies, being in a relationship (in the way portrayed in Disney) was something that I had dreamt of since young. I had a very idealistic view of relationship until my uni days, when I saw how the people around me got into relationships but broke up not long after. Then I realised that being in a relationship was not all that sweet and rosy. In fact there was a lot of heartaches and tough period that a couple goes through after the initial honeymoon period.  One question I asked myself then was "what would make a relationship last beyond the initial honeymoon period"?

As I looked at my parents' relationship, I realized that what keeps them together is not merely the feelings (because this phase will likely wear off after you get more familiar with each other and the stresses of managing a household sets in) but the commitment to each other to work through issues and stay through difficult times together even if your emotional tank is low. Thus the next question I asked myself was - "Will I be able to stay committed to work though issues during tough times when my emotional tank is low instead of throwing in the towel and say that we are not suited for each other?"

This I struggled for a long time because I could not see how can anyone find the strength to continuously give to a relationship when her emotional tank is constantly low. As someone who naturally avoids tensions in relationships and withdraws when I sense conflict coming in order to protect myself, there will have to be a greater reason beyond myself if I were to stay in a relationship and openly work through issues and conflicts.

Although I was apprehensive about being in a relationship because of potential tensions and hurts, deep down I still wanted to be loved and adored by someone. Despite this desire, I decided that I should focus on my studies in university before starting a relationship. Thus after graduation and when I started work in 2012, relationship was an aspect that I wanted to look into. Because I grew up in a girls school, my circle of guys were pretty small to begin with, and many of them weren't of the same faith. Furthermore, it was tough to find someone that I could truly respect and felt secure following (which was one of my criteria). To my "horror", I realised that it was even more difficult to find someone after I started work, because it took considerably more effort to interact and get to know new brothers beyond the lg. To makes things worse, my workplace had significantly more female than guys, and even then, many of the guys were already married. It didn't help that I was in a work environment with several young career-minded ladies who often joked that our department SGP stood for - Single Girls Party. 

It was a tough period of choosing to hold on to God and trusting Him for a partner. I felt that the chances of finding someone dwindling as I got more overwhelmed at work each day. I remembered constantly asking God if I will ever meet someone and if so how on earth will I meet that person when I am so overwhelmed at work. There were times when I felt lonely/sad and the desire to have someone to care for me in that special way was pretty intense. And each time it happened, I had to resolve to turn to God to meet my deepest need for love instead of wallowing in self-pity and feeling envious of those who were getting attached/married in that period. It was always a struggle, but each time as I struggle through with God and turned to His word for the assurance of His love for us, He brought me to a deeper relationship with Him and understanding of His design for a godly relationship. It was also during that period that I started praying for my future partner and the relationship (even though I had no idea of who it will be), that God will prepare us individually to be the man and woman that he has created us to be, and we will not shun this period of growth no matter how painful it may be, so that we will be prepared for this new phase, and start the relationship with God at the center.  

Through this period of struggling with singlehood, God slowly transformed my idea of what it meant to be in a relationship. The defining lessons that God taught me during the period of waiting were:

1.  For a relationship to last, it has to be one that is anchored in God. To my earlier question on how to find the strength to stay committed in the face of tough times when my own emotional tank is low, God revealed that the strength to commit and to continuing loving the person has to come from Him. Thus it is important that the couple continue to focus on growing their own relationship with God, even after they get together. Because the anchor for each individual (regardless whether you are single or attached) has to be God - He should always be our First Love and this doesn't change after you are in a relationship. I realised that this principle of putting God first in a relationship is actually no different from other aspects of our lives. It is God who will give us what we need in every aspect of our lives, including sustaining a relationship.
2. The couple is meant to complement and not outdo each other. This means that I should learn to be comfortable with my weakness because this is where my partner comes in to complement me. And at the same time, I should not fault my partner for his weakness, because this is where I can complement him with my strengths. Of course, this doesn't mean that we don't grow from our weaknesses, just that we don't have to be ashamed of them and constantly strive to get rid of them. No one is perfect (even high-achievers) and we should learn to celebrate the individual that God has uniquely created.  
3. Being in a relationship is like learning to dance as a pair. Initially when you first start to learn to dance as a pair, you tend to be clumsy and will inevitably step on each others toes. With more practice, you get the hang of the rhythm and you eventually dance gracefully as a couple. However, to get there, this requires much coordination, patience and practice. And after you have learnt Dance 101, you progress to the next level to Dance 201, 301, 401 etc. To bring this back to a relationship context, it means that even after you have learnt to work out the initial issues like what and how to communicate love/trust as a couple, new issues will arise and the couple will need to learn to work that out and establish a common understanding. This is a continual process of growing together as a couple. It would be unrealistic to expect to come to a stage where there are no more issues to work through and we "live happily ever after" on this side of heaven, since we are all sinners.

With a renewed understanding and a more realistic expectation of what it means to be in a relationship, I thought I was ready to get into one. But God asked me the ultimate question during worship service on 16 Nov 2013: Would I still choose to follow God joyfully, if i were to remain single my whole life. I struggled immensely with it because all these while I had dreamt of getting married and having my own family.  Nonetheless, with much tears, i resolved to choose to surrender my desires to God and to follow His will as He reveals, rather than to be in a relationship without God's blessings. I remembered the feeling of liberation I had after surrendering to God - no longer did I have to strive to make sure that things happened "my way", but I could trust that God, who loves me, will eventually work all things for the good of those who love Him. This may or may not eventually mean getting attached, but I decided that this will be secondary to following His will. (Of course this doesn't mean that I don't struggle any more).

Little did expect that after dying to myself and choosing to put God above my desire for a relationship, Huanyan asked me. Till that moment he asked, I had no idea that he had been interested in me.

Looking back, God's timing is never early or late - it's always perfect. It was necessary for me to struggle through with God first, so that I had a renewed mind and started the relationship without usurping God from the throne of my life. Though it was a pretty long and painful period, I was glad that I struggled through with God because this deepened my faith in Him.

May you continue to trust God (with whatever area it is), even when circumstances may seem to say otherwise. Such times of struggling with God though painful, will be very beautiful when you look back and see God's fingerprints all over.

Huanyan's side of the story:

A period of waiting was never easy. In fact, after I graduated, it took me more than three years before I get to embark on this journey towards a commited relationship to forge a lifelong partnership with another sister. As I attempted to make sense of it, that He put me through a period of waiting for a purpose. The verse from Psalm 37:7 helped to guide me to wait patiently for Him and not to fret when things seem to go the wrong way. And after looking back, I penned down these thoughts in my blog:

... But God likes to play the waiting game, with a purpose. And I must say that the waiting game is not fun to play for us initially. Yet there is reward in playing this waiting game. My trust in Him is such that I know I will turn out the winner every time I play this waiting game with Him.

It has happened so many times in my life that I have lost count of the waiting game that God plays with me. And so many times, I have to force myself to be still before Him as He does the work in my life and in the lives of the people around me, only to let me see what He has in mind for us when He unveils everything. There, we see His fingerprints in our lives and we witness how much sense it makes for us to be part of this waiting. Even recently, I see personally in my life, how waiting, despite people's urge for me to go ahead, has resulted in the most optimal result that I can possibly imagine. In this particular scenario, if I have acted any earlier, things would have turned out differently and negatively.

So, if circumstances have implied that God is making you wait, perhaps something better is coming your way.

Trust in Him, dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

And so, to continue with the story, I graduated in 2009. And moved on to YG. The LG before I left NUS looked something like this:

Well, as seen above, the LG back in the days of NUS went through many changes in faces but it ended up with me, as the lone guy, leading a gang of five sisters (it is by God's grace that no one ever tried to bully me). 

And yes, I moved to YG. Of course after I moved on to YG, my contact time with her decreased and it did not really mean much to me actually, since I was enjoying my newfound ministry, serving the people. It was during this interim years when I began to start thinking about BGR, but that was for all practical reasons. Before I carry on, I need to digress a little to give a bit of context. One must understand that I was trained back during my uni days to remain single for God until I graduate from university studies. Hence, my ministry training allowed me to become very excellent in teaching people how to remain single. This was sustainable back in my time but when I had to disciple working adults who fret about such issues, I realised that it was perhaps not the right thing to encourage people to continue remain single for God. Unfortunately, I was ill-equipped at that point to even say anything and hence for all practical reasons, I began to think deeper and explore more into this issue. It does matter since there was a period of time when I was practically hanging out every other Saturday nights with my LG and we talk so much on relationship issues, till the point that some people complained that we talked too much into such stuff. 

And yet, I never thought (in the initial years of entering YG) that I will want to get into a relationship so soon. Of course, looking back, Angelina was never even in the picture (since she was still serving in the university ministry). And during the years 2009 to 2012,  the whole experience, together with the need to disciple young working adults, helped to hone and prepare me for the decisions I was about to make in Dec 2012. 

So what are the lessons learned during these years? Reflecting back, these lessons were:

1. Be a man whom the woman I am looking for is looking for. This means that if I decide that I want a woman who knows the Word of God inside out, can talk Aristole and Augustine and Erickson and Fee alike, can sing Jay Chou music and play the guitar, can manage her own household and cook good food, then I've better be a man whom such a woman will look for. That being said, my criteria were not so complicated, which moves me to the second point.
2. Define the criteria, but don't make it so complicated till the girl has to be a pastor before I will even consider her as a future life partner. The reason is so that I know exactly what I want objectively but yet I do not end up being too self-centred to look for what I want or end up looking for a girl who is like myself. Hence, I ended up simplifying my criteria into three broad points: Spiritually mature (Kingdom-mindedness), intellectually sound (stimulates the mind) and emotionally stable. Angelina met the three criteria. On top of that, because she is someone who will seek God's will for all the major decisions she make, I was confident that she would do the same when I ask and any response she gives will be something that has been well prayed through and thought through. 
3. Man and woman are created differently and I need to accept the fact that I am created as a man by God. As a man, it means that I need to accept the God-given role of a leader and an initiator. This does not mean that I am perfect but in the context of a relationship, at least at tht beginning, I take the first step to ask the girl even though I am uncertain of the end result. This actually means that I do not need to wait till the point when I confirm Angelina will say yes before I make my move. I mention this because there was a wrong perception by people that the guy has to ensure that the girl will say yes first before approaching. I don't know where that idea comes from and I have to admit that I used to have that perception as well. And that brings my to the next point. 
4. There are risks in a relationship, and one just has to learn to deal with rejection. This is linked to the part of being a man and an initiator. To be honest, I never knew when to ask and how to ask, and I definitely had no experience in leading in such a relationship. But I just need to take the risk. This lesson was particularly important for me especially when I did not know Angelina's response towards me and I had to take the risk to ask her, bearing in mind the possibility of being rejected. 
5. Related to point 4 is that I have learned not to take life direction and God's vision for a person as the defining factor. Definitely, when we consider someone as a potential life partner, her life goals and her vision for God's kingdom do come into some form of considerations but I made the mistake of taking that one too far and I suspect people take this one way too far into the extreme. My conclusion lies from two observations: firstly, since the man is to lead in the relationship, therefore, it does suggest that the future direction of the couple is to be decided collectively as a couple but taken its lead from the man. Secondly, no two visions for God's kingdom is mutually exclusive and I believe that if God really intervenes to bring two persons together in a binding relationship, then He will help the couple to gain wisdom to know how their differing visions can converge. This helps me (to the extent of liberating) to consider a wider scope of people than I was previously prepared to do so. This was important also because at that point in time, I knew that Angelina did not know where God is bringing her towards. And I may have to wait until Jesus returns if I insist that I wait for her vision in life to be aligned with mine. Hence, this becomes an area which I had to trust God in. 
6. I realised that she doesn't have to be a leader. Perhaps due to the kind of ministry I serve in, I serve quite closely with female leaders in church. Hence, by close proximity, female leaders lie within the direct scope of vision. But it was during the years 2009-2012 that I realised that I do not need to confine myself to this group (this is not to say that female leaders in the church are not good candidates, I must qualify). 
7. There is a need to establish proper boundaries during your singlehood with other sisters so that the friendship will not be short-circuited by over-enthusiastic friends who want to help by purposely spreading hints all over the place or telling everybody about it at the undue time. This was especially true in the case with Angelina when I had to be discreet in my actions. Being in close proximity with her and being so close with her (considering that we were attending the same church) means that people will inevitably 'match' us together. It became more difficult after I became honest with my feelings towards Angelina. This was also to protect the sisters from being pressurised to say yes in the midst of heightened expectation. 

And these are some of the lessons learned which helped to shape my thoughts. It was during the period when these thoughts and lessons were beginning to take shape that Angelina entered into my life again.  It was around mid Dec 2011 if my memories did not fail me, that I found out that she was applying for a position at MOH, with a division that was located quite near to my cube. I think i was more excited that there's a fellow church mate who will be working in MOH, assuming she got the position. I also knew somehow that she will end up back in my LG, cos I remembered hearing it from somewhere that she would want to be in the same LG as me again. It was an interesting prospect since I always remembered her (at the end of my NUS days) as a prayer warrior, so it means that I could get her to lead prayer in the LG. Also, due to my previous experience, I knew that she was a discerning character, and she would definitely end up as a great support to me, the LGL, even though the LG was growing a bit big during the period of time. 

And so, she entered back into my life, as a colleague and as a LG member. There was no liking back then, and I had to fight hard to avoid my over-enthusiastic colleagues from trying to be matchmakers, especially after they knew that the both of us attend the same church and she is in my LG. Yes, I had nosy colleagues who want to be helpful to this most eligible bachelor in the division. Now looking back, I think God had other plans for me. During the years 2012 to 2013, before I took the step to ask her, I must say that she was back then a wonderful sister to be with in the LG. Before that, some pictures of the group together:

And a prayer group in MOH which we started with some other sisters (because I was at that time the only guy...again):

Perhaps, the route towards the asking started back in Dec 2012. I was at the stage when I was evaluating my own life after thinking through a lot of those issues that I listed above. I felt that at that point, God was finally calling me out of my singlehood and I was to decide to settle down. This came through one of those excruciating marathons that I ran when I heard God rebuking how I ran my life so far - as an irresponsible man who only runs for himself. It was a stinging rebuke but it brought me to some senses that perhaps it's time to stop running alone but to run with somebody.

It was not because I was feeling lonely that I decided that my season of singlehood was coming to an end. I was back then enjoying my singlehood a lot - having the freedom to do things whenever adn wherever I want and having a lot of time to spend with myself to do the things I want to do like reading and studying and meeting other people. The decision that arrived eventually was because I knew from my heart and heard from God that the season was due to close and a new season was due to begin in my life. So therefore, given all the signs and promptings, with my feelings towards Angelina becoming clearer and louder, I knew that perhaps the new season was coming close.

If you ask me why Angelina, the strengths mentioned way above would have been the initial answer. But I must say that if not for the frequent contacts that I had with her in office and in church, she would not have stood out so much compared to other sisters in church. And from the point when I realised that I had fallen for her (which was really weird to accept from the beginning since she was like a little sister last time), I really had a hard time to try to keep this not so obvious in the office, partly due to my over-enthusiastic colleagues, that I don't want unnecessary rumors to be spreading around and short-circuiting any potential progress I will have. This again ties back to the need to set proper boundaries.

I eventually asked on 30 Nov 2013, one year after finally deciding that it's her whom I will ask. I was definitely not lacking courage since I was already prepared to ask on 25 Dec 2012. But due to something which happened to me personally after that, I had to wait.

I suppose it was a tough 11 months from the time I decided to pursue to the time I managed to ask. And I must admit that there were times when I was tempted to jump the gun and not care about anything and just ask, although that would potentially go against my own principle of being accountable to the church leadership.

But, during this period of time, I was also able to step back and think through whether Angelina is the one whom I will want to pursue as a life partner. It took me all the way to Xi'an so as to get myself away from the noises to do some deep thinking. In the midst of this, I also had the opportunity to further observe how she overcame her problems at work and in ministry.

And I am glad that when God finally brought the waiting to fruition, I was ready to be the right person for the girl whom I am looking is looking.