Kind driver... part two... yaay!

Received today... 25 October 05

Dear Ms ___,

We refer to your feedback of 17 October 05.

We are pleased to receive your commendation for our bus captain of Service 69, SBS ___.

We have since forwarded your commendation to his Manager to commend him. He will be commended for his positive service attitude. Your commendation has certainly spurred our staff to perform even better and help us take note of our service.

Thank you for your thoughtfulness in dropping us this note.

Yours sincerely

June Tang for Assistant Director
Corporate Communications
SBS Transit Ltd

click here to find out what happened

The Love of my life

It's nice to stop looking for the "love of your life" and start letting the Lord be that Love -- as He should rightly be.

He sends people along the way to express His love for you.

I had a few lighting fixtures that needed to be replaced. Had been putting it off for months. (Of course it meant living in darkness.) The thought of going to order the ballast and then to engage an electrician... it's times like these you wish you had a man to handle them for you.

Some weeks ago, I happened to be in the Geylang area where there were many electrical shops. I made some enquiries about the lighting and also the charges for fixing them. I was still ding-donging about my decision. I even toyed with the thought of contacting chomper to help (him being an electrician... stupid idea -- I scrapped it).

Last week, I made some calls to find out the charges for engaging an electrician. Still, I was hesitating.

Anyway, yesterday, I called the shop that I had made enquiries from. And then I made a trip to the shop. It turned out he was such a nice and helpful man. Talked a long time with me. He gave me such a good deal with the lights -- he hardly made any profit from me (yes, I believe him). And he even offered to come to my house to fix it himself today as his electricians were already booked. (Mostly you have to book them in advance, especially for small jobs like the one I have).
Well, today, TWO of his electricians turned up. They got my stuff fixed, and in the end, the charges were less than half of what others were charging. The electrician asked me if the boss was my friend and if I had known him for a long time!!

I know it may seem like a small matter. But for me, it's no small thing to see my Father's hand behind it all.

Like a said, if we could only live surrendered lives, we would be living no-stressed, happy lives.

Bigger challenge -- but still having fun :-)

Writng Phases...

1. interview
2. transcribe
3. decide on direction / outline
4. go through transcripts - put into chapter drafts
5. write
6. re-write
7. re-re-write
8. re-re-re-write
9. re-re-re-re-wrote...
10. will i finish?

I thought transcribing 31 interviews was going to be a challenge... Woah... I'm into my next challenge -- organising the materials -- this phase is proving to be an even bigger challenge.

I started cutting and "dumping"the materials into chapter drafts. I had planned to arrange them in chronological order - but I realise that some of them fit better thematically than chronologically...

Hmmm... well, it's back to my book writing... how fun!

Partners with God

Yaay! Completed the last of the transcribing.

When God gave me the framework for the book on the 3 October, it all came together in 15 minutes on the bus. That's like being given the cover of a jigsaw puzzle box. You can make sense of all the little bits and pieces of the puzzle even if it will take a while to fit it all together.

I guess the most exciting part of writing the book is the exciting adventure of partnering with God on it. If everything in life could be done like this... Wow -- we could all live with minimal stress and SO MUCH FUN!

Progress!

Wow, it's been more than three weeks since I blogged. I've been hiding away to work on aunty's transcripts. Yaay... only one more interview to work on... it's about an hour long - the transcribing would take about eight hours to do.

So thankful that KS gave me time out to work on it. It has been refreshing to do on something other than my usual responsibilities. The book is coming together more smoothly and faster than I thought possible.

I think the best part of it is that it is an adventure that I am journeying with my Father. I feel His pleasure and help as I work on it. He already gave me the outline and framework. So once the transcribing is done, I can start organising the text and then the process of writing my first draft! A few portions have already been done :-) How exciting!

I have less than a week of writing leave left. I'm not sure I'm excited about going back to work yet. I'll take things one step at a time.

I've much more to say, but I will blog at another time... thanks for praying. Please don't stop!

A kind driver

At about 1015 pm, I was waiting at the bus stop for service 66 to go home after grocery shopping. When the 66 came, the driver slowed down at the bus stop. I thought he had seen me. I was gathering my grocery bags so I was not able to signal him before he picked up speed and zoomed passed me without stopping.

The quick thinking and kind bus driver of service 69 who was behind the 66 on seeing what had happened, waved at me to board his bus. I wanted to scan my card but he said I didn’t need to. He managed to catch up with the service 66 at the second stop and so I was able to catch the bus that I missed home.

I was very touched by the driver's kindness and quick thinking thoughtfulness. At 10.15 pm, I did not look forward to waiting another 10-15 minutes for the next bus. It was a pleasant surprise to have at the end of a long day. I wrote to TransitLink to commend the driver.