Year 2014 - the Year of Enrichment

As mentioned in one of my previous blog articles, my retirement plan is focused mainly on seeking enrichment, both physically and spiritually, to make up for my inadequacy over the past years owing to an overwhelming work schedule.

There is no telling yet how much I have achieved in health gain. Regarding spiritual growth, however, I can claim to have made quite some progress. For one thing, my participation in a Bible course named ‘Bible in 80 Weeks’, which aims at a perusal of the whole Bible in eighty weeks’ time, gave me very great satisfaction.

This being the 27th week, we are reading the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. Frankly, it has never been fun reading the Old Testament. There have even been moments when I feel bored stiff. But the thought of giving up reading altogether never occurs to me. This is due to mutual support among the participants and the inspiring talks by quality speakers. 

I am also motivated to do research aside from the weekly assignment. As one of the group coordinators, I feel obliged to be better prepared so that I can more efficiently guide the sharing along.This way, I find myself benefiting greatly from the extra reading and I feel grateful for the opportunity. A very harmonious friendship has also developed among the group members. We share our thoughts not only during the meeting but also in the chat group thanks to whatsapp technology. It will be more than a year before we finish our reading, but the long process has become an enjoyment rather than a burden. Even occasional absences will not be a hindrance to our determination to pursue the journey till the very end.

I also derive great joy from a recent engagement: I will have a column in a newspaper, in which the translated pieces of a religious book are published weekly. I actually leapt at the offer as I found it an answer to my three-fold request: to seek improvement in English-to-Chinese translation, to share my writing with others and to do the work of God.

Before the actual work of translation, I have to develop an understanding of the content and the message it delivers. As the translation will be done on an abridged basis, I need to decide on the focuses and underline the key paragraphs and sentences. This is good reading and writing practice, too. The use of the right Chinese terms, especially those associated with Christianity, can also be a challenge and thus gives useful skills training.

I do enjoy the job tremendously, so much so that I have already finished the third piece even though the column will not appear until January.

Of course, it’s not always work that keeps me occupied. I can still enjoy my dancing classes on alternate days and have a good nap in the afternoon to make up for the wakeful hours at night.

The past year has been an enriched one and I have to thank God for all these blessings.