The Unseen Life, Part 12

​Attending Bible Colleges’ Graduation Services were the norm for an administrative staff of any mission organization. My reluctance to sacrifice another evening for one more graduation commencement came to the notice of the Mission’s General Director. After some arm-twisting, I accompanied him and his wife to the college that the Mission sponsored. On hindsight, it was a delightful Divine appointment.
 
At the time, the General Director believed that my singlehood was an impediment to my missionary endeavour, and he was intent on introducing me to his former secretary at a Taiwanese theological college. As you can imagine, the pressure to settle down had been scaled up, even though I was perfectly content to remain in my non-committal status at the time. 
 
As we watched the proceedings, a voice suddenly said to me, “I want you to pay attention to the next graduand.” I instinctively sat up and was all eyes and ears! A young lady dressed in a batik-patterned maxi skirt walked up to the lectern and began sharing why she decided, a couple of years back, to enroll in a post-graduate Biblical studies programme. When she had finished, I surmised that this was a set-up! My immediate thoughts were pragmatic and logical: “Anyway, if You think that somehow, I should begin to be interested in this young lady, You will have to send her to see me. You well know that my extremely tight work schedule precludes me from any kind of future-partner socialization.” I was flustered, to say the least! What to think of her? Well, apart from a testimony that’s coherent and well-articulated, I didn’t know her, and therefore, unable to size her up. That was the end of the matter for the evening.
 
Within a week, ‘the person of interest’ arrived at my office with an application for a month’s mission exposure trip. Quite apart from the shock of seeing her again so soon, the penny began to drop that this was an arranged appointment. Without exaggerating, my interest in her invariably piqued at that point; there’s work to be done concerning this young lady! With references to her application from her college’s dean, her home church’s pastor, and several friends, I dug as deep as I could to fathom her background, work life, and personality. Obviously, the one-on-one interview was beyond routine. 
 
Then she flew off to the Philippines, to the island of Mindoro, for her four weeks’ mission’s exposure. Concurrently, I was visiting Mindoro the following week and was able to have some feedback on the candidate’s initial cross-cultural adjustments and attitudes from the seasoned missionary she was serving with. 
 
On her return from the Philippines, our first unromantic date a couple of weeks later, was at Singapore Changi Airport, where we met for half an hour to welcome home a furloughing missionary. It was uneventful and expeditious. But it was the first indication that perhaps there was some mutual interest towards each other. One Friday evening, three months after her mission trip, we had high tea at a café along Orchard Road, which costs me a whole month’s stipend. This was our second date. We talked for over nine hours; exploring almost every avenue of personal interests, family relationships, personal hardships and values, and belief systems, that had inured us in life. It was well past mid-night by the time we realized it. Before I sent her home in a taxi, I proposed to her. Then I walked home to prepare for another busy weekend.
 
She said she didn’t sleep that night! I had a good night’s sleep. Our wedding was planned nine months after that evening; being the only free weekend I had from mission deputations in the churches. 
 
At the next working day, I made the announcement of our engagement at the Mission’s morning devotional session, to the delight of the General Director. 
 
I am truly grateful to God for His unequivocal direction in the choice of my future wife then. Being in Christian ministry, one cannot be more than careful in relationships; particularly in one’s personal and public dealings with female colleagues, friends, and clientele. The obvious reason is to preclude any untoward exposures to potential temptations and accusations of misconduct. Furthermore, time constraints due to overwhelming ministry demands restricted interminably my own social space and schedules. As the first resident administrator of a local mission body, it meant that an office management system had to be redesigned to cope with a growing financial support base and personnel numbers. Putting together a candidature orientation programme, with a missionary care component, and implementing them were an on-going responsibility. Deputation publicity material had to be conceived and produced for local interests, etc. To say the least, thoughts of settling down then had to be on the back-burner.