Sent by Richard Eng • Jan 28, 2023

I’ve always believed that time spent in the present with one’s parents are most precious.

As I desired to spend more time with my parents – and in line with my wife’s personal convictions – I returned to be based in Malaysia despite having a perceived “better future” in Australia. Hence I relocated from Sydney to Klang in 1992 to see my family grow up in Malaysia and to spend more time with my parents.

Since I accepted Christ in 1997, I have come to see God’s goodness & desired my family to know Him. I found it challenging to share as my father was not very religious & did not seem very interested, being content to follow his family’s Taoist traditions.

In 2018, my father in his eighties was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. When his doctor told me he had only a few years left to live due to his age & health condition, I felt the urgency more than ever to see my father saved. Annie, my wife and I began to spend almost every weekend to visit & spend time with him, finding opportunities to share the Gospel & pray with him. I noticed that when we prayed, my father would extend his hands out. He said to me that he felt a sense of peace. I could gradually see God in His mercy working – opening my father’s heart and spiritual eyes to experience the love of the Good Father.

One weekend in 2019, I was alone with my father & noticed his legs were painfully dry due to years of pre-existing diabetic symptoms making them gangrenous and unsightly. I took some water to wash his feet, towelled them dry and massaged them with oil. Led by the love of the Holy Spirit, I was inspired to ask him if he wanted to accept Christ as his Lord & Saviour – and he firmly said yes! I then led him to recite the sinner’s prayer in Hokkien. Praise be to God!

When I told my spouse & my son, they were sceptical. Annie asked if it was true as she was concerned that I had “talked” my father into it. However on our next visit, my wife asked dad a few more times if it was true. He re-confirmed that yes, he had truly accepted Christ in his life.

Looking back, I believe this happened not by chance, but by divine appointment. By God’s grace, my late mother had sent my siblings and me to Sunday School in Banting Methodist Church. She too, had experienced God’s goodness and power when she witnessed her own handicapped brother healed & saved by God in Pandamaran Methodist Church near her home and able to live a normal life. Because of that seed planted, I too experienced God’s grace and love, accepting Christ in 1997.

My father passed on peacefully in April 2020 knowing Jesus – and I truly thank Him for His long plans of mercy working in my family. There is more work to be done and I pray one day all my siblings and their families will come to know and accept Christ Jesus as their Lord & Saviour!