Serious Blessing

When God blesses, the unbelievable happens.

Just Tuesday afternoon, a bright and sunny day at that, my friend Crystal called up and asked, "Hey, you wanna go Japan next week?" I went like, "Huh? You mean eat at a Japanese restaurant, right?" She said, "No. Do you want to go to Japan next week?"

I was still in a blur. I mean, how do you respond to a question like that? Besides, I was mired deep in work, re-drafting scripts and profiles, cooking, going to the wet market, doing the housewife gig...sigh.

"So do you want to go or not?" Crystal jolted me back into reality... "We can go watch the premiere of Pirates of the Carribean 3!"

"What??????" I almost shouted over the phone. "Premiere? In Tokyo? Holy Flip! YES!!!"

Turned out Crystal won the grand prize of the Buena Vista-Channel V contest, so both of us are going to the Nippon Budokan to watch Pirates 3, all expenses paid plus Tokyo tour thrown in and meeting the filmmakers and actors in person. Wow!

All that happened at 3pm. Ninety minutes later, I was the last person at the immigration counter renewing my passport. I was 5 minutes late and had to plead and beg them to process my passport that day itself. They did. Then it was a flurry of activities to apply for the visa, plan the trip, reschedule my work, etc etc.

I didn't sleep much for the next two days. This is a serious blessing from God. The visa didn't cost me anything, I discovered Disney has sponsored the entire trip and we needn't worry about a thing! The package tour included accommodation at the 5-Star New Otani Hotel, a day's tour of the city and of course, the red carpet premiere with the main cast of Pirates along with moghul producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Then there is the River Cruise Dinner after the premiere! The entire trip would have cost us more than RM9k each and now we are only paying RM700++ per pax for the airport tax and insurance!

I think I can die.

Just the last couple months there has been steadily mounting pressure from home. Mom fell sick and slipped into hyperchondria, my family seemed to be falling apart in terms of communication and getting along with each other. I started to take care of my mom and to cook. Dad's temper grew from worse to intolerable. Everyone had extra things to do and we are not really taking it too gallantly, I admit. Just when things threathened to boil over, Japan burst into the scene.

My take? God knows our needs, and He knows how much we can take. He knows what we are made of. Just as I was about to break, God came in with a wonderful, unexpected surprise in the form this trip. How He cares! There is no doubt that His hand is in my life - through the crappy times and the good ones. I serve a wonderful, caring and intimate God Who cares deeply and gives the right gifts at the right time.

So now I am furiously printing namecards (gotta pass one to Bruckheimer when I get the chance!), changing money, getting my work stuff outta the way so I can go next week! Not planning to buy anything coz it is too expensive, but definitely gonna take loads of pictures!

How we wish our friends Ivy and Gracey can come with us too!!!!! (They had to work and there were only tickets for two). But they wished us well and asked us to buy a tonne of stuff for them when are there. :)

So there! In less than 48 hours we would be onna plane heading East. Excited. But still got work finish off... and people to meet before flying off.

Life is good.

Because God is great.