The day after she landed, I called Tante Sofia.  As you all know, we have been praying for her since she suffered a fall in Surabaya which resulted in hip replacement surgery.  To make matters worse, days before she flew back to Los Angeles, she suffered an infection.  We were all wor...

In his book, The Art of Forgiving, Lewis Smedes makes a statement that has stayed with me. He says, “We will always be mucking our way through grace.” The word, “mucking” means filthy with mud. What he means is that in the context of forgiving, we will never have a smooth ride. The road to [...

Marriage is not for the faint-hearted; it is for the strong-hearted. But more than just strong-hearted, marriage is for the big-hearted. Marriage is not only filled with pleasurable experiences, but it can also be filled with unpleasant experiences. Thus, it requires a big heart to accommodate all t...

Due to my work in the seminary, I get to meet a lot of preachers—those who want to become preachers and those who have become preachers.  As a result of knowing some of them on a personal level, I also become aware of the struggles that they go through.  One of them is that there [&helli...

Having been married to Santy for nearly 39 years, I have learned a few things about marriage.  I learned that marriage is hard work.  Anybody who says that marriage is a piece of cake is either a perfect man who can do anything, or is lying, or blind to his spouse’s needs, or simply does...

People say that we will only know the value of something after we are no longer in possession of it. It is true, isn’t it?  One of the most precious possessions that we tend to take for granted is our spouse.  While she was alive, we appreciated her; after she died, we cannot bear the [&...

Last week on Friday, Jesus Our Lord came and took our sister Yulia home.  And last Wednesday, Jesus Our Lord came and took Mr. Tjandra, Sjafy’s father, to his eternal home.  When those whom we love are taken away from us, we cannot help but feel sad.  We miss them because we will no...

We thank God for getting us through tropical storm Hillary; it could have been worse. Most of us only got strong wind and heavy rain, no reported property damage. We can now empathize with our brothers and sisters who live in the South and the Northeast. They do not get tropical storms; they get HUR...

We are bracing for Hillary, tropical storms Hillary, that is. The first tropical storm in 84 years will pass through California, so I heard. The good news is that this storm that began as a hurricane in the South is supposed to have weakened by the time it reaches Los Angeles. Last week fire destroy...

As far as our identities are concerned, we have two choices: We canbe defined by who we were or by who we are. We can be definedby what happened to us and by what we did in the past or by whathappens to us and by what we do today. I hope we are not […]...