God is Full of Surprises

We recently visited Zion Praise Harvest Church pastored by our former Youth Pastor Patrick Chen. This church has a unique regular feature of having members share their  tithes and offerings  testimonies before the offering bag is passed. Here is Yan Jing’s extraordinary adventure shared on the first day of the New Year…

GOD IS FULL OF SURPRISES

Why not Expect the Unexpected?

By Yan Jing Yee

CHALLENGES

2017 has been a financially challenging year for our family. 

From the beginning of the year, we lost a portion of our annual income of $15000 (my PhD scholarship), which is $1250 a month’s income. 

In April, our house got broken into and we lost some possessions which resulted in some major expenses of fixing and securing our house. 

Since then we’ve been living month to month on $0 savings.  In fact, we couldn’t pay our tithes because we didn’t have enough money to live on for a few of those months. 

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom – both Lawrence and I have learnt to work better together in our financial management, in making better decisions and truly learning to live by faith that God will take care of our needs.  Despite having to live conservatively, we were comfortable and never in dire need of anything.  Wonderfully towards the end of 2017, we also managed to pay off all the tithes we ‘owed’. How did that happen?

UNEXPECTED OR EXPECTED

In December God blessed Lawrence with not only a promotion with a salary increment but also a year-end bonus which is quite rare nowadays.  The total amount was well over the $15000 we lost at the beginning of the year.  Although we don’t see the money yet (the increment is only effective this year), God has shown that He is faithful despite us not being very faithful in our giving.  It shows how much God loves us that He gave His whole son to us, not the 10th that is required of us for tithes.

Was there fear?  Yes.  Was there doubt?  Yes.  Were there dreams shattered?  Yes. 

BUT through the year, God has taught us that having faith is not when we fear, doubt or have our dreams shattered.  Faith is the unwavering confidence that God loves us despite what we go through and what we feel.  Although we cannot see the road ahead, we see God. 

As Phil 4:6 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”.

We have experienced this!

Yan Jing and Lawrence have been in Perth for over 15 years and have been married for 7 years.  They have a 4-year-old daughter named Charis and 2 bunnies named Bugs and Lola.  Lawrence is an engineer with a multi-national company Thyssen Krupp and Yan Jing is in the process of submitting her PhD thesis in Pharmaceutical Science.

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