Saturday 24 December 2011

Decorations are go!

xmastree2011


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Photobucket
Buddy: tree trimmer extraordinaire! Elf never gets old.


An incredible thing just happened. My Mom and I (two ladies with laughable upper body strength) were at Ikea trying to figure out how we were gonna get our bigass Christmas tree in a taxi and lug it home without getting all scratched up like the year before, when this very tall and pleasant middle-aged man came up to us and started talking about the trees, how to choose em and how he used to do this all the time back in Canada or somewhere. 

So there I was, frantically side-eying her with alarm bells going off in my head; survival instincts telling me to back away, back away! and all the while thinking - weirdo or genuinely chivalrous/friendly/helpful guy?? Now I guess I may sound paranoid but this is Singapore and generally people don't just go up to strangers and start chatting, so it's not what we're used to. We don't often come across this particular breed here (to be honest) and so were naturally wary. At least up til today. So anyway the very genial Mr. Stanley then offered to help us to pick out a good tree, saw the trunk for us, load it in his van and drive us home. Seriously? Nobody has ever offered us a favor like that just out of the kindness of their hearts... with no ulterior motives... unless they're trueblue Christians of course. 

Now visions of serial killers, bloodied axes and getting ground up in a wood-chipper started dancing around in my head and I was like 'Papa God, I don't want to die today... is this dude for real or should we run screaming 'bloody murder!'? Right then Mr Stanley goes, "You guys look like nice Christian folks so I thought I'd help you out,"... and that confirmed it for me.  (before we left on our 'mission-trimpossible', we'd prayed and asked God to give us strength to get the tree home, and of course He had a better plan!) So anyway, we accepted Mr Stanley's gracious offer and lived to tell the tale! 

Turns out he wasn't a serial killer or some shady guy, just an excellent Christian brother who God sent as an angel in our time of need. Talk about a Christmas miracle! Thank you Papa God and thank you Mr Stanley, wherever you are! Ain't God just the coolest ever? Jehovah Ezer in the house!

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