THIS IS MY LIFE - 15

15 – FAMILY PRIDE and JOY

We were happily serving the Lord in a joint ministry as husband and wife. Soon we had to learn to make adjustments as the day of the arrival of our firstborn drew near.

After some enquiries we decided that I would have my baby delivered in the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Burma Road because its charges were comparable to the government hospitals. The management was also kind enough to waive the doctor’s delivery fees for ministers of the Gospel.

One Friday afternoon I took the Girl Guides out on a hike. That evening I felt some contractions and checked into the hospital. Our first child did not come till Sunday, 8th May 1960, which happened to be Mother’s Day. My first choice of a name for her had been Grace, but there were so many girls with that name in The Army. My husband was reading the biography of Gladys Aylward, the Little Woman who did a great work in China. So we decided on naming her Gladys LIM Poh Ai (Precious Love in Chinese).

We did not employ the traditional ‘confinement nanny’ – someone to tend to the needs of the new mother and baby. My husband knew how to cook the kind of food needed because he had seen his mother preparing such dishes when his sister gave birth. He made sure that the Corps work such as pastoral visitation of eighteen hours a week and the various activities were not neglected. By the help of God, he managed this, though he also had the oversight of the Boys’ Home while the officers were away on their annual furlough.

Everyone in the corps rejoiced with us. When the Sunday school children first saw Poh Ai they exclaimed “She looks just like a Chinese baby!”
Some time later Lt. Peter Chang passed through Penang travelling from the International Training College in London where he had been trained, and returning home to Korea remarked: “She looks like a Korean baby!” Years later Captain and Mrs. Peter Chang was the Training Principal we met his family – his wife Grace, son John and baby daughter Miriam. We also remarked, “She looks just like a Chinese baby!”

With no elders to guide us, we went by the book – Baby books. She was usually very contented. By the end of three weeks, after the last feed at 10 p.m. she slept right through the night till 6 a.m. Two weeks later, my husband left us to attend the Command’s Anniversary celebrations in Singapore. In his absence I did the Sunday’s meetings with the help of the comrades. The Lord was good and all went well. In fact, when I took her to the baby clinic for a post natal check-up I was persuaded to enter her for a Baby Show organised by the Methodist church in their annual carnival.

As it was a Saturday, we attended the fair, but I had to leave her with Daddy in the afternoon when I returned to the corps for my meetings with the brownies and guides. By the end of our meetings Daddy rushed home for me to return to the show to receive the award. Our baby won first prize in the competition!

A few months after Poh Ai’s first birthday we were informed that CHQ was sending Daddy to London for the spring session of the International College for Officers the following year. He requested to be excused because it was just confirmed that our second baby was due then. Some of our colleague officers chided him for turning down the offer, but CHQ was kind enough to defer his trip for a year.

However, about a month to the due birth date CHQ wanted to farewell us but the same doctor who had delivered Poh Ai, Dr. Odelhyde, advised against it. So it was decided that we would move six weeks after the birth of our second child.

By this time, new officers were appointed to the Boys Home - Captain and Mrs. William Davies. When it was time to check into the hospital the Captain drove us all there. We had to take Poh Ai with us because there was no one else in our home. She slept through it all, oblivious to the world!

Early the next morning our son was born – on 7th March 1962 at 8 a.m. We named him Stephen LIM Thean Hock (Heaven’s Blessing in Chinese.) As he did the first time round, Daddy was the “confinement nanny” again. He was extremely busy as we were under farewell orders. This time he had to pack for a family with two young children. I could not help much because I was trying to cope with two babies, not one. I thought my little girl of twenty two months old was quite grown up till baby brother came! At that time a High Council was being called to elect a new general. She asked if she could be a general too. We told her she could not as she was still feeding on a baby bottle. She did not really understand, but decided to give it up then!
Penang Corps will always have a special place in our hearts because we had very happy term of 2 and a half years service in an almost perfect setting.