Just now, I went to a dance performance with my church friend, Chi Keung.

He's quite a nice guy. I got to know him last year when we were serving in church as ushers together, and we had the same interest-watching classical music concerts.

I got this pair of free tickets for a dance performance, as a bonus for volunteering for the Singapore Arts Festival. So to repay him for recommending me good concerts to go for, I invited him for the dance performance, Amjad.

He has left uni and has been working for 2 years already. He orginally planned to go for this overseas community service project to China. For that trip, he had to pay $400 or so; and raise around $400 from friends, family and people who support that cause.

He only managed to raise 100 dollars after sharing his cause with many people.

In the end, the trip was cancelled, due the various reasons like the Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease, the earthquake and the riots in China.

I feel that it is not easy to raise money at all. You first have to humble yourself to ask for money. I mean, how often is it that we have to ask people for money, and not return it to them? And there's the element of trusting the Lord, that He will provide for us; we shouldn't worry about getting the money.

Anyway, I have 2 other friends, Rachel Lee and Adele, going for a mission trip this July. They will be heading to Melbourne, Australia, to share the Gospel with international students in the universities there. Both of them have problems raising enough to go for their trip. The total amount that they each have to raise is roughly $2000...

I shared their predicament with Chi Keung before the dance performance, and he said he would consider contributing.

We switched from topic to topic, and their predicament was quickly brushed aside.

We then went for the dance performance.

After the lovely performance, it was time to head home. Chi Keung said he needed to go to the ATM. So off we went.

He keyed in $400. And I wondered why he had to redraw so much money at a time. There are always debit cards/NETS to rely on!

Then, he counted the money-and handed it to me. He said:"There, this is for their mission trip."

I was taken aback, shocked, surprised, by his generosity.

Chi Keung said:"I put aside this $400 for my community service project to China, but it was cancelled. So now I hand the $400 to you, to contribute to missions."

I was very touched by what he did. Totally humbled by his words, his givings.

He continued saying:"There's a verse in the Bible which says 'give, and you shall be given/blessed', and it is always good to give. I'm giving to help spread the Gospel, so it is OK."

How sincere. And I thought that me giving $100 each to them is a lot.
(Yea, he may be working and all, but he could choose not to give. I may be a student and not getting much money, but I can learn to give more than I already am.)

Guess I still have a lot more to learn about giving...=)