Interests:God, the Bible, Edie (my wife), family, overseas "stuff", RFIC design, RF/microwave related stuff, guitar, football, basketball, working out, heck...anything sports related. Expertise:Proficient in Agilent ADS and Mentor Graphics; working on MATLAB, VB, C, and PSpice.
Proficient in LNA, PA, Mixer, and Oscillator design.
Proficient in English, Cantonese, and speaking English with a Cantonese accent.
Proficient in remembering unncessary information, getting hurt while playing ball, and firing ill-advised 3 pointers (the 25 feet variety) when a simple layup will do.
Also seeking to be proficient in understanding the way how our Heavenly Father loves us. Occupation:Engineering Industry:Engineering
One of the dumbest things I thought I heard when I was in college was, "if you want to see a miracle, you need to put yourself in a position to see or experience one."
And as Lumberg would say, "Yeeeahhh...riiiight."
For years, I had a hard time resolving that first statement outside of things like missions, ministries, relationships, etc. I mean, sure, send me to an unreached people group and see God at work in mysterious ways. But why would I knowingly want to allow myself to get emotionally, physically, spiritually, or mentally plundered just to see a miracle? I dunno...sounds kinda masochistic to me.
But I guess life has a way of creating circumstances where the only way out of those circumstances would be a miracle.
Sometimes, Edie and I are now in the midst of witnessing a miracle. Actually, the simple truth is, given what's happened in the last 4 weeks, our home life could probably be best described as "perpetual chaos with a dash of little miracles thrown in."
Just 5 weeks ago, Edie and I were literally praying - nay, check that - screaming out to God, asking Him for some sort of healing power to manifest itself in Nathan and Gabriel's development. When nothing happened, frankly, it felt like this: God to Bun and Edie...PRAYER REJECTED. Has anyone else felt like that, or is it just us?
We had been praying for 6 months for audible sign that the boys' development was being expedited. Oh, there were a few things here and there, but nothing to get excited about. The boys had less than 10 words in their spoken vocab. Their receptive language seemed o.k., but it was just o.k. They had a short attention span. And they were now well past their 2nd birthday where most kids generally get this ugly formal diagnosis. Simply put, Edie and I were nervous.
Then, it got weird. They got sick again. First it was a cold. O.K...got that one out of the way. Then one day, out of the blue in mid-October, Gabriel woke up from his afternoon nap, played with us for about 10 minutes, then crumpled to the ground whining and crying. Edie picked him up and uttered those yucky words: "Uh-oh...he feels warm." I took him to the hospital the next day to get checked out, and sure enough, he came back positive for H1N1. We rid him of the fever within 36 hours with a good dose of Tamiflu, but 24 hours later, Nathan came down with H1N1. Tamiflu, once again, did the trick, but Edie and I were reliving those horrible few days during the summer when they were dealing with seizures. We had heard horror stories of kids who came down with H1N1 and then were hospitalized within 48 hours.
Almost immediately after the flu cleared, Gabriel came down with a cold and an ear infection. There's nothing more difficult than dealing with a cranky kid who can't communicate what what's wrong with him while quarantining him so his brother can't catch it. Since Edie and I were dealing with colds at the same time, trying to care for two kids at the same time became increasingly more difficult. I believe it was at that time, Edie and I were, how you say "at the end of our respective ropes".
Then the unthinkable happened.
Nathan was playing with some colored plastic donuts with the educational aides one Tuesday morning before his therapy session; I was in the kitchen preparing their snack when I heard, "Boo."
I whirled around as his aide screamed, "He spoke!! He said something!!" WHAT THE HE--?! Nathan, what did you just say?!
"Boo." "Rhe..." "Whewow."
I stared at him and the color of the plastic donuts. Blue. Red. And yellow. My son was speaking. And he understood what he was saying. The entire morning, he ran around with the donuts, pointing to them, and speaking to anyone who would give him attention. "Boo." "Rhe..." "Whewow."
Those three words have morphed into 50 more over the past 5 weeks. "Nai-nai" for milk. "Nay-Nay" for Nathan. "Poop" for...well, you know. "More". "Uh-oh". "Wow". "Whoa!!!" "Up".
And as Nathan has started speaking, Gabriel decided to follow suit. "More". "Daddy". "Momma". "Edie". He can't say "Bun", so he thinks my name is "Bubba". :) This past Sunday, he spit out 10 new words in 12 hours or so. He said "Bye" for the first time when asked to wave bye-bye to his godmother.
Are Edie and I witnesses to two little miracles before our very eyes? Will they reach all their milestones before they turn 5? Can this really be happening?
Are we out of the woods yet? No, we're not. Their motor skills still need help; their sensory integration is still in the works. But the Father is still pulling out all stops and mending what was broken. Skeptics might say, "Oh come on...they were probably o.k. to begin with." Or "it's probably just the therapy." To that, I say...read the initial medical report, and one will see two kids who were exhibiting some severe spectrum-related symptoms. And most teachers will say that it's rare for children to make such rapid progress after just a few months of therapy. There has got to be a God-component involved here.
Edie and I are still praying for two miracles. Our core beliefs are still constantly challenged. But we do believe that God can engineer miracles. It's His nature. It's what He does. It's how He gets the attention and credit rather than folks like us.
Maybe that dude in college was right. Gotta be in a position to need a miracle before you can see or experience one. If that's true, I'm gonna do my best to let God continue to take over. I've had enough control over this situation to last me a lifetime.
Time to interrupt my silence with a post.How do people find the time to update their blogs so often?
It’s been four months since I’ve woken up.Four months since I’ve had to finally face the real world.Four months since I had to make a decision on whether or not this God I worship is true or not. Four months since my life got flipped upside down.Four months since I arrived at adulthood.
Up until then, as much as I hate to admit it, my life had been easy.My family took care of a lot of needs in my life.And some wants.My education was pretty much taken care of.The folks even pitched in for grad school when I needed a bit of help. I had a relatively stable upbringing (along with all those great Asian dysfunctions!).Felt like God had slowly begun to piece together a plan for my life as I looked abroad.I married a great girl.Settled down to start a family.Began to dream big dreams with her, for our family, for our two boys.The most pressing questions seemed to be, “Where does God want us next?How does He want us to live out His calling on our lives?”
Well, those questions got quickly placed on the backburner. It got started after I gave a talk to my old college fellowship at Cal Poly…and then things got worse from there.
Mid-April: I received an e-mail from my dad notifying me that he was schedule to have cancer surgery…possibly cancer in the stomach.
Late April: while tending to my poor dad who looked like bloated water balloon in his post-op condition, I received a phone call at the hospital Berkeley from Edie saying Nathan and Gabriel completely bombed their early development assessment with a pediatric developmental specialist and were given a soft diagnosis of being on the autisim spectrum (possibly PDD-NOS).
Early May: my suspicious mother-in-law decided to stop by our home unannounced to see how our caretaker was handling the kids only to find the house darkened, both kids in their cribs, music playing in the background, and the caretaker upstairs in her room.At 8:50 in the morning.Can someone please spell N-E-G-L-E-C-T?
Mid-June: the Santa Clara County Office of Education confirmed the doctor’s suspicions that both boys were possibly on the autism spectrum and would require early intervention.That being said, both kids scored “borderline”, but they qualified for a full range of services only because there was a formal medical report outlining a potential diagnosis.
Late June/early July: what we thought was just a typical stomach virus turns into the scariest day of my life.Both Nathan and Gabriel were suffering from vomiting spells and diarrhea; a day or two into their symptoms, Gabriel’s eyes rolled back as he began seizing up while Edie was trying to feed him water.We quickly called 911, and the paramedics were at our home in 90 to 120 seconds.I was barfing a whole lot that day as well.Looking at a lifeless Gabriel on the stretcher while the paramedics searched frantically for his pulse, I thought I had lost my little boy.But the worst was yet to come…after I arrived at the Kaiser – Santa Clara E.R. with Nathan, he began seizing up.An hour after his first seizure, both boys seized up at the same time with their 2nd seizures prompting the E.R. to immediately admit them to the PICU per Kaiser’s policies.At the hospital, I was in and out of the bathroom barfing all over the place with occasional fetal curls on the bathroom floor due to the pain.As it turns out, their seizures were due to an awful stomach virus (that they gave me).I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.
Late July/early August: just as the boys were slowly getting back on their feet, they were stricken with another strange virus called herpangina.Mild fever of about 100 degrees for about 7-10 days coupled with some awful blisters and lesions in the back of their mouth.The lesions prevented them from eating, drinking, and sleeping because of the pain.Edie had the foresight (and I have no idea how she had the strength) to wake up every morning at 3 am to force feed them water.The pediatrician later told us that had Edie not kept them hydrated, both boys would’ve wound up back in the hospital with a severe case of dehydration.And given their recent seizure history, they could’ve seized up again.That’s enough to make any human being old.
These past 4 months or so have given me some scary perspective on life.First off, I was like, WTF?In my own human weakness, I couldn’t help but ask, why is all this crap happening?Never mind me…but the boys!They’re not even 2 years old, and it felt like they had endured more than some people in their lifetimes.Where’s all this stuff going?And I finally asked questions I thought I would never ask, “God…where are You in all of this?Do You even exist?Are You here?Are You listening to our cries for help and mercy?”
Being the good engineer that I am, I came up with one satisfying conclusion after another as I tried to provide myself with some sort of “debug-post-mortem-process”.But that satisfaction would last for about another day, and I’d be faced with another faith crisis all over again.
Let’s face it, once again…my life has been easy. Even my faith has been easy.I’ve had a pack of “Christian” answers ready to explain life’s situations away…until I had to start walking through those situations. As my friends JC and IC put it, “God suddenly became a mystery.”
All my answers about God, the Father, were in fact Christian.That’s it.They sound good; they’re even theologically correct!Things like, “God is allowing this to happen so that my faith would deepen.”Or “Let’s look up Romans 8:28 and go from there.”Or “I had to start relying on God because I was a case of arrested development, and I was used to just relying on past experiences.”
But where I would’ve told people that stuff in the past, I had to admit to myself that it sounded like utter bulls--- to me.
These past four months, I’ve actually doubted the existence of God in my life, on this earth, and in people’s lives.Questions that non-believers would normally ask, I’ve asked those questions.And let me tell you, those were probably the first, true, honest questions I’ve asked of God in my entire life.During my faithless moments, I envied those whose faith in God seemed so rock-solid.
I spent hours reading the Bible, testimonies of believers who had walked similar paths before me.I searched the Bible for clues to God’s character.
One night, while Edie was out in Atlanta attending the same healing retreat I attended last year (and the one that turned me from being a Christian to a believer), this infinite God suddenly became very binary.
Either He exists or He doesn’t.Either the Bible is true or it’s a vast collection of hokey-pokey stories.Either Jesus’ claims about Himself are true or He’s lying his a-- off.Either God’s promises about His character and what He can accomplish (Great Healer, true Father, etc.) are true, or He’s a fraud.
To put it succinctly, either He is…or He isn’t, and He’s full crap.This is either true, or it’s false.
When Edie returned from the retreat, she was a new person.Bursting with joy and confidence in God’s ability to turn around even the crappiest of situations.And she reminded me that God’s not happy that all this stuff is happening.He’s grieving and mourning with us; He’s not allowing this stuff to happen JUST so that we could deepen our relationship with Him.In fact, that perspective would be theologically incorrect because it goes against who He really is and what He stands for.Deepening our relationship with Him might be the end result, but that’s never the main thrust.When Adam and Eve screwed up in Genesis 3 (read: sin), the Biblical version of Pandora’s box opened up, and we’ve been dealing with it ever since.As my friend JC said to me one day, death and disease were NEVER a part of His original plan.
But the crap we go through in this world is basically an opportunity for God to show off…to show that this world is still very much within His control.And He can pull anything off.He can heal our boys.He can give new life to my dad.He can make sure that our finances are in order now that our fixed costs have skyrocketed to ridiculous proportions.He can ensure that our family relationships are sound and healthy.He can pull of miracles in our family.
He can do this.Why?Because He said so.Either He is or He isn’t.And all I have to do is believe…or don’t believe.
Jesus had this interesting quote found in Luke 4:24, "...no prophet is accepted in his hometown..." Kinda like, it's hard to go home.
I returned to an official CCF event for the first time in nearly 10 years this past weekend. (My quick stop-over in April 2007 didn't count...) 10!! For those who aren't in the know, when I graduated in March 1998, I left Cal Poly and CCF under a cloud of some deep pain. My "big sister", AJ died in a car accident in Sept '97, and her death was one of the most difficult and darkest times of my life. In fact, the 18 months following her death...sheesh, for the last 10 years, I didn't remember a whole lot. I literally had no recollection of my own graduation ceremony.
A few months ago, my old college fellowship from Cal Poly, CCF (Chinese Christian Fellowship), asked me to be the main speaker at their annual CCF Retreat (formerly the CCF Camping Trip). After some prayer, I graciously accepted (I mean, what an honor! Who gets to go back to their old stomping grounds to teach and minister to people who have a similar college DNA as you?). The theme was "Brokenness...Only You" out of Psalm 73:25, 26. When asked to speak, I thought I would only be giving 1 message (our old format had two messages given by two different speakers). Guess things had changed since I graduated! I was asked to give four messages. FOUR!! This was going to be a challenge for me...I've only given a message here and a message there, so four messages was definitely going to challenge me (given my time constraints with my family and my job).
During my sermon/message prep, it almost felt like I was back in college or grad school again. Late nights. Hurling my football into the air and catching it on its way down while praying. Outlining my messages. Manuscripting them late into the night...going to work on little or no sleep. Praying. Researching for hours on the cultural context of a passage. Trying to break down difficult theological concepts into neat, digestible ones. Praying. Asking Edie for input. Did I mention praying?
This was, by far, one of the most challenging things I felt I would undertake. It wasn't so much the actual prep work (that's always challenging, but it's also extremely fun!) But I was nervous about going "home". How would I see my old stomping grounds? The last few memories of my time in CCF and Cal Poly were painful. In some ways, up until the drive down to Lopez Lake with Edie, I was still scarred by the pain of Aileen's departure.
Returning to the "scene of the crime" literally melted the ice cube that had been in my heart. Standing in front of roughly 70 college students on a chilly, blustery Friday night, sharing my testimony of how I spent 19 years as a Christian before becoming a believer just this last August sand blasted away whatever pain was left in my heart from that tragic moment nearly 12 years ago. Their willingness and eagerness to actually hear the story of God, the Father in this poor boy's life provided me lift for the next 3 messages. I was still pretty drained after each talk (in fact, I've heard that after each message, if you're pooped out, that means you've emptied yourself into that talk), but it was a good "drained". I don't know if the students will ever know what they did for me...or how God used them to bring one final bit of closure to a part of my life that pained me for years.
Yeah, I guess a "prophet can go home with honor", after all. Though I think I'd be stretching the truth if I considered myself to be a "prophet". Maybe a fortunate servant is more like it...
Some thoughts from the retreat:
1. A lot more people...WAAAAYYY more people. Final tally was around 74, I heard. Back in our days, if our attendance was 40 people, we'd be ecstatic!
2. CCF Retreat always means the best food comes out. Steak for dinner on Sat night? AWESOME!!
3. Someone got baptized. WOW!!! Phenomenal!
4. They actually had a sound system!! Man! I still remember if we had an electric keyboard with decent speakers, we'd be jumping up and down for joy.
5. The food was just awesome.
6. This was my 6th retreat/camping trip. It was also the coldest one I had ever attended!
7. CCF was very gracious to give Edie and I our own tent. It was nice and toasty inside.
8. I wish I had more time to talk to people...the few people I did talk to. Boy, they were waaay more mature than me when I was their age! I was impressed.
9. It helps to have stable leadership for an extended period of time. Kudos to JH for following the Lord's lead on this one. During my 4 1/2 years in CCF, we had 3 separate staff advisors. What kind of consistency is that? Once one of them left, the group had to learn how to adjust to the next one.
10. I really enjoying prepping for messages and giving them. That being said, I'm also extremely rough around the edges and require quite a bit of improvement!
11. We have this thing at work called "lessons learned". Being the main speaker felt like me sharing my "lessons learned" over the past 10 years...and some of my lessons learned weren't pretty.
12. I lost a crankbait while fishing. Stupid lure got snagged on my first cast. Dumb, dumb, dumb!!
13. Edie's testimony was just awesome!! So proud of her!
14. This current group of CCFers apparently is going to keep on producing awesome cooks!
15. I was asked some excellent, thought-provoking questions.
16. College ministry is neat.
17. I really, really, really wish I had more energy to hang out with the group during their "activities" time! Am I really getting that old?
18. I got bit by a tick and had to go see the doctor once I returned home. Hopefully, there won't be any Lyme disease to speak of.
19. Thankfully, I was the 2nd-to-oldest CCF alumni present! :)
20. I told a few engineering/nerd jokes. And I was surprised at how many people actually laughed at them!
21. I'll never, ever, ever get tired from giving the talk on justification. Never.
22. I hope to be able to contribute to this group as I get older...prayer, financial, relationships, whatever. Don't matter.
23. And finally, did I mention anything about the food? Immaculate stuff!
I've decided on both. For the last couple of months, I've been partial to Facebook because it's just easier to simply slap a sentence or two in the status field. But that was before I discovered that I could post stuff in the "Notes" section. So I'll try to double-blog.
I've also decided to change my blog up a bit. Once Nathan and Gabriel came into the world, I started staying on top of the news a bit more. I've always kept up with the news (the only shows my parents would let me watch growing up were the CBS Evening News and the A-Team), but being a father has made me that much more cognizant of how the world is affecting my new family. So I'll try and comment on the world a bit more with a dash my own life thrown in there. Edie's always wondering why I sometimes don't let my cynical side out because she finds it funny. So here goes...
Nadya...
By now, everyone knows who Nadya Suleman is. You know, the 33 year-old mother who ended up having octuplets living in SoCal. When the news first broke, I was pretty fascinated. Being a dad of twins, I'm always interested how other parents of multiples handle life. I mean, having 2 at a time is hard work. Trust me. I can't imagine life with 8 kids!
But after the births, the media backlash began to hit. The LA Times, I believe, first reported that she was a single mother who already had 6 kids (3 of whom suffer from mental disabilities), had no income save about $165,000 from disability/workers comp due to a work-related back injury, and lived with her divorced parents in a ramshackle of a house in Whittier. And then another report surfaced saying that she receives $490/month in food stamps. My goodness, what would possess a person to extend one's brood by 8 when personal resources are already lacking?
First I was disturbed. But now, I'm angry. She granted Ann Curry from NBC News an interview so that she could respond to some of the criticism. Curry's questions were pretty tough. Suleman's answers bordered on delusional. I won't go through a full play-by-play account, but I really believe this woman is just whacked. When it was pointed out that she had no income, she replied that she is providing for her kids, and they don't feel like they're struggling. But when pressed some more, she responded that she would stop her "life for them and be present with them. And hold them. And be with them. And how many parents do that? I'm sure there are many that do, but many don't. And that's unfortunate. That is selfish."
EX-SQUEEZE ME?
O.K...let me just give her the benefit of the doubt that she's unaware of how difficult parenthood is (even though she already has six kids). Does she realize how difficult it is to raise children nowadays? One kid at a time is hard. Your world slows down. Certain things get put on hold. Throw in 2 at a time, and EVERYTHING stops. Not just "certain things". I made some mistakes early on in my kids' lives that screwed me over. For awhile, I was working so much and giving my time to things outside of family that right after Thanksgiving, Nathan and Gabriel didn't recognize me anymore. The wake-up call was loud enough that I had to re-align my priorities and re-budget my life so that I no longer provided my family with emotional, spiritual, and physical leftovers. (Side note: that decision was one of the best I ever made in my life; the side-effect was that my relationship with God strengthened as well).
Lady, you wanna hold them and be present for them? Awesome; I commend you on that. Really, I do. But back to reality, sister. How are you going to financially provide for them? Let's face it; it's a cruel world with the economy the way it is. I don't doubt that she's a loving person, but she's also narcissistic (I won't even go into that part when she was asked why she wanted a big family) with a loose grip on reality. It's also been reported that she allegedly suffers from depression and some other mental issues.
It's so stinkin' hard to split my time between two kids. I spend time with Nathan, and I feel like I'm giving Gabriel my leftovers. I spend time with Gabriel, and I feel like I'm shorting Nathan. Back and forth. With 14 kids, how will she provide the emotional support for all of them? Especially the three who require a little more assistance because of the disabilities.
Does this woman even know how much it'll take to raise 14 kids? Surely she knows what it's like because she has 6 of her own (did I mention she's a single mom with no stable income?). When our little guys came into the world, Edie and I discovered that our initial fixed costs went through the roof. Extreme budgeting in the Lau household is now en vogue.
It also ticks me off because she claimed she wasn't on welfare, but she's living off the aforementioned food stamps. That means I'm paying for her livelihood. Look, I have no problem helping people who really need help. It's the responsible, Christ-loving thing to do. But when my tax money goes to someone who's irresponsible, irrational, and border-line delusional, I say "hold on". Handing out money to people who repeatedly make dumb choices and live in a world of denial would be irresponsible on my part. When she provided Ann Curry the blanket, pat answer "God will provide", it made me want to puke. I CANNOT stand people who invoke God's name and His provision to meet their own selfish needs.
Corporate sponsors, who in the past would line up and provide donations to parents of multiple births, are reportedly clenching their fists on this one. Good for them.
For those of you who think I'm being too harsh on her, please understand this. I sort of know what kid of predicament she's in with this multiple birth. I empathize with her in the sense that I know how difficult life will be. But I also have little sympathy for someone who decides to meet her needs regardless of the consequences. Yes, we had a multiple birth. But it wasn't by choice. Suleman chose to have MORE kids even though she was already a single mother of SIX. Besides, do you know the probability of a Chinese-American couple having identical twin boys? Edie did some research on it, and trust me...it's astronomically low.
That being said, I also think the fertility doctor needs to be investigated. Does this cross some sort of ethical boundary? This situation must also give the IVF community a black eye.
Still, amidst all the criticism (throw my comments in there as well), I've been going through some theological wrangling of my own. Yes, providing for her family will be difficult. Yes, she made a stupid decision. But in God's economy, He KNEW that these kids were going to come into the world. He has absolutely NO DESIRE to see these kids grow up and live in a dysfunctional environment. He still BELIEVES that these children are a gift and are to be treated as such. He has a CHRIST-ORDAINED destiny for each of them. He ALLOWED this woman to be their mother. But can she steward the responsibility of both motherhood and fatherhood (since the father isn't present) appropriately? For the kids' sake, I really hope so. The wrangling continues.
BTW, this story has shown that the world may be coming to and end sooner than later. Why? Both Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly agreed that her decision was a bad decision. Olbermann and O'Reilly agreeing? Maybe that should be the news...
Last year, as part of my annual WCC fast, I gave up ice cream. It was difficult, but manageable. Manageable enough that after some prayer, I decided to extend it for all of 2008. But when summer time rolled around, and the temperatures went up, I found myself salivating every time I saw ice cream. I'm proud to say, however, that I didn't take a bite of Edie's ice cream birthday cake from BR31 even though I was tempted at times.
I finally broke my ice cream fast on 1/11 with some Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip. Never had ice cream tasted so good! :)
Well, with one fast over with, I thought about another one. And much to my dismay, I sensed I needed to fast from soft drinks. Specifically highly caffeinated ones like Mountain Dew. For those who know me and my college stories, this fast is going to take a lot of prayer and surrender on my part. I'm not joking. I'm not exactly a big soft drink drinker, but when I get tired and wasted from work, I would go to the vending machine, pop in some coins, and grab a Mountain Dew...or three (just to make sure I could make it through the day). It was that easy!
In addition to my annual WCC fast, I felt I needed to do it for health reasons as well. I'm not getting any younger, so I figured it would be good to break off the excess sugar. For the past 5 years, my blood-glucose level has been close to pre-diabetic levels, so I'm sure the sugar found in these drinks probably isn't helping matters. Also, I'd go on these 4-5 day Mountain Dew binges, and once they were over with, I'd find myself dealing with awful headaches (probably from my body craving the caffeine).
The worst part about this? This means that I can't have ice cream sodas for another year!
Register Soon!
For those who haven't done so, please pray about registering for WCC this year! Check out the website for more details! Should be a great conference!
