I praise You, so wonderfully You made me!

Lord You have probed me, you know me
You know when I sit and when I stand
You understand my thoughts from afar
My travels and my rest you mark
with all my ways you are familiar
Even before a word is on my tongue
Lord you know it all
Behind and before you encircle me
and rest your hand upon me
Such knowledge is beyond me
far too lofty for me to reach

Where can I hide from your spirit
From your presence where can I flee
If I ascend to the heavens, you are there
If I lie down in Sheol, you are there too
If I fly with the wings of dawn
and alight beyond the sea
Even there your hand will guide me
Your right hand hold me fast
If I say "surely darkness shall hide me
and night shall be my light"
Darkness is not dark for you
and night shines as the day
Darkness and light are but one

You formed my inmost being
You knit me in my mother's womb
I praise you, so wonderfully you made me
wonderful are your works
My very self you knew
my bones were not hidden from you
When I was being made in secret
fashioned as in the depths of the earth
Your eyes foresaw my actions
in your book all are written down
my days were shaped, before one came to be

How precious to me are your designs, O God
How vast the sum of them!
Were I to count, they would outnumber the sand
To finish, I would need eternity.

(The Holy Bible - Psalm 139 :1-17)

As usual, my biological clock woke me up at 5.30 am today. Dadi woke up too, wished me a blessed day. Both of us did not have a good sleep, uchu Gap from next door was crying intermittently during the night, it was searingly hot, the fan did not give any relief. I really can't wait for electricity to be connected to our long house so that we can install aircons. We have been spending every weekends for the last month or so in the long house, there's just so much to do. Apart from tending to our sawit, we are also undertaking renovations and maintenance works to our bilik, all set to be ready before Gawai. The renovation fever just caught on with some of our long house residents, all busy with renovations that Rimong the contractor will be kept pretty busy until Gawai. The weather like in most places in Sarawak now, is dry, hot, arid. Naka ia pengangat, bekipas asai ke enda meh. We are also facing shortage of rain water, so each time we pop to Selangau we would bring jerry cans of piped water, courtesy of the gas station. That water is used for cooking and for drinking, dadi buys mineral water by the dozens. For washing, we pump water from our tuai rumah's pegong, which thankfully, is huge and fish-free.

Dadi got up and shortly later turned the generator off. After a brief lie in, I decided to make coffee and as I was coming out of the bedroom, dadi came to the hall way and extended a hand to me. I instantly knew that a big news was coming, as we had been waiting for it since the evening before, right up to when we went to bed at 11 pm. Dadi kissed my forehead and said "You have the best birthday present ever. Our son got a JPA scholarship, I just received the sms from Pippy".

"Thank you Lord, we praise You Lord!". So while darkness was fading to give way to a bright new morn, mom and pop sat down at the dining table and prayed, thanking God for His mercy, His generosity, His vindication, for answering our prayers.

Telephone reception is not good at our long house, we can receive signals at certain spots, outside the bilik. When we managed to speak to the children before we went to bed the previous night, Igat told us he still could not enter the JPA website. The scholarship results was supposed to be available online from 5pm, but it was not until 12 midnight that Igat managed to access the website and discovered that he is successful. He is offered dentistry under JPA's scholarship scheme for studying overseas (Progam Ijazah Luar Negara), but the country is not known yet. We will only know the country when we receive the official notification from JPA.

As dadi said, that is my best birthday present, ever. I told them not to buy me presents, nothing compares to the gift that God bestowed on us today. So Met, here's some pictures of the double celebration tonight, we had dinner at Marco Polo. Pi and Igat bought a cake and Francis the crooner sang a birthday song for me...

Thank you Lord!