Church Weekly for 18 May 2008
My dear readers,
1. “The love of money … the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:10 )
So says the Word of God. In recent years Singapore has gone through cycles of recession. But the worst was the “Great Depression” of the nineteen thirties which caused global suffering of unemployment, hunger and starvation on an unprecedented scale. Our family had a taste of this bitter pill in our rubber estate in Senai. Read on.
2. The Bubble Which Grew and Grew
At the Fun Fair the happy children screamed with ecstasy, blowing soap bubbles, watching them crazily grow and burst. It was so much fun, and that is what a “Fun Fair” is for.
An over-heated stock market behaves like a large bubble. It crazily grows and sooner or later, it reaches “bursting point.” But unlike a “Fun Fair” nobody laughs when the stock market collapses: there are repercussions affecting families and whole communities. Like bursting bubbles, fortunes suddenly disappear, and overnight “princes become paupers.”
Such a scenario was Wall Street in 1929. A “bull-run” in that decade drove the Dow Index to dizzy heights. “Paper wealth” kept growing! Hopeful investors, bitten by the “get rich quick” bug swelled the ranks of investors and speculators. As long as everybody was buying, the bubble kept growing.
The big question with no easy answer is, “When to sell?” The greed factor kept everyone holding on for the “top dollar” that elusive “best price.” Remember God’s Word in 1 Timothy 6:10 : “The love of money is the root of all evil ...” Who was to know that the misery of unemployment and poverty was about to descend on Planet Earth; all because New York’s stock market collapsed, because people were “money mad”?
During the week ending October 25, 1929, some people decided that it was time to sell. This sent caution ripples through the New York Stock Exchange. People slept over the week-end.
On Monday, October 28 renewed selling drove the market down, sending another alarm signal. This triggered panic selling on Tuesday October 29 and the market collapsed.
Prices plunged, billions of dollars were wiped off the board in trading rooms everywhere. Businesses and factories closed, workers were laid off, thousands of banks collapsed. Unemployment hovered like a spectre over the world scene.
This major global economic disaster, code-named the Great Depression lasted from 1929 through much of the decade of the nineteen-thirties.
Like a giant tsunami tidal wave, the Wall Street collapse sent shock waves around the globe. Wall Street had become the nerve centre of global trade.
3. When Rubber became Rubbish
Like most people, Father was taken by surprise. The suddenness and severity of the slump came as a big shock. Within a short time, rubber became rubbish and “untappable.” From a high of $100 a picul, it fell to just about $10. In Father’s own words: “It wouldn’t even pay the wages of the workers. Why tap?”
Thank God for the good years and accumulated reserves. We drew on these savings during the hard times ahead. Big Sister, Big Brother, and Second Brother enrolled in Singapore schools, lodged with Grandfather (who had been called to pastor the Presbyterian Church in Hougang, Upper Serangoon.)
Father gave orders for a “tightening of the belt.” Observing strict economy the family pulled through the initial years. Father sought help from friends. In quick time, he found out who his real friends were. It was not a very pleasant experience, for to go a-borrowing is to go a-sorrowing. He never knew that money was so expensive and lending was so painful!
In our hour of need, one friend turned out to be a “friend indeed.” Father had known Dr Hu Tsai Kuen for many years. On learning of the family’s plight, Dr Hu rendered instant help and refused repayment. (Dr Hu of Nanyang Clinic in Chinatown was a well known General Practitioner and philanthropist).
4. A Red Sea Experience
Those dark days of dire need drove Father and Mother to their knees before God’s throne of grace. They pleaded thus with God: “Lord, You took the Israelites by a strong hand out of Egypt from the Pharoah’s iron grip. You parted the Red Sea and led two million Israelites across as on dry land. You fed them with manna, the ‘bread from heaven’ forty years. Look down with compassion on us, Your children. You saved us from China, our Egypt, into Senai in Johor, our Promised Land ...”
“Will you now leave us to starve in this Great Depression? Is there not bread for us here in Senai?”
By faith we pleaded with God. We were learning new lessons of believing prayer, to “pray hardest when it is hardest to pray.” By faith, we cast our care upon the Lord, believing that He who called us out of China to Nanyang would surely supply our daily bread.
“Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14 ).
As the story unfolds, we shall see how God answered prayer. For He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20 ). Indeed, we believe and are sure that our God is able.
Meanwhile the Great Depression continued to cast its shadow over the world. Oftentimes, we thought of the Israelites gathering their daily manna in the wilderness. Sometimes we wished that Peach River Garden’s ten thousand rubber trees could produce manna and not latex!
Ahead were days of severe testing before God’s help would come. Until then, we learnt the hard lesson of patience and trust.
Testing Time is Trusting Time
Gloomy the days when sun was low,
Solemn the silent untapped trees,
Dumb witnesses of human woe;
Father and Mother on their knees
For mercy pleading,
Latex not flowing,
Rubber not selling,
But our God still rules
Over everything.