New Day

Half a world away feels like half a world away now. Sitting in my basement office here in Singapore I opened Facebook to receive the very sad news that my dear uncle Doug Duncan has lost his battle with Cancer.

Much of my time here in Southeast Asia is about being immersed in a very different world to the one I’m most used to. I eat different food; I’m in a different climate; I see unfamiliar people.

For Doug, he too was immersed in a different world, and by that I don’t mean the world of hospitals and pain, but a world where there will be no more tears, no more pain and no more suffering. He hadn’t just heard the rumours of another world; he had believed those rumours to be absolutely true.

And now he is in that world and we are in this one. And our world is now marked by its own pain – the emotional pain and anguish of loss, but it is also marked by a glimpse of glory.

We don’t often use the phrase ‘promoted to glory’ now, but we should. For a promotion is a reward for effort, a recognition of ability, acknowledgement of achievement. And Doug would be the first to say that his efforts, abilities and achievements were not his own but God’s, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t celebrate his promotion. We do and we will. And we look forward to that day when we too will join him, and his parents, and sing once more as family:

Be present at our table, Lord; be here and everywhere adored;

These moments bless, and grant that we may strengthened for thy service be.

Revisiting New Zealand’s links with Southeast Asia is the topic of my sabbatical while I’m here in Malaysia and Singapore. More information on what I’ll be doing is online here.

You can listen to my interview here about Chinese tourism in New Zealand; it was broadcast on Wednesday 21 September on Radio New Zealand National’s Morning report.