From Success to Significance

A Couple of Photos

2006-11-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

I am now in LA taking a nice break before returning to the reality of everyday life. 2 photos are attached here. The left one is a picture of the three people who drove me to the airport in the morning yesterday - Manuel, Laura and Oscar. The right one is a picture of the people who join me regularly for a time of Bible study on Sundays, together with the youths who usually meet up together on Saturdays. Edgar and his family were late that day, German and his family were not around as they had to take care of Germancito at a therapy session, and several kids from Rosa's family, as well as the photographer for the day Lydia are not in the picture as well. But it is about as complete a picture as I can get, as our adults do not come together very often with the youths for the informal bible study sessions.

A Week Passes By So Fast!

2006-11-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

It is amazing how quickly time passes by! Today, as we went jogging with Oscar in the evening, it transpired that a week had passed by so quickly.

The earlier part of the week was spent trying to confirm my air tickets and Aili's air tickets back to Singapore. I finally managed to confirm mine at a reasonable price. As Aili's ticket is for travel during the festive season, the prices are generally steep, and so I decided to say a little prayer before I started to check on the internet. Surprisingly, I found a ticket with a relatively good airlines that was very reasonable priced for a festive season travel. What was even more amazing was that the next day, when I called the ticketing office, I was told that I had booked a route combination that is not allowed according to the rules, but the ticketing system had gone crazy for a short while, and had actually accepted my "illegal" reservation! I was simply lost for words when the lady told me over the phone that this was the first time that their system had gone bonkers for this year, but naturally, they agreed to honor the price in my "illegal" reservation!

On Friday, our professionals came over for our meeting as usual. Oscar came to our house very early in the morning, had breakfast with me, and then cooked a Peruvian dish called "picante de cuy" (it means hot and spicy guinea pig) together with me, although we substituted guinea pig with chicken. We then celebrated the birthday of one of the youths, Kiara, in the afternoon, together with Laura and a few other youths in our core committee, as well as Karen, a professional who dropped by during her lunch hours. In the evening, we served this dish to the professionals as well. They enjoyed this dish very much. Amazingly, the professionals came again on Saturday, and at least 2 new professionals volunteered to teach English and other subjects to our youths in our youth club, and to help out in other projects. One of them even came and joined us for our Sunday morning get-togethers!

I was amazed by the transformation that we have seen in some of our young professionals. On Saturday evening, Oscar travelled an hour to visit a youth, Danny, who had not been coming to join us for a while, and he spent time with the youth until almost 1am, past midnight. The youth was so touched that he came back to join us for our Sunday morning get-together this week!

We had quite a big turn-out for our Sunday morning get-together this week. But it was even more heartening to see not just the numbers, but also the involvement of our regulars. People like Oscar, Karen and Laura were automatically going to talk to the newcomers and making them feel at home! They even started to share about their personal life stories to the newcomers! The older folks have also started to gel together to a large extent. Being Christians, they are calling one another over the week and praying for one another. They are also working together to organize events, including the logistics and the cooking, to serve the younger people around. It is a truly touching sight to see people serving one another and helping one another.

Over the week, a friend German called me up. He called to thank us for our prayers for him, and he was also very grateful that some of the people in our older group have been calling him up from time to time to cheer him up, and some of the youths have been calling up his son regularly. His son Germancito has improved tremendously since suffering the bad accident last year, and he currently has cognitive control of his mind again, although he needs to go through therapy to recover control over his muscular and motor movements. Nevertheless German is looking forward to the day that his family can join us regularly for our Sunday gatherings once again!

A week may have passed by quite quickly, but the heartwarming memories that have come to pass over the week will stay with me for a long time to come.

Meeting with Professionals

2006-11-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

This was my article yesterday. Wonder why it got self-deleted from my blog!

Today, we had our Friday meeting for young professionals again. It was a good time, as many of the people who came had come for previous sessions. We had altogether 8 professionals today (including Karen and Oscar), and all of them have committed themselves to coming back again next Friday, and to set aside Friday evenings for a get-together session of snacks and discussions. Oscar helped me to cook the Szechuan chicken wings today, while Karen helped us with the washing up of some of the plates after the meeting was over. They are both coming again tomorrow to help us with a sex education seminar for our youths, and then on Sunday again to join us for our Sunday morning gatherings. It is quite amazing how busy young professionals can still find time to be committed to something outside of their work! There must be something about what we are doing here in Peru that is giving them a sense of fulfillment that their work cannot give them.

The good thing about meeting up with a group of professionals is that they can all speak English, and there is much less of a cultural gap between professionals in Peru and professionals in Singapore. We now have to plan out a series of discussion themes for our Friday get-togethers.We were all a little tired at the end of everything, but nonetheless somewhat excited about how our professional group is finally beginning to take shape.

This week has been a little bit packed with its highs and lows for us. We had a holiday on Wednesday, and so we enjoyed ourselves with some nice crispy crab-claws and lychee agar-agar. However, Thursday was a nightmare for me, as I had to send out my laptop for repair as it encountered some bugs. Fortunately, none of my data was lost, and I only had to re-install some programs again. As a result of my laptop problems, I had to cancel my lunch appointment on Thursday.I have also been busy trying to confirm my air ticket back to Singapore. It is always a hassle trying to book your flight back. It seems like the most probable route will take me via Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

Sexual Education Seminar for the Youths

2006-11-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

Today we held a seminar on sexual education for the youths. The mum of one of our youths is a professional in the health sector, and she kindly offered herself to give a short talk to our youths, who listened rather attentively to the talk and had many questions to ask. Karen also invited one of her friends, Miriam, to come and help us out. Oscar contributed as one of the panelists as well, and spoke from the perspective of a guy.

Another lady Giselle also visited us in the afternoon today. She is a young professional who works as an accountant with the Accountant-General Office in Peru. Aili and I spoke with her for almost an hour, while the sexual education talk was going on. She expressed her interest to volunteer with us and to learn English with us. We told her that our NGO is a non-religious and non-political organization, and the activities are non-religious in nature, and the members included both Christians and non-Christians. However, we told her that Aili and myself, as well as Delia, Julian and Serene, are Christians and we believe that many good values to guide our lives can be found in the Bible. Upon hearing that we are Christians, she started to get rather excited, and told us about how she received Jesus Christ 8 years ago. We told her that we usually gather together with a few friends on Sunday mornings to study the Bible together and fellowship together. It is a South American culture to have parties or get-togethers in the weekends to take a break from your work. For us, our weekend "get-together" takes place on Sunday mornings, where we sing some songs together, share about our lives with one another, help one another to find out more about the Bible, and even celebrate birthdays together. Well, she heard enough about the fun we have on Sunday mornings to decide to come and join us tomorrow morning!

The past couple of weeks have been a little tiring. I think it is about time we go out for another great celebration together! Celebrations form an integral part of South American life. When things are going well, we celebrate the success. When things are not going so well, we celebrate so as to encourage ourselves!

A Visit to Jockey Plaza

2006-10-31T21:15:00.000-08:00

Our domestic helper and gardener came to our house today for their once-a-week touch-up of our house. We also signed the renewal of the lease for our house today, and also met up with a NGO that is a potential partner for our ImpACTS project next year.

Tomorrow is a public holiday in Peru. So, we decided to go out tonight with our friends Karen and Oscar, and Jose, a Christian psychologist who is a friend of Karen. We had dinner at a chicken outlet in Jockey Plaza, the largest shopping mall in Peru, before adjourning to a cafe for some coffee and fruit juice. We were hoping to catch a movie show as well, but none of the movies appealed to us, so we just went into a bookshop after our time at the cafe, where I bought a couple of magazines to read over the holiday.

In one of the magazines "Business in Peru - October edition", there was a special report on the profile of managers in Peru. Some statistics based on a survey of 1,537 Peruvian managers in 2006 include the following:

The typical Peruvian manager stays in a company for 4.1 years on average
The typical Peruvian manager works on average 11 hours a day
18.4% of the Peruvian managers feel a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in their jobs, while 69.3% feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled

It is a rather telling sign that the majority of the managers feel a sense of lack of fulfillment. Clearly, remuneration and status alone cannot bring about a sense of fulfillment to a person's work. I am quite certain that laziness will lead to a man's ruin eventually, but addiction to work is the opposite extreme that many people in this postmodern age often swing to. Many people jump into the heat of the rat race and begin running without taking a moment to reflect on whether they are running on the right track, only to discover at the end of the journey that they are no closer to the finishing line, and have instead wandered into some limbo that is both eeriely lonely as well as devastatingly devoid of meaning.

Before we join the hordes of modern work addicts who have aimlessly run off the main running tracks of life, we should take a moment to step out of the cauldron of activities, and reflect on the course that we are taking in our lives. What is the defining purpose of our lives, and is it a purpose that takes on an eternal and timeless perspective that is bigger than our personal ambitions? Is our work moving along in parallel with the advance of this purpose, or is it merely touching the purpose from a tangential perspective? Socrates once said, "The unreflected life is not worth living." Perhaps it is time for all of us to take stock of our lives once again.

World Challenge 2006

2006-10-30T19:02:00.000-08:00

This is a view of the nice beaches that we can find in Lima. Peru is famous for its beaches. This is a view of one of the less beautiful beaches, a shot that I captured from the Larcomar shopping mall in Miraflores about a month ago.

Today I had a chance to briefly browse through last week's Newsweek Magazine. I chanced upon an interesting article about 2 finalists in the World Challenge contest that is organized by the Shell company. The contest is about organizations that are making maximum social impact in global communities through innovative entrepreneurial means. The winner would receive a grant of USD 20,000. So far, 12 finalists have been chosen, and the Newsweek magazine would be highlighting 2 every week. One of the finalists is the company "Cards from Africa", started by a Bristish expatriate and a Rwandan artist in 2004. The company markets greeting cards made by a poor Rwandan community to shops around the world, and it now provides a steady income for 40 young Rwandans. Apart from providing employment, profits from the company are also channeled towards helping orphans in social projects in Rwanda.

As I read the article, my mind shifted to our current scene in Peru. The "Cards from Africa" program seems very similar in concept to our "YES to Education" project for the youths. Here we are also teaching the youths entrepreneurial skills in order to enable them to raise funds for their education. Unfortunately, we are not a finalist in the contest, but if we had submitted our project earlier, we might have been one of the finalists!

Starting Project "Healthy Lifestyle"

2006-10-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

We finally had a chance to re-start our project "Healthy Lifestyle" again today. We went for a jog around the park near to our house in the evening, and our friend Oscar joined us as well. This morning, Oscar brought his mum to join us for our regular Sunday morning meetings. She got the chance to try our "sweet potato" soup dessert. She enjoyed her time with us and would be inviting her other sons to join us for our Sunday morning get-togethers.

Still on the theme of a healthy lifestyle, I realize that I have not been eating too much grilled red meat of late. Most of the food that I eat consists of either fish or chicken. Lunch consisted of fish soup and a Chinese cucumber dish cooked with some beef slices, cooked for us by the owner of a Chinese restaurant himself, a 50-something Chinese whom we have come to establish a rather good relationship with over the past few months. In the evening, Aili and I had a bowl of fish porridge each for dinner, while Delia has a bowl of fruits as her stomach was not feeling that well. We also took some time to prepare some crab mayonaisse for breakfast tomorrow morning. We also took the chance to watch a DVD together - a comedy called "Super Nacho".

This coming Wednesday will be a public holiday in Peru. I think they are celebrating Halloween. It will be a nice break, and we are planning to go out for a movie together with 2 of our friends Karen and Oscar on Tuesday night.

Launch of our youth project

2006-10-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

Laura is talking to our neighbor who is keen on organising a jewelery party for her well-heeled friends in support of the project to raise funds for the education of the youths.

Some of the professionals who came for the presentation by the youths. Next to Aili is my friend Luis, a business consultant with one of the biggest consulting firms in Peru and who has worked for several years in Mexico and the United States. Next to Luis is Karen, a marketing manager with a multinational company in Peru, and who has been very committed in working with us to fulfill the same vision. Next to Karen is Manuel, a consultant who has just returned from his work in Korea. On the other side of the chairs are some of our other friends, including a journalist, an accountant and a businessman. Delia and Oscar are standing behind. As you can see from the picture, Oscar is almost like one of us now, and he looks more like one of the hosts than one of the guests!

Some of the cars today. There was no more parking space left in front of our house! A good problem indeed!

These are the 5 members of our youth committee who are spearheading the project: (from left to right: Johnnie, Carolina, Sonia, Laura, and Wilmer - some people have commented that Wilmer looks a little like me).

Some of our youths who came today. We are thinking of getting the girl on the far right, Kiara, to be a model for some of the jeweleries that the youths would be selling to raise funds for their education.

Today, we launched our youth project where the youths would be selling products to raise funds for their education. Several professionals turned up as well, including almost all the professionals who turned up for our last talk on Chinese culture, as well as Oscar, Karen and Luis, whom we had dinner with last Monday. The 5 youths from our youth committee did an excellent job in presenting the project, and responding to the questions of the professionals. One of our friends commented that he was pleasantly surprised by the level of professionalism that these youths were able to demonstrate despite their relatively young age. All the professionals were also very keen to share some tips with the youths, and to contribute their contacts for direct sales or indirect publicity by the youths. In fact, including Karen, Oscar and Luis, altogether 8 professionals have pledged their support for this project, and plan to meet up regularly, perhaps once a fortnight, to chat regarding the progress of this project. Our youths will be preparing a weekly progress report that will be presented at these meetings. The first meet-up will be next Friday, and to kick things off on a high, they have all requested for me to cook a Chinese dish for everyone to savour! So next Friday, I will be preparing one of my signature dish, the Szechuan chicken wings, together with the help of Oscar and our 2 guys from the youth committee. Guys in charge of food? Well, times have changed - modern guys are now the masters of the kitchen.

I think we are finally having some breakthroughs in our drive to connect to more young professionals. In fact, I will be having lunch with a lawyer in his late thirties next week, and he too has expressed interest in helping us with our personal matters as well as our projects. It's interesting how people recognize my penchant for food almost immediately. This lawyer was asking me if I liked seafood, but without waiting for my reply, said: "I am sure you like seafood." Haha...... a belly speaks a thousand words!

Dinner with some good friends

2006-10-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

We had dinner tonight with the family of one of our good friends, Edgar, who is a local businessman. His traits have obviously rubbed off on his son, who was very animated and excited as well whenever he was sharing about some topics related to entrepreneurial characteristics in Peru. Our friend Oscar also joined us for the dinner, and in fact, he helped in cooking the dinner as well! I cooked ginger chilli noodles with peanuts, an adaptation of the Szechuan "gong bao ji ding". Aili also cooked some 5-spice chicken wings, which I think is an adaptation of a fusion Hokkien-Cantonese dish. We had chrysanthemum tea to cool down the spicy flavor of the food. Our friends enjoyed the food very much.

We then had a good time talking about our youth project which is about to be launched tomorrow. Edgar shared with us about the mechanics of small and informal businesses in Peru, and also gave us a crash course into the tax structure of Peru, and in particular how small businesses would manage their tax submissions wisely to take advantage of all the incentives provided in the tax law of Peru. Meanwhile, his wife, who works as an obstetrician, agreed to give a talk on sexual eduation to the group of youths that we are working with.

We were a little tired after the dinner though. Aili and Delia had just finished an English exam, which their college had required every teacher to take, regardless of whether they were native speakers or not. Meanwhile, I had a long afternoon of travelling to a meeting at a shopping mall that is more than an hour from our house with the traffic jam.

In the afternoon, I went to the Megaplaza shopping plaza with a friend from our professional group to meet the marketing manager of the shopping mall. The marketing manager was a pleasant young lady who was rather helpful, and she agreed to submit a proposal to her directors to see if they could let us have a small stand on an ad hoc basis for the youths to implement their project to sell products to raise funds for their education. It was a good start, even though she did mention that Megaplaza was primarily catered to customers from social class C, and therefore products exceeding a certain price range would be unlikely to sell in Megaplaza. The journey back from Megaplaza was a nightmare, and the jam on the road reminded me of the terrible head-splitting jams that I encountered previously in Thailand and Indonesia when I visited these countries a few years ago.

Yesterday was a relatively bad day for me. Our water pump was spoilt, and there was no water supply for almost an entire day! That meant that yesterday was the first day for almost the past 4 years that I did not get my customary cup of black coffee. On top of that, I received an email from one of clients telling me that they did not receive one of my jobs, and therefore would have to cancel the PO. I was naturally rather angry and sent back a rather strong reply and followed it up with a call. And yesterday night, I slept really early, but as I am a Christian, I spent a short time with God in prayer and asked him to help me sleep well and to take care of everything despite the bad day. After the prayer, I calmed down and I decided not to pursue the matter of the dispute over the PO anymore, and to commit it to God. Amazingly, today I got a mail in the morning, an email from my client apologising for what had happened the previous day. It turned out that the entire problem occurred due to a problem in their email server. So naturally, besides the apology, my PO was restored as well.

A Tiring Day

2006-10-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

This is a picture taken of a small party that we prepared for a small of group of abandoned children about three Saturdays ago at a home for abandoned children in Zapallal, a place which is about an hour and a half away from where we live. We used to run free English classes for these kids every Saturday, but we had to stop the project sometime this year because the company that was sponsoring our transport went into some restructuring, and were unable to continue to dedicate funds towards sponsoring transport for social work activities.

All of us are having a bit of a hangover from our consecutive late nights since last Friday, and feeling a little tired today. We usually sleep quite early over here. We have different ways of dealing with fatigue over here in Peru. Delia and Aili's formulas are basically a mix of watching some TV to relax and sleeping early. My formula is a little more sophisticated - I usually go for a 30-minute massage by one of the blind masseurs, and then charge myself up again with either a bottle of red bull or a glass of wine, or a combination of both. Of course, I would also allow myself the luxury of a short nap in the afternoon, as I have a flexible work schedule. Nevertheless the fatigue affected my cooking abilities today as well. I tried cooking seafood fetucinni, but the end result was certainly not something that I am too proud of even though it was edible, compared to my other signature dishes such as the Szechuan chicken wings and gong bao ji ding. I know my cooking is a hit whenever the girls whisker off all the extra food for their lunch the next day without leaving some for me! When I find the food still in the fridge the next day, I know I have missed the mark for the day.

Although we are a little tired, we are also excited because a few professionals have confirmed their attendance for our event this Saturday, and have indicated their interest to help us in our youth project to raise funds for the education of the youths through entrepreneurial means. We hope to extend our young professional network through their involvement in these projects, and we hope to help them take steps towards discovering meaning and significance in their lives.

At a personal level, I am glad to see that my work space in our home office has improved quite significantly in the aspect of organization, with some help and supervision from Aili. It was difficult initially as she would make me clear up and organize my things even when I looked rather tired and wanted to sleep. But I look at some of the visible progress today, and I am glad for the "army-style" training. I have created a filing system for myself based on a system that we used in the first law firm that I worked in when I was in Singapore. I have also finally created a proper accounting system to register the transactions that I have with my clients. I believe that building the proper systems into place is a necessary condition if I want to take my business to new heights in both breadth as well as depth in the year to come. A friend of mine who is the CEO of a 300-staff multinational law firm in Peru has also invited me to visit his firm to see how he runs the firm, and to look at the possibility of sharing some mutual clients in the future. It has been a nice experience, as I am slowly learning the various system aspects of how a multinational firm is managed, as well as the internal aspects of managing and communicating with 300 staff. This is the first time that I am seeing how a mega-size organization functions, as my previous work experience had always been with small and medium-sized companies with less than 30 staff. It is obviously giving me a new perspective into the corporate world, and I look forward to catching up again in the near future with another good friend of mine, the CEO of an energy company in Chile that is embarking on a project to build the largest hydroelectric power station in South America. He has previously offered to share with me his experience with staff management and project management, as he is on the verge of retirement, and he feels that the most meaningful thing he can do is to pass on his experience to the new generation, but I guess I was too busy previously managing other areas of my life to take up his offer.

A Good Dinner Together With Some Friends

2006-10-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I invited a friend of mine, a business consultant, over to our house for dinner. It seems to me that the maxim “opening up the stomach is the best way of opening up the heart” is a universal truth! Aili prepared some sushi for appetizers, while I cooked the main dish - teriyaki chicken noodles with zuchini toppings. We had an interesting rule for dinner tonight - "eat with chopsticks, or no food for you"!

Karen and Oscar joined us for the dinner, and the 6 of us had a good time chatting up with one another, and exchanging ideas on how we could go about helping the youths and setting up other social projects. Everyone could speak English, so communication was made much easier. My friend had looked at the website of our NGO before coming over for dinner, and he commented that it seemed like activities were happening only in our Chile branch! I told him that the website had not been updated for a long time, and so there were many activities in the Peru branch that were not put up on the website. He brought a couple of newspaper cuttings along as well, which highlighted some indigenous people from Peru who had succeeded in their small businesses, whose stories might be able to provide some inspiration to our youths.

We hope to have such dinners once a fortnight. This Saturday, we will be having a presentation session from our youths regarding their project to raise funds for their education. We will be inviting more professionals to come along, and hopefully there will be more young professionals whose hearts will be opened to help us in our projects.

Yesterday’s version of the local newspapers El Commercio had an interesting report about how the Peruvian economy has grown over the past 4 years. According to a survey carried out by the consulting firm Apoyo, Opinion y Mercado, the socio-economic distribution in Peru over the first 9 months of 2006 is as follows:

Class A families (which make up 5.3% of the population) now have an average monthly family income of USD 3,534, and after expenses for basic consumption such as food, education, transport and utilities, the monthly disposable income remaining is USD 2,260.
Class B families (which make up 18.0% of the population) now have an average monthly family income of USD 838, and after expenses for basic consumption such as food, education, transport and utilities, the monthly disposable income remaining is USD 332.
Class C families (which make up 33.6% of the population) now have an average monthly family income of USD 408, and after expenses for basic consumption such as food, education, transport and utilities, the monthly disposable income remaining is USD 97.
Class D families (which make up 27.6% of the population) now have an average monthly family income of USD 248, and after expenses for basic consumption such as food, education, transport and utilities, the monthly disposable income remaining is USD 7.
Class E families (which make up 15.5% of the population) now have an average monthly family income of USD 171, and after expenses for basic consumption such as food, education, transport and utilities, the monthly disposable income remaining is USD 4.

What is very interesting is that the Class C families, which as a whole form the largest economic unit in Peru, spend 83.6% of their disposable income on food (and the rest are spent primarily on transport, education and utility bills)! Let me translate a very interesting sentence from the report: “Whether rich or poor, the first thing that residents of Lima do when they have additional disposable income is to go to a restaurant to eat.” It is no wonder that I have seen several new restaurants sprouting up in Lima over the past one year.

A Busy Month Has Passed By

2006-10-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

22nd October
Sunday afternoons are always a nice time for us to relax and treat ourselves to a good meal after a long and tiring week. Usually we would eat out and then do our groceries, but today we decided to eat in and watch a DVD along the way. I prepared the Szechuan delicacy "gong bao ji ding" and whipped up a fusion dish of Italian zuchinis cooked in a Chinese style, Aili prepared a few sushi rolls made from cucumber, egg, carrots, crab and tuna, and Delia cut some salmon sashimi slices. It was quite a satisfying lunch, and the girls complemented the meal with a healthy cup of pineapple juice each, while I sipped away at a glass of California red (though I was made to drink a glass of pineapple juice first as well). As you can see from the photo, it was a relaxed and informal atmosphere, and we did not even take out our tablemats, improvising instead with some newspapers. We planned to go for a jogging session in the evening, but unfortunately I fell asleep, so we will have to postpone our "Healthy Lifestyle Project" to next week.

It has been a busy month that has just passed by. During the stay of our friend Joan from Singapore, we held a talk on education in Singapore at one of the top colleges in Peru, and then a talk on Chinese culture that was targetted at professionals and businessmen. The talk on Chinese culture coincided with the Mooncake Festival Night, and so we invited our guests to sample some Chinese mooncakes. Unfortunately, mooncakes don't seem to be too much of a hit among the locals. Besides these two talks, Joan also had a great time doing up some question and answer session with some youths here, and the topics ranged from issues such as tips for preparing for exams to issues such as whether there is a difference between evangelical Christianity and catholic Christianity.

Recently, we have been engaged in some lively discussions with different groups of people from different age groups over a very pertinent question: What is the meaning of life? Most people would be familiar with a king from the pages of biblical history, whose name was Solomon. It is interesting to note that the most wealthy, intelligent and powerful king in history made this conclusion at the end of his life: "Everything is meaningless". It's interesting that this conclusion is reached today by many rich and successful people today as well. Recently, I had the chance to talk with a couple of very successful professionals from Peru and from China, both of whom had significant educational degrees and who owned large multinational firms. Despite all of their wealth and success, they were both beginning to wonder if there was any meaning to all their achievements, since it was slowly dawning upon them that they could not bring these achievements with them to the world beyond this lifetime. In contrast, I have a friend in Peru who has just quit from his job. This morning, he was sharing to me that he must be "the most happy unemployed person in Peru". He suddenly discovered that he had more time to do things he had always wanted to do, like reading, helping his mother with the household stuff, and most importantly, to help in the development of the youths from financially disadvantaged backgrounds in our youth project. Amazingly, he has also been receiving a flurry of freelance assignments which have more than met his financial needs. It would seem that meaning in life is found beyond a collection of personal achievements, and moving towards the capacity to help and bless other people. Even that may be fail to provide the ultimate meaning in life, but an altruistic outward-bound perspective certainly brings us nearer than a self-centered perspective.

Many of our youths are waiting to enter the university. They are unable to enter university not because of lousy grades, bad character or health reasons. They simply don't have money to further their education. As a result, we are setting up a project to enable the youths to earn some money for a centralized education fund through entrepreneurial means, and we are inviting different professionals to join us to act as consultants to the youths. In fact, we are having dinner at home with a young business consultant that I met recently tomorrow together with two other young professionals Karen and Oscar, and we hope to discuss ways in which we can get more young professionals to be involved in this project. We believe that getting involved in this project will bring the young professionals one step closer towards discovering a life of significance, a life that is filled with a sense of meaning and fulfillment. Of course, we are holistic people, and they will be sampling my Chinese-Japanese fusion delicacies amidst the time of getting to know one another.

Chinese Classes Are Starting Again

2006-09-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

Today, we re-started our Chinese class for some students from the international business studies department in San Marcos University in Peru. Due to changes in their academic schedules, we were not expecting too many to turn up - maybe just 2 or at most 3, so we were pleasantly surprised when 5 students turned up. What was even more gratifying was that all of them came with their notebooks, and they had not forgotten what they learnt in the first cycle despite the fact that we have had close to a one-and-a-half months of break in between.

After the class was over, three of them stayed back to have an interview with our friend Joan regarding various issues about Singapore. (In the pictures above, Joan is telling them some interesting anecdotes. In the first picture, from left-to-right, the university students are Johnny, Cynthia and Sonia.) Apparently, they are working on a class project on the topic of international trade, and they have chosen the theme of exporting mangos to Singapore.

Along with our teaching of Chinese, we have also been constantly seeking ways to inculcate good values into these university students. They are all intelligent students who have made it into one of the most difficult public universities to enter in Peru, and therefore have a good chance of doing well in their careers in their future. We are trying to teach them altruistic values and to encourage them to participate in some community projects with us, so that when they enter into the marketplace, they will not be sucked into the cold and calculating ratrace, but will continue to be principled professionals who will invest their time, treasures and talents into blessing the less fortunate members of society.

Building a Community of Love that Breaks Down Social Barriers

2006-09-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

After the youths came together to prepare some food on Saturday, it was the turn of the adults on Sunday to come together and celebrate our friendship with one another by preparing some food together. We cooked various dishes such as arroz con pollo (Peruvian style chicken rice), causa rellena (mashed potato stuffed with chicken fillings), tamales (Peruvian meat dumplings) and the dessert arroz con leche (rice with milk). It was a nice time of catching up with one another and sharing our life experiences with one another. There were adults coming from different social classes, and it was a pleasant sight to see them mingling with one another without the social class prejudices that are so prevalent in Peruvian society today. It was especially heartwarming as I saw two ladies coming from opposite ends of the social spectrum stand side by side to each other to wash the plates together, and chatting heartily with one another while they were doing the dishes.

Today, one of our friends, a manager with a foreign MNC in Peru, took some time off her work, and offered to bring our friend Joan out for lunch. We eventually had a nice meal at T.G.I.Fridays in Jockey Plaza, the largest shopping mall in Lima. One of our conversation topics was on some of the rather social problems that have seeped into Peruvian society. One problem was how many people live on credit here in Peru, spending beyond their means. We also talked about the amount of prejudice that goes around in Peruvian society, and especially how easy it is for a person to be discriminated against as a result of his skin color, family name (which can be a sign of your social pedigree), or lack of education.

After lunch, we went to visit a manager at the shopping mall to enquire about the possibilities of renting a booth to showcase some jewellery items, and allow our youths to earn some money to save up for their education. Unfortunately, the manager was not around, and his secretary told us that there was no more space available at the Jockey Plaza shopping mall. We will now have to source for alternative locations.

In the night, Aili and I whipped up a nice dinner together. We cooked a plate of fried trout in sambal chilli sauce with garlic, a plate of steamed trout (these are only 2 ways of cooking the trout; as far as I know, there are at least 8 ways of cooking the trout in Peru), a sort of fusion Szechuan chicken wings (Aili added some of her own touches to the original recipe that I had downloaded from the internet), and bean sprouts cooked in roccoto chilli. I have discovered that whipping up a nice dinner does not necessarily mean burning a big hole in your pocket. Rather, it is about creativity. For example, the raw materials for the small feast that we whipped up tonight cost only 18 soles (about S$9.00), a feast which fed four people (Aili, Delia, Joan and myself) and still having leftovers.

Learning To Appreciate The Little Things In Life

2006-09-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

I was reading a special report on the global economy in the Economist magazine today. One particular headline caught my eyes: "More of everything - Does the world have enough resources to meet the growing needs of the emerging economies?" The opening paragraph that followed the aforesaid headline is as follows: "The average income of the 5.5 billion people on this planet who live in emerging economies has been growing at a cracking pace: an annual rate of over 5% in recent years. As people grow richer, they want more cars and household appliances as well as better homes and roads. This, in turn, means a huge increase in the demand for energy and raw materials."

I see an underlying assumption in the aforesaid statements: when people grow richer, they want to consume more. Here we see one negative consequence of increased consumerism - a strain on the natural environment. A more serious drawback of unrestrained growth in consumerism is that it could take away our appreciation and joy in the simple things of life. Many people have told me that life gets more complicated as we grow older. I have been reflecting on that statement for a long time now. It is true that our responsibilities seem to increase as we grow older, and there are more things that we need to juggle around in life. However, I think increased responsibilities and challenges in life do not mean that we have to sacrifice the joy of simplicity in our lives. It is all a matter of perspective, and learning to appreciate the little things in life. Life does not get more complicated because we have more responsibilities, but only when we lose sight of the foundational building blocks of life and the capacity to find contentment and joy in the little things in life. Life gets complicated when we allow ourselves to be envious of what we do not have rather than enjoying what we already have; it gets complicated when we focus on the differences in our relationships rather than the common values that we share; it gets complicated when we spend our time worrying about the things that we cannot control rather than working on the things that are within our control.

The author George Bird Evans made an interesting observation: "I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better. They fight for honor at the first challenge, make love with no moral restraint, and they do not for all their marvelous instincts appear to know about death. Being such wonderfully uncomplicated beings, they need us to do their worrying."

Just to end today's reflection, I think it is important to observe that simplicity should not be confused with simplisticity. As the scientist Albert Einstein puts it: "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler." We can find joy in simplicity, but when we begin to use it as an excuse for not exercising our intellect, engaging in industrious conduct or defending right moral values, then it is no longer the attitude of simplicity that leads to joy within our souls, but rather an attitude of over-simplisticity that turns a blind eye to the realities of the world, and which will surely lead to ruin eventually.

Youth Friendship Day

2006-09-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Today, we celebrated Friendship Day in our youth club after we came back from our IMPACTS project in the morning. The entire event was organized and run by our youth committee from our Youth Alive project. The youths from the different English classes prepared different food, including causa rellena (a dish of mashed potato with chicken fillings), goreng pisang (this is not a Peruvian dish) and wonton dumplings prepared in a fusion style. In the first picture, we have Kyara, who is from the Basic 1 class, preparing the causa rellena dish, helped by two young girls, Zoraya and Guadalupe, who come to our Kids Club on Saturdays. The two young girls like our house and their friends in the Kids Club very much, because they actually take a bus by themselves all the way to our house every Saturday, and one of them is not even 10 years old yet! They are quite attached to us as well, and one of them, Zoraya, unexpectedly came up to me today and asked me: "Where is the tall and big guy? Do you know him?" I was a little confused for a moment, until she brought me to a poster that we hung on our wall, and she pointed her finger at the unmistakable picture of Julian!

The second picture shows members of the youth committee setting up the tents and tables in the garden, where the event was going to be held. The third picture shows Carolina, Gabriela and Delia taking turns at the goreng pisang. The last picture shows the various groups seated at their tables, where a few light-hearted games were played together. There was a also a short time of sharing from our friend Joan from Singapore on how to choose your friends wisely, and a time of gift exchange. Interestingly, the gift that my "secret pal" gave to me was the only gift that was a food item - I guess it is the least guarded secret in the world that I have an extremely soft and tender spot for good food. Everywhere I go, people are telling me to watch my tummy, and to resist eating too much of the yummy, yummy food!

We had three new visitors for the event, and all of them had nice words to say about the community that we have. One common comment was: "You guys are a really fun and warm bunch to hang around with!" A mother who was here with her daughter also stood up and shared a few heartwarming words rather spontaneously. Here is what she said: "I have been a psychologist for 26 years, and I have counselled all kinds of drug addicts and serious crime offenders. I have discovered that one of the most effective ways to fight crime in our society is to ensure that our youths belong to a community that has healthy values. I can see that your community is very friendly and has good healthy values. I am very glad that I can send my daughter to join this community, and form good healthy friendships with all of you."

Teaching Children At A Small School In San Juan de Miraflores

2006-09-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

The boy in the picture is Victor, one of the young chidren that we are teaching English to in our current Impacts project. We are currently working with a small school in one of the poorer areas of Lima to provide free English lessons on Saturday mornings to about 12 kids. All these kids come from very poor families, and most of them have to work in the streets at a tender age to help supplement the family income.

At first sight, Victor strikes you as a rather rough guy - his tone of voice and his mannerisms. However, if we examine beyond the surface, he is one of our best students in regards to his attitude in learning. He also shows a lot of enthusiasm in learning and is a very helpful chap. He shows a maturity beyond his age due to the harsh realities of life that he has to deal with at his young age.

Here in Peru, most people judge by appearances. If a person is dressed shabbily, or has a darker skin color, or does not speak with cultured eloquence, such a person would often be bypassed in society. In our projects in Peru, we try to teach them grooming and lifeskills to give these people a better chance in life. However we focus a lot more on the grooming of internal character rather than the grooming of external appearance. Ultimately, it is not the outward adornments that will bring the brightest sparkle to a person's beauty, which will fade with time, but the internal adornment of his character and values.

An example of "values grooming" could be seen in a small incident that happened after our English class with the kids at the school this morning. After they completed their work, Aili gave out sweets to them as an incentive. However, two young girls were so excited about their rewards that they tore out the wrappers immediately and dumped them onto the floor. Their faces looked most angelic even after dumping the wrappers onto the ground, as if it was the most innocent thing to do in the world. It would have been easy to overlook the offense. However, Aili spotted the transgression almost immediately, and told them firmly to pick up the wrappers and throw them into the wastepaper bin.

We may not be around in Peru by the time these kids grow up to be adults one day in the future, but we believe that the small seeds of good values that we sow today will reap a harvest of blessings for them when they reach adulthood one day in the future.

Back to the present - a night of dance and folklore

2006-09-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

We have a friend from Singapore who is visiting us in Peru at the moment. In the afternoon, we took her to visit Jockey Plaza, the biggest shopping mall in Lima, and we had a nice meal of "pollo a la brasa", chicken grilled in the traditional Peruvian style. After that, we brought Joan to an evening of dance and folkloric performance at the school that Aili and Delia are working in. It is one of the biggest bilingual schools in Lima, and the cultural evening was held to commemorate the change of season from winter to spring. We were all enchanted by a wonderful evening of dazzling dances that were put up by the students and teachers, capped with a heartwarming rendition of "We are the world" that was led by the principal himself.

When I was in Singapore, I never attended a play or cultural performance for much of my life. Even when my parents took me to a cultural play when I was younger, I was always screaming for them to bring me out of the concert hall, because I felt that all these art performances were a waste of time, a distraction from the more worthy pursuits in life. My time in Peru has changed my perspective on this matter completely. In fact, just last month, I watched three cultural performances. As I watch the Peruvians manage their songs and dances with grace, passion and patriotism, the atmosphere always cut through my skin like a stirring stream of electric current. I am beginning to appreciate much more how art, music and culture is able to forge a sense of unity and identity among communities of people. They are certainly not trivial distractions away from the economic pursuits of life, but art, music and culture are indispensable tools towards forging a sense of belonging within a community. After four years here in Peru, I am only just beginning to fall in love with the cultural dances and music of the local community, even though my stoic Singaporean roots have somewhat persisted in reining in my dancing feet and spontaneity of expression.

While we can certainly boast of our technological and economic achievements, as well as the machine-like efficiency of our systems and infrastructure in Singapore, I believe that we would need to bring up the level of our artistic and cultural consciousness to the same optimum levels as our economic and social achievements, if we want to forge a strong sense of identity as Singaporeans. We have spent a few decades perfecting our hardware in Singapore, and the time has now come for us to work on our heartware.

Looking at the same issue from a different angle, it would be fair to say that material pursuits and success alone cannot forge together a sense of identity, whether at the personal level or at the communal level. Even businesses are beginning to realise that profits cannot be the only bottomline if the sustainability of the business model is to be maintained. Intangibles such as the development of core values within the organization and the overall enhancement of the emotional quotient of the community would also be important foundations for the sustainability of the businesses. In other words, we are talking about heartware here.

Whether we are dealing with the success of an individual, the stability of a community, or the survival of a nation, heartware would be an essential element to take into consideration. How do we develop heartware? One aspect of heartware development is to involve ourselves in community work. It is through our interaction with other members of our community that we develop heartware. Heartware is one area that cannot be developed by isolating ourselves from community. It is through involving our lives in those around us who are less fortunate that we develop compassion. It is through engaging in relationships at a deeper and committed level, and passing through the furnace of forming, storming and norming in our relationships, that we learn to trust, to accept and to forgive, and to forge relationships that will last and perform. It is through giving of our times, treasures and talents to help the needy around us that we will discover true significance and meaning in our lives. This is why we have come to Peru to experience a different kind of culture here. This is why we have set up a channel for volunteers from Singapore and elsewhere to come down to Peru to experience community work and community living for a period of time, and to develop their heartware in a very practical way.

A Trip Down Memory Lane Part II

2006-09-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

This is a picture from the very first IMPACTS project that we had in Peru, started some three and a half years ago. It was a project in which we went down every Saturday to teach English to a group of orphans from a Catholic orphanage. This is a small party that we had with the kids at the end of their first cycle of learning.

For most of us, it was the first time that we were teaching children. The lack of experience and know-how brought forth a lot of interesting anecdotes. For example, a kid that I was teaching once crawled underneath his chair and refused to come out. I tried every means possible to get the kid out, but to no avail, and finally I had to go out of the classroom to get help.

A team of about 10 volunteers, comprising mainly fresh graduates from the university, had come down from Singapore for a 12-day visit at that time, and one of the events which they liked the most was organizing a day of fun for some 80 kids at the orphanage, including telematches, games and food. Have you ever tried cooking for 80 kids? The picture of the volunteers cutting vegetables in our kitchen and laughing away about the task which seemed like a never-ending story, and the huge cauldron in which these volunteers cooked soup for the children remains vividly striking in my memories. On top of that, they were trying very hard to use their "cavemen" Spanish which they had learnt in a crash course to manage the kids, and it was quite a warm if somewhat funny sight to see the kids cuddling up to them and telling them with the most angelic faces that they had pronounced their Spanish words wrongly.

An air-ticket from Singapore to Peru is not cheap, and for most of these fresh graduates, it must have cost them a significant part of their savings. However, I am sure that what they got in return was an experience that would last them a lifetime, and a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that cannot be bought with money. Through their interaction with one another and with the natives in a foreign culture, they discovered new insights into their personal strengths and weaknesses.

I suppose that one of the biggest returns from their trip here must have been a change in their perspectives. As they saw the level of poverty that could be seen in some shanty towns in the outer suburbs of Lima, they began to better appreciate the many luxuries and securities that they had taken for granted in Singapore. For many children in Singapore, the question that they would often ask their parents at meal times is: "What are we going to eat?" Unfortunately, for many of these children who live in the shanty towns, the question that they are constantly asking is: "When are we going to eat?"

Our first project was a learning curve for us. Although we enjoyed the many "gotcha" moments with the kids, our classes were generally fraught with several problems of discipline of the kids. This could have been a combination of our lack of classroom teaching experience at that time, as well as the fact that several of these kids were rather hyperactive. We were also probably taking on too many classes at the same time. However, the biggest problem we faced was the administration of the orphanage. Due to the fact that there were very few staff, it was often difficult for them to ensure that all the kids could turn up for the Saturday classes. We often found some of the kids running around instead of attending the classes, and when we questioned them, they would reply that they had to attend another workshop. Due to the highly irregular attendance of the kids, and the failure of the administration to work out any system to ensure some continuity in the learning of the kids, we finally had to end our project here at this orphanage and look for a new partner for our IMPACTS project.

A Trip Down Memory Lane Part 1

2006-09-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

About four years ago, five young and enterprising young men and women decided to leave the comfortable shores of Singapore to experience the adventures of social entrepreneurship in a different culture, and we arrived at the rocky shores of Peru, a land filled with spectacular views of natural wonders, which are contrasted against the stark reality of poverty that so many people find themselves struggling against every day. Against this backdrop, we started various projects to help the people around us, and I am going to bring us down a trip through the memory lanes of time through a series of blog entries from time to time that I shall call "A Trip Down Memory Lane". The picture here shows Julian teaching English to three single mums in a relatively small classroom in a youth club in the district of Surco four years ago. This was the first time that our NGO started English classes here in Peru. It was a very small class, comprising of two single mothers and two other young mothers coming from extremely poor backgrounds. Attendance was highly irregular as well, and I remember that there was this mum who could not turn up for class because her husband wanted her to accompany him and threatened to beat her up if she went for her English class. The irregularity of attendance and the slowness of the students in learning made it relatively frustrating at times. This was compounded by the fact that our Spanish was not too good at that time, resulting in various kinds of communication problems. (I have a few nice jokes that took place during miscommunications with the students, but I will save them for another blog entry.) Julian and I did not have any jobs at that time, so we took turns to teach the class. The students paid about S$10 for the entire course that lasted about 12 sessions. One of our friends from Singapore, Jeffrey Chong, visited us at that time and joined us for one of the classes, and he was quite surprised at how little the students were paying for the course.

Julian has a masters degree in engineering from the National University of Singapore, while I had just quit from my job as a legal manager shortly before coming to Peru. Many of our visitors had a simple question for us: Why were two highly qualified professionals spending time teaching English to four mums, and getting paid a mere S$10 per student for the entire course of 12 sessions, an amount which could not even cover our transport expenses and photocopying expenses? It was not even one percent of my pay in Singapore! Furthermore, it was not even a good start to our community work here - the irregularity in attendance and the slowness in learning meant that none of the students passed the course - because they did not turn up for the exam.

I am not sure about Julian, but I had my fair share of disappointments and discouragements at that time. No income, no results and no support from the people we were working with - there were moments that I felt so "useless" and not knowing what to do then that I cooped myself in our small office and played "Pinball" on my computer for hours on end, so much so that I was breaking all kinds of "Pinball" records on the computer and becoming a "Pinball" king. However, as I reflect back on those early days, I think the experience that we gained through this first project provided a seed foundation upon we built our subsequent successes, both at a corporate level as well as a personal level. By building our projects and advancing our mission here in Peru from the "seed" level, we were able to improve the quality of our subsequent successes. Whenever we seem to be doing something that seems small or insignificant at face value, it is good to remember the principle of the seed. Seeds are small in nature, but when nurtured properly, they will grow into gigantic trees one day.

At a personal level, as I reflect back now, it was a time when we discovered the secret of having great joy even when you have little - the five of us did not have much economic means at that time - with only two out of the five of us holding some form of jobs that paid a regular if meagre income, but we supported one another like a family, and none of us were ever in need, and we could even afford the occasional luxuries of life such as short getaways to different parts of Peru. Today, our economic means have improved by quite a bit since those early days, but the difficult times of those early days have helped us to learn to appreciate one another more, and to recognize and remember that true joy and significance does not lie in our increasing incomes, but in the friendship that we have with one another, and in the efficacy of heart in which we go about sharing our time, treasures and talents to improve the quality of the lives of those around us.

A nice quote from Mahatma Gandhi succintly sums up what I am trying to say today: "Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself." The Christian apostle Peter had a similar view when he said in the sixth verse of the first chapter of his first letter: "So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though the going is rough for a while down here."

People Who Wear A Smile On Their Faces All The Time

2006-09-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

The photo is taken on a short two-day getaway that we took in the small town of Huacho, a 2-hours drive from Lima, last month. Huacho is famous for its delightful boat trips and delicious seafood. We feasted on both attractions with an equally vivacious appetite. It is also a nostalgic site for me to visit, as I defeated a whole pack of top Peruvian chess players here 3 years ago to win the Huacho International chess competition. Huacho is known as the "Friendship Capital" of Peru, due to the warmth and friendliness among the people here.

Our office administrator Laura and two young professionals Karen (far-left) and Oscar (far-right) joined us for the trip. Karen is a marketing manager in a foreign MNC here in Peru, while Oscar is an engineer by training who became a teacher by choice because he felt that teaching was a more meaningful job where he could impact more lives. Karen is volunteering her time on Saturdays to give enrichment talks to the youths in our "Youth Alive" project, while Oscar takes time off his busy schedule to teach the youths Mathematics on Thursday evenings. What prompted these successful young professionals to take time off their hectic schedules to volunteer with us? I will tell you their stories another time. For now, let me share with you excerpts from what Laura, who is only 18 years old, has to say about volunteering her time to organize activities for the youths in our "Youth Alive" program.

"Now, I am volunteering in the executive committee for the youth wing of the Peruvian branch of Generation Acts Club International. I am also a youth, but it’s nice to work with people of my age, and it is a joy to see how they are growing in their character and values. It is not easy to talk about commitment to youths in Peru, because the youths here like to have fun. However, the youths in our youth group are slowly understanding more about the value of commitment in their lives. Each Saturday, we have a time of planning events and projects, learning lifeskills and discussing issues related to character development. Of course, we arrive late at home but with joy and hope that we are discovering greater significance and meaning in our lives!"

Mother Teresa made a keen observation when she said: "In the developed countries there is a poverty of intimacy of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love. There is no greater sickness today than that one." What is the cure to that sickness? The same lady added: "We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing." Hoarding our time, talent and treasures not only brings the suffering of deprivation to the needy people around us, but it also brings upon ourselves the suffering of dereliction of the soul. The well-known Christmas story about Mr. Scrooge shows the damage that hoarding can do to a person's internal well-being.

A curious natural phenomenon of Lima is that it never rains (good news for those who like to have outdoor parties!), but the sudden storms of life often come with alarming alacrity. Yet, when we look at people like Laura, Oscar and Karen, we often see them wear a smile even during the moments when they have to weather the storms of life. Their secret: they have discovered the joy and sense of liberation that comes from sharing their time, treasures and talents to improve the quality of the lives of people around them.

The Greatest Joy of Life

2006-09-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

The picture shows a birthday treat that Aili, Delia and I gave to our office administrator Laura today. We brought Laura and her sister Gabriela for a tepanyaki meal at a Japanese restaurant located at the shopping mall Jockey Plaza. The person nearest the camera is me, and next to me is Aili, followed by Laura's sister Gabriela, then Laura, and finally Delia. Earlier in the day, three other members of the youth committee for our "Youth Alive" program came over to our office to send their best wishes to the birthday girl as well. To top up a wonderful evening of celebration, the birthday girl received an ice-cream brownie as a compliment from the restaurant.

One of the greatest joys that we can discover in life is to have brought a smile to another person's face. Recently I attended a social ball in Lima for the pre-launch of a new art gallery at the musuem, where several elite members of the uppermost echelons of Peruvian society were gathered together. Everyone was extremely well-heeled and the women wore immaculate make-up, and we were served with some fine food and wine from different cultures. As I spoke with some of these people, I discovered a sense of emptiness among many of them beneath all that fine facade. I am not well versed in the field of psychology, but it does not take rigourous psychoanalysis to figure out the root problem that runs as a common thread through most of these people. They are all people of means who have amassed great wealth and personal achievements, but beneath all that golden gliterazzi, we discover that not all that glitters is gold. Many of them are tormented by the uncertainties of life, the shattered or extremely fragile relationships that they have to deal with in their personal lives, and the burden of trying to keep together their wealth and achievements in one piece. They tried to bring a smile to their own faces through advancing their personal successes, but the smile never lasted for more than a fleeting moment.

On the other hand, I see how my fellow social entrepreneurs here in Peru, simple but successful Christians who choose to use their personal successes to bring a smile to the people around them, and finally the biggest smile that I see is in the lives of my fellow social entrepreneurs. The Bible has a book called Proverbs that was written to make people who read it wise. In the 25th verse of the 11th chapter of the book of Proverbs, we have a wonderful piece of advice coming straight from heaven: "A generous man will prosper, he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed." We hear wonderful testimonies from the people that we help, and how can one not be refreshed by the sweet music of their testimonies?

"Jesus has blessed me since the day that I decided to commit my life to him. First of all, I obtained medical security for my son. I am a woman of low economic means and I did not have any hope that my son would be able to obtain treatment for his illness. However, God has brought me much joy in my life and has heard my prayers. Now my son has his medical security and I have managed to get treatment for him. I have faith that my son will be healed and all will go well. God has also blessed me in my job. Now, I have a job, and God has provided all that I need and I lack nothing. Recently, a miracle happened. My son was suffering from low hemoglobin levels, but suddenly his hemoglobin level jumped to 14. I know that this is a miracle of God. I was also told earlier that my son could not be considered for the list of kidney transplants, but God has intervened and moved the doctors to have a second meeting, where they will reconsider my son’s case and reconsider putting him into the list of kidney transplants. " - Rosa Cahuana, 35, a single mum who attends the Hope of God church in Lima-Peru.

Success + Significance = A Complete Picture

2006-09-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

A picture of Delia (lady in the center), a friend and colleague of mine, together with the members of the youth committee in Peru that she has invested her time, treasures and talents into. An energetic young lady and a graduate in chemical engineering with a good honors degree, she could have found a great job with any MNC in the world. Yet, she made the choice to come to Peru to bring hope to the people in Peru, and she has invested much of her time towards developing a group of youth leaders to lead the "Youth Alive" project, a project that is dedicated towards teaching underprivileged youths coming from the poorer segments of societies strong values and core skills that will equip them for a great future ahead of them. In the picture, she is giving them a treat at a Chinese restaurant.

I believe that personal achievement per se is not wrong in itself. In fact, it is natural for a healthy person, project or philosophy to see fruits and success. If we plant an apple seed into the soil, and nurture it with the right conditions for growth, it is inevitable that we will see a big and strong apple tree one day. If we build our careers or businesses upon the seeds of strong moral foundations and God-sized faith, it is inevitable that we will see God-sized results and success one day.

One of the key events that is shaping the world today is the conflict in the Middle-East. To trace back the roots of this conflict, we would have to go back to the patriach Abraham, who fathered both the nation of Israel as well as the nations that we see in the Middle-East today. In the second and third verses of the twelfth chapter of the book of Genesis in the Bible, God made two promises to Abraham. The promise in the second verse focused on the success that Abraham would have in his personal life and achievements: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you ...". The promise in the next verse focused on the significance that Abraham would have on the people around him: "... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Personal success is one facet of the divine plan for those who follow the principles that are set out in the one book that was inspired by God, but it is not a complete picture of the divine design for our lives. A life that is complete is one that attains personal success so that the individual can become a channel of blessings to the many people around him.

Through the following series of blog entries, I hope to explore the various tensions between success and significance in our lives. Three words shall characterize the three main arenas that we shall visit in this journey: struggle, search, solution. The four years that I have spent in Lima as a social entrepreneur have brought me through these three phases as well as I sought to find a balance between success and significance, to find the missing link that will fit the two jigsaw pieces of success and significance together to form a complete picture.

From Success to Significance

2006-09-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

I have not written anything for quite a while. A twist of events led to my having to postpone my return to Singapore for a few more months. I am not too fond of dealing with abrupt changes to pre-fixed schedules, but I guess if God in his absolute sovereignty allows for His divine plan to interupt my personal schedules, then I guess there is always a divine purpose behind everything.

Over the few extra months that I have spent in Peru, I found some time to reflect on my relationship with God and other matters. The writer Bob Buford wrote a book called "Halftime", which I had read a few years ago. He wrote: "Halftime is a pause in the middle of the game of life to reflect on who we are, what really matters to us, and to redirect our time and resources for the second half. It is a time when the quest for success loses meaning, and we ask, "Is this it?". We want our lives to have really counted for something. Something that will live on long after we are gone. Most call this a midlife crisis. We call it halftime."

I am not going through a midlife crisis. However, I do believe that God has graciously provided me with a period of "halftime" during my extra months here in Peru to reflect on what really matters to me, so that I can redirect my time, talents and treasures for the second half back in Singapore.

The same author defined the difference between success and significance in a lovely way: "Success to me is using your knowledge and experience to build up your own portfolio. Significance is using your knowledge and experience to share with others." I was just watching a show together with my friends here in Peru. It was called "Take the Lead", which is based on a real-life story of Pierre Dulaine, the owner of a professional dance studio in New York city. It is a story of the transition of a man's life from success to significance. Pierre Dulaine, who was skillfully protrayed by Antonio Banderas, took time off from his thriving dance business to volunteer as a dance teacher in the slums of New York City. Faced with a group of rebellious high school students who were regarded as "rejects" in society, Pierre invested his time, talent and treasures to train them in ballroom dancing. When confronted with the value of what he was doing, he gave a poignant defense of his actions. Addressing a group of parents, he said: "I am not only teaching your kids ballroom dancing. I am also teaching them values of respect, teamwork and acceptance, because these are what will give them hope and a future."

Different people have their moments in life when they are doing different things. Some have their moments when they are preaching. Some have their moments when they are negotiating a business deal. And some have their moments when they are dancing. I have my moments when I am writing. Writing keeps my mind actively engaged in the process of thinking, and the Bible makes at least one allusion to God's desire for Christians to engage not just the heart and the hands, but also the intellect in our communion with Him. In the 18th verse of the first chapter in the book of Isaiah in the Bible, God speaks out with striking clarity: "Come, let us reason together."

Over my next series of blog entries, I hope to be able to explore and share some of the thoughts and reflections that I have regarding the tension between the pursuit for success and the search for significance in our lives. The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Let us take a step backwards from the frantic forces of our daily lives to examine the trenches of our souls and spiritual lives, for the heart is where the well-spring of life is found.