Sunday, January 14, 2007

Project Report #8 - The Engine Strikes Back

Hey sponsors~! It’s a rainy Sunday night here in Subang Jaya, been raining almost every night the past few days. I’m praying that there won’t be massive flooding in my area. It’s been a long but fruitful Sunday today. We had more new people coming to church and they were really blessed. Ps Ryan spoke an amazing message about God’s Calling Upon Our Lives. I’m really seeing God adding to the church almost every week, this is really not because of our works. God is really moving mightily~!

Did you all know that I graduate with a Second Class Upper Honors for my Computer Science degree? I don’t think many of you all know it yet, especially the ones from overseas. I just realized that I haven’t had a chance to share with every one of you about how I got through my degree. I can assure you it wasn’t easy, but I managed to pull through because I believe the BIG GUY up there was watching over me.

It all started when I was required to select my field of project of choice. I had to do my own research on the different field options I wanted to pursue for my project and write a project proposal for each field I chose. Out of 5 proposals, 4 were rejected by my project supervisors. This only left me with one option and so happen this very ONE proposal that got approved involved the most difficult field among all that I’ve chosen to do. This project involve the development of a full fledge, operational, marketable Multipurpose Hotel Smart Card system. So with all my pride, knowledge and experience, I just took up the challenge and started the project.

The first few phases of the project development were easy, I could knock down all the initial obstacles with barely any effort. This added on to the pride filled confidence. Then it came a point in time where I was required to source out for all the hardware and software for the system construction. Again, with my heart full of confidence, I made calls to my contacts and searched around in the usual places to get all the items I required to build this system. One week past, nothing was found. Two weeks past, nothing was found. Three weeks past, still nothing happened. By now I was starting to be a bit shaken, but was still confident.

After four weeks of waiting, I still have not made any progress in the development of my project. This shook me to the very core because if I fail to hand up this project in complete functioning order, I will lose my merit honors for my degree.

My own knowledge has failed me, all my contacts were unable to help me. I pushed and pulled, wrestled and fought through, but at the end I still made no progress at all in my project. Seven weeks have passed since I started my fruitless search, I've already used up about 16 weeks to finish up the initial stages of my project. All in all, I had only about 28 weeks to finish up a complete system by myself, and the due date was only within 5 weeks but I couldn’t progress at all without the equipments.

It was so bad to the point that my lecturers and supervisors were getting worried for me. They even advised me to abandon this project and make an appeal to re-sit for the entire module the next semester, which means I will graduate a year later. This was the wake up call for me…

I went home, fell on my knees and starting crying out to God for forgiveness. I realized that every thing I had, all my strengths and abilities have failed me. I was left with only one option, and this last resort option was suppose to be my first resort, which was to turn to God. I knew in my heart that I have been proud, leaning only on my own abilities, but I was too self-absorbed to realize that pride was the beginning of my downfall…

Thank God for His grace and mercy, He heard me when I cried and comforted me with a true story from the Bible about King David. What I learned from the stories of King David is that he would pray until there’s no more reason to pray. An example is the account of the death of his first son. It was because of the great sin he had committed that cause his son to be stuck with a terrible illness. King David fasted and prayed to God for a long time for his son to be spared from death to the point where his servants were so worried for him because he had not eaten a bite in days. At the end, no matter how he much he prayed, the child still died. When the news about the death of his son came to David, he got up from his knees, washed up and ate, and worshiped God.

When his servants questioned why he was so down when child was alive but got up and ate only when the child was dead, he answered that while the child was alive, he pursued aggressively in prayer because there was still hope that God might allow the child to live, by since the child is already dead, there’s no point in dwelling in this problem anymore, life still goes on. King David’s attitude was amazing because he prayed until there was no more reason to pray. Though God may not have granted his first prayer, but God rewarded King David for his obedience by blessing him with another son, which will in future be the great King Solomon.

So from that day, I prayed, and I prayed hard every single day for the next two weeks, I declared the promises of God over my life and handed over my project to Him. Those 2 weeks I spent praying really gave me such peace that even if I fail, God is still in control and He holds my future in His hands. This didn’t mean that I didn’t continue to do my best and put in my best efforts, it just means that I still did my best but now the project is dedicate to God and allowed Him to be my Project Manager.

After two weeks of intense prayer, I got calls from different companies wanting to sponsor my project. This was the beginning of my breakthrough for this project. So I went to each one of them and selected a particular company because I had the peace of God to go for it. So within 2 days, I received all the hardware and software I needed to progress all the way to the completion of my project. In totally I received RM2300 worth of equipment for free to do my project. I only had to spend a less than RM100 for additional stuff. Praise God~!

A major battle was won but victory of the war has still yet to come. I only had less than 3 weeks to totally complete the whole full fledged operations smart card system. I stayed up almost every night till dawn, having on average of only 8 hours of sleep a week. During those times I really prayed for God’s strength and grace to sustain me and keep my mind and health from breaking down. God was faithful, I was never sick nor did I have any mental block. In fact, I did 15 weeks worth of work within a little over 2 weeks.

Take note people, this is NOT because I was lazy from the beginning of my project okay? It was because I was really stuck and had no way to progress on, but when God intervened, it all turned out well.. So IF you just pray without giving your best in what you do, DON'T expect God to grant you great success because God can only work if we're willing to do our part, at the same time depend on Him. What you sow is what you reap~!

So today I can testify that I got a B+ for my final honors project~! It’s one of the best grades one can get because getting an A is very VERY hard. I am so thankful to God that He gave me hope when there was hopelessness, He gave me peace when my life was in chaos, He gave me life when death was so evident around me. I’m proud to say that I’ve completed this project with outstanding results NOT with just my own strength, but it’s because of God’s hand over me and the project. I would have never succeeded if it wasn’t for Him… Here's a picture of me, my course-mates and our Head of Programme after our convocation on the 25th of November 2006 in Inti University College Malaysia, Nilai..
I hope this testimony will inspire all of you who are still students out there to learn to trust in God... "In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight..." For those who have yet to know Jesus and receive Him in your heart, just give Jesus a chance, you have nothing to lose but so much more to gain…

Now back to the car project, I just got word from my project foreman that the prices of the engine are still quite high so I’ve decided not to buy it from the supplier I initially wanted to get it from. I’m gonna source out for other suppliers in a few states around Malaysia this coming week to look for the best deal. Don’t worry people, it’s a major delay but I promise that this project will be completed no matter what~!

That’s all I have for tonight people, sometime this week, prayerfully I would be able to get all the engine purchasing stuff settled. I myself also getting a bit impatient but I still believe it will all work out for the good through lots and lots of prayer… Please take note that I'll only be posting project reports every alternate days, starting this week. This is not because I'm too lazy to post but its more to lessen the amount you all have to read... Haha~! Have a great week ahead people~! God Bless~!

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