Becoming a Franciscan led to my discovery of my natural relationship with Nature.  I was 39 years old  and on the third day of prayer before my entry as a pre-novice,  I was asked by my spiritual guide Sr Mary Peter to simply choose to look at an object of nature , a flower or leaf or stone and gaze at it with complete attention. I chose a little white chrysanthemum in the chapel. Guess what? As it came close to  the end of the hour a wave of energy I can only describe as love , entered into me.  After 3 weeks  my new community left for Camerons  where I experienced my first retreat. We were encouraged by our retreat master to go out into the neighbouring forest parks and enjoy the beauty of the waterfalls rocks and wild  vegetation; guess what? I would come back filled with exhilaration! I was high  and drugged with joy!
​On the serious side of gospel living, I mean community living, I had to struggle with my limitations and the limitations of my dear sisters. As Francis said  “The lord led me among sisters/brothers” and I would resolve the tension and find healing in soil, shrubs and flowers. Not for me the exotic blooms just simple ordinary  flowers like the hardy periwinkle ixora and snap dragon. Nature could heal  and  revive my passion for mission.
We are now celebrating the Care of Creation month after a year of forest fires floods landslides volcanic eruptions. What’s happened to my Mother and Sister Earth? She has become a stranger. I cannot deny my share in humanity’s indifference carelessness and ingratitude . I want to bring  about  reconciliation in my own small way-- Help Her to  be a Home to All. I turn to Francis blind and sick when he wrote the Canticle of the Creatures:

​Blind Man,
Sitting in your tiny garden
Staring  into your infinity of velvet black
Where every flower is a flame on taper
Every tree a torch………..
You walk between the buds and the leaves
Never ceasing to discover
And to wonder
And recognizing all the time
New brothers and new sisters.
(Poem by OFM Christopher Coelho)

God does work in mysterious ways. As soon as I complited high school, I had wanted the religious life. Being educated in the Infant Jesus Convent School,that was the only congregation of sisters I knew of. The superior had an eye on me and I was sure I was going to join them. Due to the tears and pleadings of my non Catholic siblings, I gave in to their pleadings to give up religious life.
I signed up for a Teachers’ Training Course of 3 years and I gave myself wholeheartedly to the works of the Legion of Mary. In the meantime, I went shopping secretly to study life of other congregation….was not attracted to any of them. Towards the end of my 3rd year in Teachers’ Training in 1954, many MEP priests and some FMM sisters who were expelled from China came to Malaysia. An MEP priest, the Spiritual Director of my Legion of Mary Presidium learnt of my interest of the religious life. He recommended me to visit the FMM newly founded Convent about 40 miles away from my home in Petaling Jaya.
It was love at first sight; down to the earth simplicity of the sisters ( from China, Ireland, Canada, France and Australia ), made a very strong impresion on me. A sister on duty adoring the Blessed Sacrament every half hour, their friendliness and their strict rule. I was told of not taking ever a holy picture not saying a goodbye, showed me the seriousness of their commitment.
Taking time to discern while preparing for my final exams, I decided this was the congragation for me. My spiritual director gently helped my family to accept my call to religious life. He also told the IJ Superior of my change of congregation to her great dissapointment. Three months later in December 1955 I entered the postulancy, the 1st FMM Vocation in Malaysia.