Now that you've all heard Ee's version of the story..... now its time to hear the truth =)

When I first met Ee in 2003, she was very brutal. All I did was walk up to her and make small talk. Just trying to be welcoming to my new colleague who happened to be my mum's friend's daughter. *innocent look*

Her response was so "tao" so I decided that I wouldn't waste my time be-friending Ice Queen (that determination lasted only a short while lah!). Unfortunately, my dear boss, Dr Chan, who was ORA president then was organising the annual ORA dinner and I had to run around STB selling tables to old Rafflesian. Ee was an old Rafflesian and she eventually agreed to buy 5-6 tickets. Little did I know that I had been taken for a ride. All she wanted to do was to get rid of me bugging her. In the end, none of her promised ticket sales actually realised. *sigh*

Guess it was really only in India when our friendship took off. I was posted to Mumbai and she was covering the India market for Healthcare. So when she had to make sales calls in India, she had to approach the local office for assistance. *snigger* Must be frank lah. I only wanted to be her friend at that time. Cause I was still nursing the wounds of her brutal cold stare the last time we met. Anyways, when she arrived, we had a chance to chat a bit more and got to know her better.

In the beginning, my motivation for developing the friendship was purely selfish. I liked chatting with her and talking about God and Church and all. You see, then I was a backsliden Christian with numerous struggles including a persistent smoking habit that saw me burn through 40 sticks a day. But deep inside, there was a longing for God. Its just that the years of backsliding have put so many things in the way that I didn't know where to start or how to draw close to Him again.

Talking with her really helped cause she was such a good, faithful and disciplined Christian that her life began to challenge me, yet I believe both of us knew that there was also something which I had with God that she did not have. So it was through this mutual encouragement and fascination that our friendship grew. She as a sounding board for all my warped ideas and me (I felt), a flawed specimen of a Christian struggling to grapple with God's grace.

So it went on like this for a year. Given my propensity to be puffed up, I soon assumed that she was head over heels in love with me. "Why else would we meet up everytime I went back to
Singapore?" I asked myself. Little did I know that Ee was just curious about this "specimen" and how my story would develop. *sigh*

Well, somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that she wouldn't go out with me. In her own words, I had "unresolved issue". *sigh* Thankfully, I've been speaking with God about this. =) (guys, you should try this.... talking to God does help when it comes to r/ships) He challenged me on exactly what I wanted out of this friendship. And that honestly was the turning point. That was when I made the decision that it would not matter whether we'd end up together. More importantly, I was to encourage her to love Christ more, to challenge her assumptions on love and grace, and to see her know Christ more personally and to love Him more passionately and intimately.

And then I believe, she fell in love with me *huge huge beam*.

More to come on MY version of the story soon.
Watch out for it =)