The Trip

By Martin Cheah

We planned a trip to Johor Bahru on 31^st August and to stay there for one night. We would then return to Singapore the next day to vote in the Presidential election.

Around 10:30am we took a bus to my daughter and son-in-law’s house. From there we took a bus and the MRT to Kranji station. At Kranji station, we were supposed to take a bus to Woodlands checkpoint and cross the Causeway to JB for lunch.

However, that was only a plan. At the Kranji station, I tripped and fell at the steps leading to the bus bay. As I was falling, I tried to break my fall, but my reflexes were not quick enough. I hit the ground hard, but I did not feel any pain. I thought it was just an embarrassing moment for an old man. However, as I tried to get up, I saw blood spurting all over the ground and my t-shirt.

Shocked, my family tried to stem the bleeding with tissue paper and a kind stranger provided a pack of tissues for that. When the bleeding stopped, someone gave us a plaster to paste over the wound. Then we decided to take a taxi to a doctor at a nearby clinic. When we reached there, the kind doctor decided to take a look at the wound before admitting me because his clinic does not do suturing procedures. When he took off the plaster, his clinical assistant took a few steps backwards in surprise. I have not seen the wound but from her reaction I surmise that it must be nasty.

The kind doctor suggested we go to Urgent Care Clinic at Admiralty MRT for the stitching and didn’t charge us a cent.

At the Urgent Care Clinic, the doctor offered me three options for closing the cut on my head: gluing, stapling or stitching. I chose stitching because it was the most secure procedure. As he stitched me, I was lying on the bed with a cover over my face. There was no pain, just some tiny pin pricks from the needle. As he was sewing, I was giving thanks to God for His goodness to me because it happened to me instead of my family. I would have been more grieved if it happened to them.

After changing my t-shirt, we decided to continue on our journey taking the MRT from Admiralty to Woodlands and then a bus to the Immigration. However, this time my daughter and son-in-law took over carrying the luggage. We passed the Customs very smoothly and reached St Giles hotel in Mid Valley at 4pm instead of the planned 1pm, missing lunch but instead had an early dinner.

The next day as we were passing through the Malaysian Customs on our way back, we could see a great number of people queueing to get in but we had a smooth trip back to Singapore and were able to cast our votes in time.

Thank God for the people He placed in our journey to help us along. The kind lady at the steps and the kind doctors. They were God-sent.

…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)