My name is Alex Lee. I was born in a non-Christian family in Hong Kong, so growing up I didn’t have much exposure to Christianity other than learning about some biblical stories in school. In 1995 my family moved to Calgary. My first exposure to Christianity was at VBS here at SCCEFC because a parent from my sister’s class, Auntie Cindy, invited me. And after that I began going to fellowship on Saturdays and eventually Sunday School and service. It was in the Glory fellowship that I decided to accept Jesus. After accepting Jesus into my life didn’t change much, I continued to go to church and attend fellowship like before. I remember back in high school Pastor Allan, our pastor at the time, asked if I wanted to be baptized. At that time, I thought I wasn’t ready because I don’t have anything special to say or a story to tell, so I said I wasn’t ready and continued on. After graduating high school I stopped going to fellowship and started drifting away from God.
After graduating University I didn’t have a job lined up and I didn’t know what to do. I ended up going to an employment agency for help and they found me an admin job at an accounting firm. This was a perfect scenario for me since I graduated with an accounting degree, so it would be a good opportunity for me to get some working experience and network with the people there. After a year or so I was able to transfer over to the accounting side of things. And according to one of the manager there I was the first person to make that transition from an admin staff to a staff accountant since he did it a long time ago. So this showed me that I was only able to do this because God was leading and guiding me the whole time. However, I think it was around this time that I started drifting further away from God. I started prioritizing work ahead of God. I started putting more time on working and making sure I am doing a good job and meeting the expectations at work. And all of this got me to think that it was all these things that I am doing that got me to where I am. And things were going well, my hard work and efforts were being recognized by my coworkers and superiors. I was promoted and progressing through the company and things were good. So fast forward to the end of last year I was planning to leave my job and was looking for something outside of public accounting, but God had other plans for me. I was let go by the company before I was able to find anything.
I believe this was God’s way of telling me that what I believed I have achieved through my hard work was really God being at work and guiding me. And it was shortly after being let go Pastor Calvin invited me out for Coffee and chat and catch up. A little backstory for this coffee chat is that we were talking about going to meetup and get coffee before the COVID lockdown and somehow it’s happening right after losing my job. So I knew there was something that God wanted to talk to me about. And during our conversation the topic of baptism came up and I knew that this is what God is trying to tell me. At the time I said that I will think and pray about it. And now I am here today getting baptized.
The verse “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) really resonates with me over the past year. It reminds me that God sees so much further than we can and he has a plan for each one of us and all we have to do is trust in him and follow him no matter how hard things are currently.