the•truth•shall•set•you•free

Hi all. It has been a long while. I hope you are doing fine and God is blessing your life, just like how He is always looking for ways to do so in mine (and yours too).

Over the years, since 2006, I have always been blessed with graduating classes that are unique in their own ways. Each year, through countless prayers since the start of the preparations for the chinese o levels examinations, the Lord has never failed to bless these classes with unimaginable results.

The 2006 cohort set the record for the highest distinction rate ever, until the record was broken in 2008. In 2007, though I took the middle and tail-end classes, both classes came in second amongst their respective cohorts (express and normal academic). 2008 was the first time my secondary 4 class did not do particularly well. However, my secondary 5 class did extremely well and has set the record for the highest distinction rate amongst normal academic classes over the years.

This year, I was also blessed with an amazing class which is very very diligent and willing to put in the hard work and strive for good results. I have never met with a more hardworking class. Not only did they spend many hours poring through the notes the class came up with themselves, they also spent a good amount of time on their own extracting good phrases and words from many different sources. Then they spent yet another huge chunk of time committing them to memory. Such determination is indeed commendable. They are always willing to come for extra lessons and even though they did not start out with good chinese results, they did not give up on themselves and were always willing to give their best shot. It has been a great privilege and pleasure to fight the battle alongside them this year.

As I always tell my students, 'you reap what you sow'. In chinese, it is '一份耕耘，一份收获'. Their hard work really paid off. But what is more amazing is how the Lord really chose to bless us so greatly, far more than what we could ever have thought of or imagined.

Since preparations began end of their secondary 3 year, I have been praying for them. Be it the way I should teach the class, or the questions I should set for their examinations, or the topics that I should spot, or grace from the oral examiners, or favour from the markers, or simply the Lord rewarding them for their hard work, which is in line with the biblical principle of reaping and sowing, the Lord truly answered each of my prayers in His very own special ways:

1. We spotted 2 questions for the oral examinations.

2. Our class took the only day where only 1 class was taking the oral examinations and the question for that day was one of the spot-on ones.

3. Many of them scored a distinction for their oral examinations.

4. We focussed on the analysis of essay questions during the intensive revision period just before the o level examinations and that was crucial in scoring beyond a certain score in paper 1.

5. We moved forward as a united class during the last few days before the battle and the fighting spirit in the class was exhilarating.

6. Save for a C6 and 2 B4, the rest of the class scored at least a B3.

7. Many students who previously were not good in Chinese managed to do a lot better this time. Some even wanted to give up right in the beginning and switch to take syllabus B.

I prayed for 3 things in particular with regards to their results this year:

1. 100% passing rate.

2. Highest distinction rate in their cohort.

3. Highest distinction rate ever, beating the record set in 2008.

The Lord answered all 3! Our entire class passed and the 50% distinction rate was indeed the highest in the cohort (the second highest being around 40%). Though they did not break the previous year's record of close to 70%, their mean subject grade was the best ever since 2005 - 2.20.

What more can I say? I am truly humbled by how the Lord really answered my prayers so beautifully. I thank God for His favour and hands upon this class. It was truly the Lord's hands and what you have just read is nothing short of a miracle. Praise the Lord!

I pray the Lord will continue to bless this class in their remaining subjects and that they will continue to press on in their perseverance and grit and be rewarded with a sweet and bountiful harvest for the hard work, come January 2010.

All glory to God!