The Chai couple grew up in Kuching. The family members were believers in traditional folk religion. Since getting to know our Lord, the giver of living water, they experienced abundant grace in both their life and business. They built up their own local brand concentrated herbal tea of 14 different favours. In the process they experienced what our Lord Jesus Christ said, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Wong: Andy and Josephine, tell us about your background.
Andy: I am a Hakka from Matang, Kuching. My parents are farmers. I was originally an electronics engineer working in Brunei. Later I moved to Kuching in consideration of my children. Wanting to establish the traditional herbal tea business with my wife, I quit my job to concentrate on the herbal tea business.
Josephine: My parents moved from Penang to Kuching to make a living. We are Hokkien. My family held folk beliefs. At one time we had as many as six shrines in the house. I was responsible for incense burning until I got married.
Wong: How did you get to know each other?
Andy: After graduating from University I returned and worked in Kuching. Since my family house was in Matang, I had to rent a room in Kuching. Josephine’s house was just opposite my place. We got to know each other and later got married. We have 4 children and now we have grandchildren.
Wong: Can you tell us about your journey of faith?
Andy: We became Christians after we were married. That was in 1985. Our neighbour was a sister from the Trinity Methodist Church, Kuching. She invited us to attend a three days-two nights family camp on a small island off Lundu. The camp was led by Rev Ting Gah Hing. Later the Pastor encouraged us to bring our children to attend Sunday school.
At first I was not really committed. It was my wife who always brought the children to Sunday school and encouraged me to go to church. I went to church for my wife’s sake. However the first time I went to church I felt left out because the people were conversing in Foochow.
On the other hand, I also believed that a Christian is restrictive in many ways, e.g. no smoking, gambling and drinking; but over time I stopped buying “4-D” and began to experience freedom and happiness.
Josephine: Our school had a student’s fellowship. I came into contact with the Gospel when I was in high school. I joined the fellowship and was much attracted by the hymns. My elder brother who was studying in the same school came to know about this and told my father who believed in folk beliefs. My father scolded me and so I stopped going to the fellowship. However God found His lost sheep in His own way.
That’s why I joined the family camp without hesitation when my neighbour invited me. When I sent my children to Sunday school, I heard the children singing “My God is so big” and wondered why the Christian god dared to claim so. Later when I read Genesis and learned that God created heaven and earth, insects and beasts, I discovered that God was very different from the idols that I worshiped.
Wong: I heard that you tried hard to bring your family members to the Lord?
Andy: I am the 6th child in my family of 13 brothers and sisters. After becoming a Christian, I tried to bring my mother to church. One time my mother had leg pain and Josephine prayed for her and the pain stopped. So my mother was willing to go to the church with us.
But when we sent mother back home, my eldest brother was waiting for us in the house. When he saw us he scolded us. Actually my family members believed in folk beliefs and our house was taped with spells. After listening to Pastor’s preaching my mother took the courage to tear down all these spells. That triggered a “war” in my family. My siblings even threatened not to visit my mother again if she would continue to attend worship service.
For the harmony of my family my mother compromised and stopped going to church with us. On her deathbed she asked whether she would be going to heaven by just believing in Christ. As we had led her in saying the prayer of confession we told her that she would be going to heaven.
In recent years my eldest brother began to soften. His grandchildren are now studying in Malihah Methodist Kindergarten. We hope that God will continue to work in my family beginning with the younger generation.
Demolition of shrines
Josephine: In fact I took the EE and began sharing the Gospel after I became a Christian. Every Sunday after the worship service I would share with my parental family about the sermon preached. After some time my sister teased me by saying “Jesus is coming”. I prayed hard for the salvation of my family. Sometimes when my children were taking afternoon nap I would kneel down to pray in tears for everyone in my family.
A few months later my mother suddenly called me telling me that she wanted to accept Christ. I simply couldn’t believe my ears. From my understanding about my mother, I thought she would be the last in my family to accept Christ. I just couldn’t believe that she was the first in my family. Amazing!
After becoming a Christian my mother wanted to remove all the shrines in the house. At that time it was Rev Ling Tung Hui with some other sisters in Christ who came to my house to remove these shrines. My mother showed great confidence when she removed all these shrines and burnt it. On the day of the demolition of the shrines, one of my sisters came home from work and saw that the shrines were demolished and burnt, she questioned my mother.
After a week, my mother called me saying that my sister fell sick. Despite seeking both modern and traditional medical treatments her condition was not improving. At that time I sensed something strange happening and requested brothers and sisters in the church to come to my mother’s house to pray for my sister. My sister had a lot of doubts and struggled to accept Christ despite repeated persuasion. Through prayers and singing of hymns finally she surrendered and accepted Christ into her life. She was unable to speak when we tried to lead her in prayer. So all the brothers and sisters in Christ prayed around her and finally she shed tears. When she regained consciousness she was healed.
After a long time she shared with me that at that time she felt as though there was an electric current flowing through her body and her body was numb. She cried not because she wanted to but because she couldn’t control herself. I told her that was the Holy Spirit filling her and that God was healing her. Later all my sisters became Christian.
My father was the next to accept Christ. My father smoked like a chimney. Every day he had to smoke two packs of cigarettes. We tried all means to help him to kick the habit. Later one of my mother’s friend told my mother that there was certain Hindu method in India that could help him to quit smoking. At that time my mother was a new Christian and she believed so. Without my knowledge she bought air tickets to India. Knowing so, I told her that as Christian she should not believe in that. But she insisted on going because she did not want to waste the air tickets.
During my Bible study meeting I shared with the sisters in Christ and they prayed for the matter. However a day before departure, my father had a stroke and that was the third time he had a stroke. His condition was quite serious and had to cancel the trip to India. After recovering from the stroke he never smoked again. When I asked him, he said that God helped him to quit smoking without having to go to India. God works in a mysterious way.
The next to become Christian was my brother. Initially he was not fond of Christianity at all. So I could only ask God to work on him. The strangest thing was that when my mother was going to go to India, he advised my mother not to go because she has accepted Christ. Later he became Christian and told me that God was wonderful. Though I did not preach the gospel to him, he heard the gospel everywhere. Thank God that all members of my parental family are now Christians.
The couple strive hard
together
Wong: Your herbal tea business is doing very well, how did you start your business?
Josephine: In fact, our herbal tea recipe comes from my mother. Initially my mother and I were doing the business. Later I quit because of my children. A year later my mother called me, wanting to hand over the business to me. I took over after much consideration. That was in 1998.
Our herbal tea composes of 12 kinds of herbs, brewed slowly and make into concentrate by special treatment. The customers only need to pour a little in the cup and mix with warm water to prepare the tea.
In the past I had to go to different coffee shops to ask the owners to sell our products. It was frustrating because not many people appreciated my product. Two to three years later the situation improved and more and more people are welcoming our products. I am now selling to the whole Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei and even some places in the West Malaysia. This is by God’s grace.
Wong: So the herbal tea business was actually started by Josephine?
Josephine: Yeah, in the beginning it was a one-man show. Andy was working for someone else. Seeing that I could not cope with the expanding business, Andy resigned and we work together.
Andy: We started operating from home. Then we bought a factory because of shortage of space. Later the place was not big enough too, so we applied to the government for an acre of land for the construction of a bigger factory building. Our application was approved but because we did not have enough fund we had to turn down the offer.
Two years later we had the financial ability to build a factory building and again we submitted application to the government. The authority told us that the initial plot had been taken by someone else. Instead they gave us another plot of land of the same size but closer to the main road. It seemed that God had a better deal in store for us.
Wong: How did God open the way after acquiring that plot of land?
Andy: This plot of land was granted by the state government. It was part of the government’s project to help small and medium enterprises. Under this project the applicant needed to pay the state government for the cost of the land. We were allowed to pay in instalments the amount of RM500,000.00 within 5 years. However if our factory started operation within 3 years, the balance instalments for the last 2 years, i.e. 30% of the RM500,000.00 would be written off.
The construction cost for the new factory was RM 2 million. To raise the money we decided to sell the existing factory. God helped us again. When we decided to sell the factory, our neighbour offered a price which did not meet our budget. As time was pressing we agreed at the offered price.
Again God is so wonderful. After we agreed to sell to my neighbour, another person made another offer and that was our targeted price. After talking to my neighbour he was willing to call off the offer and so we managed to raise enough fund.
We spent two years and nine months to build the factory. The normal time span to obtain the Occupancy Permit was six month and so we might not be able to meet the three years limit. So I went to the government office regularly to urge them to speed up the approval. Finally by end of March, the permit was granted and that was only few days before the date of expiration, April 1, 2013. God’s timing is perfect.
Long before that, I made a promise that if our factory could operate within three years I would offer the money saved to the church. I believed that the money belonged to God because it was the work of God that the approval of the permit could be so smooth.
I can testify that God is wonderful. My friends asked me if I “paid” someone to get the land approved, I never did so. All what I did was to list down all what I wanted to do and pray to God for each item and miraculously everything just fell into place.