DECEMBER MUSINGS FROM AN EDUCATOR AND ARDENT CHRISTIAN; AN INTERVIEW with Professor Dr. Elizabeth F.Y Lee
Issue Number : 00018 Kuala Lumpur 4th December 2021
Professor Dr. Elizabeth F.Y Lee is very happy ( and proud ) to be known simply as just a teacher and a Christian instead of her well-deserved and impressive title of Chief Executive Officer ( since 1992 ) of the Sunway Education Group which includes Sunway University, Sunway Colleges, Sunway International Schools as well as various centres and institutes. For Professor Dr. Elizabeth, her Christian faith and the well-being of her students are uppermost. Elizabeth’s passion to educate young minds has resulted in the grooming and flowering of some remarkable leaders and accomplished individuals in her 30 years ( and still continuing ) in education. As for international awards, Elizabeth has received many, too numerous to name here - including Doctor of Laws by the University of Nottingham, a second honorary doctorate by Victoria University and the ‘Educationist of the Year’ award at the inaugural Sin Chew Education awards in 2018.
From Elizabeth’s family photo album.
Far Left - Elizabeth with her parents; centre left - Elizabeth with her husband Ming Chiew
Centre Right - Elizabeth as the young educator with her students
Far right - Husband Ming Chiew with their three daughters
Left : Elizabeth at her casual best
Centre : Riding a golf cart in the hills during a pandemic break - here I am sitting next to Elizabeth with her friends Sylvia Koh and Su Day ( in the back )
Right - Elizabeth and her wonderful supportive husband, Ming Chiew whose name means ‘Bright Autumn’
Elizabeth the Humanitarian sits on many charitable institutions including, the Board of Trustees of MERCY Malaysia (Medical Relief Society Malaysia) and Elizabeth is also the Honorary Patron of the Yunus Social Business Centre at Sunway Education Group which works towards alleviating poverty, reducing gender inequalities and closing the gap on attaining sustainable goals through education and enterprise. On the personal front, most importantly, there is Elizabeth the loving wife to husband Ming Chiew and doting mother of 3 lovely daughters ; and fundamental to all this is Elizabeth, the ardent Christian.
Elizabeth participating at the Podcast of “Let’s Get Real’, an inspiring and popular Christian podcast started by a young energetic Christian, Brandon Ho who certainly leads by example.
The combination of all the above makes for a very moving and compelling personality. Today is the first Saturday in December and we are in Advent - a very special time for Christians. It is indeed most appropriate for me to begin December with an interview with my good friend, Professor Dr. Elizabeth F.Y Lee who speaks candidly and passionately about her deep and unabashed Christian faith.
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DECEMBER MUSINGS FROM A CHRISTIAN TO THE CORE - the INTERVIEW
Professor Dr. Elizabeth Lee Kuala Lumpur 4th December 2021
Joan : First, I would like to thank you so much dear Elizabeth for giving us this rare deeply personal glimpse of you - as Elizabeth, the Christian. The world already knows so much of your incredible accomplishments as an educator and humanitarian. So, today, I will take advantage of this opportunity to delve deeper into your spiritual core. You were an adult convert to Christianity even though you were already ‘smitten’ by God when you were quite young at school. As you know, just as I have revealed in my case, it’s never too late to find God. Tell us more about your experience.
ELIZABETH : I was very lonely growing up as a single child in a rather protective household. I was made to sleep on my own and as a young child, fearful of things that go bump in the night, I found prayer very reassuring and slept well knowing God’s Angels are always with me and protecting me. It did not help that the house we were living in when we first came to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore was actually ‘haunted’ to put it bluntly. Mum saw ghostly apparitions while I saw strange shadows but the peace of Christ ruled my heart and mind. I was always a Christian from young. It’s just that I did not get baptized till adulthood as my parents felt I should only make that formal move as an adult and sure of my convictions. They did not want for me to change my mind in later years for love and marriage. Luck would have it that I did fall in love with a boy brought up in a staunchly Buddhist family and the test of faith ensued for a good ten years till his mother gave her blessing for the marriage which was blessed in public by Father JoJo Fung at the wedding reception. I was baptized not long after that as I felt the public proclamation and formalization had become more important as we contemplated starting a family. My husband and I pledged our children to God and Christianity when we had them all formally baptized as babies. My husband took to water baptism some years later after attending a full Alpha course followed by Confirmation classes.
Joan : How transformative has Christianity been in your professional and personal life ?
ELIZABETH : Christianity totally guides my life. When we surrender to God, we must heed His leading and I have learned to follow His direction even though it may not be where I wanted to head to initially. Take my current place work for instance, where ( initially ) I had tried to avoid but He gave me no peace till I tore up my acceptance letter from another institution, offering what I had felt was a better deal, and said yes to where I was obviously destined by Him to be at. On the first day of work, I cried and asked why He made me come to a place I was clearly unwelcomed and immediately He sent His Angels in the form of former students I had censured in the past to comfort and reassure. Every time I had called out in the despairing darkness, He would respond clearly to light the way forward. There was an instance when I asked Him an important question, where I felt His gentle prompting needed a more stark confirmation, and I asked that He write the answer on the clouds as I was too overwhelmed to hear His still small voice otherwise. As I scanned the clouds, a car cut right into my lane causing me to hit the brakes abruptly. Emblazoned on a banner in the rear window were the words, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and mind”. I burst into tears as once again my Lord remains true to me and never leaves my side.
Joan : I believe that our Christian faith is the bedrock that enables us to embrace our full possibilities and potential as human beings; our version of life - more robust than the mere individual pursuit and fulfilment of desire and material gains. What are your thoughts on this ?
ELIZABETH : I absolutely subscribe to this. We are all placed on earth to fulfil His greater plan. We know not our parts but He places us in exactly where we need to be. In trusting Him, all will be revealed in good time and I see this over and over again in my own professional life and where my harvest field is, contrary to where many others including myself may have thought or wished otherwise.
When my second daughter was threatened with a growing cyst competing with her development in my womb, the Lord led me to a church for spiritual healing actually right next to my college campus. The whole experience led to the enabling of a Christian revival on campus where we witnessed hundreds called to the altar to accept Christ as their personal saviour. I have never felt more blessed to have been made God’s conduit and the reward was the miraculous disappearance of the cyst and the healthy birth of my baby months later.
Joan : The Pandemic lockdowns during the past 2 years have forced religion into the nebulous digital space. Zoom masses became the new normal. You must have missed going to church as a family, the rituals, the community, a sense of purpose etc. On the other hand, what do you think of the other view that perhaps the digital participation in masses etc actually helped bring about more solidarity together as Christians ?
ELIZABETH : God is not confined in a building but lives in each of us who have invited Him into our life. The pandemic stopped us in our paths to contemplate Who’s actually in control, i.e. God Himself and not man running around thinking we know it all. Just like in the digital world, God is all around us, unseen but a powerful force to be reckoned with. The virus, on the other hand, has been allowed to scourge us in various shapes and guises over the centuries, an extreme reminder of the human frailty in the presence of our omnipotent God.
Joan : Finally, dear Elizabeth, what is your moral vision of the world ?
ELIZABETH : That’s a very tough question. God created our world and breathed life into. It’s absolutely beautiful and even perfect, in comparison to the other planets we can see for example. However, it is obviously an “immoral” world to God as we continue to destroy both the planet and our own humanity. He sent His own Son to offer to save us. That offer still stands two millennia later and will probably expire soon as we head down our trajectory of self-destruction of our own morality and all that is around us. Many look to Christ’s 2nd coming as the grand finale but that will only come after we have exhausted every possible U-turn along this imminent track of total world annihilation.
Joan : Thank you so much, Professor Dr. Elizabeth Lee for your deep, profound and very precious insight. Just as Elizabeth says, God’s open and forgiving heart is right out there for us. We must not go down the slippery slope of self-destruction. As long as we believe and have faith, I have no doubt that Christianity is energetic, alive and well !
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