13 April 2014 by Adeline Lum CM-
Rue Hann is an aspiring entrepreneur of the leading health community in Malaysia called as HealthWorks. Growing into a strong lady from going through what she called ‘a decade of character-building’, Rue is passionate about building purposeful ideas to benefit people.
Looking back, she realized who she is today, comes from the very people who dropped a dollop of love and care here and there. On hindsight, they were all angels God sent to encourage, guide, and lift her up.
During her teenage years, Rue faced the trauma of her parents’ possible separation. At nine years old, she had a vivid dream of her heading up a beautiful staircase with her mother and brother, which spiraled up towards the clouds. She knew in her heart that they were heading to a good place. But when she turned back, her father was heading the opposite direction.
That vision, little did she know, was a prophetic sign of what came to be. Her parents’ marriage began to crack when the economic recession hit in year 1998 and first broke out in year 2000, when Rue was going to take her PMR exam. After that, wave upon wave of her parents’ breaking relationship hit her during the most crucial times. Her parents decided to divorce when she turned 17 year old, in the year she took her SPM. And during her form six year, she attended the court as a witness for her parents’ divorce, one month before her STPM.
Nevertheless, Rue was under the watchful eyes of our Father in Heaven. Even though she did not have tuition due to her family financial circumstances, her friends would lend her tuition notes; God would also give her the wisdom, strength, and focus to study. She would complete piles and piles of revision books, scoring straight A’s in PMR and SPM and obtaining 3A and 1B in STPM.
Also, God would send her friends that she could relate with, to support, encourage, and guide her at any point in time. In school, Rue found both strength and solace in her best friend Melissa who had the same family experience like her. They would spend time together studying in McDonalds. And when Melissa left to Melbourne, God sent another good friend Angeline in college who was incredibly supportive and helpful to her as well. Come university, Rue found out that her roommate of the next four years also had similar family problems. Not to mention, her immediate boss at her internship grew up with a single parent as well. Another person who was there most of the time for her was her ever-helpful cousin, Ming.
Nonetheless, the person Rue was most inspired by was her mother who despite bearing the heaviest brunt of the separation, demonstrated strength and a child-like faith on God, thanks to the support of the brothers and sisters-in-Christ around her at that time. Her mother firmly believed that God would sort things out in the matter of time. Despite the stresses of her marriage, her mother would be patient in tribulation, steadfast in prayer, and most importantly, rejoice in hope (Rom 12:12) so much so that people at her work would not even know that she had home problems.
Fast-forward to today, although her parents divorced, her mother, her brother, and Rue would meet and eat with her father over lunch when he returns from overseas. True forgiveness, Rue learned, comes only by the power of the Lord; it is the kind of forgiveness where you don’t calculate the painful past but you want the best for the person in the present and in the future. She also learned that no matter what, we still need to love and honor our parents because the Bible tells us so (Eph 6:2). Let bygones be bygones and let no pain come between the unbreakable bond of a father to a daughter.
Eph 6:2-3
2HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.
Through these hardships, Rue was thankful of the experiences she went through because she got to learn how to be independent, amongst the many things she learned. Starting to work in form six by giving tuitions, she continued to earn her own pocket money doing random part-time jobs at her university. She also learned the value of being better equipped in life by joining AIESEC, a youth leadership organization, which gave her many opportunities to learn and lead. Also, growing up with a hard childhood also motivated her to read many self-help books, which passion in reading eventually grew into reading many leadership books. Looking back, these times of trials had motivated her to build skills and also knowledge on how to become a leader in her career.
In fact, even before she graduated from the university, she already had a job offer. She knew that every opportunity she had comes from God, so that Rue had a foundation to start off on. At that time, although she told the interviewee that she had to be in Korea to volunteer for World Vision, he wanted to wait two months for her instead of hiring another applicant.
Later, the team who started Groupon also approached Rue to join them when they first started in Malaysia. Although she worked very hard in her first year, she experienced the truth of God’s Word, which says, “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty” (Prov 14:23) and “the Hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” (Prov 12:24) Her hard work paid off when she had the opportunity to be sent off to work in Thailand and Korea working in Groupon. During those times, God had truly rewarded her not only financially, but also gave her the best company that supported her, the best team to work with, and flexible working hours as well.
Had she not go through these battles in the past, she would not be able to lead other people and manage her personal life well in terms of time-management and clear communication. Looking back, she never thought that she would be able to achieve success in the present, recalling how she was a happy-go-lucky and contented child, because of the comfortable life she had before the recession in 1998.
Hence, this also brings us to a question why Rue would leave Groupon—a successful and comfortable platform, which she helped to build—to start a business. Rue recalled that since she was in college, she wanted to build a company or platform where people can be nurtured and grown into maturity. Sitting in church one day, her heart was tugged when her pastor talked about how Christians who are comfortable are in a dangerous place. Meditating on that idea, Rue remembered her goal in the university, where she began to find purposeful ideas that would benefit people.
She finally narrowed it down to the health and services industry. And with the perfect timing of God, she met and caught up with a brilliant entrepreneur friend who recently came back from Australia. Both of them thought that starting a healthy portal in Malaysia is necessary and unprecedented, with a firm belief that Christians should be gatekeepers and advance His kingdom. Soon, he brought Rue to meet like-minded people, and together they decided to start a health portal for Malaysians, called HealthWorks.
Why health? Although disease incidence rates are rising among Malaysians now especially among the young adults, Rue realized that people do not seem to see the urgency of health. Yet, she believes that a fully functioning body is a gift from God, which should be taken care of. If we do not take care of our body, how can we contribute to others and the Kingdom? Drawing from her experiences of falling sick frequently last year due to not taking care of her body, she realized that the journey of wanting to be healthy could be quite lonely. Hence, she desired that HealthWorks would make it easier and happier for people to have a healthy lifestyle. Why lose our health when we have some control to keep our body running well till the end of age?
From Rue’s journey of faith, we can see how amazing God is in bringing beauty out of a potentially havoc situation. Although Rue blamed God for her parents’ separation in the beginning, she realized that many times, we should not pray for what we want, simply because we do not know what we prayed for is the best for us. But God, on the other Hand, knows what is best for us because all things work together for good for those who love Him and have been called according to His Purposes (Rom 8:28). Now, she knows how to surrender, and prays for God’s Will to be done in His Way and His Timing because it is the best! She does not pray for what she wants anymore, but to be the best in where God placed her.
Besides having a surrendered heart to the Lord out of a complete trust in Him, Rue also learned that returning to God takes a conscious decision. As a young Christian, she came to experience a Godly peace that transcends understanding, when her brothers and sisters-in-Christ prayed for her. Longing for that peace, Rue would return to the Father time after time to spend time with Him. Nothing beats the peace and feeling of support coming from spending time with the Father, though she is thankful to everyone who prayed and supported her all these years.
Through her years of needing to work to earn pocket money, Rue is contented with the many things that God has rewarded her now, though contentment to her is different from complacency because she is still aiming for many things. Although she had a broken past, Rue also realized how much more fortunate she is compared to the children she saw during a trip in Cambodia and Laos who suffered in poverty. Working in the English Language Center in Seoul as well, her eyes were opened to the hard life of the parents of the children who studied there, where most worked in the hawker stalls. Even her host had a barbeque hawker stall, where they would return in the wee hours of the morning before starting their work again in the afternoon. Having received so much love, care, and providence from other people, Rue is thankful and desires to give back to the people whenever she can.
Because of the availability of the people God sent her even till now, Rue learned that she can always go back to God’s Promises in the Bible and find a few of her brothers and sisters-in-Christ. She knew they would be willing to help her, though finding help itself is a conscious decision to take. To Rue, how we live our life is a conscious decision to make, down to the way we think because how we think forms a belief that cause an action, which repetition makes a habit and eventually changes our destiny. Do you realize how powerful a thought can be to our future? That is why God says in the Bible, “Do not be conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)
Sometimes, when we go through life, we forget the very purpose or why we are doing something. Hence, that is why Rue felt that one of the most important things to remind us in doing something is why we are doing it in the first place. For example, when Rue had a tough time in Groupon, she was reminded that her purpose was to help grow her team. Now, her team has matured to the point where she was comfortable to leave due to her confidence in them.
Most importantly, as she looked back into her past, she discovered that she is now a product of what she has been through that ‘decade of character building’. Hence, if she were to go through troubles in the future, she will remind herself that the problem is a building process of who God wants her to be in the future. And like what Paul said, we can see clearly how Rue’s character was indeed built through years of perseverance, which gives her a hope in God that does not disappoint (Romans 5:3-5). Although she doesn’t know all the puzzle pieces that make up her future, she has faith in the God she cannot see, which admittedly grew slowly and steadfastly through her experiences.
And such is the beauty of Rue’s story written in the Hands of God. The next time we face troubles in our lives whether it is a ‘decade of character-building’ or ‘a year of furnace’, perhaps we can also remind ourselves that in His timing, everything will work out for good for those who love Him and called according to His Purpose (Romans 8:28). May you find strength in your life challenges today!
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