A boy I just met

Today, I went to the jetty behind my house to find peace and solace.

It was so calming to look at Allah’s art work in front of our eyes, the river, the mountains and the trees simply sitting there harmoniously. At the same time, I was listening to a podcast by Mufti Menk.

There was a boy nearby. A Chinese boy who speaks English and not mandarin. He was wearing a green cotton Tshirt with shorts and a pair of glasses with high power, I can tell that by the size of his eyes that was enlarged on the lenses. He was having a conversation with a middle age Chinese lady (in the picture). What amazed me was that they were both conversing in English! This is a rare sight of Chinese people in my neighborhood speaking english among themselves. I was delighted of course because I understood what they were saying haha.

Usually, whenever I meet people in my neighborhood, I would greet them by saying Hi!

But before I could say Hi to him, he waved at me first. Wow. Then I continued acting as if I was so immersed in the nature. Somehow, my sixth sense told me that this boy would be interesting. So I paused my Podcast to eve drop their conversation (hahaha okay this is not a good thing to do).

As he was walking naturally to my side, he captured a bird with his eye. “There’s a bird!”. Technically speaking, it was a Crane (Bangau). “I wish I can fly with the bird”, he said. And that was when I knew it was my que to start the conversation with him.

I gave him a shocked reaction and said, “Wow, why do you want to fly?”

So the conversation continued for quiet some time and that's how we became friends.

What caught my attention was that, when the lady asked him, what does he like to do, he replied with a smile while looking at the mountains ahead of us, “I like making new friends”. Awww boy! You touched my heart. Haha

I reflected upon this. I think, Allah is reminding me of the beauty of making new friends. Making new friends in Islam is like opening a new door of hope for a potential mad’u (learner). I have truly forgotten the feeling of making new friends, especially friends of different religion and culture.

These few couple of months, I have not been an active da’i as per taught during my study time. What I mean is that, it’s easier for me to meet people directly and preach (do dakwah) back then because the field I was in was wide, the scope was bigger. Now that I am at home, my scope has become a lot smaller and revolves only around my family. All I see was that I need to do dakwah to my family and that has slowly sucked out the energy and excitement in me. Not to say that I do not like it, but I must admit that doing dakwah to our family members are a lot harder than we taught. I needed something to boost back my motivation of doing dakwah. I needed some refreshment. 

So today, after meeting and talking to a new friend, I felt alive again. I realize that I should go out more, I should search for people and make new friends. I know I can learn many things from other people even strangers. I also want to make change in my life and others even if the change is tiny bit. To do that, GO OUT AND EXPLORE DEAR SELF. 

We talked a lot! From the topic of super heroes to family. He sure does use a lot of imagination. He said that if I were to fall into the river, he won't save me because he can't swim and because, he is made out of metal XD. He would sink first. That was so random. The picture above shows that we are in front of my house, since he followed me from the jetty just to continue our chat, I invited him to my house, because why not? (Not that I invited him to come into my house, we stayed outside the gate). My father is around too. I gave him a glass of water and then we said our goodbyes. Lovely ending to a new beginning of friendship.