“We’re not perfect, but there is hope from going from not wanting to talk at all to, now, my parents are my best friends.”

A month into our marriage, I got pregnant! It was unplanned and we had no idea how to be parents. Nevertheless, we were overjoyed and Tristan was born on Easter Sunday in 2006. Raising a baby was challenging indeed and we wished we had a parenting manual to help us.

My husband and I have been married since 1995 and we have a daughter, 18, and a son, 11, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. For the past 10 years, I have been focused on my business and helping my son at the cost of neglecting my daughter and marriage. I even became abusive and violent towards my daughter.

My wife and I have three children and I like to think we’re a closely-knit family because we do things together – serving at events, going on mission trips or doing projects together. We’ve also made it a point to do fun things together, whether a planned outing, movie/game night at home, or just a spontaneous day out. But not everything has to be fun; even routine stuff, such as the daily school and tuition car trip can be ‘family fun time’. All these help strengthen the family bond.

I had dreamt of climbing Mount Kinabalu since my university days, so I was excited when I received an email from Focus on the Family Malaysia about the Mt Kinabalu climb. Better still, the climb aimed to strengthen marriages and raise funds for charity. But the best thing was that CK agreed to join me in the event.