Kayla Ng

You tell yourself to stop caring this time. You swear to yourself as you hold back your tears that you’ll never let someone in so easily ever again. You put up your walls, you play the game everyone is playing where you invest only a little bit, caring but pretending you don’t. Seeing their text message but not replying, making them wonder how you feel. Maybe this way you won’t get hurt again. But knowing yourself, you don’t seem to change. You still jump into every relationship with both feet, head first even. You choose to see the good in people who can’t see it in themselves. And you take it upon yourself to love them in their brokenness, in hopes that they’ll learn to love themselves too. You rarely give up opportunities to show the deep care and compassion you have in you, because it is in your nature to do so. Most importantly, you don’t second guess them. The thought of them potentially breaking your trust would somehow never cross your mind. But when it happ...

“It’s all part of growing up,” I thought to myself as I walked to my gate, awaiting to go back to the U.S. I had the privilege to go back home to Malaysia after my mission trip to Cambodia ended last summer. The moment I step foot on the streets of Phnom Penh – being in the hot humid air, smelling food in the atmosphere, feeling and witnessing the sense of community ingrained in Asian culture – I knew I couldn’t wait to be back in Malaysia. I was received by my dad and my sister at the KLIA airport. “Welcome home, Kayla,” my dad said as he hugged me tight. I almost forgot how gentle his voice sounded in real life. For the first time in what felt like forever, it was no longer his over-the-phone voice that I was hearing. I came home to the smell of my mom’s cooking. She hurried out the kitchen, apron still on and all, and excitingly said: “Look what I cooked for you!” She smiled gleamingly as speckles of sweat dripped down the side of her face. It felt so foreign, t...

"There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those."  - Mother Teresa It’s 6:50 a.m. My alarm clock rings, gradually increasing in volume, beckoning me to get out of bed. I got up, braided my hair with eyes half-open, and savored the last few minutes I had to myself. I hurried down the narrow, tiled stairway of the small restaurant we were living on top of and sat down for breakfast. The metal gates of the restaurant were wide open, inviting in sunlight and hungry customers. My friends and I quickly ate what we could to fill ourselves up just enough to feel hungry by noon. By 7:20 a.m., our tuk-tuk was waiting outside the restaurant doors. We got in, held on tight onto our belongings, and sat through an hour-long journey to a village called Kandal . This was our morning routine for the next six weeks.   As we journeyed from the city of Phnom Penh to the outskirts leading to Kandal, we witness the immediate change in our surrounding...

Home. I’ve never thought that this word would have so many meanings for me as I journeyed on in life. Growing up, my family and I moved quite a bit – 4 times to be exact. In May of 1998, I was brought home to a small room on the 2 nd floor of a terrace house located in a city in Malaysia called Subang. This was my first home, where I lived during the first 3 years of my life. It was tiny and uncomfortable (for my parents) at times because my parents and I had to share a room. After my sister was born, we moved another 3 times, finally settling in a house we can call our own in Shah Alam, Malaysia . This house was the biggest one I’ve lived in and we no longer had to share rooms. We have a garden and a substantial amount of land for my dog, Simba, to run around. To me, home was a physical building. My house in Malaysia Something my late grandpa implemented in the family was to have our dinner together every day. I spent every evening with my entire extended family. Ab...