Two and a Half Men (Part 2)

Saturday, 3rd January 2026

in matching Villa jerseys

As mentioned in my previous post, I support this rather unfancied soccer team called Aston Villa (which is based in Birmingham, UK).  My dad supported Liverpool but he never "forced" me to support the same team as him.

In the same manner, I also did not "force" my son to support Villa, although I did try to "persuade" him to do so, and even made him wear matching Villa jerseys when he was in Kindergarten, as can be seen in the photo on the above right.

He ended up supporting Chelsea, and it perhaps had to do with what happened in December 1993...

me at the Bridge, Dec 1993

Back then, my wife and I were on our honeymoon.  While searching for a recommended fish & chips outlet in Southwest London called Johnnie's Fish Bar, we chanced upon Stamford Bridge (Chelsea's stadium) and she took a photo of me, on very pricey and precious Kodak ISO 200 35mm film, no less.

Looking back, maybe we should have made our way up to Birmingham and had me to stand in front of Villa Park (Aston Villa's stadium) instead.  Who knows if the outcome would have been different? :p

Ok, back to the topic of today's post.  Circumstances were such that I was closer to my daughter than to my son growing up.  As some of you may be aware, my son was born with small kidneys, and by the time he was 3 years old, he had to undergo peritoneal dialysis, whereby he was hooked up to a machine every evening for up to 10 hours.  As a result, he was very much home-bound.

Thus, whenever there was any night activities (such as watching a movie or a soccer game) or overnight activities (such as when the company I was working in organised a trip to KL in 2001), my wife would have to stay at home to attend to him, leaving me to participate in such activities with just my daughter.

Thankfully, he received a transplanted kidney in April 2008, when he was in Primary 5.  As he progressed into his teenage years, he would naturally spend increasingly more time with his peers rather than with his own parents.

To cut a long story short, it was like history repeating itself.  I was never close to my dad growing up, and my son was never that close to me growing up either :(

So I really want to praise God that just as He used a "father-and-son UK trip" to cause me to bond with my dad back in 2015, He used another "father-and-son UK trip" to cause me to bond with my son!!!

It all began sometime in September 2025, when my son asked me whether I was keen to watch Chelsea v Aston Villa, which was scheduled to take place on 27 December 2025. Truth be told, I was initially not so enthusiastic to go there right in the middle of winter, where temperatures typically drop to the single-digits.

I asked a good friend of mine, Chen Meng, who had recently watched a Premier League match with his family, and he recommended me to Matchday Affairs, a local company that has been regularly arranging Singaporeans to go to Europe to watch football matches since 2019.

They confirmed that they could get us 2 tickets!  That was when my son and I started planning an itinerary around it, and it was agreed that we would fly into London on 24 December and fly back to Singapore on 31 December.

On 6 December, I happened to be with some fellow Villa-supporting friends who told me that it would be a waste to travel all the way to the UK and yet not visit Villa Park! Then, a week later, on 14 December, an elder from my son's church was preaching and happened to mention about the Cadbury factory (which is situated in Birmingham) in his sermon! It was definitely not a coincidence, but God's way of telling us that this UK trip was ordained by Him.

And if that was not confirmation enough, ever since Pastor Prince and Pastor Lian spoke separately some years ago about the British Museum (and in particular about the Siege of Lachish by Assyria), it had piqued my curiosity about making a visit there to see how archaeology confirms the accuracy of the Old Testament scriptures. 

You can read about its significance here:

https://www.josephprince.com/sermon-notes/answers-for-dark-nights-and-difficult-seasons

https://www.gotquestions.org/Lachish-in-the-Bible.html

I did not mention the above to my son, yet separately, he had also expressed an interest in visiting the Museum, and while googling "Bible Tours", he discovered that there was one being conducted on 29 December 2025.  Not only that, the Museum happened to be just a 10-minute walk from the hotel that Matchday Affairs booked for us.  Yet another example of God's fingerprints being on this trip of ours!

It was God Himself who was slowly but surely filling up our itinerary for us, which eventually looked like this:

24 Dec: arrived in London

London-bound ...

... with extra legroom

25 Dec: attended Christmas service, followed by lunch with Aunt Helen, cousin Terry and his family

Christmas service at All-Souls Church

Christmas lunch with the Lees

26 Dec: shopped in Oxford Street

bought this vinyl at HMV, Oxford Street

27 Dec: watched Chelsea v Aston Villa

the raison d'être of our trip

28 Dec: attended Sunday service / had lunch in Chinatown / re-visited Stamford Bridge

Euston Church with its very high ceiling

lunch at Gold Mine, Chinatown

me at The Bridge, Dec 2025

For posterity's sake, my son took a photo of me at Stamford Bridge, 32 years from that earlier photo of me taken by his mom :-P

29 Dec: went on a guided Bible Tour of the British Museum

guided bible tour

Sennacherib bragged about Lachish, but was silent on Jerusalem

30 Dec: rented a car to drive up to Birmingham (check out the car plate number: does it not have God's endorsement on it too!)

the car we rented: a Citroen C3 

a third pilgrimage to the hallowed grounds

at Cadbury World learning how chocolate is made

31 Dec: departed London

we upgraded to premium economy for a more comfortable trip home

I really thank God for this wonderful bonding trip with my son, and look forward to more to come.

So why the title Two and a Half Men?  Because it speaks of how God mended the relationships of two fathers (ie. men) and their growing-up son (ie. half men) :-)

P.S. Ps Prince preached a sermon entitled "Answers for Dark Nights and Difficult Seasons" on 18 August 2019, whereby he mentioned about the reliefs depicting the siege of Lachish housed in the British Museum.  Here is an extract of the sermon notes:

There was a time when Israel was surrounded by the Assyrian army and King Hezekiah was outnumbered.

At that time, King Sennacherib was the king of Assyria, and he was an evil and brutal man. Today, we can see what he did to the captive Jews in his siege of Lachish by looking at reliefs now housed in the British Museum in London. The reliefs show terrible torture.

But there are no reliefs that show Jerusalem being conquered because God stopped it from happening.

When Sennacherib threatened Hezekiah, Hezekiah cried out to the Lord, and the Lord answered Him.

“And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.”
— ‭‭2 Kings‬ ‭19:35‬ NKJV

In one night, the enemies were killed. 

This is what God can do in your night season.