Once in a while, I will meet a young dentist or dental student who will remind me that I was once the chairman of the Sheep Farmers Club. They would have learnt this from one of their lecturers in the National University of Singapore dental faculty, Dr Vijayan Loganathan. (Dr Vijayan and I were classmates in dental school.) I would smile with amusement every time I hear this.
There was a group of us who really struggled in dental school. (I was in dental school 1974–1978.) We were not sure at all if we would graduate as dentists. So we decided that we should think of an alternative career if we did indeed flunk out of dental school. We would move to Australia and become sheep farmers. We therefore started the Sheep Farmers Club. I am not sure how I was elected chairman. Maybe I was the one deemed most likely to fail.
A few days ago, I was at a memorial service. Dr Vijayan was also there. It was good to see my old friend. My usual practice now is to thank people for how they have helped me. I took the opportunity to thank Vijayan again for all the help he gave me when I struggled through dental school. As is usual, he would humbly brush aside my gestures of gratitude. I reminded him of how he had told generations of dental students about the Sheep Farmers Club. I thought it was something that he found helpful for lightening the mood of his classes. But as he shared more about why he mentioned the Sheep Farmers Club, I realised that his motive was more serious than that.
He tells the story of the Sheep Farmers Club to his classes to encourage those who are struggling; that even if they didn’t make it in dentistry it wouldn’t be the end of their lives, that life is bigger than becoming a dentist. We also recounted the fact that there were dental students who had to do supplementary exams, or repeat a year, who went on to become excellent dentists. And there were those who didn’t make it through dental school who had gone on to other careers where they had blossomed. Indeed, not making it through dental school was not the end of everything.
When your parents have sacrificed so much to put you through dental school, and dentistry looked like such a promising career, it’s hard to see beyond making it through dental school. I thank God that all of us in the Sheep Farmers Club did pass in the end and qualified as dentists. But it is also true that not becoming dentists would not have been the end of the world. And whether we realised it then, or not, the Sheep Farmers Club was an attempt by some desperate dental students to remind themselves of that.
At different junctures of life, certain things will matter a lot to us. It is natural that we would catastrophise a situation if we do not achieve what we want. But if we truly believe that God is the author and finisher of our life story, we need to trust Him especially when things don’t work out the way we think they should. I always go back to the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, who started life as a cocky, spoilt brat. He went through one setback after another. Yet God was working in his life all the time, something that became clearer much later in his life. His story also reminds us that it sometimes takes a long time before God’s purposes unfold. Waiting is a basic discipline of faith.
