Episode 6: When the Fire Returned
There are moments in life when purpose feels like a distant memory.
And then there are moments when it returns with such intensity that it changes everything.
For me, that moment came after the COVID-19 pandemic.
By then, I had spent years learning, teaching, writing, growing spiritually, and carrying responsibilities at home. Although the desire to create had never completely disappeared, it had remained largely in the background.
Then something changed.
I can only describe it as a renewed grace to build.
The fire returned.
Not gradually.
Not partially.
Completely.
And this time, it burned more intensely than ever before.
Ideas flowed constantly.
Projects formed in my imagination.
Solutions appeared everywhere I looked.
The builder was awake again.
The first project of this new season was surprisingly simple, yet deeply significant.
I had a rechargeable flashlight that charged directly from AC power. The problem was obvious.
Electricity in my town was unreliable.
I needed a better solution.
So I redesigned it.
I converted the charging system from 220v AC charging to 5v DC charging through a USB Type-B interface, allowing it to be charged with a power bank whenever electricity was unavailable. I also replaced the original 4V lead-acid battery with a 4.2V 18650 lithium-ion battery so it could charge faster, last longer, and perform better.
The modification worked beautifully.
To many people, it was just a modified flashlight.
To me, it was proof.
Proof that the creator inside me was alive again.
The excitement was impossible to describe.
I had missed this.
The planning.
The experimenting.
The problem-solving.
The satisfaction of transforming an idea into reality.
And once the fire returned, it became difficult to slow down.
The more projects I completed, the more ideas appeared.
In fact, I rarely celebrated a completed project for long. The moment one project was finished, my mind had already moved to the next.
I had entered a season where creation felt as natural as breathing.
I found myself doing something I had watched my father do for years.
Drawing plans in the air.
Visualizing projects before they existed.
Building them mentally before touching a single component.
Sometimes I would spend hours imagining solutions, testing possibilities in my mind, rearranging designs, and exploring alternatives. By the time I eventually began building, the project already felt finished internally.
The challenge was no longer seeing it.
The challenge was finding the resources to bring it into existence.
I became completely immersed in the process.
Sometimes I became so absorbed in a project that I forgot to eat.
Not intentionally.
Hours disappeared.
Entire days—and sometimes nights—disappeared.
I would start working, and before I knew it, the sun had crossed the sky. Even while eating, my mind remained occupied.
The next modification.
The next improvement.
The next possibility.
The next challenge.
The next creation.
Soon, I began working on other projects.
I revisited an LED lighting bulb concept I had experimented with years earlier and improved it significantly. I soldered countless LEDs together by hand, designed a rechargeable backup battery system, and built lighting solutions capable of continuing operation even when power failed.
Some of those systems are still functioning years later.
A reminder that good ideas, when carefully built, can outlive the moment that created them.
Soon afterward, another project found its way onto my workbench.
An old 70-watt desktop computer speaker.
It had served its purpose for years as a wired speaker, but I believed it still had more to offer.
So I redesigned it.
I integrated Bluetooth functionality.
Added a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
Installed a charging circuit with a USB Type-B charging interface.
Even more satisfying was the fact that I all bluetooth function buttons, allowing the speaker to operate as a modern wireless audio system.
What had once been tied down by wires became portable.
Freer.
More practical.
More useful.
Watching old technology receive new life reminded me that innovation is not always about creating something entirely new.
Sometimes, it is about seeing hidden possibilities in what already exists.
Then came one of my favorite projects.
A tiny flashlight originally powered by ordinary AA batteries.
Most people would simply replace the batteries when they became weak.
I wanted something more.
I replaced the battery system with a rechargeable lithium-ion configuration.
Then I went further.
I integrated Bluetooth functionality.
A charging circuit.
An audio output.
Additional features.
All inside an extremely compact enclosure.
The challenge fascinated me.
The flashlight itself was tiny.
The lithium-ion battery alone was nearly the size of the original device.
Every millimeter mattered.
Every component placement mattered.
Every modification demanded careful planning.
Yet I found a way to make everything fit.
When it finally worked, I felt an immense sense of accomplishment because it was my very first Bluetooth integration project.
Not because I needed a Bluetooth flashlight.
I didn’t.
In fact, years later, I would remove the Bluetooth feature because I rarely used it.
That was never the point.
The point was discovery.
The point was stretching my abilities.
The point was proving that I could imagine something unusual and bring it into existence.
Even today, that little flashlight still serves me.
Functional.
Quiet.
A small reminder of a much larger truth.
Creation changes the creator.
Every project was doing more than improving devices.
It was expanding me.
Strengthening my confidence.
Brightening my vision.
Deepening my understanding.
Teaching me to think beyond what already existed.
With every successful project, one conviction grew stronger.
I was no longer merely repairing things.
I was becoming what I had always wanted to be.
A creator.
A builder.
An innovator.
Yet, as transformative as these projects were, something even greater was approaching.
A single idea.
A single problem.
A single moment of inspiration.
A light that would emerge from the darkness.
The Light that would eventually give a name to the future I had been unknowingly building toward all along.
It shall be called MaxOhr.
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Sometimes, things work out for us without our knowledge because it has been prepared by God long before we were born, and it happened so that the words of the Lord would be accomplished.
May those words written about you with which would be glorified to God be accomplished through you.