I was born as the seventh baby in my family. My siblings and I grew up in a Teochew and Cantonese speaking home in Singapore in the 1960s. 

My parents could not afford to send us to kindergarten and so my giant leap into school and education began at Primary 1 when I was seven years old. 

It was bewildering as that was the first day that I heard my name in English and Mandarin being called out. That day, I was launched into two new languages and was quite lost. I could not tell the difference between “b” and “d”, not to mention “p” and “q”.  

The teacher wanted to keep me in class during the recess break till I wrote all the letters of the alphabet correctly. It was only when she saw my mother waiting outside the classroom that she released me.    

I was greatly comforted when my mother sat with me over a hearty serving of chicken porridge that she had cooked. And she spoke to me in Cantonese, unlike the teachers who gave me instructions in English or Mandarin.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”. (A quote attributed to Nelson Mandela.)

Heart to heart

I was reminded of my bewilderment on that first day of school when I read the book of Daniel.

Think of a word that you use often – you can probably think of several. Now, think of a word that you used only once and not again. This will be much harder.

counsel  מְלַךְ

break off  פְּרַק

thy sins חֲטָי

righteousness צִדְקָה

thine iniquities עִוְיָא

to the poor  עֲנָה

thy tranquility שְׁלֵוָה

shewing mercies חֲנַן. (2 times in Daniel 6:11)

lengthening אַרְכָּה –  (2 times in Daniel 7:12)

Of the 16 Hebrew words used in Daniel 4:27, six words are hapax legomenon, that is, they are used only once in the text, in this case, the Bible.

Furthermore, two words are used only twice, and both times by Daniel.

Additionally, the word “acceptable” שְׁפַר is used three times and all three times by Daniel. 

Why did Daniel use so many “uncommon” words, as compared to the rest of the Old Testament?

Most likely, the main reason is that the book of Daniel was written in two languages.

Some portions were written in Hebrew and some, as is Daniel 4:27, were written in Aramaic.  

Although it was a commonly used language in those days, Aramaic words are uncommon as far as the written Bible is concerned.

A whole new world

Daniel and his companions were forced into exile – taken from their homeland and transported to Babylon. 

In human migration, there is the constant juggle to adapt and to adopt. What parts of the old to keep and what parts of the new to embrace? Will I be laughed at if I take on too much of my host culture? Will my roots and loyalties change?

So many new words. So many new gods.

And so many new happenings in Nebuchadnezzar’s court!

Other than being in a new land, perhaps Daniel had to dig deep into vocabulary because he was trying to communicate with the king in a new language when persuading King Nebuchadnezzar in Aramaic that God beckons him to repentance. 

The languages may change but the heartbeat is the same. 

Daniel, though slave and servant, communicated with the king heart-to-heart. The hapax legomenons flow ceaselessly – not to demonstrate his linguistic eloquence, but to introduce and inject God’s words into the king’s heart and mind.  

Perhaps the many new words also tell of the struggles in Daniel’s own heart.

Communicating God’s values

Social media has thrown me into a world of many new words and phrases: “LOL”, “TLDR”, “wats 4 dnr”.  What should I do?  How much should I adapt and how much to reject? Should I insist on proper spelling and grammar?

Perhaps, like Daniel, I should go through the framework of wanting to communicate God’s values – the hard work of highlighting sin and unrighteousness, pleading for repentance and advocacy to care for the marginalised.  

These are the hard issues – topics such as “sin” are often seen as private matters (or basically – “who are you to judge?”).  Through his many hapax, Daniel speaks to the heart. 

Back in my Primary 1 classroom, my teachers propelled me into a whole new world. 

I enjoyed most of the classes, but always looked forward to the recess break when my mother would come with the hot porridge. Often, she would tell me to obey the teachers – in Cantonese – as I ate.

Over the past few years, Dr Tan Lai Yong has done “a very little work among displaced people/refugees”. He found ministry among refugees emotionally challenging. Even in the days when working with leprosy or the HIV affected, outcomes could be managed and and plans made accordingly, he said.

“But in refugee work – while school and other meaningful programmes are run – it is still many years of waiting and waiting,” he added. “I struggle with this stagnation and ask: Where does the Good News come in?

“I still do not have concrete answers but penned three simple devotional essays as the Lord teaches me that He is Sovereign and He knows.”

This is the first of Dr Tan’s devotions in his series on The Language of Hearts and Minds. Watch this space for more devotions.

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The post “Talk to a man in his language, and it goes to his heart”: Dr Tan Lai Yong on the heart language in the book of Daniel appeared first on Salt&Light.

Dr Ng was going to be a missionary doctor while Belinda would be doing missions work with the womenfolk. They were the first missionaries from Singapore to Africa sent by the SIM Australia office and would spend the next 12 years there.

“When the plane landed in the capital of Niger, my first thought was: ‘We are finally here in Niger, Africa where God has called us to be.’

“Stepping out of the plane, it was a big culture shock. It was at least 45ºC,” Belinda, now 75, told Salt&Light.

It would take another flight by a light aircraft to get them to the village.

“The aerial view of the area was barren, no trees. There was no control tower, just a landing strip made of dirt.”

Galmi Hospital where Dr Andrew worked.

Her husband was whisked away to Galmi Hospital the moment they landed. He was the only qualified surgeon and there was a surgery awaiting him. Dr Ng would go on to bless countless with his surgical skills throughout his time in Niger. His ties to the country were so deep that when he passed away in 2019, his ashes were buried in Galmi.

Dr Andrew (right) was the only surgeon in the hospital when he first arrived in Galmi. It would be months before another surgeon joined the team.

Said Belinda of that first night: “I was left alone. Every sound from the roof made me scared. When I heard scratching, I remembered the story of a nurse in Galmi who was listening to the transistor radio and found the sound getting fainter and fainter because a thief was stealing the radio. 

“I thought I might have a thief on the roof. My son Nat was so innocent. He was fine but I was scared.”

The Ng family in front of their house at Galmi village.

In time, Belinda would become familiar with the groans and creaks from the house. The scratching she had heard that first night had merely been the branches of trees swaying against the zinc roof of the house. Missionaries before them had planted trees around the house and the hospital to provide shade from the punishing African heat. 

The call to Africa

Belinda became a Christian when she was 15 through Youth for Christ (YFC). Five years later at a Navigators’ Discipleship Conference, she heard God ask: “Are you willing to go to Africa?”

“Before the conference, I had prayed, ‘Lord, teach me a fresh lesson today.’ Now my question to God was, ‘Are You really calling me to be a missionary?’”

At the time, Belinda was actively involved in both YFC and The Navigators Singapore, and was attending Bartley Christian Church. Although she had been reading stories about missionaries, she knew nothing of locals being sent to mission fields.

“I thought maybe God was just testing my faith, like Abraham.”

Throughout the ride home on the bus, she debated with herself. Maybe God only wanted to see if she would go but did not really mean for her to go, much like how He wanted to see if Abraham could give up Isaac but did not mean for him to actually sacrifice his son.

She was an ordinary Christian who had not expected to become one to begin with, much less a missionary. She was still a young believer and had just started working. Besides, how would she be able to break the news to her parents?

“But I realised that I needed to say ‘yes’ because I love the Lord. There was no skirting around the question.

“My prayer was, ‘I will obey You but I will place everything into Your hands.’”

The next morning, during her quiet time, Hebrews 13:20-21 caught her attention.

“It assured me that God would equip me with everything good to do His will. My life is in God’s hands. He is going to do it. I don’t have to do anything. I held on to that verse.”

At church that day, she met Andrew who was just an acquaintance then. He handed her a few copies of a magazine called Africa Now which had been published by SIM. He himself had heard the call to go to Africa.

“At the time, he was interested in me and felt that the Lord was giving him the green light to start a relationship with me. His first attempt was to give me those magazines.”

Then during the service, the visiting speaker, an American who was passing through Liberia, West Africa, talked about how the “harvest in Africa is ripe” and to “ask the God of Harvest to supply the labourers”.

It was confirmation after confirmation of the call to Africa.

The long wait

God did indeed map things out for Belinda as she had asked. He led her to a man – Dr Andrew Ng – who had also been called to Africa. They got married in 1973 after about four years of courtship. At their wedding, Rev EN Poulson, who was then the Dean of Singapore Bible College and who officiated the ceremony, commissioned the couple to be missionaries in Africa.

Dr Andrew and Belinda being commissioned to be missionaries in Africa by Rev EN Poulson at their wedding ceremony.

But it would be another four years before they could set foot on the continent. During that time, they waited to see which part of Africa would open up for them and learnt French in preparation to be in French-speaking parts of Africa.

Belinda with Nathaniel and Dr Andrew when they were in a French school in Albertville, France in preparation for missions work in Africa.

“The waiting was the hardest. Not knowing what was ahead. But I had made a commitment and Andrew was very resolute. Ours was a joint calling,” she told Salt&Light.

“In the uncertainty, the verse that resonated with me was the call of Abraham (Genesis 12:1). When God called him out of Ur, he didn’t know where to go. God was leading him to an unknown place. But we have a God we can trust.”

That trust was put to the test from the get go. Shortly after arriving at Galmi, Belinda discovered she was pregnant. Everyone had been on anti-malaria prophylaxis to protect them from the life-threatening mosquito-borne disease. Now they had a decision to make.

“Should I take the pills to keep malaria, which is endemic in the country, away but is harmful to the foetus? Or not take it and maybe come down with malaria which will also affect the foetus,” said Belinda.

Belinda with Nathaniel while pregnant with Joel.

A missionary’s young child had contracted blackwater fever, the severest type of malaria and, though he survived, had been in a coma for six weeks. The risks were real.

“We decided that I would not take the pills. We just had to keep away from the mosquitoes the best we can. But at night, it was bad. Mosquitoes everywhere.”

Belinda remained malaria-free throughout her pregnancy. In April 1979, baby Joel was born.

The work in Africa

While her husband was thrust into the thick of action as a missionary doctor at Galmi Hospital, a “bush hospital” owned and administered by SIM International, Belinda busied herself with reaching out to the women and children.

She noticed that when the nomads came to the area to attend discipleship programmes, their wives and children were just “hanging around”. So she started literacy classes for them to teach them to read in their native language, Hausas. She also opened her home to the children.

Belinda (with umbrella) walking through the airstrip with the nomadic women on their way to the local church.

Conducting literacy classes with the nomadic Fulani women.

Enjoying singing and storytelling with the children of the nomads at her veranda

“Part of my ministry was to look for ways to reach out to the local people. I had to think of ways to connect with them.”

With another missionary wife, Belinda would go to the surrounding villages with a cassette tape to play Bible stories. They would start at the homes of hospital staff who would then introduce them to more people.

At the local church in which they worship, Belinda would get to know people and, through the relationships, meet others who had yet to hear the Gospel.

“It wasn’t structured. For example, I would hear of someone’s domestic helper who wanted to learn to read. And I would read the Bible with her.”

A small gardening project Belinda started became another source of connections for Christ.

The little garden that provided fresh vegetables that were hard to get in Galmi.

Joel with some of the lush produce from Belinda’s garden.

“We don’t get vegetables there. It’s a desert. So I grew vegetables. We have the theory and we hired locals to help with the labour,” she said.

What she grew, she would freeze in large quantities to share with fellow missionaries. In return, they shared their spoils with her. This became the start of what would be a food cooperative.

Belinda ran Galmi Cooperative twice a week for the missionaries.

“When Andrew went for field council, I would travel with him to buy groceries that were not easy to get where we were – canned food, cooking oil, jam, milk powder, oats.

“I connected with a local trader who would buy things in Nigeria. That’s how I found soya sauce and frozen chicken – because the chicken in Galmi were very scrawny, feathers and all they weighed only 1kg. Then I would set up a shop twice a week.”

Galmi Cooperative was thus born.

The life of a missionary family

The work in Africa did not come without personal sacrifices. There were no international schools where they were so the Ngs had to send their sons to a boarding school 900km or a two-day drive away from Galmi. Nathaniel was eight when he went away. Joel joined him three years later when he started Grade 1.

Dr Andrew and Belinda sending their sons Joel and Nathaniel off to boarding school.

“I prayed Jesus would come again so I didn’t have to send them away. But I was reminded of Isaiah 49:15, the strength of a mother’s love.

“I could get a picture of God’s love. If a mother can love so much, His love surpasses that. The depth of God’s love was something I learnt deeply,” said Belinda.

“Leaving Nat was very hard. There were no phones at the time, no internet. We didn’t even have snail mail. Instead, we had to depend on our plane to convey messages.

“We wrote every week. The kids were encouraged to write to their parents and we wrote also. I have a stack of their letters with me to this day.

“And I would stay up to make cookies for them so that when the plane came, I could send it to them and they could trade with other kids. I would bake into the night.”

The Ng family spent 12 years in Africa. Joel (baby in Belinda’s arms), who was born there, continues to have a heart for the continent.

The family returned to Singapore in 1989, having spent 12 years in Africa. It was Belinda’s experience in the field with her family that gave her a heart for caring for missionaries.

Today, she is based in the SIM East Asia office in Singapore, involved in member care and consulting on the care of missionary kids. She also does pre-field training for missionaries and mentors new missionaries in this region, visiting them in the field to ensure they are cared for even as they serve.

“We visit them so we can pray for them more specifically and share their stories so people know their needs,” she told Salt&Light.

“We also give them moral support, to recognise what they do and not just be interested in how many turn to Jesus. If you serve in a hard place, you can’t count (just the numbers saved).”

Belinda also works with sending churches to prepare not just missionaries but their families for cross-cultural missions.  

“When we go, we want to serve, we want to bless the people in whatever capacity we have.

“But instead, God does a deeper work in us than what He does through us. We are more blessed than us blessing others. We come to know God deeper and to walk in faith.”

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Obedience to that command would lead the Australian deep into the jungles of Borneo and into the greatest adventure of his life.

He and his wife Kay are the founders of Living Waters Village (LWV), an over 300-hectare space that is home to some 900 abandoned children from the Dayak tribe, a native group in Borneo.

An aerial view of Living Waters Village (LWV). Over the years, the jungle area has been transformed into a village that sustains more than 1,000 people and contributes to the economy of the area by providing work to the community.

Apart from houses, there are schools for 2,000 students, staff accommodation, visitor’s quarters, sewing rooms, a training centre, Bible college, and Praise and Worship centre, as well as a clinic, bakery, administration building and nursery for babies.

They are even building their own air strip.

The massive project has its own full-time staff, and countless other visiting volunteers who come to help out for anywhere from three days to a year.

Ps Ronny (centre in white) with the teachers of LWV. All 62 of them are former residents of LWV who have chosen to come back to serve.

But the work to get here took eight years, and countless roadblocks.

A heart for neglected children  

When Ps Ronny, 66, first answered God’s call in 1995, he started out as a missionary in Kuching, the Malaysian part of Borneo. Two years later, he moved to Sanggau, West Kalimantan, which is in the Indonesian part of Borneo.

While in Sanggau, Ps Ronny found his church-planting ministry expanding to the care of neglected children.

The children and staff of LWV. Ps Ronny started rescuing children while he was serving in Sanggau.

“Some of the kids were kicked out because their parents divorced and remarried, and the new wife or new husband didn’t want the kids. So they end up living in the jungles,” said Ps Ronny.

“If you are a strong kid, you will survive because there is plenty of food. If not, you die. Nobody cares.”

Fun and games at LWV.

Many of them had been so exposed to violence that they looked at “life and death as if it was nothing”, said Ps Ronny.

The girls faced a more grim fate. Once they reached puberty, they would be married off to older men who already had multiple wives.

“When you meet these girls by the time they are 20, they just stare into space. There is no spark, no joy left in them,” said Ps Ronny.

“I used to go home crying because there were so many of these children. I would cry and tell God, ‘Surely this is not Your plan for them.’”

There are some 900 rescued children currently living in LWV.

One day, God told him: “Bring the kids home.”

Ps Ronny was already raising three of his own kids on a missionary’s allowance. “I couldn’t make ends meet. But God said, ‘You bring them in and I will take care of them.’”

Ps Ronny baptising one of the children from LWV. When he became a Christian in Australia, he never expected he would become a missionary in the jungles of Asia.

So he started by sheltering seven little girls. At the end of the first month when he and Kay had to pay the bills, they found that they had just enough. Support had somehow come in.

God challenged him again: “If you can support seven, you can support 30.”

Morning assembly at the school in LWV.

So they took in more children. At the end of each month, the same thing happened. They found they had just enough to pay the bills: “Not too much, not too little. God was stretching our faith.”

So they started taking in boys too.

A place for 1,000 kids

After five years of this, Ps Ronny and Kay moved to Sintang, a city in another part of West Kalimantan in Borneo, Indonesia.

They rented a huge building to house their own three children and the 30 local children they had taken in by then.

Soon, word of their work spread and more children came to them, underfed, ill or simply homeless. Before long, they had 100 rescued children under their roof.

LWV gives the children a home, an education and a foundation in God’s Word so that they can go back to their villages and share the Gospel.

It was then that God gave Ps Ronny his biggest assignment. “God put in our hearts to prepare a place for 1,000 kids.”

There was no way they could get that kind of space in the city. Even if they could, they would not be able to afford it. So they began to search for land in the rural areas.

“We wanted a minimum of 25 hectares, roads that led to it, electricity, a river and springs in it, high enough so that it never floods, and it has got to be dirt cheap,” recalled Ps Ronny.

There was plenty of land for sale, but none that they could afford. After 10 months, Ps Ronny found himself getting impatient.

“Then I read Psalm 37:34 before bed and it said, ‘Hope in the Lord and keep His way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are destroyed, you will see it.’”

It was both the rebuke and encouragement that Ps Ronny needed.

A strange mix-up

That same week, he received a call from a man who said that he had a piece of land to sell. The land, he told Ps Ronny, was near a telephone tower. Could they meet at 11am on Monday?

When Ps Ronny went to the café at the appointed time, a man jumped into his car and told him to drive to the land.

As they drove, Ps Ronny realised they were going in the opposite direction of the telephone tower. But the man insisted they were headed the right way.

“I asked the man, ‘Where is the telephone tower?’ He said, ‘There are no telephone towers here. They are all the other way.’

“So I said, ‘Aren’t you the one who rang me?’ He said he never rang me. He had recognised my car and knew I was the man looking for land.”

Ps Ronny had at this point been driving for a whole hour with the wrong man. He wanted to turn back, but the man begged him to carry on. His land was another 15 minutes’ drive away, he promised.

“After 15 minutes, we were really there. It was all jungles and hills. Then he told me, ‘Now, we have to walk awhile.’”

Over 20 years of construction has transformed the jungles of West Kalimantan into a village with schools, homes and healthcare facilities. Photo courtesy of Rudy Taslim.

The pair travelled a good distance, trekking up and down hills till they reached one of the highest hills. In order to see past the dense vegetation, Ps Ronny had to climb a tree.

“There in the tree, God said, ‘Ronny, this is what I want to give you.’

“I didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh.”

The land had everything he needed: roads leading to it, a river, a creek. He had no idea how vast the land was, but he agreed to take it all.

“It didn’t matter how many hectares there were or how much it cost because I didn’t have a cent. But I didn’t tell the man that.”

Oddly, the man who had first called Ps Ronny never called again.

Dayak children worshiping God.

“I knew God made it this way because I wouldn’t have gone so far. God had a way to get me there.”

They sent word that they needed money for the purchase. A week before they had to pay for the land, the money came. As usual, it was just enough.

Threats and thefts

Getting the land was but the first challenge. They had no money and no workers to develop the land. They also faced hostility from the local community.

When the children were helping to clear the borders of their new property, a group of men with hatchets came to threaten them.

“They told us to get out of there or they would come back and lob off our heads. They didn’t care if there were women and children,” said Ps Ronny.

Those were no empty threats. Land disputes in that area have often been known to end in gruesome violence. The children ran to warn Ps Ronny, begging him to hide in Kuching or Pontianak. He refused.  

“I don’t run. I never run. God is the One who brought us here. God will be the One to tell us to leave.”

A little over a week later, the men returned.

“One of my boys said to them, ‘You can come. There are more on our side than there are on yours!’

“All of a sudden, fear struck the men, and they took off and never came back.”

Ps Ronny never found out why the men were so frightened.

There was also a local religious leader who paid people to destroy the property on Ps Ronny’s land. Unperturbed, Ps Ronny encouraged the children to pray for him.

The children of LWV praying for one another. Photo courtesy of Rudy Taslim.

When the man had a stroke and was hospitalised, some of the boys went to pray for him. They even held his hand.

After a month, he was discharged although he never fully recovered. They have had no trouble with him since. In fact, they now have a cordial relationship.

Ps Ronny said: “People ask if we have a fence around our property. I say we do, you just have to look with spiritual eyes. The angels of the Lord encamp around us. If not, I wouldn’t be able to sleep every night.”

Entering a Miracle Zone

Twenty years since they first moved into the land, the tangle of trees has been transformed into a sophisticated settlement complete with miles of paved roads and an air strip in the making.

Right at the front of the property is a sign marking the place as “A Miracle Zone”, attesting to how they have seen God’s hand in the place and over the lives of those in it.

The sign at the entrance of LWV. Photo courtesy of Rudy Taslim.

Despite having received multiple death threats, Ps Ronny remains unharmed. Funding has always come in, often inexplicably and always just enough.

Beyond the daily expenses needed to run a place for over 1,000 people, many of the children have serious illnesses including cancer that require costly medical care.

There was a girl with a massive tumour in her mouth which required part of her jaw to be removed. They brought her to Kuching for treatment. The estimated bill came up to between US$30,000 and US$40,000.

“I just told them to start the treatment. I will go talk to my Father about it. She had five operations. In the end, the money was in the account. Not too much, not too little, enough to pay for all the operations,” said Ps Ronny.

No turning back

The love that Ps Ronny, Kay and the volunteers have shown the children have inspired many of them to give back to LWV.

When they have reached adulthood, some choose to stay and serve as house parents. Each set of house parents takes care of about 12 children. “They know best how the kids are feeling and are able to minister to them,” said Ps Ronny.

Ps Ronny (centre in white) with the house leaders of LWV.

While others leave to work outside of LWV, some choose to work within the compound. All 62 of the teachers at LWV are children who have come through the Village.

There are also former children who come back to work as doctors, nurses, pastors, church planters, accountants, lawyers, board members and mechanics.

The children of LWV dressed in traditional costumes.

“It’s not a job. It’s a ministry to them,” said Ps Ronny.

Still, more children stream in all the time. At the time of this interview with Salt&Light, about 140 children had just joined LWV. Ps Ronny does not turn any away.

Every year, new children come to LWV.

The children are also taught the Word of God so they can be spiritually nourished. Ps Ronny’s hope is that every child will be equipped to return to their own villages and other unreached ones with the gospel.

Already they have seen the impact of God’s love on the community they are in. About 40 members of the community (not within LWV) are under their payroll, and this has helped to deepen the Village’s ties with the community.

“We have prayer meetings for them. They come for coffee. One of the guys once came to us and said, ‘Last week, you prayed for the grandmother of the other guy and she got healed. Would Jesus like to heal my grandmother, too?’

“We prayed for her and from there, the guy came to the Lord.”

Ps Ronny celebrating his birthday at LWV.

Ps Ronny has spent nearly a third of his life at LWV. His biological children have all returned to Australia. But for him, there is no turning back.

”God called us here. I’ll be in Borneo till I die.”

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To the hundreds of children he cares for in the jungles of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, he is Pak Ronny (Father Ronny), a term of respect and endearment.

To the missionaries who stay long-term to help or visit for a season to lend their time and talents, he is the man who transformed 300 hectares of tropical wilderness into Living Waters Village (LWV). The place is home to over 900 abandoned Dayak children Ps Ronny and his wife Kay took in.

The children at Living Waters Village whom no one wants are given a new lease on life. They get an education, a chance to hear the Gospel and a warm loving environment in which to grow.

In the 21 years since he started developing the land, LWV has added to the once-inhospitable ground houses, schools, a nursery for babies, teachers’ accommodation, a training centre, a praise and worship centre, clinic, bakery, sewing rooms, administration building and visitors’ quarters.

Living Waters Village began as nothing more than hectares of jungle. Now it is a developed enclave with schools and homes.

But before he became the much-loved Pak Ronny, he was a child of divorce, a rebellious teen, and then an angry young man.

“I really didn’t like my life. Many times, I thought of how to end my life,” said Ps Ronny, 68.

God would take the broken boy and transform him into a man who would champion the rescue of other broken children.

The rebel and his hidden talent

Ronny was born in Australia. When he was eight, his parents, who are Dutch, brought the family back to Holland. He would spend a decade there.

Ronny as a child in Australia.

“I didn’t have a good time.”

His family was Catholic and he was raised to go to church every week. But he “never had a relationship with God, never prayed, never read the Bible”.

When Ronny was 12, his parents divorced. God bore the brunt of the blame.

“I remember sitting in church for what would be the last time and thinking: Where is this God? Obviously, He didn’t care about us.”

Young Ronny was filled with anger and hate. He hated God, hated life, hated school and hated people. He desperately wanted to return to Australia and the life he had as a child.

The next few years of rebellion would end up with him being expelled from school at 16. So he went to work, getting a job at a supermarket.

Ronny at age 17 in Holland.

“That was really God preparing me. It was absolutely the thing for me. I found that I was a really good organiser,” said Ronny.

Within a month, he organised the stocks at the supermarket so shoppers could easily find what they wanted and workers could keep track of the goods. He became the youngest floor manager of the supermarket franchise.

He did not know it then but the ability to rally people and create systems for the smooth running of things would be the very skills he would need to start and run LWV.

The emptiness that would not go away

When he was 18, Ronny returned to Australia. But the void in his heart was not filled as he had hoped. He continued to hate his life and was haunted by thoughts of suicide.

“I wondered: Why am I feeling this way? As I looked at all my friends, they seemed to be happy. They were married. So I thought maybe I should get married to be happy.”

Ronny had a friend in grade school back in Holland who had been “madly in love” with him. They reconnected when she was in Australia. That was whom he decided to marry.

For a year, it was really good. But the emptiness returned. Again, Ronny looked at his friends’ lives. They had money. Ronny did not. He was in debt and lived in a little rented place.

So he thought that he would be happier if he had more money. He got himself two more jobs, clocked in 19 hours a day and soon earned enough for the good life. But the happiness he sought continued to elude him.

“I was still thinking of how to end my life.”  

The search for God

Then Ronny remembered the priests and nuns in the Catholic school back in Holland and how they had always seemed happy. He reasoned that perhaps he was so depressed because he did not believe in God.

“So I started to talk to Jesus like I’m talking to you now,” he told Salt&Light.

“I told Him, ‘If You are here, let me know. I really want to know if You exist.’”

He even made a wager with God. He promised to buy a Bible and read it cover to cover. If God did not reveal Himself by the time he reached the last page, he would look elsewhere for happiness and hope.

Ronny went to a bookstore, got himself the cheapest Bible he could find and spent his lunch and coffee breaks poring through its pages.

“I started at Genesis. The words just jumped out at me. I couldn’t believe this book was so exciting. I couldn’t wait for my next break to see what I was going to read next.”

After weeks of this, a colleague invited him to his home group. Ronny convinced his wife to go with him.

“We were a bit late. When we walked in, we were shocked. I thought these people were fruit loops. They were worshiping God, clapping their hands. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen.”

Whenever Ronny read the Bible and had questions, he would mark the portions. At that meeting, all his questions were answered.

“It was as if the guy had taken hold of my Bible to find out what I didn’t understand. At the place, I saw something that I had been wanting all my life: It was the love they had for one another.”

He could not wait to go back to the next meeting even though his wife refused to go with him again. On his fourth visit, Ronny prayed to accept Jesus into his life.

“They put their hands on my head and shoulder and God zapped me. I wept. I just knew this Jesus was in me.

“My life was not meant to be boring anymore. I was here to do His business and His business was people.”

WWIII at home

When Ronny returned home, his wife noticed that his face was glowing. He told her what he had done.

“World War III started at my place. She didn’t like me going to church or being a Christian.”

As Ronny abandoned the lifestyle he once led – drinking, smoking, swearing – his wife “doubled down and stayed in the world”. Their lives diverged and they “didn’t’ do anything together anymore”.

She would stay out late at night. Sometimes, she did not come home till morning.

“When I asked her where she had been, she would tell me to mind my own business in the most colourful of language.”

People around him encouraged Ronny to divorce his wife.

“My flesh would love to but my spirit said, ‘No way.’ God challenged me as well to love my wife and pray for her salvation even though I couldn’t see it.”

Beauty from ashes  

After eight and a half years, quite beyond his expectations, Ronny’s wife got down on her knees and gave her life to Jesus. They went to the home group together and for 18 months, they lived the life he had always wanted.

“I had my best friend back.”

Then he got a call one day.

“They told me my wife had passed away in a car accident. Our two children were with her and were so badly injured that they would not make it through the night. The doctor added that even if they survived, they would be vegetables.

“I remember going to the morgue and seeing my wife and thinking: I don’t understand this. After all those years of hell, I finally had her with me. Why did You want to do that?”

But Ronny was not angry with God. He was thankful for the 18 months of bliss he had with his wife before she died.

“I just had this prayer, ‘Give me the strength to say goodbye to my kids.’”

Friends from all over the country came to pray with Ronny. Six weeks after the accident, he was able to take both children home, whole and healed.

Their neurologist was baffled because the children were so badly injured there was nothing that could be done for them medically, so the doctors had done nothing.

“If God can do that, God can do anything,” said Ronny.

“I realised that nothing happens to us without God’s permission. That is not to say that nothing bad will happen to you. But whatever comes our way, God permits.

“I look back at my life. All these horrible things that happened in my life. I learnt to survive. I learnt how God had been protecting me.”

God would take the loss and turn it into something wonderful. Looking back, Ronny realised that every hardship he faced was training for the work he would later do at LWV.

“If I hadn’t gone through all these things, I would have run away a long time ago.”

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The Church Missions Readiness Assessment (CMRA), which was launched at the Leader’s Track (October 3) of the Antioch Summit this year, comprises 25 multiple choice questions (MCQ) that help missions leaders identify their church’s strengths and weaknesses in the area of missions.

Also provided is a roadmap with practical steps to help churches improve and strengthen their readiness to be a missions-sending church.

The Decade of Missions

The online questionnaire was created to help mobilise 80% of evangelical churches to engage in missions, which is one of the three faith goals of Antioch21’s Decade of Missions.

“We cannot serve the Great Commission without sending missionaries, and we cannot send missionaries without missions-sending churches,” said Pastor Ng Zhi-Wen, who took over as Antioch21’s strategic coordinator after his predecessor Joseph Chean’s passing last November.

At last year’s Antioch Summit, Joseph had launched the Decade of Missions (2023-2033), a vision for churches in Singapore to be involved in global missions over the next 10 years.

He had listed three faith goals to be achieved by 2033, which will mark about 2,000 years since the Resurrection and Pentecost: 

• To mobilise 80% of local churches to engage in missions
• To place 1,000 Singaporean missionaries and 300 migrant missionaries in the nations for at least two years
  • To plant 500 new churches that will multiply
  • To adopt and actively engage 50 unreached people groups
  • To pioneer 100 holistic mission initiatives (including medical, education, business and community development)
• To raise $10 million for missions work (including seed funding smaller churches to deploy missionaries and to provide post-field support for returning missionaries)

Noting that there are global movements targeting 2033 as the year to reach every person on earth with the gospel, Joseph had said at last year’s summit: “Singapore, as an Antioch of Asia, must participate in this global endeavour, to contribute our part to fulfil Christ’s mandate to the global Church.”

Not a competition

Explaining the CMRA tool at this year’s summit, Pastor Yeoh Seng Eng from the core team of Antioch21 said that the online assessment, which takes between 15 to 20 minutes to complete, assesses four key pillars of being a missions-sending church, namely: discipleship, sending, support and structure.

The four key pillars are further broken down into 10 sub-components (see picture below), which Pastor Seng Eng, a missions pastor at Pasir Panjang Hill Brethren Church, said are relevant to churches of various sizes, denominations and traditions.

The 10 aspects of being a missions-sending church.

The 25 multiple choice questions in the assessment aim to give a snapshot of how a church is doing in each of these sub-components.

For example, questions include how often missions is preached at the pulpit, how much the church prays for and gives to missions, whether the church leadership provides mentorship and training to those interested in missions, and whether the church has a missions policy.

Based on the options chosen, the results will then score each sub-component out of 100, as well as provide an overall total score.

Those interested can also write in to Antioch21 (antioch21sg@gmail.com) to request for the CMRA Appendix, which charts five stages of each sub-component and provides practical ways a church can move up to the next stage in areas that need improvement.

Stressing that the assessment is not meant to be a competition or a tool for comparison, Pastor Seng Eng said: “It’s a journey you plot not with reference to anyone, but with reference to yourself.”

If we all play our part

To further equip churches to become effective missions-senders, Antioch21 will also be running a Learning Journey programme over six Saturdays next year.

The monthly programme, which costs $180 per person, is targeted to mission leaders, pastors and committee members, and includes in-person sessions, mentoring with other missions personnel, practical assignments, as well as a partnership or vision trip.

The Learning Journey will be held once a month over six Saturdays next year.

Encouraging churches to take missions seriously, Pastor Zhi-Wen said at the summit: “Every local church is, I would say, obliged to seriously consider how it participates in our Father’s global mission, the Great Commission.

“Imagine with me if every church in Singapore was to raise and send even just one long-term missions worker within this Decade of Missions – just one – we will be well on our way.”

To participate in the Church Missions Readiness Assessment (CMRA), tap here.

To sign up for the Antioch21 Learning Journey, tap here or email Antioch21 for more details.

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Joseph, the former National Director of Youth With A Mission (Singapore) and Strategic Coordinator of Antioch21, had been a passionate advocate for missions with a burden for the unreached – and had used his life to do something about it.

On the day he died, he had been in Istanbul on a short break, following a week of leading a Discipleship Training School in a nearby country. He was 56.

On Day 2 (October 4) of this year’s Antioch Summit held at St.John’s-St.Margaret’s Church (Anglican), Kim shared to an audience of more than 500 how, in the 10 months since her husband’s passing, she has embarked on mission trips close to Joseph’s heart – and the important question God has asked her through them.

Most of you may know that Joe passed away last November.

This was a family photo we took at the last (Antioch) Summit at Barker Road. We just grabbed one of the signposts and said: “Hey, let’s take a family photo” and I’m so glad we did that. 

The family photo that the Cheans took at last year’s Antioch21 Summit, with daughters Ashley (left) and Olivia (right).

After his passing, there was a lot of paperwork to do. Good thing we had a will which we did when the kids were three or four years old. So it was a very old will, but at least there was a will. I had to go execute the will, do what we planned. 

God also put in my heart to do some of the things that I knew had been on Joe’s heart.

When he passed, we actually had air tickets to go to Beirut. I had to cancel that. That was supposed to be in February, to be at a conference for an unreached people group.

I remembered that when Joe passed, I said if there’s only one mission trip I could go on for the rest of my life, it would be to Beirut. 

And so, while I didn’t manage to go in February – I was not in any mental state to be there – one sister from InterServe, who knew that this was something that Joe had planned, talked to me and said: “Kim, do you want to go?” And I said yes.

We arranged a date and in June we were there at the conference that Joe and I had meant to attend.

Soon after that, I had an invitation to join another mission trip. That was in September, two weeks ago, in Okinawa.

Two years ago, Joe had talked to Pastor Chua Seng Lee from Bethesda Bedok-Tampines Church and said: “There’s a lot of mental health issues in Japan, Okinawa in particular. Would you consider coming to run a mental health conference?”

Seng Lee said okay. They were prepared to go last year, but Joe had said Okinawa was not ready, so it was pushed to this year. And so Seng Lee and his church went and I was very blessed to join them and see what God is doing there.

Fulfilling Joe’s wishes

For both these trips – the Lebanon trip and the Okinawa trip – I really, really wanted to go. I wanted to do this because my husband had them on his heart. There was this compelling force in my heart to do it.

There were some people who went on the trip also because they knew Joe. There was one friend who went because these were the last two countries that Joe had gone to before he passed. For Seng Lee, Joe was also his friend. He wanted to do the trip to Okinawa because his friend had had it on his heart.

On the first day of Joe’s public wake, a friend from our church who had signed up to be an usher passed away that very morning. She was younger than Joe.

It was very shocking for all of us, and a very tough time for our church because two young-ish people had passed away suddenly within a week (of each other). We know the family – they are good friends of ours. The lady was in my Bible study group. She left behind three sons and her husband.

After her passing, her family renovated their house because they knew that Mum had wanted to renovate the house to have this colour in this room, adjust this and that. They did it because it had been on their mum’s heart.

I was thinking about what they did. I was thinking about what I did, and Joe’s friends who continue to do what they know had been on Joe’s heart. It made me think.

You know, I do it because I knew the man. I’m his wife. I’m doing Joe’s will. I feel the compulsion to do so. There’s a compelling force because I knew him. I knew his heart.

What about the Father’s will? Do we know our Father’s heart? God was asking me: “Do you know My will? Are you doing My will?”

(With God’s will), we may do it because aiya, bopian (no choice) lah. He say one, then we do. But there’s no bopian here with me doing what was on Joe’s heart.

I’d like for us to think: Will we do the Father’s will because we know the Father and we know what’s on the Father’s heart? 

Fulfilling Christ’s wishes

I know what Joe’s last plans were with me. There were some places that we said we’d go together. I want to go and do all those things.

(Before He ended His time on earth), Christ Jesus told us: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” These were His last words. Will we also do that and go and fulfil what He has asked us to do out of that relationship?

“Could we do the Father’s will because we know the Father and we know what’s on the Father’s heart?” said Kim at the Antioch 21 Summit.

Missions can be tiring. There will be difficulties. There will be challenges. But if we remember Who we are doing this for, why we are doing this, we will be able to press on with joy.

In the words of a song: “May we never lose the wonder, the wonder of His mercy.” We always need to come back to have the wonder of the mercy of God. That will compel us to live a godly life, compel us to reorganise our lives.

In some ways I am reorganising my life to live in a new season because of the passing of the life of another.

As we recognise God’s love for us, will we reorganise our lives so as to honour His wishes, His desires, because we know Him, we love Him?

Let us never lose the wonder of God’s mercy.

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I stooped to his level, glaring back into his eyes, daring him.

The odour of stale cigarettes mingled with rancid cooking oil wafted from his coat to my nose. The stench almost choked me.

The boy was disrupting my Sunday school class, which was taking place in the heart of a ghetto in the South Bronx. At the time, I lived and worked in New York City, and worshiped at this church.

No disciplinary action could tame him. Repeated attempts to quieten him down only fanned his fury, culminating in a face-off like that one we were locked in now.

That was when I saw it.

As I stared into the little boy’s eyes, I saw the pain behind his defensiveness. I saw how he had probably been treated at home with the same aggression and raised fists he displayed, fists that have probably come down on him enough times for the five-year-old to learn to raise his in defence. 

I broke. What I saw in that kid’s eyes 15 years ago shattered my heart and transformed my interaction with him and other difficult kids I have met throughout my life.

Man of sorrow

When I heard Pastor Bill Wilson in Singapore recently preaching about children at risk, that ache in my heart for that little boy resurfaced.

The 75-year-old founder of Metro World Child has been ministering to children like the one I encountered for more than 50 years. It is no wonder he has what his surgeon diagnosed as a “broken heart syndrome.”

If you look into his eyes, you will see sorrow pooling beneath the fire that blazes when he talks about reaching children.

But if you look long enough into his eyes, you will also see the joy of the hope of the Gospel lighting up that dark pool.

Long before the founder of Metro World Child was abandoned at the age 12 by his mother, young Bill was already familiar with the harsh reality of a life trapped in the house of pain. 

Ps Bill started Metro World Child in the ghetto of Brooklyn at the height of economic and social devastation, with the goal of reaching children at risk.

He is acquainted with the poverty, hunger, loneliness and rejection faced by the children he ministers to.

“I’ve sat where they sat,” he told Salt&Light in an interview.

Young Bill with the buck teeth, the stutter and the shabby clothes had also been the target of bullies. Mocked and rejected, he kept mostly to himself, buried in books.

But he is no victim.

“I see everything in life as preparation,” he declared. “My whole life has been nothing but prep for such a time as this.”

Without hope but not hopeless

The hope of salvation that Ps Bill first found in a church camp at 12 years old is the same hope that has fuelled Metro World Child, a ministry he started in Bushwick in 1980, at the height of social and economic devastation in the US.

Bushwick, Brooklyn in New York is one of the roughest neighbourhoods in the nation.

Many children in this drug- and crime-infested area were born to drug addicts. Many grow up watching and emulating the patterns in their household, trapped in the same cycle. Too many end up as tragic victims of violence caused either by drugs or gang conflicts.

“When I look into a child’s eyes, I see innocence being taken away, destroyed by culture, by politics, by government, even by their own families,” Ps Bill said. 

The need was overwhelming. But many told him it could not be done. 

Still, Ps Bill chose to set up shop in that vortex of need.

The Sidewalk Sunday school that started with 1,010 kids on the first day is now the largest Sunday school in the world with more than 600,000 children.

“Everywhere I went in that neighbourhood, all these kids were called ‘hopeless’,” Ps Bill told Salt&Light. “The school called them hopeless, the cops called them hopeless, the governors called them hopeless.”

He attended a school board meeting once, and was told the children were hopeless.

“They’re not hopeless! They just don’t have any hope!” Ps Bill responded. “I walked away from everything to bring them hope – and it’s only in Jesus Christ!”

He slammed the table and walked out. It was the last school board meeting he was invited to. 

This same passion has fired Ps Bill for the last 60 years, igniting the growth of Metro World Child. In the last 44 years, Metro has grown from the 1,010 children who came for the first Sunday school in Bushwick to the largest Sunday school in the world, with more than 600,000 kids in over 23 countries.

This number of children is expected to hit one million by next year, as door after door has been opening in Latin America and Africa.

Winning the youth, empowering the youth

In this era when the Church is grappling with the grim reality of losing youths and young adults, the exponential growth of Metro World Child is remarkable.

Ps Bill put it down to the timeless power of the Gospel delivered in an age-relevant method, genuine love for the children and sheer grit.

“I don’t quit,” he declared. “Your commitment has got to be stronger than your emotions. You don’t live on how you feel.”

In 1980, in a neighbourhood lined with churches, Ps Bill honed in on the “4-14 window” – children aged between four and 14 – and started a Sunday school. 

“We don’t give children credit,” Ps Bill said. “Eighty-five percent of people who accept Christ do so before the age of 14. That’s what’s gonna change things.”

Many of the teachers and workers of Metro were raised on the sidewalks of the Sunday school.

In the Philippines, kids as young as 12 years old have become Sunday School teachers with Metro. At a training last September in Manila with partner churches, 80% of the 700 volunteers that turned up came from the Sunday School. Some were teenagers.  

These youths now serve the next generation, preaching the Gospel to them, praying for them.

Teenagers who were raised on Metro Sunday School in the Philippines now preach the Gospel to children and pray for them.

“We’re losing youth and, with that, another generation,” Ps Bill pointed out. “Are we willing to do what needs to be done to reach a generation?

“It’s not about doing a youth meeting. Let’s use them to get in here and reach the kids,” he urged.

“They can do it. Let’s give them a responsibility. Let’s make a plan, let them get out there.” 

Though youths can be trained and need to be challenged to go beyond their comfort zone, the impetus for change has to come from leadership, Ps Bill noted. 

“It’s top down. It can’t be bottom up because the ordinary folks are limited,” he pointed out.

Last year, 19-year-old Eleaner Teo from Singapore applied for an internship at Metro’s headquarters after being challenged by Ps Bill to look beyond her life and think further than her immediate concerns of education. 

Eleaner Teo, challenged by Ps Bill’s sermon, did a four-month internship with Metro in Brooklyn that changed her life. Photo courtesy of Eleaner Teo.

The teenager was accepted and took off for New York after completing junior college. 

The four months of navigating and living in the ghettos of New York changed the trajectory of her life and transformed her perspective of missions, people and her education. 

“[Interning at Metro] reaffirmed the importance of obedience to God, the importance of evangelism, missions and the power it has to heal people,” Eleaner told Salt&Light.

“I see that I can do urban missions right here in Singapore.”

“I believe God has given my generation a very important role in expanding His Kingdom, especially as our world gets darker and more confused,” she said. “It’s critical that we gear ourselves to fight and to take action as soon as possible, because the need is now.”

Eleaner embodies the next wave of change: One youth that caught the vision and heart of God to ignite her generation. 

Long obedience in one direction

The astounding growth of Metro Sunday School was no overnight success.

“I’ve lived a long obedience in the same direction,” said Ps Bill, distilling his formula.

He still drives the bus, conducts block visitations and teaches Sunday school. 

Ps Bill is a walking example of the perseverance described in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.“

“Perseverance is the best revenge,” Ps Bill said.

On top of a gunshot in the face, five concussions, multiple threats on his life and a heart bypass, Ps Bill survived a massive heart attack in February this year.

“I knew I was in trouble,” Ps Bill related. “I thought, Lord, whatever direction this is going to go, we’re going to do everything we can.”

But step by step God divinely took care of him from the moment of the heart attack, to getting to hospital, to surgery and recovery.

Ps Bill at the Metro Sunday school in Kenya. “This is not a crusade. This is Sunday school, every week.”

On another occasion, two men who mugged Ps Bill missed the first shot of the revolver (it was highly unusual for a revolver to miss) but blew the side of his face off the second time.

Ps Bill, blood gushing from his wound, found the strength to stumble into his van and drive himself to the nearest hospital about 15 minutes away.

The moment he pulled into the driveway of the emergency room, he passed out.

Two years ago, as he was preaching in a church in New Jersey, a man came up to him and identified himself as the doctor who stitched him back together years ago of his gunshot wound in the Brooklyn hospital. 

“When you’ve looked down the barrel of as many guns as I have in my lifetime, you know death can be just a second away,” the pastor said matter-of-factly. “But I felt like God was prolonging my life.” 

That is why when Ps Bill wakes up each day, he tells God, “Okay, one more, God, one more [child].”

Open doors

“God has been prepping me all my life,” Ps Bill said. “So now, after a lifetime of preparation, when a door opens, I am uniquely qualified to go.” 

Last year alone, the number of kids at Metro Sunday school doubled to 600,000 as Zambia flung open its doors when the government issued a permit to Metro to conduct Sunday school at its public schools. Brazil is also opening up.

Ps Bill with the children in Kenya, which sparked the rapid spread of Metro Sunday School in Africa.

“The door is open,” he said. “And when the doors of government open to the Gospel, when people are open to the Gospel, when the staff is ready to move, we have to go.” 

In July, somebody from Malawi who had seen the Sunday School in Johannesburg went back to his country and started one. They gave out pieces of soap to draw the kids and 3,000 came. 

As Ps Bill always said, “The need is the call.”

Living by logos

The man who is a firm believer of “the need is the call” lives by the logos, the Greek for the word of God recorded objectively in the Bible.

“I’m all for a rhema word (the inspired word spoken by God for a specific occasion) but the bottom line is, I live by the logos. When I pray, I pray over an open Bible,” Ps Bill said.

“If you are waiting for God to speak to you, He already has. Why would God show you something else if you cannot obey what He’s already said?”

He added: “The Gospel is mandated for all of us. The need is still the call if you see a need. And if you can feel that today, that, my friends, is the call of God for you.”

Ps Eileen Toh, the pastor heading HarvestKidz, the children’s ministry of City Harvest Church, first heard Ps Bill in 1995 at children worker’s conference in Kuala Lumpur.

“I bought his book Whose Child Is This? and devoured it in one night,” she told Salt&Light.

“I had ‘a fire in my bones’ passion to take back what he shared to Singapore to reach out to the unreached.” She showed up in Brooklyn shortly after to learn the ropes. 

“Eileen rode the bus that I drove,” he said. “She saw it, she got it.” And she did it.

Pastor Eileen Toh (right) started City Harvest Church’s children’s outreach in 1996 after catching the fire from Ps Bill (centre, with his PA Yenni Wu). Now, 28 years later, HarvestKidz continues to bring children to church and support them and their families. Photo courtesy of Ps Eileen Toh.

Since 1996 when Ps Eileen launched CHC’s children’s ministry, now called HarvestKidz, it has been picking up kids in buses and bringing them to church up till today.

“We started with 40 children, and today we have about 2,000,” she said.

“There was a need and someone answered that need,” said Ps Bill. “It will take commitment but you’ve got what it takes.”

“Everybody has what it takes to make a difference.”

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She had come from Kuching, Malaysia, to work in Singapore in 2015. After working for eight months at a hospital, the Biomedical Science graduate left to pursue her dream – music.

God would take Lydia’s love of music and children and use it to bless the ministry at Living Waters Village.

By 2022, she was teaching piano to children as a freelancer and loving it.

“I felt like everything was good, life was great. Whatever goals I wanted to reach, God just blessed me,” Lydia told Salt&Light.

Yet there was a gnawing in her soul that told her that life had more. At first, she thought she would take a year off to go on a working holiday in Australia. But God had other plans for her.

In Part 1 of Lydia’s story, through 10 confirmations, God led her to commit a year to Living Waters Village, a ministry to some 700 neglected Dayak children in the jungles of West Kalimantan.

Founded by Australian, Ps Ronny Heyboer, the project comprises homes, schools, a nursery for babies, sewing rooms, visitor quarters, a training centre, a centre for worship, a clinic and a bakery so the children can grow up in a safe environment.

Lydia getting to know the children at Living Waters Village.

Lydia would spend a year – May 2023 to May 2024 – training the children there to play the keyboard for worship.

But first, she had to settle her finances. Not only would she not have an income for a year, she realised that she had to pay for her stay at the village.

“He will take care of you”

When Lydia first went to Living Waters Village, she thought she would only be there for four weeks. It would be a short detour before she embarked on her working holiday in Australia.

But by her final week at the jungle project, she knew she had to stay.

“I had a strong conviction to be there and serve.”

She went to the office to register her intent and was handed a bill for the year that included fees for a visa, food and accommodations.

“I looked at the lady and cried out, ‘I don’t have the money. How am I to do this?’”

Lydia asked the woman who had come from the Netherlands to serve in the ministry how she survived as a missionary. The woman told her: “Whatever that I have belongs to God. My clothes, my bank account, it all belongs to God.

“I check my bank account once every six months. Every time I need to pay, there is just enough for me to pay. If you know God brought you here, He will take care of you. Just step up in faith.”

For three days after she sent in her application to be part of Living Waters Village, Lydia could neither eat nor sleep.

Lydia and her roommate at Living Waters Village celebrating Christmas.

“I kept thinking, ‘Where will my support come from? I am the only Christian in my family.’

“They already think I am out of my mind for doing this because when they asked me if the people will pay me, I told them, ‘No, I have to pay them.’”

But that’s when God made His presence clear.

Children at Living Waters Village with Lydia (in pink) enjoying a picnic with chips.

“He said to me, ‘Lydia, I brought you here. I will take care of you. I want you to rest for two months.’

“He didn’t just say ‘rest’. He gave me a definite timing – June and July. I had peace in my heart after that conversation with the Lord.”

God provides

In the last week of July, Lydia checked her bank account and got a shock. She had an unexpected sum of money from her cell group leader in Singapore.

Apart from music lessons, Lydia also played tour guide to visitors to Living Waters Village.

“I asked him, ‘Did you send money to the wrong account?’ He told me it was from him and his wife for my missionary fund. I never told him I was in financial need. It must be from the Lord.”

There was more.

There was a visitor from the Netherlands, a woman in her 60s, whom Lydia had befriended. They had talked about how Lydia had come on her own. Unbeknownst to Lydia, the woman then shared her story with a friend. The friend gave Lydia €200.

Lydia (foreground with pony tail) directing a Sunday church worship service at Living Waters Village.

“When I ran to thank her for her love for me, she said, ‘This is not my love. This is the love of Jesus for you. When you serve God, you never worry about money.’

“That is when I realised, ‘Oh wow! The Kingdom of God is so big. It got all the way to Holland.’”

After that, every month the funds would come in.

“It never stopped till I finished my mission,” marvelled Lydia. 

“One month, I only received S$50 but I had a lot of joy in my life. In Singapore, if I had earned only S$50, I would have been very depressed.

“But when you are in the village and you depend on Him totally, it is so nice, so fun, to see how the Lord works.”

One month when nothing came along, Lydia prayed and told God the amount she needed. That very morning, she saw a message on her handphone – a sum of money had been deposited into her account.

“I was like, ‘Wow! The Lord answered my prayer.’”

The next day, a pastor from Australia who had visited the village months before sent her some money. Lydia had long forgotten that the pastor had once asked her for her bank details.

“God showed me how He works in ways that I have never imagined. My heart posture now is – my money belongs to the Lord. If everything belongs to God and He takes care of me, I don’t have to worry.

“Before this, I acknowledged it but there was no revelation. Now, there is.”

Patience paid off

Resting in God for provision freed Lydia to wholly devote herself to the ministry.

She coached 20 students aged 12 to 20, some of whom did not know how to play the keyboard at all. In the year there, she developed a curriculum and oversaw the worship segment at all the services.

Mealtimes at the dining hall.

One girl in particular impressed Lydia. The 15-year-old girl had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the class. She just could not recognise the keys on the keyboard.

“During one lesson, she was so frustrated with herself that she started tearing. I wrote her a letter and gave her a verse to tell her not to give up.

“They don’t have a piano to practise on. So I told her, ‘If you want to practise, just use the one in my room.’”

By the time Lydia had to leave, the girl had picked up enough skills to flow with the worship team.

“She amazed me. It made me feel so encouraged. During the last week before I left, she wrote me a letter to say, ‘Kak (Sister) Lydia, thank you so much for your patience.’”

Her students also put up a mini recital to show off their newly acquired skills.

“They could really play. Some played by ear songs I didn’t teach them. I told God, ‘Lord, this must be from You.’

“To be with the children for a year and see them grow, it was heart-warming.”

On top of teaching, she also authored five books detailing how to play the keyboard for Christian worship.

Lydia writing five books that taught the team how to lead worship at a service.

She never expected to be able to write books about music.

“The Lord asked me to do that. It has always been my heart’s desire to write a book but I was always too busy in Singapore. But at the village, I had the time to do it.

“Each time before I write, I say, ‘Lord, You have to help me.’

“He gave me lots of ideas.”

To mould, disciple and heal

When God asked Lydia to commit a year to Living Waters Village, one of the things He told her was that it would be a year for Him to mould her, disciple her and heal her. That was exactly what He did.

A few months into her stay at the village, Lydia’s mother accepted her invitation to visit. Lydia’s decision to devote a year to the ministry in West Kalimantan had created some unhappiness within her family because they could not understand her decision.

“That my mum agreed to come was a miracle because she is not the adventurous type. The travel from Kuching to the village was a 12-hour ride. God showed me that my mum was able to do that because she loved me a lot.”

The view Lydia’s mum had upon arriving at Living Waters Village after a 12-hour drive.

Lydia’s mum spent six days with Lydia and had her fears allayed when she saw how well-equipped the village was.

Lydia’s relationship with her mother had been a rocky one, with residual “resentment and anger for the things that had happened in the past and the things my mother had said”.

During Chinese New Year this year, Lydia decided to make a home visit to celebrate with her family.

“Every morning, I prayed and committed me and my mum and our relationship to God. But my heart couldn’t forget the past, even though I prayed for God to help me take away my feelings.”

Her father encouraged her not to pick a quarrel with her mother and to give her mother a hug when she got home. Lydia was resistant.

“But that day, the moment I stepped into my house and saw my mum in the kitchen, both my hands flung open. This was not what I wanted to do. I know it was the Lord.

“I called out, ‘Mum, I am home.’ My mum came to me and hugged me and said, ‘Hui lai jiu hao (It is good that you are home).’”

Just like that, the rift between mother and daughter was healed.

“Now, me and my mum are on talking terms. I can’t even remember what had previously happened. My old resentment is gone.”

God also dealt with Lydia’s concern about being single. She had gone through a tough break-up which she had difficulty getting over.

“The Lord showed me in the village that I just had to be patient and wait. He gave me two dreams while I was there that the right person is on the way.

“I was totally set free from grief.”

A life transformed

Lydia saw God whittling away her character flaws as well.

“I had that stubbornness where I wanted to do things my own way, wanted to plan things out on my own terms. I have learnt now to pray and go to the Lord.

“Matthew 6:34 really speaks to me. Every day, I just cruise along with the Lord and do whatever I can. No need to feel frustrated. God has better plans.”

God dealt with her pride, too. One of the first duties Lydia was given was to clean the floors of the primary school. Down on all fours, scrubbing the floor by hand, she asked herself: “What am I doing here? I am a piano teacher!”

But God told her to be humble.

“Ever since that day, whatever that I do, I do with joy because God dealt with my pride first.”

The community lifestyle where everyone did everything together taught her to “die to self”.

“You have to be in serving mode. Ps Ronny always taught us to look to the left and to the right and see whether there is a need.”

Lydia (right) at a surprise farewell party for her.

Since her return to Singapore this June, family and friends have commented on the visible change in her.

“They say I am glowing. I look happier now. I know it’s not me. It’s the joy of the Lord that fills me.

“I can’t imagine all that has happened. Now I have a place I can call home in the village. My relationship with my Father is so good.

“I used to be easily stressed, wanting to control things. Now I can chill and know that whatever I want to do, I ask my Father first.”

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The post She thought she had it all until God called her to the jungles of Indonesia to show how much more He had for her   appeared first on Salt&Light.

“Everything was good. Life was great. Whatever goals I wanted to reach, I had reached. But I felt something was missing even though I had everything,” said the 32-year-old.

A native of Kuching, Malaysia, Lydia had come to Singapore to work in 2015. By July 2022, she was doing exactly what she loved – giving piano lessons to children as a freelancer.

For two years, Lydia was a piano teacher at a music school before becoming a freelance piano teacher.

Yet the disquiet in her soul persisted.

“I told the Lord, ’I think life has more than this.’”

That September while at a wedding, she talked to a friend of a friend who was going to Australia on a working holiday. That sparked an idea in Lydia’s mind.

“I thought: Sounds fun. Why not take a year of sabbatical leave to explore something else? I have an adventurous spirit.”  

Lydia in the United States in 2015. She loves to travel.

Lydia decided to apply for an Australian visa while she prayed over her next steps. The next month, she awoke with three words that “came into my spirit”: Reset, renew and realign.

“I wrote it down and stuck it to my desk. I was thinking: Reset everything? Move somewhere else? Maybe Australia?

“I prayed, ‘Lord, if You really want me to move out of my comfort zone, then grant me this Australian visa.’”

When the visa came through without a hitch and a peace descended on Lydia’s heart, she thought everything was set. She would soon be living Down Under.

But she was very wrong.

“Living Water first”

By March 2023, Lydia was making arrangements for her travels.

“I prayed to the Lord, ‘If this is from You, make my transition a smooth one because my students have been with me for seven years.’

“Thankfully, when I told my students and the parents I am taking a break for one year, there were zero challenges.

“They said, ‘You’re single, no commitments, why not just do it?’ I had their blessings.”

Just when she thought she had the all-clear, she felt a prompting in her heart about Living Waters Village in Indonesia.

For two weeks as she packed up her life in Singapore for her sojourn to Australia, Living Waters Village “kept coming up in my spirit”.

Living Waters Village spans over 300 hectares of land. Each child there is equipped to return to their village and other villages to bring the good news of Jesus.

In 2018, Lydia had learnt about the ministry to some 700 neglected Dayak children in the jungles of West Kalimantan.

Its founder, Australian pastor Ronny Heyboer, had gone to her church to share about the work there, which includes running homes, schools, a nursery for babies, sewing rooms, visitor quarters, a training centre, a centre for worship, a clinic and a bakery so the children can grow in a safe space.

“Our God is very cute. I serve a very cute God,” Lydia mused. “He knows how to handle our stubbornness and naughtiness.

“When I first heard about Living Waters, I really wanted to go to this miracle place one day. I did try to connect with the people there. But it was never my priority and it never happened.

“Now God was reminding me of this Living Waters Village.”

Living Waters Village started when Ronny and Kay Heyboer left their home in Australia to fulfil God’s vision for neglected children in the jungles of Indonesia to have a home.

But Lydia had her heart set on Australia. So she bargained with God: She would go to Living Waters Village after her time in Australia, she promised Him.

“I kept ignoring that Voice until one night at 3am I woke up and couldn’t sleep.

“The words ‘Living Waters first’ kept coming to me. I told God, ‘Lord, I am very tired. I need to get up at 6am to serve in worship at two services. Lord, I need to sleep.’

“But I couldn’t sleep.”

After an hour of wrestling with God, Lydia relented. The moment she agreed to go to Living Waters Village, she fell asleep.

A need for a piano teacher  

Lydia’s plan was to visit the village for four weeks en route to Australia. On her first day at Living Waters Village, she had coffee with a local pastor. The conversation naturally turned to her job in Singapore.

“When I told him I am a piano teacher, he looked at me and said, ‘Piano teacher? Would you consider staying here for a longer time to help us? We have been praying for a long time for a piano teacher.’

“I kept it in my heart.”

Lydia with students she coached to play at worship services at Living Waters Village.

That was the first of 10 signs from God that He meant for her to stay for a year.

“I am very stubborn. But God knows how to deal with me.”

A few nights later at a night service, the pastors spoke passionately about the need to nurture a new generation of keyboardists.

“I was sitting down there, ignoring the Voice in my spirit when I realised that I recognised exactly what their problems were.

“I told God, ‘Lord, not me. Send someone else.’

“Then the Lord spoke to my heart. He said, ‘Lydia, first, you are a professional piano teacher. Then you know Bahasa Indonesia. Third, you like children.

“If not you, who can I send?’”

Lydia remained unmoved.

Visions and Words

That Saturday while in the bathroom, she suddenly saw a vision of herself teaching the children in the village how to play the keyboard.

Lydia eventually agreed to stay and coach the youths and children in keyboard.

“I just sat there and said, ‘No.’ Then I started crying. My tears couldn’t stop. That was my third confirmation.”

That night, Lydia was invited to Ps Ronny’s house for dinner. She shared with him the vision she had in the morning as well as her reluctance to obey.

Lydia with Ps Ronny.

Then he told her: “May I just advise you: Instead of asking God for what you want, ask Him what He wants you to do.’”

As Lydia pondered his words, she realised that in her six years as a Christian, she had asked God for many things and been very blessed. But she had, indeed, never asked God what He wanted of her.

In the middle of the night, God woke her up and gave her two words: “One year” and “training centre”. That was the fifth sign.

The next morning was a Sunday. As Lydia sat in the garden which had three crosses, she asked God: “What do You mean by training centre?”

The garden with the three crosses where Lydia talked to God.

God revealed that He was going to train her. He would mould her, disciple her and heal her. The second purpose of the training centre was for her to train the children in the village to play the keyboard.

“I saw a picture of myself walking around in the village and the children coming to me. It felt very comforting. It felt like home.”

“Can you spare one year for My children?”

That evening, Lydia spoke to an Australian missionary who had given up a stellar career to spend three years at Living Waters Village. He was 30 when he made the decision to dedicate 10% of his life to God’s work.

“What he said made me think: How come I could set aside time to go on holidays, shopping, to do the things that I want, but I never thought of setting aside time to serve?

“That was a revelation for me.”

Lydia at a Chinese class she conducted at Living Waters Village.

At the morning service the next day, while singing a worship song in Bahasa, Lydia saw herself “running in a circle”.

“Then the Lord stopped me, held me and said, ‘Lydia, stay. I am here.’ That morning, I cried out to the Lord,” Lydia recounted, tearing at the memory.

The ninth and tenth confirmations came swiftly. God showed her just why her Australian visa was approved so smoothly.

“He showed me it was a passport for me to get out of my comfort zone so He could reveal Himself more and more through this journey.

“If He had told me straight away to come here to Indonesia and serve as a missionary for a year? Confirm I don’t want!

“I saw His gentleness and tender mercy in this journey, very gently leading me step by step.”

Lydia also realised that she had viewed Australia as an escape, a place to “settle things” in her life. But God revealed that she should “run to Him instead”.

Living Waters Village, where there was plenty of opportunity to encounter God in Word and worship, surrounded by loving Christians, would be the perfect place to find refuge in God.  

Her last concern was finances. One year at Living Waters Village would mean one year without work, one year without money.

“The Lord said, ‘Lydia, you have been telling people you have been blessed with supportive students and their parents. Can you spare this one year for My children?’

“That was when I said ‘yes’ to the Lord.”

Look out for Part 2 of Lydia’s adventure at Living Waters Village.

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The post “If not you, who can I send?” She was bound for Australia, but God rerouted her to serve in West Kalimantan appeared first on Salt&Light.

The Australian fashion designer holds a university degree in fashion and textile design. She worked as a pattern maker for a medical splints company and was part of the design team of an Australian surf apparel brand.

She then became a freelance bridal designer. Two of her most memorable works as a designer were the Australian national costumes for Miss Universe 2018 (Francesca Hung) and 2020 (Maria Thattil).

But when she and her husband, a plastic surgeon, were given the opportunity to move to Kenya for a year on a medical mission, Nicola was excited but also concerned.

“With my fashion background, I wasn’t sure what use I could be,” she told Salt&Light.

“I knew I definitely didn’t want to waste this precious time, and I wanted to be as useful as I could.”

Together, the couple prayed and asked God to use her for His purpose in the mission field.

Dreaming of Africa

Based in Perth, Australia, Nicola and her husband, Dr Joseph Luo, a plastic surgeon share a passion for Africa. It is one of the destinations on the vision board they have up on a wall at home.

The opportunity opened up in 2023 for Joseph to volunteer at the AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, one of the few mission hospitals in Africa with a plastic surgery unit. 

His expertise as a plastic surgeon brought new lease of life to young children born with cleft lips and others that suffered debilitating burns and other mishaps. 

“Joe was in the medical field, so of course he would be useful,” said Nicola.

But despite not having a clear idea of what she would be doing, the couple packed their bags and moved to Kenya for one year with their then-eight month old son, Lucas.

Nicola and husband Dr Joseph Luo with their son, Lucas, moved to Kenya for a year on mission.

Once they were there, God was quick to answer their prayers.

A long-term missionary from Kijabe and friend of the founder of Rift Valley Workshop (RVW), connected with Nicola and introduced her to the non-profit cooperative that supports the economic stability and empowerment of the local women.

RVW produces goods ranging from candles and cheeseboards to aprons and oven mitts. The proceeds from sales go to the livelihoods of the women.

It turned out that Nicola possessed precisely the necessary skills to support RVW in being a viable social enterprise.

“I worked alongside the ladies at RVW on a few different projects,” she explained.

“We did a number of tutorials on how to make new products such as laptop cases, handbags, medical scrub caps, oven mitts, etc, with the intention of increasing product offering and sales.

“We also worked on quality control.”

In addition, Nicola helped with projects related to sales tracking, merchandising and machine maintenance. 

Nicola used her industry experience to help RVW become sustainable, teaching the women to create new products, while managing sales, sourcing materials and improving administrative systems.

“I was so glad, because all the experience that I had gained working in the industry beforehand was perfectly tailored – no pun intended! – to help these ladies.” 

Located in a popular and busy part of town 10 minutes from her house, RVW was started – serendipitously – by another fashion designer married to a doctor. 

Nicola used her industry experience to help Rift Valley Workshop become sustainable, teaching the women to create new products, while managing sales, sourcing materials and improving administrative systems.

Many of the women at RVW are from the Kikuyu tribe and have been internally displaced due to tribal wars in Kenya. 

They have endured violence and extreme poverty, often earning only 150 shillings (SGD1.50) for a day’s farm work. 

RVW offers them a reliable income over five times higher, enabling them to support their families. 

The women at Rift Valley Workshop were taught to make new products for sale, such as this laptop case.

“I tried to make sure that what they learned was sustainable, so they could still apply the skills and tools and support the changes after I had left.” 

Four women aged between 20 and 40 years old worked at the workshop, bringing along any children who were too young for school.

Being the breadwinners for their families, the women would tell Nicola how much their work at RVW meant because they could provide food and education for their children. 

Rift Valley Workshop equips women with skills and provides them with sustainable income to support their families.

“I think this speaks to the heart of most mothers, whatever their ethnicity.”

“They also shared how they dreamed that one day, they would be able to open an even bigger workshop to provide training to equip other women in similar situations,” related Nicola. “That really warmed my heart.” 

Nicola reading to children at Pisgah Heights School, which she was engaged in besides her work at RVW.

When not at RVW, Nicola, along with two other women from Kijabe, volunteered at Pisgah Heights School, a co-ed school that provides education to orphaned and abandoned children. 

They read to children from Pre-Primary up to Grade 7, organised storerooms, set up a library, as well as hand-wrote homework sheets for each student, as it was too costly to photocopy worksheets. 

For Nicola, her fashion career is temporarily on hold since having Lucas, and a second son, Joshua, born in June this year, three months after they returned from Kenya to Australia.

“In my heart, there’s still a lot I would like to do in this space. I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface,” she admitted.

But tracing God’s hand throughout her career, she added: “Every step has built the foundation for the next, every difficulty has taught me a lesson to prepare me for a future challenge.

“But I believe fashion is still in the future, if not for the immediate season.” 

Life in Kenya

Outside of RVW and Pisgah Heights School, “most days were spent looking after my son, who was a baby but grew into a toddler while we were away!” said Nicola.

“And cooking Chinese food, since there wasn’t much available in Kenya.”

However, in Africa, the Luos had a house helper during the day, a luxury that the family does not have in Australia.

Some other aspects required more work. “For example, we will walk to the markets to purchase our fruit and vegetables, which were often covered in soil because they were freshly dug from the ground,” said Nicola.

“And everything took longer to clean because the water itself is not clean either.

“Meals were prepared from scratch, so I had to multitask with a little one.

Lucas was only eight months old when he lived in Kenya while his parents were on mission. He was treated to perks like seeing baboons in their garden.

“We also didn’t have quite the same facilities available to us as we do back home, so finding activities to teach, encourage development and entertain Lucas was an unexpected challenge.”

Additionally, there was no extended family around to bond with Lucas. But there were some unique encounters that made up for the lack.

“I imagine he had quite interesting experiences that he normally wouldn’t have,” said Nicola.

“How many toddlers get to look out the window and see a family of baboons in their garden?”

While having a young child may put some parents off going on mission trips, Nicola and Joe felt it was in fact a blessing.

“Lucas was about eight months old when we left for Africa, which I think really worked to our advantage. As long as Joe and I were with him, he didn’t mind – or notice – where we were.

“He adapted incredibly well, and it was just perfect timing.”

If there is one thing Nicola would have done different, it would be to pray for community and connections in the mission field.

“When you’re in a new place with no one you really know and you don’t have your home church, it can feel a little isolating at times. This was something I didn’t really anticipate missing.”

Nicola emphasised that going overseas and working in the mission field does not magically boost one’s spiritual life.

“Perhaps if we had gone somewhere where we experienced persecution or more challenging circumstances it would be different,” she said. 

But life in Kenya was relatively stable, so their walk with God required the same discipline as it did back home. 

The family attends church frequently, and prays together during meals and bedtime. Nicola and Joseph regularly read Bible stories to Lucas.

Besides structured family devotion time, husband and wife believe in introducing God to their children through everyday conversations and pointing God out in daily life to help them see how He is involved everywhere and in everything. 

“I think this works well with Lucas being at toddler stage, while he’s still learning to talk and sit still,” Nicola said.

He looked after us perfectly

Before the couple embarked on their mission trip, there were concerns related to health, safety, finances, career development and planning for a family.

Nicola said: “In our preparation course, they touched on things like terrorist attacks, road deaths, muggings, etc. And of course there were diseases and political riots to take into consideration. 

“So these things did sit in the back of my mind,” she shared. It also explained why Joseph’s parents were not entirely supportive of their trip.

But Nicola was reassured by an impression from God that they would be “safe with Him”, giving her peace despite others questioning their decision to go on the Kenyan mission.

“Which is not to say nothing bad or unexpected would ever happen, but rather that if anything did, it would be completely under His control.” 

Nicola and Joseph welcomed their second son, Joshua, in June 2024 after returning from Kenya.

Their preparation also included getting vaccinations, medical checks, insurance, visas and ensuring phone access. 

“A fun little activity we did was scout out our town on Google maps – both satellite and ground views – which was like a mini virtual tour.” 

They also obtained a passport for baby Lucas, learned some local language, completed training modules, and consulted with previous missionaries for tips on adapting to life and culture changes in Kenya. 

“But really, in the end, it worked out so perfectly: We had enough savings, health and safety was a calculated risk, and the timing worked out well for career and family life. 

“Lucas wasn’t in school yet so education wasn’t an issue.” 

To Nicola, the mission trip to Kenya was a dream come true that happened in God’s time.

“I learned from this that God is faithful. He looked after us perfectly during this time. 

“I already knew it in my head, but in Kenya, I experienced it.”

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The post Mission-driven fashion designer sews into lives in Kenya appeared first on Salt&Light.