Hope

Rev Leslie Lim is the MMS Country Director for Vietnam. He and his wife, Linda, have served as missionaries in Vietnam for more than 8 years. He shares about what it is like to be serving in the mission field with one’s spouse.

I remember distinctly the day I became a Christian. It was while I was reading the Bible as a teenager during family prayers. I was so overwhelmed with God’s love for me that tears rolled down my face as I read.

"I want a divorce." Those words uttered by 35-year-old Ava (not her real name) to her husband of five years were met with cold, stony silence. His answer came days later … through a phone call from his lawyer.

It was early spring and the temperature was unusually cold for this time of the year. Sadly, we had received a request to arrange a funeral for Sister Z, an 87-year-old church member. She had been suffering from liver failure and the doctor told her family that she had only a few days to live.

When the SARS epidemic swept through Singapore in 2003, Mr Teo Kim Seng's packaging business took such a hard hit that he ended up filing for bankruptcy and switching to a taxi driving career. Soon after, cracks formed in his marriage, which wound up in divorce in 2015.

I accepted Christ in my teenage years through the Girls' Brigade and have been a Kampong Kapor Methodist Church member since 2019. To me, being a Methodist means being connected to a broader group of churches committed to making disciples of Christ: disciples who, being saved through God's grace, bear testimony through pursuing holiness in all areas of their life. After all, as Wesley wrote, a Methodist is "one who lives according to the method laid down in the Bible".

Over two decades ago, Winnie Tan's mentors shared this Bible verse with her when she first embarked on her journey as a teaching assistant at Charis Student Care Centre, now known as MWS Christalite Student Care Centre. Little did she know that this verse would become the beacon for her 23-year journey.

I loved reading to my boys when they were younger. Their favourite bedtime ritual always included a Bible story. Their eyes would widen in wonder as they heard how David overcame Goliath with a sling, or when God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites.

I've been attending Grace Methodist Church since my secondary school days, when I became a Christian through The Boys' Brigade. Through the privilege of serving in leadership positions, and in various committees or workgroups at the Annual Conference, I became aware of strategic issues that were much bigger than the local church, which cannot be managed by local churches alone.

In affluent Singapore where we rarely see beggars or the homeless, few would imagine that the issue of poverty is worth a conversation.

Community work is a concept that we are not unfamiliar with, be it school-based community service projects or volunteering in our spare time. In this article, the theological underpinnings of Christian and church-based community work will be discussed.

Being part of a Methodist church did not mean much to me when I was younger. But now, I realise that Methodist churches are part of a larger group. My church is part of the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC), which in turn is part of The Methodist Church in Singapore.