In 1998, I had a nasty fall at home. I hit my head on the hard ground and I lost consciousness. When I regained my consciousness in the ambulance, I could not remember the accident at all. My skull was deformed showing the severity of the fall.
In the weeks of recuperation, I decided to take things easy and I went to Genting Highlands for a couple of days. I had another fall going headlong probably 30 feet down. As I went down, I thought this was it. Again, I survived without any injury, not even a scratch, by the grace of God.
That shook me thinking about the vagaries of life and how far I had backslided over the years.
I went back to a local church. The very first Sunday service I attended, my car was booked for illegal parking. Later I learned that the neighbours was always upset with such illegal parking and had reported to LTA.
I decided to visit the families living in the vicinity of the church as I saw the need of the church to build up rapport with them. Relations improved so much that they did not report illegal parking anymore.
I also noticed the poor neighbourhood which I felt the church could evangelize through social service. I approached the social assistance department of MCD, Ministry of Community Development , the predecessor of MCYS for the list of needy families in the vicinity of the church.
I explained that I could match donors from church giving monthly pocket money to needy students of poor families which could not qualify for the social assistance from MCD. The supervisor was so grateful for this scheme as she felt so sad for not being able to help this particular group. And the scheme was approved readily.
She gave me a list of needy families near the local church. I managed to match some 15 to 20 families with willing donors in the first 3 months.
And when we invited them to an evangelistic campfire in church for the first time, they gladly came.
Seeing this ministry was a bridge to evangelizing the neighbourhood, the church took over the ministry officially which I gladly handed over.
2 years later when the Straits Times started the same fund, I believe the local church stopped this ministry as not to duplicate the same effort.
