Raising
families
to fight
Our work with the homeless focuses on restoring
individuals by reclaiming their right to belong and
recovering their capacity to maintain relationships in a
healthy family. We have always aimed to bring them a
Kingdom family experience, even on the streets. We
yearn for them to experience a real home, where they
can engage in regular family routines, and not simply be
a recipient of sympathy and compassion in a shelter or
drop-in centre.
At the end of 2017, our Trolley Ministry team faced a
time of reckoning, as we did not have the manpower to
carry on for another year. Surprisingly, as we prayed
about our situation, God never gave us the word to shut
down. Instead he told us to “get out of our daily comfort
zone, enlarge our territory, and be in the village with the
lost”. We were dumbfounded, as we did not have the
capacity to consider our expansion.
A week after this prayer, a dear friend offered us a
3-bedroom private apartment to use for any purpose we
deemed appropriate. We visited the space and realised
that it was in the heart of the red-light district, in a
community that housed different social classes of
foreign workers (from expatriate businessmen to
construction workers), sex workers, pimps and also
ordinary families with young children. That alone was
enough to throw us out of our comfort zone. It was
neither the most comfortable location nor in the best
physical condition, but as we prayed, God revealed His
heart for this home.
Through Isaiah 56, God showed us that this is to be a
place for all peoples in Geylang – foreigners, our own
families, the physically mutilated who are deemed
“damaged goods” and the modern-day eunuchs who
have lost hope and are ridiculed by society. God’s heart
is for all peoples to know they belong to Jesus, and He
wants to give them back their stolen value so they can
hope again and give back to others. Through this home
they would be intentionally restored in God’s image,
built up, and come home to the Father’s arms.
for
families
“Jia” with the Trolley team.
In embracing all peoples, we knew we would be
embracing mess and chaos. The process of renovating
the apartment itself was excruciating and messy. We
contended with structural issues within the building
complex, which involved working with our neighbours,
building staff and endless contractors who tried to cut
corners with us. It was frustrating and we turned it over
to God. We learnt a crucial spiritual lesson: We cannot
cut corners with the lives of the broken we have been
entrusted with. Instead, we need to deal with the roots
of their wounds and not merely paint over the surface
and ignore the deeper problems. Otherwise, the issues
will resurface through new leaks, unsterilised mould and
collapsing ceilings, which will affect the rest of the
house and our health. The process may take an
excruciatingly long time and thwart our scheduling, but
it is worth the wait.
God has called us to be “in the village” to embrace all
peoples regardless of their mess, and we come to Him to
bring to them something kinder, stronger and braver
than they ever knew before they came to know Him. Our
Father has given us a home to be family to each other,
not out of performance or programming, but out of lives
lived authentically. We challenge ourselves – if we are
no longer here, will that make any difference to this
community? Will you pray for us as we step into this
village, call it home and welcome those different from
us?
God’s heart is for all peoples to know they
belong to Jesus, and He wants to give them
back their stolen value so they can hope
again and give back to others. Through this
home they would be intentionally restored
in God’s image, built up, and come home to
the Father’s arms.
We now understood why during our first few years of
ministry, God taught our team how to function as a
family. We had to know His heart for families before He
could entrust us with this home to express it through – to
practically live our lives such that the Kingdom, which is
in us will become the Kingdom that is around us, and
intentionally restore family life and belonging to those
whom we welcome through the doors. As we host the
marginalised and oppressed on the streets of Geylang,
we hope they will enter a sanctuary where they can be
healed by the Lord and His people. Through radical
hospitality where all peoples in a tough neighbourhood
are welcome to share a meal, have conversations and
participate in family life, we hope that those seeking a
place to be heard, to rest, to cry and to hear God’s truth
will find it in the faces and lives of the people who love
and serve them. And in turn, they will discover the image
of God in themselves.
11