by Terence Yiu
Photo: Courtesy Alex Chua
Our Disciple 2 class continued to meet virtually during the Covid-19 circuit breaker period, studying and meditating on God's Word from the book of Exodus.
The first part of the Exodus spoke about the hardships faced by God’s chosen people in a foreign land, Egypt.
As we meditated on God's Word, our class drew a parallel between the lives of the migrant workers in Singapore and that of the Israelites in a foreign land. Our class was moved by the plight of the migrant workers in our land and decided to put our faith in action to minister to the guest workers during the circuit breaker period. After all, "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26).
Our class drew a parallel between the lives of the migrant workers in Singapore and that of the Israelites in a foreign land.
We started off by going to God in prayer and sought the Lord's guidance for a plan.
There are many needs in the community of migrant workers and many ideas were floated by the group. With the circuit breaker and the migrant workers being confined in dormitories, we could not have access to them directly. We therefore needed the help of a NGO. I did research on a number of NGOs and our group chose to support the work of the Alliance of Guest Workers Outreach, the charity arm of the Bible Society of Singapore.
Our Disciple 2 group set up a fund to finance the project and supported the migrant workers through in-kind donations, mainly dry ration like biscuits, cup noodles and packet milk.
Praise the Lord, we did not face any major challenges. Quite the contrary, the Faith In Action project sprang to life. I was amazed by how God stirred not only the hearts of the people in our Disciple 2 class, but also the hearts of others outside our class. When they learned about what we were doing, they readily contributed towards our cause and put their trust in us. In a week, our first batch of food items was dispatched to the migrant workers. We faced some difficulties in dispatching the goods because of the uncertainties arising from the circuit breaker measures and its subsequent extention. But by the grace of God, obstacles such as shortage of food items and delivery delay were promptly removed.
Our Disciple 2 class gained some spiritual insights and lessons from the Faith In Action project.
We learnt that it is truly "more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).
Many of us just felt God's calling to help and relieve the predicament of the migrant workers when we did the lesson on the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt.
In response to what Lee Yin Siau, our facilitator, always reminds us – that when God calls, God equips and enables – everyone in the group was very supportive although none of us had any prior experience of helping migrant workers. With trust and love, the hearts of the group beat in unison to put our faith in action to care for those in need by sourcing for the things they needed even when they were of a different faith and nationality. This was possible because we did it in God’s love. It truly only takes a spark to get the fire going!
We can truly overcome our feelings of inadequacy by trusting in God and putting faith in action.
When God calls, we may feel unprepared, inadequate or not well equipped to carry out His work. This was how Moses reacted in Exodus 3-4 when God gave him the task of bringing His people out of Egypt to the promised land. We can truly overcome our feelings of inadequacy by trusting in God and putting faith in action.
As God sent Aaron to help Moses in Exodus, God will also bring other people to support us and to help us to effectively accomplish the task He has given us. I am humbled to have the opportunity to serve by leading this project with Seow Chiah Meng. I was also so blessed to have Tjio Bee Ann and Yin Siau who readily provided help in procurement and keeping accounts.
It is such a blessing to be able to stay home with everyone in the family. For the migrant workers, living away from their loved ones and having to face this unprecedented situation by themselves in a foreign land must be worrisome.
I pray that our society would show more appreciation and provide better care to our migrant workers as commanded in Exodus 23:9. Most of these migrant workers came to Singapore to work to provide for their families, similar to what most of Singaporean forefathers did many decades ago. Migrant workers may be strangers in our midst but they are, nonetheless, our neighbours.