Methodist Message: February 2021

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Home ¢ Dr Chen Chi Nan, a son of Dr Chen Su Lan, was a leading Methodist layman in Wesley Methodist Church and a consulting psychiatrist in Vancouver. He went home to the Lord in September 2020. / Photos courtesy of MCS Archives and History Library, Dr Feng Chen and Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home

Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home

An inspiring, uplifting story A pioneering Social Concerns project of Wesley Methodist Church, Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home provides needy children between ages four and 14 years from broken homes with Christian nurture and prepares them for useful citizenship in a home atmosphere. It is a registered charity administered by a committee that includes a number of Methodist laymen, and began functioning in 1968. Today, it continues in an expanded ministry at Serangoon Garden Way after the original chalets in Wing Loong Road were acquired by the Government to build the Changi Airport runway. A version of this article first appeared in the Feb 2002 issue of Methodist Message.

Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home today

T

he words inspiring, heartwarming and uplifting are so hackneyed that they have largely lost their meaning, and yet they sum up the story of Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home (CSLMCH).

Ms Lim Cheng Kiok, its first matron, took early retirement from the Singapore General Hospital where she had been a nursing sister in order to “serve God”. This was the more notable, as she had nothing specific in mind. She waited. She was offered a salary of $250 a month—not a princely sum even in 1968. Her initial reaction was that it underestimated her worth, almost a slight to someone who has been in the highest grade of nursing. At a deeper level, she felt that since this job could be the way she could serve God, what the pay was did not really matter.

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METHODIST MESSAGE FEBRUARY 2021


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