happenings@navsing Serving in his courts by Wong Kia Yuan, TNT, Navigator staff member
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his is a great year for me and my girls in the volleyball scene. After all the hard work we’ve put in, all the perspiration, all the tears, all the effort, all the sacrifices, and all the constraints – we finally achieved the goals we set for ourselves: to be East Zone Schools champions and to be in the National Schools top four spot. Watching my girls jump for joy after clinching the championship title and then seeing their wide grins when they received the medals at the National Schools Award Ceremony were the most satisfying sights for me. Out of the blue and out of fun, I was touched when they all placed their medals around my neck and passed me the trophy.
“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” – Charles H. Spurgeon
In April this year, The NavTeens and other Navigator student ministries (Singapore Poly, Ngee Ann Poly, and ITE) organised a combined Good Friday evangelistic event. About 200 teens, Navigator staff and volunteer labourers came. I supervised a group of young labourers who organised the event. It was great to see them learn from their mistakes, coping with constraints and becoming more realistic in their planning. There were two opportunities during the event to share the gospel with the non-believers. God gave us five teens who prayed to receive Christ. I had the opportunity to invite ten of my volleyball players to enjoy the fun. During the course of the day I was able to share the gospel with them. I asked one of the girls, a brilliant student: “Do you know what you believe in and why you believe in it?” I know that she is very open to the gospel and very close to inviting Jesus into her life, but she is afraid to rock the boat in her family. For the believers, I challenged them in their belief and relationship with God. v
Just Google it?
Life-to-life
By Aurelia L. Castro
By Aurelia L. Castro
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tubborn-headed gal,” she describes herself. But her 14-year friendship with a Navigator has helped her become more patient and deep in her faith in the Lord. Elaine Lim was only 14 when she got involved with The NavTeens. She was with the St. Hilda’s Secondary School volleyball team. Goh Siew Lim led a Bible study with her and other girls for about five years. “She set a very good example her patience, gentleness, and her fear of God. I’m quite a stubbornheaded person. She will be very patient to listen. Of course, she knows she will take more than one day to change my mind. She will follow up prayerfully.” “When I’m in my down times, out of nowhere Siew Lim will drop me an sms to perk me up, as if she knows what’s going on. When I need some advice or someone to talk to, or when I have something encouraging to share, I know I can go to her.” Elaine works as a customer service staff at the Singapore Airport Terminal Services. She desires to impact other people’s lives for God, just as Siew Lim impacted hers. She is now reading the Scripture with a non-believer colleague who got interested in the Bible. v
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ost, if not all, of the things you want to know are right at your fingertips. Just Google it and you’ll have it, says Eugene Ng, 4th year Accountancy student from the National University of Singapore (NUS). “In this age of instant information, everybody knows everything. Knowledge can be found and downloaded from the Internet. Knowing something is not really a problem or as challenging anymore. What my generation, in general, needs is experience – to see it, to know it, and to discover it ourselves.” Bringing it to a spiritual context, the 22-year-old said the challenge is that today’s generation tends to believe in God and commit themselves to a cause or belief only if and when they themselves experience something real about it. “Building an environment of love and of community definitely helps, but by the end of the day, one really needs God to pull things through. It’s the personal experience
with God that’s really important. It’s something we can’t just make happen.” Eugene serves as president of the NUS Navigators Exco. He has been with the Navigators for three years now. “The Navigators have helped me a lot especially in having a Biblical understanding of different things. My grace community, for one, is quite grounded and rooted in the Word. I also find it helpful that I have close friends to be accountable with – to bounce off ideas, to talk to, and to keep an eye on one another as we apply whatever we have learned from the Scripture. Accountability is very important. If you don’t have it, it’s easy to stray away.” Lee Whee Khee, NUS Navigator staff trainee said, “His fun-loving personality and outstanding leadership qualities soon gained Eugene the respect and support of his fellow teammates. He desires to reach out to his pre-believing friends in NUS... he prays for them faithfully, asking for open hearts and opportunities for the gospel to penetrate into their lives.” v
Alumni & Friends
C O N N E C T I O N S
NavAlumni Fook Kong and Doris working among Chinese nationals
Nursing Hearts
Background photo by Billy Alexander, www.sxc.hu
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untie, am I going to die?” Stricken with dread and dengue fever, Kitty looked up at the couple who had been visiting her in the hospital everyday. Doris reassured her, and encouraged her to seek God in prayer. Only two months in Singapore as a nursing student at Nanyang Polytechnic, Kitty came to know Christ through the love and testimony of Fok Fook Kong and his wife Doris. The couple is part of the Chinese Nationals Ministry in Hakka Methodist Church. With other mentors from the church, the couple reaches out to Chinese nursing students currently on a three-and-a-half year diploma programme, followed by a six-year bond. The vision is to reach out to as many nursing mentees as possible, depending on how many labourers are available. So far they have over 200 nursing students as contacts. “We hope we can influence them for the Lord and see them baptized and discipled so that by the time they return to their homeland, they will be in a position to be labourers for the harvest field.” The majority come from an atheistic background. A few have, interestingly, mothers or grandmothers who are Christians. They are eager to learn, and the challenge is to build strong
relationships with them, and to help them explore the meaning of life and discover the truth about God. Cycling trips, home visits, tours around Singapore, movies, fellowship meetings, Bible studies – you name it, they have it – all means to the end of touching lives for Christ. Kitty continues to grow in faith. She has also brought her boyfriend Alan and best friend Mei to the faith. They were baptised and now count as core members of the ministry. Back in her homeland for holidays, Kitty shared her testimony and had the joy of seeing her mother believe in Christ. Her mother is even now sharing her faith to relatives and friends! The same experience is shared by another nursing student Fang who had the joy of evangelising her relatives and neighbours during a recent home visit and seeing decisions made for Christ. Kitty enters into the final year of her diploma course prior to starting work. Fook Kong admits, “It is a challenging time because many find it very difficult to continue meeting due to the demanding schedule and shift work.” Attrition rate is high after the third year. Fook Kong cycles on weekends and drops by at some of the homes to “say hello and maintain contact.” Doris keeps in
by Patricia Lian Cycling trips, home visits, tours around Singapore, movies, fellowship meetings, Bible studies -- you name it, they have it – all means to the end of touching lives for Christ.
touch with ex-students, some of whom are even married with young children. Their huge collection of photographs, meticulously catalogued, testifies to the love and labour that this warmhearted couple has poured into many lives. They have one aim: to share God’s love with the people He loves. v
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Early yea on
Fook K
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Trained by The Navigators in Canada as an undergraduate, Fok Fook Kong joined The Navigators, Singapore in the mid ‘70s and began labouring with the Military Navs. He and his wife, Doris, served with ministries in Singapore University, later renamed NUS; NUS Science Faculty; Return Graduates Ministry; and explored cross-cultural work via several mission trips. Their love for the Chinese people brought them on numerous trips to China, and faithfully they have continued to serve with their church, where God has brought Chinese nationals (mainly nursing students) into their lives and home. Full report at www.navigators.org.sg
mates
What’s on? Nav Alumni Gathering, 28 Nov 2010
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e are calling all alumni to save this date for a Nav Alumni Dinner. Details will be announced soon. For enquiries, please contact Yap Kim Meng at ykm@navigators.org.sg. HP 98415963. v
Out in the field
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avigator staff members, labourers, and students from Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore participated in “Courageous Faith,” a three-week Vacation Training Programme in the Philippines from10–29 May 2010, our first ever combined universities training programme.
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he NavTeens (TNT) are also going beyond their comfort zone and committing themselves to a new initiative. On 12-19 June, about 20 of them will make a mission trip to the Philippines. The trip is a culmination of a four-year- training programme when 10 new labourers (18 to 23 years old) will graduate and be added to TNT volunteer labourer workforce. v
2:7 Series continues
By Royston Koh, Church Discipleship Ministry (CDM)
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fter 25 years, we thought that the Navigator 2:7 Series had seen its usefulness. We were ready to send it to cold storage. But we are astounded to see that it continues to be relevant with today’s generation of believers, cutting across national and cultural boundaries – from sophisticated Singapore to rural China as well as to tribal region of India. The Navigator 2:7 Series is a lay training course used in more than 60 countries around the world to help Christians become mature disciples of Jesus Christ. One of the churches in Singapore that has been promoting it is the Barker Road Methodist Church (BRMC). They conduct a year-long Growing Deep in Christ (GDIC) programme, with the 2:7 Series as part of its core curriculum. “I’m so overwhelmed and overjoyed to see so many of our church members completing GDIC!” said Chay Swee Hwa, who started the programme in BRMC in 2003. It was not the completion of a course that moved her but the lives transformed by the Word of God. “Before attending the Navigator class, I hardly read the Bible. But since going through the course I have been reading it every day. Young Christians will benefit from the various practical tools for Christian living. For more mature Christians, it will serve as a good refresher.” – Lee Kwai Peng (CDM Singapore offers training clinics for churches interested to embark on this discipleship course. Call our staff at 98204323 for enquiries.) v
Giving voice to the vision by Doug Erdmann, National Director
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he Navigators have a God-given vision of multiplying labourers in Singapore and around the world. To help give “voice to the vision” we have been blessed with two excellent communicators… Angeline Koh and Aurelia L. Castro. Angel is one of our field staff who has served as our communications director since 1998. In 2006, she recruited Au from the Philippines, and together they have been writing and producing this quarterly NavNews, updating our website and handling other corporate communication. They have done a fantastic job, receiving accolades from around the world. So you can imagine that it is with mixed feelings that I tell you that they will be leaving us soon to take on a new opportunity – Digital Storytelling, a way to use today’s technology to tell timeless truths (www.digitalstorytellingasia. com). Thank you Angel and Au for your wonderful service to The Navigators and we bless you in this exciting next step! Although Angel and Au are leaving “big shoes to fill”, we are grateful that God has provided us a new communications executive, Patricia Lian. Patricia is not new to Navigator communications, having written several articles for NavNews, including one in this issue. We’ll let you know more about Patricia in the next issue, and the exciting story of how God led her to take this new role. v
asia and beyond by Yap Kim Meng, Missions Director
Emerging Missions Leaders from Singapore A
Photo by Flavio Takemoto, www.sxc.hu
t a gathering of 300 Navigator missionaries in Asia in February this year, one pleasant surprise was to learn that a man from Singapore had been selected to shepherd the overseas Chinese (and there are many of them) ministering with the Navigators in East Asia. After being trained by the Navs, he left Singapore more than 15 years ago, married, and got a job in a key city in East Asia. The first few years were learning at a cost – living, raising two kids, gaining greater confidence in using the local language, and learning to live out the gospel in the midst of strangers. Over time, God blessed the seed planted. Today he is leading a ministry of men and women who have responded to the gospel and are seeking to disciple others as well. He connected with other Asians who were there and slowly his influence and leadership was accepted. Another Singaporean who studied in the US went to East Asia to set up a US-based company. Trained by the Navigators in his student days at the Poly, he married, raised his family with two kids and reproduced what he had practiced in the past. He ran the 2:7 series of materials produced by the Church Discipleship Ministry and
conducted it in Mandarin. Literally thousands have been trained within the compounds of his factory. Some were sent intentionally, whereas others have gone on their own with their professions. Initially nothing happened, but once they adjusted, their influence and impact began to be felt as disciples were raised up all over East Asia. Over the years, several of our Singapore leaders travelled and visited the fruit of their ministry and lent support and encouragement. Slowly but surely, as in Colossians 1:5, “the gospel bore fruit and grew among them.” Increasingly more and more are coming to join in the work, and interestingly, more are also second career missionaries. Half-Timers who had successful careers are now re-adjusting to seek significance in their second half and step out in faith. A few have gone incognito, while others have joined teams already functioning in key cities in East Asia. Some are making short term trips to teach English, do social entrepreneurship projects as well as other things. The blessing in Singapore has resulted in the gospel spreading to the mainland with many ethnic Chinese picking up the baton of the gospel and joining in the harvest. v
www.navigators.org.sg The calling of The Navigators is to advance the gospel of Jesus and his kingdom into the nations through spiritual generations of labourers living and discipling among the lost. Views expressed in published articles are those of the individual writers and may not necessarily be the views of The Navigators Singapore. THE NAVIGATORS SINGAPORE • National Director: Doug Erdmann • Editor / Design & Layout: Angeline Koh • Writer: Aurelia L. Castro 117 Lorong K, Telok Kurau, Singapore 425758 • Tel: (65) 6344 4133 • Fax: (65) 6344 0975 • E-mail: admin@navigators.org.sg Printed by Seng Lee Press Pte Ltd