1. What made you join teaching back in 1956?

It was God’s will. My father did not want me to be a teacher because he said that it was "the noblest of all professions but the saddest of all trades". However, I sent in my application to be a trainee teacher without much thought. The first response was that I was rejected and this made me think seriously whether teaching was for me. Looking at the school across the field near my house made me realise that I could only look at it from the outside but not work in one such a school, unless it was God’s will. So I prayed for His will to be done, be it joining the administrative/clerical line or teaching. The very next day after this prayer, I received a letter from MOE informing me to treat the previous letter as cancelled and to report for duty and training. I believe that God wanted me to know for sure what I should do. The assurance of God’s will kept me steady in times of trouble.

          (QUOTE: God wanted me to know for sure…)

2. How did you get involved with TCF?

I attended activities organised by the Teachers’ College Christian Fellowship (TCCF) during my training days in the late fifties. I kept in touch with my peers and juniors in the sixties through activities like helping out in camps and attending seminars. When TCF was inaugurated in 1968, I was one of the members. Throughout the seventies, I was only a participant in the events organised by TCF. It was only in 1980 that I finally joined the TCF executive committee and became the treasurer. Never did I dream that I would chair the fellowship for almost two decades. The post came about as a result of my immediate predecessor leaving for further studies abroad and asking me to hold the fort for a few months till the AGM. However, nobody wanted the chair and so those few months in early 1983 lasted till late 1999 when Lucy Tay consented to co-chair. Thank God for Lucy! During this time, there were two occasions when I almost succeeded in getting a successor but just before the AGM, the would-be chairs got their promotions and declined the post.

(QUOTE: Never did I dream…)

3. What role has TCF played in your life?

TCF provides the opportunity to get to know people beyond the walls of my church and school. I have an avenue to interact not only with those in schools but also those in NIE and MOE HQ. [TCF prayer meetings and some of her functions also provide teachers opportunity to pray for their own profession. I count it a privilege to be able to gather for corporate prayer with Christians from various sectors of MOE

(from junior teachers to seniors in NIE and HQ) for pupils, teachers, decision makers and others involved with education.]

I have access to members in other sectional groups. When dealing with sensitive issues like delinquency and teenage pregnancies, inputs by LCF (Lawyers Christian Fellowship), FCCP (Fellowship of Christian Care Professionals), CMDF (Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship) and theologians within the fellowship will give teachers a better insight into the problem and the intervention needed.

Meeting members from the various sections and working in committees either within TCF or with other sectional groups has enriched my life and widened by horizons.

4. What did you do when you retired?

Three years before I opted for early retirement, I asked God for His leading. I have been constantly reminded of the hymn "O Love that will not let me go" where the writer wrote the third to fifth line of the first verse thus:-

"I gave Thee back the life I owe

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be."

So when my retirement came, I was already in the TCF ministry and soon became more and more involved in the production, collating and mailing out of the TCF newsletters and sitting in committees to organise workshops, seminars and the production of other publications. The Dedication Service which started in 1983 is still carried on. In church, I was approached to help those who were weak in English with the O level paper. Later, a former colleague introduced two siblings from Hong Kong to prepare them for admission to a Singapore school and this led me to prepare other foreigners with the same purpose. I persuaded the parents of these boys to allow them to attend Sunday School for better exposure to English and interaction with children of the same age group rather than allowing them to spend their weekends at arcades or shopping centres. Tutoring foreigners lasted till 1998. In the meantime, I became involved in the pre-school ministry which my church started in 1997. This time it is ministry to the very young in their formative years.

Someone jokingly remarked that I was not retired but "retyred", meaning that I was rethreaded for some other use. So after retirement, I have been involved in the TCF ministry, ministry through being a tutor, and now kindergarten work. For each job, it has been God’s leading – not by choice or plan.

(QUOTE: I was not retired but "retyred")

5. Any words of wisdom or encouragement for teachers in general?

Just three suggestions for consideration.

Firstly, it is of vital importance to know and do God’s will because there will come a time when you wonder if you made the right decision or choice. When you find that your superior/s are not supporting you and your colleagues cannot do anything and even God does not seem to hear your prayers, you have to fall back on the fact that it has been God’s will that you are in your present post and so have to wait patiently for deliverance. In my case, deliverance has often come in a marvelous ways "above all we ask or think" (Eph 3:20).

Secondly, God has a plan for each of us. If you keep standing in God’s way by giving up without His telling you to, you will have your own way but not experience what is best for you. God’s best for your life and the praise and glory due to Him will not be manifested and you will miss being a blessing to others.

          (QUOTE: …you will have your own way but…)

- remembering those NIECF days

It seemed like a good date, Sunday, 15^th Dec 2002, so Sally, Ee Yuing and I thought. Ee Yuing sent out an email to the Yahoo group she had created for us some years ago. Amazing! It reached most of us.

The NIECF Exco of 1994/1995 had met up almost every semester initially and then mostly at weddings. As we emailed back and forth about this gathering, we spoke of new babies and more on the way. Seven years is quite a while!

Perhaps you know some of these folks: Tiong Nam, Sally, Catherine, Joong Fui, Ee Yuing, Bee Kim, Jason, Jit Kiong, Angeline, Rennie? We used to meet for Exco meetings and for our own PGDE BS in a little room overlooking the quadrangle at the Bukit Timah campus. The chairs were constantly all over the place but there was always at least one guitar if not two for worship at the spur of the moment.

We knew our recent predecessors in the CF and had a vague sense of being linked to FES, this was stronger for some like Jason who had been active in the VCF and, of course, for those who had attended Inductive Bible Study courses and the annual Bible Camps. Quite a few people had also been on MEET (Missions, Exposure and Education Trips). Laverne, our FES Staff Worker, was always around to teach us and pray with us. We sort of knew about the TCF who annually organised the Dedication Service for us. We had heard of Dr Ruth Wong and read her story in ‘Called to be a Teacher’.

We enjoyed the honeymoon of our trainee years, knowing that school life would put us to the test. Out there were Christian teachers seeking to live out their faith in their staffrooms and classrooms. Would we be among them or would we be indistinguishable from others? Worse, would we bring Christ dishonour through a reputation for bad temper, bad work or a bad mouth?

Of course we were not the only Christians on campus, there were other groups too and there were also Christians who were not in campus groups. Then as now, we sought to juggle commitments at church with our desire to meet regularly with fellow believers on campus to remind ourselves to be Christians in our classes, with our non-Christian classmates.

That evening, the 15^th of December, we were a party of eight including Elmy and Yong En, Tiong Nam’s wife and son.

We talked, prayed, sang, ate and played Taboo. But most of all we celebrated the anniversary of Tiong Nam’s coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through NIECF.

You see, we had not realised that the 15^th was the anniversary of his salvation and the 10^th anniversary too! Discovering the significance of the date we had chosen seemed like a special gift from the Lord. It was as if to say, "I am with you still as I was with you then. And I am with the NIECF for it is My work."

I am now a student at NIE again. The few times I have met up with NIECFers have been humbling and inspiring. In FES staff worker, Wai, CG leaders, exco members and the PGDE trainees I’ve met, there is a hunger for God’s Word which is infectious. There is desire to reach others with the message of the gospel and to this end, the NIECFers pray together, encourage one another and create opportunities to introduce friends to Christ.

If your faith is flagging, then find such company as these young men and women or get back together with Christian friends from long ago. For it is through such fellowship in the faith, that we comprehend again and again the amazing blessings that are ours in Jesus Christ.

Box of Ideas for Getting In Touch

The Methodist Missions Society (MMS) Education Missions is one way for us to witness in countries closed to direct evangelism and missionary work. It is a creative channel in accessing these countries as education holds the key to a better future for all.

MMS Education Missions has these goals:

• share the gospel through our education ministry
• motivate and mobilise people to assist in education missions
• mobilise people to assist in curriculum planning and development
• ensure sequential continuity in curriculum planning and training
• train teachers in English language and other pedagogy skills
• develop evangelistic relationships in the countries we operate in

These may be accomplished in many ways, for instance, assessing the needs of these countries in the area of education, training of teachers through seminars and workshops, collecting books and teaching resources for the schools in these countries and sponsoring the education of primary and secondary students in these countries through our Student Sponsorship Scheme.

Please pray for Christians to come forward to serve God through our education missions. Would you consider being used by God in one of the following ways?

• Conduct workshops and seminars
• Facilitate (assist) at workshops and seminars
• Teach English to the young or to adults
• Pray for Education Missions
• Share your testimony during break-time fellowship
• Organise youth camps
• Develop English curricula
• Provide IT expertise and support
• Collect and evaluate books and other resources for the schools overseas
• Sponsor our students’ educational scholarship

To date, some of the countries that we’ve served include Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and China. It is rewarding to see some of the teachers whom we teach wanting to know more about God. Methodist pastors and churches have been able to follow up with them especially in Cambodia and Thailand. It is indeed truly motivating to see the eagerness of some of these folks thirsting not only for pedagogy skills but also for God.

The MMS Education Missions Committee encourages more teachers to respond to education missions. Jesus says "as the Father has sent me, I’m sending you" (John 20:21). Will you heed that call both here in Singapore and abroad?

Your Christian students can come too! Singaporean students’ have grown a lot through participating. One of them wrote about it this way, "In Singapore, I grumble at the education system and even take for granted the fact that I can go to school (I actually thought of it as a chore). …Now that I saw for myself the kind of school those children go to, the journey they have to make …and the facilities they have, I was ashamed." (Magata, 2000; Harvest Force, p24).

Your assistance can be in any of the ways listed above. What we need are willing workers that God can use to further His kingdom. One with a servitude attitude (1 Cor. 9:19) who can be a channel of blessings to win others for Christ, that is, the willingness to serve in humility and not cling to the "me" in oneself. Do pray and be sensitive to God’s calling. Let us not allow the secular world to direct our ways just because God is not physically present within our sight. Let us attempt to put God first in all we say and do.

Our tentative MMS Education trips for 2003 are as follows:

Cambodia 5^th – 8^th June

Chengmai/Bangkok 25^th – 30^th November

China 25^th – 30^th November

The actual dates will be confirmed when you attend our Orientation programme as we are still liaising with the various countries on the best time to visit.

If you are interested to assist in one of the above trips, we encourage you to attend our MMS Education Missions Orientation Programme on Saturday, 22^nd March. This will be followed by our Education Retreat Programme on Thursday, 15^th May. For both events, it will be held at the Methodist Centre, 3^rd Level from 8.30 am – 5.00 pm at 70 Barker Rd.