What would you expect to find when you leave your home to work in a foreign land? A stable job, hopefully. Plain but regular meals, perhaps. Maybe a fellow countryman or two to share faded photos with about the family and hometown you left behind.
For some Chinese migrant workers, leaving home meant finding something unexpected.
When Wang Guang Yu first stepped onto the shores of Singapore in December 2012, he finally fulfilled his dream of working overseas. It was the way to a better life for his family.
The 40-year-old was originally a mobile phone salesman in Heze, a city in Shandong province, China. He came to Singapore to be a construction worker.
Before Guang Yu left home, his mother-in-law, a Christian, gave him a Bible. And a mobile SIM card with a Chinese pastor’s sermons on it.
Guang Yu promised he would listen to the sermons during his spare time. He liked the principles the pastor, Yuan Zhiming, espoused.
But he did not give the matter too much thought.
Free food
Wang attended church in Singapore whenever he had Sundays off. But it was for the free food, he said with a chuckle.
“I would go to church and twiddle with my phone or take a nap,” the father of two admitted in Mandarin.
“How can there be such a good thing? That even though you don’t deserve any help, God chooses to help you?”
Then, in early 2014, Guang Yu misplaced his tools at the worksite.
“I was very anxious. I suddenly thought of God. I said, ‘If you are real, help me find these tools.’”
About a week later, a colleague left the tools in his pigeonhole.
But Guang Yu soon forgot about the incident.
A few months later, his mother fell sick and Guang Yu needed money for her treatment.
He had transferred all his earnings home. His family had used up all their savings for his mother’s expenses. But it still wasn’t enough. Guang Yu needed to borrow money urgently.
So he thought of God.
“Only when you get into trouble, right?” Guang Yu said sheepishly. “I said one more time, ‘God, are you real? If you are, help me. And if you do, I will believe in you, and I will get baptised.’”
Less then a week later, a friend lent him S$2,000.
Helping hands
After the incident, Guang Yu started listening more intently to sermons and reading the Bible regularly.
He began to research Jesus’ life online. He grew convinced and got baptised within two months.
When his hand was injured in a workplace mishap, he was given just two days medical leave and instructed to do light work. Worried about his injury, he prayed.
Shortly afterwards, a friend introduced him to HealthServe, a non-profit organisation that provides healthcare and dental care to migrant workers. As well as social assistance, skills training and food.
Having lunch, sponsored by HealthServe, at a coffee shop in Geylang.
HealthServe helped to treat his hand, supervising his recovery. They also helped him to get an additional 15 days of medical leave. They also informed the Ministry of Manpower about his case.
They find companionship there. And sometimes God, too.
At HealthServe, Guang Yu befriended other migrant workers. Those who are Christians attend church together on Sundays.
HealthServe is non-religious and welcomes all races. It was set up by a Christian doctor.
Can it really be true?
With HealthServe’s help, Jiang Zhe Gang, a delivery truck driver, was able to settle a salary dispute with his boss.
Zhe Gang says his boss reported him to the police in retaliation after he quit his job. Out of work, Zhe Gang did not have a place to stay until a friend introduced him to HealthServe, which offered him a bed at their shelter, as well as food and financial assistance.
There, he heard about God for the first time, from Christian volunteers. The 46-year-old had never heard of Christ in China.
Zhang Jian Chuan (left) and Jiang Zhe Gang (right).
“When I first heard it, I thought, ‘How can there be such a good thing? That even though you don’t deserve any help, God chooses to help you?’”
He prayed about his case and it was resolved by the police in two months, instead of the six months he thought it would take.
Zhang Jian Chuan, a construction worker, had a similar experience. After he broke his leg, he sought help from the organisation when he couldn’t work. The 51-year-old prayed. The pain in his leg subsided.
How can someone say they are thankful for an accident?
“Migrant workers who set foot in HealthServe are often anxious, lonely and depressed,” said Willy Lau, HealthServe’s volunteer development manager.
Unable to work, the migrant workers spend their days with their friends at HealthServe’s community room in Geylang. They go for outings organised by volunteers, and attend church on Sundays … sometimes as many as four services in one day.
Companionship at in the community room at HealthServe
They find companionship there. And sometimes God, too. Some of them become Christians because they finally “have something to depend on”. They discover that “this God is so amazing”.
Some even say they are thankful even for the accidents and disputes. For the best thing that happened through their mishaps was finding Christ.
At once a month orientations for volunteers, foreign workers are invited to speak. Invariable, some start sharing about God.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, share about your situation’,” says Willy. “But they say: ‘The reality is that finding Christ is the most important thing to me.’”
This is an excerpt of an article that first appeared in Salt&Light.
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