Looking Back To Find Confidence For Tomorrow

People often say that it is a bad habit to look back at your history. But for me, i find strength in looking back at what God has done in our ministry. Knowing that He has watched over this ministry and guided us, gives me confidence to face the uncertainties of tomorrow.

This journey is truly amazing, how God brought people alongside us to reach more lives for His Glory. Allow me to honor about 2 women in our ministry today !

The first would be Kanokrat Puu. We met in the worst of circumstances. Our ministry was at the verge of closing down, the staff were backstabbing each other, the people who needed help was not reached and making all these things worse, we had only funds left to last us 1 or 2 months at the max. God brought us an accountant in a time that we COULD NOT afford an accountant ! This crazy women stayed on with us, and can be credited for resuscitating the ministry, despite receiving less than 50% of her last drawn salary !

The next would be Shirleen Ng. An diving kaki turned supporter of RADION. While most of you would have heard her name, much of her background work is not seen by most. She labored alongside us even when she was in poor health, setting up booths, lugging heavy stores, working into the wee hours of the night to get our supporters connected to us. And though she is working on a full time capacity, she has refused to take a single cent knowing our financial limitation. It was through this lady's hard work, that freed me to focus on the ministry's needs.

And i'm grateful to God for these 2 amazing women !

Diary : 27 Nov 2011 (The Story of a Bed)

Little joys in life !

We haven't had a decent bed in the Chiang Mai office till today.

Its kinda nostalgic remembering the first time when we rented this office.

At that time, we had to get to Chiang Mai every few months to get governmental paperwork done. And we really didn't have much money at that time. We were sleeping on the cold floors of a friend's rented office and we were grateful to have a floor to sleep on. Our backpacks were our pillows and jackets and jeans were our blankets.

After months of saving, we decided to take the "step of faith" to rent an office which we needed in order to register our charity. We had so little funds and we chanced upon a place that offered the cheapest rental. It was far out from the city, it was just hard concrete and really minimalistic- it had absolutely nothing !

But there was still much to thank God for, though we slept on the floor, at least we had a roof over our heads and it was our first office in Chiang Mai !

Months down the road, we saved up enough for a pillow and a thin polyester mattress. It was strange to sleep on one of these, it didn't do much of a job as you can feel the hard ground through the thin mattress. But at least it was better than sleeping on the cold hard floor.

After years, we saved up for the cheapest spring mattress we could find in the hypermart. It was exciting ! We finally had a bed, of sorts. The rainy season came and to our horror, the roof leaked and the beds were soaked, the spring quickly gave way and we couldn't bring ourselves to splurge any more money on a bed. The money can be better used to help someone out there.

It was funny every night ! Our butts will sink into the mattress while our legs and head will be supported by whats left of the bed. After a while, we got used to it and it kinda felt more like a Styrofoam bean bag than a bed ! And the roof leakages ? We joked that it was like an infinity pool up there !

For months, red ants will start infesting the place and we'll be bitten all over. These are really nastly little fire ants and swelling was enormous ! And many times when we just needed a shower, there was just no water from the taps. Yes. Thats probably why the rental is so cheap !

Last year, through project lives, we were offered a sofa bed, we grabbed it ! It was a little cranky. It just didn't open up fully, so it was another "V" but at least we're away from the ground and few more cm away from the nasty red ants!

Last month during project lives, when the manager at Salvation Army asked us what we needed. Shirleen our local coordinator quickly chirped "Our director is still sleeping on a sofa bed ! Can we get him a bed ? He just refuses to buy a bed !

Yes. She knows I've been hoping to get a mattress and have been looking in Ikea Singapore. But its just all so overpriced. Nice and soft, but it was just too pricey. I silently whispered to God and said "It'll be nice to have one yeah ?"

At the salvation army warehouse, the manager acceded to the request of Shirleen and made the rest of the arrangements and a dismantled bed frame + a mattress squeezed into the remaining space on the container before it left Singapore.

After the relief distribution last week, we transported the bed and frame to Chiang Mai in a little truck and got it assembled!

My staff joked "Finally the director has a proper bed". We laughed and it sure looks new. I had to try it out ! Lying on the mattress, it has this strangest feeling, as though as I have slept on it before.

I turned the mattress around and there was a little sticker label at a small corner of the mattress.

I was taken aback..... It read IKEA.

I kinda remembered the moment where I lay on the IKEA bed in the showroom and made that little whisper. But I guess God heard :)

My Shattered Past - Part 1

I'm the second child in the family. Both my parents weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I remembered as a young child, my dad will be driving a company van while my sister and I will be in the front seat with mom.

Every time we saw a police, we would quickly duck below the dashboard as can't be in the van without safety belts. But that was all the transport we had at the time.

My parents worked hard and fought against all odds to feed the family and soon their hard work paid off. They finally attained a middle-upper class status.

At a young age, I enjoyed the benefits of my parents hard work; traveling around the world, traveling around in big cars and enjoying all the comforts in life.

My parents understood the importance of a good education and I did fairly well in in my studies. But I deep inside I was not a happy child, many nights I would contemplate ending my life and nothing helped. Holidays, friends, academic excellence. Nothing helped.

Sure I had friends. Sure I smiled a lot in school. But deep inside, I hated life and never understood why I even existed, every day was a torture.

Until I found God when I was 15. My whole life was transformed, inside out. That was the most precious thing I had.

I served the Lord for many years and my only goal was to be a pastor when i reached the age of 25. I even planned out exactly which bible college I wanted to go to and how it will all turn out.

My life was planned out. So i thought....

History : Chapter 4 : So What Do We Do ?

2008 was a terrible year. 8400 Hmong refugeewere earmarked to be deported back to Laos, and the worst part ? We could not get in the camp to even see them through this very painful last lap. Each day, things got worse, refugees got so desperate that they threatened suicide should they be deported. That was really how desperate they were.

We wanted to be there for them in this painful period but it was up to the military who guarded the camp. My staff would ride 20km into the refugee camp every other week to negotiate for entry permits, but each time she came back discouraged and rejected.

There was nothing more we could do physically.

We prayed to the point of tears, our eyes were red and swollen. It is difficult to express in words what it felt like. Family members started to call us to come home, friends told us to quit. Even pastors discouraged us from continuing. Before long, donation streams started drying up, people slowly withdraw their support. Looking at the signs, everything was pointing towards one direction- pack our bags and come back to Singapore.

We struggled with God. What are we supposed to do ? First God calls us up to do this, and now the door is shut, no more money, no more support. What does God want us to do ?

But there was just this faint little voice inside that tells us not to give up.

The finances were drying up and we knew that to keep ourselves afloat we had to do something ! So we did one of the craziest things. We took some money, went to buy 3 used & trashed up PCs & 1 printer and started an internet cafe. That was all we could afford at that time. And that was the birth of RADION's very first business in the village.

Operating an Internet cafe wasn't difficult. It was keeping spirits high that was immensely difficult. We still could not see God's plan, but we just hung there, waiting for God to open the door to the refugee camp, but He opened another door !

History : Chapter 3 : The Last Outreach

It was a terrible heartache seeing the situation in the refugee camp deteriorate. The more the refugees protested, the greater the retaliation from the guards.

The real masterminds of the protest in fact did not come from inside the camp, but thousand of miles away. Its Hmong refugees's extended families themselves - the people who have been successfully repatriated to first world countries such as the US, France & Australia some years back.

Here is the problem. The family members had good intentions but living in first world countries, they understood little of Thai politics and they were masterminding the protest. Protesting was alright, but when the refugees turned on the guards and people that feed them, it was no longer acceptable.



In one incident, they burned down the shelters that the thai government built for them, hoping that will speed up repatriation. Nothing changed, the refugees just punished themselves. Thousands of refugees families ended up sleeping in the cold for weeks.

The government strengthen their resolve to send these "trouble makers" back and that was the last straw. The clock was ticking for the the refugees.

They had been misguided by their own family members, the thai government was upset and now their fate was drawing near. The whole camp fell into an eerie depressive silence. - now they knew could trust no one and they just suffered in silence.

In March, we knew that time was short and we just did what we could to comfort them. Little food rations, first aid kits and small items to prepare them for an uncertain fate. As I stood in front of our refugee friends teaching them how to use the medical kits, the leaders just mustered a grateful nod, little words passed between us, but there was such a sense of grief in the air.

At our final outreach, when we entered the refugee camp we could see that the people were still visibly fearful.

When they came out, many came forward to ask us to pray for them because they were really scared to be sent back to Laos. It was an emotional sight when you see adults and children sobbing silently with all the hurts just surfacing.

I remembered during one of the first session, I told the crowd that if they think no one remembers them, they are wrong. Because we at RADION stayed for months at the mountains for months just waiting for the opportunity to enter the camp to bring these relief and medical supplies to them. As I spoke, tears welled in the eyes of these refugees.

I told them that they are remembered and there are people out there who still cares. More importantly my God still remembers them and has not forgotten them for even a second.

We saw tears rolling down their cheeks.

History : Chapter 2 : The Refugee Camp

Working in the refugee camp opened my eyes to a whole new world - a dark & practical one. This camp was different from the other camps in Thailand and all press were blocked out from this camp. What happens inside, stays inside, nothing gets out to the world outside.

This affected the amount of aid coming into the camp. Without media coverage, it did not make sense to some NGOs to assist, especially if their work cannot be featured. It does not make corporate sense and there was just no mileage in this project. From a marketing standpoint, the Karen refugee camps will be a better bet, lost of media attention and its more newsworthy. 8,900 people - is just too insignificant for the bigger players.

With just a handful of NGOs willing to forsake media coverage, it was still no enough. The refugees received less than 2 small bowls of rice a day, just enough keep them barely alive.

People were hungry, cold and suffering day to day. The Americans had forsaken them, the locals put them behind barb wires and no one wanted to help.

We did just the opposite.

We were not bordered by the lack of press coverage, we were not bordered by the political implications. All we knew was that people were hungry and suffering. Someone has to do something.

We were out of our minds. We took what we have of our savings and started providing aid to these people, even if it means a small milk supplement, or a fruits. It meant something to these people. We did all we could and many were touched by us just being there. RADION was not a name of an organisation. It was the name of friends who really cared.


Each outreach was more like a massive family gathering, smiles & laughter came back to the refugee camp. It was no longer just the masses, but people with names. Many times while collecting the reliefs, they will break into tears thanking us, and begging us not to leave.

We did not want to. But in January 2009 things took a turn for the worse. News flooded in that the refugees will be forcefully deported back to Laos. The refugees feared for their lives and protested in the camp. It was to the firing squad if the refugees had to go back to the country they fled from - they and their children. They had to protest, they wanted the world to hear. But no one heard. Making things worse, the guards retaliated by pushing all the NGOs out of the camp.

So there we were back in the little dilapidated shophouse praying and wondering if that would be the last time we will see them.

History : Chapter 1 :The Dilapitated Shophouse

Over the weekend, while the rest of the kids went out to play in the the waterfalls, I decided to stay back in the office just in case David comes back. I did not want him to come back to an empty home and feel that we have left without him, so there I waited.

The day soon turned into night. Along with the dimming of the day was a dimming of hopes of our boy returning. The cool silent night in the village brought back nostalgic memories of pains and joys when we first rented a run-downed shophouse which later birth forth the STREETKIDS! work.

While we wait & pray for David's return, allow me to bring you on a journey. A journey 3 years back in time when RADION was in our infancy stage and our focus was bringing aid to the Hmong Lao refugees.

3 years ago, this runned down shophouse was all we could afford to rent. A full month of rental costs hardly more than 1 night's stay in a 4-star hotel in Bangkok. We had to save every single cent we could, providing milk & biscuits to hungry children in the nearby refugee camp was a big deal. We has very little funds and  seeing all the pain amongst the refugees locked behind barbed wires, we couldn't bare to spend more while seeing people suffer.

The shophouse was the cheapest. It came with no furniture only 2 tiny rooms and a non ventilated basement. What it did come with however were dirt stained walls, cobwebs, algae coated floors and 2 slimy toilets which were home to maybe a dozen species of insects ranging from massive centipedes the length of your arm, lizards and spiders.

Despite this, we were grateful for what the Lord has provided and having a very basic shelter over our heads. It became the place of prayer where every week, we will wait in anticipation to go up into the refugee camp to see the little ones and bring them the much needed food supplies.

Though living conditions were rough, bathing in muddy water was a daily affair. But just the thought of being able to tell 3500 refugee children that God loves them, was enough to spur us beyond the hardships. After every refugee outreach, we would come back sun burnt, at the brink of exhaustion and many times cut, bruised & bleeding but yet with every opportunity, we would be up in the camp giving out reliefs and playing with the children.

It was the time of my life and nothing in my life has been more meaningful than this ! I could do this for the rest of my life, i thought !

But suddenly the situation in the refugee camp took to drastic turn.....