Building Spiritual Resilience
By Rev. Scott Tey
Partnership with Emerge and their parents blessing the migrant workers during the Covid-19.
“Lord, I have five mouths to feed… Are you sure that I have to give all these up and uproot my family to serve you in the missions field?” I struggled when God first called me to the missions field. It was not an easy decision to give up my striving financial planning business.
By 2004, we were living as a missionary family in a foreign land, serving and reaching out to the Tibetans under a missions organisation called SIM.
This was the beginning of my journey to do missions and we served in the missions field from 2004 to 2008. In 2008, the Lord led us to Grace Assembly of God and we started serving in Grace Missions. Presently, I am serving as missions pastor, looking after East Asia and Local missions.
Need for Spiritual Resilience
Given the nature of missions work, we can become targets for Satan’s forces. This is especially true for East Asia, a region steeped in spiritual opposition and warfare. We need to pray that church planters continue to be bold and courageous in the missions field, and that more disciples will step forward.
That is why we must continue to raise up church workers in East Asia in our bible schools to be discipled and to go and disciple others. This means reaching out to people in remote areas and coping with challenging situations. Church planters need spiritual resilience to survive and thrive in the long term.
On-site outreach during Christmas.
From On-site to Online
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, many migrant workers in Singapore were confined in their dormitories and we wondered how we could continue ministering to them. Before the Circuit Breaker, we had physiotherapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), computer and English classes arranged for them. Without missing a beat, our Gracian volunteers moved the ministry from on-site to online quickly. We were thus able to continue our English classes and outreach activities through Zoom. It was a blessing to be able to encourage the many migrant brothers during this difficult period.
Online English class for the migrant workers.
It was a humbling lesson that our initial worries were unfounded, when we saw God giving us opportunities to witness and share His love with the migrant workers. We distributed ‘care’ products, such as vitamins, rice, biscuits, and even encouragement cards during the pandemic. When we were eventually allowed some form of restricted physical engagement with the migrant workers, we brought them out for a bus cruise along Orchard Road during Christmas, and Chinatown during Chinese New Year. These excursions allowed us to engage them at a more personal level and share bible stories with them.
Let us continue to pray that the Gospel blossoms even in the midst of the pandemic and persecution in East Asia!
Ephesians 6:18- 20: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints — and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
Rev. Scott Tey is currently serving as missions pastor of East Asia and Local Missions.