by Tek Chong
I always love to go back to Melaka my hometown so I got a few friends to join us for a Missions trip
from 21-19 Aug. 2015
Through my brother Dr Chong Kwong Tart who lives in Melaka, we were invited to share in his friend’s church Amazing Grace. Their former pastor Suppiah had passed away and the church experienced a drop in attendance and was about to be closed but the few faithful members headed by Steward Yapp decided to keep the gospel fire going. We were also impressed with Andrew Ong, the pastor commissioned by the mother church in KL to tirelessly come weekly to help this revived assembly.
In Melaka we had enjoyable fellowship with our dear friend Gan Chui Peng, a respected Christian educationist and former principal of MGS and our friend of over 50 years Rosalind Oh. They introduced us to useful contacts for net-working and also provided transportation for our team.
We visited the very successful community ministries run by a group of Christians under the dynamic leadership of Josephine Au. This group of marketplace Christian professionals (lawyers, educationists, nurses, home makers, etc.) have a broad network to provide care and practical services to single mothers, active and aged retirees and refugee children. They have well-run old folk homes and golden age clubs. Their social activities have the support of local churches and business people in the community. We shared in several of their activities, testing our boldness to speak not only in English but in Chinese.
The Evangelical Free Church in Petaling Jaya joined with the Melaka EFC to hold their church camp in Melaka. In my days church camps were small gatherings held in remote seaside huts or small bungalows. Not so for this mega church. When we went there to meet the elder statesman Rev Loh Soon Choy and Dominoes Malaysia & Singapore Executive Chairman Dato George Ting, we walked into the vast majestic lobby of the new Swiss Garden Hotel, impressed with the 400+ attendees, cheerful, laughing, in festive mood. We were surprised to meet some old friends (Chanice and Suet from Asian beacon) and relatives Cindy Lian and children.
After Melaka, Cristal left for China, the Chees to Perth and us to Cambodia. END
