Book Review
Chua Seng Lee
We first met Mr Chua in Zion Praise Harvest Church in Perth. To us this humble man is just like one of the many fathers from Singapore scouting out Perth if it is a safe enough place for their precious daughter to further her studies. Zion Praise Harvest is a church well known for providing pastoral supervision for many oversea undergraduates under the watchful eyes of Joyce wife of Pastor Patrick Chen. We were introduced to Chua as an award winning christian counsellor serving with the Singapore National Youth Council.
Chua presented us with his book which has drawn the attention of the S.R. Nathan, President of Singapore who wrote a generous Foreward.
I enjoyed the book very much. It is about a serious subject: depression. The christian world was shocked by the most unexpected and sad news of the suicides of the children of some very prominent church leaders and pastors. We have been abruptly confronted with this stealthy killer. The book quoted a sad statistic of one suicidal death per day in Singapore. Chua zoomed in to a very difficult topic: depression among youth and the danger of depression related suicides.
This book is crafted in a reader friendly format. Chua records his personal experience of facing the death of a young man whom he has been helping. He described his painful journey in helping the mourning parents and his personal struggle of his Christian faith.
But he did more in this book, he skilfully collated many personal first- hand descriptions of people who went through the illness. These writers vividly described their internal mental state and external behaviour when they were gripped by depression.
(Medical caregivers will benefit from getting inside their patients’ minds by such explicit descriptions) Chua also used his skilfully explained the medical aspects of this often misunderstood mental disorder in the form of various interviews with psychiatrists, SOS counsellors & other relevant personnel.
This book is written to give hope to those who suffer via the testimonies and stories shared by ex-patients who have overcome.
It is a useful book for all counsellors, relatives and patients. 
