#13 | J+D in Singapore: Our Worship in the Waiting

Dear friends,

It’s been a while! We hope you’re well

 

We know we’ve taken a bit of a long hiatus from sharing our updates, but truth be told, we’ve been struggling quite a bit since coming back to Singapore. It’s not that we’re depressed and gloomy all the time, but we’ve been experiencing an underlying sense of disorientation from a myriad of issues.

We are sharing this not because we’ve got a glorious story to tell about how we’ve overcome our struggles. The fact is that we’re still in the midst of it—and we know that God is doing His work within us—but we just wanted to reflect vulnerably that co-working with God is not without its challenges. And we didn’t want to wait until we’re on the mountaintop to share about the valley, because there is beauty in being in the valley, and arguably even more so.

Still, we’re grateful that He has given us visible, tangible, and practical signs of his guidance during these months. Even in the darkness, His light is continually showing us the path ahead – not too far that we’d be walking by sight and not faith, but just enough to give us hope.

As we returned to Singapore, it has always been the plan to transition me (Jan) out of With Content so I can eventually be freed to study full-time. It was always so difficult to act upon it, because well, work never ends right? The even more ironic thing is that we’ve been witnessing a lot about how God constantly provides for the business – we are merely co-workers, and we are not indispensable. Yet, knowing that doesn’t prevent us from lapsing into fleshly worries and the need to repent and return to God.

Hence, when Pastor Nat (from our home church in Singapore) asked me whether I’d like to be a mentor at FYP, I was partially excited at the opportunity to serve amongst youths once again, but also anxious about my time and my gap in ministry capabilities. After all, I haven’t quite been journeying with the young people in Singapore for more than 3 years now. Also, truth be told, the pragmatic Singaporean in me was contemplating taking up some theological modules in advance so I’d have an easier time when full-time studies begin. I knew in my heart that my motivation for doing that was not godly, but I was still sitting on that temptation.

God’s saving grace came in the form of Pastor Nat’s call, and I thank God for bringing me to FYP. I gained a much deeper perspective into who God is and who He has called us to be.

Thank God that we were able to have a graduation service where the participants could invite their families and friends to celebrate with them. Click on the photo montage above to see more snippets of what we did over the three months!

After taking 3+ months late last year for my sabbatical, I (Daniel) expected to return to work with a renewed sense of strength and purpose. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn out how I thought it would. After a grueling December spent pitching and working on proposals for clients – on contracts that were bigger than usual – I had burned through all of the energy I thought I had accumulated during my sabbatical.

When those deals fell through in January, it was like my entire world fell away, too. My soul was deadened, and I lost the desire to do anything – let alone continue working on the company that was seemingly failing me at that point in time. Jan recognized the signs before me, but eventually I admitted that I was indeed in a mild state of depression, and the last thing I wanted to do was to expend even more energy crawling out.

Now, this isn’t to say that my sabbatical turned out to be a waste of time. It was, in fact, an excellent time of enrichment – I plunged myself into all sorts of literature, activities, and conversations that were purely for the purpose of enjoyment and curiosity. I dare say it was a great awakening for my soul, which had been carrying the weight of my career and business aspirations for a long time.

In hindsight, however, I can see how it was a massive Band-Aid on wounds that have been slowly but surely bleeding out over the years. In the midst of the darkness, I’m thankful that God still provided me the clarity of mind to reflect and ponder over why and how I had reached this state.

Eventually, I uncovered the underlying motivation that had driven my life ahead all these years: the need to be the best – in everything. I had developed the idea that, in this harsh world, second-best didn’t count. So even though I was doing well in many things, it didn’t satisfy me – it was always going to be second-best. This applied to my work at With Content, too.

But God doesn’t need us to be the best. What matters is that we do our best, in every situation that we’re in – and He does the rest.

For weeks, I meditated on Paul’s words in Philippians 4:12-13, and drilled them into my head:

I was extremely familiar with the part about “doing all things”, and expected God to give me the strength to do all the things that I wanted to accomplish. Reading verse 12 together with it, however, brought me the realization that this “strength” wasn’t being made available for me to simply live a happy, good life. It was there to sustain through the bad times as well – which will come about despite my best efforts.

The important thing was that I needed to learn to draw on that strength to find joy and be content in all situations.

And so I gradually managed to muster the strength to get back to work – slowly and steadily. I’m incredibly grateful that we managed to land some big contracts – bigger than we’ve ever had! – recently, and God continues to bless us beyond measure.

Crucially, within myself, I’ve found a peace that I hope will transcend these things. Regardless of whether we’re doing well or not, I pray that I’ll continue to find joy in Him and trust in His plans for us.

Even as we’ve continued the process of settling down here in Singapore, we’ve also started to take small steps forward in our long-term goal to return to Chiang Mai as tentmakers.

Tentmakers’ bible study

We recently enrolled in a tentmakers’ bible study group hosted by Stretch Out International, OMF Singapore, and we found out in our first session that more than half the group had been to Thailand on mission trips, and plan to return there long-term in the near future. God’s timing could not be better!

And He has quite a sense of humour too – there’s another couple in the group who are Daniel and Janice (he calls her Jan!) respectively. We’re really encouraged and excited to be amongst like-minded people, who desire to partner with God in unconventional ways.

Tanawat House

We’ve also continued supporting Tanawat House, which recently managed to raise enough money to purchase the land and build the foundation of the building.

Out of the required funding goal of 5 million Thai baht (~S$210,000), the team has raised about 2.5 million Thai baht (~S$105,000) so far, which means they’re 50% of the way there!

You can read more about the story of why and how this project came about here, and watch the mini-documentary that we produced as well.

And if you feel led to support them, just drop us a message and we’ll make it happen!

Puhada

Praise God that at the end of February, P’Da and the team had the opportunity to share about Puhada as a business for ministry with the participants of the MMS Culture Collab online workshop. It was a meaningful exposure for Puhada, as the participants brainstormed possible ideas to take Puhada further.

While our e-commerce sales have taken a dip this year, we’re seeing more people come to know about Puhada and that’s always nice!

Theological Studies

I’ve (Jan) also applied and gone for my interview for MDiv studies at Trinity Theological College (TTC). The final admission result should be out at the end of this month, and if all goes well, she’ll begin her studies at the start of July this year.

Building our home

Another major milestone in our lives will be happening soon, too: we’ll be collecting the keys to our new house at the end of this month! It’s been our desire to have our own place to host friends, family, and the local Christian community, and we’re really excited that it’s about to happen really soon.

We will be sharing this particular journey on this website as well, so stay tuned for that 🙂

• As we take the next few years to prepare further, pray for sensitivity to God’s leading, as well as obedience and discipline to do what we ought to.
• With Content will be entering into a very busy season soon, so pray that a spirit of peace will be over the team (instead of stress!)
• The COVID-19 situation in Thailand, especially in Chiang Mai, surged over the last couple of weeks. Pray that the situation will come under control very soon. To our friends who are there, keep safe!

Your partners in Christ,
แดน & แจน
(Dan & Jan)