Memoir of a Geylang Streetwalker

Sunday, 1st February 2009

On Thu 29 Jan 09, I became a Geylang streetwalker :-D

While most people went back to work on Wednesday (the 3rd day of CNY), I did not because I have 15 days of carried forward annual leave to clear by the end of Mar 09, and took 3 of those days this week.

Recently, I have gotten to know Rev Kenny Chee (aka Blogpastor) through blogosphere and noted that his church World Revival Prayer Fellowship is located at Guilin Building, Geylang Lor 27A. I also discovered that Impact Magazine's office is located at Geylang Centre. Blogpastor had made reference to Jacelyn Tay's testimony, which was featured in that magazine, which he blogged about here and I blogged about here.

Since I was on leave, I decided to pay a surprise visit to both places.

My wife was at work and took the BMW with her, so I had to take the bmw (bus, MRT, walk).

I took number 155 from the bus stop outside my estate, alighted at Paya Lebar MRT, took the train one station westward towards Aljunied MRT and then walked from the station towards Geylang Centre.

Oh, for the benefit of readers who are overseas, Geylang is the official red-light district in Singapore.

Although it was only about 2pm in the afternoon, there were already signs of the "night life". I suppose when the economy is not so good, streetwalkers themselves have to put in extra hours by starting work earlier...

While middle- and old-aged uncles were being solicited and accosted left, right and centre, I was somehow spared.

Maybe it was because I was wearing my "Get Connected" T-shirt (pictured on the right) and had my headphones on, listening to the music of the 1980s on my Creative Zen X-Fi MP3 player :-D

Having heard Ps Reuben preach about Rahab the harlot two weeks ago, my perspective of these ladies have somehow changed from one of "judgemental-ism" to one of compassion (like how Jesus felt when He saw the multitudes as sheep without a shepherd). Back to this later...

Geylang Centre is a 4-storey building located between Lorongs 15 and 17, and Impact Magazine is located at #03-04.

Upon reaching the office, I gave the sales/marketing administrator Irene 2 mandarin oranges as well a handful of copies of Moses Lim's banned by Channel U "sermon". I also told her that I wanted to surprise Blogpastor by subscribing him to the magazine and would be paying him a surprise visit shortly thereafter.

Well, it so happened that Andrew Goh, the Chief Editor of the magazine was in the office and I ended up having a nice chat with him over a cup of coffee about the current Christian scene in Singapore. Andrew worships at Riverlife Church (which was planted by Bartley Christian Centre), located in Tampines/Pasir Ris and which congregation is about 4,000 now and growing, thus surpassing that of its mother church.

Armed with the latest copy of the Impact magazine (as well as another couple of mandarin oranges, a few copies of Moses Lim's "sermon" and a HBI DVD), I then made my way to Guilin Building. World Revival Prayer Fellowship occupies 5 units in that building, and their office is at #03-15.

Alas, Blogpastor was not in the office as he had gone out to do some visitations. Patricia, the church office administrator told me that it is better to come in the mornings. She then called him on the phone and we spoke.

I told him that I had read about his visit to Stan's place of work, and I wanted to do likewise to him. We exchanged niceties and even from that short 5-minute conversation, I discovered that he has caught the grace message! (Yes people, you read it here first!)

I mentioned that I wanted to pass him the HBI DVD so that he could continue to be "brainwashed", to which he replied that he had been reading the D2RD (which I sent him about 3 months ago) and he finds absolutely no problems whatsoever with the content! Hallelujah!

This calls for a celebration. Stan, Angie, Geri, Joo, Jeff, Kev, Joshua -- free desserts at Stan's stall all round!

Anyway, since I was there already, Pat was extremely hospitable and gave me a tour of the church premises. The office is on the 3rd floor while the "sanctuary" is on the 4th. It has about 450 members and they are going to be greatly-blessed, highly-favoured and deeply-loved because their shepherd will be feeding them good, solid food.

As a parting memento, I asked Pat's permission to take a picture of the name sign in front of Blogpastor's room door (Pat was too shy to pose in front of it).

As I left his office and concluded my stint as a Geylang streetwalker (literally), I reflected upon how God has placed both Impact Magazine and World Revival Prayer Fellowship right in the heart of the red-light district so that they can make an impactful revival there in reaching out to the ladies who ply their trade there, and the uncles who patronise such services.

The harvest is indeed plentiful, so let us pray to the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers like Andrew, Irene, Kenny and Pat there. Amen?