A few days before Chinese New Year this year, Lim Aik Ling had a special reunion with someone important to her: A school cleaner from her alma mater.

Uncle Lin (not his real name), a migrant worker from China, was not just any cleaner to Aik Ling. He was the one who, through his friendship and acts of kindness more than a decade ago, had inspired her to put her faith in Jesus.

This, Uncle Lin had not known until they reconnected over WeChat.

“Wow, praise God!” he told her. “It’s good to believe in Jesus.”

Sang worship songs as he worked

The pair had met in 2009 at a music college in Singapore. Aik Ling was a student from Malaysia who had enrolled in a piano performance course, while Uncle Lin had come from the Jiang Su province in China to work here.

As Uncle Lin was the main caretaker of the school, Aik Ling would see him everyday as he vacuumed and tidied the piano rooms in which she studied and practised.

They would greet each other when they crossed paths and even bantered occasionally. “Sometimes I would turn off the power when he was vacuuming,” Aik Ling, 36, said with a laugh.

He was extremely good-natured, she recalled. Even when other students broke the rules by eating in the piano rooms, left a mess and were disrespectful to him, he never once got angry and always spoke kindly to them.

When Aik Ling asked him why he did not report them or get upset, he told her simply: “If I forgive them and still love them, then they will know who God is.”

As he went from room to room cleaning up others’ mess, Uncle Lin often sang worship songs. He would also pass Aik Ling music scores of worship songs and ask her to play them for him so that he could learn and remember the melody.

“From this I witnessed his inner joy even though his life may not have been the most smooth-sailing,” said Aik Ling, who was not a believer then.

Shared his lunch with her

As time went on, Aik Ling experienced Uncle Lin’s kindness in deeper ways.

When she fell out with her parents and had to skip meals to pay her own school fees, Uncle Lin cooked an extra portion of lunch for her – and a few other students – every day.

“It wasn’t like he was very rich – I noticed that all the meals didn’t have meat. But even though he didn’t have enough for himself, he would still cook for us,” she said.

In her final year of college, Aik Ling, then 21, was bullied quite severely by several schoolmates. When Uncle Lin heard about her distress, he listened to her and encouraged her to forgive them.

“They are still young and immature. Don’t hold on to what they did to you,” he advised her. “Those who believe in Jesus have to offer mercy and grace to those who have offended and hurt us.”

Even though Aik Ling did not believe in Jesus and was initially unwilling to forgive her bullies, she remembered Uncle Lin’s forgiveness towards the students who had repeatedly disrespected him.

So she took his advice and let the matter go.

Her bullies were so moved by her forgiveness, which had spared them from punishment, that they turned up to watch one of her performances, she recalled.

“When I asked Uncle Lin why I needed to forgive them, he said that after I forgave I would understand the result,” said Aik Ling, now a freelance piano teacher.

“This kind of love, you have to pass it on”

Deeply moved by Uncle Lin’s kindness toward her while she had been in school, Aik Ling resolved to repay the favour by supporting him with some pocket money after she graduated in 2012.

But Uncle Lin flatly refused. And when she bought him a new phone so that he could video call his family back home in China, he insisted on paying her back in instalments.

“He told me, ‘This kind of love, you have to pass it on. It’s not to be returned to me. I did this not because of me but because of Christ, so you should love Christ in return,'” recalled Aik Ling, who was intrigued by Uncle Lin’s words.

“That touched me. It was like unconditional love. His love towards me was not because he wanted it back. He just wanted to show me who Christ is.”

Previously closed off to Christianity, Aik Ling found her heart being softened to the Gospel through her friendship with Uncle Lin.

A few years after she graduated and lost touch with him, she decided to put her faith in Jesus. One of the first ministries she chose to serve in was a ministry that reached out to Chinese migrant workers.

“If Christ could use a migrant worker to encourage me during the darkest moments of my life, why can’t I do the same to others?” said Aik Ling, adding that serving was also a way for her to pass on the love that Uncle Lin had shown her.

Today, she worships at Covenant Evangelical Free Church and serves in the youth ministry, where Uncle Lin’s testimony continues to inspire her service.

“Sometimes no matter how much we love the youths, they still don’t bother. But I’ll remember what Uncle Lin did, how he still loved us and shared the Good News with us.”

A simple obedience

Hearing about how his actions led Aik Ling to Christ, Uncle Lin, who requested not to be publicly identified, did not seem to think much of it.

Asked if he felt happy that God used him to reach out to her, he told Salt&Light in Mandarin: “I was very happy for her! I told her it’s good to believe in Jesus.”

The father of three daughters, who are around Aik Ling’s age, shared that he had become a Christian after coming to Singapore in 2008, thanks to the outreach efforts of a local church.

Every evening, a pastor would drive to his dormitory in Pasir Ris and hand out Gospel tracks to the workers there, asking them if they wanted to believe in Jesus.

“I thought to myself, ‘This doesn’t sound too bad.’ So I immediately hopped into their car and followed them to church,” said Uncle Lin, 58, who is still working in the same music college.

This had not been the first time he had heard about Jesus. Back home in China, his wife had become a Christian after experiencing supernatural healing from some ailments.

“I had been too busy to attend church with her. But now that I was in Singapore, I thought, ‘Why not’? Since I’m free on Sundays anyway, I decided to go to church to sing songs and have a good time,” said Uncle Lin.

“A lot of people asked me why I suddenly became a Christian. They were worried that I was going through a difficult time. But there was nothing bad going on in my life. My life was very peaceful when I decided to follow Jesus.”

It was at church that he learnt more about Jesus’ love, forgiveness and His commands to help others when they are in need, as well as to tell them the Good News that Jesus loves them and will take care of them.

With childlike faith he obeyed, not expecting that his simple obedience would one day lead Aik Ling, as well as two other Chinese students from the college, to Christ.

But he does not think it a big deal. “I am very simple,” he said. “I just feel happy following Jesus.”

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