Little more than a year into his National Service, James Singh was court-martialled and sent to the detention barracks.

His friend was teaching him how to drive an armoured vehicle even though James did not yet have a driver’s licence.

James was in the military police in his army days.

“Just for fun. It’s like riding a bike. You try to go slow but once you get the hang of it, you speed.

“So I sped and crashed into the gate of the hangar. The gate was solid metal and about four to five storeys high,” he recalled ruefully.

The damage was substantial, and he was sentenced to 20 days at the detention barracks and a fine of one month’s pay for driving without a valid licence and damaging Singapore Armed Forces’ property. 

With nothing but a plank on which to sleep, James asked the military police friend who was guarding him to provide him with a Bible to use as a pillow. Then since he was confined to the cell alone all day with nothing to do, he decided to read the Bible.

“When it came to the part of Noah (Genesis 6-7), God’s judgement and people dying, the story just spoke to me. I knew I was part of the judgement,” said James, now 66.

“I knew myself. I hadn’t been a good person.”

One desperate plea  

James came from a family who were devout worshippers of another religion. While he dutifully followed his parents in the practices of their faith, he did not believe in their religion.

“Somehow, I knew there was a true and living God beyond what my parents believed.”

In the army, a friend did repeatedly try to share the Gospel with him.

While serving his National Service, James encountered God in a detention barracks cell.

“But I wasn’t interested. My response was, ‘Jesus is the only way, meh? What proof do you have that Christ is right and others are wrong?’”

But that day in the detention barracks when James read the Bible and came across the account of Noah, he could not help but fall to his knees and raise his hands. So convicted was he that he was a sinner.

“I had never been to church, didn’t even know what is kneeling and lifting of hands. But I did it while I was alone in that detention cell. I told God, ‘You are there and I am here. I believe You.’

“I was desperate to know the true and living God.”

A deep peace came upon James after that day, a peace that was tangible to others as well. Whenever there was free time and the detainees were allowed to go out of their individual cells, they would gather at his cell.

“There were big-time gangsters and they would come and make all kinds of noise and talk all kinds of things.

“When I asked them to go back to their cells, they replied, ‘We like to come to your cell because when we are in your cell, we feel a lot of peace.’

“Years later, the Holy Spirit said to me, ‘I was there with you and you were not even aware of it.’”

When James completed his 20-day sentence, he asked the army friend who had been sharing the Gospel with him to take him to church.

A chance encounter  

Left to his own devices, James would have become a deep sea diver after his two years as an army regular. But God had other plans.

In 1980, he went to New York to learn to be a professional deep sea diver. Unfortunately, he damaged his ears on a particular dive in sub-zero temperature waters and lost his hearing for a time. That made him decide to move to Jacksonville, Florida, to get certified in rescue and photography diving instead. 

James (left) during his Jacksonville diving days.

While there, he decided to look for a church in which to worship. But when he tried to call the church he had picked, the operator told him the number was no longer in use.

“I wanted to go to that particular church which was near where I lived. I prayed to the Lord to lead me.”

Across from the diving school was a burger joint where James frequently hung out with his friends. The next day, he was lining up for a burger with his friends and talking about Singapore. They were curious about James’ home country. A tall young man standing behind them overheard their conversation and approached James.

“He told me, ‘We have a missionary from Singapore coming to our church to minister to us.’ And he invited me to sit with him and his children.”

As the two talked, the man told him that he usually did not frequent this burger joint. But as he was driving his children to their regular burger place, they cried and begged him to turn the car around. They insisted on coming to this burger joint instead.

“He took out his name card and said, ‘I am a pastor from the Arlington Assembly of God.’ That was the very church I had wanted to go to.

“When I told him that, he said, ‘Now I know why God stirred my children to insist on coming here. It was so that I can meet you.’”

Fishers of man

James began attending the church regularly.

Six months later, while he was reading the Bible and praying, God told him distinctly: “No more diving for fish. You will be diving for man.”

God also gave him a verse – Psalm 100:4-5.

Recounted Ps James: “I went down to the phone booth and called my pastor and told him, ‘God gave me a word.’

“My pastor said, ‘I have been thinking about you and praying for you.’ It turned out that God had given him the same Scripture, Psalm 100:4-5, about me.”

That was how he ended up enrolling in a Bible school in Lakeland, Florida. The church supported his studies for six months. After that, James was on his own.

“The Bible school had a rule – foreign students are not allowed to work. But I needed to work to pay for my school fees. So I prayed that God would open a door. He did.”

James ended up working in the Bible school canteen to fund his studies.

“When God called me to full-time work, I prayed and asked the Lord, ‘What work have you got for me to do?’

“He said, ‘I called you to be an evangelist.’ I just kept it in my heart.”

A year into Bible school, God spoke to him again.

“He told me clearly, ‘It is time for you to go back.’”

James returned to Singapore where his home church helped enrol him in the Bible Institute of Singapore under the Assemblies of God. He graduated with a diploma in Bible studies three years later.

The mission years 

The next year, 1986, his church sent James, now a pastor, and his wife Rosie to the Philippines to do missions work in Delgado, Iloilo City.

Ps James and his wife Rosie (centre) served together as missionaries in the Philippines.

“We were very blur, like sotong. The Lord taught us different aspects of ministry – practical areas which cannot be learnt from textbooks, cultural differences, community service, deliverance, inner healing.

“We also experienced the protection and provision of God. We are so thankful to our home church for giving us this opportunity to learn so many aspects of ministry.”

Ps James (extreme right) serving with his church in the Philippines.

Husband and wife laboured to grow the little cell group in the slums into a church.

As many as there were who welcomed James, he also had his fair share of detractors. One placed a home-made grenade in front of his house. The grenade went off but no one was hurt.

Another time, a man went to church armed with a long knife, intent on killing James because his family had converted to Christianity when James preached to them.

“That day, when the man with the knife came to church intending to attack me, I preached the Gospel and he got saved instead. I didn’t even know what he had intended to do till long after we were no longer serving in that church,” James said.

After five years, James returned Singapore to begin his calling as an evangelist.

“I knew it was time. I had a deep assurance in my spirit.”

Ps James during his time as a missionary in the Philippines.

The church they started has grown to include its own discipleship training school and missions work throughout the Philippines.

Its members have also risen from the depths of poverty, with many doing well in the corporate world and some serving God as full-time ministers.

Reaching millions with a Message

For the next 27 years, Ps James became an itinerant evangelist under the Assemblies of God, Singapore.

Under the tutelage of a veteran evangelist, he went to rural areas in Malaysia to preach.

“For two years, I concentrated on Malaysia, from Johor to Kota Bahru. I went by bus and by train to preach. The Lord opened doors.”

After that, he went to Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Australia, Japan, Mauritius and even Romania. Through a Romanian contact who had come to Singapore, Ps James preached to a small gypsy community in Romania.

“That was my first trip. The elder of the church kept starring at me. Two days later at a meeting, he said, ‘I’m so happy to see you because when I was praying, I saw you.’

A church camp in Australia where Ps James was the speaker.

“It was confirmation that Romania was supposed to be part of my circuit.”

He was also given the opportunity to be one of the preachers on Angel TV, an international media group that reaches out to the world with Christian lifestyle programming.

At the time Ps James was preaching with them, their reach was some 40 million viewers worldwide.

Ps James (left) preaching in Romania.

Yet he was reminded that this ministry was not about big numbers.  

“One day when I was recording a sermon, the cameraman came up to me after I was done and said, ‘You were not preaching to millions, you were preaching to me.’”

A fasting and praying church

Ps James would have been content to be a travelling evangelist all his life. But, again, God had other plans for him. 

“In 2014, the Lord spoke and moved us into taking over a pioneering work, Eagle’s Nest Church. During a morning prayer, the Lord just encouraged me to take on this work for Him.

“That was when I began to ask the Lord: There are already so many churches in Singapore, why start another one?”

Ps James and Rosie serve together at Eagle’s Nest Church where he is the Overseer while she is the Pastor.

After a year of waiting before God, Ps James received the instruction: “I want you to raise up a fasting and praying church.”

That is what Eagle’s Nest Church is right now.

Every year, the whole church goes on a fast together to pray for the nation, fellow believers and each other. This month, they would have completed a 60-day fast.

In 2016, Ps James felt God tell him to fast and pray for Singapore because “days of difficulties are coming – mental, physical and emotional”. He believes this was in preparation for the three years of Covid.

Despite the church being in an obscure location, people have walked in to join them in prayer.

Ps James speaking at Eagle’s Nest Church, where he is the Overseer.

“They said, ‘The Lord led us here.’ We have seen spiritual breakthroughs as a result. People are welcome to join us in prayer,” said Ps James.

“They are welcome to join in our services for a time of renewal, breakthrough and healing.”  

Ps James is also the author of a number of books. Before he wrote his last book, The Remnant, a woman was praying for him during an intercessors’ prayer meeting.

“She told me, ‘I saw a book in front of you, flipping very fast, and the Lord said that you should never stop writing.’

“I was stunned and it stirred my heart.”

He is currently writing another book entitled Defiled Altar.

“I was still writing The Remnant when I was brushing my teeth and God said, ‘You need to write Defiled Altar.’ It is another book based on the Old Testament.

Of his venture into writing, Ps James said: “Through the years, God has also asked me to write books for encouraging people. I am very surprised that He calls me to write. I struggle to do it but, by His grace, I have done it.”

“I love the Old Testament probably because while I was in the cell, I started reading the Old Testament.”

Asked if he ever thought God would use a young man who did not even complete his ‘O’ levels this way, Ps James said: “Never expected, never think, never dreamt.”

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