Lee Shuit Kuin, 76, was exposed to the Gospel at a young age.

She spent her primary school years in Geylang Methodist School, after which she attended the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) at Victoria Street.

She was the youngest of nine children. Her older brother, the first Christian in her family, shared the Gospel with her and encouraged her to believe in Jesus.

When she was 14, Shuit Kuin said the Sinner’s Prayer after reading a Gospel tract given to her by her brother and feeling a great sense of peace — something she had not experienced before.

Somehow, she knew that the Spirit of the Lord had come upon her. The very next day, she told many of her classmates: “I am a Christian”. From then on, her spiritual life took an upturn.

Called to missions at 17

Shuit Kuin went on her first mission trip at just 15 years old.

She stood at street corners with other Navigators distributing tracts in Malaysian towns like Johor Bahru and Muar.

She recalled: “The Lord indeed gave us the courage to give out tracts on the streets. We were also blessed to work as a team, many of whom were also teenagers. We all had a heart and passion for reaching out to people who did not know the Lord.”

At 17 years old, when she was in Pre-University One, Shuit Kuin attended a Navigators missions conference. Her heart pounded strongly as an altar call was given for East Asia.

Then a small Voice asked her: “If I were to send you to East Asia, would you go?”

To this call, Shuit Kuin replied: “Yes, I will go.”

Although nothing dramatic happened after the conference, this commitment to the Lord never left Shuit Kuin.

Missions in the marketplace

After completing pre-university, Shuit Kuin went to the Teachers Training College, where she earned a certificate in teaching. This led her to teach for a few years in a secondary school.

She then moved to London to study for a degree in economics and a post-graduate diploma in business management.

In 1981, Shuit Kuin returned home and joined the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a government agency responsible for strategies to enhance Singapore’s position as a global hub for investment, business, innovation and talent.

Here, Shuit Kuin thrived. She stayed at the EDB for 22 years, working her way up to become Regional Director of Oceania, a Deputy Director in the EDB.

Shuit Kuin rose to a senior position during her 22-year tenure with the EDB.

It was a role she loved and relished. It was also a job that accorded her status, good money and respect in the corporate world, both here in Singapore as well as in the markets to which she often travelled.

However, Shuit Kuin never lost her heart for missions.

During her long tenure with the EDB, she and a number of Christians started a Christian Fellowship at the office. They held evangelistic Bible studies and prayer meetings during lunch time, and organised regular outreach meetings.

The Lord moved among her colleagues, leading them to salvation. The fellowship grew from five persons to almost 40 by the time she resigned from her job. 

Years of preparation

Shuit Kuin would also set aside most of her annual leave for short-term mission trips to nearby places in Malaysia, Thailand and East Asia.

Many of the mission trips which she went on were tough – physically, spiritually and emotionally. However, she came to realise through experience that she could trust in the Lord for His protection, providence, grace and mercy.

During her time in the corporate world, Shuit Kuin (in red) went on many short mission trips, often to remote places in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Sometime in 1983, together with a small church group from an Anglican church, Shuit Kuin found herself climbing a mountain between Sarawak and West Kalimantan (Indonesia) to reach out to the Dayaks, now known as the Iban people, living deep in the interior of the land.

She recalled: “On our way down from the mountain, we stopped halfway at a village primary school. We met the kids, taught them action songs and shared the Gospel. All of them raised their hands to receive Christ when we invited them to do so.

“I was then prompted to pray for the Holy Spirit to fill them. Every one of the children then raised their hands and broke out to pray in the Spirit.

“The Lord just took over. His Spirit filled the children. He was the one reaching out to these folks. It was awesome to see His presence and anointing come upon those we were reaching out to.

“It was not any one of us. He sent us out to the field, and He would fulfil His purposes, His way. To God be the glory!”

Shuit Kuin (right) with a young lady in Thailand to whom she ministered during a short-term mission trip.

In a village church not far from Bangkok, Shuit Kuin also witnessed demonic manifestations among some of the worshippers. The pastor who led the mission team ministered to them, and Shuit Kuin recalls that she could sense spirits leaving these people.

After the service, she spoke to a woman who started to manifest as a creature making chicken-clucking noises.

Though she had not done it before, Shuit Kuin prayed for her deliverance. The woman stopped making the noises and started to listen to her sharing the Word of God. 

Shuit Kuin said: “Looking back, I could see how the Lord moves when we encounter things we do not expect. I learnt that when we step out in obedience, His grace and power flow through us to touch the people we are ministering to.”

Through this season, the Lord was preparing Shuit Kuin to fulfil the promise she had made to Him when she was just 17.

Heeding the call

At the 2002 GoForth Mission Conference, God finally reminded her of this promise.

Even when she was brushing her teeth, the commitment she had made so many years ago kept coming back to her.

God reminded her of what He had said to Abram (later Abraham) in Genesis 12:1: “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”

A few months after GoForth, Rev Juliette Arulrajah, then pastor-in-charge of the Mission Ministry at Wesley Methodist Church, which Shuit Kuin was attending, affirmed God’s calling to her: “The apple is very ripe. If you don’t go now, it will be over-ripe and fall to the ground.”

Shuit Kuin struggled with letting go of all her achievements and things she cherished at the job. The stipend for a full-time missionary from the church would also be a small fraction of her income from the EDB.

However, she was willing to be changed because she knew she would be miserable if she refused to heed God’s call. So she prayed: “Lord, please change me. I am willing to be changed.”

After praying this for two months, supernaturally, she lost interest in her job. She also was no longer anxious about the loss of income.

For Shuit Kuin, having a change of heart from fear and reluctance to obedience was the greatest miracle, probably even a greater miracle than the blind being able to see, and the lame being able to walk, she said.

When she handed in her resignation letter to her Managing Director at the EDB and explained that God had called her to be a missionary to East Asia, he asked: How would she live?

Shuit Kuin told him that while she did not know how, she trusted the Lord to carry her through.

Unlearning corporate habits

In 2007, after completing a three-year Masters of Divinity course at Trinity Theological College, and taking a year after that to rest, Shuit Kuin was sent to the field in East Asia as a missionary with the Methodist Missions Society (MMS).

Shuit Kuin (in graduation gown) celebrated her graduation from TTC with members from Wesley Methodist Church, including (on her left), Rev Lilian Ang and Dr Grace Hsu, who would later be one of her teacher volunteers in East Asia.

She had dual mandates: One, to plant churches and make disciples. Two, to contribute to community development by running and growing viable businesses.

The businesses included building up an existing English language training centre at the provincial county and later setting up a new one in a bustling university city of more than five million people.

Setting up the new centre was a steep learning curve. Shuit Kuin had to run around from one department to another to get things done and familiarise herself with the local business laws.

At the same time, in collaboration with a local brother-in-Christ, she also started a church in the university city and was actively involved in the university student ministry.

Shuit Kuin walked closely alongside those who came to know Christ in East Asia.

For the latter, she put in concerted outreach efforts, including conducting regular English classes, as well as yearly English Language summer camps. 

Her days and nights were consumed by administration, organising, running an English Learning Centre, prayer meetings, Bible study classes, preaching, teaching, home visitations, counselling, committee meetings and more.

Shuit Kuin recalled: “I hardly rested during the first few years as a full-time missionary in East Asia. I rigorously applied the mental models and work habits that I had learnt in the corporate world. I wanted to see things happening and results – fast. Self-gratification and being performance-oriented were what drove me.”

Shuit Kuin (sitting on the floor) made friends with many of the young people in East Asia and engaged them through music and language classes.

She did not take annual leave in the initial years. But God began to show her that that was not what He wanted of her.

“God said to me time and again, ‘I am more interested in you, as you. I want you to relax and be My beloved, to just sit before Me, because you are precious and I delight in you more than what you can do for Me.

‘”You are worth far more than what you can do for Me.'”

Shuit Kuin realised that she had to change. In the corporate world, she had planned meticulously, strived and was strong-willed.

Now, she had to learn to sit still and be silent at the feet of Jesus in the morning, basking in His presence and love, and listening to Him and what He wanted her to do.

She worked towards tearing down her previous “do and do” mental models, turning away from excessive planning and learning to rely on the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

A pivot

In 2013, Shuit Kuin returned to Singapore for six months of sabbatical leave. During this time, she went to Seven Fountains, a spirituality and retreat centre in Chiangmai, Thailand, for three weeks.

At Seven Fountains, Shuit Kuin reviewed her years in missions. What was clear to her by then was that God wanted her to build depth among those she discipled.

The church in East Asia was already well established, and the business was thriving. The machine was running. But was there real depth in the lives of the Christians there? Were their lives changed to be more like Christ? Was there something more that Shuit Kuin could have done in the way she pastored the church?

Shuit Kuin shared: “I sensed that God wanted me to lead people to know Him more personally and intimately. Activities cannot achieve that. So the first thing I did when I returned to the field after my sabbatical was to get all the cell group leaders and committee members together for a three-day silent retreat out in a rural village house.

“On each of the three days, I would meet with everyone. I gave them God’s Word, taught them how to be silent before God, how to meditate on the Scriptures and then sent them out to be alone with God, as it is only in His presence can there be change.

“By His grace and mercy, there was visible change after coming back from the silent retreat. Their attitude to serving in church changed, as well as to their own secular work. 

“At that juncture, I sensed the Lord wanted me to move into the Spiritual Formation Ministry in the future, giving attention to the training of the practice of spiritual disciplines, to facilitate and guide people to deepen their relationship with the Lord, and be steadily transformed to be like Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit within them.”

Advocate for spiritual formation

Shuit Kuin returned to MMS headquarters in Singapore the following year to be the Training Director for Singapore missionaries and the national pastors and preachers in the mission fields.

Working closely with MMS Chairperson of the Training Committee, which at the time was Rev Juliette Arulrajah, Shuit Kuin was able to weave in spiritual formation as part of the training curriculum for potential national full-time workers.

Today, Shuit Kuin continues to serve in Singapore by conducting various programmes, including silent retreats and workshops, to facilitate spiritual formation among fellow believers.

She holds firm to her favourite verse on this topic: But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Shuit Kuin emphasises that the foundation of spiritual formation is knowing who we are in Christ: Christ is in us; we are in Christ; in union with Christ; we are the beloved child of God — a new creation, a new being with God’s DNA in us.

Knowing and understanding our identity in Christ is key and fundamental to our Christian faith and growth.

Shuit Kuin said: “For ourselves, and for the next generation, we need to let the Holy Spirit fill and direct us in all aspects of our daily life. When we become more and more ‘one’ with God through surrendering and obedience, like Jesus, then we are experiencing and enjoying the process of spiritual formation, which is God’s desire for all His children.”

A version of this story was first published in Our Stories, His Glory and is adapted with permission.

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