Jazlyn Chew did not have the best of childhoods.

“I have no baby photos or childhood photos,” she told Salt&Light.

Perhaps it was for the best because from the age of seven, she was systematically abused by her mother.

While she was still in her mother’s womb, her mother developed a strong dislike for her because she was convinced that Jazlyn was the reason her marriage was faltering.

From birth, Jazlyn lived with various babysitters. Only when she was ready for Primary 1 did her father bring her home. That was when her nightmare began. Not only did her mother refuse to have anything to do with her care and made her do all the housework, she also regularly beat Jazlyn.

By the age of 18, Jazlyn was living on her own.

“She would strip me naked and chain me to the toilet. I would sleep there in the cold.

“She would whip the back of my legs with a rubber hose or slam my head on hard objects till I once lost a tooth. She scalded my face with boiling water and even inserted chilli padi into my v*gina.

“To prevent me from shouting or crying, she would gag me with a cloth.”

Maybe it is because she had lived through such a dark childhood that Jazlyn, 39, grew to have a soft spot for children. She works as a manager of a student care centre where she deals with children daily.

When she got to know about a pair of siblings – a boy and a girl – who were being raised by their single father, her heart went out to them. She would go on to become intimately involved in their lives.

How I met your father

Jazlyn met the father of the children and her future husband at a relative’s baby shower. She was 23; he was 28.

He was quiet but slowly struck up a conversation with her father and uncles, and tried to make small talk with her. As the afternoon wound to a close, he did something that “sunk into my memory forever”.

“He went up to my father and said, ‘Uncle, can I get to know your daughter and can I have her mobile number if you allow?’

“My father said, ‘My daughter is a big girl. If she is willing to give you her telephone number, she is free to do it.’”

That was how Jazlyn and Vinz Tay exchanged contact numbers.

“Why I decided to give him my number was because I felt that I could reach out to this person.”

Soon they were texting each other. Jazlyn shared her story immediately – how God saved her life, how she became a Christian, and how God sent counsellors, neighbours and friends to give her the family she never had.

It would be many months before Vinz opened up.

He had briefly visited churches but had found the community unwelcoming. There was more – he had been divorced for two years and had two children: A boy, seven, and a girl, six. 

Suffer the little children

Vinz was sure Jazlyn would not want to be with a 过来人 (man with a past) like himself. Instead, she asked to meet his children who spent their weekends with him. 

“I felt sorry for the kids,” explained Jazlyn. “The first thing that came to my mind was: They need God.”

So Jazlyn brought them with her to church. Vinz went along as well.

“The children were happy because there were quite a few members who reached out to them, brought them out, treated them to lunch. They were very involved in their lives.”

Vinz also started attending one-on-one Bible study sessions with a church member. He would get baptised a year later.

Jazlyn (in blue) with her step-children and husband Vinz at his baptism.

The months passed. Then something happened to the children that brought back for Jazlyn all the horrific memories of her past. Years of growing up without a loving mother made her all the more empathetic to their plight.

“I was very grieved. I asked myself, ‘Why do children have to suffer?’ The children were so helpless.

“I made a very firm decision to ask Vinz to take back custody of the children.”

For the next four years even though Jazlyn and Vinz were only dating, Jazlyn made the children her priority. Homework, tuition, swimming lessons, she became the mother to them that she had always wanted for herself.  

“The children were the reason I was hopeful in life.”

But in that initial month, the immediate concern was a school for the children. It was December and the girl had not been enrolled in any primary school yet. The boy had to switch schools to one that was closer to where his father lived.

“I dropped my activities, my ‘me time’ and self-care to tend to them. Vinz was still juggling with his work. He was emotionally very down, very temperamental, very hot-tempered. I saw the other extreme side of him.”

Shadows from the past

Jazlyn and Vinz eventually got married in 2012 after dating for four years. It took that long to save up for a proper wedding. By then, Vinz’s children were as good as Jazlyn’s.

“Every day, no matter how depressed I was, the only thing I was very hopeful for was for the children. I would pray for the family every day.”

She also used the knowledge gleaned from studying Psychology and Social Work, and her work in the social service sector to manage the children. What she did not expect was that, as time wore on, her past would cast a shadow on her parenting style.

“When I cannot handle the kids, I would cane them. It was the only way I knew to discipline them. But I would cane only for discipline – telling lies, stealing.”

When her own father passed away, taking with him the real reason why her mother hated her even before she was born, Jazlyn descended into depression.

“I became very aggressive and short-tempered and started throwing things in my house. I was emotionally very tired and felt I had fallen down. So I told God it was too much.

“It was my husband who said I was becoming like my mother.”

That was the wake-up call Jazlyn needed. She went to see a counsellor who helped her work through the traumas caused by her past and to regulate her emotions.

God in the valleys

Jazlyn and Vinz faced other challenges. Money was a major issue. Vinz’s father had passed away from cancer, leaving the family in dire straits financially. He had to help to pay the bills, leaving little for their own family.

Their rental home before moving into a BTO. They struggled to make ends meet for many years.

But when Jazlyn cried out to God, He sent people to help them. When their son needed money for an exchange programme in Australia, Jazlyn told the school they could not afford it.

“I told God, ‘It if it Your will, then he can go. If not, he will have another opportunity when he is older.’ Then I just put the matter aside.”

The school would later call her to say that they would sponsor the trip. The same school also provided Jazlyn’s daughter with free transport and uniforms, and helped them get financial aid from different organisations.

Church friends would support the family in prayer, presents and their presence, taking the children out for treats or to celebrate their birthdays.

A church near their house would visit with food rations when they lived in a rental flat. When they eventually moved into their Build-To-Order (BTO) flat, friends gifted them the lighting fixtures in the house.

“They were such a blessing. The church was such a blessing. When I look back, I can see that my children were raised by God.

“We didn’t have money and my children didn’t have the best of everything. But we never once had no food at home. Our supplies overflowed.” 

Recently when her daughter’s ITE fees were due, Jazlyn discovered that she did not have to withdraw anything from her own bank account. Everything was paid for by the funds in her daughter’s Edusave account, the financial aid received, as well as money from scholarships won.

Redeemed for His glory

Life has not been easy and parenting has had its challenges.

“Sometimes when the kids have their temper tantrums or when they hit puberty and have anger management issues, in my very down moments I do think: I have given so much but I only get this.

“But when you see the joy of your children doing well in life and you see God’s hand on the children …”

Because of Jazlyn’s insistence that family matters, the children, who are now in their early 20s, “are very filial, especially to their paternal grandmother”.

Jazlyn has seen God turn her marriage around as well, using counselling to achieve breakthroughs.

“Because of all the trauma I went through, it reflected in my marriage. But we have learnt to forgive. We are more settled and have fewer quarrels.

“If God didn’t put us together, we would not have been a family. We would not have gotten more moulding to be better people. The children would not have been helped.

“We all needed healing and restoration. I never understood what He could do with four broken lives but God knitted us together.

“It is the Lord’s healing to use one broken life to reach three broken lives. God has been so merciful to us.”

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