When Kirana (not her real name) came to Singapore from Indonesia to be a domestic worker in 1999, she relished being away from her family.

Then 25 years old, she resented her strict mother who had sent her away to earn money for her three brothers. She loathed her father, a drunkard and gambler who was often tangled up in vice.

In the 20 years that she worked here, she rarely visited her family during her biennial two-week vacation – not that anyone at home seemed to mind.

She still remembers her mother telling her: “You don’t have to come back, just your money.”

It came to a point where Kirana thought it would not be so bad if she never returned to her country: “I hated my family. I didn’t want to deal with the pain.”

Stunned by an unusual love

In Singapore, the family she worked for for nearly two decades – her employer and her husband – was a world of difference. “I experienced and received a love that I never had,” she told Salt&Light.

Whenever she made mistakes, they corrected her gently and never withheld their love as punishment. They included her at family dinners in restaurants. They celebrated her birthday every year – something her own family never did.

Her employer’s husband would caution her not to go to the market or walk their dogs too late in the night – a gesture of protection that she never received from her largely absent father.

They also treated her as more than just domestic help. Kirana remembers the times on New Year’s Eve when she and her employer would stay up talking and laughing until midnight as they waited to usher in the new year together.

“They accepted me like family. I was thinking, ‘Why do they love me so much? Why do they have that kind of attitude and love that is so genuine and different from the one that I’ve experienced in my own family?'” recalled Kirana, who knew that they were Christians.

“Even though there was an employer-employee relationship, the love they had for me was so palpable, so easy and so free.”

“Why would Jesus die for me?”

One Sunday, her employer’s older sister came by and asked if Kirana would like to go to church with them to check out the church’s Indonesian fellowship.

Enticed by the prospect of meeting other Indonesians and being able to speak in her native language, she agreed.

“I wasn’t really thinking about studying the Bible or getting to know Jesus,” said Kirana, who was a believer of another religion at the time.

Despite not caring much for Christianity, she listened to what was being shared and heard for the first time about how Jesus Christ had died on the cross for her sins.

Then one of the Bible teachers, a Singaporean lady, told her that because she has been forgiven through Jesus’ sacrifice, God considers her righteous in His eyes.

It did not make any sense to her: Why did Jesus need to die? Why would He die for her? And could it really be that His sacrifice made her worthy and accepted in His eyes?

She had always felt the need to strive for God’s acceptance. “Worthiness and love was not in my vocabulary. I had to do a lot of things to get to heaven and still, I didn’t know if I could reach that standard and go to heaven,” she said.

The more she pondered on this foreign concept of complete forgiveness, the more she realised it was something that her heart deeply longed for.

“I felt that I could breathe easy and had a little of bit of peace. It made me a little bit more at rest. I didn’t have to be perfect. So I thought, ‘I want this God.'”

The painful work of change

During a Good Friday church service in 2001, as Kirana thought about Jesus dying on the cross for her, she decided to put her faith in Him. She was baptised a year later.

Her employers were overjoyed. “I’m sure (my coming to Christ) was because of their prayers as well for me, and their longing for me to know Christ,” Kirana told Salt&Light.

However, becoming a disciple of Jesus was challenging.

“I was still the same. I still had many things I had to figure out, let go, surrender, deny. I still did many bad actions. I had really bad thoughts and attitudes as well. It took me a while to really deny myself and pick up the cross,” said Kirana.

She also struggled to see and even address God as “Father”, given her complicated relationship with her earthly father.

But as she continued to attend the Indonesian fellowship week after week, with mentors coming alongside her, she began to grow in the faith.

Observing her employer’s life also taught her about showing Christ’s sacrificial love to others.

“She had an amazing hospitality for others. People would come to her house regardless of how tired she was, how sick she was. She would amazingly set aside time for people, those who just wanted a listening ear, even though she was really, really busy,” recalled Kirana.

“Through my employer’s life, her actions, her words, the way she interacted with people, I saw her great love for Jesus and Jesus’ great love for her.”

A frightening, growing burden

As Kirana grew deeper in her relationship with God, she began to notice an uncharacteristic shift in her heart.

When she finally visited her mother back home in 2010 – her father had since passed away – she felt a heaviness, accompanied by a nudging to return to Indonesia.

Then, she realised that she had started to see her mother and those in her community differently. “I felt the need to pray for them sincerely, genuinely and frequently,” she recalled. 

The change frightened her. She returned to Singapore determined to keep all this to herself and continue her life as it had been. “It was easier to just give money and be emotionally detached. I didn’t want to get involved,” she said.

But God patiently pursued Kirana – for close to a decade.

As she continued to grow in her faith, she found healing in Him for all the hurts that her family had caused her. Only then did she finally decide to open up to some people in her fellowship about this inexplicable urge to return to Indonesia.

Her church community, including her church leaders and employer later on, committed to praying with her, though Kirana admits she initially asked them to pray that God would not call her back home.

“I’m the queen of negotiating with the Lord,” she declared with a laugh.

Over time, her burden for her own people to know God’s love grew heavier and heavier. “I’ve been given this privilege to know Him and to experience His love and protection, and my people, my community, still don’t have that kind of love. The Good News that made me breathe easy, the rest that I had, they don’t even know that they need it,” she said.

The turning point came when the Lord told her from Deuteronomy 31:8, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Kirana said: “I was scared, I didn’t know what I was going to do, how I was going to share the Good News with my limitations and many weaknesses. But that verse reminded me that it’s not my own doing or skill or strategy, but God will be with me.

“I had doubts, I had fears. But if He wants me to go, I’ll go. At the end of the day, I just wanted to obey Him, to love Him.”

A heart for her own people

In March 2019, Kirana packed up the life she had grown to love in Singapore and flew back to the country she once swore she would never return to.

She told Salt&Light: “The concern of the church at the time was not to send me directly to my community because they know I came from there and it would be really hard to go back to my community. They said, ‘Why don’t we send you to the Bible college in another part of Indonesia?'”

So, sent and supported by her church, which is in the north-eastern part of Singapore, Kirana enrolled in a four-year theological seminary course before joining a missions organisation that now reaches out to children in villages that mostly have no churches.

“We are new in this place so we are still ironing out many things. It’s not going to be easy. So far we’ve experienced God’s favour on the ground, but the spiritual warfare is very hard – that is unseen,” shared Kirana, whose name Salt&Light is changing for her safety due to the sensitive nature of where she serves.

“I don’t know if we will see any fruit, but we just do what the Lord wants us to do at this moment, step by step.”

She continues to be supported holistically by her sending church in Singapore, as well as her former employer who is like a spiritual mother to her.

From her church leadership and congregation to its Indonesian fellowship and missions committee, Kirana, now 51, is filled with gratitude for how they have supported her in her faith journey and calling since the day she stepped into the church more than two decades ago.

“I would not be here if not for their love and support, so I’m really, really grateful to them. It’s hard for me to express. ‘Thank you’ is never going to be enough.”

Since her return, Kirana’s relationship with her mother has become better, but it is a work in progress. She said: “Honestly, it’s never easy to be with my mum. I need a lot of prayer and support when I go and visit her. I think, what other hurtful words is she going to say? But I learn to be patient, I learn to really just love her in the way that God wants me to love her. It’s not easy, but it’s better.”

While she initially dreaded obeying God and returning to her country, she now counts it a blessing and privilege to serve Him in Indonesia.

“The privilege that He’s given to me, I’m giving it back to His glory. I don’t have many skills or specialities compared to other missionaries, but what I have is a heart for my own people,” she said, tearing up.

“I want them to see the brilliant Light that God offers to His people.”

This article is part of a four-part series titled Missions At Our Doorstep, which explores the power of reaching out to foreigners in our midst. Other stories in this series will be linked here:

“Singapore introduced Jesus Christ as my Saviour”: Migrant worker-turned-pastor who returned to India to share the Gospel