One night while lying in bed, weakened by a stroke a few years earlier, Jensen Lee’s mother asked him a heartbreaking question.

“When are you going to change? Do you really want me to die before you change?”

Jensen (on his mother’s lap) with his six siblings and his parents. He was the youngest in the family and was doted on by all.

Jensen, who was in his late 30s then, had already been to prison nine times for drug-related offences. Despite being the well-loved youngest of seven children, he had gotten into drugs in his teens.

Jensen (seated, left) with his brothers.

From the age of 20, he was in and out of prison so much that he had never held down a job. When he needed money to finance his drug habit, he turned to his family. Once, when he asked his mother for money, she tearfully told him she had none and offered her jewellery instead. He took them and pawned them to buy drugs.

“She was very disappointed in me because she loved me a lot,” said Jensen, now 57.

Changing lives  

Not long after that conversation, his mother went to the block of flats beside theirs and leapt to her death. Her health had been failing and she had been fretting over his future. She was 79.

“I was in my room that day and I sensed something was wrong. I went to look for her in her room and, when I couldn’t find her, my instincts told me to go to my kitchen window.

Jensen (second from right) was the only person living with his mother when she passed away. His father had passed on years earlier and all his siblings had gotten married and moved out.

“When I looked out, I saw police cars downstairs and a small tent covering a body. From that moment, I knew that the person lying inside was my mother.”

But Jensen did not turn over a new leaf. Instead, he sold the three-room flat they had been living in and used the money to support his addiction. 

Three years after his mother passed away, he was imprisoned for the 10^th time.

“When I stepped into prison on the first day of my sentence, I thought: This time around, my mother is no more. Who else will come and visit me? I regretted day and night.”

Sobered, he signed up for the 18-month Christian Intensive Religious Counselling Programme (CIRCP) run by Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS).

“Every day, different counsellors will come in from PFS. They taught me about God and that’s when my life totally changed.”

PFS also reached out to Jensen’s family through the Angel Tree Project (ATP). He was encouraged to write a letter to ask his family for their forgiveness.

Volunteers delivered the letter along with sponsored gifts to his third sister, and also taught her how to support him and welcome him back into the family.

Angel Tree Run & Ride 2022 was organised to raise funds for Angel Tree Project, an initiative launched in 2005 to help inmates and their families reconcile. Every Christmas, inmates write letters asking for forgiveness from their families. The letters, along with gifts sponsored by individual and corporate supporters, are then delivered to the inmates’ families.

On the day of his release, his family went to the prison gate to receive him.

“I was surprised. All the other nine times, no one came to fetch me. I asked them, ‘Why did you guys come?’

“They told me PFS had asked them to come to the gate to encourage me. That really helped me in my recovery journey.”

Jensen never went back to drugs. In 2013, he became a PFS staff member and is now the Integrated Ministry Care Manager.

He also got married and has a six-year-old daughter.

Jensen (right) packing food to be distributed to the families of those in prison.

“Who I am today, my mother didn’t get a chance to see. I have no opportunity to tell her that I love her or hug her.

“She is the one I love so much but I didn’t have the opportunity to tell her.

“Now when I counsel people, I tell them, ‘While your mother is still living, change. Don’t wait until your mother cannot see it.’”

Caring beyond prison walls

This year, the Christian prison ministry celebrates its 70^th anniversary.

The work began in 1952 when Methodist minister the late Rev Khoo Siaw Hua became the first Honorary Prison Chaplain. Some 20 Christian leaders volunteered alongside him to counsel inmates.

In 1985, the prison ministry became affiliated to Prison Fellowship International (PFI) and became known as PFS.

Today, PFS ministers to some 800 inmates and 200 ex-offenders, as well as 100 families, providing them with a Christian community that embraces and shows God’s love and transformative power. Of its 24 staff, six are ex-offenders. To date, their work has embraced over 1,100 volunteers from 189 churches and 15 partnering organisations. 

Through its Integrated Ministry which encompasses Incare, Aftercare and Family Care, not only is the individual cared for from incarceration to release, so is his or her family.

Children learning to bake at Care Club which provides support to children whose parents are incarcerated.

“Our work focuses on restorative justice to help individuals find a safe place to reflect and share what they are going through, and encourage them to seek reconciliation and make restitution rather than retributive justice, which focuses on sentencing alone,” said Executive Director of PFS Chua Kok Wan.

Executive Director of PFS Chua Kok Wan (in the swing) with the staff of PFS.

As its focus is on rehabilitation and reintegration, 182 of its volunteers, or 16%, are ex-offenders. There is a need for more volunteers because PFS helps not just ex-offenders but their families as well. 

Food packed and ready to be distributed to the families of those in prison.

“We are only reaching 10% of the prison population. We need another 1,000 more volunteers to support Aftercare and Family Care,” said Kok Wan. 

Come September 1, there will be gala dinner to mark prison ministry’s 70^th year and raise funds for the work they do.

“We want to celebrate with our partners in the ecosystem,” said Kok Wan.

Forgiven, not forsaken

The theme for the anniversary is Forgiven, not Forsaken, something which resonates personally with Kok Wan.

In 2018, he was sentenced to three weeks in prison for fatally hitting an e-scooter rider at a zebra crossing. He had been on his way to a Bible study class.

“I cannot rationalise or reconcile why the fatal accident happened. I believe I will not be able to do so in this lifetime.”

For a long time, Kok Wan struggled with guilt. He played out that fateful drive in his head again and again, wondering what would have happened if he had stopped, or had seen the man coming.

He was not allowed to speak to the man’s family and wondered how the family was coping with their loss.

“I felt going to prison would help make up for my wrongdoing.”

In 2020, PFS invited Kok Wan to come on board as Assistant Director. Though reluctant at first, he accepted the position because he wanted to make meaning of what he had gone through.

Kok Wan (left) receiving the Charity Transparency Award and Charity Governance Award 2022 on behalf of PFS.

“I used to serve God in this ministry, then I became the beneficiary of the ministry. Some things are very difficult to reconcile.

“But now, when I speak to inmates, they cannot tell me I don’t understand them. I do. No one wakes up in the morning and plans to go to Changi Prison. The truth is that there is no difference between inmates and us except that our circumstances are different.”

Kok Wan with volunteers ready to distribute food to the families of inmates.

So Kok Wan gave up his finance business to join PFS as a staff. Within a few months, when the Executive Director had to leave for another post, Kok Wan took over.

“I found it very difficult. If God wanted to call me to full-time, it didn’t have to be by such a drastic way.

“But I hold on to the truth in Proverbs 3:5-6 on the how and accept that I am indeed forgiven, not forsaken.”