Imagine walking along the streets of Orchard Road, minding your own business, only to have your personal space interrupted with flyers and strangers urging you to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

For Wyman Lee, 46, this was a familiar experience during his secondary school years. Encounters with street evangelists shaped his early perception of Christians – and not for the better. 

“I felt that this form of outreach completely disregarded a person’s autonomy to believe what they wanted,” he told Salt&Light. “It made me reject Christianity when I was younger.” 

Despite studying in a Catholic school since aged seven, Wyman identified as an atheist. 

During his primary school days, Wyman never attended chapel. But two or three times a year, the entire school would sit together for mass at a nearby church, where the students would sing and learn hymns. 

There was one hymn, in particular, that left a lasting impression on a young Wyman – one whose lyrics, about eating Jesus’ body and drinking His blood, he took literally. 

“I still remember how unusual the lyrics first sounded to me, especially since I had no context to the Christian faith,” Wyman recalled. “But strangely, it was the only hymn that I remembered years later.” 

Wyman continued attending such church services during his secondary school days, but he firmly believed that there was no God. 

“To me, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the existence of God,“ he explained. “So I didn’t believe in the Christian teachings my school espoused.”  

A sudden epiphany

After completing his education, he went on to serve in the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) as a fighter pilot.

When he received the news that he was to be deployed to Arizona, US for five years, he proposed to his then-girlfriend whom he had been dating for a year. 

Before leaving, the couple formally registered their marriage in Singapore, but planned to hold their wedding ceremony at a later date. 

Wyman (third from left) during his RSAF training days.

While preparing for their wedding, his fiancée wanted Wyman to become a Catholic before they married.

Wyman was initially reluctant, until, during a holiday in California, he had a sudden epiphany that changed everything. This realisation brought him back to a moment when he was 21.

At a hangout with friends in Singapore, Wyman was triggered by a confrontation and reacted violently – causing a scene, damaging property and getting himself arrested. Given the severity of what had happened, a jail sentence was likely.

“I was out of control,” Wyman told Salt&Light. “People were getting hurt, and things were being thrown around. I was a loose cannon and caused such a public disturbance.”

But the sentence never came. Against all expectations, he was let off with a warning. 

“I was confused and amazed at the same time,” Wyman said. “The nature of the events did warrant a sentence by law, but I was free to go. For a long time, I began to wonder what – or Who – saved me from that situation?”

Years later in California, Wyman found himself listening to an acquaintance tell a similar story at a friend’s party and the pieces fell into place for him. He realised it was God who had intervened. 

“The very next morning, I told my to-be wife everything about that epiphany, and told her I was ready to convert to Catholicism.”

Shortly after, he was baptised in the Catholic Church in the US.

When a brief assignment brought him back to Singapore, he and his wife held their wedding ceremony before returning to the US.

It was during his deployment to the US that Wyman started to believe in God.

Yet despite his conversion and baptism, Wyman’s faith did not take root as he still perceived Christianity to be an internal, personal belief, and not something to publicly live out. 

“I knew God exists, but I didn’t understand the plans that He intended for us,” Wyman explained. “I thought that as long as I believed in Him intellectually, that it would be enough.”

After his Arizona posting ended, Wyman and his family moved back to Singapore in 2009. But the transition proved difficult.

By then, Wyman had two children – a daughter, Wyonna, 3, and a son, Wyatt, 2.

Back in Arizona, they had lived a family-oriented life in a conservative suburb. The pace in Singapore was different, and having to adjust strained their marriage. 

Finding himself stretched thin between work and the children, the situation reached a breaking point.

Wyman filed for a divorce. He and his ex-wife shared joint custody, but the children moved in with him after the couple’s separation. 

At the same time, the divorce led Wyman to reconsider other areas of his life, in particular, his career. 

A life he was ashamed of

“I began to have the desire to go into the nightlife business,” Wyman said. “Being a party animal myself, I was familiar with the scene, the business model and its ins and outs.

“At that time I thought: ‘If a job lets me be a social creature, drink, party and live the high life, what’s not to love?’” 

He eventually left the RSAF to become a nightclub operator, and with that came a lifestyle of lust, licentiousness and greed. 

During the time that Wyman started a nightclub, he was a non-practising Catholic.

Yet amid it all, the quiet faith of his young son would slowly mark the beginning of a different journey. 

At eight years old, Wyatt began talking with his friend, Jayden, about attending Bible classes. 

“It was during that period where Wyatt began to ask me if he could go to church,” Wyman recalled. “I agreed because I wanted my children to have a relationship with God and to build up good morals in their lives.” 

However, Wyman did not bring his children to church himself. Instead, Jayden’s father graciously offered to ferry Wyatt and Wyonna to and from Bible classes and church services — and did so for four years.

The faithfulness of that simple act began to move Wyman in ways he had not expected. 

“As messy as my life was, I still understood that going to church is part of being a Christian,” Wyman told Salt&Light.

“Watching my children go (t0 church) consistently for four years, the duplicity in my own life started to become more and more apparent.” 

Wyman decided to give church another go and started attending Church of St Ignatius in 2017, but his faith still felt more routine than personal. 

A change of heart

That began to shift in 2022, when Wyman felt drawn to join his church’s run of The Search, a programme that explores questions of life and introduces Catholicism to seekers in an easy and engaging manner. Similar to Alpha, it involves connection over food, videos on a specific topic and open discussion. 

During the course, Wyman struggled to engage with Scripture until a facilitator introduced him to a Bible-reading app, The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel (formerly The Bible in One Year). Over time, the daily devotional became more than a routine; it became an anchor in Wyman’s life. 

The theme of forgiveness, in particular, carried him through one of the harder seasons of his life when he fought a prolonged legal battle with his former business partner who had pushed him out of the nightclub he had built, without a single cent in return. 

Day after day in his quiet time, the topic of forgiveness kept surfacing. Wyman was amazed and challenged by the devotional’s exposition of Matthew 5, about forgiving and blessing your enemies. 

On one of the days, an excerpt in the devotional struck Wyman: 

“Blessing others means blessing even those who do bad things to us (vv.38-42). ‘Don’t hit back at all … No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously (vv.39, 42, MSG). To return evil for good is demonic. To return good for good is human. To return good for evil is the way of Jesus.”

When Wyman won the lawsuit, he discovered that his former business partner was on the verge of bankruptcy. Despite having every legal right to extract every penny owned, Wyman felt convicted by God to put what he learnt about forgiveness into practice. 

He instructed his lawyer to not send the statutory demand. Instead, he reached out personally and asked his former partner to meet for coffee. That interaction paved the path towards reconciliation. 

It was around this time that Wyman also read a devotional titled: “Trust in Jesus, to whom God has entrusted all judgment”.

For Wyman, it felt less like a new lesson and more like a quiet conclusion – a reassurance that the matter had already been held in hands greater than his own.

“Ever since that incident, my heart began to change and my character started to transform,” Wyman told Salt&Light.

Wyman with his two children at his parish, Church of St Ignatius.

Even practising spiritual disciplines that had once felt ritualistic began to feel intimate. 

“For the first time, prayer wasn’t one-sided. I could listen and commune with God as a Father.” 

As his relationship with God deepened, it led him to a turning point he never saw coming. 

“The moment I knew Jesus Christ was real” 

During a church retreat, participants were practising Ignatian contemplation – a form of prayer that draws a person into the Gospel story through engaging the mind, heart and five senses.  

For Wyman, it became something far more personal than he anticipated. He placed himself in the scene as the paralysed man in Mark 2 – helpless and in need of healing.

As he lingered on the words of Jesus, “Get up, take your mat and walk,” something within him stirred, and Wyman stood up. 

In that moment, the weight of his strongholds – the objectification of women, sexual sin, addiction and selfish ambition that had followed him since his young adult days – began to lift and break off.  

It was at this 2023 church retreat in Cebu that Wyman encountered Jesus in such a tangible way.

“I had lived a life I was deeply ashamed of,” he said. “For a long time, I believed the weight of my sins would never allow me to become a proper Christian.” 

Though it was an exercise of the imagination, everything felt physically real. As Wyman started to walk, he was overcome by a sense of love he had not expected.

Literally falling to his knees, Wyman reached out and held on to something unseen – clinging to it as though it were Jesus himself – and wept.

The warmth of God’s love began reaching into the depths of his soul he had long kept closed.

What made the moment all the more striking was that this took place on his 43rd birthday. For Wyman, it felt like a rebirth in every sense of the word. 

“That was the moment I knew Jesus Christ was real, and that He is alive,” he said.

After that encounter, the urge to engage in his former vices was also gone. “It was like a clean slate.”

A new creation

It was also at the retreat that he received a vision to start a cafe as a space where both Christians and non-Christians could connect without pretence. 

Sensing that this was more than just an idea, he felt prompted to reconnect with a childhood friend from his secondary school days – someone he knew was a devout Catholic involved in youth ministry.

That reconnection led him to Jacob Wee, Alpha Singapore’s Ministry Development Manager for the Catholic Church. After hearing Wyman’s story, Jacob invited him to the Alpha Regional Gathering in Kuala Lumpur in 2023. 

At the gathering, Wyman found spiritual and strategic clarity on how to run the cafe. He also met Pastors, church leaders and ministry representatives who were hosting Alpha courses.

Wyman (first from left) with Jacob Wee (second from right) at the Alpha Regional Gathering 2023.

Today, Wyman runs The Upper Room Restaurant & Cafe, a modest space along King George’s Avenue where small groups, ministries and individuals can gather, share meals, and have honest conversations about life and faith.

The cafe has hosted Alpha courses for both Catholic and Protestant churches. Aspiring Christian musicians perform at its open mic sessions.

The Upper Room also runs a monthly event called Theology on Tap, where guests explore theological questions over refreshments.

Wyman (far right) at The Upper Room’s former location. As the lease at their old unit could not be renewed, they moved out in 2024 and re-opened last year along the same street.

Years ago, Wyman rejected a version of Christianity that felt intrusive and dismissive of personal choice. Today, he faithfully attends church with Wyonna and Wyatt.

Wyman also actively serves as an Alpha host and facilitator, aspiring to foster an environment that is welcoming, honest and respectful of where people are in their personal lives.

“People are searching and trying to make sense of life and their experiences,” Wyman told Salt&Light. “The goal of The Upper Room is to create a safe space where they can open up about faith and beliefs. 

“It is through these conversations that hearts soften. People still have the autonomy to arrive at their own conclusion, but our hope is that they encounter Christ.” 

Additional reporting by Gracia Chiang.

More stories of believers navigating the workplace with faith will be shared at the Alpha Workplace Conference 2026 on July 4. Tickets have officially sold out, but if you would like to be placed on the waitlist, please email [email protected].

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