On a particular morning in 2023, Madam Liew Thye Moi was awake and lying on her bed when she saw two women dressed in traditional Chinese samfu beckoning her.

“Come and join us in church. There will be food and activities,” they told her.

“Okay, I go, I go,” Mdm Liew replied.  

She also saw a group of adults and children gathering behind the two women.

Confused at how crowded her bedroom had become, Mdm Liew walked out and saw her daughter Jess Seah busy preparing breakfast for her.

“How come my room is so crowded but it’s so empty here?” Mdm Liew asked her daughter.

“I didn’t know what she was talking about. I told her I don’t see anyone in her room,” said Jess, 78.

The vision came to pass 

Later that same day, the doorbell rang. A group of adults and children from the nearby community centre came to visit and befriend Mdm Liew. They brought along some food and gave her a small silver paper Christmas tree.

The group of people from the nearby community centre that visited Mdm Liew and her daughter Jess (in red shirt). They gave Mdm Liew a small silver Christmas tree.

“I thought it was strange that my mum was just telling me about her seeing a group of people in her room and then many people really came to our house later on,” said Jess, who is not a believer.

Neither she nor her mother knew then that it was a vision that Mdm Liew had seen that morning.

The next day, two women from a nearby church – Grace Baptist Ministries – knocked on their door. Jess greeted them and they started sharing with her about Christianity.

“I told those two ladies that my mother had seen two women calling out to her yesterday. They were intrigued and wanted to meet my mum,” said Jess.

When the two women met Mdm Liew, they gave her a leaflet and invited her to their church’s upcoming Christmas service.

The two women from Grace Baptist Ministries who invited Mdm Liew to church. They were in Mdm Liew’s vision the day before.

“They were not wearing the same clothes but they were the two women that I saw the day before,” Mdm Teochew told Salt&Light in a mixture of Teochew and Hokkien.

“It was not a coincidence. I knew Jesus was calling me,” said the 104-year-old.

Mdm Liew had been a devout follower of another faith for decades. When Jess was young, her mother would stay over at a place of worship for days on end, helping to cook food and wash dishes in the kitchen.

Mdm Liew said: “Over the years, many people have tried inviting me to church, offering me food like char siew rice if I go. I always flatly declined those invitations.

“But this time, I really wanted to go to the church because I saw the two women when I was on my bed and then later, they really came to me.”

So she called her young friend “Ah Boon” to bring her and her daughter to church. “Ah Boon” is Jian Wen, 38, a civil servant who has been voluntarily visiting her weekly for the last 10 years.

“Over the years, I have been sharing about God with her and encouraging her to talk to God if she needed any help. It was a pleasant surprise that she wanted to go to church,” Jian Wen, who worships at New Creation Church, told Salt&Light.

Mdm Liew out on a jaunt at Sims Drive. She now lives in a nursing home in Geylang East.

The Christmas service, however, was in English so Mdm Liew could not understand what was going on. Being hard of hearing, she also could not hear the lyrics and tunes of the worship songs that were being sung.

“I just clapped when other people clapped their hands,” said Mdm Liew, who got to speak to other elderly persons and the pastor of the church that day.

Though she did not pray to accept Christ then, it marked the start of encounters with God that she would experience.

The Christmas tree which turned green 

One unforgettable occurrence involved the small Christmas tree that was gifted to her by the volunteers from the community centre.

“I don’t know why but one day, I saw that the silver Christmas tree had turned green. I was so shocked. I knew no one could do this except Jesus and that He is real,” said Mdm Liew.

Her daughter Jess and Jian Wen had also seen a green Christmas tree when it was previously silver in colour.

“I saw the green tree and assumed she had bought a different Christmas tree, but it was actually the same one,” said Jian Wen.

“I was surprised but I know God can work in the most impossible ways. I have known her for some time and I believe her because I know that these (the vision and miracles) are things that she won’t know how to speak about if she had not experienced them,” he added.

Jess told Salt&Light that Mdm Liew had led a hard life. Having lost her father to illness at the tender age of eight, she helped her mother out at their family’s provision shop and coffeeshop business.

“Those were the olden days when we brewed coffee over charcoal stoves and had to glue paper bags before we can use them,” said Jess.

After getting married, Mdm Liew stayed home to raise her five children. As one of the some 1,500 centenarians in Singapore, the great-grandmother of 12 has outlived her oldest son who died in 2020 at the age of 72. Three of her children are in their 70s now, and her youngest daughter is 68 years old.

Mdm Liew with her five children. Her eldest daughter Jess is on the left. Photo credit: Jess Seah, digitised by Nicolette Lim.

When her children were grown, Mdm Liew ventured out to become a nanny to children in other families.

She now has nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

“I have seen my friends one by one dying when they are in their 70s, 80s and 90s. I don’t know how I could live to this age,” said Mdm Liew.  

Supernatural help with daily tasks 

Ever since she discovered that Jesus is real, she has been asking Him for help with her daily living activities.

“When I lived alone in my Circuit Road flat, I hear His audible voice very frequently. He sends his angels to encourage me and help me. I can see them whenever I close my eyes to shower or wash my face,” Mdm Liew described to Salt&Light.

She now lives in a nursing home at Geylang East as her daughter Jess has her own health problems and cannot cope with caregiving for her mother.

A younger Mdm Liew in her two-room flat in Circuit Road. Photo credit: Jess, digitalised by Nicolette Lim.

Though Jess is not a Christian, she told Salt&Light about several supernatural episodes that she had seen taking place in her mother’s two-room flat.

“Once, we saw mosquitoes around so we were looking for the insect spray can that my mother had in her flat. We searched high and low and could not find it. Then, suddenly, we just saw it appear on the floor near the kitchen, when previously we did not see anything there,” said Jess.

In September last year, volunteers from Blessed Grace Church visited Mdm Liew. She had been participating in the church’s social and recreational activities.

During that visit, Mdm Liew said the Sinner’s Prayer and was baptised.

“I used to pray to other gods but they have never shown themselves to me or helped me like Jesus has. I had bought my niche for my ashes to be placed beside my husband after I die, but I gave all of that up because I now know that the Christian God is real,” said Mdm Liew, who is the only believer in her large extended family.  

Mdm Liew’s church friends who attended a performance that she was acting in. The group included the two women (back row, first and third from left) from her vision who first invited her to church.

Mdm Liew goes to church occasionally, whenever church volunteers or Jian Wen is able to bring her.

“However, she doesn’t understand what’s going on in the Mandarin service. It would be good if she has a dialect service to go to or if someone who speaks dialect disciples her further,” said Jian Wen.

Mdm Liew speaks both Teochew and Hokkien. She is illiterate and thus unable to read the Bible.

At the time of the interview, Mdm Liew was somewhat discouraged as she wished to leave the nursing home and return home.

Mdm Liew is now a great grandmother to 12. Photo credit: Jess, digitalised by Nicolette Lim.

“At home, I have my own freedom. God seems to speak to me less, ever since I am in the nursing home; I can’t really hear God now,” she bemoaned.

Jian Wen believes that it is God’s grace and mercy that Mdm Liew has been given a long life on earth and that God had lately revealed Himself explicitly to her.

“I think He is giving her time to settle certain issues and tensions in her family. Her simple child-like faith encourages me,” said Ah Boon, who has taken Mdm Liew on various outings to places such as Gardens by the Bay and Chinatown during the weekends.

Mdm Liew tucking into her favourite Assam fish for lunch. Photo credit: David Liew.

Mdm Liew said she is not afraid to die.

“I wish I can quickly go. But I don’t think so much. I am happy that I still can eat what I like now,” said Mdm Liew as she tucked into her favourite Assam fish dish at a nearby coffeeshop in Sims Drive.

“Life with God in it is good.”

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