The man at the other end of the video call is bespectacled and rotund. During the Mandarin interview with Salt&Light, he is by turns funny and deferential.

“Don’t be angry, okay?” he says often, especially when asked a sensitive question he does not want to answer.

“You look angry.”

When assured that the frown is the result of the effort it takes to converse in Mandarin peppered with Hokkien, he smiles and relaxes, assured.

At 61, Uncle Kim (not his real name) is saddled with a string of ailments more common among men 20 years his senior. He suffers from heart disease, lung problems, cirrhosis of the liver and has difficulty walking because of a stroke some six years ago.

“See,” he says lifting up a cup of pills. “I have to take 30-odd of these. Like popping candy.”

There is little trace of the gangster, drug addict and pimp that he used to be.  

“I’m a new creation,” he declares.

The naughty boy 

Asked for his happiest childhood memory, Uncle Kim is quick to reply: “I have none.”

But he adds that his parents were “quite good to me”.

He stopped going to school in Primary 2 because he was expelled for throwing a chair through a window. His parents attempted to get him into another school but he resisted.

“I was a naughty boy. I didn’t know how to think for myself,” he says by way of explanation.

His parents did discipline him. But he “didn’t listen to them”. Not even being caned could rein him in.

By the time he was 12, he was living on the streets by choice, sleeping rough at void decks or on public benches. He started running with a neighbourhood gang and was soon arrested for collecting protection money on their behalf.

He was sent to a boys’ home but cannot remember for how long.

“Would you believe it, two weeks after coming out, I went back in again?”

This time, it was for getting into a fight. For that, he was sentenced to three years in a boys’ home.

The unrepentant man 

Incarceration did nothing to rehabilitate the “naughty boy”. Neither did his years in National Service (NS).

“I didn’t work and when I got out (of the boys’ home and NS), I didn’t go home. I followed my gang and did odd jobs for them.”

Those “odd jobs” included collecting protection money and running gambling dens. Uncle Kim took pride in the fact that no matter what he did, he never asked his parents for money.

When he was into his 30s and 40s, his drug problem intensified and he was imprisoned for drug abuse. To secure an earlier release, he professed to have converted to Christianity while in prison and even got baptised.

“I was naughty. I didn’t really believe (in Jesus). But I knew that if I said I was a Christian, I would get out earlier. So, I pretended to believe.”

Uncle Kim was given a place at a Christian halfway house and even became a full-time worker there.

“I was like a mediator. Loan sharks would come and approach the pastor to get payment for debts (owed to them by the residents there) and I would talk to them.”

Within a year, though, Uncle Kim was back behind bars.

Without real transformation, it was only a matter of time before he returned to his drug habit. When he did not turn up for his regular urine test, he was arrested.

He would be in and out of prison “so many times I lost count”, either for drug abuse or for theft to finance his drug habit.

The Geylang pimp

After one particular stint in prison, Uncle Kim happened to meet a friend who offered him a job and a place to live.

The job turned out to be pimping in Geylang. In his 40s by then and with few other options, he gladly took up the offer.

“I took care of the girls,” he says simply when asked to describe what he did.

“I did feel bad. I do regret. I felt sorry for the girls.” 

Though he claimed to have been a feared figure in Geylang – “in the past, if you heard my name in Geylang, you would run” – Uncle Kim says he never intervened to help.

“My friend who gave me the job asked me to quit drugs and concentrate on my work. I had just gotten out of prison and was clean.”

The brothel became his workplace, his home and his life.

His parents were no longer around by then and Uncle Kim refuses to talk about the rest of his family. Asked if he ever married or had children, he falls silent.

“Don’t be angry, ah,” he says of his lack of response.

The love that redeems

Uncle Kim would spend the next decade or so immersed in the night life of Geylang. God and any pledges he had professed to Him were nothing but a distant memory.

But while he forgot God, God did not forget him.

God would bring to his path a couple who saw past his tough exterior and life choices, and showed him love in action.

Debbie Zhang, Founder of the House of Olive (HOL) which runs Geylang Ministry (GM), an outreach to prostitutes and pimps in Geylang, was already a well-known figure in the red-light district by the time she and Uncle Kim crossed paths in 2015.

She had been walking the lorongs (alleys) of Geylang since 2008, giving out Gospel tracts and goodie bags, and telling all who would listen about the saving grace of Jesus.

Recounted Debbie, 52, in a GM newsletter: “We had known (Uncle Kim) for more than two years and had come to know that he was a baptised brother who even once served as a full-time ministry worker in a Christian organisation.

“But as he fell back to Geylang, he labelled himself a hypocrite.”

On one occasion when Uncle Kim asked to speak to Debbie, she told him: “The only thing you need to remember is this: God never forgets about you. And that is the reason you are able to meet us here.”

Of the encounter, Debbie wrote in the 2017 GM newsletter: “His eyes became wet immediately. But he turned down my offer to come back to church.

“He told me, ‘It is enough for me when I am able to see you guys here.’”

But Debbie would not give up. She would show up time and time again, encouraging Uncle Kim to return to God. She even introduced him to her husband, Kelvin Loh.

“When I saw them, I would tease them,” Uncle Kim relates to Salt&Light. “But they didn’t get angry with me even when I teased them. Instead, they would bring me food and sweets.

“When they told me to believe in Jesus, I kept telling them that I didn’t want to. I was naughty. I just wanted to play.

“I would quarrel with Kelvin but he would forgive me. In the end, they loved me even though I was nasty to them.”

When Uncle Kim had to be hospitalised because of his failing health, Debbie and Kelvin, who by then was a full-time worker with GM, found out which hospital Uncle Kim was in and visited him.

Shortly after, Uncle Kim was placed in a nursing home. That the couple was the first to visit him moved him to tears.

Their consistent show of concern eventually drew Uncle Kim back to God.

A new creation

“I used to be very naughty. Now, I listen to Debbie Dajie (Big Sister Debbie). Now, I see that being a Christian is very good.

“Jesus didn’t give up on me. Jesus saved me.”

Debbie tells Salt&Light that, although Uncle Kim is nearly 10 years her senior, he calls her Dajie, or Big Sister, as a sign of respect because the term for “Miss” – Xiaojie – is used to refer to sex workers. He calls Kelvin Dage (Big Brother).

The couple visits Uncle Kim regularly at the nursing home, bringing him special meals.

Says Debbie: “He likes meat but the nursing home only serves vegetarian food.”

Kelvin even celebrated Uncle Kim’s 61^st birthday with him as his only visitor due to Covid-19 safety measures. As Uncle Kim is no longer in touch with his family, Kelvin is registered as his caregiver.

Writes Debbie in one GM newsletter: “He calls Kelvin almost once every two days as he claims that he cannot sleep if he fails to hear Kelvin’s voice.”

Their dedication has not gone unappreciated. Uncle Kim tells them often: “Thank you for your love despite the fact that I am such a sinful man.”

During the weekly visits, Kelvin, joined online by a pastor from Coronation Church, also does Bible study with Uncle Kim.

Says Uncle Kim: “After my stroke, I couldn’t walk properly. Kelvin told me to exercise and pray (for healing).”

Uncle Kim can now stand on his own and cover short distances. “If he didn’t encourage me to pray, I would still be in bed all day,” he says.

He looks forward to the day when he can walk again so he can visit the lorongs of Geylang to hand out Gospel tracts with the volunteers of GM.

“I’m not afraid to be seen by old friends. If they ask, I will say, ‘I believe in Jesus. I don’t want to follow my old life. If you want, Jesus will accept you, too. Jesus will not blame you (for your life choices).’”

The bigger transformation, however, has been internal.

“God changed me to learn to be good. I’m not so easily angered now. I don’t curse so much anymore.

“Dage tells me to pray when I am angry. So, I ask God not to let me be the man I was before. I don’t want to be so rash anymore. I don’t want to be a naughty man. I want to be a good boy.

“I used to think I was so great. I was so proud. But now I’m a transformed man, a new creation, a child of God.”

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