Twenty years ago, Adeline Wong, now 42, contemplated suicide as she felt life was meaningless. She wanted to put an end to the pain and suffering she had been going through. 

Then 22 years old, she had also been struggling to forgive herself for all the things that she had done in her young life. Things she wasn’t proud of. 

It was at this time that a friend shared Christ with her. Little did she expect that this would give her the answers to the many burning questions she had about her life. Or the mystery surrounding the death of a father she never knew.

Growing pains

As a child growing up, she knew something was different about her family.

She had never seen her father. She was left in the care of her uncle’s family as her mother worked a few jobs to provide for her. Although her uncle’s family loved her like one of their own, it still left her tongue-tied when classmates enquired about her family.

She had many questions about her dad. But eventually stopped asking as it always made her mother cry. To help Adeline, her mother told her to say her father died of an illness when asked.

Adeline was only two years old when her father died. Her mother worked long hours to bring her up single-handedly.

But as she grew older, she knew something was amiss. There must be something shameful surrounding her father’s death. It was always spoken about in hushed tones.

To avoid friends asking her more about her family, she grew increasingly quiet in school. Worried she may go astray, her mother kept a tight rein on her. This put a strain on their relationship and a dampener on her friendships.

But that changed when she entered polytechnic. With no fixed class schedules, it gave her the freedom she craved.

“I started to hang out with my friends. We would drink and smoke in between classes. I tried glue sniffing as well. But I didn’t like the feeling so I stopped. Thank God, as it stopped me from getting further into drugs,” said Adeline, who grew up in an environment where tattoos were normal and vulgarities commonplace.

The truth 

Things escalated when she started working upon her graduation. She began to frequent clubs and started searching for love in all the wrong places.

It was after a particularly difficult breakup in 2000 that brought her to her wit’s end. And it was also then that she came to know God.

After accepting Christ in 2000, Adeline began to see her mother in a different light. “Looking back, I really appreciate what she did and I learned a lot about perseverance from her,” said Adeline.

“That restarted my life. I’ve been seeking for love and acceptance for so many years, but I realised that only God is able to fill that void in my heart,” said Adeline. 

“I started to know God more. That led me to unlearn some of the values that I had, and learn true, godly values.”

After her water baptism in 2001, she felt convicted to restore her relationship with her mother. She moved back home after living apart from her mother for more than 20 years.

But Adeline never broached the topic of her father till 2010, after the National Library Board digitised newspapers. She searched the digital archives for articles pertaining to her dad and discovered what really happened.

He was sent to the gallows for drug trafficking. He was not a drug abuser, but had agreed to help a friend to smuggle 138g of heroin from Malaysia to Singapore in exchange for $1,000. He was caught in November 1976.

The father she never met

She then recalled that her father had left her a letter which he penned while on death row.

Her mother wanted to pass it to her when she was in secondary school, on condition that they read the letter together. The rebellious teen had refused then.

An excerpt of the letter Adeline’s father wrote to her while he was on death row.

“I was in my 30s when I finally read that letter – the only physical thing that my dad left behind for me and the only way for me to hear his voice,” she said, wiping away her tears.

Adeline, who shares the same birthday as her father, had never met him as her mother discovered she was pregnant only after his arrest.

“He repeatedly urged me to be filial to my mum. He told me he regretted the past but found peace in what God said. He said that nobody’s perfect and every one of us makes mistakes. And he just had to face up to his own punishment.”

Her father’s letter brought her closure and comfort.

“I’m glad that he accepted Christ before he was sent to the gallows. I know I will see him again in heaven. That is the hope that I have; that one day, my family will be reconciled.”

“I was once like them”

In 2012, she got to know of Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS) through a friend. The very first time she volunteered at the PFS Care Club – its support group for children of inmates – she met Mrs Khoo Keh Hong, wife of the late Reverend Henry Khoo. Mrs Khoo asked: “Why do you want to volunteer?”

“I want to help these children because I was once like them. My dad used to be in prison and he was hanged,” came Adeline’s reply. Soon, the doors opened for her to join PFS full time. It was also during this time that she brought home a copy of Rev Henry’s book, Shoes Too Big, to show her mother.

When Adeline found out about the PFS Care Club, she was moved to volunteer: “I want to help these children because I was once like them.”

As her mother flipped through the book detailing Rev Henry’s family involvement with the prison ministry, she came across a photo of Rev Khoo Siaw Hua, Rev Henry’s father and founder of PFS. Pointing to his photo, she said: “He was the pastor that helped our family when you were young.”

It was Rev Siaw Hua who shared Christ with her father. When her father was executed in October 1979, Rev Siaw Hua was the one who helped her mother through the process of collecting the body and placing the urn in a columbarium. He and others in the ministry continued to reach out to the family. But lost contact after her mother moved without informing them.

Full circle

“After 30 years, God brought me back to the ministry that once helped our family,” said Adeline, who joined PFS as a full-time staff in 2013 and eventually became its family care lead. 

“Before coming to Christ, I regretted being alive in this world. But the healing process that God has brought me on has helped me to know His destiny for me. Though the earlier part of my life was painful, it is not for nothing. Because I am now able to share my story to help those who are going through what I did.”

Today, she oversees the family care ministry in PFS, reaching out and supporting families of inmates or those recently released from prison. What Rev Siaw Hua did for her family, she hopes to do for others – that they may experience the love of God and find an everlasting hope.

While her growing years were filled with pain, she now knows that God redeemed that and turned it around for good. She hopes her experience and encounter with God will encourage the PFS beneficiaries she meets.

“Psalm 139 has been an anchor in my life – I can praise God because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. His works are wonderful, I know that full well.

“Being in this ministry not only allows me to give back to society, it also allows me to use my life to encourage others. If God can do it for me and my family, He can do it for you too.”

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