In August 2018, Yenni Wu found herself standing nearly knee-deep in garbage in a slum in the Philippines.

The former communications director of a multinational company had squeezed in a mission trip to Manila with her cell group in between business trips.

“I thought I had seen poverty,” she said in a Zoom interview from New York City. Yenni had studied social work as an undergraduate and was not unfamiliar with societal needs.

“But nothing compares to walking into the garbage dump. You are overwhelmed by extreme urgency and poverty.”

That experience was the turning point in Yenni’s life.

“A lot of people go on a mission trip and cry a lot, but don’t let it change them,” she said. 

Unlike them, Yenni did not cry that first trip. But in the next six months, she returned to the slum twice. She also found herself rallying friends to sponsor a Metro child.

“The third time I was in Manila, I decided I wanted to do this for the rest of my life,” Yenni remembered.

Six months later, she packed her bags, bade farewell to Singapore and moved to Brooklyn, New York, to volunteer at Metro World Child.

Metro World Child is a Christian humanitarian organisation dedicated to serving at-risk children in urban centers like New York City, as well as rural communities around the world.

Founded by Pastor Bill Wilson in NYC in 1980, Metro’s mission is to bring hope and the gospel message to at-risk kids around the world, believing that “it is better to build boys and girls than to repair broken men and women”.

What is a meaningful life?

Born in Taiwan, Yenni was posted to Singapore in 2005 by Hewlett Packard to take on an Asia-Pacific and Japan role. She wound up staying for 15 years, becoming a citizen.

She joined City Harvest Church and became part of a cell group that went on mission trips to the Philippines. 

Doing any sort of mission work had never been on Yenni’s (first from right) radar. But during this trip to Manila with her cell group in 2018, God moved in her heart to surrender everything to care for “the least of these”.

“It was on my bucket list to go to the slums,” she said to Salt&Light. “So when my cell group leader said there was an opportunity to go, I took it.”

The trip came in between two international trips for her. “The timing was bad, but I just went,” she said.

Yenni reflected: “The defining moment usually comes unannounced. The turning point comes at an inconvenient time.”

When she returned to the slum for the third time to serve the children, Ps Bill asked her, “What do you want to do for the rest of your life?”

In 2019, the age of 45, Yenni found her answer and made a radical decision to join Metro World Child, the organisation that was helping those children in the slums of Manila, as well as children in other high-risk areas across the world.

It was not something that had been on her radar.

“I had never served before, not in cell group, not in church,” she said. “I thought I was not ministry material. I had no concept of full-time ministry.”

When she arrived in Brooklyn, she said to Ps Bill: “What do you want me to do?”

He replied, “You just hang around.”

Having come out of 25 years of corporate work and condensed her life into two suitcases and four paper boxes, Yenni had no idea what “hanging around” entailed.

Being prepared for the work ahead

Metro began in 1980 as a ministry to inner city children exposed to violence, drugs, gangs and poverty. 

The ministry has its famous yellow Sunday School trucks going around New York City at the same time to the same location every week to conduct Sunday School for the kids in that community.

It also has school buses that would pick children up and bring them for an exciting Sunday School service at Metro’s building, imparting to them the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The model has been so successful that it continues to reach out to at-risk kids in the same way. Now, this Sunday school is run daily — not just Sundays — except Mondays. 

Apart from being a bus captain that takes care of a specific group of kids every Sunday, Yenni, along with many Metro Sunday school teachers also conduct evangelistic “Sidewalk Sunday School” from a yellow truck that converts in a preaching stage. This truck goes to all corners of the five boroughs in NYC to preach the gospel to children.

It has been called the largest Sunday School in the world, reaching 600,000 children weekly in 23 countries globally, from the Philippines to Kenya, from South Africa to Peru.

This number is projected to cross one million next year.

Metro has another nine “R&D” offices in countries like Singapore which serve churches and sponsors.

Yenni started serving as a Sunday School captain, going on the buses, paying the children home visits and reaching out to new kids in the neighbourhoods. It’s a role she still plays now, with passion.

Then she was given another task. “I was asked to do set up Ps Bill’s lunch table,” Yenni recalled.

This meant she had to serve lunch for Ps Bill and staff members, set the table and then clean the dishes after lunch. 

Unexpectedly, this turned out to be the biggest challenge for Yenni. 

“I lived in Singapore for 15 years. I never cooked. I didn’t do housework. We Singaporeans outsource everything, right?

“But here, I have to cook three meals a day for myself. I have to do laundry, I have to do dishes. I was so mad at myself because I couldn’t do it.

“And on top of that I have to do everybody’s dishes. Something so simple took me one hour every day!”

After a month, Yenni realised it was an assignment from God. “I had never served anybody in my whole life. As a trainer and coach in China and Hong Kong, I was treated like a VIP wherever I went. 

“How could I believe that just because I moved to Brooklyn I would suddenly know how to serve?

One of Ps Bill’s most famous sayings is: “The need is the call.” Metro staffers like Yenni live by this, serving wherever there is need. At the peak of COVID, Yenni helped the National Guard pack and deliver food boxes to those in need.

“God moulded me and shaped me and really threw me into those challenging circumstances that I no longer can use my strength to serve. I have to be the ‘dumb’ person, the one who doesn’t know how to print or photocopy, because I never had to do it for myself.

“People think that you come to New York to be a missionary, you must have some challenging time working with the kids living in a ghetto. But my biggest challenge is something that I didn’t expect.”

Yenni came to understand it was all part of God’s process. For two and a half years she set up the lunch table, until one day Ps Bill said “Your time is up. Don’t touch a dish anymore.”

When his assistant went back to his home country, Ps Bill asked Yenni to assist him. Her corporate experience became an asset. 

“I traveled so much in my corporate life, so I knew how to plan his travels,” said Yenni. “So he started to see I actually brought extra value, because he travels every week to preach and raise and develop support.”

She became entrusted with speaking to pastors and churches in Asia. That opened doors for the ministry to expand even further to this part of the world. 

During COVID, Chinese-speaking churches would ask for Ps Bill to record sermons for them. Yenni wound up being interpreter for him.

Today she travels with him to Asia as his Mandarin interpreter, arranging his schedule, building relationships with churches and supporters and also raising awareness and support for the ministry.

Broken Heart Syndrome

Ps Bill Wilson is well-known not only for his unwavering dedication to the welfare of children, but for the many near-death experiences he has had.

He has been shot in the face, stabbed, hit over the head in New York City and many dangerous places he has been to serve the children there. He has had five concussions. But none of it ever stopped him from doing his ministry.

Since he started Metro in 1980, Ps Bill Wilson has driven a big yellow school bus every Saturday to reach out to children in the toughest neighbourhoods in NYC. Today, as long as he is in the US, he arranges his weekly schedule to be back on Saturday to drive his bus and serve the kids.

Due to his many injuries, Yenni volunteered to put together a folder of his medical records two years ago.

In February this year, she accompanied Ps Bill to a doctor for what was supposed to be a simple check up in Manhattan. After that appointment, he collapsed outside a restaurant.

God was in that whole situation, Yenni said. 

“If we had been in Brooklyn, the ambulance would have taken two, three hours and it could have been really, really bad,” she noted.

“But we were in Manhattan, and within minutes the ambulance came and brought him to the ER.

“If he had collapsed on the street, there was no way I could have carried him in the cold weather and called for an ambulance.

“It had been his plan to leave for Asia two days after his appointment, and if the heart attack had happened in Asia, who knows what might have happened?” 

The medical folder she decided to bring with her that day at the last minute came into play. Ps Bill was diagnosed very quickly with a heart attack and within minutes, he was being operated on.

“God provides,” she said. “Everybody told us we had the best doctor, a Korean-American. After that he came to see Ps Bill every day, and took personal interest to find out who he is.”

“He said he didn’t understand why Ps Bill’s heart condition was as bad as it was, but after learning about his life story, he told Ps Bill, ‘You have Broken Heart Syndrome. It’s a real health condition.’

“His heart is so tender, and he cares so much. His heart has been broken so many times for the children around the world and tragedies he’s gone through in life.”

Being with Ps Bill and serving in Metro these five years has transformed her. 

“When I went on that first Manila trip, I did not shed a tear. But I ended up in full time ministry and now, I cry very easily.

“God has really changed my heart.”

Read Part 2 of this story, where Yenni talks about the time she slept in a cemetery as part of her ministry. 

If you wish to support the ministry or sponsor a Metro child, find out more here.