Steve Chia was leading a charmed life. He was working in Suzhou, China and had become a global accounts manager. His wife Priscilla had a job in an international school there. His only child Shawn was adapting well to living in a new country.

Steve (standing) with his wife Priscilla and only son Shawn in China where he worked for 10 years until he returned to Singapore in 2008.

Then, in 2008, he received news that his mother back in Singapore was gravely ill and needed a complicated heart operation. Unless she went for the procedure, which would give her another 15 years or so, she would have but three months to live. She was 70 at the time.

“My mother was concerned that if she passed on, she won’t be able to see me, my wife and my son. She insisted that we come back or she won’t have the operation,” said Steve, now 63.

Within a month of receiving the news, Steve returned to Singapore with his family. He knew it would be for the long haul because he had to stay till his mother fully recovered. His company could not spare him for that long, so he quit his job. He had been in China for a decade.

Steve (third from left) with his family and his parents (third and fourth from right) at a family gathering.

“We were taken aback (by what happened). But we were trained not to question God. We just asked Him what His plan for us was.

“He didn’t let us know a direction then. It was like a test of faith. He just said, ‘You just wait and see.’”

“What if you die tomorrow?”

Shortly after their return, global financial services firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, triggering a domino effect that led to the 2008 global financial crisis.

It was in this climate that Steve started looking for a job. He sent out 21 applications but was offered nothing. As he was asking God: “What is Your plan for me?”, he met an ex-colleague who had become a property agent. It dawned on him that he could be a property agent, too.

Steve was a basketball player cum coach in his youth. He still plays today.

He did not know it then, but coming home and becoming a property agent would turn out to be a blessing.

Two years passed. One night while trying to get into the bathtub, Steve slipped and fell. He had taken flu medication and had become drowsy.

The next morning, he found himself trembling for no reason and wondered if it was related to the fall.

“I felt a prompting – on hindsight it was God’s prompting – to go to the A&E.”

A CT scan revealed that while there was no injury to Steve’s spine, there was a 4cm lump on the surface of his brain. He had to be admitted to hospital.

“I was panicking. I had never been so sick before. This was the first time I heard about a brain tumour. Everything went blank.

“Fear gripped me. My mother’s condition was still serious and she needed someone to take care of her. Would I be a burden to her? Could my wife manage? My son hadn’t even gone to NS (National Service) yet. My wife also got a shock.

“I told God, ‘God, help me.’”

Just the day before, Steve had been giving a talk in church and he had asked the attendees: “What if tomorrow you die?”

Now this question echoed in his heart.

The comfort from God  

The doctor who explained Steve’s condition to him told him the situation was “very serious”. There was no telling why the tumour was in the brain. But it had to be removed.

Steve also needed to be transferred to a hospital with the equipment to remove the tumour. He opted to go to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

“On hindsight, I think God directed me because the doctor who ended up treating me was the head of the Neurology Department.”

Meanwhile, as Priscilla prayed for Steve, she had a vision of a powerful right hand waving at three eaglets, urging them to soar. She knew the birds represented Steve, herself and their son.

His wife and son were his main concern when Steve was told he had a tumour in his brain.

As she searched the Bible to understand the symbols that she saw, she chanced upon Isaiah 41:10 and Isaiah 40:31. The verses explained exactly the vision she had seen.

Steve is especially grateful to his wife Priscilla who has truly been with him in sickness and in health.

“She was so amazed and it settled her fear. When she came to the hospital and shared it with me, I felt encouraged,” said Steve.

The wisdom behind “wait and see”

When they opened up Steve’s skull to remove the tumour, they discovered it measured 4.7cm, larger than they had first thought. It was non-cancerous but aggressive, meaning it was a fast-growing tumour.

Steve on the day of discharge after his first brain surgery.

The spot the tumour sat on was where the brain controls the limbs, which was why Steve had been trembling. After the surgery, he had to go for rehabilitation to learn to walk again. For the next four months, he was in a wheelchair. He could not work and required his wife to care for him.

“But I was grateful to be alive. I told God, ‘No more tumours.’”

Steve had to undergo physiotherapy to regain the use of his legs after the surgery.

Steve believes that being back in Singapore was a blessing because it gave him access to better healthcare. The switch to a more flexible work schedule as a property agent allowed him to concentrate on his health as well.

God had told him to “wait and see” when he returned to Singapore. Steve was beginning to see the wisdom behind the move.

Healed to be an encourager

His doctor told Steve that he would need to go for an MRI scan every three months for the next decade. Less than a year after removing the first brain tumour, they found another one measuring about 2.5cm during a routine scan.

This time, radiation was recommended because it was too soon after the first brain surgery to undergo another operation.

Steve with the team of healthcare workers in charge of his radiation treatment.

“When it (the tumour) came back, I asked God, ‘What is Your purpose for allowing me to go through this?’ The first time I asked Him this, He said nothing.

“This time, I began to understand that He allowed me to go through this so I can be more compassionate to fellow sufferers.”

After his first operation, many people in church came up to talk to him. Some had similar tumours, others had loved ones who had tumours. One senior he knew shared about his brain tumour. Until then Steve had not known that he had the same condition.

People from church came to support Steve.

“Having gone through it myself, I could encourage them to be strong, that God would definitely carry us through.”

Not over at all

After the successful treatment of the second tumour, regular scans would reveal nothing more for nearly four years.

“I thought it was over.”

In July 2016, Steve had just returned from sending his son to the airport when he collapsed from a seizure. At the time, Shawn was studying in Melbourne.

“I had this feeling that I was slowly shrinking and then I blacked out.”

Priscilla thought it was a heart attack. But a scan discovered a 4cm tumour in the brain. It was too large to be removed by radiation, so another brain surgery was required. This time, his doctor’s successor operated on him. This doctor would go on to be the Group CEO of SingHealth.

“How blessed am I,” said Steve, marvelling at how he managed to get one of the best neurosurgeons on his case.

Since then, every year or so, they would discover a tumour, sometimes two, in Steve’s brain. After the second radiation, it was deemed that surgery was the better course of action. So he has had to have five more brain surgeries.

It has been a 13-year journey.

Steve with his surgeon Professor PL Ong.

With every surgery would come a period of up to six months of recovery during which Steve would have to go through rehabilitation to strengthen his limbs.

“There is nothing you can do. You can’t control it. Why not leave it to God? He has prepared me from faith to faith,” Steve told Salt&Light when asked how he lives with the many re-surfacing brain tumours.

“The concern will be there: What happens if this is my last time? What will happen to my family? But not to the extent like the first time when I freaked out.”

Blessings still

Through it all, Steve can still see many blessings. When they were removing his sixth tumour in 2021, they decided to leave a smaller tumour alone: They could see it on the scan but were not sure of its exact location.

As a result, the surgery was a shorter one and Steve was discharged within three days. On the day of his discharge, Singapore went into lockdown.

In the hospital, Steve would read the Bible and sing worship songs every morning.

“If I had taken out both (tumours), I would have stayed longer in the hospital and been stuck there.”

Five months later, doctors discovered that the tumour they had left behind had grown. Steve needed another surgery. When they opened him up, they found a cyst in his brain that did not show up in scans.

“This was a blessing because the cyst would have remained there and I might have had a stroke.

“God knew ahead of time. He let me remove one tumour so that in the second operation they could discover the cyst.”

Faith lessons

Each time Steve discovered a new brain tumour, his first thought would be for his family. Then God taught him to let that worry go.

His son Shawn’s walk with God was of great concern to Steve and he is thankful God allowed him to see his son grow in the faith.

From the time his son was 17, Steve had been encouraging him to get baptised. His son had refused. While studying in Melbourne, he was invited to a church and, within three months, was baptised. Now 33, he is actively serving in his church.

In 2018, Steve and Priscilla (centre row, in white) joined their son at a Melbourne church conference.

“I cast my care on the Lord. It is not I who is taking care of them. It is God,” said Steve of his family.

At the last scan just before the Salt&Light interview, they found three tumours in Steve’s brain, each measuring only about 1cm. He will need another brain surgery soon.

Though the tumours keep appearing, Steve is thankful that he can still live a normal life. He can walk, although he needs hiking sticks to keep him steady. Driving is no longer on the cards but he can still travel . He eats and sleeps well, and can even hold down a job. In fact, this year was a “year of abundance”: He closed four deals.

“I have a lot of life. When I do this testimony, I am very thankful to God when I look back.

Steve posts Bible verses with photographs or videos through each of the times he recovered from the procedures as a way to testify of God’s goodness. He has more than 600 posts.

“God is still good all the time. We still don’t believe it is from God. But we cannot only accept the good and not allow the bad things.

“Ultimately, we are all sinners. We are all living in this day of grace.”

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