When Ng Zhong De was just 17, he wanted to become a Pastor.

That was the year he became a Christian. A classmate he did not know very well had invited him to church repeatedly. Just to “shut him up”, Zhong De finally went. 

After his first visit to the Centre of New Life, he returned for reasons he still cannot explain. That second visit led to him praying to receive Jesus at an altar call.

“As a baby Christian, I thought that being a Pastor was the best way to serve God,” Zhong De, now 35, told Salt&Light.

When he read John 21:15-17, where Jesus called Peter to serve Him, that resolve was solidified.

“I felt God calling me to tend to His sheep and that, one day, I would not do what I wanted to do, nor go where I wanted to go, but that I would go where He wanted me to.”

Every part of that verse has since come true in Zhong De’s life – just not in the way he had imagined.

Zhong De (bottom row, fourth from left) with his youth group when he was a teen.

Closed doors

As part of his plan to be a Pastor, Zhong De enrolled in Singapore Bible College to pursue a Master in Divinity right after National Service. By the time he graduated, he was 27 and eager to finally fulfil his youthful dream.

However, every door seemed closed.

Zhong De (bottom row, third from right) with his classmates at the Singapore Bible College.

One day as he was reading about John the Baptist, who remained in the wilderness until the day of his public ministry (John 3:1-6), he felt God “highlighting that verse to me”.

“I felt that I should remain in the wilderness – in hiddenness – till my public ministry. I realised I should work in the marketplace to mature and gain life experience,” he said.

Yet, every corporate organisation he applied to never got back to him.

It was in that state of quiet dejection that he spoke to a leader at his church. She encouraged him to give St Luke’s ElderCare (SLEC), a Christian eldercare provider, a try.

“I don’t want to clean backsides”

When Zhong De reached out to SLEC, he was called in for an interview quite quickly. More notably, the interview was not conducted by a Human Resources representative, but by Dr Kenny Tan, the Chief Executive Officer of SLEC himself.

“He asked me about Bible school, about my pastoral heart. Then he said, ‘Is there a difference between a pastoral calling and the pastoral vocation?’”

Even though he had applied to be a driver, Dr Tan offered Zhong De the position of a Care Staff, telling him that he should be prepared to “get (his) hands dirty”.

Zhong De took up the job.

Zhong De (back row, left) with the rest of the Care Staff at SLEC Senior Care Centre@Rivervale, where he was posted when he first joined SLEC.

And so, the boy who grew up with a domestic helper doing everything for him became the man who washed dishes, mopped floors, wiped tables and chairs, cleaned toilets and prepared meals at the care centre.

Within the first month, Zhong De wanted to quit.

“One of the biggest things (that was difficult for me) was toileting. I had to help them go to the toilet and, if they soiled themselves, I had to pick up poop and clean the whole mess,” he said.

“It was very humbling. At 27 years old, my thought was, ‘I don’t want to clean backsides.’”

He struggled for weeks. There were days when, standing in the toilet with an elder, Zhong De questioned if he had heard God correctly.

A privilege to clean bums

The turning point came one day when Zhong De had an epiphany.

There was an elderly man who had been particularly difficult to deal with because of his mood swings. One day, after Zhong De had cleaned him up, the man could not stop thanking Zhong De.

“I think he was very embarrassed. It made me see him in a different light. I realised that no one wants to be helpless. It must have been a lot harder for him to be cleaned than for me to clean him,” said Zhong De.

“I finally stopped thinking of quitting after that.”

Caring for the elderly has given Zhong De (right) a deeper understanding of God’s servant heart.

Since then, the story of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet (John 13:1-17) has taken on a deeper meaning for him.

“In ancient times, they didn’t have shoes. The feet were probably the dirtiest parts of the body. Today, perhaps our backside is the dirtiest part of the body.

“If Jesus could wash their feet, there is no excuse for me. I realise that this was my discipleship, my version of washing feet.

“I started to see cleaning backsides as a privilege.”

Zhong De (right) at a mobile photography programme organised jointly with students from Hwa Chong Institute. This session taught the seniors how to take selfies.

Zhong De would go on to spend the next seven years of his career at SLEC, rising the ranks to become a Programmes Executive at the Programme Development Office at the SLEC Residence@Ang Mo Kio.

Through these years, he has learnt to communicate the Gospel in ways that is not so much heard, but felt.

“I am dealing with people who cannot understand the Gospel or say the Sinner’s Prayer. It cannot be that the Gospel is not available to them. I had to learn not to put God in a box in the way that He can move,” he said.

“Christianity is about the presence of God. Our job is to embody the Gospel and carry the presence of God to the people around us. They can still feel the presence of God through the way we love them.”

Service done in secret

In serving the elderly, Zhong De has also has caught a glimpse of God’s heart for His people.

For instance, in caring for seniors living with dementia, Zhong De has seen what he called “a parable of human life”.

“I was dealing with people who don’t remember me, can’t talk to me, can’t hear me. I realised that we are like this with God, too. We are hard of hearing, forgetful. We don’t remember the things that God has done for us.”

Yet, God continues to faithfully love and care for us all the same.

Zhong De (left) with his team from the Programme Development Office.

Zhang De also had to come to terms with not being remembered or even recognised for “helping them to walk, cleaning their backside, putting on their shoes, taking care of them”.

He said: “For a young person, being recognised, being remembered, figuring out our legacy is very important. But we are called to love and serve with no returns – and that’s okay because we are doing it for God.

“Many of the things we do, like helping them in the toilet, are examples of what Jesus talked about when He spoke of doing things in secret. Nobody knows. Maybe the quiet work is the real work.”

Cheap love

Of all these lessons, however, the biggest one he has learnt is the sobering truth of his sinful nature.

Whenever he encountered negative or hostile behaviour from the elderly, he often became frustrated and wondered: “Why do I have to put up with this?”

Giving another example, he shared that during the COVID pandemic, he was assigned to care for a man in his 50s whose appearance had been severely affected by a skin disease. He could not even speak because his facial structure had been affected.

“I remember thinking that if I had met him on the streets, I would have run away. But because of my work, I had to be close to him. I saw my own darkness and how cheap my love is. It is so easy to love somebody with a pretty face, but so hard to love and see someone whose appearance is so affected.”

Zhong De (right) with an elder at SLEC Residences@Punggol.

These dark thoughts surprised him. “Yet, in coming to terms with my own darkness, I realised that God is not surprised. He already knew,” he said.

“That was quite liberating for me. When you have named the darkness, confessed it, you also realise that His grace is sufficient and He loves you all the same.”

As Zhong De spent time with the man, reading to him and playing games with him, he learnt that the man had undergone several surgeries. None had been able to correct his condition.

“Over the course of the month caring for him, I learnt to see him as a person. It was a humbling and painful lesson.”

A new chapter

This July, Zhong De’s season at SLEC will come to a close when he takes on his new role as a Chinese Pastor at his church, fulfilling the dream that first took root in his heart when he was a fresh-faced believer at 17.

Though he has come to enjoy his work at SLEC, he was moved to accept the role in obedience to a God whom he knows has a purpose for his life.

That conviction was reinforced a year ago when he miraculously survived a car accident. While his car was stopped at a red light, a lorry travelling at full speed had ploughed into it.

“The back of my car was completely smashed. Both airbags were deployed. But I got out of it completely okay. The doctor couldn’t believe that I had no injuries,” he said.

“I became more resolved that every day after that is a bonus. My life is not my own.”

Looking back, he now sees his years at SLEC as an essential part of God’s preparation for the next chapter of his calling.

“The seven years were not a detour nor a distraction. They were necessary for formation and the pathway to be who God wanted me to be.”

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