Jacob Lim was 13 when he left home in a huff. His relationship with his single mum had been crumbling and quarrels had become constant.

“We quarrelled about anything and everything. Not being home, not doing well in school, skipping school,” he told Salt&Light.

Things had not always been this way. When Jacob was young, he had quite a good relationship with his mother.

(Back left to right) Ps Jacob’s wife Charmaine, Ps Jacob, (seated left to right) his mother and aunt. Ps Jacob was raised by his mother.

“It got worse in Primary 5 or 6 when she constantly compared my school grades with other people’s. No matter how hard I tried, it didn’t meet her requirements. Eventually I gave up trying.

“Then I had a big quarrel with her and decided to run away from home. I thought I could survive on the streets.”

His mother had been raising Jacob on her own since he was a toddler. She worked two jobs to provide for him and made sure that he never lacked anything.

“In terms of food, clothing, money to spend, I had enough. So it didn’t dawn on me that earning money was difficult.”

Out on the streets, he quickly he realised he did not even have money for lunch. He had to rely on his friend to share half a cheeseburger with him.

“That experience with hunger was when my worldview was formed that I couldn’t live without money.”

Already mixing with street gangs then, Jacob decided to sell pirated VCDs to earn a quick buck. That led to joining a gang, and then to dealing drugs.

“It fit into the worldview of ‘I cannot live without money’ and drugs was the fastest way to get money.”

There is a God  

Jacob’s first taste of drugs was when he was 13. A classmate two years his senior introduced him to marijuana.

Asked why he took the substance knowing what it was, Jacob said: “Peer pressure, curiosity.”

Though he was never an addict, drugs still got Jacob, now 43, into trouble.

When he was 17, he was arrested for drug-related offences. By then, he had worked his way up the drug-dealing ladder and was about to take over a bigger chunk of the business.

But because he was not arrested during a raid, he was only charged with possession and consumption of drugs. On his 18^th birthday, he began his two-year sentence at the Reformative Training Centre (RTC).

There, he started attending Christian chapel services.

“I was told chapel is more fun and there is chocolate to eat during Christmas. It was also a way to kill time,” he recalled.

It was not Jacob’s first exposure to Christianity. As a child, his aunt had brought him to church and he had attended Sunday School every week. He only stopped going in upper primary school because “the lessons got a bit boring”.

A year into his sentence, Jacob accepted Jesus as His Lord and Saviour.

“Hearing the messages, I knew that there is a God. I took my ‘N’ levels inside and, through prayer during the exam period, there was this calmness in me,” he said.

“There was a feeling that this God is real to me and that caused me to say, ‘It’s okay to be a Christian.’”

The lure of money

But his faith had no real roots in the Word. Once out of the cocooned environment of RTC, Jacob found it hard to stay the course.

“I didn’t have an interest to go to church. I lived in Sembawang and church was in Marine Parade. Travelling that distance was too hard.”

At first, he did try to keep his nose clean. He enrolled in a polytechnic to study Banking and Finance. But the lure of fast cash was too much. When his old gang friends got in touch with him, it did not take long for him to return to trafficking drugs.

After serving National Service, Jacob tried out different jobs in an effort to live right. But nothing was as lucrative as selling drugs.

“In a month, I can earn S$8,000 to S$9,000 just by working from 7pm to 9pm or 10pm.”

Whenever he passed by a church, though, he would “feel a prompting” to leave his lifestyle and return to church.

“But I was stuck in my habits and my lifestyle. I couldn’t give it up just like that. I kept telling myself, ‘Maybe one day I will return.’”

His motivation was to escape God’s wrath and judgement. But it was not enough to pull him away from drugs and back to his faith. The thought remained no more than a thought.

The Word that convicts

Five years later in 2006, it was the law that put a stop to his drug trafficking. His drug activities had caught the attention of the authorities. He was arrested one day after work. A search of his room uncovered the stash of drugs he had collected the day before to traffic.

“I was very disappointed and there was a lot of anger. My thought was: Who tipped off the police? I was also very uncertain, not knowing how long I would spend in prison and what my future would be like.”

He was remanded for six months awaiting sentencing. During that time, he was in lockup 23 hours of the day. The only way to pass time was to read.

“When my aunt came to visit me, she had asked if I wanted a Bible. I told her, ‘Don’t waste my time with this kind of things.’

“But in remand, I ran out of reading materials and my cellmate told me that religious materials were not part of the three books we were allowed.

“So when he passed me a Bible, I took it.”

The boy who used to find Bible stories boring started reading Bible stories again. Slowly, God’s Word convicted him.

“The first verse that convicted me was Proverbs 12:11. It hit me very hard. Isn’t that how I lived my life? Chasing after fantasy, chasing after money. That word, though harsh, got me thinking: Why am I living in such a foolish way?”

As he read on, more verses spoke to him. Luke 12:15 made him re-think his worldview that he could not live without money.

“If money is not all there is in life, what is my life for? With these two verses, I started to ponder.”

As the date of his sentencing neared, Jacob came across Hebrews 12:5-6. The admonishment to accept punishment prepared him for the sentence to come.

“When the judge said, ‘Six years, six strokes of the cane’, I was not flustered, not anxious. I could accept it.

“Compared to six months earlier – I would (have been) jumping.”

God also became personal to him through prayer. In remand, he could receive visitors daily. But every morning, it would rain.

“I would be like, ‘It’s raining. My family is coming to visit. God, can You stop the rain?’ And it would stop.

“First day it happened, second day it happened, third day it happened. I was gripped with a certain kind of fear. This God is so powerful yet He listens to this kind of prayer. That was my encounter with the amazing, powerful God.”

“My remaining years for You”  

In prison, Jacob dedicated his life to God.

“I went before God and said, ‘I have squandered away my years.’ I was 25. By the time I was released, I would be about 30.

“I told him, ‘Let me commit my remaining years to You and see where You will lead me.”

Thus began his “journey in following God”. Jacob went for chapel services and also joined the Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS) Christian Intensive Religious Counselling programme.

For 18 months, he was immersed in training of life skills Bible study, topical studies and counselling in preparation for life on the outside.

Ps Jacob (second, left) with his colleagues from Prison Fellowship Singapore.

As part of the programme, he had the opportunity to heal his relationship with his mother.

“When they brought us together in prison, we had been prepped to talk about how we felt. So I could voice out areas of disappointment and anger as well as apologise for the areas I did wrong.

“She had only listened to the teachers’ comments about me and didn’t listen to me. I felt I was not understood.

“When I was told her, she broke down and cried. She realised how her parenting style had a negative impact on me that caused my disappointment with her.”

The programme also ensured that Jacob would have a church to receive him and nurture his faith when he got out of prison.

Six months before completing four years of his six-year sentence, PFS offered him an internship.

“It was humbling. I dropped out of poly so I was a school dropout. Yet they were willing to wait six months for me when I had nothing to offer.

“I was grateful. I saw that as God bringing me through.”

A call to serve many

After his year-long internship, Jacob joined PFS as a staff. In that time, he became convinced that while people could help the inmates and their families, God could help even more.

“Social work is helpful in intervening in some of their issues but it was only intervention. To help more people, God has to work. People need God. And He can be there 24/7 where we can’t.”

That and his desire to know God better blossomed into a plan to go to a theological school. His pastor at his receiving church, Pentecost Methodist Church, put him on an internship programme to expose him to the inner workings of the church while he thought about what he would do if he earned a theological degree.

Ps Jacob (second from right) with his cell group members when he was at Pentecost Methodist Church.

“My pastor was trying to expose me to as many ministries in church as possible. I told him I wanted to study at TTC (Trinity Theological College) but I didn’t want to be a pastor.

“I thought Methodist pastors all came from brand-name schools and I didn’t. So I didn’t want to be a pastor.”

Because of his personal experience, Jacob had a passion for restorative work, particularly restoration of families.

“My pastor gave me an idea. He told me, ‘If you are going to do this alone, you can. But if you do this as part of a church, you can mobilise more people to do these things.’”

As Jacob prayed over his decision, he became convicted that God had called him to be a pastor.

“If God wants me to serve more people in the area of restoring families, I have to face my own inferiority.”

After two years as an intern in his church, Jacob went to TTC and graduated in 2017.

In TTC, he also met his wife Charmaine who was three years ahead of him. They married the year he graduated. Jacob is now a pastor at Paya Lebar Methodist Church.

Ps Jacob (right) with his wife Charmaine whom he met at Trinity Theological College.

Asked about his former worldview that placed money above all else, Ps Jacob said: “I may not earn a lot (compared to before), but I always have enough.”

Living simply and saving what he can has allowed him to pay for his wedding, honeymoon and new home right after graduation.

“When we check, ‘Do we have enough money? Eh, got enough.’ God just kept providing.”

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