Teenage boy likes girl. They go on a few dates but their relationship doesn’t take off. They lose touch with each other.

Thirty years later, he comes across her photo in the newspapers. Her face and hands are covered with burns in an explosion that rocked a luxury hotel in Jakarta, killing 13 people and injuring 150, many seriously.

The boy himself had survived a near-death experience.

Concerned, he reaches out to her. This time, they click. Seven months later, they marry.

Carol and Seng Hock will celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary this November.

This isn’t a movie from Hollywood, but the real-life love story of Singaporeans Pang Seng Hock and Carol Chia, who are 65 this year.

A story three decades in the making

School counsellor Pang Seng Hock came across a news article in The Straits Times about a suicide bomber who had detonated a bomb at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta on August 5, 2003. 

News clipping from The Straits Times reporting on the painful skin graft surgeries Carol (pictured), her three colleagues and other survivors went through after the blast.

He felt “burdened” when he realised that one of the victims was a pre-university schoolmate he had had a crush on 30 years earlier.

Seng Hock last saw Carol Chia in the late 1970s, when he had just finished National Service.

Now, 30 years later, he reached out to Carol through a mutual friend.

They met for dinner on a Friday night in April 2004 – eight months after the blast.

“We clicked,” Seng Hock told Stories of Hope. “We talked till 4am.”

They were both single and in their mid-40s.

“The fruit ripened many years after we met in a way we could not imagine,” said Seng Hock.

Dating extras

Carol doesn’t remember much about Seng Hock from their days as pre-university students at Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) Barker Road.

“The anaesthetics from the operations after the blast messed with my memory,” she explained.

“I had a big crush on her,” admitted Seng Hock of Carol, pictured during their pre-university days.

She only recalled that they went on double dates, but their relationship didn’t take off: “His good friend was dating my good friend, so Seng Hock was an extra, and I was an extra.”

Seng Hock admitted: “I had a big crush on Carol.

“I didn’t tell her how I felt because I was busy with other pursuits like the Boys’ Brigade.

“But when I looked through the journal I had kept over the decades, I realised that I dreamt of Carol from time to time.

“It was always a nice dream,” he said.

“It gave me insights into why I had remained single all this while.”

Bearing her wounds

Re-meeting Carol 30 years after their school days, Seng Hock was struck by one difference.

“I remember she was a lot darker in pre-u because she was on the swimming team.”

But Carol otherwise looked just as he remembered. 

“Seng Hock could see through my physical and emotional injuries and love me in spite of them,” said Carol. The scars (pictured) on her hands have since lightened considerably.

It was only eight months after the blast and Carol still bore the scars of the horrific attack. But, like Carol’s family, Seng Hock looked beyond her injuries.

He said: “I was very inspired by the way she bore her wounds and went through the healing process.

“She’s a very strong lady.”

In church one day, Carol showed him the wounds on her hands.

“She was commenting on how ugly her hands were because of the scars,” said Seng Hock.

“And then the Lord just gave me a verse, a Rhema word, to assure her, ‘For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus.’” (Galatians 6:17)

Perfect timing

The reunited schoolmates found that they had much in common.

He was a full-time counsellor employed by Barker Road Methodist Church to provide care to the boys at the adjoining Anglo-Chinese School. She was a volunteer counsellor with Wesley Methodist Church.

They quickly became each other’s net of support and “safety valve”.

It was not just Carol’s time of need, but also Seng Hock’s. He was going through a time of grief.

“My mum, Lily Chia, had passed away – and God brought Carol Chia into my life a week later,” he said. “God’s timing was so good.”

Carol, still recovering from her injuries at that time, said: “I was fascinated that here was someone I could talk to openly about what I had been going through.

“I felt responsible for the big trauma my family was going through after the blast. I tended to disguise my real pain with them as I didn’t want to worry them.

“Seng Hock provided comfort and perspective to what I was going through.”

She was also “captivated” by how much Seng Hock loved God. 

“He shared how the Lord works, and explained Bible verses I didn’t really understand.”

Near-death by water and fire

Would they have gotten together if not for the bomb blast that had irrevocably softened her heart? 

“Emphatically no!” said Carol, who had had “no time for people” in her 25 years of work as a commercial kitchen consultant before the blast.

When praying over their decision to marry,  “the Lord gave me verses that showed me that we were on the right path”, said Seng Hock.

One was Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you cross rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned, nor will the flames hurt you.”

It spoke personally to Seng Hock. He had survived a near-drowning (water) in Tasmania, Australia, when he was 16, while Carol had survived a bomb blast (fire).

Seng Hock at a beach in Tasmania in 2020, 46 years after he nearly drowned during a Boys’ Brigade (BB) camp. He couldn’t remember the exact beach where it had happened, but took a photo at one which had an anchor and a cross (features in the BB emblem).

Recalling the near drowning while at a Boys’ Brigade camp, he said: “A rip tide pulled me and a friend into the open sea.”

Seng Hock broke free from his friend’s “death-grip” and “tried various life-saving tows”.

“But it was no good. The sea was too choppy.

“I cried out, ‘God, I’m too young to die!’

“Then I recalled the basic life-saving drill – the hip-tow. It saved us that day.

“That experience always stuck in my mind. It was very traumatic. But God spared my life.”

Married at 46

Seven months after they reconnected, 15 months after Carol survived the bomb blast and 30 years after Seng Hock first had a crush on her, the two tied the knot in November 2004. They were 46 years old.

Exchanging rings. The bride, still healing from her wounds from the blast, wore compression garments, like this glove, to prevent keloids from forming.

Saying “I do”, three decades after Seng Hock’s crush on Carol.

The officiating pastor was a former schoolmate from their year at ACS.

Worries about the health of Carol’s father hastened the wedding.

“Carol wanted to get married quickly in case he didn’t live long enough,” said Seng Hock.

Showing their respect to Carol’s parents with a Chinese tea ceremony at their wedding.

“But Dad’s health improved, and God gave him more than another 10 years with us!”

Said Seng Hock: “My only regret was that my late parents never got to meet Carol.

“But we will meet in heaven at the end.”

Beauty from ashes

When considering whether to marry, the couple had also prayed about whether their union would increase God’s Kingdom.

“God provided me with a helpmate in my own life, and in service to the Lord,” said Seng Hock, a school counsellor at ACS for 15 years.

The way we were: Seng Hock put together this collage of him and the girl he had a crush on during their Pre-U days (top photo), and attending a school reunion with her as his wife.

Carol joined him as a supporter. 

Seng Hock has since retired.

As a couple, Seng Hock and Carol also facilitated a module on communication and conflict management at a premarital course at church. They, too, learnt from it and it bettered their relationship immeasurably.

Said Seng Hock: “I always reckoned that, if I was to be single all my life, I would maximise my singlehood to serve God.

“I never expected to get married. It was something that just came out of the blue.

“It was a gift from the Lord that we both could not refuse.”

Seng Hock encourages people who are anxious about their marital status: “Marriage is not for everyone. Singlehood is not for everyone, either.

“The most important thing is to follow the Lord closely and accept the gifts that He brings to us. Work closely with the Lord and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

“Everything happens in God’s time,” he added.

“When the fruit ripens, it will drop. If it is not ripe, it won’t drop.”

As he and Carol have seen: “God can take a terrible situation and turn it into something beautiful.”

Check back this weekend for Part 2 of this story commemorating the 20th anniversary of the devastating 2003 Jakarta bomb blast which claimed 13 lives and injured over 150. Read how Carol heard a voice that led her out of the black smoke and rubble of the blast and into the Light.

This story was originally published on Stories of Hope. 

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