He was once a gang leader and a crocodile wrestler.

But today, Leon Chester Stewart is a senior pastoral staff at St Paul’s Church, overseeing youth, young adults and cell group ministries as well as Christian education. 

His tale of transformation includes a prayerful mother, the audible voice of God and incredibly close shaves with law enforcement.

Six-year-old Leon with his mother Angeline.

In Part 1 of his story, despite being raised in a loving, Christian family, Leon joined a gang at 13 and chose to drop out of school at Secondary 3, after repeating both Primary 6 and Secondary 2.

He became known for his fighting prowess and rose up the ranks in his gang.

Even though he would twice be miraculously saved from being arrested for violent gang activities, he remained hardened and unmoved.

God was but a distant figure to the man who, as a child, had enjoyed Sunday School. He was not about to change his ways.

But God had other plans.

This is Part 2 of Ps Leon’s story.

Heart of darkness

Leon met his wife Lyra in January 1993. She was friends with his brother’s girlfriend and had gone to his house to hang out with her.

Lyra and Leon on a motorbike date.

“When she walked in, I was like, ‘Wow, who’s that girl?’ If anyone tells me there is no love at first sight …,” he trailed off with a smile as he recalled the moment to Salt&Light.  

They went on their first date that very night. She was 19 and he was 23. Six months later, they were married.

Showing their marriage certificate.

“There were things about me she didn’t like. For instance, she knew I was a junkie.

“Years later, she confessed, ‘It was your looks. I actually liked your bad boy image.’ We had a good laugh.”

Their first child, a daughter, came along soon after. But family life was not for Leon. Bowed by the weight of being a father, he found his escape in the party life.

Leon and Lyra with daughter Tara.

“I consumed dope breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had late nights and multiple extra marital affairs.

“Here I am thinking my wife didn’t know but nothing was hidden from her. But I didn’t really care. My heart had become so hard.”

Rescued, but not repentant

What Leon did not know was that his heavy drug use had put him on the radar of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).

By 1997, he had moved on to a warehouse job because the reptile park, where he had been working as a crocodile wrestler, had folded. One morning at work, he received a call from his wife.

The happy couple cutting their wedding cake with Leon’s parents and Lyra’s mother.

“Thinking about that call still sends shivers down my spine.

“My wife screamed on the phone, ‘CNB are at our house right now! Do you know what you have done? My baby girl is here. You have brought this upon us.’”

When he got home, he discovered that the CNB officers had searched the entire house, including behind the toilet cistern.

“I had a small jewellery box with a little packet filled with marijuana on top of the cupboard, just at the edge.

“I thought, ‘Die, they would have climbed up and found it.’”

While the officers did search the spot, they had come away empty-handed.

“I was very, very stunned.”

Ps Leon would discover later on that all his friends had gotten arrested during that drug bust and had ended up serving time. Once more, he was the only one inexplicably spared.

But the close call did nothing to change him.

“I became even more arrogant, more defiant, with late nights, partying, getting drunk and getting stoned.”

“Save my son!”  

Leon would receive another wake-up call.

In 2000, he and Lyra welcomed a son into their lives, born on the same day as their daughter, Tara, who was six by then.

Within weeks, though, little Gino developed a bad bout of bronchiolitis. He could not breathe on his own and had to be admitted to a high dependency ward.

Lyra and baby Gino.

“It really shook us. He was a pitiful sight, hooked up to an IV drip and an ECG machine to monitor his heart rate.”

As they sat by Gino’s bedside, Lyra wept and Leon prayed.

“I looked at the ceiling of the ward and said, ‘If there is a God up there, please save my son.’”

That evening, Leon’s younger brother, who had become a Christian, went to his house to pray for Gino.

“As I saw my brother off at the front door, he told me, ‘You need to trust God. Your son will be healed.’”

The next day at the hospital, they found Gino in his crib minus all the medical equipment.

Recalled Leon: “I got so angry. I stomped into the nurse’s station and scolded them, ‘He can hardly breathe. Why did you take out the equipment? You think I got no CPF to pay the bill?’”

When he eventually calmed down, they told him what happened.

At 4am the night before, Gino had started fussing. When every effort to comfort him failed, they unhooked him from all the medical equipment and picked him up to rock him.

As he fell asleep, they realised that he was able to breathe on his own.

Leon remembered his brother’s words. But he still refused to believe that God had healed Gino.

The voice of God

As he gazed at his son, something undeniably supernatural happened.

“I heard a very gentle male voice at the side of my right ear, saying, ‘Leon, after all that you have done, I still love you.’

“I got a shock because I had not consumed any drugs that morning. So I was sober.”

Lyra, who was sitting right next to him, heard nothing.

“I was afraid now. I kept looking in the direction of the voice. Then the voice came again.

“This time, it was the left ear. Same words. I was freaking out.”

In an effort to make sense of what had happened, Leon shut his eyes.

“As I did, I saw a vision of myself sitting in an armchair. There was a huge movie screen that was playing out my whole life.

“Every bit of my life from primary school – the fights, drugs, people I’d messed with.”

Leon when he was 17, holding his baby nephew.

When he tried to clear his mind again, he saw another vision. This time, it showed the faces of those he loved – his mother, his wife, his daughter.

“I was so broken inside that I could literally feel physical pain in my chest cavity. I broke down and tears kept falling from my eyes.”

He could not understand what was happening to him. So he called his mother and told her everything.

“She shouted the loudest ‘Hallelujah, praise the Lord!’

“She told me, ‘God has finally answered my prayers. For 18 years, I’ve been praying that the Lord would speak to you, that He would talk to you.

“‘It is God. He spoke to you.’

“She was laughing and crying.”

There and then, Leon dedicated his life to God.

“I looked at the ceiling and said, ‘My mum said your name is Jesus and that it was You talking to me. Show Yourself. I want to know who You are.’”

The hard work of healing

One of the first things he did after that incident was to make things right with Lyra.

“I remember I went on my knees and begged her for her forgiveness. I held her hands as she sat on the bed. She gave me a big smile and said, ‘All is forgiven.’

“God had given her so much grace.”

Indeed, God had been working in Lyra’s life, too.

“I found out much later that my wife had packed her bags after the CNB incident. My mum said, ‘No, we need to pray.’

“My mum had begun sharing the Gospel with her and ministering to her. She would take her food and spend time with her.”

Out of that painful season, Lyra became a Christian.

“Only God could have done that. No human being could have changed her heart.

“I didn’t think we would see one year together, much less 30. Now she is everything God had already ordained for me. She is my greatest supporter in the ministry.”

The road ahead was long though.

“Even after I heard the voice of God, nothing happened overnight. I was still smoking, taking dope.”

For the next three years, he worked with mentors in church because he had “so many addictions – drugs, violence, porn, gangs”. He also went for healing and deliverance sessions, oftentimes with cigarettes still in his pocket.

“Every time they prayed over me, I would throw up. I could feel something leaving my body.”

As he reclaimed his life, he also worked to restore his relationship with his mother.

“One Mother’s Day, I took her out to lunch and asked her, ‘Do you remember how you used to talk to me when I was young? Do you know how mean you were?

“And she said, ‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’

Ps Leon preaching at his church.

“I realised that she did her best as a mother. She had her own challenges. She didn’t know how to handle me.

“Now, she goes around saying, ‘This is my son. He works in church.’”

A prophecy fulfilled

God was not done.

In 2003, he was “at the lowest point of spirituality”.

“I had terrible evil thoughts, lustful thoughts. I was very down.”

His wife asked him to play the guitar for her while she led worship for a teaching session by a visiting pastor. That evening, still with “demonic thoughts” running through his head, he went.

As he sat down after the worship, the speaker called him forward and prophesied over him. He told Leon that God had made him “a very precise arrow” and that he would be working with “people who had never thought they would be part of the church”.

“He also said, ‘You will be astonished by what the Lord is going to do in you and through you. God will give you divine ability and a renewed passion.’”

Both Leon and Lyra fell to their knees trembling and weeping as the pastor spoke. Leon did not understand everything, but the demonic thoughts that had possessed him before fled in that instant.

Ps Leon (fourth, right) with his Prison Fellowship Singapore colleagues.

In the years to come, he saw how God brought the prophesy to pass bit by bit. He met Rev Lorna Khoo, then the chaplain of Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS), and was invited to join PFS as staff.

“The prophecy suddenly came back to me: People who never thought they would be part of the church.”

Two years later, he returned to the marketplace but would be called back to work in church.

“In early 2015, I was home from a midnight shift and I was about to sleep when I heard my name being called three times.”

By then, he knew the drill. He recognised that it was God.  

“I closed my eyes and said, ‘You are talking to me.’”

At the time, he had been under the mentorship of his pastor who had invited him and his family to worship at a church plant he was pastoring. God told Leon to call his pastor and talk to him about his “destructive thoughts” from hurts he had felt at his previous church.

“I was dealing with the area of forgiveness from the way I was treated when I was younger. I just had to be tough, to win, cannot lose face. So I was so angry, very bitter.

“God had to teach me to release forgiveness. I had to be brought low, low, low.”

God also showed him a picture of an olive. Only when the fruit is crushed can the precious oil flow from it. That was what God had planned for him. 

When he called his pastor, the man was not surprised. God had already told him that Leon would ask to meet him.

“What he said next floored me. He said, ‘The Lord loves you and He knows what you are going through.’”

Within a year of that conversation, the pastor invited Leon to the new church to which he had been posted.

From there, Leon was asked to work in the church, first taking care of church facilities and then of the youth ministry.

Ps Leon (second, right) with his mother Angeline, wife Lyra (second, left), children and son-in-law (centre, back).

He also returned to volunteer with PFS, journeying with men on death row.

“I see God’s hand in my life from the time the prophecy was given. The prophecy has been fulfilled.”

Read Part I of Ps Leon’s story here.

“Do you know this is a forsaken place?”: How Pastor Caleb’s heart broke for the drug addicts, ex-offenders and mentally ill in Chinatown

RELATED STORIES:

“Meet you at the gate”: Prison Gate Ministry helps ex-offenders chart a fresh life

Afghan aid worker who has chosen to stay: “I am not a brave person. Every day I pray to the Father and ask Him to help me.”

Afghan aid worker who has chosen to stay: “I am not a brave person. Every day I pray to the Father and ask Him to help me.”