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His 27-year-old wife Wiki Tay took her last breath just six months after a lung cancer diagnosis.

Wiki’s funeral wake in Singapore.

As Gershon Liew flew back to Singapore from the United Kingdom with her body, he was one of the first few people in Singapore to contract COVID-19 in 2020.

Gershon at the hospital, waiting to be tested for COVID.

Being infectious, he could not even attend his wife’s funeral to send her off.

Gershon (right) attending Wiki’s funeral on Zoom because he had COVID and could not be there in person.

Doctors told him that there was no cure for COVID then, and he asked to sign a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) form while he was warded in hospital.

“At that time, I thought how convenient it would be for me to join my wife Wiki in heaven if I had just died on the hospital bed,” Gershon, now 41, told Salt&Light.

Gershon’s hospital bed when he contracted COVID.

When he was discharged from the hospital 11 days later, Singapore went into its first day of a national lockdown. Gershon was not allowed to be in contact with anyone; not even his family members could come to visit and comfort him in his grief.

“I was on my own and had to process my grief by myself. I had to cook and do everything on my own, even as my life had fallen apart totally. I cried myself to sleep every day for several months,” he said.

Wiki, with her family members, 48 hours before she died.

It did not help that his pastor and best friend who supported him through the earlier days of his grief caught COVID from him and had to be sent to the isolation ward. On top of mourning for his wife, he also battled guilt for passing a potentially fatal and unknown disease to someone who was helping him.

Having to wake up and plod through each day was a struggle for Gershon. In Wiki’s absence, everything seemed meaningless. It would be months before Gershon, a portfolio manager, could find the motivation to start work again.

“I knew Someone was crying alongside me.”

Along the way, however, Gershon forced himself to talk to God about how he was feeling.

“I knew I could get bitter at Him for not healing Wiki, but I could also get better by talking to Him about it,” he said.

So, he went running every day. As he ran, he spoke to God and listened to worship songs, especially those which sang about loss and grief. The songs spoke to him, and he found the words to express what he felt through their lyrics.

“Slowly but surely, I was affirmed of God’s love and His presence. I may not have the answers to my questions, but I knew God was with me. Though I cried, I knew Someone was crying alongside me,” he told Salt&Light.

On many occasions, whether he was in his room or at a park, he felt God’s presence tangibly or through an emotional conviction. Once or twice, he saw in his mind’s eye the Father sitting next to him, and comforting him by putting His arms around his shoulders.  

“I don’t understand everything, but I know I cannot be angry with the One who is going to hold the hands of my beloved in eternity,” he added.

The wedding of Gershon and Wiki. When she passed on, all his dreams for a future with her and to have children with her also died.

A year later, he started seeing a therapist. The sessions were effective in helping him process his grief and regulate his emotions.

That same year, Gershon began to feel ready to move beyond his personal grief to help others. 

He had experienced the benefits of therapy when he sank into depression after Wiki’s death, and hoped to help more people get back on their feet again by making therapy more accessible.

He wanted to honour his wife’s legacy by advancing mental wellness in Singapore, a cause that Wiki was passionate about, being a clinical psychologist.

Sponsoring free therapy for those who need it 

In October of 2021, Gershon partnered the charity arm of his church – City Harvest Community Services Association (CHCSA) – to launch an initiative to help people who cannot afford therapy get access to professional help.

The initiative is still ongoing. So far, Gershon has sponsored S$50,000 to run the programme. A total of 110 individuals have utilised over 360 therapy sessions so far.

“Some of them have major depression. Many of them had hidden mental health issues that they didn’t even tell their family about. One anonymous user said that if not for the sponsorship, he or she would probably still avoid seeking help,” said Gershon.

A certificate of appreciation conferred to Gershon for his efforts in supporting his church members to get therapy help.

In 2022, Gershon took a break and decided to travel – for the first time without Wiki. While hiking in Norway, he stopped by a farm and felt the Lord speak to him as he passed a flock of sheep.

“Step into a place to lead My flock again. Provide direction in a time of darkness and a safe space for a community that is hurting,” God told him.

Due to the pain and grief that he had gone through, Gershon was able to relate keenly to those who were also suffering and in pain. Though he had experienced losing his mother when he was only 21 years old, losing his spouse so early in life was the most gut-wrenching experience he had ever gone through.

This was also the period of time when church services were held with many restrictions and safe-distancing practices, making it so that only a handful could physically be in church every weekend.

Gershon felt those years of being away from their spiritual haven exacerbated the pain and suffering Christians were experiencing, but it was a topic that few churches addressed adequately.

“How do you hold the tension that God is real and yet He is not intervening in your situation? How do you not victim-blame (‘Oh, you’re not praying fervently enough’) or brush off someone’s pain by saying God is sovereign and there must be a purpose behind it?” said Gershon. 

He wanted to help others who are suffering to understand the theology behind all these and to help them see that someone else sees their pain. He wanted to assure them that God is still with them, even when healing does not materialise.

Journeying with fellow sufferers 

So Gershon opened up his home to anyone looking for support and someone to journey with them as they faced various challenges in their lives.

Through word of mouth, people began to come to this small group – called The Collective – about 12 to 15 people over the months and years. Three of them were cancer patients; the rest had other illnesses or were going through divorce or relationship problems.

“I conducted a series of sharing on pain and suffering and we had intimate group discussions about the group members’ own sufferings. We prayed for each other. The aim was to encourage people to look to God in their darkest days,” Gershon explained.

Gershon opened up his house to people who were going through difficult losses or challenges in their lives.

“I reminded them that our hope is an eschatological one – that even if God didn’t heal in this lifetime, we will still be reunited with Him in the life after.

“I was still talking to one of them the day before he passed on – his faith was so inspiring,” he told Salt&Light.

A vision of co-labouring with his late wife

In May 2023, Gershon’s pastor told him that it would be a good idea for him to go on a mission trip.

He did not feel particularly desirous of one, but obeyed his pastor as she was his spiritual mentor.

“I signed up for a mission trip to Mount Bromo (in Indonesia) not realising that it was a family mission trip. Everyone who was there was with their family. I was feeling so sorry for myself because how I wished Wiki was there to minister together with me,” he remembered.

During the trip, the missions director sent him out to two Indonesian churches to preach.

Gershon preaching in one of the churches in Indonesia.

After preaching, Gershon laid his hands on the people who came forward during altar call and prayed for them.

Gershon praying for the sick after preaching in an Indonesian church.

Shortly after, the senior pastor of the church came up to him and said: “Just now when you were laying hands on the people, I saw in the Spirit that there was another person standing behind you and laying hands on you as well.”

Gershon replied, through an interpreter: “Oh, I know this. Last time, I remember hearing a pastor share that there was once when he laid his hands on people, he could see the Holy Spirit putting His hands on his own shoulders.”

But the Indonesian pastor corrected him: What he had seen was the outline of a woman. 

“The person was your wife. She was ministering alongside you,” he said.

Gershon praying for Pastor Jackson, the one who saw the vision

That night Gershon recounted the incident to his mission team. He realised, as he spoke, that it was the first time he referred Wiki as his “co-worker and sister in Christ”.

“I didn’t mention her as ‘my wife’ and that caught me by surprise. I felt it was the Holy Spirit reminding me of Hebrews 12:1 about us being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, which included those who have gone before us, our co-labourers in Christ; and of Matthew 22:30 that there is no marriage in heaven,” he said with tears in his eyes.

It was a significant line in the sand for him, spiritually and mentally.

“That was such a powerful revelation. That identity has shifted. It is not something I can achieve by myself – to move on from grief. It takes a work of God to heal a heart,” he said to Salt&Light.

Using his pain for good 

During the mission trip, Gershon sensed that God wanted to launch him into a ministry to the suffering in a larger way. What he did not expect was that it would happen almost immediately.

Two weeks after the mission trip, Gershon flew to Africa for a safari trip. It was meant to be a break for him.

The people in his tour group started out as strangers but grew much closer to each other after doing many fun things together, like camping and seeing the Big Five animals out on the vast land. 

Gershon up close with a giraffe in Africa.

The last activity of the tour was kayaking in the river. It was meant to be a leisurely kayaking trip, with the rapid drops being mild and shallow.

Gershon viewing a waterway from atop.

Gershon and his kayak partner – both experienced kayakers – went first. Upon reaching the first rapid drop, his kayak went through it without a hitch.

But the kayak that came next capsized and so did several other kayaks that followed after. Though the rapid was shallow, the churn of the water kept the four to five kayaks stuck under the rapid, with the people on them submerged in the water under the kayaks.

“His older son asked me the same questions that I had asked God before…”

A few people floated down the river and were rescued. Gershon managed to rescue one woman from the waters and rowed her to shore.

When he came ashore, he saw another woman – a mother – who was unconscious after being pulled to shore earlier. He did CPR on her but she had turned blue by then.

He then rushed to check on another man who had also been submerged for some time under the kayak, only to find that he had also drowned.

For the next few hours, Gershon sat beside the woman’s husband and her two children – who had witnessed everything that happened.

“Her husband was wailing, and I could understand his pain because of the loss I went through,” said Gershon.

Apart from supporting the grieving husband, Gershon also spent the next two days counselling his two children.

“His older son asked me the same questions that I had asked God before – why did this happen? Why did God have to take her away? He asked if he had been a better boy, would God not have taken away his mum?”

Having had the experience of repatriating Wiki’s body back to Singapore, Gershon could also help them out with the technical and administrative aspects of repatriating the two bodies back home.

“I gave the father advice on how life would look like for him and the kids in the next coming months because I’d been through it. We also held a group meeting to help the other tour members to process what happened,” he recalled.  

“It was highly dramatic and extreme, but it also became very clear to me that God has special plans for me to use my pain for good,” he added.

Nine deaths within a year

In the next one year, he would go on to receive the news of the deaths of seven more family members and friends.

First, it was of his good friend’s father, then his paternal grandmother, then his mission trip friend who died of a heart attack in his 30s, then his Collective member who died from blood cancer at 37, then his cell group member, 29, who died from cancer in the brain and spine, and then his best friend’s father and finally, his maternal grandmother.

His grandmother’s cremation service.

Gershon (far right) with his cell group.

After Wiki’s death, there were three situations that were triggers for Gershon: Weddings, hospitals and funerals. They brought back memories of Wiki and his traumatic loss of her.

Yet, as he received news of his loved ones dying, he would attend every day of each wake. He also visited his grandmother, who had fallen into a coma, every day in the hospital before she died.

“I had flashbacks while in the hospital and at the wakes. It was very traumatising for me. I chose to be there for my friends because I experienced the same pain of losing a loved one and I knew how important it was to just be there for someone who was grieving. Their comfort in a time of darkness was more important than the trauma I had to go through,” said Gershon, explaining that this was his way of expressing God’s love to them.

The Collective stopped gathering in February last year. Gershon felt it had done what it set out to do – to walk with others in their darkest time of suffering – in the two years since its launch.

Going forward, Gershon hopes to scale up his efforts, perhaps by setting up a foundation, to gather resources to journey better with people who are struggling in life.  

Through his own encounters with grief and loss and in journeying with others with similar experiences, Gershon has come to appreciate the preciousness of God sitting with Man in his suffering.

“He may not intervene at times, for a whole list of theological reasons, and for mysterious reasons, but I know for sure that He was with me.

“He may not have answered most or any of my questions, but on hindsight, I see how He has been working in my life and that gives me hope and assurance for my future – on this earth and in the life after.”


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About the author

Janice Tai

Salt&Light senior writer Janice is a former correspondent who enjoys immersing herself in: 1) stories of the unseen, unheard and marginalised, 2) the River of Life, and 3) a refreshing pool in the midday heat of Singapore.

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