In the Covid era phenomenon of supermarket shelves being wiped clean by anxious hoarders, those falling low on toilet paper but running high on fear may want to take a sheet from Elisha Tan’s 12 years in India as a pioneering missionary. 

“Please use your hand. Your left hand.” This was his advice to foreigners looking for loo rolls in India, his country of service. In the 1980s, they cost USD1 each in India – the price of a Coca Cola. It was a day’s wage for many. Such was the poverty in the communities where the former drug abuser lived and served.

But this heightened Elisha’s faith in the God who changed his life.

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, a teenage Elisha quit secondary school to pursue work in Germany. Soon, he got involved in taking and selling drugs. He was in and out of jail four times in both countries. But here in “real cells”, he found God. 

While incarcerated in Germany, a priest, whom he would never see again, gave him a Bible. He read it.

“I was impressed by how wicked Paul was, and how God still used him mightily,” he told Salt&Light. 

Later, going cold turkey in a Christian drug rehabilitation centre in Malaysia, a chaperone suggested: “Why don’t you ask Jesus to help you.” He prayed for Elisha.

“That night, I saw a vision of God, a rainbow-coloured figure. I opened and closed my eyes, but he was still there. I had a sense of peace,” Elisha said in wonder.

His withdrawal symptoms of headache, vomiting and running alternately hot and cold, left him. 

But Elisha would relapse and find himself behind bars yet again. And he started reading the Bible yet again – this time, one given to a fellow cellmate. 

“I started to share the Gospel, and one guy accepted Christ!”

Buoyed by God’s intervention, Elisha boldly negotiated with God for his release.

In 1986, Elisha headed to India. He was neither afraid of the unknown nor the hardship before him. “Not because I had lived overseas before. But because I had been in prison,” he said.

He knew he was “set free by God and not the wardens” when he was mysteriously allowed to go home before his court appearance. No one had posted bail for him. He thought he would have to go into hiding or risk being arrested.

“Then a still voice said to me, ‘Don’t you remember? You asked me to set you free. You wanted to be a missionary to serve me.’”

When he went before the judge, Elisha admit that he was guilty, adding: “From now on, I will obey all authority”, leaving out that he was quoting from Romans 13. 

“He was impressed and allowed me to leave.”

Keeping his bargain with God

Elisha tried to go to Bible school. But found he was not qualified. He hadn’t even finished his Form 5 in Malaysia. Then, one day at church, he met the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) team from Singapore.

He asked what qualifications he needed to join them.

“‘Are you Christian?’ they asked. ‘Yes!’ I replied.

“‘Then you are qualified.’”

Elisha went to Singapore to attend YWAM’s Discipleship Training School (DTS) in 1983. He subsequently attended their School of Evangelism. Reading the Word of God, he felt a lot of peace and “was inspired by Jesus who had compassion for multitudes of people”.

China, the most populous nation, was closed to foreigners at the time. So, in 1986, Elisha headed for the next most populous country, one where one-sixth of the world’s population resided: India. He was neither afraid of the unknown nor the hardship before him.

“Not because I had lived overseas before. But because I had been in prison.”

 Little money, big faith

Elisha served in Madras, followed by Calcutta. Using his first-aid training as a Boy Scout, “Dr Panadol” as he was nicknamed, provided primary healthcare and counselling to Bangladeshis in a refugee camp which he started at Uluberia, West Bengal, in 1989.

YWAM missionaries are known for living in tough conditions with little financial resources. Elisha and team were no different.

“Our meals were mainly rice and dahl. We only ate two to three pieces of meat a week. Even then, it was buffalo meat, not beef.”

It was in such poverty that his faith grew. “I learnt to trust and I learnt to give.”

Even though he was new to India, Elisha was asked to lead a team of DTS students to two cities to share the word of God on the streets.

“We had 900 rupees (about S$16) to last the nine of us for two months.” Which barely left them enough for meals once they had paid for their lodging.

However, after their ministry, the team would often find gifts of 1,000 or 2,000 rupees (S$18 to S$36) in their guitar box.

“Every time we received, I would ask someone to run to the church to give its pastor 10% right away.

“We had enough money to buy food, and send Christmas cards to our families. We even had enough to buy plates.”

A partner in life and missions

Elisha’s first few years in India were as a single man. Partly because he had been advised to avoid relationships for the first five years after giving up drugs. These years are the hardest for an addict coming clean.

“Drugs are very addictive. You feel like you need it every day. You have the will, but not the power. Resisting them has to come from God. That is why there is a good success rate from Christian-based rehabilitation centres.”  

When his “five-year curfew” was up, he felt God prompting him to get married.

Dutch nurse, Beppie, had moved from YWAM Hong Kong to India just three months earlier. They tied the knot on March 21, 1989, and she was always by his side in missions afterwards.

Their four children are now in their 20s. The couple have three grandchildren. Beppie also speaks Cantonese, Hindi and Malay.

The least evangelised place

From Calcutta, Elisha and Beppie decided to start a base in Himachal Pradesh. They chose its capital, Shimla, as it was the least evangelised place around.

“God was with us, and we had the right team,” said Elisha, on overcoming challenges that included not speaking the local language.

Among his workers was a Nepalese guy who did speak the language. “He had drug problems, but was a wonderful worker. I came from the same background, so I kept on believing him and trusting in him. God gave me opportunities, and I have given others the same.”

They started the base in Shimla in 1990, providing primary healthcare to a leper colony and to migrant Nepalese workers. Subsequently, they set up a drug rehab centre with the team from Hong Kong. Many of those undergoing drug rehabilitation also had HIV. Soon, people who had applied to do their DTS with YWAM in India, but failed the requisite HIV test, were funnelled here too.

The base also took in transient people who were recuperating, but had no bed in the hospital.

They provided cremations for the poor. They also started a preschool for children, as well as two primary-healthcare schools.

Miracles in Shimla brought non-believers to faith and into the small home Elisha and Beppie established.

These included a family of the baby which had stopped moving in his mother’s womb. He started kicking after being prayed over. “We named the baby Jeevan, which means life.”

On another occasion, the wife of a man named Karan came running out onto the street crying that her husband was dead. A elder a few blocks away came running and prayed for the man. He returned to consciousness.

“He said that he had been in a very hot place. He was very hot and thirsty. Which is what a lot of people who came back from the dead say.”

Karan’s whole family subsequently received Christ and are serving God.

Elisha was asked to leave the country in May 1998, when the political tide changed. By then, the home church which had started with six people had grown to more than 200.

“We never thought the church would multiply,” confessed Elisha. It was a blessing in disguise when the believers weren’t able to meet any longer in a fixed location, as they moved out to other locations in India to share the Gospel.  

“I see difficulties as opportunities.”

Helping others to fish

Talking to Salt&Light 37 years later as a 65-year-old grandfather suffering from liver cancer, Elisha’s pioneering spirit was still burning.

In between chemotherapy sessions, Elisha’s schedule was packed with trips from Kuala Lumpur to remote places in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

“God has sustained me not to sit at home and do nothing,” he told Salt&Light with a chuckle.

One of his initiatives was equipping missionaries and first-generation Christians to start a home-cooked food takeaway or delivery service with the help of a smartphone. These groups otherwise had few sources of income.

He took them through the steps, from costing to buying ingredients to cooking. In March last year, he was in Indonesia training a small group to make Hainanese chicken rice to differentiate themselves from the ubiquitous nasi padang offerings.

The home-based nature of the work eliminated headaches and overheads such as rent or hiring staff. “It only involves a few hours of preparation so that they can carry on with their ministry,” he said.

Elisha also used this opportunity to mentor and coach the locals. “Not because I’m successful, but because of my failures and weaknesses,” he said. “I help them reduce mistakes and be wise in making their plans.”

Three decades ago, when Elisha made his first foray into the mission field, such a move towards self-sustainability would not have been encouraged because “we live by faith” and it could be misconstrued as “you don’t trust God”.  

But such work provides much-needed income to supplement whatever little financial support they are receiving, he said. Also, many supporters would not be able to sustain a long-term financial commitment, especially when needs change.

“Some missionaries started as singles, like me. Then they got married, had three children. But still live in one room on the same support.” A supplementary income would be welcome. 

New Christians who may be treated as outcasts by their own societies, would also benefit from being self-sufficient and not have to depend on handouts. 

“In the book of Acts, there is no YWAM, no NGOs (non-governmental organisations). The people were working to earn their keep. We cannot keep sending money for so many years. It is important that there is a cut-off time, just as Jesus taught his disciples for three-and-a-half years, and then said, ‘My job is done, I am going.’”  

Elisha taught the locals to – not just fish with the proverbial fishing rod – but “to have a net to help other people as well”. 

Elisha Tan went home to be with Jesus on Oct 25, 2020, shortly after he spoke to Salt&Light. In a dedication to Elisha, YWAM Singapore wrote: “He dedicated much of his life to the Kingdom’s work, and we had the privilege of capturing a glimpse of this. We celebrate him, and the glittering example he still is, to all of us.”

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