On Saturdays, while his peers are sleeping in or hanging out with friends, Mark Chay plays big brother to two siblings aged 11 and seven.

He takes them to church and church events. Going swimming and playing badminton as well as a visit to the newly opened Bird Paradise have been other fun activities they have done together.

Mark with one of the boys he mentors.

When the boys are anxious or afraid, it is Mark whom they call. When they have good news, they call him too.

“Yesterday, the younger one called me to say, ‘Wow, see I got a new T-shirt. It’s a Spiderman T-shirt.’

“Sometimes they call me just to say ‘hi’ or share with me what’s happening with them.”

Mark is part of a team of mentors under Prison Fellowship Singapore’s (PFS) pioneer mentoring scheme. They care for Care Club children whose parents are inmates or ex-offenders.

“We befriend them and watch out for them. We just want to inspire them and show them that they don’t have to walk the same path as their parents,” explained Mark, 27.

He knows how vital hope is. His father, too, is an ex-offender.

From abalone to plain rice

As a child, Mark enjoyed weekly lavish meals of abalone and shark’s fin soup. The family knew how their father got his wealth. He was stealing from his company to supplement his income as a cargo driver.

“He would tell us that the things he was doing was wrong. But he still did it anyway. He would also tell us that the lifestyle could not keep going on. He prepared us.”

His mother said nothing about this and Mark was too young then to form an opinion.

It was the year Mark entered secondary school that his father did not come home from work one night. The next afternoon, the family received a call from the police informing them that his father had been arrested. No one was surprised. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

Mark (extreme right) in secondary school. He was 13 when his father was imprisoned.

“The day before my father went to prison, he hugged me and told me that it was not his choice but he had to hand over the responsibility of the man of the house to me.

“Then he hugged me and cried. I wasn’t angry with him. I just accepted it.”

Mark’s father had been the sole breadwinner. With him in prison, his mother had to go to work.

Mark, who has two younger sisters, also found odd jobs to supplement the family income. From selling ice-cream to dropping flyers into letterboxes for a property agent, he eventually graduated to waiting tables and then becoming a technician. Eventually, he got an administrative job. All this while, he was going to school and then serving National Service.

Despite working hard, the money was never quite enough.

“I would buy chicken rice without the chicken. My friends who saw this would each give me a piece of chicken from their rice. With a few friends, I would almost have a full portion of chicken.

“When I worked at restaurants as a waiter, I would start at 1pm and have no food till 10.30pm. Then I would rush to catch a bus home.

“I became resentful. Why did I need to suffer? Why couldn’t I go out and play like my friends? If there’s a God, why was my life like this? I denied the idea that there was a God.”

Mark (extreme left) with his polytechnic friends.

Looking back, though, Mark believes that even while he refused to acknowledge God, God was watching over him.

“There were invitations (to go astray) but for some reason I did not. I’m truly grateful to God’s guidance that I didn’t go that way even though it was the easier route.”

A new life

In his 20s, Mark’s bitterness towards God began to fade as Christian friends came into his life. He even accepted invitations to visit churches though nothing stuck.

“The bigger churches intimidated me,” he confessed.

When he was 25, he met a girl who took him to her church. He stayed because of her. But when she returned to Malaysia, he was heartbroken.

“That’s when I started to seek Christ.”

Mark attended an Alpha course in another church. But he resisted the call to turn his life to Jesus even at the last day of the course.

“I had been self-reliant all along. I thought that if I chose to follow Christ, then all the decisions I had made in the last years would be wrong.

“Not many people would admit they are wrong, especially a guy with ‘guy pride’.”

But he was intrigued enough to call his pastor. Because the church was a smaller one with fewer than 100 congregants, his pastor was able to take Mark under his wing, personally discipling him.

Late one night, sick of all the “negative emotions and thoughts” swirling in his head, Mark prayed: “God, if You truly exist, I lay my life before You. Take me, guide me, lead me.”

He considered that day the day he became a Christian.

“I was crying a lot because my life had not had an easy path. Growing up, I didn’t have a father figure. When I became a Christian, I got to see that God is a Father to all.”

My father’s eyes

Not long after becoming a Christian, Mark felt the need to “do something for God”. As he looked around his church, he did not see any ministry that he could quite fit.

Then one day, former founder of the Yellow Ribbon Project Jason Wong came to preach in his church.

“He shared the perspective of a prisoner. What he preached resonated with me.

“I had been holding a grudge against my father since I was young. But I hadn’t seen things from his perspective.

“He was alone in prison, and he came out alone and broke. His family was not even there to pick him up.”

Too excited to sleep after the epiphany, Mark called his pastor late that night and asked to be connected with PFS. With his family background, he was perfect as a volunteer with Care Club, a programme within Prison Fellowship Singapore’s Family Care Ministry that reaches out to children of inmates and ex-offenders.

The PFS Care Club, where volunteers engage with children of inmates and ex-offenders. Photo courtesy of Prison Fellowship Singapore.

Every week, Mark takes his young charges to church or special children’s activities. But more than that, he shares his life experiences with them.

“We just want to make sure they don’t go astray. I have kids who come up to me and say, ‘Kor Kor (Big Brother) Mark, everybody has a maid, I don’t have a maid. It’s so unfair.’

“I tell them, ‘It’s alright. I’ve been there before.’ Then I share with them about my life. I am grateful that God orchestrated my life in this manner so that when children ask me such questions, I am able to understand them.”

Big brother

Now, Mark has added mentoring to his ministry. He is part of Care Club’s pioneering programme and has two siblings – aged 11 and seven – under his care. Their father was recently released from prison for drug offences.

“They live near me so I have more opportunities to form a stronger relationship with them.”

Mark playing badminton with his mentee.

Like any big brother, Mark makes it a point to be there for the highs and lows of his mentees’ lives. When he found out that the 11-year-old had a situation in the family that upset him, Mark took the boy out to celebrate his birthday and encouraged him to share his concerns.

“Maybe God was working in his life as well. When I sent him home, he hugged me and kissed me on my cheek and told me, ‘Mark, I love you.’

“I was like, ‘Wow!’ This must be what it’s like to have your own kid hug and kiss you.”

Because of their family circumstances, the older of the two brothers is always looking for ways to make money.

“He told me he wanted to sign on with the army. I asked him why. He told me because there is a lot of money to made in the army.

“When he went to a church camp, he wanted to be pastor because he thought pastors made a lot of money,” Mark said with a smile.

“I was able to share with him that, when I was young, I also thought about how I could make more money to change the world so no one would suffer like how I was suffering.

“Now, I just want to change the world one family at a time. I’m not ashamed of my past. I see it as a learning journey and it is God’s grace that I can bring God’s light to households.”

Though it is early days yet in the mentoring journey, Mark has plans for this to be a long-term relationship.

“I always tell my boy, ‘Next time when I have children, it is your turn to look after them. When I get married, I will invite you.’”

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