The Lord Directs My Steps
Liam Kumar, one of our ministry interns, has just returned to India. He shares how God has been directing his steps since he first came to Christ and felt called to ministry.
I was born and raised in a Hindu family. However, in 2005, when I was a 10th grader, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. The doctor could not give us much hope because of how far the cancer had grown. I visited so many temples, asking the gods to heal and protect my mother but nothing happened. During this time one of our neighbours introduced our family to church, and the pastor and his wife began to come to our home regularly to pray for my mother. A few days later she began to recover from cancer. But doctors told us that my mother may not survive more than five years, but she has been cancer free for the last ten years by God’s mercy and grace! This has increased my faith in Him. This was how I came to know Him. In the year 2006, my pastor introduced me to the young adult group in the church (Love of Christ Ministries) and it helped me to grow spiritually.
Church gatherings and youth meetings encouraged me to fight against my insecurities (financial issues, condition of my mother’s disease, self-pity, anger) and trust God. Gradually, I understood that Jesus Christ is equipping me to overcome insecurities and anxiety. During that period my pastor asked me to start reading the Bible and 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 really encouraged me,
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
I understood that God never choose people according to their caste nor social circumstances, and He loves unrecognised people like me.
In 2011, I joined the Indian Army at the age of 19 as a technical officer. While in the army, I sensed God calling me to serve Him. I applied to resign from my job with the army and went through many interviews with higher officials before they finally allowed me to resign. After resigning, I visited some churches in my hometown but I never found transparency and humble approach from church leadership. In 2018, my brother asked me to visit Singapore. The house where I lived was near Eternal Life Baptist Church (ELBC). One day my brother gave me permission to attend service in ELBC. I went to the church hoping to find other Indians attending the church but I could not find any. However, Pastor Richard Loh and Joash Chan saw me and encouraged me to come to church regularly. ELBC helped me to grow my relationship with God. Brother Joash, a fellow Baptist Theological Seminary (BTS) alumnus, also encouraged me to consider studying God’s Word at BTS as I discern the ministry that God is calling me to.
I joined BTS in 2019, and during my first two semesters as a student, I struggled a lot because of the language barrier and financial burden. Some months later, I slowly began to overcome these issues and God helped me to transform as another person. Personally, I felt love and acceptance from the school and my friends helped me to overcome my struggles. Seminary education helped me to understand myself and my calling in a better way and equipped me to interpret God’s Word accurately. However, I experienced misunderstandings and communication breakdowns because of cultural differences. Thankfully, some brothers and sisters in GBC continuously helped me to overcome this issue. Moreover, they put in effort to improve my language skills. Ministry internship gave me an opportunity to be involved in different ministries and this process helped me to overcome cross-cultural barriers and understand my responsibility as a member of a healthy church.
Last year, God gave me an opportunity to help one elderly woman in Singapore. She was staying near my apartment and was struggling with depression and loneliness. For almost six months, I regularly communicated with her and finally, shared the gospel with her. I shared this incident with BTS’s counselling teacher and she encouraged me to focus on elder-care ministry. I noticed a larger number of elderly citizens suffering because of social isolation, critical illness and financial crisis. In my view, elder-care ministry is not only a need for Singapore but also all over the world. In the future, I hope to reach out to the elderly and serve among the elderly community. I believe every long journey begins with a single step. Therefore, I am planning to take up counselling course as it will help me understand the emotional and physical needs of people. The counselling course will also help me to understand and overcome my own issues and prepare me for future ministry.
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Liam shares his prayer requests during our service on 4 Dec 22: