Articles by

Christina Wong

Illness

“Every night I tell her her name”: Retired pastor who’s spent 13 years caring for wife with Alzheimer’s

Retired pastor Alvin Ngo, 61, spends almost every moment of every day with his wife of 35 years, Wai Leng. They have been inseparable for the last 13 years. It would have been romantic had it not...

Outreach

Born into loss and debt, this drunkard became a pastor dreaming for 50,000 churches in Japan

It was January 2023. A room full of pastors, leaders and ministry workers were gathered at the LoveSingapore Summit, when a Japanese pastor took to the stage with his interpreter. He knelt down and...

Real Life, Real People

From failure to faith: A Japanese pastor’s journey of redemption

In October 2015, Pastor Takashi Funatogawa, or Pastor Tak as he is known to his Singaporean friends, was installed as the senior pastor of Sapporo Minami Evangelical Christ Church. He was only 34 at...

Real Life, Real People

“Jesus is my Boss”: The yakuza-turned-pastor who traded his finger for freedom

It was a lazy spring afternoon outside Ueno Station in Tokyo where our team had agreed to meet Pastor Kaoru Inoue. We hadn’t met him in person before, but based on photos we had seen online, we...

Do Good

“Thank you, Mr Christ”: Divine encounters through disaster relief

In March 2014, over 10,000 people attended Celebration of Hope in Fukuoka with Will Graham. Organised by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and led by Will Graham, grandson of the late Billy...

Missions

To be one of you: What it took for this Singaporean pastor to love Japan

Pastor Lam Wai Chan was 37 when he first received the call to uproot and relocate to Japan. Despite his love for the country and its culture, and his fluency in the language, it was not something he...

Do Good

Lazarus Ministry: Meet the people feeding Tokyo’s homeless since 2012

For 60-year-old Seiichi Arai, Christianity was something he had stumbled upon. The Saitama native had been taking up odd jobs in Tokyo and sought temporary lodging in various Internet and manga...

Movies & TV

When Life Gives You Tangerines: A daughter’s reflection on regrets, love and life

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Netflix’s slice-of-life masterpiece When Life Gives You Tangerines (starring IU, Park Bo-gum) broke records by becoming the highest-rated K-drama on IMDb and swept top...

Relationships

Is loneliness addictive?

In a survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) earlier this year, more than half of young people aged 21 to 34 said they sometimes feel anxious about talking to people in person and...