We are very ordinary people. God really uses ordinary people.

I used to think that mission work is about going places to help people. But my journey has brought me to realise that real impactful work happens when we serve people.

Especially for young people, not everyone has specific professional skills to bring into the mission field. But that’s fine, God can use you and you can still serve.

I once brought a team to visit 200 family members of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. They were people who had lost their fathers, husbands or sons to the war.

All of them were in extreme grief. I had never preached to such a heavy crowd before. You can say “God loves you” or “God is with you”, but these words wouldn’t mean much to them because they were just so sad.

I had a professional trauma counsellor and an inner healing minister on my team. So they practised what they had been trained to do. The trauma counsellor asked the mothers to go back to the memory when their sons first called them “mama”, or when they took their first steps.

Then, they were told to say goodbye to their sons so that they could move on.

The inner healing minister told them to forgive the Russian soldiers so that they could move on. She even gave her own example of how she forgave a friend who had hurt her in church and lived in freedom afterwards.

Sometimes we might want to do our own show, but we need to learn to go low, and lower still.

But what happened was that many of them started breaking down, some got angry, and seven of them even fainted. They missed their sons so much.

So when they remembered and tried to say goodbye, they simply couldn’t take it.

They couldn’t forgive the Russian soldiers. They were not just dealing with people who had hurt them in relationships. These were the people who had killed their very loved ones.

So I went to apologise to the pastor there.

I was the team leader of an international team, bringing 25 professionals there to help them, but I didn’t even know what to do. People had fainted and people were angry.

The pastor told us that we should never say that we understand because they had gone through so much, and we had never been in their shoes.

We shouldn’t ask them to forget their sons or compare forgiveness. We must allow them to grieve.

The pastor asked us to split into small support groups and just listen to the families. We heard their stories, cried with them and hugged them.

That felt so unproductive in my Singaporean mindset but the locals actually found it so helpful. They felt so heard and seen. This was new to them because everyone there was grieving, and they couldn’t do that for each other.

Sometimes we go into the nations thinking that we are there to be a blessing or bring professional help. But we really need to be servant-hearted. Sometimes we might want to do our own show, but we need to learn to go low, and lower still.

Workers are few. Good workers are fewer.

I once told God, “Here I am, send me”.

But God told me that many people could say that to Him. The problem is that many of them also give Him their criteria. We want a certain type of food, nice weather, nice scenery, clean toilet… we end up telling God what to do.

So, when we offer ourselves and give God our yes, let it not be a cheap yes. If you go to a place to serve, put aside your rights and your priorities.

That is the reason why I go to places like Africa and Ukraine. I don’t just purposely go and try to be a hero. But if no one wants to go into these places where God is calling, I will simply ask God to send me there.

We always quote the verse in Revelation 12:11 and say that we overcome the devil “by the blood of the Lamb” and “by the word of their testimony”.

But we must pay attention to the last part of this same verse: they “did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death”. We cannot pick what we like to hear.

I actually don’t think God needs that many workers. He just needs good and serious workers.

Keep your life simple and lean

We try to keep our lives lean. We live in a simple house and we don’t own big cars. We are not trying to punish ourselves, but we simply don’t need these things. We don’t need to have many clothes or shoes, and we don’t need to have a very big house.

I want to keep my prayer life free. I don’t want to always pray about house mortgages, car instalments and all the material possessions.

I don’t want to choke up my prayers and bother God with all these worldly problems.

I want to talk to God about the nations and what is on His heart.

So, when we offer ourselves and give God our yes, let it not be a cheap yes. If you go to a place to serve, put aside your rights and your priorities.

We also keep our calendar and schedule lean. When the Lord calls, I want to be available and answer Him immediately.

We are so busy nowadays. If Jesus walks by us one day, would we even notice or recognise Him? And even if we do, would we drop everything and worship Him?

If He calls us for an assignment, are we available? Or would we be too busy with our commitments?

These days, it’s very easy for us to plan our own schedules and ask God to work around them. But we should be working our lives around God. We should put aside our plans and be ready for His instructions.

Look at the 10 virgins in Matthew 25. Five of them took their lamps but not the oil. They may look like they are doing the right thing, but there is no real substance. When the Bridegroom comes, they are not prepared, and Jesus will say that He does not know them.

Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind

Love doesn’t give up. Sometimes we might not see the fruits in our ministry, and sometimes a church might even shut down. But if we love the Lord, we won’t give up. We will start another project, or we will find another way to serve.

Sometimes people ask me if I would love the Russians since I’m always helping the Ukrainians. But I would tell them that I don’t love Ukraine. I love the Lord. If God opens the door and calls me to Russia, I will go. I don’t love the nation, I love God.

Some people say they love revival, they love youth ministry, and they love their pastors. But the Bible tells us to love God will all our heart, mind and soul. And that means we would have no more love for other things.

Instead, we will love whatever He tells us to. He would tell us to love prayer, to love revival, to love missions… Our assignments and ministries come and go, and sometimes we get disappointed when certain things don’t work.

But why did we place our love on these things in the first place?

Lovers will always do more than workers.

If we love the Lord and always have Him as the starting place, we will never give up. Love never gives up, and love never fails. Lovers will always do more than workers.

Guard your intimacy with God, and it will naturally bear fruits (John 15)!