My Vocation and Mission.....

 CELEBRATING GOD’S GOODNESS! 

I was a ‘recluse’ child and teenager in my growing years where my daily movements can be summed up in 2 steps…from my kampung home in Hougang to a nearby school and back home…and on weekends to the nearby Nativity Church. It was a comfortable, familiar routine…boring maybe if compared to our present hustle and bustle way of life, but it didn’t seem so to me at all then.
During those mundane but contented slow pace of life…someone made himself known like a mystery puzzle taking shape…GOD. Honestly I wasn’t looking for Him, neither was I intentionally searching for Him….in short, I wasn’t interested. However I am a Catholic so going to Church for Mass was a ritual and an obligation I had to fulfil, not for God, but for Mum, otherwise I feared being nagged to death by her!
HE…found me through the books I loved to read and made Himself center stage in a short span of time where I became intrigue with who and what I was discovering about my Faith.
Fast forward to more recent years as an FMM Sister, where I found myself having to travel all over in India, Africa, Rome, Philippines just to name a few for either mission or for formation, usually alone..  and I often wonder in awe how life takes a turn when God is the Planner. This is especially true when I ponder on all the varied, colourful landscapes of Mission in the form of witnessing to how God led the way into ….the lives of Youths at risks where the FMM Poverello Centre became the turning points for many from vulnerable and disadvantaged families…the Aids patients and poverty stricken but most resilient people I have ever ministered to in West Africa in the 2 years stint I was missioned there…the massive Typhoon destructed villages I volunteered with 16 other Religious in a most obscure state in India, while as a Theological student …where I experienced GOD in the despair of devastated lives, homes and environment. I tasted fear… and embraced God’s Providence as never before….and then back in the backyard of our Geylang home ground in Singapore, where I encountered weekly, young lives that brings out my utmost empathy and at the same time challenged my stance on moral…justice and unconditional love without judgement….and finally where I encounter the lives of displaced persons in my present ministry with Migrants who seek for Welcome…Protection…and some form of integration where they have been planted, in foreign soil where they struggle daily to sustain for the sake of their love ones waiting for sustenance.
In all of these mysterious and kaleidoscope ways in life’s moments, God has instil in me a gradual sense of awe and trust in His Providence. I somewhat thinks I can find no better way in all my imaginations to deepen my Faith in HIM and grow holistically…What a Blessing, indeed!
 
Sr Sylvia Ng