Our God is a faithful God. Glory to Jesus my Saviour! He never lets anyone down and He will not put His people to shame. My Saviour’s Church is evident of His faithfulness.
The Tamil ministry was initiated by Canon Derek Hong in 1979 and also others who came to sheperd this congregation. Somehow things didn’t work out and the group scattered due to internal friction and doctrinal issues.
In 1981, Canon Derek Hong approached me to help out in the Tamil ministry. As I took on, a handful of people came back and from then the congregation began to grow by the grace of God. The English congregation too was growing under the leadership of Canon Derek Hong. Soon they bought a new building for their growing church and left the building to us. That was our first miracle.
When Church of Our Saviour left in 1987 we already had grown to a congregation of about 100 people and continued as a fast growing congregation as Church of Our Saviour(Tamil). In 1991, I was inducted as the Vicar of My Saviour’s Church. We received our parish status and was renamed as “My Saviour’s Church”.
In 1993, we were given in-principle approval by the Standing Committee to raise funds of rebuilding My Saviour’s Church. Most of our parishioners came from low to middle income group and we didn’t have high calibre professionals. We were in dire need of new facilities to accommodate our growing congregation. In desperation we tried using containers for our classrooms and meetings. However there was still a tremendous space constraint. With the advice of Bishop Moses Tay, we decided to reconstruct the building and My Saviour’s Church (MSC) building project commenced.
The land where we were located is known as a clay land. We were discouraged from rebuilding because poling works on clay land would cost us a bomb. However, during the soil test, at a depth of 13 meters, we hit hard ground and were told that this church is sitting on a rock. That was our second miracle.
The government wanted 3 meters of our land to widen the canal and another 3 meters as a setback to our building which is a requirement of the BCA. When they started to extend the canal, somehow the canal was built 6 meters from the planned path and the PWD Drainage Department informed us they were returning the 3 meters of land back to us as it was no longer required. That was the third miracle.
The fourth miracle, the Diocese wanted to build a Diocesan Center combined with My Saviour’s Church. This is where Bishop Moses Tay gave us a jump start to build together with the Diocesan Centre, a 7 storey building but we were told by URA, we cannot build more than 3 storey high therefore the Diocesan project had to be shelved.
There were many plans being mooted for this piece of land to build a building that would have a number of churches sharing the same building. But God had other plans and He began to move among the Tamil congregation. Being the Vicar, I found it very difficult to be focused on what God wanted me to do. Many voiced their opinions, suggesting what I should do, but nothing in line with what God wanted me to do. Some thought I was being stupid, stubborn and even ambitious and misguided. So I had to travail much before the Lord and overcome many obstacles. However, there were those who prayed and encouraged me. Many times help came at the eleventh hour and miraculously the congregation grew.
The church office was relocated to a rented plain in April 2001, due to canal reconstruction work. Due to the canal reconstruction work, the noise levels were high and not conducive for the church office to function. The following year, in 2002, we shifted and conducted our services at St. John’s – St. Margaret’s Church and used Church of the Good Sheperd for our mid week activities. Thank God for the Diocese that came to our rescue at this point of time. During this period the new Bishop John Chew, encouraged me by saying that the Diocese would loan the church 2 million dollars. In the meantime we had only raised 1.5 million dollars which did not meet the Diocesan loan requirement for our 5 million dollar budget. The Diocesan loan requirement states that we needed to have raised 50% of the total budget, before we can acquire a loan from the Diocese. This was in the year 2000.
Soon after the construction work commenced, there were many obstacles and set backs that we faced to the point that the building came to a stand-still and we were advised by the Development Board to terminate the services of our architect. In 2008, the construction of My Saviour’s Church recommenced with the help of Mr. Charles Leong and Mr. Lawrence Boo, ‘angels’ sent by God. I thank God for DP architects who took on the project so graciously and also for a godly contractor Mr. Toh Soo Chin of Grandwell.
Thank God for everything that took place and for keeping the congregation focused and united in the Lord. God is ever faithful. And now we are looking ahead for greater things to come.
Rev M. K. Bennett
Vicar
My Saviour’s Church