Stories of Hope

20/08/2025

Dawn Lim grew up feeling like “nobody wanted to look after me”.

She was two when her parents divorced. She hardly saw her father, and did not meet her mother again till she was 11.

In her teens, Dawn drank, smoked, partied and would get drunk in the company of friends.

She got married at the age of 25, became a mother and got divorced.

But in her 40s, something shifted. The tough-talking, tattooed party girl began to lose interest in drinking and going out.

"I found them bo liao (meaningless) and didn’t find happiness in them anymore."

Instead, she found meaning in Something else.

When Dawn Lim was two years old, her parents divorced. She never saw her mother until she was 11 years old. Too busy working, her father got his own mother to raise Dawn. When she passed on, her father’s sister took over.

10/08/2025

What is the meaning of life? After a bad breakup, Swasti Wonowidjojo was desperate for answers. Despite trying everything from partying to feng shui and New Age rituals, nothing worked.

Instead, she ended up plagued by hallucinations. In one terrifying episode, she even experienced her head turning on its own.

How did Swasti find the answer she was looking for?

06/08/2025

Neny Budiawan, 61, bears the scars of a fire that took place in her home 20 years ago.

The fire caused 60% of her body – down to her feet – to suffer third degree burns, but her face was spared.

That was just one miracle in a series that carried her through an intense time of painful recovery. Another miracle was a supernatural encounter she had while in hospital.

“Even today, when I am depressed or down, I remember Jesus coming to take my hand,” said Neny.

“It brings down my heart rate and gives me peace. I will never forget that feeling of peace, happiness and most of all joy, with no worries about what happens tomorrow.

“I want to tell you: D3ath is nothing to be afraid of."

Neny Budiaman was refilling their aromatherapy lamp – an exotic, beautiful deep blue glass bottle – with a special oil, as she had done many times before. As she lit the wick with a lighter, the bottle exploded.

30/07/2025

Wong Yuan Sy was expected to win gold at the national schools track and field competition in her Secondary 4 year.

The high-performing GEP (Gifted Education Programme) student was used to excelling academically and on the sports field.

But she injured her ankle, and completely crashed out of the finals.

“Did you get the gold?” one teammate asked. “Silver? Bronze?”

She never replied, because she could not hold back her tears.

“Until this point, I had never failed at anything I had put so much effort into. It crushed me. I felt worthless and condemned," Yuan Sy, now 49, writes.

Devastated, Yuan Sy was unable to focus on studying for her prelims.

“What if I failed to do well? What would be left of me?”

How did she bounce back to get 8 A1s in her “O” Levels?

And how did she discover that her worth was not in her achievements?

At the end of my Secondary Three year in 1991, my father told me I had to make time to study for my “O” Levels the following year. I was to give up all my beloved activities except one – and I had to choose.

27/07/2025

Brandon Ho resented his father for failing at his business and not providing for their family. At the age of 14, Brandon had to work multiple jobs to pay off his father's debts. His anger and disrespect towards his father went on for years until Brandon's fiancée urged him to reconcile before their wedding.

Was there hope for such a broken relationship?

23/07/2025

Linda’s grandmother was a nightclub dancer in the 1930s. She met a British soldier and they had a baby: Linda's mother. But when the Japanese Occupation began, he abandoned his family and returned home to the UK.

Desperate for money, Linda's grandmother sold her 9-year-old daughter into prost*tution and lived off her earnings for decades.

Linda was the fifth child her mother had, each with a different man. She never knew who her father was. She grew up in a one-room flat in Geylang, shunned, shamed and called "Monster from England" in school.

What seemed like a tragic family story was suddenly turned upside down when her "wicked Granny" had an encounter with God and became a totally different person.

Linda's mother also found God, and peace. Linda, also a Christian, married and had two children.

Two years ago she took a DNA test to try to trace her father. Did she succeed?

This isn’t just a story of trauma. It’s a story of transformation – across three generations.

Catch the story of Linda’s life in “I am a Murphy” a Mandarin-language stage drama which will be held on Friday August 1, 2025.

In the 1930s, my grandmother worked as a “socialite” – what we now call a nightclub dancer. She was 100% Chinese and very beautiful. She met a British soldier and they had a daughter: My mum.

09/07/2025

When the COVID pandemic struck, Jack Chu – then 23 – hatched a brilliant idea to support his family: Selling his mother's kimchi from home and naming it Jin Kimchi after her.

Soon, Jack was easily selling 200 to 300kg of kimchi a day, and making up to S$60,000 a month.

Within a span of two years, he opened a total of 11 Jin Kimchi Express stalls in hawker centres islandwide. His kimchi was also sold in supermarkets.

He thought success would make him happy. But it didn’t. “The burnout was real. I felt hopeless and alone.”

On his 28th birthday, Jack found himself sitting on the floor, exhausted and overwhelmed. His thoughts turned to the higher power he grew up believing in.

"Why not just pray to the God I am familiar with and maybe I would find the calmness that I was seeking?" he thought.

When the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the world in 2020 and Singapore went into lockdown, Jack Chu, then 23, was in a spot. His family’s two Korean hair salons had to stop operations, and money was tight. But instead of giving up, he turned to something closer to home – quite literally.

02/07/2025

Growing up in Geylang, Singapore’s notorious red-light district, Chua Seng Lee started a “s*x club” to distribute p**n tapes and magazines to his schoolmates. He was just in Secondary 1 at that time.

He was also interested in becoming a dr*g dealer. But funny enough, his gangster friends didn’t allow him to, and encouraged him to study.

“They also told me that if you take dr*gs, you’ll have a messed-up s*x life,” Seng Lee, now 58, said.

“To be honest, I was more interested in s*x than dr*gs.”

But something always stopped him from crossing certain lines – like joining a gang, doing dr*gs, or having s*x before marriage.

Seng Lee tried hard to be bad – he partied hard, drank, smoked and gambled – but failed.

What did destiny have in store for someone like him?

Growing up in Geylang, Singapore’s notorious red-light district, Chua Seng Lee was surrounded by vice from a young age. He was often left to his own devices as his father worked long hours as a storeman for the British army, while his mother worked from home as a seamstress to supplement the famil...

22/06/2025

Once known for being wild, Alice Wong encountered a love so beautiful, it led her to leave behind her lifestyle of partying and drinking.

She received not only hope, but also the power to start afresh.

Spoiler: This same love is available to you too.

18/06/2025

“My mummy told us not to play with you,” said a boy to Damein Cheong when they were 12 years old.

“Those words hit harder than any physical pain I’d ever felt. It wasn’t just rejection – it was humiliation,” writes Damein, now 40.

Eczema wasn’t just a skin condition for him; it was so severe that it felt like a prison.

Who knew that years later – while struggling with Stage Four bile duct cancer in the darkest season of his life – something so unexpected would happen?

Healing came, transforming his skin and how he saw himself and his purpose in life.

“My mummy told us not to play with you,” said a boy my age when I was just 12 years old. Those words hit harder than any physical pain I’d ever felt. It wasn’t just rejection – it was humiliation. All I wanted was to laugh, run around and play like any other kid. But that day, everything c...

11/06/2025

February 21, 2022, was the day Damein Cheong’s world changed in an instant.

He was told he had Stage Four bile duct cancer, a rare type of cancer with no known cure; 95% of bile duct patients d*e within five years.

Doctors told him he had six (or less) to 14 months to live. He was just 38.

“But in the face of d3ath, I also began to see what is important and what is petty in life,” he writes.

To date, Damein has lived three times longer than expected.

TRIGGER WARNING: This story mentions thoughts of death. Reader discretion is advised. “Mr Cheong, you have 12 to 14 months left to live. “If...

08/06/2025

Slim, perfect and gorgeous: We often associate these words with K-pop idols. But are they really the true standard of beauty?

When Cheryl tried to be like them, her diets soon spiralled into a toxic cycle of bingeing and purging.

Read how she broke free from bul*mia and discovered what beauty truly is.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘳.𝘴𝘵.