It is hard to believe that Mingxiu, my three year old daughter is so happy celebrating her third birthday. Singing praise hymns and songs she learned from Sunday nursery school. She is a healthy, cheerful, and adorable toddler.

She was a tiny, skinny, very much underweight, feeble and demised baby two and a half years ago. What an amazing change!
My wife is now working part time as a bank officer, looking after our two children and attending to the household chores. She is capable and competent in the sight of many career women.

But she was miserable, moaning and groaning in despair just two years ago. What an amazing contrast!

The healthy, cheerful and happy family life we enjoy today comes from the grace of God. It is He who turned the power of darkness into the light of life. It is He who heals the sick, forgives our sins and gives us salvation and eternal life. It is He, who is our hope.

Feeding time a torment
It all happened in 1989 when my daughter Mingxiu was about 2-3 months old. For unknown reasons she started to refuse feed. She would not drink. She would not cry for food. Apparently she did not know what hunger was. She was very tiny and very much underweight. To make sure she had enough, we resorted to force feeding. One feed of 3-4 ounces could takes up to 2-3 hrs. Feeding time was a struggling time for the baby, and a tormenting time for us, especially for my wife.

We could not understand why the baby behaved in that manner. We consulted and sought many many paediatricians for advice.
The doctors taught us ways to feed the baby and prescribed many types of so called appetizers. But these did not work.

This matter dragged on a for a few months and her situation did not improve. The doctors could not understand why the baby behaved like that.
We hopped from one doctor to another hoping to find one who could diagnose her. Due to the seriousness of her condition; Mingxiu was referred to a renowned paediatrician who warded her in the National University Hospital (NUH) for observation.

The consultant suspected that Mingxiu might have suffered from lack of growth hormones in her body causing her to refuse feed.
We agreed for blood tests to be carried out on her. The test required the baby to be starved for 18 hrs.

A needle with a few valves were used to take samples for blood analysis. Every time a blood sample was taken, Mingxiu would scream with all her breath. It was really painful for us to see the innocent baby suffering. At the end of the tests which was more than 24 hours since her last feed, Mingxiu still refused to take the milk.

A few days later we received the test result which was negative. Nevertheless the consultant asked us to consider injecting growth hormone into her body which may help to stimulate her appetite, but cautioned that it might have some side effects.

We did not know what to do and were really worried for her physical and mental development.
All this put a lot of mental and physical stress on my wife who was about 7 months pregnant then. Her health was very bad during that time.
Out of desperation, we started to consult mediums. We went from one medium to another hoping to find the cure for her illness. We brought back all sorts of "yellow papers" to burn and flowers for her to bathe in.
One of the mediums warned us that this child did not belong to us and advised us to find an adopted parent for her. She cannot address us as father and mother. She cannot put on red clothing or eat nuts or bananas or cross bridges. I remember bringing her to MacRitchie Reservoir one evening. When my wife who was carrying her approached the bridge, she suddenly struggled and screamed hysterically. Then we remembered what the medium had warned us of earlier.

One of the mediums we consulted seems to be effective. Whenever she poked our daughter's gum with a big needle till blood flowed out, her appetite would improve. But it did not last long. We were then convinced that Mingxiu's problem was spiritual, we hope to get one "powerful god" who could drive out the evil spirit in her.

Prey to Satan
During this time, my wife Poh Teen fell prey to Satan. Her physical health deteriorated during her advanced pregnancy. She could not sleep day or night though she was very tired and exhausted, the moment she dozed off she could feel her chest burning as if some one was pouring hot water all over her. She would then wake up soaking in her own sweat.
In order to get well, her parents and my parents started to consult various mediums representing different gods all over Singapore. One medium said that because we had shifted our bed during her pregnancy we had offended the "bedding god", and the punishment was her inability to sleep.

I remember visiting a medium in Tampines with my mother . She predicted that either my wife or the baby she was carrying would die. There was no chance that both would live as we came to her too late.
The only hope rested with the accumulated virtues that our ancestors had done for us. After hearing this I was scared and dared not tell my wife what the medium told me.

As an interim measure, the medium asked me to prepare a bowl of water, some green leaves with an egg inside together with a pair of chopsticks to put beneath the bed to pray to the "seventh heavenly lady". I did as instructed and hoped for the best. However my wife's sickness did not improve and we lived in fear as the delivery date drew near.

In June 1990 my wife gave birth to a baby boy, Yechuan. The baby was fine, but my wife's health was getting worse. She suffered from serious migraine as if the whole head was going to burst. She could not sleep at night. Whenever she dozed off, she would feel something disturbing her. Her whole body was aching like being pricked by a needle.

She consulted her gynaecologist who could not find any thing wrong with her. The gynaecologist then referred her to other specialists. One specialist even referred her to a psychiatrist for mental treatment. A lot of tranquilizers and sleeping pills were prescribed to help her relax and to sleep but it did not work. The medicine even made her feel worse. As a husband I knew something was very wrong with her physically and spiritually.

Out of desperation, we even invited the mediums to our house to "cleanse" our house. But things did not improve.
Very often in the night when she could not sleep, she would cry to me telling me that she was about to leave me and asked me to take good care of the two children. Her agony reminded me of the curse that the medium had put on her. Life had been tormenting and miserable for her and the whole family.

Healed and set free
One night, she received a phone call from a friend whom she had not seen for a long time. She related her case to her. The friend brought her to a Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship meeting at the PUB Auditorium. That evening the true and loving God touched her and ministered to her. She fell on the floor when Christians prayed for her. (I was not there and was not aware then.)

The next evening, when I came home from work I saw a group of Christians at our house praying for her. I was very skeptical. I did not know any thing about prayer and Christian faith. I just stood aside and watched. When the friends laid hands on her while praying in tongues, she screamed, laughing and crying hysterically, totally losing control of her usual self. Foam came out of her mouth and she fell on the floor. I could not understand what was taking place.

Our neighbour must have wondered what was happening after hearing the screaming. After the prayer she felt so much better. I was however still quite skeptical, but I was very thankful and touched by the kindness and the concern shown by the Christians who helped her.

I accompanied my wife to church where she continued to be ministered by a deliverance team. Her condition kept improving after each prayer.
In September there was a "Jesus Heal" rally in Church. The pastor had a word of knowledge that the Lord wanted to heal someone present who had a bleeding problem. Without hesitation my wife went forward to receive healing. A week later her bleeding stopped completely. Praise the Lord!

She recovered rapidly and soon after her baptism she was completely healed and was set free from all the curses and bondages of Satan.
After my wife's healing, we brought Mingxiu to church every Sunday. A healing team would pray for her, after each prayer her appetite improved. Over a 4 months period her weight increased from a mere 5.5 kg to 8 kg. She no longer rejected milk or food. She is also no more allergic to cows milk.

Our whole family was overwhelmed with joy. We rejoiced in the Lord. We are no longer living in fear or anxiety for we know that our God is with us, protecting us all the time.

Salvation for me
It is a blessing in disguise that it is through this series of events that I came to know the true and living God and experience first hand His grace. His love and his goodness. My wife and I were baptised in December 1990.

God has filled our hearts with joy and happiness. I want to thank Him, to give him all the honour and glory. Praise the Lord.
Tong Sin Sang is owner manager of an instrumentation and control company in Singapore. He and his wife Poh Teen and their children Mingxiu and Yechuan worship at the Church of Our Saviour. Sin Sang is a member of the FGBMFI (Singapore) Bukit Timah/West Coast chapter.

Article taken from Asian Voice with permission from Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship.
My search for God began when I was in primary one. At that age, I was already asking myself, "Does God exist? How am I here? Why am I here?" These questions kept haunting my mind. Deep down in my heart I believed that there must be a God somewhere who created this world and humanity. Often, when I got myself into trouble with my parents, I would pray to the unknown God that I might be spared the rod. Well, as you can guess, most of the time, the unknown God did not answer my prayer. Among the six children in the family, I got the most beatings.

One night, my sister shared with me about the Lord Jesus Christ, about how He died on the cross for my sin. I was so eager to know more that I bombarded her with lots of questions till very late that night.

Subsequently, I was invited to her church in 1969, when I was in primary two. I attended the Church once and returned only two years later. In that year, 1971, I prayed a prayer to accept Jesus Christ into my life and became a Christian. Since then, I had been faithfully attending church Sunday after Sunday for the next one year.

Though I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, there was not much change in my life. Yes, I believed in Jesus Christ but He was "useful" only when I needed help. Out of fear that I may not go to heaven, I would ask for forgiveness every night before I slept but I never really repented from my sin.

However, after I left school, my "true spiritual depth" began to reveal. I was not attending any church and I began to backslide gradually. I became very quarrelsome and was a trouble maker at home. I quarreled with everyone in the family and fought with all my brothers. I cursed my mother and wanted to beat up my father. I was very quick tempered, full of "fire and brimstones". I learned to gamble and would return home late at night. My home was like a hotel, a place for me to sleep.

My life became lonely and miserable. Though I acted tough outwardly, my inner world was crumbling. My inner struggle eventually turned into confusion and fear. Life was meaningless and empty. I contemplated suicide but had a "chicken heart". Gradually, a feeling closed to panic built up inside me. One night, I felt so tired of my life of sin that I cried to God for forgiveness. I confessed my sin and rededicated my life to God. That night, I made a specific request to God, that He would bring me to a church. After that prayer, I experienced a unique sense of peace in my heart, even though my pillow was soaked with tears.

Not long after, I was invited to Bethany Presbyterian Church. From my first visit in 1979, I have decided to stay on and be a committed Christian. Since then, the Lord has been transforming my life. My relationship with my family has been restored and I have learned to walk closer to God. Though being a Christian does not guarantee a life full of roses, in times of crisis and difficulty, life is still meaningful because of the grace of God.
On 1 June 1980, I made another great decision in my life; I was baptised. Five years later, on 21 December 1985, by God's grace I had the opportunity to personally lead my mother to say the sinner's prayer to receive Jesus Christ into her life as Lord and Saviour. That day was very memorable for me because it is still the best birthday gift that I have ever received. The person that I had cursed is now blessed and has been a great blessing in my life. In 1988, my father had a stroke and in that crisis, he too prayed to receive Jesus Christ into his life. Indeed, God is very gracious to us.

I have tried to write my testimony a few times, and it always turned into 10 or 12 pages about my life, and never seemed to get to the point. The point being, there is a lot of people not saved because they just can't seem to get their life all straightened out enough to get saved. And that's where I hope my message can help. You see it's not important to straighten your life out. Most of us can't do that anyway. I'ver been saved forever 4 yrs. now, and if there is anybody who knows God will take you all messed up, it's me.

I started sipping beer as a small kid, whenever somebody said, "go get a beer" I would, and it would sometimes be half gone by the time they got it. By the time I was a teen I was pretty much an alcoholic and thrill-seeker, by 14I was completely out of control. I was mainly living for all of the speed that I could get ahold of and stealing everything that wasn't tied down. My mother took us to church for awhile and I really liked it, but it was a passing thing that didn't last. I just wanted to live fast and hard. Life never held any value for me. I don't know why, it just didn't.About 15I took off to Hamston to live on my own, that ended with the police catching me in a burglary and beating me to death. My parents came and got me, but by then I was way too far-gone. By 16 I was selling stolen cars and considered myself a high roller. That finally got me a ticket to reform school. I stayed in and out of there until I eventually ran away, and got with some friends in Dallas and started high rolling again. We were going all over the place robbing with a pistol I had found in a car I had stolen. I had somewhere along the way taken time out to show my little brother how to steal cars. My dad had just got killed on Fathers Day and I hated the world and life and blamed everything on God. I turned 18 yrs. old sitting in T.D.C. (Texas Department of Corrections)for robbery. While I was in prison my little brother was keeping our good reputation alive, until he got killed at age 16. T.D.C. didn't even notify me. I got a newspaper clipping. Now I was truly a very bitter angry young man. I got out of prison by age 21 and it's been in and out of this on that ever since. Well I had my ups and downs along the way, I even got saved and baptized and joined a church at one time. But it didn't last and I was back on the needle before I knew it. I never tried to blame anyone else for my own bad choices, but I been in prison this time for 5 yrs. And I believe I'd stayed in this long, on one of my other trips, I might have learned sooner. But that's not a guarantee because there is a lot of people all around me who have been locked up most of their adult life who are still just as stupid as ever and not accepting to believe in God. Some even believe, but won't accept him. Anyway I'm sitting here 36 yrs. old living in Segregation which only 1 hr. a day out of my cage for recreation because over 10 yrs ago I decided I wanted to join the Aryan Brotherhood gang. T.D.C. says I'm a threat to the safety of others and the security. Although I renounced my loyalty to that several yrs, ago.

I was sitting on Cuffield Unit in April 1994, serving a four yr. and three yr. sentence and had three burglary charges pending in another county. Each of those charges had been enhanced up to the habitual criminal act meaning, if convicted my sentence would be from 25 yrs. to life. So here I was facing up to three life sentences in prison. As a result of my drug addiction I have the HIV virus. I've tried my best to live a normal and healthy life without letting this fact control me. Anyway I figured when I went back for trial I would get a chance or make a chance to escape, so I made up my mind, whatever it takes, I was not going to die in prison of this disease I would either escape or force them to kill me. No way was I going out like this. There was no medication to speak of and Id seen a few people waste away, a couple others hung themselves, just to escape it. I figured I was lucky, at least I had a couple of choices and I chose to escape or a running gun fight, so that was the plan. But someone gave me a bible and I started reading it and I was really curious about a lot of things. I'd been brainwashed to believe white people were a special chosen people of God. I kept reading that bible trying to find out what it really said. I not only discovered the truth about racism but also about salvation, and healing and cursing and all sorts of good stuff. I started to feel these very unfamiliar stirrings within me and realized I was being tried and convicted of my sins sins and unbelief by the Holy Spirit. The more I continued my reading and searching the more I realized that I was truly messed up. And even though I had once gotten saved, that I had turned my back on God, and that I was refusing the holy spirit, which I learned is the only sin I wasn't forgiven of and that if I died in that sin I would not enter eternity with God. Somewhere along this time I thought that I got the chicken pox but I didn't know for sure. I 'd never been so sick from the HIV and at times I even refused to believe I had it. But then chicken pox got so bad and I got so sick with fever that I thought surely I had some deadly disease and was going to die.

So you know what I did? I started talking to God quite like he was my cell-mate. I said I believe in you but I don't know you, and I want to, I honestly, truly want to. I want to know all about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I said I know I did believe when I got saved but I wasn't true to the Lord. Even though I'm not sure how to but I'm willing if you'll show me, I accept Jesus as my Savior and if you will take me as messed up as I am, I am all yours Lord.

Well there was no thunder and no lighting and the earth didn't shake. God didn't tell me he was proud of me or any of that. To be quite truthfull I'm not even positive what day that was. I do know things started changing in my life. Prison definitely didn't change or get better but I started changing. I finally had to see a Dr. because I was really sick and knew I was dying. They did blood work and told me my deadly disease was chicken pox. That was great news but the bad news was my T-cell count was 56. At that particular time the anti-viral medication wasn't much. I continued doing my time in prison and when it was time to go back to court I asked God to take charge of my situation and do just whatever he thought was in my best intent and I'd accept his choice for me. I already knew they were upset with me, these cases were over two yrs. old and I had jumped hard and took off. My attorney had represented me in some other cases previously so he knew my mind set on attitude and what to expect from me. When he came to the jail for a conference he freaked out, I told him of my decision for the Lord and we talked for a while and he said he was amazed and glad. I always wanted to be able to do something for kids, and young adults and lately that had really been driving me, and I started asking God what it was he wanted me to do. How was I gonna help kids with a life sentence. We started having a bible study and people in there were amazed at some of what I was telling them, and some got saved. We also had a baptism ceremony, on the roof! My attorney came back and said they offered me 15 yrs. for each case, this was miraculous enough but I didn't commit to it. I wrote that day and told them what was happening in my life. When we got to pre-trail my attorney came over to me grinning and said, "The D.A.offers 15 yrs. and all counts running concurrent." I was really pleased and said "no." I couldn't believe that I just said no. I said, "tell them 10 and give me credit all this time I'd been locked up." He came back and said 12 and time credit, I said "Deal" right now lets do it right now, so we did, I came back to the jail and man did we rejoice, when the people there were shocked, and you would not believe how many of them younger guys started believing in the power of God, and reading bibles and praying and joining in our bible studies. I came back to prison with some light at the end of the tunnel. God was not through with me though, I was scheduled to go to Galveston,Tx. to see the C.I.D. doctors and get a good check up. I'd been informed not only did I have HIV, but also I had hepatitis B&C. They told me about some new experimental medications they were trying out. It wasn't on the market yet and they didn't know much about it, but they were hoping that it would either help, or lead to something that would. I told them I would think about it. So they re-scheduled me in a month. As I thought and prayed about it I realized that it might possibly be my way of contributing something valuable back to the world and all the kids who might end up with HIV or Aids. Besides, I didn't know if I'd even live to get out of prison, and I couldn't help nobody dead. So I came to the decision that I would volunteer myself 100% to the research of HIV and Aids, and if I got any benefit from it praise God and if I didn't, and I died from it, then they would at least know that was the wrong approach. I just feel a need to contribute something back to society. All I ever done was take. Well I went back and told them of my decision and they enrolled me to a unit in southeast Texas to be close to Galveston. I go back every 8 weeks and now I'm into my second study. All the medication I started on has been recently approved by the F.D.A.( food and drug administration) for HIV and Aids treatment. Its now been designated as the standard of care. As for my personal experience I have been blessed. My T-cell count is higher that it has been in yrs. And my viral blood is below the level of detection. We just switched over from the standard test to the one called ultra sensitive. My whole life has taken a new meaning. I asked God to put solid Christian people in my life to help me stay on track. At this time I'm still in prison but I have really been set free inside. I have got a couple of Christian people that correspond with me and visit me. I have been invited to church and can't wait to go. I'm waiting for my answers from the parole board right now concerning my parole. I'm being held up a little for lack of living arrangements but I'm trusting God for that and I know he has an awesome ability to make things happen. As my life is a perfect example, because it's only by his grace that I'm here at all. I'm hoping to be able to talk to young people about these things and how Jesus can make all the difference. I came a long way in four yrs. and my whole attitude has turned around. My desires and ideas have all changed and looking back I can see "I have changed " but its all been "After" I found Jesus. I could not change before that ever if I'd tried. I give God all the praise and Glory for ever!!
Sincerely, your brother in Christ,
Billy C. Beckham