At the start of this year, the Gethsemane Youth Fellowship held an online meeting to encourage and cheer on our young men who are about to enter National Service, as well as those currently serving as NS men. My message to them, titled “A Call to Serve with Faith and Honour”, was published in our church bulletin on January 5, 2025.
A key highlight of that meeting was the testimonies shared by five young adults who have completed their National Service. Their insights were profoundly instructive, offering warnings and guidance about the unique spiritual dangers faced during NS. These testimonies also provided invaluable advice to help young men prepare for and overcome the physical, mental, and emotional challenges of their service.
To edify and equip our young men who will soon don the uniform, we are publishing these testimonies in this week’s and next week’s bulletins. May they inspire and prepare our youths to stand firm for Christ as they serve the nation. Let us uphold them in prayer, asking the Lord to strengthen their faith and testimony in this critical phase of their lives!
“Finding My Identity in Christ”
By Galen Demetrius
This may come as a surprise to everyone, but during the medical assessment phase, I successfully downgraded my PES (Physical Employment Standard) status. This was in 2011. However, in 2012, I decided to enlist as a Regular Officer. In order to do so, I successfully proved to the medical officers that I was physically fit to upgrade my PES status. Eventually, I began my time as a soldier in 2013, in Basic Military Training (BMT). After I completed BMT, I was selected for a prestigious course for the next 1 year and 10 months.
To sum it up, I experienced many ‘ups and downs’, both good and bad, and I have endless stories to tell. I hope this testimony will prepare you to spend your waking and sleeping hours as a child of God in the army.
In total, I spent 7.5 years in MINDEF. I started out like everyone, in BMT, but slowly realised that I could endure very tough training courses in the army. Course after course, I felt that I had achieved all by my own strength. I enjoyed celebrating my success, especially the achievement of ‘top graduate’ of the course. I enjoyed people’s acknowledgment of my achievements. My achievements gave me my identity. However, after some time, I got lonely. My joy was short-lived. I realised that people only valued me for what I achieved, and not for who I am. If I stripped away all my achievements, if I did not pass the course, if I was not the top graduate, who was I? I soberly realised that my identity is in Christ, not achievements. I learnt that to be a leader is not about achieving this and that, nor about successfully leading a group of well-trained soldiers, but it’s about serving those who are under us. And that is exactly who Christ is! Jesus left His throne, humbled Himself as man, and suffered the agony of the cross for our benefit.
Although there were many other struggles, such as managing my spending, and distractions like vices and carnal talk enjoyed by colleagues, finding my identity was one of my biggest struggles.
Nevertheless, these were the experiences that God had allowed me to go through to mould me to be more like Him. When we face situations wherein we must choose between God and the world, and when we are met with opportunities to show Christ’s love and care to those around us, will you sacrifice even your last drop of water for your bunk-mate who is thirsty? Will you sacrifice your shower time to ensure your men get to rest early? Will you lend a listening ear to your friend in the army who just broke up with his girlfriend, knowing that it might be a Gospel opportunity?
Your actions will show whether you are God’s holy people who are willing to sacrifice our rights because of our Saviour’s sacrificial love for us. You will encounter people from shocking backgrounds which might make you uncomfortable. But always remember, that everyone is made in God’s image and they need to hear the Gospel. You will be spending your next two years, day in and day out, with this group of people. This is a great opportunity to share the love of Jesus with them - don’t waste it.
Don’t think that there’s a long life to live given your very youthful age. Indeed, it is God who gives breath and takes it away. In my time as a Regular Officer, I have witnessed two buddies in the force who die from suicide and cancer. So, while you spend time with your friends, be sure to share the Gospel with them.
“Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth” (1 Cor 10:24).
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
Be a soldier for Christ first!
“Practical Decisions to Safeguard My Spiritual Walk”
By Benjamin Cho
I’m thankful for this opportunity to share my testimony. Reflecting on my NS (National Service) life has allowed me to see God’s mercy in chastising me during that season. After careful thought, I have identified three main struggles:
Spending too much time in secular relationships.
Shift work (closely related to point 1).
Not establishing my Christian identity.
I will relate my struggles and propose a solution that I should have acted on, but unfortunately did not.
1: Spending too much time in secular relationships
I had two groups of secular friendships then: my relationship with friends from Polytechnic and my relationship with my NS team.
Poly friends: I met with a group of worldly friends with whom I lacked the discipline to distance myself. We stayed near one another and spent a lot of time together. Naturally, we were very close for a long time, and it was so throughout my NS days.
NS Team: In NS, I was assigned to a ground team with a shift schedule of “1 / 2 / off / off”. “1” represents a day shift, “2” a night shift, and each shift averaged 14 hours. Additionally, I had mandatory monthly training sessions and occasional team bonding activities during off days. All in all, I spent 70-80% of my waking hours with my ground team, and the remaining time with my secular friends from Polytechnic.
In most circumstances, a person will naturally be more attuned to and aligned with whom they spend most time. I spent a great deal of time in the company of these two groups. With my weak and immature faith, it was of a little surprise that this was a period of spiritual lethargy for me.
2: Shift Work
The shift work schedule compounded my struggles, as it meant that I could only attend Sunday worship twice a month. The first opportunity of the month to attend Sunday worship fell on my first day off, and the second opportunity fell on my second day off. My first day off was directly after a night shift, which ended about 8-9am on Sunday. So, I often missed the worship service to recuperate after the night shift.
As such, I only attended Sunday worship service once a month. I did not have the discipline to go for fellowship meetings held on Saturdays. Although I was in church once a month, the faithful preaching from Pastor often pierced my heart, leaving me determined to repent and walk aright. However, due to the sheer amount of time I spent in secular relationships, I frequently fell back into spiritual lethargy.
Solution for 1 & 2: Breaking off secular relationships alone is not sufficient, for the temptation to resume your relationship with them is difficult to overcome. One has to replace secular relationships with Christian relationships. I have noticed that even the warmest of secular friendships crumble when the ebbs and flows of life take us to divergent paths. I had foolishly invested much time and effort into these secular relationships, which ultimately proved fruitless in a few years.
Christians should invest their time and effort in God-honouring relationships that will never fade, so as to encourage, exhort and edify one another, for these efforts will bear eternal fruit. This is not to say secular relationships are to be avoided entirely, but a Christian’s first and foremost interaction should be within the body of Christ. May Christians prioritise relationships of eternal value, compared to secular relationships which are like a transient and fleeting shadow. Furthermore, replace bad habits with good habits. Discipline oneself to attend fellowship meetings and worship services, and find opportunities to serve the Lord. Service is not only a time of rededication, it also inculcates a sense of responsibility so that slothfulness can be replaced with service to God.
3: Not establishing my Christian identity
Whenever one is spiritually lethargic, there will be compromise in one’s spiritual walk, and sin will definitely abound. I recount a personal struggle I experienced during my NS: NS men were to write log sheets, to account for what we did during that shift. However, on the log sheet, it would be written that we were patrolling a certain location at a certain time, but we were actually resting. Despite my heart feeling grief from the false logging, I too struggled with the desire to sleep in the wee hours of the night instead of doing the duty, thus I did not voice my opinion on the matter.
Solution: Establish your Christian identity at the very beginning. I should have talked to my leader to make known my feeling towards lying on the log sheet, and work out a solution with him. As 1 Cor 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” I actually recalled a solution that the Lord had placed in view of this situation. I had a second in-charge leader who was strict, and had a ‘by-the-book’ working ethic. I had the opportunity to experience it because occasionally I was partnered with him. Even though I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of every shift with him, the log sheet was true. I believe if I had talked to my leader about it, I could have been permanently attached to my second in-charge.
Young men who are about to enter NS should establish their Christian identity firmly, and as quickly as possible. Bring your Bible to your camp and read it in your bunk, make known to your camp-mates that you are a Christian. When you feel tempted to sin or are about to sin, the presence and observation of your NS mates who know that you are a Christian, will remind you of your responsibility to maintain a God-honouring testimony, so that the name of Christ will not be shamed.
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1).
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).
