The TCE Academy · Marketplace ministry
The ripest harvest field in Singapore needs no passport. It is in our own backyard — among ex-offenders and youth at risk, ready to begin again.
“Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” John 4:35
Photo: Benoît Deschasaux / Unsplash
There is a mission field that needs no passport, no plane ticket and no visa. It begins a short MRT ride from your front door.
When we think of missions, we picture the long flight — to Vietnam, to the Philippines, to a village at the end of a dirt road. Those callings are real, and they are noble. But we need not travel thousands of miles to share the work. Some of the most overlooked people in our nation live within reach of our own homes: men and women walking out of prison ready to begin again, and young people standing at the edge of the same road.
They carry a resilience forged through real struggle — and a question almost no one around them can answer: is there a way back? For them, the Lion City can be a wilderness of closed doors, lost trust and a CV with a gap nobody wants to ask about. They are as unreached as any people group on a missions map. And they are our neighbours.
“I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
Matthew 25:36
As we send missionaries out to the nations, the nations send missionaries to us. I was invited to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ (Singapore) — a church started by missionaries from the Philippines, who crossed the sea to share the gospel here and have served faithfully for twenty-three years. Many congregations like it quietly shepherd fellow countrymen who come to Singapore to find work.
If they could cross an ocean for strangers, surely we can cross the street for our own.
“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
Jerusalem came first. The ends of the earth matter — and so does home.
Jesus looked at a weary crowd and saw a harvest. Walk past a halfway house on a weeknight, a void deck at midnight, or the prison gates on release day, and you will see what he saw: people who are ready — some for the first time in their lives — to hear that the old has gone and the new has come.
But a harvest does not gather itself. It needs hands that will share the word, feet that will walk alongside, and hearts that will stay long enough to see a life take root.
The Caffeine Experience was born in this very field. For years we have created jobs — behind the espresso machine and across the café counter — for people the job market had written off. Now, through The TCE Academy, we are in a position to do more than employ. We can teach.
Coursework in craft, character and Christ gives anyone who chooses it the tools to restart their life: a barista’s skill, a worker’s discipline and a Saviour’s hope. We do not hand over a tract and move on. We walk with them, evening after evening, around a table at The Gateway East — until the seed takes root.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
2 Corinthians 5:17
So we are asking for volunteers with the heart and the calling to join the work of ministering to this unreached people. Not a crowd. Not a statistic. One person, one life — saving a soul, one at a time.
“There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Luke 15:7
In our backyard
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:37–38
Photo: Milin John / Unsplash · Fernvale, Singapore
How one life is won
Bringing someone to Christ is rarely the work of one person. It is a relay — and the baton has to be handed on, leg after leg, until the one who was reached becomes the one who reaches.
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:6
Leg one · Sow
Someone has to go in. Chapel services behind prison walls, Bible correspondence, a visit to a halfway house on a Sunday afternoon. Without these faithful volunteers, no one hears at all.
“How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
Romans 10:14Leg two · Walk
Faith that begins inside is tested outside — in the first job, the first pay day, the first hard night. So we walk with them: a job in our cafés, coursework at the Academy, the Crossroads syllabus studied lesson by lesson, and a mentor who picks up the phone.
“If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.”
Ecclesiastes 4:10
Photo: Braden Collum / Unsplash
Leg three · Send
We train true disciples, rooted in the word and ready to serve — because the most believable witness in a prison yard is someone who once walked out of one. The one who was reached becomes the one who reaches.
“The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
2 Timothy 2:2Many hear the word inside. Far fewer find someone to walk with them outside — and that is where the baton is most easily dropped. That is the leg we run.
Our syllabus
We do not make it up as we go. The Academy guides learners through the syllabus of Crossroads Prison Ministries — a systematic study of the Bible written for people in prison and after release. It introduces the word of God, but it does not stop there: every lesson is a conversation, and every conversation is a chance to walk with someone and guide them.
“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105
Photo: Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash
At the Academy · A12
Twelve weeks around the table at The Gateway East, with lessons and letters that carry on at home.
Why I am here
“Pastor Paul did not only bring me the word — he walked with me in it. Under God, I am here today because of him. The TCE Academy is simply me passing on the baton he placed in my hands.”
Matthew Poh · Founder, The Caffeine Experience
Photo: Rineshkumar Ghirao / Unsplash
The fields are ripe · the workers are few
You do not need a plane ticket to answer the call. You need an evening a week, a willing heart, and the courage to sit across the table from someone the world has given up on. If you have ever prayed “Lord, use me” — this is your field. Come and build a marketplace ministry with us: jobs that restore dignity, coursework that restores hope, and friendships that point to Christ.
“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”
Isaiah 6:8Tell us a little about yourself. We read every reply ourselves.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9
The harvest is plentiful. The workers are few.
Will you be one of them?
Brewing the Aroma of 2nd Chances · Soli Deo Gloria
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
