Outgoing
VICARâS ADDRESS WORDS REVD JOSHUA SHAAM SUDHARMAN
M
y dear SJSM Family, by the time you read this, SJSM would already have undergone a transition of Vicars. Nevertheless, the editorial team and Ps Alvin felt that it would be good for me to write this piece, because the period under review in this publication (2019 to 2021) was within my tenure. I count it a privilege to have this opportunity to share some thoughts with you that may help frame all that you will read in the following pages. These are organised within three timeframes: past, present, and future. PAST Two years ago in mid-2019, we informally began a one-year countdown to the completion of Project Spring-Winter and the launch of SJSM Village. Our fundraising had done scintillatingly well in the initial years (2015â2017), but donation fatigue seemed to be setting in, and momentum was slowing. We launched a concerted push to complete fundraising by end-2019, using the slogan Operation Home Stretch. The âbusiness endâ of this coincided with
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the period that I was away on sabbatical and Ps Alvin was Acting Vicar. How grateful we were that the SJSM Family rallied, and by Godâs grace we reached the fundraising target we set by December 2019 â not a month too soon! The very next month, COVID-19 suddenly came on the scene, and all progress on construction ground to a halt. The economy tanked, and with it, our financial outlook dimmed. Our countdown was halted until we could see through the pandemicinduced fog and work out a new timeline. Attention shifted from completing the work to caring for the welfare of our expat brothers working on our site and elsewhere in Singapore, as the virus spread like wildfire through their dormitories. Gradually, as the authorities gained a measure of control over the spread, the fog began to lift and forward planning once again became possible. We then realised that our project would likely be completed in mid-2021, smack in the middle of our Jubilee Year. We also realised that the delay in the preparation of the Villageâs hardware meant we had a little more time to prepare the software, i.e. our hearts and minds.
