“Creation doesn’t exist just for us; it exists for God’s pleasure”: The divine way this couple was led to co-found Christian conservation non-profit A Rocha Singapore

What would an engineer and an economist-by-training know of nature conservation, much less help found a Christian conservation non-profit organisation in Singapore? 

Meet Phillip Wang and his wife Gail Lien, two of the founders of A Rocha Singapore, which was formally recognised last year as the 23rd nationally-registered member of the global A Rocha family. Phillip is its chair.

A Rocha is the world’s largest international Christian conservation network. Started by former English clergyman Peter Harris and his late wife, Miranda, A Rocha – a Portuguese phrase meaning “The Rock” – bids Christians to live out God’s calling to care for creation and equips them to do so.

A Rocha started as a field study centre in Portugal in 1983. It is now a worldwide family of over 20 nationally-registered A Rocha members across six continents coordinated by A Rocha International.

How Phillip and Gail – two city dwellers who have lived in London, Hong Kong and for the last 24 years, Singapore – came to this could only be attributed to God’s hand, they told Salt&Light.

A modest income upended by sudden riches

Gail and Phillip met in church in the UK where she had studied at the London School of Economics. Phillip was the son of refugees from China who had moved to the UK and opened a Chinese restaurant. Gail asked Phillip, then the manager of his parents’ restaurant, for a job.

They became good friends, and fell in love, and lived in Hong Kong as a young married couple, before moving back to the UK to start a family.

Subsequently, the couple moved from London to Singapore with their two young children. When they were 34, Gail received an unexpected inheritance that overshadowed the modest income she and Phillip had been used to. 

The gift was life-changing and a challenge, especially for Gail who found it difficult to accept something she hadn’t earned herself, while Phillip struggled with a loss of identity as the breadwinner of the family. His role models were his parents who, as migrants, had moved to the UK and worked very hard to raise their own family.

Over time, Gail came to see this new wealth as “a gift from God to use for His purposes and His Kingdom”. She prayed for God’s guidance and began volunteering with local charities to gain a deeper understanding of the realities and needs on the ground.

A recent photo with Phillip’s parents. Gail had asked for a job at their Chinese restaurant to support herself through art college after graduating from the London School of Economics.

“I had grown up in the UK, and didn’t know about Gail’s family’s background,” said Phillip, pictured with Gail and her grandfather, Dr Lien Ying Chow, founder of Overseas Union Bank, a prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Learning to use wealth to do good

“Embarking on philanthropy was a steep learning curve as Gail had no background in that world,” Phillip told Salt&Light.

Gail said that it has “taken many years and many small steps on a learning journey” to steward their unexpected new wealth.

The Wangs started their journey in the social and giving sphere with World Vision, going on field trips with their three children.

Gail has been a governor of the Lien Foundation since 2017, and serves as a board member of HealthServe (a charity that serves migrant workers) and Rainbow Centre (a social service agency that empowers persons with disabilities). She continues to invest her time, alongside her resources, especially in support of marginalised communities. 

Up until COVID-19, Phillip had continued to work as an engineer. As Gail’s involvement with philanthropy grew, she prayed that her husband would come alongside and serve in this space together with her.

Gail found herself asking: How could they be more deliberate in integrating their faith with their giving?

God already had plans for them.

“There’s a world of trouble – and it’s God’s world”

The first answer to Gail’s prayer came from Asian Philanthropy Circle (APC), a regional community of philanthropists, across generations and interests, seeking collective impact together.

APC had, at that point, begun exploring climate and environmental issues, but realised how uneven the starting points were among its members – some had been working in this space for years while others were completely new to it.

Gail was a student at the London School of Economics. Phillip studied at the University of Bath. After graduation, they met at the Chinese Church in London where they both supported the work of the youth ministry.

So APC organised a 10-week workshop for members who were interested in supporting climate and environmental issues. At Gail’s suggestion, Phillip joined the workshops.

He subsequently joined the newly-formed Climate Collective which ran through 2022 and 2023 – he was among 10 members meeting monthly to learn, exchange perspectives and explore collaborations.

Sustainability as a concept was not new to Phillip. Through his work in the building industry, he had engaged with ESG frameworks and environmental considerations in a professional context. But the Climate Collective widened his perspective.

He told Salt&Light: “The intention of the Collective was to help members work together. But I struggled to understand why we would or should do something. 

“I found myself wondering why my faith did not seem to have any response to this ‘problem’ – our engagement with the natural world, and the way we use and exploit it.

Phillip’s journey to care for the planet started when he joined the newly-formed Climate Collective within the Asian Philanthropy Circle (APC) at Gail’s suggestion.

“The theological narrative I had grown up with, to which I had committed my life, appeared to be silent. My Christian worldview, which I thought was comprehensive, drew a blank,” he said. “Why is it that it doesn’t seem to have anything to say about caring for the planet?”

Phillip found it hard to comprehend how sustainability figured in the Christian life. “Usually there’s an overarching imperative guiding your actions and resources. Often this would have been directed through an evangelical lens, with sharing the Good News, looking to share God’s love with people who were yet to know how much God loved them. It was something I had come to understand as a key focus of our Christian walk – but something which I felt I was pretty bad at.”

But now he was confronted with something different – an environmental crisis that made the question harder to set aside.

“There’s a world of trouble – and it’s God’s world,” he said. “Using tools of modern science, there’s plenty of data pointing to that trouble. Climate change, biodiversity loss, challenges to food production, air quality, deforestation, ocean health, over-fishing and more. If you’re not convinced in one area, there’s another where the evidence is hard to deny.”

It was around that time – at the start of the second year of the Climate Collective – that a string of unlikely connections entered the picture.

A God-engineered series of events

A few years ago, Phillip was visiting London from Singapore and had gone open water swimming in a lake with a cousin’s husband, an Anglican priest. There, they ran into Alpha course pioneer Nicky Gumbel.

Phillip and Nicky exchanged greetings each time they saw each other at the lake subsequently. One day, Nicky extended an invitation: Would Phillip and Gail like to attend an Alpha partners’ dinner in Singapore later that year?

At that dinner in November 2022, among a crowd of hundreds, a woman approached Gail. 

“It turns out that during COVID, we had volunteered with HealthServe, managing a ‘thrift shop’ of donated clothes for migrant workers who had been isolated on a cruise ship,” said Gail.

That woman was Wen Li Lim, who is involved with faith-driven investing and philanthropy circles.

Said Gail: “I remember thinking, ‘Is there such a thing’? I told her I really wanted to know more.”

With Nicky and Pippa Gumbel at the dinner for Alpha partners in Singapore.

The following week, Phillip and Gail met Wen Li for coffee. Wen Li asked if the Wangs knew of former English clergyman, Peter Harris.

Phillip had just finished reading Peter’s book Keeping Faith in Fundraising, in an effort to better understand the relationship between donors/funders and recipients.

Wen Li’s response was immediate: “That’s great – he’s coming to my house for tea tomorrow. Would you like to join us?”

The couple went. During a round of introductions, coincidences began to build.

“Peter immediately whipped out his phone and said, ‘Did you say Phillip and Gail Wang? Because my friend Dr Goh Wei Leong (co-founder of HealthServe) just texted me saying, ‘I know you are on your way to New Zealand, and don’t have time, but I would love for you to meet this couple.’ And here you are!”

(From bottom right, anticlockwise) With Peter Harris; Melissa Ong; and the connector, Wen Li Lim. Mel is now Conservation Project Officer at A Rocha Singapore; the organisation grew from her connections with A Rocha International since 2011.

When Phillip mentioned he was a British-born Chinese, Peter responded: “The only British Chinese Wang I know in the UK is Mary Wang.”

Phillip replied: “That’s my aunt.” It turned out that in the early 1970s, Peter, then a university student, had taken a group of Christian students to paint the new property of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission in South London. Phillip’s aunt was director of the Mission.

“Peter said he had been taken to a Chinese restaurant that trip,” Phillip recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, that was likely my dad’s restaurant.’”

Gail declared: “It’s just too coincidental for it not to be divine.”

Yet, it was what emerged from that meeting that would prove most significant.

“The Gospel feels bigger now”

Phillip had arrived at Wen’s home expecting a conversation about the dynamics between fundraisers and donors. Instead, Peter Harris shared about the work of A Rocha, and elaborated on the Christian response to the ecological crisis Phillip had been learning about.

“The initial conversation with Peter was about how our modern evangelical Christian narrative had focused on the good news of God’s love for us through Jesus Christ and loving our neighbour as ourselves. This is all correct, of course,” Phillip said.

“But we have virtually no understanding of our relationship with the rest of God’s created world – the creation, of which we are a part of. Peter reframed it as a theological issue: ‘Maybe you need to think about it in terms of the special responsibility we are given to ‘work and keep it’, to steward the gift from God.”

As Phillip began reading more – from A Rocha’s materials and wider ecological theology – something started to cohere.

“It felt like the puzzle pieces were coming together. I began to see how anthropocentric our theology often is – focused almost entirely on human salvation. But Scripture consistently places us within creation – not apart from it.

“I realised how dualistic my thinking had been. I would enjoy nature, thank God for it, and then return to urban life without any sense of responsibility to care for it,” he told Salt&Light.

Over the following months, reading Scripture with this new awareness began to reshape familiar passages.

“Romans 8, where creation groans. The Psalms, where nature is precious. Jesus’ parables – soil, seeds, sparrows, lilies. I realised how much I had missed by reading everything through a purely human-centred lens.”

Some details, once overlooked, became unexpectedly striking.

“Jesus says God knows each sparrow – even the ones we consider insignificant,” Phillip said. “That really struck me. God’s care extends to every part of His creation, not just humanity.”

Even well-known verses took on a different dimension.

“We often read, ‘For God so loved the world,’ (John 3:16) and assume it means people,” he said. “But the Greek word for ‘world’ is cosmos – everything God has made.

Similarly, Genesis 9 “speaks about God’s covenant not just with Noah, but with every living creature – the birds, the livestock, the wild animals,” he said. “It’s a commitment that includes the whole of creation, though the subheading frames it so narrowly that you read it as if it’s only with Noah.”

These insights began to shift not just Phillip’s understanding of environmental issues, but his understanding of the Gospel itself.

“This has been deeply transformative,” he told Salt&Light. “The Gospel feels bigger now. Creation doesn’t exist just for us. It exists for God’s pleasure. So the question becomes: What does it mean for us to care for what brings Him delight?”

A vision takes root

En route back to the UK from New Zealand, Peter ended up staying with the Wangs in Singapore for a week.

An evening discussion on creation care between Phillip and Peter attracted more than 50 people – half of whom were interested in doing a follow-up Bible Study.

With the help of others, especially Melissa Ong – a former media producer and filmmaker for A Rocha International and one of the leaders of Friends of A Rocha in Singapore – the team ran three rounds of a six-week study on creation care. 

“People were really transformed,” Phillip recalls. “They said, ‘Now that we know this, we want to do something. What do we do?’”

So they convened a working group of about 15 people. They prayed, they discerned and slowly the idea for Singapore to move to the next stage and join the A Rocha family as a nationally-registered member took shape.

With some of the A Rocha community and board members including Dr Goh Wei Leong (left, standing). The board consists of Christians with networks in philanthropy and finance, alongside scientists.

A garden for humans and wildlife is born

In May 2025, A Rocha Singapore was formally recognised as the 23rd nationally-registered member of the global A Rocha family.

Its first flagship project is a garden at the Christian halfway house, The Helping Hand.

Celebrating the addition of Singapore and Costa Rica as nationally-registered members of the international A Rocha family.

The idea was seeded when Gail visited a contact at the halfway house in Kovan that prepares men to reintegrate into society after prison.

During her visit, Gail noticed a large garden in the former school compound that was unused except for hanging laundry.

The garden at The Helping Hand was used mostly for hanging laundry.

So she asked: “Can we do something with this garden?”

When she brought the idea to Phillip, his first reaction was: “What has this got to do with conservation?”

Gail described The Helping Hand and its spaces where residents could interact with the public through small initiatives like a bakery or furniture shop, connecting the environmental and the social.

“Getting residents working in the garden could be a means of starting their own healing journey,” Phillip said.

A garden is born: Laying down cardboard to smother weeds.

A resident of The Helping Hand tends to the garden.

“There’s something about working with your hands, being in nature. It can be a means of healing, especially for people with difficult pasts.”

Phillip working in the Bloom & Buzz garden with the residents of The Helping Hand.

They began by assembling a small team, bringing in an active volunteer and consulting a permaculture specialist to explore what the space could become. What followed was a carefully structured approach: Developing a community garden over time, equipping interested residents with skills, inviting volunteers from the surrounding neighbourhood and beyond, and using the space as a platform for environmental education.

Ah Loh, the gardener at The Helping Hand, with a harvest for the kitchen.

Along the way, they realised something bigger.

“In a city where most big green spaces come under the management of NParks, here was a private landholder saying, ‘Come and work with us’,” Phillip noted.

That insight has since expanded into a broader question shaping the work of A Rocha Singapore: “How do these pockets of green space support biodiversity across the city?”

A Rocha Singapore’s Science Officer, James Khoo, has been preparing a conservation plan around this, and A Rocha Singapore hopes to launch a pilot conservation study soon.

(Left) Sylvia Lim, MP for Aljunied GRC, joins the Insect Safari led by A Rocha Singapore’s entomologist James Khoo.

Beyond major green corridors like Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and MacRitchie Reservoir, smaller sites – church grounds, school compounds, community spaces – may collectively form a significant ecological network.

At The Helping Hand, the garden is already beginning to take shape as an edible landscape of herbs, fruit trees and vegetables. But the vision goes beyond the physical space.

Staff of The Helping Hand getting a hands-on workshop from permaculture designer Nova C Nelson.

“The longer-term goal is to train residents in gardening and sustainability, creating genuine job pathways,” Phillip said. “A lot of them have difficulty finding work. If we can build those skills and find partners willing to take them on – that’s something I really want to keep developing.”

From a conservation perspective, early signs are encouraging. Wildlife is returning, with insects already being documented by the team, and the contrast between before-and-after conditions is striking.

Beyond our shores, A Rocha is also looking into serving Southeast Asia in the longer term.

“We depend on the region for everything – land, forests, resources,” Phillip said. “Loving our neighbours means thinking regionally.”

Volunteer at the garden for people and pollinators

A Rocha Singapore has partnered with Christian halfway house The Helping Hand in Kovan to support the rehabilitation of residents by involving them in gardening and conservation.

Their Bloom & Buzz Garden is a community space and learning hub, bringing together residents, families, volunteers, community gardeners and faith communities.

Besides benefitting people, its permaculture garden has a particular focus on pollinators, especially bees; habitats include foraging areas, nesting sites and bee hotels to support urban biodiversity.

Urban pollinators in Singapore face growing threats from habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change, which disrupt food sources and their survival.

Through outreach and events, the initiative also aims to shift perceptions of insects and foster greater awareness of the importance of pollinators in Singapore’s food security and ecological resilience.

WORKSHOPS FOR WORLD BEE DAY

Two workshops will be held to commemorate World Bee Day (observed in May).

Basic Bee Identification and Recording, Saturday May 16, 9.30am – 11am

Singapore is home to a diversity of about 140 species of bees and about 79 of them can be spotted in urban or semi-urban areas such as parks in the city and community gardens. Learn about the bee-utiful common wild bees of Singapore and how to identify them. Find out what you can do to support them, then head out to the Bloom & Buzz garden to practise your newfound skills. This workshop is family friendly: Suitable for adults and kids aged 10 and above. Conducted by: Melissa Ong (instructor) and Shai Kroeker (facilitator).

Fee: Free, but S$5 will be collected for refreshments to support Hands Cafe.
Sign up here (20 spots available).

Soil Ecology Workshop, Saturday May 23, 9.30am – 11am
Conducted by permaculture designer, Nova C Nelson of Cultivate Central, who says: “The most important part of the garden is invisible. It starts with soil.” Feed the soil, and the soil feeds the plants and pollinators. Learn about soil ecology, and how to build healthy soil for creating a bee garden and growing food.

Fee: S$20
Sign up here (20 spots available).

VOLUNTEERS’ DAY AT THE HELPING HAND

The garden work party is open to volunteers of all ages. It includes tasks such creating garden beds, building soil, managing the compost pile, pruning, propagation and planting of seedlings, weeding, and harvesting for The Helping Hand kitchen. Participation is free.

The following session will be held on Saturday Jun 27, 8.45am – 11am. Reserve a space here. 

The Helping Hand is at 891 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534678, thehelpinghand.org.sg 

To support or collaborate with A Rocha Singapore, visit sg.arocha.org. 

RELATED STORIES:

“Born with binoculars”: How former clergyman Peter Harris came to equip others to care for “God’s fingerwork”

Creation matters “because it’s the handiwork of God”: Conservationist Peter Harris

“Studying this world just strengthens my faith”: Christian climate scientist Prof Katharine Hayhoe on integrating science and faith

The post “Creation doesn’t exist just for us; it exists for God’s pleasure”: The divine way this couple was led to co-found Christian conservation non-profit A Rocha Singapore appeared first on Salt&Light.