He woke up with an irresistible urge to pray to Abba Father – a God he did not know

One Sunday in November 2022, a family of newcomers walked into Pastor Anthony Loh’s church with a fascinating story behind why they had come.

Formally a devout follower of another religion, the father had suddenly woken up one morning praying the words “Abba Father” repeatedly.

“He had the shock of his life! Because the one he believed was not called Abba Father,” Pastor Anthony, Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Singapore, related to the audience at the recent LoveSingapore Summit 2026.

Unable to stop praying to this unfamiliar God for days, the man decided to visit a Christian church nearest to his house. That was how he and his family had ended up at the doorstep of Jurong Christian Church.

“I said, ‘God is looking for you, brother. God is searching for you.’ So I shared the Gospel. The husband and wife believed in Jesus. The entire family was baptised,” said Pastor Anthony.

Pastor Anthony sharing a powerful testimony at the LoveSingapore Summit 2026. Photo by the Thirst Collective.

For the Pastor, the family’s arrival was a humbling encounter. At the time, he and his congregation had been praying for God to turn Singapore towards Himself.

Yet, looking at the national data and statistics, Pastor Anthony had been feeling discouraged and wondering if it was really possible.

So when this man’s family showed up – and in fact, they lived “out of the radar” of his church’s prayer covering – the Pastor was awestruck.

“God proved to me that He can do even beyond what we can think of,” he said.

The strange encounter

After the Summit, Salt&Light reached out to the man whom Pastor Anthony had talked about.

For all his life, Christan Mani had been a pious follower of another religion who did his prayers and rituals daily.

But one morning in October 2022, he woke up, put his hands together and had an irresistible urge to give thanks to “Abba Father” and “Jesus” – words that he had never uttered before.

Pastor Anthony (third from right) with the Christan family at a Christmas carolling event in December 2023. Photo courtesy of the Christan family.

At that point, he did not know much about Jesus, except that He was the Christian God who had been crucified. In fact, Mani was opposed to Christians, believing that they were all on some kind of “recruitment drive”.

Yet, throughout the day, the compulsion to talk to Abba Father and Jesus persisted.

“I asked for protection on the way to work, and at night I thanked both of them for the day that they had given me. I don’t know what I was talking, actually. I’m not used to this kind of thing, but it just came as a free flow thing,” he said.

Though he did not fully understand what was happening, it felt different from the prayers he had done in the past: “That day, there was a weird feeling that Somebody was actually listening to me.”

“Jesus is it”

The next day, Mani stopped worshipping at his usual altar, convicted that this Abba Father was the real and only God.

“I felt happy. I felt at peace. It’s a state of mind that I had never felt in my whole life,” he said, adding that he felt an overflowing of inexplicable gratitude to God.

When he shared his experience with his wife, Christine, she was hesitant. A part of her was afraid that something bad would happen to them and their four children if they abandoned their gods.

Both Christine and Mani had separate supernatural encounters with God. Photo courtesy of the Christan family.

But less than a month later, while at home alone, she had her own experience. “It was just a feeling. It wasn’t like I was speaking to someone. I just felt like Jesus is it. I felt Him, I felt His love,” she told Salt&Light.

With both husband and wife now on the same page, they decided to visit a church and settled on one closest to their home.

At Jurong Christian Church, they felt warmly welcomed and embraced. It was also here that they heard the Gospel for the first time.

In April 2023, just six months after Mani’s first encounter with God, the couple was baptised. At their encouragement, their four children, then aged eight to 20, were baptised too.

At the Christan family’s baptism in April 2023. Photo courtesy of the Christan family.

Even though he admitted that discipleship has been challenging, Mani remains moved by the way God had reached out to him, even when he had no intention of knowing Him.

“Sometimes when I recall this incident, I will cry, because I think He is in such a big place – ultimately He is God – and yet He would come to me, a small dot somewhere, to ask me to open up my heart.

“I was totally taken aback that there is such a God.”

A strong wind!

Mani’s story was not the only one that would convince Pastor Anthony that God is moving in powerful ways. He told the LoveSingapore Summit gathering of another case.

Just two months before the Summit, he met another family of newcomers.

When Pastor Anthony asked the mother how they had come to the church, she told him in Mandarin: “Three weeks ago, my husband was walking past your church. Then a strong wind blew him into your church!”

Pastor Anthony said to the laughing audience: “I didn’t know whether it was a physical wind or the wind of the Holy Sprit. But he went back and then he and his wife came with their two children to attend the church.”

After encountering these two testimonies, Pastor Anthony’s heart, once doubtful, was moved.

“I began to take prayer and intercession more seriously,” he said.

“God can do far more than what we can do. It’s not about activities or programmes. But when we intercede and pray, God begins to bring people to the church.

“God gave me the assurance that He is doing something in this nation, in this land … I really believe that as we move together, as we intercede together, He will bring this nation back to Him.”

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