Neighbourhood befriender and theatre producer among winners of 2025 Evangelism Award

We worship no one but Jesus. But the Bible tells us to outdo one another in honour. (Romans 12:10) Since 2016, Salt&Light and the other websites on the Thirst Collective have published thousands of stories of believers whose obedience to God has seen lives, communities, and even nations, transformed. This year, to recognise these heroes of faith […] The post Neighbourhood befriender and theatre producer among winners of 2025 Evangelism Award appeared first on Salt&Light.

Religion Sep 29, 2025 0 8 Add to Reading List

Neighbourhood befriender and theatre producer among winners of 2025 Evangelism Award

We worship no one but Jesus. But the Bible tells us to outdo one another in honour. (Romans 12:10)

Since 2016, Salt&Light and the other websites on the Thirst Collective have published thousands of stories of believers whose obedience to God has seen lives, communities, and even nations, transformed.

This year, to recognise these heroes of faith who labour in love for God and community, and to invite support for their ministries, we are pleased to announce the inaugural 2025 Salt&Light Inspiration Awards.

The seven categories in the 2025 Salt&Light Inspiration Awards are:

Creation Care Award
Stories of Hope and hhm.sg Evangelism Award
Missions Impact Award
Marketplace Impact Award
Caleb Award (Age 65 and above)
Thir.st Youth Inspiration Award (Age 21 and below)
2025 Salt&Light Inspiration Award

The winners for the 2025 Stories of Hope and hhm.sg Evangelism Award have demonstrated exceptional, effective zeal for outreach.

The 2025 Stories of Hope and hhm.sg Evangelism Award winners are: David Loh, Linda Murphy, Hong Yee Wei and Pastor Samuel Phun.

(Catch the winners of the other categories on Salt&Light all this week.)

DAVID LOH, Evangelist

To David, coffeeshops, the streets of Bangkok, Disneyland, bus stops, taxis, even petrol kiosks are all fertile ground for God’s message of love to be sown.

Often, led by the Holy Spirit, he prays for strangers and their healing. When he was buying shoes, he noticed that the proprietor had a leg condition. David prayed for the man. On the way to church, he stopped a stranger who was limping to pray for him.

Last Christmas, he and his wife opened their home to total strangers. Issuing an invitation on his TikTok account, they received nearly 300 responses.

“During Christmas, the lonely get lonelier and the suffering suffer quieter,” David told Salt&Light. “We just wanted to love people who were lonely and didn’t have anyone to spend Christmas with.”

Because his faith is a large part of his life, David is intentional about talking openly about it on his social media accounts.

Now David shares not only personal reflections but also sermonettes, prayers and testimonies of his street evangelism encounters. He has even put up a post praying for those who had trouble sleeping.

His online sharing has blended seamlessly with his face-to-face outreach efforts. Strangers who hesitate to step into church reach out to David through his social media accounts.

“This is the power of the media. The world is watching and you are sowing seeds of faith.”

LINDA MURPHY, Producer, I am Murphy

Linda’s powerful story of redemption across three generations is currently the most viewed video on 还好吗 hhm.sg, amassing over 1 million views on Facebook and nearly 1.6 million views across all platforms. It also resonated with readers on Salt&Light and Stories of Hope.

Through FarmersFilmSg, the creative ministry she founded, Linda has produced numerous Gospel stage plays and short films, using storytelling as a tool to share the love and message of Jesus.

How did you get started?

“Just like those in the Bible who were healed by Jesus and ran back into the crowd to declare how they were healed, I feel a calling to proclaim the greatness of God’s grace.”

How have you seen God in the journey?

“I thank God that in His perfect timing, I finally found the courage to share this testimony. It feels as though I had spent years building a cage for myself, locking myself inside, and then one day decided to open the cage and fly free. Now, it feels like I have fulfilled a promise to God, and at the same time, released myself into freedom.”

What are your hopes for this ministry?

“I only hope that when people see my testimony, they will see God’s grace and His great salvation. That they will understand there is no sin in this world so great that God cannot redeem it. God is love, and I pray that all who are lost, weeping, broken-hearted, and in despair will encounter Him.”

HONG YEE WEI, Befriender, Henderson Estate

This finance professional started as a befriender at the Henderson rental estate where he grew up. At times Yee Wei brought dinner and birthday cake for the youths.

His Thursday night sports sessions expanded to Tuesday evenings for younger kids, and then to monthly outings with their families. He also conducts workshops, outings and futsal tournaments for them.

How did you get started?

“After I became a believer in 2018, God spoke to me to ‘build a house for my children’. Three years later, I remembered this word and I was stirred. A social service agency needed someone to befriend children in a lower-income neighbourhood, so I said yes.”

How have you seen God in the journey?

“I saw God in the way He came through bringing the right people at the right time to co-labour. Also how He softened and turned hearts toward Him. Families who professed different faiths have come for church events, and some of the children came to attend church regularly. There was never a lack of resources for running events, despite minimal funding from the organisation I was volunteering with. God has also blessed my family abundantly, especially in the area of our relationships.

“I hope there will be increased awareness of the needs in our own backyard, and that more brothers- and sisters-in-Christ will come to the plough to demonstrate God’s love, so that more children will come to receive God’s love and salvation.”

PASTOR SAMUEL PHUN, Senior Pastor, River Community Church

During his Quiet Time one day, Pastor Samuel felt God show him that if fast food chains can bring in thousands of grandparents through their grandchildren, he should reach out to children first.

Today, there are more than 100 children at e-kidz, the children’s ministry at River Community Church, which he founded. So valued are these children that they are served not just by children’s ministry workers, but the entire church of about 200.

“The children’s ministry is actually the whole church’s ministry,” he shared at the LoveSingapore Pastors’ Summit 2024.

“We may lose the next generation when the children lose understanding of the Father heart of God.”

About 80% of the children in his church are from the community.

“We have only about 25 second-generation Christians in the ministry. The hundreds that come weekly are from the community and most of them are very broken. Once they respond to the Lord, we bring them in to teach them the Word of God so they will grow in the fear the Lord,” Pastor Samuel told Salt&Light.

“I want to see children grow up and plant churches.”

His church goes to great lengths to invite neighbourhood children and youths by creating visual, exciting, age-appropriate settings to preach the Gospel. His zeal for evangelism and for reaching out to children in the community is contagious, inspiring not just the next generation but also other pastors to start similar church schools.