Aaron Wong is a big risk-taker with an even bigger faith.

After living with his parents in Canada for 10 years, he decided to return to Singapore in 2018 with no long-term accommodation and no job waiting for him back home.

Such uncertainties could be handled perhaps by a young couch surfer, but Aaron was born with a genetic form of muscular dystrophy called Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease.

By the time he hit his 30s, he could no longer stand up from a sitting down position without assistance. It took him great effort just to lift his arms and legs to put on his trousers.

The prospect of living alone was daunting: How would he go to the bathroom or take a shower on his own? Or prepare a meal? Even if he were to buy food home to eat, there was no way he could reach for a plate from the cupboard or wash the dishes when he was done.

“I had a job in Canada but I saw how my aging parents had to drive me to and from the office. I didn’t want to depend on them any longer, but job opportunities there were drying up,” Aaron, now 43, told Salt&Light.

Aaron and his father, who migrated from Singapore to Canada.

After praying, Aaron discerned that God was calling him to return home to Singapore, where he grew up.

Returning to Singapore without a safety net 

So he bought a one-way ticket and came back to Singapore alone. He had no plans except having booked an apartment for one week.

Living that one week on his own, without any caregiving support, was enough for reality to sink in.

“I knew I needed to find accommodation and support for my physical condition,” said Aaron, who did not want to commit to a long rental contract while being unemployed.

He was just starting to worry about finding a roof over his head for the following week, when a primary school friend agreed to take him in for two weeks.

One night at his friend’s home, Aaron tumbled off his chair while trying to reach for something. His head hit the floor and a deep gash appeared on his forehead.

The wound would not stop bleeding and his friend had to call for an ambulance to rush him to the hospital for stitches.

“After that ordeal, I felt the familiar anxiety about accommodation again. The two weeks at my friend’s home was almost up and I had run out of ideas,” said Aaron.

God, however, had not run out of ideas. It turned out that his friend’s wife was a doctor who knew of former patients that lived in the Singapore Cheshire Home, a residential home for the disabled. She advised Aaron to apply for a place there.

To get the necessary medical records needed for his application to Cheshire Home, the doctor that attended to his head injury admitted Aaron into the hospital for further checks ­– inadvertently providing accommodation for him for the next week.

Nonetheless, Aaron’s application to the Cheshire Home would take a few months to be processed and approved.

“During that time, God provided me other friends who took me into their homes,” Aaron related. “One of them had a relative who was a board member of Cheshire Home, and the relative arranged for a tour of the home for me.”

It was a shock for him to see people with various degrees of disabilities – both physical and mental ­– living communally in such an environment. He was used to living around “normal” people and having his own room in suburban Canada.

Yet Aaron knew there was no other option that could cater to his physical needs.

Disabled with no permanent roof over his head 

As he waited to be admitted to Cheshire Home, Aaron slept in six different beds as he moved from one friend’s home to another.

“How could I feel secure when I lived as a wanderer? But each time I felt overwhelmed from the uncertainty, God drew me back to Him like an anchor to a ship. He was my shelter and safe refuge,” Aaron said to Salt&Light.

In November 2018, he finally moved into Cheshire Home.

It was a tough transition for him. He had to share a room with three others, and use a communal toilet that was shared with many.

“I had to be assisted by hired help whom I barely knew with dressing up and toileting. It was humbling and humiliating,” Aaron admitted.

He got through this difficult time by worshipping God through song every morning.

“When my whole identity was stripped away, I had nothing left but to surrender to God. His presence gave me comfort, encouragement and hope,” he said.  

Aaron at the entrance of the Singapore Cheshire Home.

Aaron knew God had placed him in the home for a reason, and sought to be a blessing to the residents around him.

“I started to see that I was not in Cheshire Home as a means to an end, but there was meaning and purpose in me being here within its walls with 110 other people,” said Aaron.

Being the “in-house concierge”

Each time his friends volunteered to buy and drop off items for him at the home, Aaron would collate requests from other residents around him and relay their needs as well. He became the “in-house concierge”.

“Once, a worker from Myanmar requested raw duck to cook a dish from his hometown. Another time, residents asked for a specific shampoo or medicated oil. I wondered how to fulfil their requests but each time, God always sent friends to help just at the right time,” said Aaron.

Friends and family who met him at the gate of Singapore Cheshire Home to drop him a word of encouragement and bags of groceries.

Aaron also stocked his bedside desk with nuts, potato chips, sweets, biscuits, tissue paper and a charged power bank. Word got around among the residents that they could help themselves to anything they needed on his desk.

“I felt compelled to extend God’s invitation of love with others around me. Loving others around me helped open doors to conversations with them about God,” he said.

There was the time when Aaron shared his personal experience with Christianity with a healthcare worker who mentioned that he enjoyed reading books on philosophy during his free time.

Another door opened for Aaron when his roommate asked him about the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible after watching a TV series that mentioned it.

Yet another unexpected moment came up when Aaron was chatting with a resident about dating and the conversation veered towards God. Aaron shared with him how all of us can freely approach God with our worries or requests.

Landing a job at Apple

One request that Aaron brought forth to God was for him to find a job. Without a job, he had no finances, and without finances, he would not be able to buy a home in future.

When he first arrived in Canada years ago, Aaron was armed with a master’s degree in mobile and satellite communications and work experience with a reputable Norwegian company.

But after four years of unsuccessfully hunting for a job, he felt cut down to size.

Aaron (left) at his graduation ceremony at the University of Surrey in the UK.

Given his experience, when an opportunity to work for a multinational technology company – Apple – opened up in Singapore, Aaron was apprehensive about applying for it.

“After being turned down from so many jobs in the past, I did not feel confident in my odds,” he admitted to Salt&Light.

But at the encouragement of a friend, Aaron applied for the job of sales specialist at Apple. Using his electric wheelchair to zip around the public transport system, he made his way promptly to the first round of interviews. It was a group interview which involved role play.

“My rough experience with my job in customer care in Canada came in useful. I could relate to and resolve the scenarios thrown at me during the interview,” said Aaron.

He sailed through that interview and met the store leader for a final interview.

“I was sick that day. All I could remember was that we had a casual chat about my life experiences,” said Aaron, adding that he did not hold much expectation for a favourable outcome.

But God answered his prayers. He landed the job.

“Getting the job was a huge boost in confidence and in my pay check. It was a ray of hope in an otherwise uncertain time of communal living at the home,” said Aaron.

Aaron works as a sales specialist at Apple.

The Singapore Cheshire Home was a godsend for Aaron that came at the right time. But by now it was becoming clear that living there was not sustainable for Aaron if he sought to lead an independent life.

In 2020, Singapore went into lockdown in the midst of the global COVID pandemic.

In the beginning, even the food caterers were not allowed to enter the Home to prepare food for the residents. The residents there had to make do with canned and pre-packaged food.

None of them could leave the compound for months at a time.

“All of us were literally locked in for two years. It was suffocating and depressing,” Aaron recalled.

During this time, Aaron relied heavily on his friends outside the home to help him continue to fulfil his “live-in concierge” role – procuring items from outside to bring some cheer to the residents and workers who were stuck behind those walls.

“I treasured their friendships greatly. Through different seasons and changes in life, God has blessed me with a strong community of friends who selflessly journeyed with me, especially when I returned to Singapore on my own,” said Aaron of his friends.

To have a home to call his own

His strong support from friends was perhaps God’s answer to another of Aaron’s longstanding prayer requests: He wished to have his own home.

“My dream was not just to have a crib of my own. The intention behind it is to integrate back into society, shed light on the difficulties that the differently-abled face and inspire others like me to live meaningfully within society,” said Aaron.

He shared his dream with his friends, but also gave them a long list of reasons why this dream had to be shelved until the pandemic subsided.

His friends, however, were not fazed. A group of them – all of whom have known Aaron for many years – rallied around him to form a team that would look into developing a housing plan for him.

The plan was for him to purchase a 40 sqm, two-room flat, with renovations for wheelchair accessibility and built-in, smart assistive technology that would support his condition.

They crunched the numbers, considering his salary and the cost of a live-in helper. The total estimated sum needed amounted to S$180,000.

“I would need a substantial amount for the initial downpayment, even after taking on a mortgage – funds I did not have,” said Aaron.

After much discussion, he and his team decided to try crowdfunding.

“As a differently abled person, I had to lean on the support of others whether I liked it or not. It’s been a humbling experience but it allowed me to be a recipient of grace through the generosity of others,” said Aaron.

His team did the sums and told him that he needed to raise $120,000, two-thirds of the estimated costs.

A member of his team had marketing expertise and spearheaded the plan for the crowdfunding webpage’s content. They felt responsible to the community to ensure that the page was informative, transparent and honest.

Aaron’s crowdfunding campaign was launched online on October 11, 2021.

Aaron’s crowdfunding campaign page.

After spreading the word among family and friends, all he could do was to wait and trust that God would provide through people.

For the first few days, he refreshed the webpage ever so often to monitor the contribution level.

“It became an obsession that showed my doubt and lack of trust in God,” admitted Aaron.

Slowly but surely, the donations trickled in. At each milestone amount, he and his team gave thanks to God and prayed for faith to trust Him for the next milestone.

Apart from the funds, Aaron was blown away by the encouraging words people left for him on the webpage and through personal messages and calls.

When they ended the campaign a month later, they discovered that they had raised $130,000, which was beyond their target.

“God is able to do immeasurably more than all that we ask or imagine. I hope that was also an opportunity for others to understand our plight and be part of building up the disabled community,” Aaron explained.

His next step then was to go ahead to purchase the flat. Aaron asked his supporters to continue praying for the availability and location of the flat.

When he started a new chapter of his life in Singapore in 2018, he had close to nothing but a suitcase of clothes and personal belongings. He feared that his biggest obstacle to getting a job and a home was his lifelong physical handicap.

Aaron at The Purple Parade, a movement that supports inclusion and celebrates abilities of persons with disabilities.

“What I thought was completely impossible, God made possible in a few short years. These were the hardest few years of my life, yet it was not my efforts that made it all possible, but God’s gifts to me,” he told Salt&Light.

“God never promised us that He would take our trials away. But He promised us that He would walk through those trials with us.”

This is the first of a two-part story. Don’t miss the second part here, of God crafting yet another “impossible” story – Aaron’s love story.

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