Someone was there for me
Honestly, if left by myself, I wouldn’t have made it! How often do we have that epiphany that there was someone somewhere sometime beyond, who had sustained and strengthened us?
Ex-offender Jix Sze, who is now a professional trainer and speaker, has a unique vision of this “Someone”. It was what he had at the back of his mind when he scribbled some lines on a copy of the newspaper in a rush of inspiration in the wee hours one day. When he and his wife woke up the next morning, a poem was what they found written:
Someone
*as written by Jix in 2008
As a boy, I walked my life journey all alone
Knowing the danger, yet I was seldom home
As I fought the snares and temptations without him
I felt I was fighting my battles, with a serious limp
I have survived thus far, for many years have passed
that usual question “How come?” I often would be asked
My reply would be, because “Someone” was there for me
I hope I’ll always notice that “Someone” in my midst
What he was describing in the initial lines were his younger days of depravity. He was lamenting that if only his father, who had passed away when he was 4 years old, were still alive, he might not have fallen so deep into crime and drug addiction.
At age 12, he was smoking, drinking, fighting and gambling. At 14, he got hooked on heroin which led him to steal and extort money; break into homes, shops and factories; and peddle drugs to fund his addiction. And he was nearly jailed when he was 19, if not for a miracle that God did in December 1977.
God saved him
That pivotal incident altered his destiny. He was on a heroin marathon then with a friend at an empty flat in MacPherson. On one of his trips home to change his clothes, he detoured to get his fix and got caught buying heroin from an undercover narcotics officer. The police made him do a urine test and asked him to come back 7 days later for the results.
He was terrified. Fearing the outcome, he was brought down to his knees to beg the Lord to save him and do the impossible, just as He had turned water into wine. And by the mercy of God, the test came out negative indeed!
“God watching over me” (Psalms 121) is Jix’s understanding of “Someone”. But more than a “divine being”, the word “Someone” also meant, for Jix, the presence of “mortal beings” and a self-conscious “inner being”. All three beings have played a huge part in enabling him to become the person he is today.
People care
By “mortal being”, he was referring to people who had helped him along the way, whether knowingly or unknowingly, corporate friends or Christian friends, people he knew well or not so well or didn’t even know. They included those who had helped him in small ways, such as offering a word of encouragement or money to buy a new shirt for work. He still remembers how people would give him belts, wallets and socks at the first company where he had worked, because he was only earning $140 a month then as an office boy.
He was also grateful for friends like Rev Neville Tan and Dr Tan Lai Yong, who have opened doors and created speaking opportunities for him. Neville, the founder of Church of God (Evangelical), was once one of Singapore’s most wanted men. After committing his life to Christ, he changed and started reaching out to ex-offenders. He would go to the Reformative Training Centre (RTC), a juvenile prison, every Sunday to conduct chapel service, where he had roped in Jix to help.
Said Jix, “That was quite an experience for me as I had to deliver evangelistic talks and Christian messages at times. And on occasions like Easter Sunday, we held magic shows for an assembly of about 300-400 people and gave out Easter eggs.” He would help out like this every Sunday for several years in the ’80s.
Public speaking was, to him, a calling that he took to heart ever since winning a Young Preacher’s Contest at Bethesda Frankel Church in 1979. He discovered that he had 2 gifts. Having only primary school education and a poor command of English, he never thought he could stand up before an audience and give a talk.
“I was quite surprised that I did well. I also discovered that I had the gift of being an encourager, which enhanced my delivery. I told myself these are gifts from God and I must be purposeful about them. So I decided to embrace them as second nature in whatever I do,” said Jix.
Strengthening others
That set him on the path of freelance training, where he laid down 3 goals for himself in 2008: “train workers”, “train trainers”, and broadly “inspiration”. He achieved his first two goals fairly quickly, by 2012, but continued along this trajectory for a further few years, including giving training at KAPLAN and the Institute for Adult Learning. In 2017, he started to pursue his third goal, which encompassed any inspirational topic, such as making your life count, how to manage your career successfully, resilience, hope and self-efficacy.
He also tried to offer his services to different target audiences － in the corporate or social service sector, or various other communities. And he sought to align his speaking and training engagements with his personal intent to be an advocate for a drug-free life and aftercare recovery, as well as the “indomitable spirit of humans”.
Over the years, he had given numerous talks and training sessions for many organisations. Amongst them are the Singapore Aftercare Association (SACA), Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), Boys’ Home, Girls’ Home, Tanah Merah Prison School, National Library Board (NLB) and the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) College of Alice & Peter Tan (CAPT).
Jix giving a talk on “Your Life, Your Destiny. Make It Count!” at The LLiBrary at Lifelong Learning Institute in Jan 2019 (Photos provided by Jix Sze)
Lai Yong invited him to speak to his NUS CAPT students as part of their study on ”Hidden Communities”, which served to promote active citizenship and community engagement. These communities included people from different backgrounds such as ex-offenders. Among the students’ feedback he had received from the three sessions he gave in 2018 and 2020 were comments on how his sharing had opened their eyes to a community they were regrettably too hesitant to approach, and how it gave them precious insights into the lives of ex-offenders and their rehabilitation － a part of Singapore they never knew.
A new creation
Actually, for Jix, “rehabilitation” (or being restored as a normal functioning person, free from the influence of drugs) is not the ultimate aim, particularly in Christian ministry to ex-offenders. Neither is “reformation” in terms of improvement in one’s character and behaviour, the final objective. Rather, there should be “transformation”, the rebirth into a totally different individual, a discipleship journey involving the renewing of the mind as expressed in Romans 12:2.
This insight was among the concepts he developed and expounded at a training session he gave in 2021 to about 30 volunteers of Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS). He spoke on the topic of “A former drug addict’s first step into church”, and shared his experiences of the journey from rehabilitation to reformation to transformation. He also presented different views in the world on drug abuse and addiction, and provided biblical perspectives.
He said, “I could sense a very strong altruistic drive in the volunteers because of the comments, questions and feedback that they gave during the session. They seemed eager to know more and have a better understanding of what was shared.”
There all along
Jix believes that learning and training is important for developing and empowering people. “Some people don’t realise that their inner being can be their angel as well,” he said.
In his transformation journey, “Someone” was there for him. That “Someone” is, first of all, the divine being who watches over him. But it also recognises the mortal beings who have ministered to him, and appreciates the inner being who is cognisant of his own thinking and doing.
“This inner being is a person’s consciousness of himself － such as of his own ability, and his own fear and inadequacy. It plays a very critical role in my life and I have since learnt to embrace it. People often tell me that I am very self-motivated. I get things done; and even if I fail, I acknowledge it. Of course, as a Christian, I also see that I am not the only one helping myself, but the Holy Spirit is empowering me.” (John 14:8)
He added, “As born-again Christians, we know we are victorious. But when we have a weak mindset, it weakens our faith in God and in our own abilities. There are 2 practical ways to develop and build a positive ready mindset. It is by learning and planning for the future. Learning gives you counter strategies and coping skills, while planning minimises failure in whatever you do.”
With this mindset, Jix has over the years become a very goal-driven and plan-driven person. He is a meticulous planner and persistent learner, who believes in a person’s indomitable spirit in overcoming the odds.
The keen consciousness of “Someone” in all senses of the word, is what he had leaned on and kept a tight grip on, for a sure-footed journey on the straight and narrow path. And on this path, he has not, and will never be, left to struggle alone － as “Someone” has been and will be there for him.
Don’t we all have our “Someone” too?
Learn more about Jix’s transformation journey by checking out his book, Chasing the dragon out.
Lai Yong and Jix at the launch of Jix’s book in Jan 2018
(Photo provided by Jix Sze)
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