Students heading to Singapore for ‘internship’ GO! Trip

At the end of May, a group of 16 students will travel to Singapore for five weeks to learn about being Christians in the marketplace and being a part of the local church. The trip, led by students Matthew Radmilovich and Ella Chung under the oversight of TMU provost, Dr. Mitch Hopewell, is the first trip sent by TMU to Singapore.

Radmilovich and several other students in the business and computer science departments received a recruitment email for the trip halfway through the fall 2024 semester. They would travel together to Singapore, hosted by the church there — Grace Baptist Church — and learn about life, ministry and vocation as a believer in Singapore.

“They were interested in bringing some students over to help us get a better understanding of what it looked like to be a follower of Christ in the marketplace over there,” Radmilovich said. “It was a bit of a collaborative effort with a lot of different people, a lot of different institutions and organizations.”

Radmilovich describes it as a “pilot program” with more of an “internship flavor” than other Global Outreach (GO) trips, which are mainly ministry-focused. The hope is that the relationship with Grace Baptist in Singapore will continue in the future for other students at TMU.

“We have people from a lot of different schools of the university — we have computer science, we have applied mathematics, we have interdisciplinary, we have a fair amount of business students,” Radmilovich said. “Business as missions is one that a lot of us business students kind of have on our mind as possible as something that could come from this. It is the first trip and so we're still kind of testing out the waters of what this could look like.”

Dr. Jimmy Tan, a graduate of TMS in 2017, member at Grace Baptist Church, and a professor at a social sciences university in Singapore, has played a large role in connecting with the team and will be joining them for their time in Singapore.

“We are excited,” Tan said, speaking on behalf of the church. “There’s some trepidation also because 16 people for more than a month is a long time. But we are ready for them.”

The schedule, he explained, will be packed every day with visits to different businesses owned and operated by members of the church. The students will also attend conference sessions where local believers in the business world will share about their experiences. The influence of the church in the secular marketplace in Singapore is widespread, and the students will get a taste of the struggles and the unique opportunity it is to be a part of it as Christians.

Several TMU alumni now live in Singapore and are members at Grace Baptist Church, including Jesher and Christy Loi, who own Singapore’s largest coffee chain.

“I think Jesher’s time at Master’s really anchored him in God’s Word,” Tan noted. “We’re in the same church now, so he is going to give his testimony, but then show the students about the retail scene in Singapore.”

Additionally, some of the pastors at Grace Baptist will give the students a perspective of what it’s like to serve in the church in Singapore.

“It’s kind of a ministry insight. And you have industry insight or snapshots,” Tan said. “So all the speakers are Christian, and it’s a way to give the students a perspective, how they’re being Christians in the workplace.”tOne of the highlights for Tan and the church is the weeklong family camp that the team from TMU will help run. The year before, Grace Community had sent former student Abby Myers, who will be joining the team this year for three weeks, to help with the camp.

“They had a great experience with Abby… they’re really excited how the students will be a blessing to our children,” Tan said.

Tan and the team will also fly to Malaysia for a week to run a vacation Bible school (VBS) for a partnering church in the capital city.

In getting ready for the trip, the Singapore team is taking the Global Outreach course, a class required for traditional GO trips along with team Albania. But their preparation looks a little different than typical GO team preparation.

“The primary language spoken is English… so language learning isn’t as challenging as it could be,” Radmilovich said. “A lot of it revolves around setting expectations for what the trip is going to be like… I feel like there’s going to be such a spread of what we're doing, and it’s going to be so diverse, that it’s difficult to plan specifically for the exact things we’re going to do.”

Radmilovich sees the purpose of the trip as both contributing to the needs of the churches in Singapore and Malaysia, while also learning and being students of the believers there.

“We’re going into marketplace contexts and trying to learn a lot more about what it looks like to be faithful followers of Christ… But there’s also an element where we definitely want to be contributing and supporting as much as we can,” Radmilovich said. “I hope they feel encouraged by our presence there… I hope that we can come away from it saying ‘we’ve learned so much,’ and God willing, our heart for the church and missions will just be fueled even more and just grow in love for the Lord and love for the church and love for others.”

In the midst of planning and preparing, the team knows that prayer is key, and they ask for students, staff and faculty at TMU to partner with them in prayer as they go this summer.

“Pray that Christ’s name would be lifted high through everything we do,” Radmilovich said, “that the taste that would be left in people’s mouths would be like the flavor we leave behind — that God is good, that Christ is exalted, and the church would be refreshed and encouraged to keep being faithful.”