SINGAPORE (UCAN) -- Ten mostly elderly and illiterate people listened intently to how the Israelites escaped their Egyptian captors after Moses parted the Red Sea.

Jeannie Tien spends Tuesday evenings teaching catechism to the illiterate destitute in Singapore.

Jeannie Tien spoke in Cantonese, a Chinese dialect, as she related the biblical story in a small room of Sts. Peter and Paul Church here.

It was a Tuesday evening, the time when Tien, 69, takes time off her still-busy schedule to teach catechism to a growing group of "friends in need."

These are destitute people receiving monthly financial aid and rations from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SSVP), to which Tien belongs. The majority of them are in their 70s and live by themselves in single-room apartments around the Central Business District.

The men were mostly coolies in their youth, while the women were seamstresses, amah (domestic helpers) and samsui, Chinese immigrants who came to Singapore in the 1940s in search of construction and industrial jobs.

"Ninety-nine percent of those receiving catechesis come from a Buddhist background and came to know about Christianity through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul," Tien told UCA News.

Now, around 50 destitute people come to the monthly breakfast the SSVP provides, at which Michael Chan, a Sts. Peter and Paul parishioner, gives a five-minute talk about God. They also receive monthly rations of basic necessities.

Even with these charitable acts, however, Tien felt "something was missing." So she asked permission from the parish priest to bring the whole group to the church for Mass. "After Mass, I found that a lot of them were touched by God, and some wanted to know more about God," she recalled.

So the semi-retiree began classes in February 2007 with three interested members of the group, "using everyday events" to teach them. They started to bring friends, and 11 have been baptized so far. The latest baptisms took place last November.

Speaking first in English and then in Cantonese, Tien breaks down Church teachings and daily liturgical readings into simple messages, with her "students" sitting around a table on which stands a wooden crucifix. She is heartened when her students grasp deep meanings in the lessons.

With no prior experience in catechesis, Tien uses a basic catechism program she bought from a local Catholic bookshop to support her lessons. Her largest obstacle so far, she noted, is that she is English-educated. But she credits her love for Cantonese opera as well as the grace of God for enabling her to learn on her own the language her students are most at home with.

Paul Hang, 77, an illiterate destitute who became a Catholic after attending catechism classes conducted in Cantonese at Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Singapore.

Tien still also serves as chairperson of Atlas Sound and Vision, an audio-visual company she co-founded with her late husband 48 years ago.

Reflecting further on her catechetical teaching experience, she remarked: "There's no point in asking them to memorize words. Actual faith experiences are more convincing."

One friend in need who has benefited from Tien's lessons is Paul Hang, 77. "I've learned humility, how to say 'sorry' to others, how to be tolerant, how to love and, most importantly, to be resilient and not to be afraid of anything, because I have faith in Christ," he said in Cantonese.

Although he has already been baptized, Hang continues to attend the classes, because he is "very happy here." An orphan since he was young, he describes the classes as "a big family."

When asked what keeps her going in this apostolate, Tien answered: "To be able to see their happy faces and contentment; to have seen the changes in their temperaments, from being quite grumpy to being happy."

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