Cyndi Yong’s street ministry Petaling Street Community Care is so replete with inspiring stories that it was featured in the pages of the national newspaper Sin Chew up to a total of three times in 2021. Recently, she shared with us what gave her the burden for it.
It is often said that, like diamonds, the true qualities of a person often emerge in the crucible of hardship and suffering. It is during moments like this that the skills required to conquer adversity and come out stronger and more resolute are formed, and make for significant leadership.
I have had recently had the privilege to get to know an extraordinary sister in Christ and get to know her story. Cyndi Yong has an immense story to tell, one that I cannot possibly include the whole extent of within a single article.
Just the story of how God turned Cyndi’s life from a jobless single mother to being the founder of a street ministry and Mummy Cyndi to a whole community of homeless people is remarkable in itself.
From Serving VIPs to Serving the Destitute
Before her current ministry unto whom Christ called “My brethren, the least of these” (Matthew 25:40), Cyndi had worked for 16 years as a guide for VIP tourists and private groups to the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Even in those years, the areas around Chinatown and Petaling Street were already very close to her heart. She would take the VIPs on the food trails and invite them to engage their five senses in those areas; what they can see, hear, smell, and most importantly, what they could feel in their hearts these places were all about. Earning comfortably and with more time on hand for her daughter, life was good.
When the COVID pandemic first broke out in 2020, the tourism industry was the first to take a hit. In fact, the groups Cyndi had used to guide through KL had dwindled even in January. However, she did not worry much initially. After all, Malaysia had weathered through many similar crises before the pandemic. Like most of us, she did not know then that this outbreak would not be like the ones in the past. The epidemics in the past had always gone away after a relatively short time. This one would stay with us for more than 2 years.
Cyndi shared, ‘When COVID-19 first broke out in Malaysia, I had heard that the government had been giving RM1600 aid to the B40 group. I was more than eligible for the aid but I did not choose to apply even though I knew about it. I did not particularly need the money then and I thought that this outbreak would go away in about 3 to 4 months. After 6-8 months, I realise that this pandemic was not going to end. It seemed to go on forever.’
After 8 months without an income, things started to take a toll. Being a single mother with a daughter to take care of, Cyndi had to strip all the ‘non-essentials’ out of her life. Initially, her daughter’s school started to call about her fees to the point she had contemplated home-schooling her daughter by herself. She had to line up in food queues just to feed herself and her daughter. She had reached a place where food had become the only essential in her life.
One day, she was walking around the Chinatown she had known so well. In that one day, the Lord would show her a drastic contrast between the hearts of people. Cyndi shared that she first stopped at a large coffee shop she had often her took her foreign guests to patronise. Feeling tired and walking in with her young daughter, she requested the coffee shop owner for a drink. This coffee shop owner knew her well from the days she always visited with her guests yet the response was immediate rejection with a “please leave here now” gesture.
Later that day, she came to a noodle stall which she had hardly walked by in the past. After asking the stall owner about the noodle price, she was told it was RM10 per bowl. Having only RM5 in her pocket, she requested the stall owner whether he could make anything for that amount and to bring an empty bowl so that she could share the food with her daughter to which he agreed. Little did she expect it would be the normal fare instead of RM5 worth. Not only that, the stall owner made another bowl of noodles for Cyndi’s daughter and also told her not to worry about the payment.
Cyndi shared that it was akin to an awakening. She saw the compassion from a simple noodle stall owner in contrast to the haughtiness of the previous large coffee shop owner and it opened her eyes to see the people around her with new eyes. Even as a young girl, she had always sympathised with the poor elderly, and she would always search her pocket to hand them a few small coins. Deep down in her heart, she had prayed that one day she could do more for them.
This time though, she saw them with a new reality and resolve. She could not afford to help them financially but she could bring dignity and the worth of the person into their lives.
The Firefly in the Darkness
Though Cyndi was about to begin a new phase in her life of serving the destitute, this was not the first time the Lord had imparted to her about her place as a Christian in this world. Many years before, she had operated a small pastry bakery at a very large food court in Malacca. She shared that this provided her a vantage point in which she could observe the community in which she worked, and she saw many brokenness, struggles, and vice in the poor around her. Most of these people she would get to know personally and help bring hope into their lives.
In one such case, there was a man whose food stall was struggling and near complete collapse. He had gotten into huge debts with some illegal money lenders and was at a stage where he was already contemplating suicide. She connected him and his wife to a church, shared with them the Gospel, and with the church’s help, they helped to relocate the couple with their two very young children to Johor so that the family could begin a new life.
A few months later, Cyndi traveled to Johor to follow up on the couple’s lives. God had transformed their lives around. The man is now leading worship at a church, and his business is doing well. Back in Malacca, his business was near collapse but now the Lord had blessed him so much that he was employing nine other people as staff.
At Cyndi’s encouragement, the couple came back to Malacca and reconnected with the money lenders to settle the outstanding balance of their loan. This set a good example as a good steward of Christ. There are many other stories Cyndi shared with me, too many to elaborate on within this one article.
Cyndi related, ‘I would see all these broken people and I asked God why there was so much darkness and brokenness in that place. The Lord reminded me that as a Christian, I had a role in that place where I was. I was to be like a firefly in the darkness. Though a firefly may be small, they have the power to illuminate the darkness. If there were no darkness in that place, my life as a Christian would not stand out, but because there was, the light I would bring would blaze brighter, even as a single firefly.
‘I realized I had a role and purpose in Christ’s Kingdom. I could play Christian songs and messages loud in the large food court on my CD player (this was about 20 years ago) so that the people could hear about the Gospel and Good News, and they will find hope. I could get to know people, hear their stories, and about their struggles, and I could help them. My place in that community gave me opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives.’
The Birth of a New Ministry
Cyndi contemplated that in hindsight, throughout all her life experiences – from being a firefly in the darkness to bringing VIP guests through the streets of Chinatown, and now serving the marginalized within that same area, it was as if God had preordained her path, always close to her and guiding her step by step.
‘Whenever I would go and queue up for food,’ she related, ‘I would always go there a second time, and I would ask if they had extra and if they were closing if they don’t mind, could they give me whatever balance of food they may have. And because they see I have a small child with me, they don’t ask me further. But myself and my daughter, we are not going to eat a lot.
‘So without fail, most nights I would bring the extra 4-5 packs of food to go back to Chinatown and Petaling Street. I would sit down and make friends with them on their cardboards on the streets and I would talk to them. I wanted to know their stories; what made them end up on the streets and they would tell me their life stories.
‘This was way before I started Petaling Street Community Care. I just wanted to know what made them land up on the streets. I always end up singing worship songs and praying for them. Listening to their stories, I decided that if I could do just a little to help them regain their dignity and find purpose in their lives, that would be wonderful.’
Cyndi shared that the homeless she first spoke to were mainly elderly senior citizens, but later she saw more and more new faces every day, some of them still young people, not even in their 30s, even women and young children. The pandemic had caused many people to become jobless and homeless.
‘This burden I had, I couldn’t describe. One night after giving them their food, I stayed on until after midnight; I could remember it was around 3 am. I just knelt in front of the Petaling Street Arch in the middle of the road. In the middle of the night, there were no cars on the road. I knelt there, and I cried out to God, “God, have mercy on Malaysia and Chinatown, on Petaling Street.” If Chinatown is not revived or opened up, tourism is dead because Chinatown is the heartbeat of Kuala Lumpur. And now all I saw was the homeless and the mentally ill, who had nowhere else to go.
‘I prayed against the spirit of oppression in that place until I heard a loud trumpet sound through the whole street! It was so clear. It was very strange and I knew it was something in the spiritual realm. And I looked around and it was 4:30 am.’
Cyndi shared that God faithfully answered her prayer. ‘I really thank God that when Chinatown was briefly opened back in 2021, God answered my prayer. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “God, you are good, you are amazing.” Part of my prayer had been to restore the place to the Chinese (Chinatown had been taken over by foreigners) because the place had been a place of heritage to them.
‘The DBKL wanted all the Chinese to come back but the Chinese could not afford it, so they were being given a very lowered down rental so that they could come back to Chinatown with the further condition that no foreigners were allowed to operate there. Now when you go to Chinatown, you will see the place has been restored to a large extent to the Chinese.’
For many months, Cyndi would pray, ‘I said, “God, this pandemic is killing a lot of people, not just physically, but also emotionally and spiritually.” And I asked myself, “Is this change going to affect us, or are we as Christians going to affect a change?” I prayed let us be the ones that affect the change. Let not the pandemic change us, but we be the change in this pandemic, in this difficult time. If not at this time, when else?’
This was the start of something new. On 16th November 2020, Cyndi Yong started the Petaling Street Community Care. The street ministry itself has a remarkable history and is full of inspiring stories, so much so that it was featured on the pages of the national newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh up to 3 times in 2021, among others by Mariam Mokhtar in the Sin Chew English version. Mariam Mokhtar had also written about Cyndi in MalaysiaKini and call her the “Angel of Mercy”.
Cyndi shared with me many of the stories from her street ministry Petaling Street Community Care which will be featured in a future article.
To find out more about the street ministry and how you can help, you can visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Petaling-Street-Community-Care-%E8%8C%A8%E5%9C%BA%E8%A1%97%E5%85%B3%E6%80%80-102293248373314
To continue sponsor meals for the above group, please direct bank in to the Maybank account Cyndi Malaysia Venture 5647 6232 6603 and update with bank slip in so that the organisation can acknowledge your contribution. Snap shots of contributions can be whatsapped to Cyndi Yong at 016 – 641 8877. Thank you for the support.
Photos kindly contributed by Cyndi Yong unless otherwise stated.
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